The next chapter is finally complete! This one is a lot longer than I intended, being over 10,000 words. I wanted to put a lot of stuff in this one chapter and kind of stretched it out.
As mentioned in the last chapter, this challenge was meant to be the first before being pushed over. The intro is also fully completed and in this chapter.
Chris stood at the resort dock which was used to introduce the campers. "Last time on Total Drama Brain vs Brawn vs Beauty," he announced to the camera. "Our campers were fully introduced and then started a little game of sink or sail. The Brawn team came out on top and while the Rejects sunk themselves, they also eliminated the Beauties leaving a tiebreaker between the good looks and the smarts. After a coup by Mikeal, the Brains rushed forth but victory was snagged away from them by a loan slime balloon knocking Scarlett overboard."
Chris showed off his signature smile. "What exciting challenge awaits the camper today? Find out right here on Total Drama Brain vs Brawn vs Beauty!"
(Intro Start)
The theme song begins to play as a few shots of the island were shown. The first showed a camera popping up from the pool of the resort, the next showed another camera pop up from the floor of a wooden cabin, breaking it in the process. The last clip showed a camera come out of a wooden floor followed by a clap from the directors' board.
"Dear mom and dad I'm doing fine,"
The shot spanned across the resort to the other side of the island. While doing so, it passed by Justin relaxing by the pool, Owen eating at a buffet, and once it reached the dirtier more nature-filled part of the island, it zoomed by Eva ripping a branch off of a tree, and it finally rested on Scarlett who sat writing notes at the steps of a cabin.
"You guys are on my mind."
The cabin door beside Scarlett burst open, causing a torrent of air to rush past and make some papers she had fly away. She turned to glare as Ozzy quickly ran by her in a flash.
"You asked me what I wanted to be,"
The camera followed Ozzy as he ran past the papers he grabbed one out of the air and quickly folded it into an airplane before tossing it and chasing after the others. One lone piece ended up hitting an unsuspecting Carl in the back of the head. He turned in confusion just to be hit by a second piece of paper causing him to stumble and fall back and into a wall of a building.
"And now I think the answer is plain to see,"
Following Carl's tumble, the camera went into the building which looked to be the mess hall. Inside, Laurie was getting a bowl of soup for Daniel when a fake looking spider came down from the ceiling. In a panic, Laurie swung at the spider and ended up hitting Daniel knocking him over causing Laurie to hold her hands to her mouth in shock. A quick pan to the left showed Liam, the source of the fake spider, trying to hold his laughter in.
"I want to be famous."
Once more outside the mess hall, Cynthia was sitting on a stump reading a book with an emotionless expression on her face. She was flanked on both sides by the Shimazu brothers, Yoshi and Kazu who were both competing to get her attention to no avail.
"I want to live close to the sun,"
The camera continued to move forward, entering the forest. It passed by Eva once more. She has gathered several sticks and put them in a pile. Suddenly, Kathy jumped down from the tree that Eva had been collecting from and landed in the pile of sticks breaking several. Eva yelled at her as the small girl quickly ran away. Eva shook her hand threateningly in the air, grabbed one of the sticks, and threw it after the girl.
"Oh, pack your bags cuz I've already won."
Nearby, Fern was busy painting the landscape. The stick Eva threw flew past her, impaling itself into a tree behind her. Kathy ran by grabbing the stick and waving. Fern didn't notice any of this and continued to paint.
"Everything to prove nothing in my way,"
As the camera continued to pan, it reached back to the resort area of the island. It passed by a stage where Rellik and Melanie were performing. Melanie played a bass guitar while Rellik sang the words to the theme song. In the audience, Sarah clapped in excitement.
"I'll get there one day."
At the resort, Justin was still chilling on one of the chairs wearing a pair of sunglasses as he sunbathed. Nearby, Mariana slept on another chair. Wynda ran by the two and jumped into the pool, splashing both of them. She resurfaced to an angry Justin and laughed.
"Cuz I wanna be, famous!"
Inside the main resort building, Therion was playing at an arcade machine. Camila was walking by the room she was in and stopped to take interest in what he was doing. He turned back to look at her and she quickly turned back and left.
"Na na, na na na naa, na na na na naa."
Ryan noticed the small exchange between the two from around the corner. She made sure to stay hidden from sight as Camila walked by. After she had passed Ryan showed off a knowing grin.
"I wanna be, I wanna be, I wanna be famous!"
Once more outside, Mikael was standing in front of a buffet. Carter was looking around suspiciously when he bumped into Mikael. The two jumped back and gave each other sceptical glares. Owen popped up from the buffet and saw the two. He ran over and gave both of them crushing bear hugs causing both to lower their own glares to each other wince in pain instead.
"I wanna be, I wanna be, I wanna be famous!"
The final shot showed night time with the campers gathered around a dirty looking firepit. They all sat around it on logs and stumps, while whistling along to the theme. Finally ending with the season logo appearing.
(Intro End)
The shot opened up early in the morning. The sun was out but not many of the campers had awoken yet. Kathy however, woke up pretty early and got bored waiting around and decided to explore. She ended up finding an area of the resort that was taped off with caution tape with a large sign that read do not enter.
Any sane person at this point would turn away and look somewhere else but the chance of danger excited Kathy and she went forward. She found a door and tried to open it to find it locked. She pounded at it a few times but it didn't budge. "Come on!" she said out loud as she tried to wrangle the door open.
"Attention campers!" Chris's voice rang out throughout the resort. "I hope you all enjoyed your comfortable sleep. The next challenge will begin in thirty minutes! Be there or be disqualified." he announced. "Oh, and if you find any parts of the resort that are no go zones, don't go there. That means you, Kathy."
She jumped at the mention of her name and quickly ran away from the area.
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Confessional
Kathy - Kathy looked confused. "How'd he know I was there? I thought I was being pretty sneaky."
Chris - "It's called cameras." he deadpanned.
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The next scene showed the campers in front of a breakfast buffet, all dressed and ready to go. Chris walked up with his arms behind his back. "Enjoying the food, campers?"
