Chris stood in the center of a massive field, right next to the shell of the space station, which seemed rather sad with a meteorite sticking into the cranium of the structure. He refused to look at it, and the saddened look on his face showed that the image of it really hurt his own self image. While he slacked off, Chef could be seen setting tons of squids down along paths that led towards two, large, dome-like structures, one of them being red, while the other was blue. After the squids were set down, they seemed to blend in with the ground, and Chef turned to head back towards Chris, accidentally stepping on one and causing it to gush ink all over him. Chris simply snickered at the co-host, who furrowed his ink covered eyebrows before picking up the same squid and launching it at him, which made it shoot ink in his own face as well. The squid then slid right off of his face, falling to the ground to reveal the irritated expression he was currently bearing, covered in ink, of course.

"Last time on Total Drama: Lost City," Chris spoke up, pulling a handkerchief from his shirt pocket to wipe the ink off of his face and tossing it over at Chef, "Olympus TV, specifically Poseidon's branch of it, spent the better part of a year down in the newly discovered Atlantis, which I found, and making it look nice and refurbished for a brand new season of Total Drama, even buying the rights to the show itself to be able to take charge of it. Naturally, me and my squad of rambunctious teens were more than ready to come on down and see what was good, but the damn kids took up so much time reintroducing themselves that we didn't have the time to actually explore any of the city! Anywho, some dude hitched a ride on the submarine and ran off into the brush before we could catch him, but not before the cameras could. That's right, dude, I saw you and those golden locks of yours. A lot of resentment and past grudges could be seen flourishing about, specifically from Damien, Dusty, and Thomas, man, I would hate to be Flint right now, wouldn't you? We split the twenty-two competitors into two teams, the Cosmic Crabs and the Atomic Sharks, but first, we had to ship off the splitter-uppers, Haley and Sebastian, to the set of the newest Aftermath! Now, we're rushing in, head first, to our very first challenge! Which team will come out on top? Find out, right now, on Total Drama: Lost City!"

The camera hovered over an ocean, quickly descending beneath the water and happening upon Atlantis, zooming in on the wreck of the Chris space station, where the host himself was on his knees, sad that there was an asteroid in his face, while Poseidon patted him on the shoulder and Amphitrite sighed in annoyance.

"Dear mom and dad I'm doing fine," the camera quickly shifted over to the carnival zone in Atlantis, showing Natt and Anne on a large Ferris wheel, enjoying their time together until it suddenly fell out of place and rolled away.

"You guys are on my mind," down at the controls, Zachary and Amelia were revealed to be messing with them, laughing maniacally until Vicente came over and bonked both of them on the head with plastic baseball bats.

"You asked me what I wanted to be and I think the answer's plain to see," in one of the carnival tents, March and Luna watched Benjamin in awe as he rode a unicycle while bouncing on a trampoline, juggling bowling pins, and holding a torch with his teeth.

"I wanna be famous!" Tony tossed a frisbee at the wheel, causing Benjamin to fall and the torch to set his shirt on fire before the bowling pins landed on his head, which caused Liz to give him a thumbs up with an evil grin on her face.

"I wanna live close to the sun," out in the ocean, Alex was in his diving suit, trying to catch a sea monkey, but failing utterly, just like he had when it was a space monkey, while Dusty shook her head in disappointment, lassoing the creature back to them.

"So pack your bags, cause I've already won," on the sea floor, Archie studied a squid closely until it shot ink all over his helmet's glass shield, which made Jianne giggle a little bit before wiping it off.

"Everything to prove, nothing in my way, I'll get there one day," not too far from where the two were, Damien and Gretchen ran away from a massive shark, which knocked them off to the side, showing that it was swimming away from Flint, who was throwing rocks at it while Alexis chased after him.

"I wanna be famous!" the camera switched gears to show a submarine, with arcade-esque machines in it that Taylor and Crustacean were fighting over.

"Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na," zooming into a "pod" of sorts near the arcade games, a virtual world that was full of immaculate fantasy aspects and monsters was shown.

"I wanna be, I wanna be, I wanna be famous!" Nicolás, dressed as a knight, was running in fear as blasts of dark energy were tossed at the ground behind him, each blast destroying part of the ground.

"I wanna be, I wanna be, I wanna be famous!" the camera revealed Thomas, in dark mage garb, as the source of the blasts, floating in the sky and laughing manically until Maggie, dressed as a witch, flew over to him on her broom and tackled him to the ground, making out with him before he blasted the camera with one of the energy balls.

Afterwards, the whole group was seen on a Nautically themed aftermath stage, which Sebastian and Haley were at the center of, glaring at each other while all of the contestants, accompanied by Maggie, who was hugging Thomas tightly, whistled.

Poseidon, Amphitrite, Chris, and Chef walked ahead of the massive group through a street path, the director whistling a happy tune as he walked, with his assistant scribbling some things down on her clipboard as she walked right next to him. The show's hosts had their arms crossed, and refused to share even a glance at each other as they walked, which caused some awkward tension for the teens, each of them looking away from them as they followed along the path.

"It won't be long now before we get to the new lodgings for the lot of you," Poseidon stopped whistling, looking back at the group with a smile, "Oddly enough, it also happens to be-"

"Shush!" Chris rushed over to him, placing a hand over his mouth, "You can't spill that! That's supposed to be my job! You're just supposed to make sure we have the funds and keep anything from going horribly wrong."

"Christopher, need I remind you how generous my boss was to fund this entire season?" Amphitrite glared at him, squeezing her already broken pencil quite tightly, "He could very easily withdraw from this project, and I doubt you want that to happen. I suggest you be a little more polite."

"Haha, you tell him!" Chef snickered at Chris, who let out an annoyed sigh as he pulled his hand back from Poseidon's face.

