Ten of the contestants stood on the end of the docks with their host. Axel raced down to join them. The sunlight of the early day glimmered on the water all around them. All of this was usual; however, one of two oddities were two small speed boats placed in the water, just ahead of the dock's edge. Aside from that were two oxygen pumps attached to a diving suit each. The suits and globe-shaped helmets were akin to the ghost of Captain Cutler from Scooby Doo.
"Welcome to a very, very special challenge that I have planned for you. Before we begin, though, I'm gonna need everyone to run back to the cabin and put on your bathing suits. This challenge is gonna require them."
"You had us come all the way down here just to go back and dress out?" June muttered.
"Yep! I'm funny like that."
The shot shifted to the returned contestants in their bathing suits. Though Mal truly didn't need to worry about Vito emerging, he kept his shirt on to keep up the facade.
"All righty, now we can get started. Challenge part one! Each team must get a pair of waterskis in an underwater mission. Or, you know, drown trying. One victim- I mean camper, will snag the skis in an old-school diving suit and float them to the surface while the rest of their team pumps them oxygen. First team to surface their skis wins and gets an advantage in part two."
The shot panned to the five Vultures. Instantly, Scott stood by the oxygen pump.
"I'm not going down there. Fuck that noise. I have the worst luck on the planet with sharks."
"Yeah, maybe you're safer up here," June mentioned.
Strangely, Scott stared at her instead of speaking. June gave him a confused look before Connor claimed the attention of the group.
"I'll do it. I know I can handle it."
The shot turned over to the six Hippos.
"I feel safer if Zoey's up here with me," Mal decided, slinging an arm around her shoulder.
"You're so sweet," Zoey said, nuzzling herself closer to him.
"Can we save all the PDA for after the challenge?" Heather complained. "I say Lindsay goes deepsea spelunking." Without waiting on confirmation, Heather grunted and handed over the heavy diving suit to Lindsay.
"Ouch," Lindsay grunted, straining to lift it. "Can you tell me what the last word of that sentence means?"
"Are we sure Lindsay's the best fit for this?" Harold questioned, then he timidly tapped his fingers together and darted his eyes aside. "I mean, what if, you know... there were, I don't know, someone with mad skills..."
"Yes, nerdling, we are!" Heather insisted. "Chris! We choose Lindsay!"
Connor couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, good luck with that."
"Aw, thanks for the encouragement, Cory!" Lindsay peeped.
"That's my step-dad's name..."
Just a little bit later, both Connor and Lindsay had donned their diving suits, waiting on Chris to give them the word to go down. Well, mostly donned their diving suits. Lindsay struggled to secure the globe-shaped helm to the rest of her suit.
"Wait, is there supposed to be a little hook it connects to? Like a bra? Zoey, you wear bras, right? Can you help me?"
"No time for that!" Chris chirped. "Time for this challenge to begin!"
"What if she suffocates?" Rome countered.
Of course, Chris ignored him. "Go, divers!"
"Alley-oop!" Connor shouted as he cannonballed himself into the lake, crashing through with a massive splash.
In the same moment, Axel shoved the others on his team aside to vigorously pump Connor oxygen.
"Lindsay, there's no hook!" Zoey burst.
"I'm having trouble..." she whined.
Mal sighed, then stepped towards her. With his fist, he bonked the top of her globe down, connecting it to the rest of the suit. Still not acknowledging that she was connected, Lindsay did nothing as Mal pushed her down into the water. She squeaked before she plopped under, waves splashing up against Mal's feet.
"There, now she's got a fighting chance."
Submerged underwater, tubes protruded from the tops of Lindsay and Connor's helms. By the time Lindsay made it to the under surface, Connor had already rushed off as fast as he could for two rocks dead ahead. In between them: the skiis the contestants needed. Lindsay took notice of Connor's lead and rushed after him, struggling to move under the water.
"Dang it!" she complained.
As Connor neared the skiis, he suddenly felt a tug from behind, restricting him. His eyes bulged when he turned around and eyed Fang, the shark mutant that was always after Scott. The creature's hand was gripping his oxygen tube, cutting him off from moving forward.