"Oh, yes!" Owen beamed. "There's everything! Eggs, sausage, pancakes. What more could I want!" Owen continued to stuff his face with food.
"Save some for the rest of us." Camila spoke dryly.
"Sorry it's just all so good!" he laughed. "Did Chef make this? Where is he anyway?"
"Chef is currently busy." Chris simply answered, dodging the question. "He will not be available until tonight."
"What does that mean?" Carter asked. "Kind of seems fishy if you ask me."
"I can assure you Chef will in no way be related to the challenge we have today." Chris informed him.
"Sounds like something someone trying to hide something would say." Carter didn't look convinced.
"Believe what you want." Chris shrugged. "Today's challenge is going to require communication and a bit of luck."
"We don't need luck." Ryan replied with a cocky grin.
"We haven't lost yet!" Kazu added.
"After only one challenge." Melanie reminded him.
"Well, it's still true." Kazu defended his point.
Chris held up a hand. "Zip it." he shushed them. "As I was saying, this challenge might take a bit of luck because we're going hunting!"
"All right!" Wynda cheered. "What are we hunting? Duck? Deer?"
"Nope, keys!" Chris revealed.
"Now that's a lot less fun." Wynda crossed her arms.
"After seeing you with that cannon, I'm glad we're not using more weapons." Rellik told the loud girl. Wynda gave a quick challenged look his way and rolled up her jacket sleeve as a sort of threat.
Continuing from where he left off, Chris pulled out a small treasure chest from seemingly nowhere. "In this chest is something that will be very important for you. To get to it, you will need a key, hidden somewhere in this resort. There are four teams, so, there are only four chests to open, with four keys hidden plus some extra fake keys thrown in."
"So it's like some sort of scavenger hunt?" Sarah wanted to confirm.
"In a way, yes." Chris nodded.
"Couldn't have been more original?" Camila sarcastically asked the host.
Chris choose to ignore her comment as he continued. "The first team will get first dibs on the chests, and yes they are slightly different." he pulled out the other three small chests to show their differences. One had a golden lock and gold carvings, another looked rotten and had a barnacle on the side of it, another had a silver lining to it, the last looked like a normal chest. "The team captains will have maps of the resort with all known key locations. They will keep you all updated on where to go through these trusty walkie-talkies which may or may not even work.
"Did you test them first?" Yoshi asked.
"No, that's why I said may not work." Chris took enjoyment from Yoshi's annoyed look at him. "Any more questions?"
"Can we just go!" Kathy shouted.
"Fine, grab a walkie-talkie and get going, make sure to grab your team's ones." Chris informed them. "Oh, and before I forget, there is a confessional booth in the resort you can use. If you fancy one over the traditional outhouse."
"If there was one in the resort the entire time why did we even use the old one?" Rellik questioned.
"Because it's a classic." Chris emphasized the final word. "Now, get going."
The campers, sans Mariana and Fern, made a mad rush to the walkie-talkies. They all made sure to grab their team ones which were marked with their respective symbols.
Scarlett approached her team. "Spread out for now and cover as much ground as possible. I will all keep you updated. Do not contact me through the radios unless you find a key. I will be making the checks to you, understand?" no one responded to her. "I take your silence as a confirmation."
Eva sat down in a nearby chair and began to wait. A few of her team approached her. "So, what do we do?" Kazu asked.
"Go look for the key." she simply shrugged. "I can't do much until I get that map.
"You heard her lads, let's get going!" Wynda yelled at her team as she went off herself.
"Man, she is very loud." Ryan commented.
Justin took the opportunity to enjoy some sun at the resort and found a nice chair to lay down on. "Aren't you going to tell us what to do?" Daniel asked him.
Justin leaned up and saw his team waiting. "You're smart people or so I assume, go look for the keys."
"I didn't think of that." Sarah acted surprised.
Rellik didn't look too impressed. "If he's not going to be much use, we should at least split up."
"Agreed." Daniel nodded. Cynthia and Sarah both silently nodded while Fern looked to not be paying attention. "Uh, Fern?"
"Oh, yes." she nodded.
Over with the rejects team, Owen was standing in front of them. "Alright, it may not be easy. They may be smarter, stronger, faster, and betting looking than us but we have something they don't! Spirit!" Owen shouted.
"Not much of a rousing speech." Therion commented.
"I'm not the best at inspiring people." Owen sheepishly chuckled.
"Don't worry, we will go out there and make you prouder than sin! Ozzy O-A!" Ozzy yelled out as he ran away.
"Yo, wait! You forgot your walkie-talkie!" Carl called out after him. He sighed as Ozzy continued to run off. He grabbed an extra one before running off after him.
Kathy took the chance to quickly run off and begin to explore leaving only Therion and Mariana with Owen.
"I guess we're starting." Therion set off into a direction himself.
"Go and make me proud!" Owen shouted at his leaving team. "They grow up so fast." he wiped a tear from his eye. Mariana stood beside him and gave him a confused look before slowly walking away herself.
The scene flashed forward as most of the campers began to ruthlessly search the resort from top to bottom. Eva began to tap her foot impatiently. "Weren't we supposed to get maps?" she growled.
"That you are." Chris walked up. "Here are total blueprints and layouts of the entire resort including all floors." he handed out rather large blue documents to the four team leaders.
Justin unravelled his and rose an eyebrow. "Um, Chris? I thought you said there were only three keys, why are their hundreds of Xes on this thing?"
"Three keys and a couple duds." the host corrected him. "And a few hundred places they could be but aren't. Each X is a potential spot a key could be."
"Great." Justin sighed. "That makes my job harder."
"You didn't even look like you were going to do your job." Eva jabbed.
"Hey, I can relax and give instructions at the same time." he tried to defend himself.
As the two got into a small argument Owen tried to break it up and Scarlett walked off to find a more quiet location. She arrived near a small shack filled with pool supplies. She unravelled her map and took a brief look before picking up her walkie-talkie.
Inside the main building, a few campers had begun to search the first floor. Ozzy ran into a janitors closet but saw nothing. He went to reach for his walkie-talkie but found it missing. "My walk-to-talk! It must have been stolen by communication obsessed pixies! Or Franklin. I could never trust that guy after third grade." he was interrupted in his guessing when carl burst into the room after him, panting heavily.
