Enter...
AUNT GRANDMA

I had a hard time getting to sleep that night. It wasn't because of Wendy–or rather, not because Wendy stayed awake. Wendy was out like a light the instant her head hit the pillow. But it was about Wendy in a very specific way: she's become a lot more ruthless. Her ruthlessness could be useful to me, but it also makes her a loose cannon. Couple that with her seeming lack of trust in me, and suddenly I'm not sure how well I control her. I'm pretty sure she still recognizes that I'm right about us being the biggest targets on the island. I'm just not certain.

Wendy wasn't the only one acting suspicious, either. It made no sense for Steve to talk to me at dinner, especially to apologize to me. He might be trying to pull me into an alliance with him and Andy, but if that's the case, why didn't he bring it up? You'd think that he'd take a perfect opportunity when everyone was distracted to try and talk me into allying with him, but instead he just apologized for how poorly he treated me while we were on the same team. I don't believe him, but it makes no sense for him to do that. Maybe he was just trying to make sure that he wouldn't be voted off by me, but I don't see what he has to fear from anybody else, unless his friendship with Andy has somehow soured.

And then there's Boris. Boris has practically dropped off the radar. It makes no sense, since he's made it plain he sees Andy as an enemy and Wendy quite obviously has a grudge against him for voting her off earlier. You'd think he'd be trying to make friends, but apparently that's not the case. Does he expect that somehow, the rest of us are going to gang up on each other and leave him alone? He has to ally with a stronger player–

He has allied with a stronger player.

Or maybe not a stronger player, but with other players. He must have joined up with Steve and Andy while I wasn't looking. Sure, he probably hates Andy, but he's out of options and has to strike a deal. So obviously, he joined Steve and Andy. Since one of them has immunity already, that means that if tomorrow is an elimination game, Wendy or I are going home. Which means that Steve was apologizing to me just in case nobody in his group got immunity–I'm probably target number one!

I needed to tell Wendy, so I sat up in my bunk. Unfortunately, I forgot that I was in the top bunk–and more importantly that the cabins have low ceilings. I slammed my head on the ceiling, knocking myself unconscious.

"AUNT GRANDMA!"

I jerked upright, slamming my head into the ceiling again.

"Get to the cafeteria, you redheaded freak!" the masculine voice commanded. "We're already running late because of you! Now get your butt over here!"

My head ached in two different places, mainly because it had hit the ceiling twice in the past twelve hours. I wasn't quite sure what time it was, because being knocked unconscious tends to throw off my internal clock, but I did know that that since the voice didn't belong to Chris or Chef, chances are it was today's previous contestant. And if he was already here, the challenge would be starting soon if not immediately, and I might not get a chance to talk to Wendy. That's a pity, because we really need a plan now that the three males are allied against us.

After I got dressed I jogged to the mess hall. I opened the door and found a woman waiting for me. She had short, dirty blonde hair and purple eyes, and she was wearing a gray tracksuit and tapping her foot impatiently.

"Finally!" she said impatiently. "I've been waiting forever! Now all of you, start running! We're hitting the beach!"

The woman took off, and I followed along with everybody else. She started to outpace us, but when she did she glanced back, turned around, ran behind us, and started yelling at us to run faster. We made it to the beach in seemingly record time and stopped when she said we could.

We had stopped at the edge of the water, next to a twenty foot long rope bridge that led to some sort of strange boat floating in the water.

"Alright, you weaklings!" the woman barked. "For the idiot that showed up late, my name is Jo. No, I never won Total Drama. Yes, I was cheated. No, I don't care about any of you. Yes, today is going to be painful for all of you." She grinned wickedly. "Today, I'm going to test the most important things about you. I'm going to test your strength! I'm going to test your intelligence! And I'm going to test your ability to take a punch!" Steve raised his hand. "What, Lab Coat?"

"Can I be excused?" Steve asked timidly. "I have immunity, so–"

"Fine," Jo said. "Marge Simpson is excused. As for the rest of you–"

"Marge Simpson?" Steve asked.

