Disclaimer: Total Drama Island is copyright to Tom McGillis and Jennifer Pertsch. Team Fortress 2 and its content is copyright the Valve corporation.
Now that Courtney discovered the secret of the game she was in and the circumstances she could manipulate, she had regained a bit of her shattered confidence. She was busy at work hacking into the computers that controlled the game for a significant bonus when a shadow appeared behind her. A hand reached through the darkness and slowly went in to clutch at her shoulder. Just as she was processing some new screen the light cast a reflection that revealed the hand behind her. In a shock of fear she spun around on her swivel chair and looked at the looming figure.
"EEEEEEEKKKK!!!!" Courtney squealed.
"EEEEEEEKKKK!!!!" Noah screamed just as girlishly. They both froze and stared at each other, waiting for the awkwardness of Noah's scream to pass. "Uh, hi" Noah casually greeted.
"What are you ding here!?" Courtney loudly demanded. "How did you even get here?"
"I'm not totally sure" Noah admitted. "I was perusing through some strategic programs to make some plans for the next map and I clicked something wrong. A few seconds later I was awake and here, then I found you...hacking the game."
"I'm not hacking" Courtney defended. Noah just shook his head. "I'm not!"
"Tisk, tisk" Noah chided condescendingly. "You bad little girl."
"Shut up!" Courtney ordered.
"You're not in an easily defended position here" Noah said. "If you admit you're trying to cheat I'll go along with it."
"What?" Courtney said, now insulted. She stood up and over Noah, easily intimidating him into a lean backwards. "You think I'm so poor at this game that I need to cheat!?"
"Not at all" Noah said honestly. "In fact I think modding the program would bring some much-lacking enjoyment and surprise to this game."
"Really?" Courtney said. "Why? Isn't it hard enough moving around all of Chris' stupid twists?"
"Nope" Noah said. They both straightened out in respect. "You guys are getting drastically better. If it comes up to a stand-off of nothing but power, I think I would lose."
"Well, thanks" Courtney said, staying cautious. "Still, you always have some kind of plan that we can't fight through. If we come across some kind of strategy you would win."
"No" Noah disagreed "that would be a stalemate." Courtney was surprised to hear Noah admit that he wouldn't be able to win in any scenario. Somehow, he kept an aura of optimism and snide assurance in his skills when he said it. "In defending we would win, no doubt" and now the arrogance was back.
"Well" Courtney began nervously, "you aren't going to sell me out are you? I mean, this game could still be considered in my resume or my transcript to any major leadership program. I'll DIE if they find out I cheated!"
"Didn't you cheat before on the show?" Noah asked. "Or at least steal?" Courtney grabbed his collar and pulled him up.
"That was different" Courtney demanded. "That was driven by love, I couldn't help it!"
"Suuuuure" Noah sarcastically agreed. Courtney pushed him down and started back to the chair. She looked out at the sprawling cityscape and sighed, still confused about the leap in reality she had woken from for the first time. "I won't tell anyone" Noah agreed.
"Really?" Courtney said hopefully.
"Under my own terms" Noah said, brushing himself off. "First, sit down." Courtney sat, determined to hold onto her current position of higher education and advancement. Noah sat next to her in her team's seat and accessed a neutral area of programming. The maps. "Now, try to get where I am." Courtney was confused but she would comply. She looked over and, after a few menus, she was with Noah on the screen. "Select 2Fort" Noah instructed.
"It's labeled 'Finale'" Courtney pointed out. "Is that a really hard map?"
"It's basic" Noah said. He accessed 'Dustbowl' and was typing and browsing with the mouse at impressive speed. "It's just a capture the flag map with two mirrored sides. Really simple, but the layout lets you go all-out with complexities."
"What's yours?" Courtney asked.
"Awesome" Noah said. "In terms of strategy, I've never lost at this map. I'm just analyzing all the data so my plans can be modified in a timely manner."
"Well what am I doing?" Courtney asked.
"You're removing any further unwanted unknowns" Noah instructed. "Find the programs that run the surprise twists, like the environmental hazards or sudden respawn counter resets and eliminate them. Then you can plan for the 2Fort map if you want."