"Dude," he was gasping for air." You left this back there." he held out the walkie-talkie.
"Ah-hah! So you were the one who took it!" he quickly snatched it out of his hands.
"No, I just-" Carl began to explain but Ozzy put a finger to his lips.
"No need for excuses, I forgive you. Now, for extremely very VERY important business." he clicked on the walkie-talkie. "Hey, Big-O! It's not so Big-O, I'm in the closet with Carl."
"What?" Owen's staticky voice could be heard.
"We're going to need directions." Carl spoke up.
"Oh, okay. Um, I don't see a closet on the map." the sound of Owen moving the map around drowned out his voice slightly.
"First floor?" Carl responded
"Here it is! Um, did you check the bucket?"
Ozzy turned and saw a bucket in the corner. He picked it up, tossed it into the air and caught it upside down. "It's not good. No key in or out and the bucket isn't a key either."
"Alright," Owen responded. "There look to be a few others spots to check in the next room over."
"Thanks for the help, chief! Ozzy O-A!" he yelled out once more as he ran to the next room.
Elsewhere on the first floor, Camila was looking through a receptionist desk. She heard static and brought her walkie-talkie closer to her ear. Scarlett's voice sounded through. "From now on, you are number one. What is your current location?"
"Geez, think you can't treat me less human?" Camila asked her sarcastically.
"We don't have time for your dry humour." Scarlett responded with a tinge of anger in her voice.
"I'm at the front desk, happy?"
"Check the left and right sides under the desk and the waste bin in the back. Also check behind the fire extinguisher, when you are done go down the hall to your left and check the rooms on the right." Scarlett ordered her before cutting the connection not allowing a rebuttal of any sort.
Camila let out an angered sigh but did begin to search.
On another floor of the resort, a few others began to search. Daniel had his radio out and buzzed into Justin. "Hey, I'm on the second floor right now, where do I look?"
"The rooms?" Justin lazily gave him an answer.
"Which ones?"
"All of them. There's X's everywhere so just, go to those." Justin cut the connection.
Daniel looked around the rooms. "Now where do I go first." he pondered. He walked up to a rather large doorway and pushed the door open. Inside was a movie theatre fit with seating, a large screen, and a box full of movies in the back. It even had a popcorn machine and a fridge. He smiled at the room. "This looks pretty nice. I should come here later."
He stepped in and began to search the bottom row of seats. He wasn't given exact area's to search so he kind of had to look under everything. The door opened and someone else stepped in. He looked up to see Laurie looking around. "Oh hey!" he greeted.
She looked surprised to see someone else in the room. "Oh, hi." she answered less enthusiastically than he did.
"You're on the Brawn team, right? I haven't placed everyone yet but I'm getting there." Daniel tried to strike off a conversation.
"Yeah, I am." she nodded.
"You can just ignore me. I should be out of here soon."
Laurie slightly nodded again and began to search a few spots.
Daniel continued his own search when he got an idea. "Hey, why don't we search together? We can clear rooms faster and we're on different teams so we won't overlap any spots."
"I really shouldn't." she shook her head. "I don't want to disappoint my team."
"Fair enough." he conceded. He stood up and brushed his hands off. "Well, I'll be going then. See you around." he waved goodbye before leaving the room.
On the other side of the same floor, Yoshi was waiting by the elevator. It opened with a ding and Kazu stepped out.
Yoshi silently nodded to him before gesturing over to a nearby room. Kazu nodded along and the two stepped into the room.
Inside was just a plain looking bedroom. Yoshi made sure no one else was in there. "So, how're things with your team?"
Kazu just shrugged. "They are fine for the most part. They do kind of want me to not talk to you though."
"I figured." Yoshi sat down on a desk. "I'm guessing they fear that we might work together."
"Are we though? I want to help you win but I don't want to betray my team." Kazu admitted.
Yoshi pondered for a moment. "I guess it might be better for both of us to go our separate ways for now. The teams should merge at some point allowing us to work together then."
"Are you sure?" Kazu asked him.
Yoshi nodded once more. "No point having us voted out because they think we're threats." He got up from his seat. "Now, I'm going to search outside. It'll give me a chance to smoke."
Kazu waved goodbye. "See you around." Yoshi left leaving Kazu in the room. "Might as well search the place."
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Confessional
Yoshi - "If I had the choice, we would be on the same team and working together the entire way through. His team seems distrustful of him and I can say the same of mine. I think it's better to lay low for a while."
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Back on the first floor of the resort, Mariana was slowly moving around trying not to do too much work. She had already turned her radio off so she wouldn't be interrupted by Owen. She suspected the large guy wouldn't notice anyway.
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Resort Confessional
Mariana - This time, instead of the normal outhouse, a small fairly clean room was shown. Mariana opened the door on the left and peered in, noticing the camera. "Oh, this must be the other confessional booth Chris mentioned." she walked in and sat down. "Might as well stay here for a while. Better than walking around."
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Elsewhere, Cynthia was searching through what looked to be a bowling alley. She was looking between the shelves of the bowling shoes when she felt something hard brush past her fingers. She reached in and grabbed it, finding one of the keys. She smiled and turned to run back to Chris.
On her way out of the bowling alley, she made a sharp left turn and bumped headfirst into somebody. They both fell over causing her to lose her grip of the key. "Oh no!" she cried out as she began to search for it.
The person she bumped into had finally regained their senses and eyed the key on the floor. They reached out and grabbed it before Cynthia could get it. "What do we have here?" a very intrigued Wynda smiled at seeing the key.
"Please give it back!" Cynthia timidly begged.
"Sorry girlie, I'm going to need this to win myself." Wynda got up off the floor. "Don't get too upset now you find one, you're bound to find another!" she laughed out as she began to walk away.
Cynthia knew she couldn't fight the intimidating looking girl for it and sat on the ground in defeat.
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Confessional
Cynthia - "I was so close to winning! Why'd she have to steal my key?" she sounded and looked upset. "I really hope we don't lose because of this."
