Chris stood before a large mansion, one that was somewhat close to the busted space station. He looked up at it with a massive grin, and suddenly, the door swung open. Bonnie stood there, jittering and spasming as if she had just been struck by lightning. The host snickered as she fell to her knees, soon collapsing to the ground below her. Poseidon quickly rushed over to give her first aid, which Chris could only roll his eyes at. He turned to face Chef, who was wearing a shockproof suit and standing near an empty crate.
"Is that all of them, my dear co-host?" As always, he spoke with a tone that had a hint of anything but niceness and innocence. Chef gave him a thumbs up, not realizing that an eel seemed to be poking its head out of the crate. It bit the co-host on his rear, not successfully shocking him, but still hurting him with its teeth. He yelped and ran off into the distance, with the eel still latched onto his bum.
"Ah, I love that he's the pain magnet...anyways, last time on Total Drama: Lost City," Chris dusted his hands off as he got back to doing his iconic intro. "The two newly formed teams came to terms with the fact that they would have to be competing in their very first challenge of the season. What was the challenge, you ask? Why, none other than a race to the finish line in a minefield full of squids that were brimming with ink! Flint got his fair share of ink when Alexis tricked him into walking onto the field, just because she didn't know if it was safe. Let me tell you, it was funny to see everyone upset at her with Thomas there. Even he was confused when the little simp cowered behind him! Nicolás became a quick target of bullying from Zachary, and when Anne tried to cheer him up, mean old Crusty told him not to talk with the enemy, which he listened to...what a shame, right? Tony and Liz were bickering a whole bunch, you just love to see it. And then, I know I saw it with someone, ah! The hint of a possible relationship between Dusty and Vicente! Who knows where that'll end up going? In the end, the ever so tired Vicente managed to pull through his fatigue and secure the win for his team! The Sharks now have a hand up on the Crabs, with a map that they'll use to help them through the next challenge? What shocking surprises lay in store for our competitors? 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 on top of an unsuspecting Bonnie 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, but catching Jett instead.
"So pack your bags, cause I've already won," on the seafloor, 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 maniacally 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.
It was quite early in the morning, though, the only light around all of Atlantis came from the lighting that Poseidon had his crew build within the bubble. Both of the teams were all still asleep, at least, except for one boy. Thomas was wide awake, grinning as he stared up at the bunk above him, which, conveniently, belonged to Flint. He kept on grinning as he stared, eventually kicking the bottom of the bed, causing the boy to leap up in shock and hit the ceiling. He fell to the floor with a thud after that, waking up the other boys of the team in a flash. "What just happened?" Archie groaned as he pulled a black sleeping mask off of his face, revealing his tired eyes.
"Looks like little Flint was having a nightmare or something," Thomas got up from his bed and shrugged, walking over to the boy and pulling him up off of the floor. "I woke up early, like I usually do, and just saw him jump up and land on the floor. Guess someone was chasing you in that nightmare of yours, weren't they, Flinty boy?" He gave the boy a noogie, messing up his comb over even worse than his bed head already was.
Natt sighed and walked over to the two of them, pulling Flint away from Thomas and standing in between them. He and the assassin stared each other dead in the eyes, both with a deadpan look on their faces. Tony yawned and threw a slipper over at them, hitting them both in the head. "I love to see you too debating how much you wanna kiss each other as the next guy, but I'm gonna be pretty pissed if you do that stuff in here, you feel me?"
"Heh, nice one," Archie smirked a bit and aimed a finger gun over at the conman, who shot two back at him in response. Nicolás raised an eyebrow at Archie, noticing that the two of them were acting all buddy-buddy, which was weird, considering all the hate they had for each other last season.
Confessional
"Yeah, Tony and I used to have it out for each other something fierce, but eh...we can leave all that behind us. A great poet once said, 'A man will show you who he really is in the most dire situations.'" Archie held up a brown book in one hand, with the title "Poems of the Late John Diceman" on the cover. "He proved to me well enough that he's a good guy...but he's definitely greedy, that's for sure."
"You know, Archie has been acting a lot nicer to me and whatnot since that whole thing with Gretchen last season." Tony leaned back and grinned evilly as he spoke, typical sign of a schemer. "I think he's forgotten that we're still competing against each other for a cash prize...and that friendship has nothing to do with it. Maybe I can use this to my advantage, though. I may have found my new Ben!"
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"Y-you know, it's probably a good thing that we're all up so early." Nicolás captured everyone's attention, something he wasn't used to in the slightest. He gulped as they all looked at him, knowing they were expecting him to say something at least something interesting. "C-cause Chris would've probably woke us up in some obnoxious way and stuff...but now, we'll be awake already, and expecting him to just burst in and-" The nerdy boy was suddenly cut off by the door swinging open, revealing Chris with a pair of cymbals in his hands. He slammed them together, causing a loud noise to shatter everyone's ear drums.
"Glad to see you're all up!" He shouted loud enough so the group could hear him with their damaged ears. "I need to have all of you meet me and Chef outside in five minutes! Go ahead and slap your field trip clothes on!" He snickered before smashing the cymbals together one more time and slamming the door shut.
Confessional
"Chris really knows how to make an entrance, I'll give him that much," Flint groaned as he rubbed his sore hip. "And, I dunno if it's just me, or what...but I have a feeling that I didn't have a nightmare, and Thomas was just saying that so he could hurt me! Call it a hunch, but it just seems like something the guy would do."