"Well what are you doing?" she asked with more demand.
"Nerfing the grenades" Noah said. His terminology meant one of two things to Courtney: he was either making them weaker, which was right, or he was choosing specific spawn points for the most challenge, which he was also doing in an effort to bring some excitement to the games. Courtney started working, searching through the windows until she finally found something resembling her purpose.
Both leaders were now working to improve the game in whatever way they wanted...
Back at Blue base, despite the strange time distortion that happened inside the computer world, Izzy and Heather were still up late at night sparing. Heather was mentally and physically exhausted, but the fear she had for her trainer in her gasmask and serrated ax kept her awake. She blocked with her sword in both hands, catching it in the notches and letting it scrape along the solid edges. Izzy rushed in suddenly and smashed Heather on the head with the handle of her ax.
"Quit it!" Izzy shouted.
"Quit what!?" Heather demanded loudly. "Quit blocking!?"
"You're not blocking right" Izzy said. "You're just letting your sword catch my ax and then hitching it int the serrated notches. That's not blocking, and especially not against Harold's sword! It won't work!" Izzy continued smashing Heather's head with stern blows from her ax handle until Heather couldn't stand it. She made a stab for Izzy's gut but Izzy blocked it easily with the flat metal of her ax. Izzy then kicked Heather hard in the ribs and knocked her out.
"Still not right" Izzy said, resting her ax on her shoulder and raising her mask up. "You're weak. You rely on your wits and deception too much. Those are your strengths, and training them is useless! We need to strengthen your weaknesses! That's the only reason you should train!" Heather wasn't listening. She was unconscious. "You pansy!" Izzy kicked her again, but Heather was out completely cold. Izzy looked over to the huge, cutting canyons with one thought on her mind:
"""
"My feet taste weird today" Izzy said, unaware the camera was rolling. She took her foot up to her face and licked it. "It's like provolone." Now she noticed the recorder was on. "Harold," she began threateningly, "come the next match you will meet a new, horrible rival! Mark my words, you will not survive."
"""
At the Red base, where the party had finally died down and everyone was asleep, Harold was training hard with only one simulated target: that of Izzy. The holographic projection showed her calmly standing with a peace sign in her hand. Harold glared through his ninja mask and pressed a button on a console. The image shifted through several other stills of Izzy until he finally found the one he wanted. A moving image of her holding an ax with her gasmask on.
"Activate!" he ordered slyly. The simulation Izzy sprang to life and made wild hacks at Harold. He ran away like a coward past the electric border out of the training ground and rolled into the wall. "Gah! I wasn't ready!" The Izzy program cackled madly and paced around, waiting for Harold to come back in and join her.
"Come on" Eva ordered. "Quit aiming past them, aim at them!" Duncan was deep in his own training regiment with Eva. She was forcing him to shoot-to-kill with his new amazing gun at the Blue team's hardest targets. The strafing Lindsay, the hiding Gwen and the surprisingly agile Justin. Duncan concentrated mainly on killing Justin, who he simply couldn't stand, then went on to fire at Lindsay so he could make a joke when the grenades bounced off her chest. The target he had seemingly given up on already was Gwen, who hid behind whatever cover there was on the digital field.
"Shoot Gwen first" Eva demanded. "She's the healer. If she stays alive the others can kill you!"
"She's too hard to hit" Duncan admitted. "Besides, I got nothing against her. If I can trap her, fine, but I won't kill her without reason."
"Why not!?" Eva growled. "She's the enemy! You should want to kill her before doing anything else!"
"Well..." Duncan drew hesitantly.
"""
"I can respect a chick" Duncan said "who can spot the differences in any given slasher flick from its original just as much as I can respect a chick who can order me around without flinching. If it comes down to a wire, I'd let Gwen walk and I'm sure she'd do the same thing."
"""
"Let me" Eva offered. She took her gun and ripped apart the holographs, fizzling them all out instantly. Even Gwen, who was behind cover, was blasted apart and faded out of the simulation. "Harold! Why aren't you training?"