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The shot switched to outside the resort, specifically on Justin who was taking the time to sunbathe. "Hey!" he heard someone call out. He just frowned and ignored them. "Hey!" they called out again.
Justin sat up and looked who was calling for him to see it was Kathy. "What do you want? You're not even on my team."
"I was looking for Owen, do you know where he is?" she asked the model.
Justin just laid back down on his poolside chair. "I don't know, check the buffet maybe?"
His radio then went off. "Hey, Justin? I need some help here." Daniel could be heard through. Justin just flipped it off.
"Aren't you going to help him?" Kathy asked.
"He'll help himself." Justin shrugged.
Kathy shrugged as well and left to the buffet. She found Owen stuffing his face. "Uh, Owen?"
The big guy turned around to see her waiting there. "Oh hey! Want some?" he offered a chicken leg he had already bitten into.
She cringed and put her hands up. "No thanks. I just wanted to get more places to search, I've looked everywhere outside the resort already!"
"Shouldn't you have used the radio?" Owen pointed to the radio on her side.
"It, uh, broke." she admitted.
A flashback showed the girl on top of a wooden shack full of pool supplies. She had a hand above her eyes to block the sun as she searched around the place. She heard a creak and looked down before the floor she was standing on gave way, causing her to crash down below into a bunch of floaties and goggles.
Returning to the present Owen grabbed his map. "Can you check the top floor? There looks to be a lot of X's up there!"
Kathy had already left before he looked up from the map. He was quick to return to eating.
As Kathy ran into the building, Wynda ran out. "I got your key right here!" she announced as she ran up to the host.
"Good. That is if it works." Chris stepped aside allowing her access to the three chests.
She looked at the four and picked up the dirtier of the bunch.
"Um, any reason you're taking that one?" Chris looked confused.
"Has more character." she slotted the key into the lock and turned, opening the chest. "Alright!" she looked inside and was puzzled. "What's this? There is just another key in here!"
"That key will open something else on the other side of the island, about that way." Chris pointed into the woods. "Gather your team before you go, no point of having them continue searching."
Wynda quickly told Eva about the new key and she relayed it to the rest of the team. Within minutes, Team Brawn was running across the island.
"Let's turn up the pressure." Chris smiled at the camera. He walked over to a pole with a speaker box on it. He pressed in the button. "Attention all campers! One team has opened a box and are now on their way across the island!"
Throughout the resort, a few people looked stressed at hearing the news. Cynthia was upset knowing it was most likely her key that worked, Carl was worried they might lose again, and Camila just looked peeved off knowing it wasn't her team that had won yet.
Melanie continued her search through the news. Her radio lit up and Scarlett's voice came through. "Three, check rooms numbered 313-356. All rooms have the same search location behind the bed stand. Each odd number room has one under the pillows and behind the curtains. Other than that, a few rooms have various spots around, under, or in the bed."
Melanie nodded and went to give a clarification that she heard her before remembering Scarlett's orders and stopped. She then heard the door of the room she was in open behind her. She turned to see Rellik wander into the room. "Oh hey." he greeted when he saw her.
"There's no point in searching in this room," she told him. "I think I cleared it pretty well."
"Thanks for the tip." he thanked her but stopped before he left. "I don't know much about the other teams searching this area but there will be no point in us double searching stuff. How about I do even number rooms and you do odd?"
"That actually doesn't sound like a bad idea." Melanie nodded. "Yeah, I'll do it."
"A smart decision. Which is why, I guess, they put you on the brain team." Rellik complimented before leaving the room.
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Confessional
Melanie - "I'll feel bad if Rellik ends up finding a key and I don't but it will get us through this faster and we're already behind."
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The camera changed to another floor of the resort where Ozzy was running about. "Come on, come on!" he talked out loud to himself as he ran from spot to spot trying to look for the key. "If I were a key where would I be?" he tapped his chin. "Hey that rhymed!" he snapped his fingers. "Of course!"
He ran into a nearby room and opened a random drawer. Be it dumb luck or some sort of sixth sense, a key was sitting right where he looked. "Ah ha!" he picked up his radio. "Hey-o big-O I've got a key and I'm making my way to ya!"
"Oh good!" Owen responded. "I'll be waiting for you."
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Resort Confessional
Mariana - Mariana still sat in the confessional. She looked to be sleeping with her pillow supporting her head. The door opened and Sarah appeared. "Oh my gosh! This must be the other confessional! I have to do one."
Her voice had awoken Mariana "Can't you do that elsewhere?"
"Come on, don't be a camera hog!" Sarah grabbed the sleepy girl and attempted to pull her out. Mariana didn't care to put up a fight and allowed her self to be removed.
Sarah - "Hi Vanessa." she waved at the camera. "I've had a lot of fun so far! Even if we almost lost the first challenge. And I haven't found a key yet for this one." she took out her phone. "I am going to upload this sweet confessional to Instagram though!"
Mariana - Mariana peered into the empty room once more. She sat back down, got her pillow out, and went back to sleep.
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Ozzy ran quickly through the resort and made record time to Chris. "I got a key right here!"
Chris nodded. "Good, try it out and see if it fits."
Ozzy picked up the golden chest. "Shiny." he looked impressed. He shoved the key in and attempted to unlock the chest but the key didn't budge. "Hold on." he tried a few more times. He even picked up another chest to try it in there.
"Looks like you got a fake there." Chris laughed. "You might want to return to searching."
"What about this key?" someone spoke up from behind the two. Melanie walked up holding another key.
"Try it." Chris told her.
"A fair warning, my key didn't work so yours might not as well." Ozzy warned her. She took the golden chest and twisted the key, to see it open and reveal another key. "Well, that's a surprise to me."
Melanie looked confused but gladly took the key. "So, what's this key for?"
"You'll find out after you gather your team and head that way." Chris pointed off the resort.
Scarlett walked up to the bunch. "No need to make another announcement, I've already informed them."
Chris shrugged. "Cool, you'll all know when to stop when you get there."