"Guess I'm gonna have to kick some aquatic, mutated ass today."
Fang released the tube, beckoning him forward with his fingers. The shark bore a disturbing grin.
Quick cut to Harold on the end of the docks where he pumped oxygen as fast as he could, grunting out sounds with a foreign feel to them.
"Hu, hah, hu, hah, hee-aiy-wa! ¡Cómo te llamas!"
"Yeah, you show it who's boss, Harold!" Zoey cheered.
Heather plugged her nose. "Gross. I can smell you from here."
"Ah!" Harold exclaimed, dropping to the wooden planks below and clutching his wrists. "My wrists have given out! Oh, sweet tendons, how could you play a player like this?"
Mal shoved past Rome. "All right, I'll finish up."
The evil alter approached the oxygen pump, flexing his tan muscles as he pumped down with minimal strength-not much had to be exerted to get the job done.
At the sight of "her boyfriend" pushing up and down, Zoey bit her lip and curled her knees close together. "Wow..."
Rome flinched as Harold let out a caterwaul of pain. He glanced around him to notice his teammates taking no notice; Zoey continued eyeing Mal, Heather shouted for him to go quicker, and Mal's focus was on the pump.
"Are we- are we just gonna pretend Harold isn't here?"
On the other side of the docks, Axel kept on pumping, faster and faster, so much so that his freckled, burn-scarred face went red.
"Bro, ease up, would you?" B urged. "He doesn't need that much air, man."
"He's not failing this challenge for us," Axel grunted back.
"Too much may as well be none at all."
Confessional - Axel
"When in doubt, use brawn." Axel grinned and flexed one of his toned, freckly biceps. "It's gotten me through high school."
End of confessional
"Wow, Axel, without a shirt covering you up, you really make other burn victims look like instagram models," June jeered.
"Quiet, bitch. I need to concentrate."
She scoffed and rolled her eyes. While she and B watched Axel pump, Scott budged himself closer and nearly tripped June over.
"Hey!" she complained.
"Sorry. Hey, do you wanna see me do it?"
June stared at him with confusion again. "Do... the pumping?"
Sweat started to trickle down the farmer's face. "Yeah!" he replied, chipper. Awkwardly, he said nothing else.
"I'm... I'm okay, Scott. I'm content watching to see if Axel gives himself a heart attack. Fingers crossed."
Scott let out a snorting laugh. "That's funny!"
Again, nothing.
Confessional - Scott
Scott sat in the outhouse, wearing a frown of repulsion with himself. "Stuttering? Sweating? My mind is blank when it's typically full of random farm knowledge, like how to tie up hogs? What the fuck is going on with me? Why am I having these... feelings... when I'm around June?"
Confessional - June
"Ugh," she groaned, more disappointed than angry. "Why is he trying to talk to me?"
End of confessionals
With a roar of fury, Connor rushed towards Fang at the same time that he came at him. This distraction allowed Lindsay the chance to awkwardly stagger towards the rocks. From the surface of the water, a bulge traveled through Connor's tube up from the docks down into his suit. From all the force Axel exerted on the pump, Connor's suit filled up like he was a blueberry within a chocolate factory. Completely unexpecting, Fang skidded against the bottom of the lake to stop himself, but crashed against Connor, bouncing back off in the opposite direction.
With Fang soaring away, Connor stood still, unable to move from all the air in his suit. He let out a sigh and rolled her eyes. "Cue the fanart." [1] With a grunt and a heave, he twisted himself around to notice an unfortunate sight. "What? No!"
Pleased with herself, Lindsay stood by the two rocks, yanking the skiis out from between them. "I did it! I got the- the things!"
"You got lucky, princess!" Connor growled.
"Did you just call me a princess? Aw! You're so sweet!"
Much like Chef, Connor grumbled in frustration.
The shot panned to Chris standing in the center of the docks with June, Scott, B, and Axel on one side of him, and Mal, Rome, Zoey, and Heather on the other, with Harold still laying on his back with his wrist in his hand.
"Lindsay is the winner of the first challenge, meaning the Hippos will get a very nice bonus in the next one."
The Hippos cheered.