"Oh, it's quite alright," Poseidon chuckled, waving off the aggression from the host, "If he wants to keep that a secret, I suppose that's alright. I'll stick to my director duties, and you'll get your hosting duties."

Chris glared at the other man as he lagged behind, soon finding himself walking along with the contestants, many of which were giggling at the little fit he was throwing. Thomas approached him, placing his hand on his shoulder and shaking his head as he continued to laugh at him, causing the host's face to go pale.

"Do relax, would you?" the malicious contestant grinned a nasty grin, befitting of someone of his status, "Now that I'm out of a job, you have nothing to worry about! I won't kill anyone I'm not getting payed to kill."

"Yeah, right," Chris swatted his hand off of his shoulder, stepping off to the side and hiding behind Gretchen, who simply rolled her eyes at him. "You say that, and the second I let my guard down, you're gonna turn me into Chrismithereens! Haha, I crack myself up."

"I think maybe you should leave puns and the like to me, Chris," Anne sounded a bit offended by the host's pure terribleness at the attempt of comedy, "It would've been better if you said he was gonna turn you into Chrishreds!"

The group of contestants groaned at her joke, all except for Natt, who let out a small, monotoned chuckle as he gave her a high five.

Confessional

The new confessional was far different than the high-tech one that was used on the space station. The room itself had wave-like wallpaper, many nicks and tears being shown in it, and the "toilet," or lack thereof, was simply a bucket, and one that didn't even look very sturdy. There was plunger next to the bucket...but why was it even there? Surely a plunger couldn't be used for something that doesn't even flush. Aside from that, there were some nautical doodads here and there, a small anchor, the helmet to a diving suit, a harpoon, the whole shebang.

"Ah, it's so good to be back with everybody, give or take a few of them," Anne mentioned as she sat on the bucket, leaning back against the wall, "I've got so much new material that I wanna test out on everyone! It's like my brain got super sized after not being able to share the humor with all of them. I just can't- wah!"

Unfortunately, Anne leaned a bit too far back, causing her to sink into the bucket, her eyes immediately bugging out as she heard a squishing noise front he bucket. Her face quickly turned green, and she vomited all over the camera.

"Man, I don't get paid enough for this," Chef grumbled as he wiped the camera clean, "That girl better plan on keeping the rest of her food inside, or I ain't giving her none."

Confessional End

As the group got closer and closer to the bunkrooms that they would be staying in, Alexis couldn't help but feel that something was off. She looked at the field ahead of them, where everything seemed to be in order, but it just didn't feel right to her. The hosts stopped before it, Chris whistling nonchalantly for a moment before finally speaking to them.

"Oh!" he slapped his own forehead, as if he "forgot" whatever it was that he was going to tell them for a moment, "Those tents up there are where you'll all be spending your time here! You're good to just run on ahead and get yourselves settled in. Each tent is split into two halves, boys on one half, girls on the other. Atomic Sharks get the red tent, the Cosmic Crabs get the blue tent. Sound good?"

"Sure, yeah," Benjamin nodded while he was clearly not paying attention, looking over at some fish that were swimming over the bubble, "Boss, those fish are flying!"

"Ah...they're not flying, they're-" Damien tried to correct his friend, but he let it go, weakly smiling at him, "Yeah...yeah, they're flying."

"So folks, just go on ahead and-" Chris was quickly cut off by Alexis, who was still feeling strangely off about the whole situation.

"Hang on a second," she butted in, narrowing her eyes at the host, who was sweating nervously, "Flint, could your run on ahead for a second?"

"You betcha!" Flint snapped to attention, smiling proudly as he started towards the head of the group.

The boy whistled, keeping his eyes closed as he kept walking forward, no one thinking much about it at first. Then, out of nowhere, he seemed to step on something squishy, and he was blasted with ink, causing him to lose his balance. He fell onto the ground, setting off two more of the "mines," one of which got a good deal of ink in his nostrils, which he then proceeded to vomit up onto the ground. The other contestants gasped at the sight, many of them soon turning to shoot judging glares at Alexis, who was taken aback by the sudden harsh attention.

"I-I thought that he would get out of there in time!" she mentioned, backing away from them as they continued to focus their glares on her, "H-he's really fast! So, naturally, I just thought-"

"That wasn't cool, dude," Taylor hissed her words at the girl, "I wouldn't ever have one of my friends take the hit for me like that."

"Yeah, talk about uncalled for," Archie grumbled, "Leave it to you preppy types to use people for your own benefit."

"But but but I wasn't-"

Chris snickered to himself, gaining the attention from the contestants back. Chef pulled Flint up from the ink-soaked grass, tossing him back to the other contestants, only for him to be caught by Liz, who soon fell to the ground under his significantly higher weight, to which Dusty couldn't help but laugh.

"I totally forgot to mention one little thing about this particular field!" the host continued to snicker to himself, the crowd around him clearly all unamused, well, except for Poseidon, who was applauding the man's dastardliness. "This is the location of the very first challenge of the season: the Ink Minefield Race! There are hundreds of squids blending into the grass beneath them, and trust me, you guys won't be able to tell them apart from the grass. You step on 'em, and then sploosh! You get soaked in ink, just like Flint the mighty just did! So, your goal is pretty simple: you all gotta make it to the tents on the other side of the field. The first team to fully make it across the field will win the challenge, and net themselves a special reward!"

Chris dug into his shirt, pulling out a rolled up piece of paper and holding it up for all to see, though nobody was quite sure what it was. Soon after, he tucked it back away into his shirt, snickering a little bit more before finally calming himself down.

"Well, good luck divers! Cause the challenge starts...now!"