Ozzy took a look at the remaining two chests. "That's two teams done. Which meant only one more can win! I must go!" he began to run back into the resort.
Owen noticed him running by from the resort. "Hey, Ozzy! Got a minute?"
Ozzy continued to run away. "THERE'S NO TIME!" he shouted overly dramatic and a lot louder than he needed to. Everyone around him gave him perplexed looks. Owen just shrugged and continued his binge feast.
On the top floor of the resort, Liam was making his way to the elevator after being called down by Scarlett. He waited for a few seconds for it to arrive and then stepped in. "Hold it, hold it!" Kathy yelled from across the hall. He thought for a second about letting the door close to get down faster but waiting a couple of seconds couldn't have hurt. He pressed the button to keep the doors open until Kathy ran straight in. She was moving a lot faster than she needs to and ended up crashing into Liam and sending the two into the back wall of the elevator. "Oops."
Liam quickly pushed himself and brushed himself off. "Any reason you ran in here like a bullet train?"
"I need to find a key." she simply said. "I need to go as fast as possible to assure I win!"
"Hey, slow and steady-" he began to say.
"Yeah, whatever." she turned away before he could finish. "Slow and steady is what it is: slow."
A few seconds of silence passed as the two waited for the elevator to finish it's decent. Already, Kathy began to tap her foot. "That impatient, huh?" Liam asked.
"Well, when's there's money on the line I don't want to be spending more time than needed to do anything." the elevator finally stopped and the doors opened. Kathy instantly rushed out leaving Liam to leave at his own pace.
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Confessional
Liam - "That is one whirlwind of a girl."
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With the Brain team now fully outside, they began their trek across the island leaving two teams left at the resort. Pressure mounted as a loss was becoming more and more likely with each passing second. If Therion was stressed, he didn't show it. The camera followed him as he walked throughout the halls looking at the marked doorways. "I've done about everything here." he picked up his radio to confirm with Owen. "Hey Owen, anything else I could search?"
"You're on the third floor, right?" Owen wanted to make sure.
"Yes." Therion simply responded.
"Okay, you should be fine to check the next floor. You should probably head to the floor-" he was about to tell Therion where to go when another voice entered from Owen's side of the radio. "One second."
"I need more places to look." Kathy could be heard. Therion noticed Owen was still holding the button down and was about to broadcast the entire conversation.
"Okay, uh." Owen could be heard ruffling the map, looking for more locations to search. "You can try floor six." there was a small pause. "Oh, she's already gone. Anyway, Therion could you check the fifth floor?"
"Alright." Therion quickly moved through the halls when something caught his eye. He noticed a small hallway he didn't see before. He thought he should check it, in case he would have missed a key.
He walked down and open the sole door at the end of the hall. He opened and actually looked surprised at what he saw. In front of him, a rather old looking arcade with various different arcade machines and games lined the walls. "Now this is more my forte." He walked over to an old machine labelled 'Galaxtis' but soon stopped him. "I should wait until we're done the challenge." he reminded himself.
He checked behind a counter where several newspapers and magazines sat. A quick glance had the dates reading as far back as 1997. He moved a few of them aside and found a key underneath the stack.
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Confessional
Therion - "Hopefully after the challenge, I have time to explore that arcade. I'm not sure if anything still works but it's worth looking into."
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Elsewhere, Sarah was looking in one of the many bedrooms of the resort. She was going through the drawers of a dresser. Most contained different amenities like towels and pencils. She was growing disinterested with her search as she methologicly searched the room as she did with the others. "Ugh, why can't I find anything?" she complained. She sat in on the bed and sighed. "I'm so tired, why can't we just enjoy the resort?"
She took her phone out and began to tap away. She laid down on the bed to get more comfortable and felt a lump under the pillow. She sat back up confused and lifted the pillow to find nothing. She then took the pillow out of the pillowcase but still nothing was found. "I swore I felt something!" she felt around the pillow until she found that the lump was inside. "Oh, that makes sense."
She gasped in realization. "Wait, that could be the key!" she tried to pull both sides of the pillow to rip it apart but had no success. "This is a lot tougher than it looks." she commented. She attempted a few different things but could not rip the pillow open. She decided to just bring it with her instead.
Now with Therion having a key and Sarah having a pillow with a potential key, the race was on. Except for the fact that Sarah didn't want to run and was taking her time making it to Chris.
Therion arrived with his key in front of Chris and showed the host. "Alright, see if it works." Chris told him.
Therion took the silver chest and pressed the key in. It opened with a satisfying click. He too looked confused at the second key inside. "A key for a key?"
"Yep! Gather your team and head thataway!" he pointed off into the woods.
Therion nodded and went to go inform Owen.
When he was leaving, Sarah walked past him to Chris. "Hey, Chris! I got the key!"
Chris turned to see her holding up a pillow. "That's a pillow, not a key." Chris looked at her like she had two heads.
"No, it's in the pillow!" she poked it.
"Well, I need to see a key. Can't open a chest with a pillow." Chris told her.
"One moment." she walked over to Justin. "Hey, Justin!"
Justin looked up at her. "What do you want?" he noticed she had a pillow. "Oh, you brought me a pillow! Thanks, my back needs the extra support."
He grabbed the pillow from her before she could explain anything. "Hey! That has the key in it!"
Justin stopped himself from putting the pillow behind him. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, I need you to get it out!"
Justin felt around and did feel something inside. Justin got up and walked over towards the buffet. He noticed Owen stuffing his face while listening to Therion. "Hey, I'm going to have to borrow that." he pointed towards a knife the large man had and grabbed it away before Owen could say yes or no.
He sliced the pillow open causing feather to go everywhere. A key did fall out and he caught it. "Yes! I knew it was in there!" Sarah seemed proud of herself.
"But, it has to work." Chris walked up behind the two. Sarah grabbed the key from Justin and went to pick up the normal looking chest. With a turn, it worked popping open the top and revealing the treasure inside. Which was another key.
"Well, looks like all four teams have begun the next part of the challenge! Make your way that way into the woods." he pointed off to the side.
Therion noticed the whole event. "We should really get going."