Confessional End
In the Sharks' building, the lot of them were starting their walk outside. They were all trudging along tiredly, having been woken up by Chris and his accursed cymbals of doom. Gretchen groaned while she dragged her feet along the floor. Suddenly, Taylor rushed on up to her, seeming to be a lot more peppy than the rest of the group. She patted the rockstar on the back with a boastful grin, all while holding a bottle of strange liquid in her other hand. "Hey! You seem a lot less energetic than usual, why's that?"
Gretchen groaned even louder as she turned her head to face Taylor. "It's gotta be like five in the morning right now...with all the late night shows, I sleep til ten in the morning, at least. There's no way I can perform so early and-...are you drinking right now?" Taylor glanced over at the bottle in her hand, smiling nervously before tossing it behind her and causing it to break against a wall.
"Not anymore, I'm not!" The energetic girl let out a proud chuckle, though Gretchen could only roll her eyes at her. "It's become a force of habit at this point, blame my family for how I turned out, right?" She nudged her teammate, but it was obvious that she wasn't having it. "A-at least I'm pretty fun to be around, right?"
"You're something, I'll give you that. Anyways...why do you think Chris is always trying to do challenges so early in the morning? I mean, he loses nothing from doing them later in the day, so I don't see why he wouldn't just save them for then, right?" Taylor shrugged in response, before both of them were shoved aside by a furious Zachary. "Hey, what gives, Zach?"
He turned around to face the two of them, revealing that his face looked like that of an insomniac zombie. His mouth was formed into a ghastly sneer, and his eyes felt like they could burn a hole through whatever they looked through. "That guy thinks he can go and snatch up my beauty sleep from me...I'm going to destroy his career!" He slammed his fist down onto the palm of his hand, suddenly having an idea. "I know what I'll do! I'll convince the producers to swap him out with me as the new host! No one has ever tried that before! Surely it wouldn't end poorly for me!" He glanced over to the camera with a deadpan look, confusing both of the girls. Meanwhile, further back in the hall, Anne was honking her clown horn everso sadly. She let out a sigh as she honked it, and Dusty soon rushed over to answer the call of her being upset. "What's a matter there, doll?" The comedian sniffled a bit, which made her feel a bit more concerned. "Aw shucks, something's really got ya down, huh? It's alright, ya can tell Momma Dusty all 'bout it!"
"Well, I guess it's not the worst thing in the world, but I've been having this issue...with the other team. I mean, I wanna make a whole bunch of new friends, but that sour puss, Crustacean, she won't let me talk to any of them!" Anne scuffed the ground before remembering that Dusty had been friends with Crustacean...well, in the previous season at least. "Er...I mean...she just doesn't want me to hang out with them, thinks I'm trying to be evil or something! It's not fair...Natt's on that team and she doesn't even want me to talk to him."
"Aw, well that ain't right one bit, is it now?" Dusty frowned as she scratched her chin for a moment, suddenly coming up with an idea. "Ya know, why don't I have a lil' talk with that girl? I mean, me and her were pretty close for a bit, maybe she'll let me knock some sense into her! I can't stand seeing a lil' sweetie pie like yerself being all sad like this, it really hurts my heart. So, don't ya worry yerself none, just let me handle, alright?" Anne nodded up at Dusty, the two of them both smiling at each other.
Confessional
"Wow, I really never noticed just how sweet Dusty can be...it makes me wish I spent more time with her last season. I mean, making friends is always super duper fun!" Anne beamed happily before suddenly raising her finger, as if she thought of something important. She suddenly pulled out a lasso, holding it up proudly. "Guess you could say I really wrangled up a...I mean, I lassoed a...I'm not sure where I'm going with this joke…"
"Crusty has always had a bit of a 'tude to her, that's the truth." Dusty shrugged her shoulders as she shook her head. "I can handle it in small doses, but she definitely needs to know when enough is enough. I'll knock some sense into that girl, and that's a Dusty promise!"
Confessional End
The teams finally made it outside, being greeted by Chris and Chef, of course, as well as Bonnie, who immediately rushed over to Benjamin and started grabbing at his bicep with her twitchy hands. Damien and his pal exchanged a confused look as they watched her jitter about, still recovering from the shock that she was dealt earlier. "W-wow, Benjamin! You sure do have- krrt- rippling muscles! I bet you work- krrt- out a whole bunch! Probably at least once a- krrt- day!" She could feel her mouth watering as she ogled the boy, though he soon raised his hand, in turn, holding her up by his arm.
"Uh, Chris?" Benjamin pointed up to his raised hand, waiting for the host to call on him. Chris only stared blankly for a moment, watching as Bonnie clung onto his arm and jittered about. Eventually, he pointed at him, causing him to set her back down on the ground as he brought his hand down. "What happened to Miss Grapes? She seems way weirder than usual...did she get her foot run over by a bus? That one always got me acting weird."
Chris and Chef blinked a few times at what the boy had said. At first, they weren't sure if he was joking or not, but then again, it was Benjamin, he wouldn't joke about something like that. "Um, no...she didn't have her foot run over by a bus. She did, however, have to help set up today's challenge! I know, you were probably all enjoying not having to worry about competing in the show for the past few days, but we gotta get the ball rollin' and one of you folks needs to say so long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, goodbye!"
"Love the references, McLean." Amelia spoke dryly, bringing forth an annoyed look on Chris's face. "They definitely make you a more likeable and endearing host, that's for certain."
"Anyway, before I was so rudely interrupted by one of tv's fallen stars," the host jabbed back at Amelia, who gritted her teeth at him. "If you look to the right, you'll notice a large mansion, just past the former space station! Your challenge is gonna be in there, of course! You're looking for one thing, and one thing only: the other exit! This challenge really is pretty straightforward, just go in through the front door, fumble around a bit, get zapped by dozens of high voltage electric eels, and get your team out through the exit!"