The contestants started off towards the field in a hurry, having been used to rushing on into challenges once he had cued them to, and Poseidon patted him on the shoulder, causing him to glare over at him, still very clearly annoyed by his presence.

Confessional

"Someone with a skillset as phenomenal as my own really doesn't have much to worry about when it comes to a challenge like this," Thomas pointed out in a cocky tone, bearing that same grin as before, "I've had to train blindfolded in the past, so this really is a piece of cake."

"I can't believe everybody is mad at me," Alexis murmured to herself, her eyes full of dismay as she stared down at the floor, "I-I-I mean, I really thought he would be fast enough to avoid getting in any danger...I didn't mean for that to happen to him!"

"It was really weird of Alexis to just set ol' Flint up fer disaster like that, ya hear?" Dusty scratched her chin in thought for a moment, a look of suspicion on her face, "That's just the kinda thing that Liz would do, sabotaging someone for her own benefit. Dealing with one Liz is already enough, thank ya kindly."

Confessional End

The twenty-two contestants found themselves hopping about the minefield, each of them worried that every step good lead to an ink-covered demise. Nicolás wobbled in place upon landing after a jump, almost falling forward onto his face until Natt grabbed him by his shirt collar, holding him just above the grass, where a squid opened its eye and stared at him. The nerdy boy gulped in fear as his taller teammate stood him back up on his feet, allowing him a second to catch his breath.

"Th-thanks," he mumbled in between his exasperated breaths, it seemed as if he had just ran a mile without a single stop for water, "I thought I was a goner for a second there..."

"Don't sweat it," Natt replied in his dull voice, carefully taking a step forward, avoiding the squid that he had just saved his teammate from, "After you were looking out for everybody last season, it really wouldn't be fair if we just cast you aside and didn't return the favor."

"Well, gee, Natt...that's awfully nice of yo-"

"Oh, watch your step, dude."

"Huh?"

Nicolás glanced down at where his foot had just landed, noticing a teary-eyed squid slowly undoing its own camouflage. He shifted his glance over to where Natt was, only to notice that he was standing well ahead of him now, saluting him. Nicolás could only return the salute, a tear dropping from his own eye before he was coated in ink, completely obscuring the glasses he was wearing. The squid squeezed out from underneath his foot, scurrying away through the grass as the poor boy coughed up some ink.

"Well, at least that's all over wit-" the boy was quickly cut off as someone shoved him into the grass, causing him to land face first on another squid, which, of course, shot more ink at him.

"Oh dear!" Zachary covered his mouth innocently, as if he didn't just shove Nicolás to the ground, "You poor thing! Let me give you a hand!"

The actor reached down to grab the boy by his ink-stained hoodie, pulling him back to his feet and standing him up right again...before tossing him over his shoulder and onto another heap of squids. He laughed maniacally as he pressed forward, waving behind him to the boy that was currently being soaked in even more ink.

"Later, nerdazoid!"

Confessional

"That new guy really is kinda rude, eh?" Nicolás mumbled as he wiped his glasses off with a handkerchief, "I just hope I don't have to deal with him all too much...I still remember watching the stunt he and Amelia pulled from the Playa...jeez, just thinking about it makes me all nervous."

"Let me just make this one thing very clear," Zachary looked down at his hands as he sat on the bucket, scrubbing some ink from Nicolás' hoodie onto a washcloth, "There is a five million dollar prize at the end of this race, and I'm not letting anybody get in between me and that sweet, sweet moolah. Can't play Batguy if I'm not rich like Bruce Dwayne, right?"

Confessional End

Further down the way, Thomas delicately avoided the squids on the ground, dancing around them as if he were a ballerina. Just off to the side a little ways away from him was the all-too exhausted Vicente, who was having a hard time even picking his feet off of the ground. He slid them around, which seemed to work pretty good, as he wasn't stepping on any squids, and his light nudges let him know where they were before they set off like the bombs they were.

"You really are putting way too much effort into this easy challenge, you know that, right?" Vicente tauntingly asked the assassin, letting out a drawn out yawn soon after, "Why dance around when you could just save the energy?"

"I don't know," Thomas shrugged, picking something up off of the ground, "Why would you have a squid flying at your face when you could not?"

"What now?"

The reality show veteran glanced over at the assassin again, noticing a squid flying at him at high speeds. Soon enough, it splatted against his face, knocking him to the ground and gushing ink all over him. Thomas snickered as he continued to dance around more of the squids, leaving Vicente in the dust. The boy tried to get up from the ground, but struggled to do so. He layed down flat, looking up at the sky without and ounce of hope left for the challenge...that was until he found himself getting caught by some sort of rope. He looked at it for a second, noticing that it was wrapped around his chest, and then, it tugged him into the distance, causing him to let out a fearful scream. He was quickly dragged past several squids, being pulled through a little too fast for them to ink, but he kept screaming all the way, until he suddenly stopped being dragged. He looked up from his new spot on the ground, noticing Dusty's cheerful smile.

"Can't have ya laggin' 'round like that, can we, darlin'?" she spoke to him in a sweet voice as she undid the lasso that was wrapped around him, pulling him to his feet, "Ah, yer covered in ink! Lemme get some of that for ya!"

She tore off the left sleeve of her shirt, balling it up and using it to clean off the boy's face. He stared back at her, almost in disbelief that she had just done that for his sake, but he had a hard time getting the words he wanted to say out.

"You ripped your shirt," he mumbled, not sure what else to say to her.

"Aw, that's nothin' a little fabric an' thread can't fix right up. Besides, at least the ripped up piece got used for a good cause, right?"

"But-"

"Uhp! No time for back talkin'! We best get our kiesters into gear if we wanna beat the other team! See ya on the other side, buckaroo!"