"I have a wedgie" Harold admitted as he tugged at his pants. He set himself up comfortably to fight the nonexistent girl glaring at him and charged in. He slashed rapidly and powerfully, but Izzy's guard was far too strong. Her simulated-metal ax blocked and caught Harold's sword many times. She even tried to catch it between her serrated edges and shove it into the ground, but Harold saw past the plan and drew his blade away to stab. Izzy jumped away and came in for a neck-splitting hack. Harold rolled away and, as he came up from his roll, he made a slice at her back.
And instant kill, the holograph sizzled and faded out with its head away from its body. Harold had found a magnificent technique to use on his rival, one that would most certainly work!
"""
"Finally!" Harold said graciously. "Now I can fight her evenly and at least have a slight chance of winning in a straight-up duel! I'm so glad, now I can barely wait for the next match!"
"""
As the training of the MVPs continued, the rest of the Red team slept soundly. Geoff and Bridgette floated together in mid-air, cuddled together as one peaceful couple. Sadie and Katie did the same thing but in a less romantic way. The door on the first floor finally opened again and a cautious Courtney stepped into the room.
"Great" she whispered. "I can head straight to bed and no one will know anything!" Courtney made a push up to the third floor and entered her room. It was decorated with various motivational posters and signs that signified success over everything to her and hopped in her bed with a sly, almost devious, smile. Tomorrow her plans would come full circle, the changes she and Noah made would take effect in the warring world.
She could hardly wait.
The next day. Day of the match.
Both teams assembled outside their respective bases. Heather was up bright and early with Izzy. The training they had undergone the night before had a resounding effect on the normally cold and malicious Heather. She even agreed to match outfits with Izzy. They both wore identical black tunics with dark blue tights underneath and bracers on their forearms. The tunics had metal shoulder pads sewn onto them and belts with extra ammunition. Izzy wore a long, billowing red scarf to signify her role as the teacher and Heather wore a red bandanna over her mouth to solidify her role as a spy.
"""
"Admittedly" Heather began "I was totally against that ridiculous outfit. But then I realized that Izzy is the most popular player here, so if I want a higher seat of power, I need to line up behind the right people. That way I won't have to move around a whole lot to stab them in the back."
"""
"Wow" Gwen awed. "It's weird what one night can do, right?"
"Yeah" Trent replied in bewilderment. "I never thought Heather would get so into it."
"Must have done some pretty hardcore training" Noah observed. Gwen and Trent turned around to see that he too was wearing some particular garb for the match. He had one a jumpsuit fashioned with metal scrap and many extra washers as clips and buttons to seem sleek and futuristic, like a Star Wars style of engineer suit. "Or they're just getting into it finally."
"Where did you get a costume?" Gwen asked.
"Found it" Noah said. "Come on. We need to meet the Reds halfway today out of cordialness." Noah starte walking, his team eventually following. Izzy and Owen took the front line, Heather stayed right behind Izzy with the soldiers and Gwen, the rest in the line after that. They passed through a greatly meandering passage cut in the rocky wilds and arrived a a huge metal gate. They awaited patiently as the Red team came loudly over the bend.
"Move it people!" Courtney shouted. "Come on! Move! Move! Move!" The Red team came chaotically across the bend and slowed down as they saw the organized Blue force waiting for them in a much more dignified manor.
"Oh, crap!" Eva exclaimed. "They beat us here!"
"Not by a lot" Noah admitted as she drew close. "We just got here ourselves."
"Sorry we're late!" Courtney called. She slid down a steep slope and joined her second-in-command to meet with Noah and his...guards. "Most of us slept in because most of us" she shouted behind her to her slouching, hungover team mates "were up all night."
"We were training, though" Harold said. He came up to the front and gasped in shock when he saw his rial's new armor. He was astonished by its design and then saw Heather with a black handled katana strapped to her back in the same garb. "Heather...?"
"Yup" Noah said. "No hiding today, I guess. She's our new MVP."
"Just because Izzy lost once against Harold" Courtney began condescendingly "doesn't mean she can't hold her own at all."