"Blondie did something right for a change..." Heather murmured.
Confessional - Heather
"Which places my target for elimination on Mike, Zoey, or Harold."
End of confessional
"What might be that reward, you ask? Oh, intern!"
Moments later, a random, red-shirted, blonde intern pulled up in a shimmering speedboat.
"This McLean brand speedboat."
"Sexy," Rome commented.
"Hang on, is that Bridgette?" Zoey wondered. "From season one?"
Bridgette, the blonde intern, waved to Zoey with a chill smile on her face. "Hey."
"Hi."
"Bridgette's here as an intern-only for this moment though. I didn't feel like paying her for anything more than that," Chris explained.
"I wasn't surprised when he told me," Bridgette murmured.
"And for the Vultures..."
With the sounds of sputtering on the Vultures' side of the docks came Chef driving a life raft with an aged motor at the end of it, coughing up smoke upon arrival. Chef's face was scrunched in displeasure.
"This leaky dinghy. Enjoy!"
"Pigshit," Scott cursed, crossing his arms.
"Part two of the challenge: a death defying water ski race! The goal? Be the first to ring each bell on those three completely harmless buoys."
Further off in the lake, a decent distance from the island were three very uninviting buoys. They were dark, spikey, and were much akin to the kind of water explosives used in war. The only remotely family-friendly feature about them were the bells attached at the tops of them.
"And now? A commercial break, because hot-damn, would I love to avoid a sunburn!"
"This is the first time you've ever cared about that," Harold pointed out.
Chris turned and faced the center camera with the other contestants awkwardly standing in the shot. "Don't go anywhere, 'cause we got a boatload of content for you when you return, right here on Total... Drama... All Stars!"
With each gap between the title of the show, the shot zoomed out more and more, until we could see a view from far off in the water of the whole island.
"You get it?" Chris chuckled. "A boatload!"
"You're not funny," June muttered.
After the screen went blank and the viewer likely finished checking their phone during a less than humorous Progressive ad, the shot returned to Chris and the others standing at the edge of the docks with their boats. By this point, Chef and Bridgette had cleared out.
"Welcome back to Total Drama All Stars! To get the final challenge of the day rolling, each team will need to pick three Hippos or Vultures to ski, one to drive, and one to operate each boat's gull cannon."
"Gull cannon?" Zoey echoed, wide-eyed.
Chris couldn't help but laugh. "Oh, it's a doozy, let me tell you."
With the press of a button from a remote from the host's pocket, two turrets rose up from the center of the dinghy and the speedboat. The center of the turret was stuffed with confused seagulls, with two joysticks out in front for the gunner to shoot with.
"Oh, jeez," Zoey murmured, rubbing her arm.
"Each team gets three chances to shoot the bells-or, hell, the other team. Do whatever your heart desires. Also, Hippos, you've got one extra member over the Vultures, so one of you can sit in the boat and assist the driver and the gunner however possible."
Confessional - B
B let out a sad sigh, slouching. "I know what Dawn would be thinking if she saw those gulls stuffed in there against their will like that. Damn... she ain't even here and her character's rubbed off on me. Shit makes me sad."
Beat.
"Shit also makes me wanna funnel my emotion into fucking up the other team."
End of confessional
Harold peered closer at the seagulls. "Something about those gulls looks a tad abnormal."
"What? Really?" Chris replied. "Huh, that's odd. There's nothing peculiar about them that I can think of. I guess except for the fact that they're half-rattlesnake."
Some of the cast gasped.
"It's Revenge of the Island all over again!" Scott complained.
"You better get used to it. Their paralyzing venom is just what this challenge needs to shake things up a little. I hope you like it."
"Yeah, I hope I like Hell too," Axel murmured.
"Whichever team rings the most bells wins!"
"I'm driving," Heather decided. "Lindsay, you be the extra person on the boat. I want you out of the way from messing anything up."
Lindsay, hurt, puffed out her lower lip. "But I wanted to ski with Zoey."
"Yeah, come on, Heather," Zoey defended her. "Lindsay's the reason we have a speedboat."
Heather rolled her eyes. "Fine. Works for me anyway."