"Woah, woah, woah, slow your roll there, Chris! If mah ears don't deceive me, you just said something about a bunch of eels!" Alex shuddered for a moment as he thought about the things. "Now, you know ah love animals and all that, but those guys get real riled up if you mess with 'em."
"Exactly the point! They're definitely angry, and that's something we just love about them! Now, Sharks, do you all still have the map that I gave you during the last challenge?"
"Yup!" Alexis grinned as she pulled the rolled up map out of her pocket, holding it up for all to see. "Got it right here!" Suddenly, Jianne snatched it out of her hands, using it to bonk her on the head, as if she was a misbehaving dog. "Hey, what gives?"
"You aren't allowed to hold onto the map! For all we know, you'll use it to attack Flint in his sleep!" Jianne crossed her arms at the girl, who could only look down at the ground sadly. "Dude's already gotta worry about Thomas breathing down his neck constantly, he doesn't need you adding to the stress."
"Oh, I do love that there are already heaps of drama going on." Chris applauded the group before clearing his throat. "But it's a good thing that you still have the map...because it's actually the floor plans for the mansion! Yup, every single room in the place is on there somewhere...oh! But there is one little thing missing! If you look at it, you'll notice that the exit is not included on it at all!"
The Sharks gasped as they huddled up to look over the map, realizing that he was right. There was the entrance door, but aside from that, no other exit was on the whole map. "What's the point of us even having the map, then?" Vicente asked, his arms crossed while he glared at the host. "So much for a reward…"
"The point is that you know where all the dead ends in the building are, duh!" Chris shook his head at them, rubbing his brow with his hand. "I swear, you guys can be so ungrateful sometimes. You'll know which rooms you can't exit, you'll know where all the staircases are, I mean, come one, people! The Crabs are gonna be totally lost in the shock while you'll at least have some sort of idea!"
"Well, maybe we would have the luxury of a map if it weren't for two nincompoops on our team." Luna glared over at Tony and Liz, the former grinning back at her while the latter just rolled her eyes. March, who was standing right next to her girlfriend, could only sigh as she made yet another nasty remark. "Whatever, I'm sure we'll do just fine without a stupid map, right team?"
"Oh, I'm sure with that brain of yours we'll be able to do anything." Crustacean spat her rude words over at Luna, who growled back at her. Chris could only chuckle at the sight of the dysfunctional team getting into it yet again.
"Well, before the Crabs start killing each other, let's head on over to the starting line shall we? Who would've thought that the assassin isn't even the most problematic member of your team?" The host laughed even louder before turning to walk towards the mansion, with the teams, and Bonnie, following him close behind.
Confessional
March kicked her feet lightly as she sat down, letting out a long sigh. It was almost as if she refused to look directly at the camera. "I don't really like how nasty Luna has been lately...I mean, maybe that's just her personality, I don't know. I guess I was kind of blinded by her feeling like crap last season." She sighed again, slowly looking up to the camera. "And that was when I...urk…"
"I just love how Crustacean feels the need to show the world just how much of a bitch she is every ten seconds. I mean, she isn't pretty, she isn't sweet, she's just an all around loser." Luna snickered to herself for a moment. "At least with Thomas he's decently handsome and kind of personable...am I really complimenting that murderer, right now?"
"Benjamin is just sooooooo muscular," Bonnie was basically drooling at the thought of the boy and his massive biceps. "I mean, have you seen him!? He's a hunk!"
"I'm not sure why, but I have this feeling that the grape lady really wants to be my friend or something." Benjamin shrugged before scratching his chin in thought. "I need to see if I'm allowed to have another friend. Tony never wanted me hanging around other people because it would take away from our time as a team, I dunno. Damien is still way nicer than that guy, anyways."
Confessional End
On their way over to the mansion, Dusty rushed over to Crustacean, waving her down. The latter glanced over her shoulder, noticing her about to catch up with her, and she groaned loudly. She started to pick up her pace, going further on ahead. Dusty was a bit taken aback by this, but nonetheless, she ran faster to catch up with her. "Howdy, Crusty!" She smiled and waved over at the girl, who didn't return the same kindness.
"Do you need something? I'm kind of busy focusing on the game." Crustacean almost refused to look over at her former teammate, simply staring on at the mansion ahead.
"Er, well...I did want to talk to ya about that whole lil' scuffle with Anne ya had a while back. Ya know, telling her to keep away from yer team and all that.'' Crustacean only scoffed as she talked to her, hardly paying attention. Dusty noticed this and her eyebrow twitched a little, though she kept her cool. "Anne's kinda got that friendly nature an' everything, she ain't gonna fiddle with yer team. Ya think ya can cut her some slack and just let her make some friends?"
"Fat chance of that happening, sorry, not sorry." She shrugged her off and pushed on ahead, though Dusty didn't take kindly to that. She ran back over to her and stood right in front of her. "Oh my God, what do you want!? Did I not answer your dumb question already?"
"What is yer problem, girl? Why are ya being so nasty to everybody? I get it, ya got eliminated last season because someone cheated ya out of the game, but that was just Tony, not the rest of us! It's like yer just being mean for the sake of being mean and nothin' else bout it!"
"I'm being mean because it let's me focus on how to not get eliminated this time around! I made the mistake of trying to be open with just one person last season, and look where that got me! So excuse me if I don't care much for being friends with you guys anymore."
"Well, ya don't have to take that out on every member of yer team, they all have their own minds. If they wanna be friends with someone on the other team, that's their choice, not yers!" Dusty groaned and shook her head at the girl. "This is like talking to an angry bull, ya just don't wanna listen to reason!"
