*The Merge Cabin*
From the looks of things it appears that all the contestants were no longer separated into different cabins like they had been in the pre-merge phase of the game, but instead they all were now in the same cabin which had ten beds, five of which were divided on each side of the room. Luckily for everyone there seemed to be two bathroom doors on each side, the one on the left is shown to be blue and the one on the right is shown to be red, there also seemed to be air conditioning inside this cabin a window which is behind the television (which is between the beds and against the wall). The AC seemed to be on and although it's nighttime, the lights were on and most people there appeared to be awake.
"..." On the right side of the room on their beds were Chloe and Kyle (both of which were on top of the same bed), and Leon and Evan (who were also on the same bed). Chloe seemed to smirk at the people sitting across the room from her before looking over at the new 'friend' which she has made in this game, Kyle just blinked a few times and continued to look confused before he shrugs and lays his back on the bed. Leon has an innocent smile on his face and turns his head to look over at the person sitting besides him, Evan Herbert doesn't return the look and instead continues looking down before an arm is wrapped around his neck.
"Don't feel so glum, chum! With me here, I'll make sure to take care of all the nightmares which Miriam tried talking with you about this morning!" Leon cheerily says in a tone that sounded...too happy, this tone made it sound like nothing had ever happened to him and that things were indeed going to be alright.
"Now I wish you were still being Sunny's slave so I could avoid hearing you shout SO LOUDLY!" Chloe seems to already take issue with the Brawler's voice going back to the way it used to be.
"Apologies, however considering that I've had to...listen to you before I'd like to think it's fair if you return the favor, just to avoid any potential issues between the two of us! Especially since it'll show Kyle just how much of a good friend you are!~" Leon responded with a somewhat teasing tone behind it, although it wasn't as obvious like it was last episode the tone alone is something that seems to cause Evan to slightly tilt his head to look over at him.
"...Fine." Chloe states with a scoff escaping her mouth and crossing her arms, although she doesn't seem too pleased with listening to him she reluctantly does so.
"That girl over there." Kyle's voice is suddenly heard, this catches Chloe's attention and she faces the baseball player who seems to be looking off in the right direction. Once her eyes go off in the same direction she sees 'the girl' who he had seemed to be referring to, this girl is the only person on this side who seemed to be sitting all by herself, and immediately the drummer recognizes her once she notices a phone in the girl's hand.
"Oh right, that's-"
"Is she Ingrid Glenmarie?" Kyle seems to randomly guess who the person is which causes Chloe to slowly look back over at him.
"...How'd you even know that name? I never told it to you." Chloe questions with widened eyes, it seemed that although he got the person wrong he remembered someone who he barely had any connection with.
"Dunno, it's one of the few things which still lingers in my mind for some odd reason, although I'll take it that means my guess is wrong?" Kyle asks before letting out a sigh at the fact he'd guessed the wrong person.
"Correct...actually, you're wrong but you're correct in the sense that you're wrong and that you somehow got something correct after getting it wro-My point is-! That's not Ingrid, but rather that girl's the red-eyed one I'd informed you about earlier." Chloe eventually comes around to giving an actual answer, but it seems that even now she's not having an easy time remembering the names of the other competitors in this game.
'She told me to watch out for her, but... Why is she crying?' Kyle seems to have taken note of Lia who is currently on top of her phone.
"..." Lia seemed to be at an absolute loss for words while on her phone which seemed to have some service inside this cabin. However what she seems to have found on her phone has caused tears to start coming out of her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. Slowly she places it down on the bed before looking across the room and turning away from the person she's looking at to face her phone.
"did anyone here see leaked footage of Lia's Loosie's in the latest season of Total Drama?! -Twitter User #3"
"I hope this better be fake. she always seemed like a nice person on camera. if this leaked footage is real then does that person we always watched just a lie now that she's actually not in a controlled space? -Ellie Degeneration"
"Is she a relationship with another guy now? if so then she must have low standards. -Saimen Cowzell"
"I ALWAYS KNEW HER ATTITUTE WAS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUTH! -Soodo Aato Onruin"
"If this footage shows us the real her then does that mean eveyrthing we knew about her was a lie? If she's willing to hook up with a guy on a manufactured show only to hurt the same guy later on. Then that means everything good she has done was to just keep everyone in the dark about her real abusive nature. If that's the case then she's an absolutely disgusting person. -SniperDog"
A bunch of comments on a video that seemed to have filmed parts of the leaked footage in her time on the show are seen, from the looks of her reaction all the tweets were getting to her. Slowly she began covering her eyes and curling up on the bed all by herself, no one else was sitting alongside her and only one person seemed to be watching her. Hannah Jordan is this person and currently her head is looking too far down in order to see her facial expressions, however she does turn it to look besides her.
'Hey Jared, I hope you're sleeping well...' Hannah thinks to herself while looking over at the sleeping perfectionist, both of them were sharing a bed and were on the left side of the cabin. From the sound of her thoughts it sounded like a part of her felt bad but she placed her right hand on top of Jared's hair before gently caressing it. While doing this her left hand pulls a phone from out the pocket in her skirt and she notices a bunch of notifications immediately pop up before opening the messages she's getting.