"I'll do the gunning," Mal chimed in. "I've got a knack for... that sort of thing."
Confessional - Mal
"Emphasis on 'that sort of thing'. There's a lot about me these dunces don't know about..."
End of confessional
"It's time for me to unveil my wicked skiing skills!" Harold announced. "So long as I don't yank another tendon."
"Guess I'll help Heather and Mike out if need be," Rome decided.
Heather and Mal gave cocky responses akin to, "Trust me, I won't need it," over each other.
"O-okay, that's cool, too," Rome replied awkwardly, rubbing behind his neck.
Confessional - Rome
"Man, I miss Team Amazon. I never felt excluded like this when I was competing with those guys. Other than, I suppose, whenever Hannah was in charge. Which, come to think of it, was the entire time that Team Amazon existed."
End of confessional
Next, the Vultures made their decisions.
"I'm gunning!" Scott barked. "Me! Me! I will!"
His eyes were glued to June afterwards, as though he was waiting for her to melt in impressed admiration.
Confessional - Scott
"I figure that if I take the initiative and lead us to victory tonight, June will have to stop blanking me. Heh." Scott puffed out his chest real big, a goofy grin on his face. "Yep, I sure am smart."
End of confessional
"Nah," B shut Scott down after a pause. "Let me do it, bro." Quieter, he added, "I got a little something up my sleeve."
"No, really, I've got it!"
"No, Scott."
"Whatever, but at least let me drive the damn thing!"
"Someone's insistent," Connor remarked.
"I say let farmer Scott here drive to his heart's content," Axel suggested lazily. "Who are we to give a shit?"
"Yes!" Scott cheered.
"I guess we're skiing with her, Axel," Connor mentioned, turning his attention towards June. "Try to pull your weight, will you?"
She scoffed. "Uh, you're cool, aren't you?"
"Would you guys just get in the water already?" Chris whined.
Heather, Mal, and Rome positioned themselves in their speedboat while Scott and B stood in their dinghy. Each group's skiers stood on the edge of the dock with their skis and a large, curved rod to grip onto as they soared across the water.
"Is everybody ready?" Chris asked.
"Ready!" June, Axel, and Connor shouted back in sync.
Axel and Connor stood on one of the two skis each with June sitting on Connor's shoulders.
"Don't drop me."
"Wait, we're not quite there," Zoey answered.
Zoey and Harold watched as Lindsay struggled with one of the skis.
"Wait, do I need to strap my foot in?"
"No, I think it's a matter of balanci-" Harold tried to answer, but the sound of Chris blowing an air horn silenced him.
"No more dilly-dallying!" Heather snapped.
She revved the engine and abruptly shot the speedboat out into the water. Rome yelped, his body ragdolling into the back of the boat. From the force, Zoey-hanging onto the rod from behind Harold and Lindsay-was yanked forward with the speed of a mach 1 projectile. The trio screamed, Zoey bowling them into the water.
"Strike!" Chris shouted.
"Go, go, go!" Connor demanded.
Scott revved the engine, the sputtery dinghy taking its sweet time to speed up. Axel, Connor, and June gracefully dropped into the water, on their way to intercept the Hippos.
Further off into the lake, the Hippos had to shout to be heard over the noise of their boat's motor.
Rome let out a laugh. "Man, this is gonna be a breeze!"
Moments later, the Hippo skiers emerged from the water out behind the boat. Zoey and Lindsay clung to the rod on each ski while Harold sprawled himself out awkwardly, clinging to each ski behind the girls like a spider. He yowled in frustration as water splashed up into his lowly-positioned face. The poor guy didn't even come up to the girls' waists.
"Nice work, guys!" Rome yelled out.
"Thank you!" Lindsay chirped back.
With his hands wrapped against the levers controlling the gull cannon, Mal turned around behind him and observed the skiers. His jaw dropped when he saw Mike's girlfriend. Emerging from the water, the curves of Zoey's body were dripping with lake water. Soaked, Zoey whipped her sopping hair around and out of her face. Her red hair flew freely back behind her. With the shining sun behind her, she looked straight out of a calendar filled with beautiful women on each page.
"Goddamn..." Mal murmured, biting down into his lip.