And she dashed off down the minefield, leaving him well behind her as she ran ahead. He let out a brief sigh, looking down at his feet and noticing the balled up, ink covered piece of shirt right in front of him. He picked it up off the ground, looking forward to see how far ahead she was, and tucked it into his pocket, starting after her.

Confessional

"Has Dusty always been that nice?" Vicente looked down at the torn piece of shirt in his hand before tucking it back into his pocket and smiling at the camera with a slight blush, "I guess I really didn't get much time to spend with anyone last season...but she's something, isn't she?"

Confessional End

Elsewhere on the field, somewhere around the middle of it, Alex leapt skillfully around the squid mines, showing off his skills while Tony and Liz struggled to gain ground some ways behind him. He glanced over his shoulder at them, smirking as he continued on ahead. Liz started to grumble to herself, noting how they were kinda lagging behind the group at this point, and she looked over to see that Tony was just carefully tiptoeing around some of the squids, sweating nervously.

"What's got you so scared?" she asked in a rude tone, the one that she spoke in when she was thinking lesser of someone, "It's just squid ink, it's not like it's gonna melt your face if it gets on you or anything."

"Well, yeah," Tony nervously laughed as he continued to tiptoe through the field, "But I don't think I'd be much useful if I try to get through a maze like this with a face full of ink."

"You could at least pick up the pace. That obnoxious Dusty is already so far ahead of us. You know she isn't gonna let me live it down after she makes it to the tents before me."

"If only you had some sort of catapult to launch yourself across the field, eh?" Tony chuckled, clearly joking, though Liz rushed right up to him and got in his face with a rather disturbing smile, "W-woah there, baby! What's with the creepy face?"

"You know, I'm very, very small. It sure would be convenient if there was a big strong boyfriend of mine to throw me over the field so I could beat Dusty to the finish line."

"Ah...you know, I don't really think that's such a good idea. I mean, what if I can't throw you far enough?"

"Oh, just do it you big baby!"

She stomped her feet angrily at him, her face turning red as she grew irritated with him. Noticing the tantrum she was throwing, the money-loving boy let out a sigh and rolled his eyes. He picked her up off of the ground, holding her in both arms while she snickered evilly. He swung her back and forth a few times, eventually tossing her forward...only for her to land on the ground about ten feet ahead, setting off several of the squids and causing them to douse her with ink while he tried his best to not laugh.

Confessional

"Okay, okay, maybe I could've thrown Liz a little further than that," Tony smugly noted with a smirk on his face, "But just cause she's my girlfriend doesn't mean she can just boss me around like some sorta minimum wage worker. I know what my talents are worth, and its at least fifty an hour. Sorry, babe."

Liz crossed her arms as she stared at the camera, ink all over her face. She opened her mouth to say something, but she ended up hacking up a lot of ink instead, eventually tumbling to the ground as she kept coughing up more and more ink.

"You know, fifty an hour is kinda lowballing it," Tony continued as he had a calculator in hand, frantically typing numbers into it, "I mean, if you account for my phenomenal people skills, I should've gotten a raise or two already. Let's bump the fifty up to sixty and call it even."

Confessional End

Damien and Benjamin pressed through the field together, both of them wobbling as they tried to awkwardly move about without hitting any of the squids. Damien took a step forward, but upon noticing an eyeball opening beneath him, he pushed his foot even further forward, causing him to accidentally do a split, and his eyes to widen. Benjamin glanced over at him, cringing at the sight of his friend's pain before rushing over to help him, only to step on one of the squids, which immediately shot a blast of ink at him before squirming away. He blinked a few times, the whites of his eyes being the only visible thing amongst the ink. It was then that Luna and March skipped on past them, the former of which pointing at the large boy and snickering.

"Better start putting that brain of yours to use, Big Ben!" she mockingly said, continuing to snicker at the boy while he looked down at the ground sadly, "That is, if you even have one to use!"

"Luna!" March gasped at her girlfriend's rude comment before stomping off ahead of her.

"What? Oh, come on, that wasn't that bad!"

Luna rushed on ahead after March, leaving the two boys behind them, Benjamin still looking down sadly. Damien pulled himself up from the ground, walking over to his friend and patting him on the back.

"Hey man, don't let those two get to you," he quietly said, his voice still sounding pained from the the split he had just fallen into, "They're not worth your time, you're way cooler than either of them."

"You think so?" Benjamin looked over at his friend, sniffling a little from the insult, "I guess I just feel a little...I don't know, pathetic? After Tony treated me like garbage all of last season, those insults have been getting to me a lot easier."

"Well, you got me, buddy! And I think you're quite the smart fella, if I do say so myself!"

"You really mean it, boss?" the boy wiped his face with his arm, smudging off some of the ink and revealing a goofy smile underneath it.

"Of course I do, man! But seriously, you really don't have to call me boss. We're equals, you and me. Our friendship ain't nothing like what that jerk, Tony, had going on with you."

"I mean, I can try to stop, but it's just force of habit at this point."

"Oh...well, I mean, maybe with time-"

"Out of the way, boys!" a girl's voice hollered at them from close behind them.

They both turned to look and see who it was, only for Amelia to shove them both aside, rushing forward as they both staggered back a little, just barely managing to catch their balance. They stared on as she rushed ahead, Benjamin rubbing the back of his head awkwardly while Damien put on a game face, taking a running stance and dashing forward, convincing his compadre to run along with him.

Confessional

"One person pushes me aside like I don't matter, whatever," Damien rolled his eyes as he sat on the bucket, "But when more and more people start to do it, and they do it to my buddy too? No way, I'm gonna stand up for myself. That's right, no more pushover Damien in this season, I'm gonna whoop some major butt! Y-yep!"