"Hope your doing okay! it must be tough beign on the same show as that curel girl! -Female Follower #3 (Emilia)"
"Heard rumors that you kissed a guy on the show, but those are just rumors! You would never do that! -Male Follower #54 (Danny)"
"Even though things might be not going well for you, just know that me and my friends are rooting for you to win the season. Hannah! -Male Follow #210 (Arthur)"
"Sorry for sending you onto the show Sweetheart! If me and your dad could pull you out of it for your own safety then we would do it! -Mom"
"Hope you're happy -Sis..."
Some messages that she's received are read from her, any sign of happiness on her face wasn't present at all even when she read the messages of support from pretty much everyone else. However it looks like the last message from her sister sealed the deal when it came to how unhappy she was, and this caused any light being reflected in her eyes to suddenly disappear and a frown forms on her face. But she continuously scrolls through the hundreds of messages that have been sent to her even though there seemed to be no reason for really doing so, and once she reaches the end of these messages a sigh escapes her mouth.
'When the full season is released, I wonder what everyone else will think of me...' Hannah thinks to herself as her eyes are directed towards the bed.
"I'm not exactly a detective, but it looks like the internet isn't all sunshine and rainbows right now." Hannah is able to hear a voice speak and she looks at the person speaking. Alex walks over with his phone in his hand and he seems to be checking some stuff on YouTube right now, on his phone it's revealed that 'Lia's Loosies' is losing subscribers every time he reloads the page for the channel. Notifications of 'leaked footage for the next season of Total Drama' are seen popping up and he notices some videos talking about Twitter's response to all the leaked footage.
"No kidding...looks like word got around fast." Hannah responds before placing her head on her hand and sighing again.
"I'm pretty sure that being able to access the internet is meant to be one of our 'rewards' for making it this far in the game, either that or this was intentionally meant to mentally mess with all of us knowing how much of a dumpster-fire the internet can become." Alex comments on all the events which are currently taking place on his phone.
"You're not wrong about that, although I'm pretty sure none of those people are anyone from my school!~" Hannah exclaims and she turns her attention towards the camera which she smiles at.
"How many acting classes did you take back in school?" Alex points out the drastic change in her mood before he goes onto his phone and continues scrolling through some videos, however one of them seems to catch his attention and he opens it to check it out. His head looks around the room and he decides to move to the other side of Hannah's bed (which is in the middle of the five beds on the left side of the room) while his eyes look at Leon, who's currently speaking with Evan still. One second after he does this his eyes go back to his phone which Hannah didn't notice yet since her eyes were on the camera filming them and she shrugs.
"I've got no idea what you're ta-"
"Nevermind, the reason why I randomly asked you that question was because I'll need your help understanding what's going on with Miriam." Alex once again changes the course of the conversation but making it about someone else who he's pointing to. The vogue dancer is seen sitting down and staring intensely at the duo who were speaking with each other in front of her, obviously this duo was Kyle and Chloe. Once Hannah looked over at the fiery girl, she nervously chuckled as it didn't seem like it took her too long to figure out the girl.
"I'm pretty sure she's thinking too much about what's happening in front of her, hell I'm pretty sure she's not even paying attention to her conversation because of how much anger-caused thoughts are going through her mind." Hannah explains while her eyes close and a drop of sweat begins to drip down her face.
'God, please burn my eyes out at the sight I'm being beholded right now...'
'God shall fulfill your-'
'HOW THE HELL IS THERE A JUN IN MY THOUGHTS?!'
"Looks like she's really angry at the ideas going through her mind." Alex comments as the two contestants were observing the dancer who was now grabbing onto her hair out of frustration.
"Sometimes, your imagination is scarier than anything you can ever see." Hannah and Alex heard a voice speak from behind the two of them, they turned their heads and saw that Jared now had his eyes opened. He grabs and places on rectangle-shaped glasses before looking over at the frustrated girl which the other two people seemed to have been talking about.
"J-Jared, are you doing good?" Hannah questions the former leader of the team which the two of them were on. "Also, d-do you need any help putting on your normal clothes?" She puts her hands on his shoulders with her eyes focused on the guy wearing all-black clothing in front of her. Eventually blushes began appearing on both of their places once they both realized the implications behind the second question.
"Y-Yeah...I'm f-fine." Jared quietly answers the question and he looks away from the heartthrob during his answer to that very question. Alex sighs at the awkwardness going on between the two of them.
"Let's focus on the clothing situation later, right now we need to cheer up Miriam." Alex turns all their attention back to the dancer who still seems to be caught within her thoughts. Currently she's closing her eyes and seems to be attempting to calm herself down by constantly breathing in and out, a smile even started to form on her face.
'Remember what your new strategy for this game is, get along with other people and maybe have some fun with them while hoping they'll help you get to the-'
'God is requesting to know how much dumber you've-'
"SHUT YOUR MOUTH MY-INNER-JUN!" Miriam suddenly yells out of nowhere, she seems to now be yelling at the ground with her eyes closed.
"Are you doing okay?" Kyle's voice is heard questioning the sudden outburst.
"SHUT YOUR MOUTH MY-INNer..." Miriam starts shouting at the ground again, but slowly her voice starts going completely silent as her eyes begin opening up and she turns her head to look over at the contestant who questioned her. Kyle leans back before grabbing onto the bed and pulling himself to turn towards Chloe instead of continuing to try and speak with Miriam.