"Bold of you to assume you're the voice of reason here, you're just an obnoxiously loud cowgirl who doesn't know how to give anybody their personal space. Not to mention the fact that the only thing you're known for outside of this is having a model as your mom." Dusty gritted her teeth at that comment, to which Crustacean smiled. "Oh, did that strike a nerve? Maybe you know how angry I was when you guys all backstabbed me!"
Dusty slapped Crustacean across the face, catching the attention of the rest of both teams. The one who had been hit rubbed her cheek before glaring over at Dusty to notice that there were tears streaming down her angry face. "W-well, if that's how ya wanna be, fine, be that way." She stormed off back to her own team, leaving the rest of the Crabs to stare at Crustacean in disbelief.
"What are you looking at? This ain't a scene for you guys to watch like a movie, keep walking!"
Confessional
"You know, I have my own issues with Dusty and everything, but Crustacean really laying into her like that was something." Liz tapped her chin as she thought about the scuffle. "I don't know if having somebody that rude on our team will prove very fruitful to our work as a team. Then again, I'm not exactly a sugar cube myself."
Crustacean had her arms crossed as she sat in the confessional, glancing over at the camera after a while. "What? I said what I said, and I meant it. She has no business in other people's devices, and she should know that. If you think I was being rude, you just have no common sense. What? Being a hypocrite? I most certainly am not!"
Confessional End
Finally, everybody made it over to the front door of the mansion. Chris stood next to the entrance way, looking down at his watch while the teams waited for his signal. "And the challenge starts...now!" As soon as he said that last word, the lot of them started to rush in through the door. Bonnie was tailing behind Benjamin, trying to sneak in with him, but Chris stopped her with his forearm. She tried to squirm away to get inside, but he quickly slammed the door shut when the rest of the teams made it inside. "Nope, can't let you go in there, missy."
"Why not?" Bonnie crossed her arms and stood back a bit. "I just wanna ogle some boys, it's my God given right to do that!"
"Be that as it may, I can't let you in there because you know where the exit is! You would definitely lead Benjamin to it, and then there would be no point to this challenge, would there?" He patted the scrawny girl on the head, whistling as he started walking back over to where Chef was. "You can just go wait out back for them to make their way through, alright? And whatever you do, don't open that door!"
"Fine, I won't open the door." Bonnie scuffed the ground before starting towards the exit door on the back of the building, grumbling to herself. "Stupid Chris and his stupid rules, this is ridiculous! I should be allowed to ogle boys at all times, and frankly, this seems like discrimination."
Inside the hotel, things were quiet. The two teams had already split and gone to search separate ways, with Jianne still holding onto the map for the Sharks. She kept her eyes on it as they wandered down one of the dark corridors. "Let's see here...it looks like this hallway has four other rooms it splits off into. In one of the rooms, there is a staircase that leads down a floor. Two of the rooms just lead to other rooms, and the last room doesn't say it leads to anything at all. I say we should take the room with the staircase." She smiled proudly, looking around the hall to find the door. "There it is!"
"Hang on just a minute," Damien interrupted her before she could lead the team to the room. "Shouldn't we at least check the fourth room to make sure the exit isn't in there? I mean, if it's a dead end anyways, it can't hurt to check it."
Jianne gritted her teeth at the boy and rolled the map up again, tucking it back into her pocket. "Are you trying to say you have an issue with my leadership?"
"What? No, I'm just saying we should check all of the rooms before deciding on which one to go through…"
"Well, Mister I Can Do It Better Than You, if you want to go that way, then that's fine with me! Anybody who wants to follow Damien, have fun not finding the exit. Everybody who has a strand of common sense, you can come with me!"
"I really don't think splitting up is a great-" Damien was cut off by Jianne covering his mouth with her hand. He rolled his eyes at her while she walked back over to the door that lead to the staircase. The rest of the team shared some worried glances before splitting off. Benjamin, Vicente, and Dusty all stayed with Damien while the others went to join Jianne, who still had the map. "Well, that could've gone better...alright, this is fine! We can find our way out of this place without the map!"
"I hope you're right man," Vicente patted him on the shoulder. "I mean, if you aren't, and we just lost our only access to the map…"
"It's fine, it's fine!" Damien started towards the end of the hall, stopping right before the door to the fourth room. "All we need to do is look really hard! I'm sure we can avoid the eels and get out of here in no time!" He pulled the door open, looking inside and feeling his jaw drop almost instantly. The other three rushed over to see what had astounded him so much, only to see another door in the room with an exit sign right above it.
"Wowee, ya went and found the way out already!" Dusty ruffled his hair up with a noogie before pulling the exit door open. "Well, guess we're all done then! Just need to wait for the rest of 'em."
"As much as I would love to not have to look through this maze of a mansion anymore, we really should go back and get the others. We can't start off the season with the first elimination, that's no good…" Damien sighed as he started back towards the door that led to the staircase. "Sorry guys, I just can't leave them out there on a good conscience."
"Hey, no worries." Vicente smiled, patting him on the back as he followed along with him. "Better for us to all make it out together, anyways. I'm sure the Crabs are gonna be taking their sweet time with this challenge, anyways."
"Yeah, I'm willing to bet those sourpusses up and got themselves stung by a bunch of eels already!" Dusty joined the two of them, seeming to be a lot more cheery than she had been before. "With the four of us lookin' for them fellers, we're sure to find 'em in no time!"
"Uh, guys?" Benjamin called over to his teammates, revealing that he was being dragged out through the exit door by Bonnie. "I guess I'm going this way now...so I'll see you all later!" The door slammed shut after he was pulled through, and the three members of the search party could only shrug it off before starting after the rest of their team.