"I really don't see what was such a big deal about a small little comment," Luna laughed awkwardly, a nervous look on her face, "I mean, I've definitely said worse before...besides, it's just Benjamin! Pretty sure March didn't really care for him all too much last season...right?"

"Ugh, all of these people are so annoying," Amelia whined while filing her nails, "'Oh, let me just stand in the middle of a minefield and block your path to the end of it!' Those two would've never made it in Hollywood, that's for sure."

Confessional End

Meanwhile, back at the start of the field, Chris stared down at his watch, letting out a yawn soon after. Poseidon and Amphitrite had made their way around the course, waiting for the contestants at the finish line, while he and Chef stuck back, watching the chaos ensue on their end.

"Man, I'm a little shocked that none of them have finished yet," the host let out a sigh, sounding quite disappointed, "If they're all gonna be this lazy on the first challenge of the season, I'd hate to see how they get when we reach the harder challenges!"

"Yeah, it's pretty pathetic," Chef shook his head as he watched the contestants before pointing over his shoulder, "I mean, that one ain't even started the dang thing yet. Talk about lazy."

"Yeah- wait a minute, what are you-"

Chris turned to look behind him, noticing that Flint was on the ground, snoring loudly with his mouth wide open. His leg twitched a little, like he was a puppy having a nightmare. The host sighed, walking over to him and kicking him in the side, causing him to leap to his feet suddenly, glancing all over the place, his eyes shimmering among his ink coated face.

"What, huh!?" Flint shouted his words unintentionally, eventually snapping his attention back to Chris, "Oh...heheh, it was just you, Chris. I had this weird nightmare that I was back on Total Drama for another season and some squid blasted my face with ink. Pretty weird thing, eh?"

"Uh...Flint? You do realize you're in the middle of a challenge right now, right? Not a dream, one hundred percent real, dude."

Flint stared blankly at Chris for a moment before bursting out into laughter, clasping his hands over his stomach and falling over onto the ground. Chris and Chef exchanged a concerned glance between each other while he pulled himself back to his feet, wiping the tears of laughter from his face.

"Ah, man, that really was funny! Come on though, let's be real for a minute. We all know that I'm still dreaming right now, and I'll wake up any moment in my own bed. Then, my sweet queen will knock on my door and we'll spend the whole day together. Seriously though, that was a good one, Dream Chris. Welp, see you guys in another dream, I guess!"

Flint kept chuckling for a moment before plopping back down onto the grass, closing his eyes and starting to snore again. Chris let out a sigh, nudging Chef in the side and causing the co-host to roll his eyes before pulling out a megaphone from his pocket somehow. He clicked the thing on, putting it to his face and leaning down towards Flint.

"Wake up and get your butt in gear, Maggot!" he shouted into the megaphone, causing Flint to leap up and immediately start running out towards the field. "Get a move on, boy, go!"

"Nice one," Chris complimented his co-host, giving him a fist bump and snickering, "You think he's gonna run into anymore of those squids now that he's back in it?"

"I dunno, man, kid might just-"

Before Chef could finish his statement, a loud splash of ink could be heard in the distance, and they both turned their attention to the source of the noise, revealing it to be Flint, who was officially soaked, head to toe. They both sighed as he fell to the grass beneath him, landing on a few more squids in doing so.

Confessional

"Off to a rough start, but it's totally chill," Flint mentioned as he tried to wring out his hoodie into the bucket, "See, I just gotta make everyone think that I'm not a threat! After that, it'll be smooth sailing for me!"

Confessional End

Some of the contestants had shown a lot of struggle with the challenge thus far, but a pair who had no such issue with it was Archie and Jianne, both of which took long, yet careful strides across the feel, just barely managing to avoid any contact with the squids that lay on the grass. The two walked alongside each other for a while, but then Jianne, being the competitive spirit that she was, took an opportunity and stepped a few paces ahead of her boyfriend, looking over her shoulder and sticking her tongue out at him, causing him to smirk and leap ahead of her a few steps, sticking his tongue out at her, just as she had done to him.

"Oho, are you challenging me, boy?" she asked with a devilish grin on her face, "You know I would definitely school you in a race, hell, it'd barely even be a contest."

"I dunno about that," Archie replied with a shrug, continuing to walk ahead of her for the time being, "Sounds like something that someone who's way too confident in themselves would say. I think it's pretty clear that I would actually win in a race."

The boy closed his eyes, wearing a smug look on his face while he continued to walk forward, not noticing Jianne until she dashed right past him, wiping the smugness off of his face and raising a competitive grin instead. He started to rush after her, catching up with her pretty soon, but then the two found themselves running at the same speed, not one passing the other.

"You're so going down!" the ever overconfident Jianne taunted him between panting, "Your legs are gonna give out on you soon enough, and then maybe I could find it in my heart to carry you to the finish line!"

"What's that?" Archie asked, putting his hand to his ear as if he didn't hear a word that she said to him, "Sorry, I'm not all too fluent in second place."

"That's a bit odd, don't you think? I mean, you did get second place last season, after all!"

"Oh, I'm gonna get you for that!"

"Haha, yeah righ-"

The two suddenly stopped in their tracks upon hearing a sudden squish noise underneath their feet, and as they looked down, they noticed that each of them had stepped on one of the squids.

"Ah, crap," the two said in unison, the squids soon shooting ink up at them and causing them to slip onto the ground, Archie falling on top of Jianne.

They groaned as they lay there, the squids scurrying away from them as fast as they could, but soon enough, Archie climbed back up to his feet, offering a hand to pull Jianne up, though she chose not to take it. She got up on her own, dusting her clothes off a little while he sighed, wiping off a bit of the ink on his face with his sleeve.