"Alright, let's hurry up before she makes things worse." Jared states and he stands up from his bed before walking over to Miriam who is currently shaking her head and looking at the ground again. Following him were Hannah and Alex who decided to sit down on the same bed which the dancer's currently on, but she didn't seem to really notice them. Deciding to stay standing, Jared gets in front of his former teammate from his last team and thinks about what to say for a bit.
'Without Kyle here to keep her grounded with everyone else she's very prone to letting the extremely vocal side of her let loose to the hindrance of her game, and personally I'd like for her to stay so that means my best shot at taking care of this issue would be to replace Kyle...' Jared's thoughts are heard through the screen, his eyes remaining on the girl he's trying to cheer up.
'None of us here are exactly cut out to fill that role which Kyle had filled for pretty much everyone, but we NEED to get her onto our side if we've got even a chance of voting out...' Alex's thoughts were heard next, and by the end of them his eyes drift towards the brawler across the room.
'Normally I would use my skills to help out Miriam... but I've already got too much going on to add her into the list of things I'll need to manage, after all I can't get too greedy with the amount of people I'll have to attach myself with in this game... maybe if Lia was back to her normal self then she could've found a way to keep Miriam constantly positive... actually that could work out well to my favor, especially if I choose to go with the smarter choice...' Hannah thinks to herself, just like the guy on the left to her, her eyes begin looking somewhere else but her eyes are directed towards Chloe.
Click.
Creeeeeak!
All the conversations taking place, the thoughts going through everyone's minds, and any other noise caused by the inside of the cabin were all stopped once the door could be heard slowly being opened. A breeze suddenly fills the room from the outside and with it came some raindrops which landed near the entrance of the place nearly all of the contestants were hanging out in. Slowly, the camera pans up to reveal Sunny being the one who opened the door and his entire body seemed to have gotten water all over itself, right now a smile appeared on his face while behind him was the darkness of the night and the sound of heavy raindrops landing all over the ground outside. While the entire room watched in silence, the delinquent turned his head to look over at one specific person out of everyone else inside this cabin.
"Leo... I'm going to destroy you~"
Suddenly, a quick white flash appears from behind him which barely lasts... but the effects of this flash were loud and clear...
CRACK!
Shiena Nishizawa-The Asterisk War [From Gakusen Toshi Asterisk]
"[Soft Opening]"
Kennedy, Li, Brooke, Rae, Ciara, and Jun were each shown standing in front of different colors on the screen on top of a stage (Kennedy's background color is shown to be purple and she puts on a devious smile as she appears to be creating something in her hands. Li is the next one up with his color being rainbows and he gives a regular smile towards the camera. Brooke's color was gold and there's a confident smile on her face. Rae's was completely black and showed no emotions on her face. Ciara stood in front of pink and she winked at the camera while giving a seductive smile. Jun's color is shown to be white and he had an emotionless look on his face).
"[Instruments Kick In]"
Jackie, Vince, Fergy, Rainy, and Ingrid are all sitting in front of a black background which has a sort of red string going across it before they all intently stare at the television screen on the stage once they noticed the light from it turning on (Jackie got on her knees and had been smiling...only for her leg to fall off and she faceplants on the ground. Vince put on some sunglasses and he stood up in order to watch what's going on. Fergy blushed and he started crawling over to the television screen, however Ingrid wrapped herself around his arms which stopped him and she closed her eyes before looking away from the TV. Rainy is lastly seen gulping and sweat began immediately rolling down her face).
"Senjou no taiyou wa takaku yurete, Kanjou ni sumitsuku kage wo otosu, [The sun above this battlefield sways on high, casting away the shadows settled upon our emotions,]"
The camera zooms into the screen before revealing Chloe, Kyle, and Miriam standing all across from each other to form a triangle shape between them in the middle of the woods.
"Shiranai mama itami ni kawaru koto satoru you ni. [As if it's aware they'll someday turn to pain unknowingly.]"
Suddenly the screen glitches up and Hannah, Jared, and Red-Eyed Lia all replaced the previous trio and were standing inside of the building which they'd all partied at.
"Kanashimi kara umareta yume mo...Sekai to kimi ga yurushite kureru [Even the dreams born from sadness...Will be forgiven by the world, and you,]"
Once again the screen glitched out but this time Sunny, Evan, and Leon formed the triangle but each of them took a step back and looked like they were ready to leap towards one another.
"So mabuta no ura de kurikaesu, Kono sora ga yobu koe ni. [So take note as it reoccurs behind your eyelids, responding to the voice of this summoning sky.]"
Alex appears from out of thin air and he holds a book in his hand before some kind of magic circle appears below him and he levitates off the ground, once he does this he flies towards the camera.
*Song Skip*
"Hibiite, [Ringing out,]"
Evan pulls out a giant bow before jumping right into the air.
"Kono te no naka de kakushin ni naru shoudou, [That impulse took certain form within my hands,]"
A bunch of projectiles are seen getting fired off at Alex which he dodges, Evan and Alex are now seen battling in the sky while it's nighttime and the sharpshooting loner fires off a bunch of projectiles at once which the-guy-with-no-stereotype blocks using another magic circle.