Suddenly, a seagull-snake shot towards their boat, a small splash of water emerging from where it landed.
"What was that?" Heather demanded.
"They're trying to shoot us!" Rome shouted.
"Mike! Make sure they don't! I'm headed for the buoys!"
"You can count on me!" Mal responded, his attention turned from Zoey to where Scott was driving towards the Hippos.
Where Axel and Connor clung to their rod, Fang emerged from the water, attempting to chomp down onto them. June frightfully tensed up her thighs around Connor's neck.
"Choking, choking," Connor grunted.
"Shit!" Axel snapped. "Scott, kick it up a notch, come on!"
"You think I'm not going at this thing's top speed?"
"I think someone else should have been our driver!" Connor answered.
Confessional - Scott
Scott scoffed. "I'll teach them to doubt me. I'll show June I haven't lost my edge!"
End of confessional
Inevitably, Heather sped her team away from the Vultures. Scott growled as he pressed buttons on the low-budget control panel at the front of the dinghy. Nothing seemed to speed it up.
"Get closer!" B ordered. "Close as you can! I'm gonna try to slow 'em down!"
"Easier said than done," Scott muttered.
As Scott pushed further off into the lake to catch them, B examined his options. Not far off from the Hippos' position, there was a large cluster of reeds sticking out from the water.
"Keep away from the reeds, Heather!" Rome shouted.
"Wow, what a suggestion, Rome! 'Keep away from the reeds.' You're really saving my ass over here."
"Chill out, would you?"
B's eyes narrowed in determination. At that moment, he turned and aimed his gull cannon for the far left of the Hippos' boat. The machine whirred, then shot a single gull mutant at a time. The turret needed a second after each shot to spit out another gull.
As Harold continued groaning and sputtering out water being splashed into his face, Lindsay turned and saw B's gulls shooting the water far to their left.
"Oh, no!"
With each shot, the gulls came closer and closer to the Hippo skiers and their boat.
"Heather, B's shooting at us! We need to take a right!"
Can you guess what was to the right of the heroes?
"Fat chance! I'm not going through those reeds!"
"We have to!" Zoey protested.
"We may not!" Mal argued, tilting the turret behind their boat.
With evil eyes, Mal readied the machine and shot a gull into the Vultures' dinghy, nearly nicking B in the shoulder. B and Scott ducked.
"Shit!" Scott panicked. "What military operative taught Mike how to shoot? For fuck's sake!"
The gull screeched, flopping around in the dinghy with its rattle-snake tail jittering. The creature hissed, then B stomped down on it, killing it.
"Now you're pissing me off," B growled under his breath, staring Mal down with icy, brown eyes.
Seconds later, B was back to shooting out a slow barrage of gulls back near the water, moseying Heather to head for the reeds. Mal fired back with more gulls, letting out a sinister cackle as he shot.
With a gasp, B evaded several too-close-for-comfort gull strikes from Mike's evil alter. One of the gulls shot right between Axel and Connor.
"Christ! B!" Axel growled.
"Don't break my concentration!"
"Dammit!" Heather snapped. "It's no use! I'm going for the reeds!"
Rome spun around to shout to Harold and the girls, "Guys, hang on tight! We're headed for the-"
He broke off, grunting in annoyance as reeds butted against his head. Lindsay squealed in fear just as they were engulfed by the reeds.
Now, the Hippos were out of the Vultures' sight.
"Now's our chance to ring the bells!" Connor yelled.
"Scott, hit a fat left," B instructed. "I'll ambush them when they come out while you take us towards the buoys!"
Scott made no response, instead intently steering the boat straight towards the reeds where the Hippos disappeared.
"Scott!" B bellowed.
"No! I'm not afraid of a few reeds!"
B stared at Scott, stunned.
"Scott, you fucking moron!" Axel snapped. "Get us out of here!"
"I'm no pussy!"
Confessional - Scott
Scott snickered. "This ought to impress June. Only someone courageous would see those reeds and refuse to back down. You are a genius, Scotty boy."
End of confessional
As the Vultures barreled nearer to the reeds, June wailed, "No!"