"I sure hope this stuff doesn't stain," he grumbled, sounding more annoyed about the thought of having to replace his clothes than anything else, "I spent a lot of money to get this outfit."

"Aw, is a little bit of ink gonna make you forget all about our challenge?"

"Huh?"

The boy glanced up from his sleeve to notice that Jianne had started running off into the distance again, waving back at him as she ran. He smirked at her, shaking his head before bursting off after her once again.

Confessional

"Am I a little too competitive?" Jianne asked herself, scratching her chin in thought for a moment before smiling and waving off the camera, "Nah, definitely not. Some people just can't handle the Winthrop style!"

Confessional End

Anne skipped along the field, giggling to herself as she bounced around, albeit no one was around for her to annoy- er, "entertain" with her jokes and puns. She looked around, trying to see if there was anyone that was lingering nearby, and that was when she noticed Nicolás, still soaked in ink and trudging around slowly. Of course, being the person she was, she couldn't just let him wander on his on, and she hopped on over to him, startling him as she popped in front of him, causing him to scream and fall onto his rear.

"Oop, sorry, buddy!" she giggled as she took hold of his hand, pulling him back up to his feet, "Didn't mean to spook you that much! What're you doing running all by your lonesome? Isn't that like super boring?"

"A-ah...well," the boy rubbed the back of his head, glancing off to the side, "I'm not as fast as most of the others...s-so they all kinda went on ahead without me, you know. Can't really say I blame them, though...I don't wanna drag anyone down or anything."

"Man, that's all a bunch of depressing hoohah! Don't put yourself down like that, you just need to crack a joke here or there and watch everyone smile and laugh from it!"

"Er...I dunno about that. That kinda seems like more of something that you would do...I don't really think I have a knack for comedy."

"Man, it's easy! You just gotta wait for the right timing and then-"

"Woah, woah, woah!" a second girl's voice erupted from behind the two, the aggressiveness being that which could only belong to one person.

The two turned to see that Crustacean was storming towards them, her blue lobster friend perched on top of her head. The gleeful smile on Anne's face soon faded as she grabbed Nicolás by the ear, pulling him away from her.

"Ow, ow, ow!" the nerdy boy yelped as he was tugged away, desperately trying to free himself from her clutches. "W-what gives?"

"What do you think you're doing, talking to the enemy like that!?" the irritable girl aggressively whispered to him, crossing her arms as she finally let his poor ear lobe be free.

"The enemy?"

Nicolás looked back over at Anne, who smiled and waved back at him before he turned his attention back to Crustacean, who was tapping her foot on the grass, clearly getting more agitated with him by the second.

"Yes, the enemy! Anne is on the other team, dude! You can't just be all friendly with her out of nowhere, it's gonna make things too complicated! Besides, she could sabotage you at any moment, and you wouldn't know what hit you! So, I just saved your butt."

"I really don't think she would do something like that...I mean...it's just Anne. Isn't she just kinda a goofball? Why would she want to-"

"It's not about why she would want to, it's about why she would need to! Clearly her team would get the upper hand if you let her sabotage you and you lost the challenge for us! But you know...if you wanna be the first one out, I suppose that's up to you."

With that, Crustacean continued along down the field, leaving Nicolás and Anne behind, the latter of which quickly skipped over to him to see what had happened. He didn't even notice her at first as he looked down at the ground, completely zoned out, until she snapped in his face.

"A-ah!"

"You good there?" she asked him with a slight chuckle, "It seemed like ol' Crusty was giving you the works there, totally bogus. Anyways, about that joke stuff-"

"I...I gotta go," Nicolás cut Anne off, running along ahead and leaving her behind with a puzzled, yet sad look on her face.

Confessional

"Some of these people really need to step up their game, I swear," Crustacean pet her lobster, which was sitting on her lap, still as could be, "I can't really be the only person who's taking this thing seriously, right? It's no wonder I got voted out so early last season...everyone knows how much of a threat I am!"

"Crustacean really isn't the nicest person around," Nicolás mumbled as he twiddled his thumbs, looking quite down at what had occurred before, "But...she might be right about Anne. I wouldn't have ever guessed that on my own...but having her point that possibility out really...made sense. I hate to just ignore her friendliness, but..."

Confessional End

The race was getting quite close to its end at this point, with much of the group being most of the way across the field, but it wasn't really clear who the winner would be from this point, as chaos was still ensuing. Alexis was running along by herself, many of the other contestants having stuck away from her after what she did to Flint, but something tingled in her head, letting her know that someone was getting quite close to her. She glanced back for a moment to see Flint himself running to catch up with her, still absolutely drenched with ink. She giggled slightly as he caught up to her, running alongside him with a smile on her face.

"You look really goofy right now, you know that?" she teased him as she giggled, causing him to blush in response, his rosy cheeks permeating the dark ink.

"A-ah, heheh, I mean if you want me to look goofy, then I'll gladly look goofy," he replied nervously, only getting a chuckle in response, "Everyone was getting pretty heated earlier, eh? About the whole squid thing before the challenge, I mean."

"Oh, yeah...that. Look, I'm really sorry about all that, you have to believe me, though, I really didn't mean for that to happen. I don't know what I was thinking when I sent you ahead, I should've done it myself. Stupid, Alexis, stupid!"

"Aw, come on now, don't be so hard on yourself! I'm sure you didn't want that would happen, I know you would never do something like that on purpose."

"I guess it's nice to know that there is at least one person who understands...thanks, Flint."

"Eh, no problem."

The two continued to run for a bit, noting how close they were coming to the tents at the end of the field. Flint snickered, causing Alexis to glance over at him in wonder. Upon noticing her, he shook his head a little.