"Namida norikoete, My star will shine forever! [Overcoming my tears, My star will shine forever!]"
Hannah and Chloe are both on a stage and glaring at one another all the while a large audience surrounds the two of them and were all clamoring while the spotlight were on both competitors.
"Unmei ga dashita kotae o, Tsuyoku kowashite yuke, Yume no tame ni ima! [I'll go forth powerfully, breaking the answer fate has given - right now, for the sake of my dreams!]"
Jared's entire body is shaking while Red-Eyed Lia stares intently at him and the two of them seemed to be in some kind of courtroom, there were sixteen stands which formed a circle however they both stood right across from each other.
"Yomigaeru, Jikan kono basho de, Bokura zettai yuzurenai negai o! [At the past revives, in this very place, I have a wish from which I'll never back down!]"
Miriam's seen jumping into a giant red dragon-looking mech-suit that lunges forward while Kyle is seen already inside of a green humanoid mech-suit with wings which is seen trying to block a strong blast of fire from Miriam's suit's mouth which is pushing him back. This battle seemed to be taking place in a desert.
"Tada hitotsu kono koe de tsuyoku kizande yuke-!: [I'll etch it powerfully with my one and only voice-!:]"
Sunny charges at Leon with a twisted smile on his face but The Lionheart Brawler chuckles before he runs towards The Delinquent and a red fire-like aura surrounded the two of them before their fists clashed with each other, however where they were seemed to be too dark to identify.
"This is The Asterisk War!"
Everyone remaining in the competition all walked into The Final Reckoning before all of them faced the screen before it glitched out once more, this time it goes along with the song right before showing the title card.
Total Drama: Move Along
Episode 15: Shines Forever
SLAM!
Sunny Persnisky slams the door behind him shut and the rain which had gotten all over him started getting all over the floor behind him but this wasn't something he seemed to mind. The sound of the door slamming caused people like Kyle and Alex to both jump at this. Both of them seemed to have been shaken quite significantly by the remaining Persnisky member in this competition in this game, and all he did was slam the door shut.
'That must be Sunny... I've already got a very bad feeling about him...' Kyle comments in his mind about what's just happened. Instead of looking scared, Leon blinks in confusion at the person who'd practically threatened him.
"...Really?... You came back just to threaten me again?" Leon eventually looks more annoyed by this rather than anything else, which was evident by his teeth gritting.
"Of course, finally you've stood up for yourself by beating me senseless last night, finally you've beaten up the person who's been breaking you this entire game! FINALLY, YOU'VE BECOME THE 'HERO OF SPAIN' WHICH YOU SAID YOU WERE WHEN YOU BEAT ME DOWN!" Sunny's smile grows more over the course of this conversation and his voice sounds like it's reminiscent of Chris McLean with how announcer-like it's becoming.
"Glad to know you understand, but from the sounds of what you've said, it sounds like my plan for you to maybe become a better person seems to have not worked on someone as pathetic as you." Leon sounds apathetic to this entire situation and he just sighs once his sentence is finished.
"Actually you're wrong about that because I've grown for the better!... Just not in the way you wanted, before all this I'd tried changing, really I did... but your beatdown reminded me of an important lesson my piece-of-crap dad taught me: This world doesn't care about how good of a person you are or want to be, you'll be punished for just existing and if you want to combat it then you've gotta become someone more ruthless, someone less willing to take crap from others, someone who never has an exploit which others can target them using, even if that makes you lose your humanity because the most dangerous men are the one who've got nothing to lose." Sunny continues to explain all the while his eyes remain on the other person he's threatened.
"You do a lot of talking for someone who's gotten their ass kicked earlier today, maybe your dad should've taught you that action speak louder than words because right now you're not a human in my eyes, but really you're just a small fly who's going to be crushed over and over again until the hero finally does his job and makes you a better person." Leon suddenly grows a smile on his face by the end of his sentence.
"I'm gonna have to interject here because right now I'm missing some context on what exactly went down with the both of you but honestly I'd rather not only let the two of you have the spotlight since I've got other matters to deal with so can you both take this somewhere else?" Miriam interrupts their conversation by standing up and literally placing herself in-between the two contestants.
"Unfortunately for you that's not going to happen so easily since right now there's a goal on my mind which I'd like to execute right about now... that's something you can relate too, right?~" Sunny begins walking on the left side of the room and everyone except for Leon and Evan had their eyes on him the entire time he'd reached the same bed which Jared, Hannah, and Alex were all on.
"Fair point, but obviously I'm going to prioritize my goals over other ones because right now you're just being petty over being beaten up by Leon over here, since it sounds like not even your own father has hit you." Miriam's casual tone towards this conversation doesn't seem to change and she even rolls her eyes.
"Am I being petty? Yes. Do I care? No. In fact the plan I've got in place involves someone who I'm sure you all like so-" Sunny stops in the middle of his sentence and he effortlessly pulls Jared from off his bed by grabbing him by his turtleneck.
"DON'T TOUCH HIM!" Before anyone could even see what's happening, a voice filled with nothing but malice and rage yells loud enough for it to be heard throughout the entire room. A gust of wind blows past everyone and only Alex had been able to just barely make out who caused this sudden burst thanks to his glasses providing some protection. Of course the cause seemed to be Red-Eyed Lia who had her right arm wrapped around the throat of Sunny and she stares at him before the delinquent lets go of Jared.