"Your hair is taller than you are, now shut up!" Jo said angrily. "As I was saying, the rest of you are going to box each other. We'll have six boxing matches so all of you can go up against each other, and then one final boxing match to choose the champ. Each match is going to last for one two-minute round except for the championship match. The ring is over there." She gestured to the boat floating offshore, which I could now tell was actually a boxing ring. "That way, none of you can influence the outcome." She smirked. "Plus, it's harder to fight on a shifting surface, so you idiots should fall down a lot. Any questions?"

Andy raised his hand.

"I don't care!" Jo said happily. "So, for our first match...Aunt Grandma, Wendy, GET IN THE RING!"

Wendy entered the rope bridge ahead of me and swiftly climbed over to the ring in the water. I stepped on the bridge behind her, and took longer to get there, mainly because I still had to get my bearings on the shifting surface. Once we arrived, I took a position in a corner, and Wendy walked over to another corner. It was then that Chef popped out of the water and climbed into the ring while wearing nothing but a tight, sparkly pink bikini with a thong bottom. He walked into the center of the ring while holding up a pot and a wooden spoon, stopped there, and banged the pot with the spoon before crossing to the other side and diving underwater again.

"Well what are you waiting for?" Jo barked. "Fight already!"

We approached each other. Wendy took a few swings at me, but none of them were particularly hard since she was mostly trying not to lose her balance. I was doing the same, and dodged only a little bit. I took a few half-hearted swings at her, too, but didn't make any real attempt to get them to connect since I was focused on how to tell Wendy what was going on. I suppose I could have told her then, but we were too close to shore for me to be sure we wouldn't be overheard by one of the other three; if they knew we were working together, one of us would definitely go home tonight.

The round was over faster than I thought, and Jo grumpily declared our match a draw. I let Wendy walk back to shore ahead of me so that I could try and figure out what to do. The annoying thing was that despite having the day off, Steve was standing with Boris and Andy. Hopefully he wouldn't try to stand too close to me and Wendy, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did exactly that. Worst of all, he had an excuse for sticking around, since there really isn't much to do at this camp outside of challenges.

As Jo roughly pushed Andy and Boris towards the rope bridge, I saw that Steve wasn't going to go away. Instead, when Wendy and I stood on the shore watching Boris and Andy try to fight, or at least pretending to, Steve walked up to us and attempted to make conversation. Fortunately for me, Wendy was willing to talk to Steve, so I could continue to ponder how to get a message through to Wendy–or, barring that, to break up the new alliance between the three guys without letting them know that I knew about it.

Suddenly, Boris, who had done a pretty good job of beating up on Andy, swung wildly and missed completely when Andy sidestepped his punch. Boris lost his balance and fell forward, sliding along the floor of the ring, underneath the bottom rope, and into the water. When he bobbed to the surface, he looked around wildly, as if he was trying to figure out what happened.

"Alright, that's ten!" Jo barked. "You're out, Shortenov!"

Boris groaned and started to paddle back to shore, but Jo barked at him "Hey! Did I say you weren't fighting in the next match? Wendy and Boris, get in the ring!"

Andy climbed across the rope bridge and walked over to us. Wendy walked across the bridge as soon as Andy was across, and Boris managed to climb back into the ring just before she arrived and stood in his corner, soaking wet. Chef once again popped out of the water to pound the pot, and I decided that it was time to make my move and break up the boys.

"So, Steve, nice job winning immunity yesterday," I said.

Steve looked uncomfortable. "Thanks."

"So what are you going to do with it?" I asked.

"Avoid getting beaten up, apparently," Andy said. He winced. "My legs are going to be bruised for weeks!"

"Oh, did Boris hurt you that badly?" I asked sympathetically.

Andy nodded. "He's a real pain in the ass."

"He's pretty bad," Steve agreed.

That was my opportunity.

"So why not get rid of him?" I asked.

Andy snorted. "What do you think we've been trying to do?"

"Yeah," Steve added. "Ever since Nazz left we've wanted to get rid of him. But we haven't had any elimination ceremonies since then."

"Right," I said, pretending to catch on. "So you think we'll be able to get rid of him today?"

"I dunno," Steve said. "He's doing pretty well."

Jo blew her whistle. "Round's over, Shortenov wins by decision! Slacker Boy, Aunt Grouchy, you're up!"

Andy grimaced and looked me in the eyes. "Be gentle?"

I stifled a grin. "No promises."