Confessional
"I don't know why she had to up and make this a competition, we're on the same team." Damien let out a sigh, thinking about Jianne and her adamance. "I mean, she's a good leader and all, but man...she can just be really in her ways sometimes."
Bonnie sat in Benjamin's lap, stroking his cheek with her hand before looking over at the camera and hissing at it.
Confessional End
While the Sharks had split up, the Crabs still stayed together, but their team had anything but unity. As they wandered through the halls, Thomas noticed some eels hiding over by the walls. He smirked as a devious idea came to mind, "Hey, Flint!" After he called Flint, he slowly started to come over to him, gulping nervously as he stood next to him. "I found something really cool that you might like to see!"
"R-really?" Flint nervously asked, twiddling his fingers. "W-what is it?" Thomas grinned down at him, grabbing him by the hood on his sweatshirt and flipping him over into the eels on the wall, causing them to zap him a good deal. Natt groaned before rushing over to pull the boy out of the eel pile, setting him off to the side, where he jittered a whole bunch.
"You've got some serious issues, dude. You need to stop beating up on Flint if you want to stay in this team." With each word he spoke, Natt poked Thomas in the chest with his finger, only bringing along a smirk from the assassin himself. "I don't get why you're taking this so lightly, too."
"Oh, forgive me, I forgot that he totally isn't the reason I got humiliated in front of the world and fired by my agency. Is that not enough reason for me to want to get a little bit of payback on the boy?" Thomas shook his head at Natt and Flint.
"Considering that you broke a lot of his bones during the last season, I would consider your payback more than obtained already. Just lay off the guy, and maybe we'll let you stick around with us."
"Um, gu-krrt-ys?" Flint called the attention of the two boys, though he was a bit hard to understand through his constant jittering. They glanced over, and when they did, he pointed down the hall, revealing that the rest of their team had already gone on ahead, and were completely out of sight. Natt and Thomas gasped at the sight, both of them soon running ahead, the former grabbing Flint by the arm and pulling him along with him.
Confessional
"This is what I get for letting myself get distracted with Thomas and his antics." Natt let out a very, very long sigh. He slouched down in his seat as he sighed, looking incredibly tired of this nonsense. "I swear, I'm gonna be thinking about him and Flint in my dreams if things keep going on like this. Wait a minute...can we edit that last bit out?"
"I really don't see why it's such a big deal," Thomas shrugged his shoulders as he tossed a rock back and forth from hand to hand, eventually squeezing down on it and crushing it into a dust. "I mean, people form rivalries on this show all the time. What's so wrong with me being a bit violent with the guy? You've all seen the permanent mark he left on my face, right?" He leaned forward to show a scar on the right side of his face, from where Flint had struck him with the plank. "So, yeah. I don't particularly feel bad about messing with him."
Confessional End
Further down the path from where the boys were, the rest of the Crabs had found themselves at a dead end. Luna groaned as she stared at the wall with no doors, soon turning to face her team. "Whose idea was it to go down this dumb path?" The lot of them stayed completely silent, just staring back at her while she went off. "I swear, whoever it was better speak up, because this is such a giant time waster!" As she waited for an answer from anyone, March slowly stepped forward, her arms crossed as she looked at her girlfriend.
"It was my idea, thank you very much. I can't believe you would get so worked up over one dead end, I mean, come on! We were bound to hit one at some point!" March started laying into Luna, and the rest of the team backed off to let them have their argument, all except Amelia, who was simply giggling with glee.
"W-well, I didn't know it was you who said we should go this way! If I knew that, I wouldn't have been so upset about it."
"What does it matter who it was? What if it was you that told us to go this way, huh? I bet it'd suck pretty bad for you when someone else started yelling at you about how 'stupid' you are! Ugh!" March turned around, her arms still crossed. "I can't stand you when you get like this, you're such a pain sometimes!"
"How am I a pain?" Luna walked towards March, anger now in her own face. "At least I'm upfront about the kind of person I am! Unlike you, who plays all innocent and then goes and does something horrible behind other people's backs!"
"If you don't recall, you were a part of that horrible thing, Luna. It was your fault as much as it was mine."
"Sure, go and blame me! You and I both know that I was just sitting there with my makeup running down my face, you're the one who kissed me! I didn't even do anything! And you know what? At least I apologized to Damien! What did you do? Avoided him for as long as you could? So, tell me again, how exactly it's my fault that you did that."
"You…!" March turned to face Luna again, tears in her eyes. "You know that it was really hard for me to even think about talking to him, I told you that! And he and I really weren't even dating yet, so it really shouldn't be that much of an issue to begin with!"
"Would you be saying that if he did it to you?"
"H-huh?"
"If Damien went and kissed some other girl after you two decided you were going to go out, would you brush it off as no big deal?" March slowly looked down at the ground, having no words to say. "That's what I thought." Luna brushed past March and started to walk back to her team, until the latter suddenly grabbed her by the arm. "What?"
"...We're done." March uttered the two words, and it was followed by complete silence all around. Luna took a moment to register what she had just said before the tears started coming to her own eyes. March let go of her arm, slouching down and staring at the floor as she walked back over to the others.
"Fine, whatever," Luna sniffled as she spoke her words, wiping some of her tears with her sleeve. "If you want to be that way, be that way...but all I did was let you know about something messed up that you just completely ignored. I don't need you anyways! I already feel better without you!" Despite her confident words, Luna was still teary-eyed. The bulk of the team just sat in awkward silence while Amelia rushed over to Luna, patting her on the back.