"I figured something like this would happen, you're not exactly in my plans so I'd suggest you cut it out, otherwise I'm sure that a certain Spanish person wouldn't mind taking you down for once again disturbing the peace by threatening everyone and everything all because you're finally starting to realize you're a hormonal teenager, not the 'friendly' and wholesome YouTuber you've been portraying yourself as all this time... although I'm pretty sure your boy-toy knew that already and that's what made him so scared of you." Sunny nonchalantly speaks with the person who's basically holding him hostage, his eyes closed and during this speech his smile starts turning itself into a smirk.
"For someone who's the biggest criminal in this game, it seems that you understand rules and what's right surprisingly well, if so then it would appear that me beating you up has helped you in more ways than one~" Leon comments on the entire situation with an oddly proud look on his face.
"..." Although the two people who fought earlier were treating this situation quite casually, Jared's entire body seems to be shaking while his eyes remained laser-focused on the female with red-eyes. Slowly he tries clenching his fists and closing his eyes, it seems that the girl of his attention is watching him intently and her arm begins getting pulled away from the throat of Sunny. However once his eyes open they're directed towards another person who's in the very center of attention for everyone else.
"Let's just say that while I was being taken to the sorta-hospital this island has, I'd woken up and was able to sneak around to find some footage of what's been captured throughout the season so it wasn't too hard to figure out you'd punish or harm anyone who seemed to have 'wronged' others, whether it be from trying to harm other people-" Sunny suddenly feels pressure starting to be applied around his entire neck.
"Looks like you grew some balls since the last time we've met." Red-Eyed Lia responds with her teeth now being grinded and she seems to begin trying to choke out the Persnisky member.
"O-Or even when you've 'betrayed' o-others!" Sunny starts stuttering all the while his source of breathing is starting to be lessened, but his eyes shoot open and he looks towards Jared who absolutely noticed this.
"Lia, please don't choke him out! M-Maybe he's getting at something here!" Alex attempts to intervene by trying to convince the girl with red-eyes into letting go of the contestant she's choking out.
"And WHY should I listen to you, Purple Alex?" Red-Eyed Lia's grip around the neck of Sunny only gets tighter and now she's staring daggers into the soul of the person trying to break things up. Alex gulps and he stops before being able to even take a step to what's happening in front of everyone, Jared sighs before pointing to someone else inside this very room.
"Sorry to divert everyone's attention, but I'll confirm that the person who knocked everyone here out earlier is this person!" Jared declares, this causes everyone to shift their attention elsewhere. Red-Eyed Lia weakens her grip on the delinquent instinctually since now her focus is directed towards the person who's quite literally getting the finger pointed at him.
"So you're saying my conversation with Evan earlier was something I'd forgotten, but that Leon knocked me out and that means the conversation that was happening was cut-off, instead?" Miriam questions the information she's been given.
"Not just you, as someone who watched it all go down I'll have to add my alibi and confirm that everyone who was conscious was taken out of the equation except for Chloe and Kyle who weren't present for the beatdown." Alex elaborates more to add more clarity to the situation.
"How did you know about all-?" Chloe attempts to join in on the conversation by questioning the contestant who just spoke.
"I faked being unconscious, I'm not Hannah so naturally doing that wasn't the easiest thing in the world to pull off but luckily I'd been able to avoid suffering the same fate other people here did." Alex answers without any hesitation but his eyes seemed to intentionally not be looking at Leon.
"That would make sense, my memory's awful but I'm sure even my tarot cards would be unable to give me a reading regarding my feelings about having been knocked out yesterday." Kyle agrees with what everyone else is saying.
"... Yeah, I saw all that happened yesterday, I was just unable to really do anything about it..." Hannah sounded partially reluctant in giving this information but her face seemed to indicate otherwise.
"After hearing all that, I'd be an idiot to not believe everyone else so it looks like you're going home tonight because you've attacked everyone here and that's not something I'll let slide especially since I'm on that list. So what do you say, Leon Salvatore?" Miriam takes her turn in glaring at the brawler who just stood there and emptily stared at everyone who were all looking at him.
.
.
.
"Personally I'd been hoping to at least somewhat keep what happened covered up, but it looks like I've been called out! Congratulations everyone for finally figuring out something that obviously I wasn't good at keeping much of a secret, now you're all going to vote me off tonight, right?!" Leon asks everyone, excitement and positively radiated from his voice.
"W-WAIT!" Another voice spoke up from behind Leon.
"... E-Evan?" Alex and Miriam blurt out once they'd seen Evan Herbert finally stand up from sitting down on the bed, the officer-in-training walks out from behind the contestant being exposed by everyone. Once his appearance could be seen from everyone, some of the things which are noticeable were the fact that his hazel eyes have absolutely no light within them even though there were lights all around the room. Another thing which stands out about him is that there's actually a cut which seems to be going across his right eye.
"We shouldn't vote him out!" Evan declares and he stands in front of Leon before spreading out his arms.