"We're still waiting for the team." Owen told him. Within the minute both Carl and Ozzy showed up followed by a tired looking Mariana.
"Let's go!" Ozzy shouted. "Onwards!" he began running into the forest.
"Wait!" Carl called after him. "We're still missing one!"
"Her radio's broken," Owen remembered. "We need someone to go get her."
"I'll do it." Carl volunteered as he ran into the resort.
"Wait I didn't tell you where she was!" Owen yelled after him.
"Luckily, he has a radio." Therion reminded him.
"Oh, right." Owen laughed.
The shot switched to the other side of the island. As the last team was preparing to leave the resort, the first team had arrived at the new location. Team Brawn looked around as they entered a clearing from the woods. A few rundown building was scattered about and a lone intern stood by a few coloured lockers and an old T.V when he noticed the team walk up he put in a VCR tape into a player and took a step back.
"Hello, campers!" Chris was seen on the T.V "As I should still be in the beautiful resort, I thought it was best to record this for you all! This part of the challenge is easy. Open your corresponding locker with your key and finish the puzzle inside, the last team to do so says goodbye to one of their own!"
Eva walked up to the lockers with the team's key. She guessed the rusted one was the one they had due to Wynda's poor decision. It opened and she pulled out a bag of puzzle pieces.
"This won't be so bad." Kazu cockily grinned.
"Why, you good with puzzles?" Laurie asked him.
"Well no, but we have six people here." Kazu gave his reasoning.
Ryan shrugged. "I'm not the worst at them."
The intern walked up with a folded table and placed it on the rough ground. The team poured their puzzle pieces onto the table. A large pile was quickly made. "That is a lot of pieces." Wynda commented.
"We probably would have gotten something easier if you picked the better chest!" Carter instantly deflected the team's attention to her mistake.
"Hey, I stand by what I did!" she crossed her arms. "No harm in a little challenge."
"Unless we loss." Ryan reminded her.
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Confessional
Wydna - "This team needs to calm down! Seriously! They're acting so uptight about a stupid puzzle!" she shouted at the camera.
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The Rejects finally found Kathy and were preparing to go. "How far do we have to walk?" Mariana already looked like she wanted to lay down.
"We haven't even left the resort yet." Kathy looked at the other girl's behaviour. "And yet you look like you're about to pass out!"
"We would have left by now if you didn't break your radio." Carl told her.
"Can we just go?" Therion spoke up.
"Alright let's go! Team Rejects will not lose!" Owen cheered as he ran into the woods.
The camera switched to a bit later when Team Brains made their way to the puzzle part of the challenge. "Man, this is a dump." Camila spoke up as she noticed the cabins.
"This is shockingly an improvement from my last experience." Scarlett noted.
"When your last experience involved a homicidal takeover, I think anything should be an improvement." Liam joked. Scarlett shot him a glare and he took a step back.
The intern once more played the recorded video for them. After it was over they opened the shiny gold locker and found a bag inside. Scarlett spilt the pieces onto a table. They looked to have a lot fewer pieces than the only other team there, team Brawn. Once they noticed too, they once more returned irritated looks to Wynda.
"This should be easy enough." Melanie picked up one of the pieces. "Do we even need a plan for this?"
"Go for the border first and work our way in. Try matching similar colours and don't get too fixated on trying to get one piece in." Yoshi answered for her before Scarlett could say anything. He made sure to speak loud enough for the other team to here him as well.
Scarlett gave him a look of resentment "Yes, that will work." Scarlett had a hint of anger in her voice from being talked over.
Kazu made sure to note what his brother said as he continued to try doing the puzzle. It came quite apparent that the team with the fewer pieces as well as being the stereotypically smarter team was pulling ahead. Team Brawn found themselves already behind from their headstart.
As time passed Team Brains found themselves closer and closer to victory while Team Brawn struggled to finish. Both Eva and Kazu had reached their limit of patience and were now getting angry at the puzzle in front of them. Wynda was outright bored and began to toss pieces into the air to try to catch them. Ryan looked unimpressed with her team. "Can't you all just focus?
"I'm trying but there are just so many pieces!" Kazu complained. "There must be thousands!"
"That seems like a small over estimate." Laurie spoke up.
"Maybe but this will take forever!" Kazu sighed. "And it's all your fault!" he pointed at Wynda.
The girl rolled her eyes as she caught another piece out of the air. "We've been over this, just keep working and we'll be done sooner."
"Doesn't look like you're doing much work yourself." Carter commented.
"Everyone, shut up." Eva yelled at them. They were all quick to follow her order.
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Confessional
Laurie - "Eva scares me." she admitted. "I don't know how the others feel about her but I really don't want to get on her bad side."
Ryan - "This challenge is getting me a lot angrier than it should. I really need to deal with the troublemakers on this team."
XXXXXX
The shot switched back to the forest with Team Rejects moving through. "Yo, guys?" Carl spoke up from the group. "I have to go."
"Go where?" Ozzy asked him. "Home? The moon?"
"No, go, go." Carl repeated with emphasize.
"We shouldn't get too far, just catch up when you're done." Therion told him.
"Are we sure we shouldn't stop?" Owen asked the team.
"We're already behind, let's just go!" Kathy added.
"I'm fine with stopping." Mariana spoke up.
"No it's fine, I'll catch up." Carl waved goodbye and ran into the woods.
Back at the campgrounds, Team Beauty arrived. "Oh wow, this looks," Daniel began but was at a loss for words. "Rustic?" he didn't sound too sure.
"It's a bit dingy. And my best guess is we are staying here instead of the resort." Rellik thought out loud.
Justin cringed on seeing the rundown campgrounds. "For a second I thought we would enjoy a nice place to sleep for once."
Sarah didn't look too impressed either. "This is so much worse for my Instagram!"
The intern waved to get their attention before turning on the video. After it was over they opened the silver locker, got their bag, and found out quickly it was a puzzle and got to work. They had more pieces than Team Brain but still a lot less than Team Brawn.