"You know, it's funny that we're both running together in this challenge. I mean, we are on different teams, after all. I should be trying to get there before you, but here I am, floating back with you. I guess it just goes to show what kind of gravity you got on me."

"Haha, very funny. You know, if you keep focusing on being obsessed with girls, you're gonna get yourself in trouble."

"Eh, I think I can handle myself just fine. I'd be more worried about yourself, what with that target you put on your back as a mean girl."

"Yeah, whatever. I'll just prove to everyone that-"

Alexis suddenly stopped speaking, noticing that Flint was about to step on a squid, one which had just opened its eye. Without giving it a second thought, she shoved him out of the way, causing him to stumble and fall face first onto an entirely different squid, one which immediately shot ink up his nose, causing him to vomit out a bunch more of it. She covered her mouth, shocked at what had happened, but when she went to help him up, he ran away from her, terrified.

"Flint, wait!" she called after him, trying to pick up the pace, though her running speed was no match for his.

Gretchen ran up alongside her, shaking her head at her disappointedly as she passed her by, causing her to look down at the ground, embarrassed and ashamed of what she had accidentally done in trying to help him out.

"I don't know why you keep going after him," the rockstar mentioned, sounding pretty annoyed with the "attacks" Alexis had been doing to Flint, "But it seems to me that's a great way to lose your closest friend. Dude's literally running away from you now, it's kinda messed up."

"I didn't mean to! It was an accident!"

"Sure, maybe...but it's happened twice already. That really doesn't look good for you."

Confessional

"Ah, what is wrong with me today!?" Alexis shouted as he slammed her head against the wall in anger, "Why do I keep getting Flint hurt!?"

"I know Alexis is a nice person and all," Gretchen noted while she relaxed on the bucket, tuning her guitar, "But it's hard to believe something is an accident when it's happened twice already. Though, if it really was, I'm sure people will believe her eventually. I guess we'll have to wait and see, huh?"

Confessional End

Alex had been at the head of the group for some time, with some exceptionally fast and athletic competitors bounding a little bit ahead of him, namely Thomas and Dusty. As he ran and dodged squids left and right, Taylor ran up on him, holding her stereo up on her shoulder and blasting loud rock music from it. He glanced over at her, cocking his eyebrow at her in confusion, but then, upon looking down, he noticed that the loud music was startling the squids, and they were scurrying away as quickly as they could.

"Crikey, Taylor!" the boy spoke out to her, though he was huffing quite a bit from all the running, "Ah didn't even think about using something like music to help get rid of these buggers, that's awful clever of ya!"

"Ey, you think so?" Taylor replied with a smug smirk on her face, being happy to receive the compliment, "Well, these dinky squiddies just don't know how to party like a rockstar, they're scared of the adrenaline! I'd love to see them squirm away from my motorcycle!"

That comment didn't sit well with Alex, whose happy glance quickly shifted to a more upset one in an instant.

"Well, Ah don't think that's a very cool thing to do, scaring 'em with a motorcycle. You might accidentally run one over, aren't ya a little worried about that?"

"Psh, it's just a stinky squid. I don't see any problem with hitting one or two with the bike. Maybe it'll get them to move out of the way, instead of blocking my path to victory."

"But that's...that's just horrible, mate! They're just harmless little squids, they didn't do anything to you, did they?"

"Am I hearing the cries of someone being oversensitive?" Taylor rolled her eyes at him, "Lighten up, Alex. It's not like I'm attacking someone's kid or something, so there should be no problem. You don't seriously wanna start shit with me on day one now, do you?"

"Well, if you're gonna be a brute to these innocent creatures, then Ah'll leave it up to mahself to protect 'em from you."

"Oho, you're picking the wrong girl to be enemies with! I'll show you what for, nature boy!"

"Bring it on!"

The two found themselves butting heads and gritting their teeth at each other as they ran, Taylor's rock music still blasting loudly and scaring off all the squids. After a moment, they finally broke away from each other, both bearing an annoyed look on their faces as they kept on going down the path. Alex, of course, ended up going down a way that was still well populated with more of the squids, though they didn't seem to cause him issues. In fact, they trailed along behind him, treating him as if he were some guardian of sorts to them.

"Ya buggers sure didn't like that music, didn't ya?" he asked as he looked down at them, noticing their gorgeous coloration, now that they weren't camouflaged anymore. "You know, the lot of ya are right pretty when you're not pretending to be grass. It's a true shame that Chris's got you in here as toys for this game...but don't you worry, Ah'll get you all back to your homes outside of this bubble when this is over, alright?"

The squids obviously couldn't speak back to the boy, but they bubbled up with excitement, causing him to smile down at them, happy that he was able to give them some hope of returning home.

Confessional

"Chris and animals don't go so well together, that much I've noticed," Alex mentioned as he carved a picture of a squid into the confessional wall, "But that doesn't worry me one bit, cause there isn't a chance Ah'll let him do anything horrible to these little fellas! Ah'll get them free soon enough...just thinking about it's got me all excited!"

"People like Alex can really be weenies sometimes, right?" Taylor shrugged it off, soon sighing as she thought about it more, "Here I am, getting more rivals on day one of the competition. Maybe I'm just a magnet for this kinda thing. Well, whatever it is, there's no chance I'll let it get me out of the game so early this time around!"

Confessional End

Poseidon and Amphitrite stood at the end of the field, right in front of the tents, looking out at the contestants as they ran towards them. The two that caught Poseidon's gaze, Dusty and Thomas, were neck and neck, as far as distance from the end of the course went. Each of them would manage to pull ahead of the other, if only for a moment, before ultimately being passed by the other. They both had on their game faces, and were staring at each other with competitive eyes.