"I know you're not the smartest here, BUT WHAT'S GOING ON WITH YOUR MIND?! DID YOU EVEN THINK, EVAN?!" Miriam wastes no time with yelling at Evan.
"BECAUSE HE CAN STILL BE HELPED! WE CAN HELP HIM BECOME BETTER!" Evan tries arguing back with a smile on his face, his head begins lightly nodding very frequently.
"E-Evan, I know we wanted to help him out in the pre-merge but right now-" Alex takes his turn in order to try and convince his friend that he's wrong.
"BESIDES, DIDN'T SUNNY DO THE EXACT SAME THING THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE PRE-MERGE?! WHY ARE WE ELIMINATING SOMEONE WE CAN HELP AND NOT A LOWLIFE CRIMINAL WHO WAS LITERALLY RAISED TO BE A SCUMBAG?!" Evan continues to argue his points and during this, he points at Sunny while directly talking about him.
"Simple, because clearly I'm physically outmatched and so taking out the teen who wanted to put me down would be smarter for everyone here, also the unfortunate situation that our fellow target has placed himself into is that he's deceived all of us into believing he couldn't turn into this monster who's got your self-righteous butt wrapped around his finger. The difference between me and this other lowlife is that I'm upfront and more honest about being someone who people can absolutely despise, meanwhile he seems to have quite the special ability to do it behind people's back, essentially the reason here is from everyone's perspectives they'd rather work with the enemy they know than the one who's deceived them~" Sunny starts to sound more glad the longer this conversation carries on.
"... S-Still, I'm not going to EVER associate myself with working with someone like you and in fact I'd never want to vote with you and if the two of you truly are 'evil' then I'll focus on working with the one who I believe still can be redeemed... unlike you." Evan just flat-out speaks to Sunny with clenched fists and an empty face.
"This isn't about-!" Alex once again attempts to interject himself into the conversation.
"You know what! I'm a fan of Evan's thinking process, so sorry friends but I'll have to support someone else in achieving quite a noble goal!~" Chloe exclaims and she skips over to Evan and Leon, once she reaches them she stands right by them with a big smile on her face.
"You are THE worst!" Miriam loudly gives her feelings to the drummer.
"Sorry everyone else, but I'll have to agree with Evan over here, the vibes I'm getting from Sunny just aren't something I'm willing to trust so once again, I'm sorry but I'm going to work with my friend to help out this Leon person." Kyle explains and he followed in his partner's footsteps which led into him walking past Evan, Leon, and Chloe in order to stand alongside them.
"...Wh-What?" From the sounds of her words, Miriam seemed to have been stunned in silence at this happening.
"Well that's quite a surprise, hey Lia! Would you like to help out a fellow deceiver with helping me change for the better?!~" Leon steps out from behind Evan in order to confront the girl with red-eyes.
"W-What?! Are you seriously trying to bring Lia towards your guys' side?!" Jared immediately seems to be getting defensive about the mere mention of the YouTuber being taken to the other side.
"How interesting~ It sounds like someone's still attached to the Lia's Loosies over here~" Leon's voice suddenly reaches a point which makes Alex take a few steps back once he's heard this. Sunny narrows his eyes and his entire body stiffens once he hears remnants of that voice that's been ingrained into his mind so recently, and yet so deeply. Jared gulps but rather than backing away he decides to walk over towards the person who pointed this out.
"Of course I a-am, it's just that-"
"Then why'd you direct me to attack her yesterday?~" Leon suddenly grows an uncomfortably large smile on his face and his eyes had a crazed look behind them which is something the perfectionist notices. He stops in his tracks completely at these words before the camera then captures his face which seemed to have fear on it, from his smaller pupils to his mouth being open, these words completely shifted his mood. Right on cue, footsteps were starting to get closer to him all the while he stood completely still.
"He was being attacked! Everyone here knows that he's not that physically capable so of course he'll-!" Hannah attempts to explain the actions of Jared as she takes a step forward.
"You're next." Although her words got the slow steps to finally stop, Hannah's face went entirely pale at these words and it didn't long for her feet to try taking some steps backwards. Once she felt just the slightest gust of wind she closed her eyes and placed her hands right in front of her face because she already knew what this meant. This wind blows her hair backwards and the heartthrob's entire body shakes while she expects to feel some serious pain soon enough.
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"I'm sorry it's come to this..." Slowly it began processing into Hannah's mind that she's not damaged like she'd been expecting, so she slowly opened her eyes. Even with her arms mostly still in the way they could make out the sight in front of her which the camera then pans over to show what had just happened. Right now, Jared Monuel is standing right in front of Hannah Jordan with his arms spread out, this means he's currently quite literally standing in the way of Red-Eyed Lia who's right hand has been stopped from hitting its intended target.
'H-He saved me? But why would he risk-?' Hannah thinks to herself in shock before she lowered her arms and now she's no longer blocking her head.
"At this point I'm not sure if the person I'd known is really who you were or if that really was something you enjoyed playing up for all the cameras, but now that you're actually going out of your way to hurt other people which means that side of you is absolutely dead... when I signaled for Leon to knock you out that was a mistake on my part, but at this point it's impossible for me to figure out any other way to prevent you from hurting anyone else since I've got no chance in hell with stopping you." Jared gives a long breakdown for his actions and he does it all while staring into his friend's glowing red eyes.