"There, there you did the right thing." Amelia smiled down at Luna as she tried to cheer her up. "If she doesn't want to come to terms with her mistakes, that's all on her, not you. Don't beat yourself up too much about it." Luna glanced up at her, still miserable about the whole scene. Suddenly, the tears came streaming down her face and she started sobbing loudly before pulling Amelia in for a hug and burying her face in her bosom. "W-woah!" She wasn't used to anything like this, but it sort of felt right for her to embrace the girl back.
Confessional
"I do love watching the drama of these shows unfold oh so much, but this was quite the unique case. Aside from acting, I've never really had to deal with something like this first hand. And the second that Luna hugged me...I don't know, I felt very strange." Amelia looked down at her own hands, almost confused about something. "It's probably nothing, it just feels off."
Confessional End
Jianne was still leading the sharks down the halls of the mansion, but at this point, a lot of them were growing tired with her. Alexis approached her, gently tapping her on the shoulder to get her attention. "I really just wanna see the map for like a second, Flint isn't even around! I promise, I'll give it right back to you!" She started reaching forward to grab the map, though her hand was swiftly swatted away by its holder. "Ow!"
"We all came to the agreement that you wouldn't be allowed to hold onto anything important, because if you did it, you would screw things up and get someone hurt. Didn't we, team?" Jianne pointed over at the other five members of the team that were with them, getting a set of "yeah"s and "mhm"s back from them. "See? Now, just follow my lead and keep your trap shut." Jianne turned to keep heading on forward, but suddenly, Alexis grabbed at the map, trying to tug it out of her hands. "Hey, hands off!"
"No way, your leadership sucks!" Alexis grunted as she pulled on the map, though Jianned pulled back just as hard, if not harder. "I just wanna see it for a little bit so I can assess everything, you're just skimming through!"
"You can't have it, you're gonna soil it with your evil hands!"
"That's literally not even possible! Just let me see it!"
"No!" The two of them growled at each other as they tugged on the map, soon hearing a loud rip noise. Both of their eyes widened as they glanced down to see that they had split the map in half entirely. Jianne held up her half, quickly snatching the other half away from Alexis. "See, look what you went and did!"
"Me!? Oh no, you aren't blaming this on me, that was all your fault! You were being so stingy with the map!" The girls kept yapping at each other while their team watched them, all five of them growing tired of it. Taylor sighed as she put a pair of field gloves on, soon grabbing two of the eels, one in each hand, which she used to slap the girls across the face, shocking them something fierce.
"Would you two knock it off already?" She groaned at them, clearly annoyed with their bickering. "The map is already ripped, yelling at each other about whose fault it was isn't going to get us any further."
"Ah can't say Ah much appreciate the way you just grabbed those poor critters and used them as weapons. They've got a life and feelings as much as you and Ah do, you know!" Alex crossed his arms as he glared over at Taylor, who glared back at him as she set the eels down, letting them squirm away.
"Are you a member of PETA or something?" Zachary nudged Alex with his elbow, his face still looking dreadfully tired. "You seem like you would fit in quite nice with that bunch. Afterall, it's full of people who preach justice for animals and complain about others but don't actually do anything about it."
"Ooh, that was a sick burn." Anne pulled out a small horn, playing a sad tune with it briefly before putting it back away again. Gretchen looked over at her with a raised eyebrow.
"I don't think I will ever understand how you have all of those things with you at all times, but you know what? Props to you." The rockstar grinned as she attempted a pun, and Anne applauded her for the attempt.
"Well done, well done! It's nice to see somebody else around here make an attempt at comedy."
Damien, Dusty, and Vicente finally caught up with the gang, noticing all the chaos that was going on when they arrived. Jianne and Alexis were still going off at each other while Zachary, Alex, and Taylor were bickering about animals and the like. Then, there was Anne and Gretchen, the former of which kept pulling out different props to show to the latter, who was simply staring in awe. "Uh...guys?" Damien weakly spoke up among the noise, being ignored by pretty much everybody around.
Dusty shook her head and let out a sigh before putting her fingers to her lips and whistling extremely loud at the team, getting them all to look over at them. "Well, that worked out mighty fine, didn't it? We done found the exit while y'all were up here having yer little spats amongst yerselves."
"You guys found the exit? Without the map?" Jianne couldn't help but feel a little stupid when Dusty revealed that bit. "W-where was it?"
"You know, it's actually the funniest thing. It was in that fourth room that Damien said we should check out earlier! Isn't that just hilarious, Jianne?" Vicente glared over at her, letting her know just how badly she messed up. Soon enough, all eyes were on her and she could only glance away, full of embarrassment.
"Now, let's not make a big deal about this, okay?" Damien looked around between the rest of the team, "We're all back together again, right? That's all that really matters here. We'll make our way back to the exit together, and we can still beat the other team!"
"Um, I do have just one question, Damien. I see you, Dusty, and Vicente, but where on Earth is Benjamin? He was with you, right?" Gretchen posed the question for the boy, a few of the others mumbling as they were also confused by his disappearance.
"Well…" Damien thought about how Bonnie dragged the boy out through the exit and slammed it shut. "L-let's just say that he already made his way out, whether he wanted to or not."
Confessional
"Ugh, I can't believe I made a fool of myself like that in front of everybody on my team. Now how am I supposed to get them to follow my lead in challenges? They're all gonna treat me like I don't know what I'm talking about!" Jianne groaned before kicking the door of the confessional. "It's all stupid Alexis' fault! She just had to go and rip up the map!"
From outside of the confessional, Alexis' voice spoke up. "You realize I can hear you, right?"