The shot switched once more to the woods after Carl had finished up his business. He looked around to see his team was missing. "Oh, this can't be good." he looked around but saw nothing. "I think we were going that way." he pointed off before running to find his team.
Time passed and Team Rejects finally made their way to the camp. Owen was actually excited to return to a run-down camp, reminded him of his first season. Therion looked at it with a small tinge of disappointment knowing he might not be able to explore the arcade he found earlier.
For the final time, the intern played the video. They got their pieces out of the regular looking locker and got to work. Once they began, they noticed something. "Hey, where's Carl?" Ozzy asked.
The team looked around but couldn't see him anywhere. "That can't be good." Owen chuckled nervously.
"And done!" they heard Melanie speak up.
"From last to first!" Liam smiled. "Not a bad improvement if I may say so."
Camila didn't look too happy at the finished product. "Of course it's a key."
"Where is Chris anyway?" Liam asked. "He's not that old to forget about the challenge, is he?"
The teams heard the helicopter above and looked up. It was once more carrying the outhouse, this time dropping it in the middle of the grounds. The helicopter struggled to land due to the bumpy earth and when it finally did, both Chris and Chef stepped out. "Hello, campers!" Chris greeted them. "Anything I miss?"
"We finished." Scarlett told him.
The host moved over and nodded. "That you did." he nodded. "Go and wait inside the mess hall until the other teams are done."
"Uh, which building is that?" Melanie asked.
"That one, over there." Chris pointed to a building with one of its windows broken and planks of wood nailed over the hole.
Melanie forced a smile. "Great, thanks."
The team shuffled off. Yoshi was the first to enter and to do so he had to walk up a few steps to the door. When he stepped on the first one, it broke. "Very high quality, Chris." Camila turned back to sass Chris.
"Most of the budget went to that beautiful resort." the host smiled.
Soon after Team Brain entered the mess hall, they were followed by a very dirty and very angry Chef. "What's wrong with him?" Daniel wondered.
"He was just busy doing very important business." Chris informed him. "Now, you may want to focus on the puzzle, only two more teams can win!"
Daniel returned his attention to helping his team. Surprisingly, both Team Beauty and Team Reject made significant progress on Team Brawn even if they were both still behind.
Chris walked over to the T.V and pulled out the tape. "Don't need this thing anymore." he tossed it over his shoulder and the intern panicked to grab it out of the air. Chris then turned to glare at the intern, making a motion for him to leave before turning back to the contestants and returning his signature smile. "Say," he narrowed his eyes. "Aren't you missing someone?" he asked the Rejects.
"I'm here!" they heard Carl yell out from the forest. He ran in, out of breath. "What did I miss?"
"Puzzle." Chris just said. Carl nodded and moved over to sit with his team.
"Finally ready to join us?" Mariana asked him.
"I got lost. Had to follow the helicopter as it whizzed by." he explained, still panting for air.
"It's all good." Ozzy slapped his back. "Let's let this bygone gone and continue our work!"
"Done." they heard a soft voice speak up. They turned to see Team Beauty had finished their puzzle as well. Even Justin, who wasn't really paying attention, was surprised.
"How'd we do that, that quickly?" the model asked.
"It's just finding the right pieces." Cynthia told him.
"Honestly, it's not that hard." Fern spoke up as well.
"I'd say we did a good job." Rellik nodded.
Sarah looked confused. "I guess we won?" she sounded pretty bummed out.
"What's up with you? We just won! Sound excited!" Rellik told her.
"Well, I'm not getting any signal on my phone and even if I did I'm like, in a dirty camp. That's not really a good place for my Instagram." she explained.
"Oh, about that." Chris walked up. "Being the nature of the resort, I was fine with you all having whatever you wanted but now since we've moved to a more natural part of the island, I'm going to have to confiscate your phone." Chris held his hand out.
"Uh, no way!" Sarah denied. "It's mine! I need it to talk to my best friend, Vanessa and be in touch with my Instagram followers!"
"You don't give it up, you're disqualified." Chris plainly told her. She pouted and slowly handed it over. "Good, now go join the others as we await the final winning team."
The pressure was on for the last two teams. Team Brawn had their time advantage but the Rejects, while missing a player for a while, had fewer pieces to work with.
Both teams had players trying their best to win but both still had players not really trying at all. Both Mariana and Wynda didn't seem to really care to help and mostly sat to the side working with only a few pieces to not be seen as worthless.
Ryan was quickly trying to push in the last few pieces when she counted the spots left. "We need only four more!" she informed her team. Kazu quickly checked two spots and got a piece in leaving only three. After another piece was put in from Carter only two remained. Laurie had another piece but the last one was nowhere to be seen. "Where's the last piece?" Ryan looked around as Laurie put in the second last one.
The team shrugged as they looked around the table. Carter turned to Wynda. "Did you have to be tossing the pieces around? Now we've lost one."
"Hey, don't blame me! Anyone of you lot could have lost it as well!" she blamed the others.
Team Rejects overheard their conversation. "Come on!" Owen exclaimed. "We need to hurry up before they get that last piece!"
"Ugh, puzzles are so boring." Kathy complained as she slotted in another piece. "Why can't we jump off a cliff as you guys did?" she asked Owen.
"I'd much rather not jump off a cliff." Mariana spoke up.
"It actually wasn't that bad." Owen calmed down a bit. "I do remember almost dieing though."
"Can we focus?" Therion asked.
"Right, sorry." Owen apologized.
"Why do you sound so against us?" Carter continued to argue with Wynda. "You're acting like a child!"
"I ain't the one whining and complaining!" she retorted.
"Why can't you both be quiet!" Eva joined in on the yelling.
As the three continued to yell the other three kept looking for the final piece. Ryan finally sighed in great relief as she found it, put it in and shouted: "Done!"
Chris looked over. "Yep, which means the Rejects are our big losers tonight!"
"Aw, nuts!" Ozzy snapped his fingers.
"Don't be too upset guys!" Owen tried to cheer up his team. "We'll do better next time!"
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Confessional
Mariana - "Losing sucks, but I don't plan on going home yet."
Ryan - "It's just so stressful working with this team! Why can't they just listen to me?"