"..." Hearing these words seemed to make the rage stored inside of Lia go away since her eyes faded back to their original colors and she dropped her hand which she'd tried using to punch the heartthrob. Once she did this her arms seemed to motionlessly swing around and she began looking towards the ground in order to take in what she's been told. Afterwards she falls onto her knees and tries grabbing onto the wooden floor, however she was unable to get a grip before her body started to shake, "Pl-Please."
"Please?" Hannah questions due to how silent everyone else in this room seemed to be, which meant that the whispering of the girl on her knees could be heard by everyone present. Jared looks down at her and his hair covers his eyes, it looks like he didn't need to ask in order to know why Lia's whispering this magic word.
"Pl-Please... ch-choose m-me..." Lia tries elaborating on her words only for some tears to be seen dropping onto the floor which Jared responds to by turning around to look away from her.
"...Sorry, but my decision was made the moment you tried attacking Hannah." Jared confirms with apathy quite present in his voice, but it seems that he's still not looking at anyone in particular. Instead he walks away from the girl that he considered to be his closest friend/ally in this game, however this seems to have all ended with this decision from the pessimist.
"I-I'll... I-I'll g-get h-her... I'll d-destroy h-her f-for c-causing th-this..." Lia hopelessly tries declaring in the middle of her sobbing, however she barely could even get the words from out her mouth and now she's continuously crying to herself at the events which have transpired. Leon walks over to her before looking over at Jared who gets onto his bed and is pulling his blanket over himself while looking away from the result of his actions.
"Now you're definitely on my list." Leon doesn't try acting intimidating and he doesn't seem to be taking joy in what's just happened, in fact he sounds completely serious and is glaring at the pessimistic perfectionist who lays down on his bed. Hannah looks at the ground and she remains completely silent since right now she felt the words which were directed at her by Lia. Speaking of who, Leon pulls the now broken girl onto her bed in order to put the girl to sleep which leaves Miriam, Alex, Sunny, Chloe, Evan, and Kyle to all look at each other.
"While I'm not going to defend Jared's approach to the situation, I'll have to follow him like I've done this entire game because he's one of the only trustworthy people left inside of this game and because I'd like to get my revenge on you for whatever you did with Kyle." Miriam essentially decides to declare war against the drummer standing across from her.
"Honestly I sorta zoned out about what happened but if you're so willing to try and eliminate someone as nice as me, then I'd like to see you try!~" Chloe chooses to tease and further anger the dancer before laughing a bit.
"Sorry Alex, but Leon's helped me realize that me and him could absolutely learn from each other since I'll be able to help him become unbroken, and he could help me learn how to truly protect the people I care about like you!" Evan tries convincing and explaining himself to his friend, his voice sounded too positive and this wasn't helped by the dead-stare he's got in his eyes.
"My best approach into truly helping you become better is by opposing you, I've got no idea how Leon's make your mind like this but I'll have to unfortunately go against you if there's much chances for me to make you the officer who seemed to have good intentions and could tell the difference between good and evil." Alex responds with his head slightly shaking from side-to-side as if he was in disbelief.
"Looks like the first phase of my plan in order to get my revenge on that damn Spanish bastard is coming into play, even if you had your memories I wouldn't have expected you to trust me anyways. So if you're going to try and take me down then I'll personally make sure to enjoy every moment of our battles because you do seem like a good enough pawn for my entertainment until the King comes out, so you better try your best in making things at least amusing." Sunny blatantly yet honestly speaks to the baseball-player who blinks at his words.
"I've got no idea what my connections are with whoever the heck you are, but it sounds like me and you never got along inside this game so this being unsurprising in your eyes sounds reasonable enough. Out of everyone else on this alliance I'll admit I've got the least amount of reasons for being a member but that just means that once my reasons are found they'll probably motivate me more in making things in this game much more amusing for you." Kyle comments before turning around and he's the first person to walk away. It didn't take long for Chloe and Evan to make their own ways over to the beds on the right side of the room.
'Aaand the stars have aligned.' Sunny thinks in his mind before him, Miriam, and Alex turned around and went over to the beds located on the left side of this cabin. Now that everyone was on their beds after everything that went down, Hannah's the only person standing up in the middle of the room and she still seems to be looking down at the ground. Hannah Jordan finally snaps out of her thoughts and she sees that everyone else is falling asleep, so she walks over to the light-switch and uses it in order to turn off all the lights so everyone could sleep.
*Challenge Time*
Now it was the next day and everyone was seen walking in two lines through the same woods on this same island they've been stuck on for two weeks now, all of them knew the drill at this point. Sunny and Leon were the first pair to make it out of the woods and into the challenge location with both of them side-eyeing one another once they've arrived. Jared, Hannah, Alex, Miriam, Lia, Evan, Chloe, and Kyle all reach the area where the camera films and everyone lines up at the location for where their next challenge takes place.
"Where's Chris?" Hannah asks before the camera revealed everyone to be standing in front of a stage but the host didn't seem to be present to explain anything about what they're all meant to do. Right on time, the wind started blowing quite heavily and loudly was something heard reaching the contestants from up above. It's revealed that the cause for all of this was a helicopter that had a ladder hanging out from it which reached all the way to the ground.