"S-sir!" Amphitrite spoke up sheepishly, her face as red as a ripe apple, "Those two seem to be right next to each other...who do you think is gonna pull through the finish line first?"

"It truly could be either of them, my dear assistant!" Poseidon answered in his overly friendly voice, patting the woman on the shoulder and causing her to fall to the ground from being flustered. "Oh dear, are you alright?"

"Just perfect!"

She pulled herself back up to her feet, though she wobbled a little when she stood, still quite a bit flustered about his touch. Thomas was in the lead, but then Dusty snatched it from him, then Thomas again! The two kept coming so close to each other, but the finish line was so close at this point, one of them was going to pass first, no matter what. As they crawled up on it, just about to pass it...they were suddenly shoved aside by a frantic Flint, who had still been running away from Alexis after she accidentally got him inked again. The other two finally passed the finish line, both huffing and puffing as they stopped running, but they soon glared over at Flint.

"I can't believe ya beat me in another race!" Dusty whined to the boy who was pretty much entirely ink at this point, "I'd really been trying hard to get better at this, but ya still take the cake when it comes to runnin'."

"Oh, it does make me feel oh so giddy to have another thing ruined for my by you, Flint," Thomas spoke in a sadistic tone, not blinking as he stared the boy down, "You know, you really do deserve something special for being such an immaculate thorn in my side."

After only a few seconds, more and more contestants started to pour over the finish line, one by one. Jianne and Archie came first, both frowning upon seeing that others had beat them to the end of it. Then, there was Amelia, who wore a cocky smile on her face, at least until Benjamin and Damien passed the line, the former of the two boys crashing into her and knocking her to the ground on accident, causing his pal to stifle a chuckle. Taylor and Alex came through next, both surprised that they had been passed by so many people, but rather than question it, they immediately went back to being angry at each other for the incident earlier. Natt came across next, skidding to a halt and turning around just in time to catch Anne, who tried to surprise attack him with a jumping hug. She giggled, and he pulled her in for a kiss, though they were both shoved aside by Crustacean, who was just as annoyed at Natt as she was at Nicolás for interacting with Anne.

The number of contestants across the finish line kept growing and growing, it had reached a considerable amount at this point, and the rest of the runners were just now coming through. Zach managed to get ahead of the rest of the group, falling into the grass as soon as he was done running, noticing Amelia faceplanted next to him and grinning a cocky grin at her. March then came through, crossing her arms and closing her eyes while Luna followed after her, trying to get her attention, to no avail. Nicolás finally made it through to the end, his face still covered in ink at that point. Then, there came Alexis, who was immediately rewarded a series of hurtful glances from some of the others.

"Guys, come on, I really didn't mean to hurt him," she pleaded, though it seemed to be to no avail, as Flint had literally hidden himself behind Thomas' back to avoid her.

"Wow, that's how you know you've messed up," Thomas chuckled, though he quickly grabbed the boy by the collar of his shirt and pulled him off of his feet, "But don't get to thinking you're safe around me, capiche?"

"Y-y-yes sir!" Flint nodded frantically until he was thrown back down to his feet.

"Look!" Jianne shouted over the excitement, pointing back towards the field, "There's only three of them left!"

Sure enough, there were only three contestants left on the field, and the heat was on. Tony and Liz ran alongside each other, both of them going their full speed ahead while Vicente ran nearby them, trying to pick up his pace for his team.

"Come on, Vicente!" Dusty shouted out to the boy, gaining his attention quickly, "Ya can do it! Beat those suckers!"

As if suddenly invigorated out of nowhere, Vicente started running much faster than before, passing the couple by just in time to be the first of the three over the finish line, securing the win for his team, and being met with a ginormous hug from Dusty.

"I just knew ya could beat them! That was awesome!"

"Ah, well, I couldn't have done it without the encouragement," Vicente chuckled awkwardly, blushing as she hugged him.

The other two then passed the finish line, Liz smacking Tony on the back of the head as they did, putting on a pouty face. He rolled his eyes, rubbing the back of his head in response, hardly noticing that the rest of his team was glaring at him at this point. And then, along came Chris and Chef, both of them on a golf cart of some sorts.

"Well, well, well!" Chris spoke out to the group, hopping off of the cart, "It seems that we have our winner. The very first challenge of the season goes to none other than...the Atomic Sharks! Cosmic Crabs, you lose, so sad."

"Does this mean we're going to have to eliminate someone tonight?" Archie asked, glaring over at the "power" couple, "I've got a person or two in mind."

"Actually...there will be no elimination for this episode!"

"What!?" the whole group snapped to their feet, bewildered by what Chris had just revealed to them.

"That's right, this challenge was just for this sweet reward," the host pulled out the rolled up paper from before, tossing it to Vicente, who caught it.

He unrolled it, allowing the other members of his team to take a glance at it along with him, though each of them were unsure of what it was exactly. Looking it up and down, it seemed to be some kind of map, but what was it a map to?

"You guys may be confused for now, but I'm sure that'll all clear up...on the next episode of Total Drama: Lost City!"

Author's Notes:

*I know a lot of people are probably going to be wondering, "When are the other stories going to kick back up?" I do not have an answer for that yet, and this will be the only one off of hiatus for now. Having some time to myself really helped me figure out the kind of direction that I wanted to take the story in, so I will be continuing to work on this one for the time being. If you wanna see anything else I am working on currently, y'all can check out Total Drama: Nuthouse, my collab fic with Grape Escape. Aside from that, please enjoy this episode and thanks for waiting for me!

*This challenge really was a lot of fun to write, and I had a great time exploring some character interactions with those who really haven't had a chance to talk to each other yet. Yep, no one is out yet, but I can't say the same for what will happen in the next episode. I hope you all enjoyed, and as always, let me know what you think!