"Oh, buzz off!"
Confessional End
As Flint, Thomas, and Natt kept walking through the maze like halls together, they found themselves unable to find the rest of their team, despite how hard they tried. Each room they went past seemed to be a dead end, and each hall seemed to stretch on forever. "I seriously can't believe you got us left behind like this." Natt spat his annoyance out at Thomas, who still didn't seem to care in the slightest. "We're going to lose this challenge now, and it's all your fault."
"Oh, cry me a river about it. Do you seriously think that any of our other teammates will find the way out?" The assassin crossed his arms as he raise an eyebrow to Natt, who could still only roll his eyes back at him. "We'll honestly be lucky if all eight of them even live through this. I'm willing to bet Nicolás is gonna get himself killed by those eels. Who are you guys betting on?"
"We're not placing bets on which of our teammates is going to die!"
"Maybe Tony," Flint interrupted Natt who glared over at him. "What? I mean, he's a pretty big guy, he'll probably not fit through some of the halls. Don't judge me, we were all thinking it!" Thomas let out an obnoxious laugh while Natt sighed, before suddenly perking up when he heard something in the distance. He ran over to the end of the hall, turning the corner to see the Sharks, who were all walking together again, except for Benjamin of course. Thomas and Flint walked over to join him, seeing the others as well. "Woah! We could totally follow those guys to the exit!"
"Wow, really?" Thomas applauded the boy with a fake smile. "I never would've thought about doing that! Gee, you sure are smart, Flint!" He patted him on the head, soon starting to creep after the other team with Natt and Flint soon following behind.
Meanwhile, the rest of the sharks were still mostly in an awkward silence as they kept on wandering through the halls. March stood off to one side of the group, still crying softly as she stared down at her feet, while Luna, on the other hand, was still sobbing loudly whilst clinging onto Amelia. Archie and Tony exchanged an awkward glance before the latter grinned and nudged the former. "Girls, am I right?" The poet let out a small chuckle at Tony's remark, though Liz quickly elbowed him in the hip. "Hey, uncalled for!"
"Well, maybe don't say stupid things like that and I won't have to resort to violence, love." She smirked as he shook his head at her. "Besides, as much as I hate Luna, I would really prefer to see her like this if it was because she tried something dumb and it backfired. This is just...upsetting. And mildly annoying."
"H-hey, don't say that," Nicolás weakly piped up, though when they looked over at him, he couldn't look them in the eye. "I mean, they're probably both really upset right now, we should just let them have their moment and then we'll try to work together on getting out of here from there."
"No way!" Crustacean pouted from where she stood, crossing her arms. "I'm not gonna waste our team's precious time with my problems, they shouldn't waste it with theirs! We need to figure a way out of here now if we even hope to win this challenge! You two, stop being so miserable and get your heads in the game! Who cares if you broke up? It's quite literally not our problem!" Some of the team's members gasped as they heard her words, while March glared back at her and Luna just kept on crying.
"Aw, you poor thing, don't let that mean hag make you more upset. She's not worth being upset over, she's just a big meanie pants because nobody likes her!" Amelia smirked at Crustacean as she pat Luna on the back.
"You know, I think I speak for everyone when I say that we're sick of your attitude." The team stopped walking for a moment while Archie started confronting Crustacean. She let out a loud groan in response, clearly not interested in what he had to say. "I mean, we're on a team with Tony, Liz, and Thomas, and somehow, the one who is causing all the issues for us is you. With your high and mighty attitude. You seem to forget that this is a team game, it isn't all about you."
"Of course it's a team game, but when your team is a bunch of buffoons, you need to do what you can to make sure they don't screw everything up for you." She put on a fake smile as she glanced from teammate to teammate, noticing how angry all of them were. "Oh, did you want me to try and be some kind leader who keeps the blatant truth about how much you all suck away from you? Sorry, I don't play that way. And I don't know why any of you should want to. Maybe you should all take a tip from me and just not care about getting your feelings hurt."
"I could take a tip from you on how to be a total bitch," Liz murmured, getting a snicker from Tony who then patted her on the shoulder.
"Nice one, babe."
Confessional
"She really knows how to be insufferable, doesn't she?" Archie sighed as he rubbed his forehead. "I can't believe she's got so much spite in her when nothing even that bad has happened to her. 'Oh, I got cheated out!' Yeah, that gives you a great reason to be an ass to everyone." He scoffed before shaking his head.
"Thomas is a really easy scapegoat for an elimination, but you know...he at least adds something to the team. Getting out someone who just exists as a minor annoyance...well, I don't see anything wrong with that." Liz chuckled a bit before winking at the camera.
Confessional End
Bonnie and Benjamin waited at the exit, with the former squeezing the latter tightly so he could not escape her clutches of love. "E-excuse me, Grape Lady, I'm having a really hard time breathing like this." She ignored him as she squeezed him even tighter than before, causing him to let out a strained grunt. Suddenly, the exit door swung open, and out came the rest of the Sharks, all of which were panting from all the running they had to do. Benjamin then broke free from her grasp, rushing over to give Damien a huge hug. "Hey, you did it! You got them all out here!"
"Heh, well, it was a team effort," Damien chuckled a bit. "Y-you can put me down now, you know."
"Oh, right!" Benjamin set him back down on the ground. "Sorry!" Soon enough, Thomas, Natt, and Flint rushed out through the exit, each of them panting as well. And, not after long, the rest of the Crabs came through the door, though they were all still quite disgruntled. Chris came around soon enough to see that the lot of them were all out already.
"Well, well. Bonnie, which one of the teams made it out first?" Chris asked the intern, noticing that she was already on her way back over to Benjamin.