XXXXXX
All of the teams were finally in the mess hall sitting at four separate tables. Chef worked on in the kitchen as the cast came to eat their first meals prepared by the large man. "Is this food?" Sarah looked disgusted as she poked the large brown blob on her plate.
"I think it might be meat?" Daniel half guess half told her.
On the Brain table, Liam was poking his food as well. "You think after so many years, he'd get good at this." Liam joked. Chef turned around from the kitchen and turned to growl at the boy. "Kidding!" Liam held his arms up in fear. Chef glared at him and continued to work on whatever he was working on.
Chris walked into the building. "Are you enjoying your meals?"
The only one to look like they were enjoying themselves was Owen who greedily ate out of a bowl to the disgust of Kathy who sat near him. "Take a guess." Camila deadpanned.
"Well, once you're done here, I need to show you the commendations!" Chris told them.
The scene flashed forward when they were all outside in front of a few rundown buildings. Chris stood in front of the group. "On your left, is the girl cabin, on the right is the boys. Simple at that. You will share sleeping arrangements with other teams but not your captains! They get their own special building with their own rooms!"
Justin looked happy at the news. "Oh, thank you." he smiled. A quick cut showed Justin sitting inside an extremely small room, barely big enough for his bed. "I guess it's better than nothing." he sighed.
An inside shot of the boy's cabin followed. The cabin was quite spacious with a significant lack of furniture. "Yo, is this it?" Carl looked around
Rellik popped his head outside to talk to Chris. "Um, Chris? I think we're missing a few beds in here."
"Really? I never checked." Chris shrugged. "What ever's in there was been in there since last time this place was used."
The boys took another look around. On one side of the cabin, two bunk beds sat with a third bunk bed missing its top bunk. On the other side, a mattress sat on the ground beside a cot and another bunk bed. The boys quickly claimed the better beds and paired up.. Yoshi picked one of the bunks closest to the door and Kazu decided to join him. Daniel and Rellik did the same with the next one. Carter actually took the furthest bed, which was missing the top bunk and Liam took the one on the other side of the room. Therion took the cot to avoid being with the others leaving Ozzy to join Liam and Carl getting the mattress.
The girls' side wasn't much better. A few more solo beds were there rather than bunks. Camila made sure to take a bed by herself, and Melanie did the same. Mariana took the closest bed to the door, and Laurie set up at one of the few bunks. She was joined by Wynda. Kathy quickly grabbed the top bunk of the only other bunk and was joined by Ryan. Both Cynthia and Sarah got their own beds while Fern was forced to sleep on a cot but she didn't look to care.
"Ah, it's like we're one big happy family!" Wynda loudly joked.
"Don't think I forgot what you did." Ryan gave a stern glare.
"Could you be quiet? I don't want team drama when I'm trying to sleep." Camila dryly asked them.
Mariana was feeling tired but walked over to Kathy's bunk. "Hey, did you end up hearing what Carl said?"
Kathy looked confused. "Huh? What did he say?"
"When you were missing at the resort, he said you were a waste of time to find and to just leave you behind." Mariana lied to her.
Kathy gasped. "Are you serious? And then he gets lost later! The nerve of the guy!"
"I just thought you should know. Wouldn't want to leave you in the dark about this." Mariana returned to her own bed.
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Confessional
Mariana - "Well, Kathy seems to be on my side for this. I might need to convince someone else though."
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Ozzy was wandering around the camp when a mysterious note flew out beside him. He quickly grabbed the paper and began to read, getting more and more shocked as he did. "This is insanity!" he called out.
A flash forward took the scene to the elimination ceremony. This time, the campers sat on old logs around a campfire. Chris stood nearby with a tray of marshmallows. He looked at the Rejects in front of him. "You know, I have to admit, I expected you guys to lose first," he told them. "I also thought you would lose second so I'm right there at least."
"Ouch," Carl responded. "That actually hurts."
"You are called the Rejects for a reason." Chris chuckled. "Anyway, let's go on with this, shall we? If I call your name, you get a marshmallow, if I don't you join Chef for a helicopter ride out of here!" he picked up the first marshmallow. "First one goes to Therion."
Therion caught it but instantly frowned. "Why's this so hard?"
"Oh, I found these in the cupboard." Chris explained. "They are probably at least ten years old."
"Right." Therion threw his into the fire.
"Next up, Ozzy!"
"Woohoo!" he cheered as he caught and stuffed the marshmallow into his mouth. He had some trouble chewing but still looked happy.
"Three remain." Chris paused. "Two of you got lost and the last one slept through half the challenge." Chris picked up one of the two marshmallows. "This one goes to one of you that got lost, Kathy."
She smiled and caught the marshmallow, stuffing into her mouth much like Ozzy. She did quickly spit it back into her hand though.
"Last marshmallow of the night." Chris informed them. He picked it up slowly to raise tensions. Carl looked actually worried while Mariana just looked tired. "It will go to," he raised his hand into the air and slowly brought it down to point at the final safe camper. "Mariana."
Carl sighed sadly as Mariana sluggishly caught her marshmallow. "I guess I let the team down today, huh?"
"No time for sob stories, Chef's awaiting!" Chris pointed to the helicopter off to the side.
"Bye everyone." he waved before getting into the helicopter.
"Left a lot nicer than the last one." Chris commented before turning to the camera. "Another down and the cast finally made there was to the campsite! Will they survive Chef's cooking and will Team Brawn every cooperate? Find out next time on, Total Drama Brains Vs Beauty Vs Brawns!" he announced the ending.
"Don't forget Rejects!" Ozzy spoke up behind him as the episode faded out.
The Rejects lose challenge two and Carl finds himself going home. There wasn't much planned for him so it makes since to send him home early.
I made a point to show a closed off area in the resort as well as having Chef busy for most of the challenge. Time will tell what that all means but for now it's all a secret.
Feel free to review for any reason, it's still early and I need to know any mistake I make with the characters before I get too heavy with the plot for the season.
Votes:
Carl - 3
Mariana - 1
Kathy - 1
Eliminated:
20th - Mikael
19th - Carl