Scott glanced behind him, his confidence diminishing to see her disapprove. Unfortunately, the Vultures' course couldn't be altered at this point.
"You've fucked us!" Axel yelled, then the Vultures were enveloped by reeds next.
As they shot through, the villains yowled and groaned as reeds batted them every which way.
"I can't see!" Scott cried. "I can't fucking see!"
"Whose- Ow!" Connor grunted. "Fault is that?"
By the time the Vultures finally emerged on the other side, they immediately heard a loud ding. The Vultures turned to see the Hippos zipping past one of the bells, cheering.
"No!" Connor yelled.
"Nice one, babe!" Zoey encouraged Mal.
"I don't miss, baby!"
"Listen to us this time and get us closer!" June snapped at her driver.
Scott hunched downwards, his face going red in embarrassment.
Confessional - Scott
Scott let out a nervous chuckle. "No worries. All part of the plan..."
Confessional - B
"After I realized Scott the moron wasn't gonna be any help, I took it upon myself to do something that might give us the much-needed edge we require."
End of confessionals
With Scott heading after the Hippos, B crouched down, tinkering with the turret. He ignored the hissing of the gull mutants as he took off the plate concealing the inner terminal to the machine. B tinkered about, rerouting wires and such, finally finishing up by the time the Hippos were mere moments away from ringing another bell and winning the challenge.
"Just a little closer, Heather!" Mal ordered.
Heather pressed down on the gas, shooting the speedboat forward. With another buoy bell in Mal's sights, before the malevolent alter could shoot out a gull, a flurry of gulls shot towards their boat.
"What the fuck?" Mal growled.
"Get down!" Rome cried.
"We can't!" Zoey squeaked back.
Rome peeked up from the bottom of the speedboat to see a ridiculous barrage of gulls flying towards them. "How did he..."
On the Vultures dinghy, B grinned with sinister satisfaction as he fired out triple the amount of gulls a second he could previously.
Confessional - B
"How you like me now, Mike?"
End of confessional
From the pelting of gulls slamming against the speedboat, Heather gasped and shot off course, the boat bucking to one side, allowing copious amounts of water to enter from one side. Rome collapsed to the side, water rocketing against his face. He coughed and sputtered.
Heather jerked the steering wheel to one side, causing the boat to swish abruptly to one side, throwing them off course from the nearby buoys.
"Hang on, guys!" Zoey shouted.
From the force of the unexpected turn, Harold shot off into the sky, screaming the whole way.
"Harold!" Zoey cried.
"Ahhhhhh!"
The boy's screams finally silenced when he landed straight into one of the buoys. Instantly, an explosion went off, a cloud of smoke gusting into the once clean air.
"Jesus Christ!" Rome exclaimed.
"Those buoys weren't harmless at all!" Lindsay squeaked.
Behind the Vultures' dinghy, Axel burst into uncontrollable laughter. "Holy shit, bro! You see that nerd fucking eat shit like that?" Wiping a tear from his eye, he added, "B, you're alright, bro."
"You thought that was gnarly?" B responded, moments before tilting the turret around and firing several gulls into the bell of one of the buoys.
With that, the Hippos and the Vultures were neck and neck.
On the Hippos' speedboat, Mal growled in fury. "That fat clown's starting to get on my nerves."
He turned his sights back towards the dinghy, firing the standard amount of gulls towards them. What Mal's turret lacked in rapidfire he made up for in his precision aiming.
Once again, gulls came inches from striking Scott and B.
"Fire back, fire back!" Scott cried.
The battle was on.
Mal and B fired at each other, pelting both boats in mutant gulls.
"I can't look!" Rome peeped, lurking at the floor of the boat.
Both boats thudded from side to side as the gulls pelted the sides.
"Mike, don't worry about him!" Zoey shouted. "Just ring another bell!"
Confessional - Mal
"If that fatass wants a fight with me, then he really should have done his homework on who he's fucking with."
[1] - All I could think of when writing this was the magnificent LeShawna Ball
Heroic Hippos - Harold, Lindsay, Heather, Mal, Zoey, & Rome
Villainous Vultures - Scott, B, Connor, June, & Axel