"Heh" Noah laughed. "Good debate topic. We already covered it in 'Heather vs Owen' last night."
"I'll earn it this time, though!" Owen said enthusiastically, forcing a smile out of Izzy.
"""
"And I mean it, too!" Owen said with great determination. "I'll be the rootin-est, tootin-est" and then he farted "shooter on the whole team to earn that coveted spot on my team!"
"""
"Well" Courtney began "now I feel like a tool for not telling you our MVP. We chose Duncan." Just then Duncan came to the front line with his amazing new grenade launcher on his shoulder.
"We were up all night training with this thing" Eva said. "He can blow up a fly from 50 meters."
"That's a wild exaggeration" Izzy argued. "Even I can't do that!" Suddenly the huge metal door started sliding open. It slid, somehow, into the rocky walls around it and a bright light poured out. Two shadows stood within that light, Chris on the right and Chef on the left. Once the light faded the hosts stood formally in front of the respective base entrances for the map. The teams were standing on the opposite sides in front of them.
"Oops" Chris said. "I guess we planned that kind of wrong."
"Whatever" Hatchet growled aside.
"Welcome, soldiers!" Chris cheered. "Today you will embark on a magical, bloody journey across a harsh wasteland of technology and opportunity! A battlefield of raw guts and tenacity!"
"The training grounds of Hell itself" Hatchet added with a smirk.
"Nice" Chris said. "Soldiers! Welcome to DUSTBOWL!!!" A huge screen descended. On the screen various multi-angle shots were displayed, showing the utter complexities and strategical worth of the huge, multi-step map. Somehow, Noah and Courtney were not surprised. "This match will be scored the same a sa race. Whoever gets the best time wins."
"However" Hatchet continued "instead of going for the shortest time possible, you are going for the longest time possible!"
"Since the event of a full-capture" Chris said "is extremely against the odds in our betting pool, we won't consider the possibility."
"What if it happens?" Noah asked.
"No brown-nosing!" Hatchet ordered. Noah shut up. Even he couldn't mentally circumnavigate a man that huge. "If it happens, then one of us is getting paid and the other is losing a couple of checks. So it better not happen! Got it!?"
"Yes sir!" the entire army replied.
"""
"Ah, yeah!" hatchet cheered. He laughed and sighed into a more calm demeanor as he leaned in his chair. "It feels good to be the Master Chief."
"""
"There are three maps" Chris explained. "One team will defend the two points of each map while the attacking teams attempts to capture them! It may seem impossible at times, but it really isn't! Once both points are captured, the attacking team will proceed to the next map to attack. The defending team will be given an adequate time to prepare their defenses beforehand, so don't worry about scrambling around. Use as much time as you want."
"For the sake of downhill handicaps" Hatchet explained, "a single member of the attacking team will be selected to receive grenades during the match. The grenades will also spawn at regular intervals and in regular places, but the random ones will get them regardless. Use them wisely."
"In addition" Chris added as well, "we will not spare the defenders their own saving grace. If the defending team is within minutes of winning and have only one point to defend, we will randomly grant one of them with ten-second immortality!"
"Sounds interesting" Eva said.
"Sounds very interesting" Noah added. Everyone could see and hear the gears turning in his head. Suspiciously, the gears in Courtney's head turned just as loudly and twice as rapid.
"We will now flip a coin" Chris said "to decide on who shall choose their starting positions!" Chris flipped a coin up in the air, then pulled out a revolver pistol and shot it. Everyone was quite impressed and watched the coin land straight in Noah's hand. He clenched it and followed through by slamming it on his opposite wrist. "Call it!"
"Heads" Noah said.
"Fine" Courtney obliged. They both leaned in to see who won. The attacking team would be...
Revealed next week. HA! Suckers! Now the stage is set. What new twists have Noah and Courtney programmed in to beat out the orchestrator's of their misfortune and grief? Will Heather's one-night of intense training be able to topple Harold's lifetime of ninja-esque discipline? Now that Izzy has thrown her rival a chew-toy, who will she opt to fight? Find out next week on the start of Dustbowl, here on Total
Drama
Team Fortress!