We entered the ring. As soon as Chef banged the pot and jumped into the water, we both came to the center. Andy threw a few punches, but his form was weak and his stance was powerless. I let him swing away for a few seconds before sending a few quick jabs into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Andy doubled over, and I hit him with a left hook he never saw coming. He hit the ground and lay there until Jo called the match.

"Pigtails wins in a knockout!" Jo said loudly. "Somebody wake Slackity Ann up so he can fight Wendy."

"I'm up," Andy said as he pulled himself to his feet. "Don't worry about me."

Jo scowled. "Did you take a dive?"

"No," Andy said bitterly. "I realized I was gonna get killed if I didn't stay down."

Jo smirked. "Smart. I'd be a million dollars richer if Brightning was able to figure that out."

I passed Wendy on my way off the bridge and thought about pulling her aside to talk to her, but quickly dismissed the notion since that would've attracted unwanted attention. Instead, I just walked over to a point between Boris and Steve. They were standing apart from each other, but that was to be expected. I was surprised that Steve and Andy were able to lie so well about not being in an alliance with Boris, but I had apparently underestimated them, at least as far as lying was concerned.

I watched as Chef again got out of the water, banged his pot, and hopped back into the lake. Andy and Wendy walked up to each other and sized each other up. Then Wendy threw the first punch–a haymaker that knocked Andy off of his feet.

He was unconscious before he hit the floor of the ring.

"Wendy wins!" Jo declared.

"What, no nickname?" Wendy asked sarcastically.

Jo looked Wendy over. "Whatever you want, Flannel. Now somebody scrape him up and get him off so we can get on with the last fight."

Chef hopped out of the water, grumbling about having to do all the work while Chris got an all-season vacation. He slung Andy over his shoulder and followed Wendy across the bridge. Once they were off the bridge, Boris headed for the ring, still dripping water. I followed him, sizing him up as we walked, and grinned as I calculated exactly what I'd need to do.

This time, Chef banged his pot while standing on the shore. As soon as he did, Boris started to walk towards me with a wide grin on his face. I knelt down, waited until he got within arm's length, and then smashed him with an uppercut. Boris went flying out of the ring, just as I predicted, and landed too far away to swim back before ten seconds had passed.

"Finally!" Jo said. "Now let's see. Grouchy had two wins, Shortenov had one, Andy had one, Flannel had one...what am I missing here?"

"Wendy and Aunt Grandma tied," Chef pointed out.

"Right!" Jo said. "Fine. Flannel! Grouchy! You two are the top fighters! Get in the ring!"

Five minutes later, Chef was back in the water, Wendy and I were in opposite corners, and Jo was standing in the middle of the ring.

"Alright, you two," Jo said. "You're apparently the strongest of the weaklings in this game, so here's how it works. Three rounds, three minutes each, a minute break between every round. I'll judge who the winner is, and of course, the winner of the bout will get immunity. Now hopefully you idiots won't put on as pathetic a performance as you did the first time. Any questions?"

Neither of us raised our hands.

"Good, because I don't care," Jo said. "Now, Chef, if you'd do the honors?"

Chef simply raised the pot and spoon out of the water and banged on them. Jo stepped aside, and Wendy and I got out of our corners. It was now or never.

I approached her and leaned in. "I have to–"

sword canes are a good way of concealing a blade and making yourself look weak so that your target underestimates you

Wendy punched me in the face, and I staggered backwards. I regained my balance just as she launched herself at me.

sensory deprivation can be used to create anxiety, hallucinations, and depression

Wendy peppered my body with punches. I pushed her off, but she came right back at me.

"I have to tell you something!" I hissed.

crossbows were considered the most dangerous weapons ever invented at the time of their introduction to england

Wendy launched an uppercut into my jaw.

"Please just listen to me!" I hissed.

Wendy ignored me and drew back her fist to punch me again.

the blood spills out from the cut on her arm, newly-reopened by the hot water of the shower

"so how does it feel"

"what do you mean"

"you know. to lose. to me"

what is she talking about

she lost to me

i got the lead position on the fencing team

i managed to cut her arm open with a fencing sword

quite an accomplishment if i say so myself

i didn't lose to her

"you seem to have it out for me"

"i don't know why but you want to beat me at everything"

"so i want to know how it felt when i won the science fair and you got second place"