"Huh?" She glanced over at him, hardly paying attention at all. "Oh...the Sharks did. Yeah."
"So, that means...the Atomic Sharks win the first challenge!" The Sharks started to cheer loudly after the announcement, while many of the Crabs groaned. "Cosmic Crabs, you'll be meeting me for a sweet elimination ceremony later on!"
Confessional
"This whole challenge was a huge waste of time," Crustacean groaned. "I mean, all we learned is that most of our team is full of useless people. Nothing else than that. It's whatever, one of them will be gone tonight, for sure."
Confessional End
The Crabs finally made it to the new elimination zone, one which was quite interesting indeed. It was almost like a giant fish bowl, with seats on one side of it while Chris stood at his podium on the other side. In the center of the tank, there was a hole, one which led to a water slide. At the end of the slide, there was the top hatch to the Submarine of Losers, which was left open in anticipation for its first victim.
Chris grinned as he looked over the team, seeing all the uneasiness about them. Flint was hiding behind Natt, who was still angrily staring down Thomas, though the assassin didn't seem all too interested with either of them, as he just smirked at Chris. Luna, again, was snuggling up to Amelia, sniffling here and there. It was surprising that she hadn't gotten tired of her already. March was all the way off to the side, just staring out at the wall. Meanwhile, Nicolás, Tony, Liz, and Archie were all glaring at Crustacean, who was hardly paying attention to their glares as she pet her lobster which was in her hands.
"Well, congrats, Cosmic Crabs! You guys get to be the first guests here at the Fish Dome! This is where little loser bottom feeders, such as yourselves, go to vote out one of your teammates that maybe didn't help you all too much. In my hand," he held up a platter, revealing ten packs of fish flakes, "I have the ultimate symbol of safety for this season: fruit flavored fish flakes! Try saying that five times fast, heheh. When I call your name, I'll toss you a pack, signifying that your team hasn't gotten tired of you yet. The diver that doesn't get their name called will have to take the Water Slide of Shame down to the Submarine of Losers, which will take you away from the game forever! Now, are there any questions before I get on with it?"
Flint raised his hand up high, and Chris pointed over at him. "Are the fish flakes actually edible, or are you just trying to get us to eat fish food?"
"Haha, good one, Flint!" Chris aimed finger guns at him while completely ignoring the question at hand. "Now, as far as those of you that didn't receive a single vote tonight...Tony and Liz!" He tossed the first two packets over to the couple, both of which had grins on their faces.
"Well, well, well, I never would've thought we would've been the first names called, would you have, babe?" Tony nudged Liz who shrugged back at him.
"Guess the team is realizing just how useful we are, eh?"
"Nicolás...Archie…" Chris tossed the two boys the next two packets, the latter of which shrugged and tossed his over his shoulder while the former was hit in the face by them, causing his glasses to fall to the ground. He picked them up and realized that the left lens was cracked, and let out a sigh. "Amelia...Natt...and Flint." He tossed out three more of the fish flake packets.
"Oh, marvelous, just marvelous!" Amelia caught hers with one hand, using her other arm to keep holding onto Luna. "Thanks for recognizing my talent, team!"
"Wait a minute...neither of us got a vote?" Natt looked over at Flint, who was equally confused. He then glanced over at Thomas, who had a smirk on his own face. "What game is he trying to play here?"
"Eugh!" Flint recoiled after having taken a bite of some of the fish flakes. "It is just fish food!"
"Now, as far as those of you that did receive votes, but are safe goes...Luna and March!" He tossed the two packets over to the girls, though March ignored hers as it flew past her face, while Amelia caught Luna's for her. "And then there were two! Thomas...well, you're Thomas! An assassin who just exists to torment Flint! And Crustacean, your attitude just continues to get you into heaps of trouble with your team! The Crab that will be going home tonight...is…"
Thomas kept on smirking while he crossed his arms and Crustacean narrowed her eyes at the host, continuing to pet her lobster. Chris held up the last packet and took a deep breath.
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"...Crustacean!" Chris called out the girls name before tossing the packet over to Thomas, causing both of them to drop their jaws in astonishment.
"Woah, woah, wait a minute!" Thomas stood up as he caught his fish flakes. "You guys mean to tell me that you voted her out instead of me?"
"Meh, you weren't really bugging us all too much," Archie shrugged. "Is that a problem for you?"
"I...well...no, I suppose not…"
"This is absolutely ridiculous, you all just voted for me because I wasn't afraid to say what needed to be said!" She picked up her lobster and started towards the hole in the ground. "When I come back, you guys will all be-" She was suddenly cut off by Tony throwing another slipper, this one hitting her in the head and knocking her down into the water slide, causing her to flush all the way down the submarine. Once she landed in it, the hatch shut tight, and the submarine started off away from Atlantis.
"Why, thank you for shutting her trap, Tony!" Chris applauded the boy, who took a bow. "And that settles that! The first of twenty-two has set sail away from Atlantis! Will the Crabs be able to form a functioning team bond anytime soon? Will Jianne realize that she needs to work with others to get things done? Probably not, but we can all find out next time on Total Drama: Lost City!"
Author's Notes:
*And there it is, the first elimination of the season. I must admit, my plans did change around because of some stuff that happened, but the new plans for the story are just as good, if not better than the old ones. This episode was, again, a lot of fun to write, and I hope you all enjoyed it!
*Votes: Crustacean - Tony, Liz, Archie, Nicolás; Thomas - Natt, Flint, Thomas; March - Luna, Amelia; Luna - March, Crustacean
*Placements: 22nd - Crustacean