"The Merge is heeere!" Chris could be heard because of how loud his voice is, then he begins climbing down the ladder all the while grass and dirt were getting blown all over the competitors. However he didn't seem to care since he climbed down from the helicopter and softly landed his feet on the ground before taking some shades out of his right pocket and putting them on. He pointed up at the chopper which flew away soon after, a smirk grew on his face once this had happened and right now his attention seemed to be on the contestants.
"Was that really necessary?" Alex questions before taking off his glasses in order to clean them off along with everyone else who were dusting themselves off.
"Yes it's necessary... for my own enjoyment of course and to show the audience just how cool of a host I'm able to become." Chris admits before laughing like he normally does, this received some groans from the contestants.
"Your ego knows no bounds, does it?" Leon joins in with questioning the host.
"If you were the host too, you'd probably do the same thing, anyways we're gonna have to put my awesomeness aside and instead turn our attention to what's going to explain about today's challenge!" Chris shifts the conversation topic to something far more important at this moment.
"Actually you don't need to explain much to us since this can't look like anything else besides a talent show, so just give us the signal to practice our talents and we can avoid wasting our time on the side-piece to our... conflicts we've got going on here." Miriam impatiently gets ahead of herself, this comment causes Chloe to nod in agreement very silently.
"ACTUALLY you're mostly right in your assumptions but there's going to be a twist: Whoever chooses to use the same talents as someone else will actually compete with that person during their show in order to prove who excels more in that area! Although we will still be ranking each of you individually." Chris excitedly confirms a new addition to the otherwise basic and easy-to-understand challenge.
"What an interesting addition, I'm curious though... is that the only twist you've got in store for us?" Kyle randomly asks his question which causes Chris to chuckle in response to this.
"Even with your brain missing many pieces of the puzzle it looks like your instincts remain because we do have one more twist in store for all of you! That twist is that there's not going to be one winner for this first phase, but instead the two contestants who impress the judges the most will face each other in a one-on-one showdown to decide which of you will be safe from elimination." Chris reveals another part of the challenge which caused smiles to slowly grow on Sunny's and Leon's faces.
"Who's going to be the judges for this challenge? Also where's Chef?" Chloe turns the conversation back into thirteen questions.
"My judges will actually be two people who'd gotten eliminated earlier this season who can help balance out my opinions, and Chef decided to take a vacation of his own from the show because apparently he needed to attend to some business for an indefinite amount of time, so if that sounds vague then I'll have to agree with you on that one." Chris continues to answer all these questions without fail.
"Wait, which two people are going to join us here?!" Hannah couldn't help but immediately ask her question and she steps out in front of everyone else in order to make sure she's heard. Sunny's smile he had on earlier seems to slowly go away and instead a look of indifference seems to creep onto his face for seemingly no reasons.
"Glad you asked, because both of our judges are arriving right now!" Chris announces before the screen cuts to two people walking through the exact same words which all the remaining contestants had just gotten through. Out of the two chosen eliminated people, the first person to step out in order to introduce themselves to everyone present is-
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"Hello everyone!" Kennedy Rose Lee proudly greets everyone now that she's arrived in order to fulfill the job she'd been chosen for, her appearance causes Miriam to smile before she walks over to her. Chloe shrugs at the appearance of her former team member, it didn't seem like she had much thoughts on the prankster. Evan looks away when he hears her voice and doesn't say a single word due to his involvement with her elimination.
"Hello Kennedy, nice to see you again, also sorry for using your spray-paint and Fake Hidden Invincibility Statue." Miriam says before she puts out her hand.
"It's all okay, you used your intelligence and that's something I can respect especially if it's used to eliminate someone like that literally self-righteous egomaniac." Kennedy gladly grabs onto her friend's hand and the two of them are now shaking hands.
"Not to really complain here, but aren't judges meant to be unbiased?" Kyle asks once he'd seen that one of the judges has a good relationship with one of the remaining contestants.
"Don't worry, I'm an expert in separating my objective and subjective thoughts so don't let this make you think I'm going to be biased!" Kennedy reassures the cast after she pulls away from the handshaking.
"For some reason I'm doubtful of that." Jared mumbles to himself once he hears the other perfectionist's words. Miriam's seen walking back to the line everyone else is standing in, meanwhile Kennedy walks over to observe all the other contestants before she notices the look on Sunny's face.
"Looks like someone's not interested in seeing me at all." Kennedy comments before giggling a bit.
"Actually this response isn't just for you, but it's also for the next person I've got no connection with walking through those woods." Sunny clarifies without changing his facial expression one bit.
"Looks like you're really trying to do something life-changing here because that's just cold... actually from the way you phrased your words, it sounds like you already know who the other judge is, I assume?" Kennedy questions with her head tilted to the left.
"It's obviously going to be Rainie 'Rainy Daze' Persnisky, the sister of Misty Persnisky." Sunny simply gives his answer which seems to cause Kennedy to smile a bit once she straightens her head out.
"My curiosity in seeing what you'll do next has just been raised further, come on out Rainy!" Kennedy raises her voice in order to speak to the next person walking through the words.
"H-Hello everyone, I'm R-Rainy. I h-hope none of you have a disliking towards me..." Rainy introduces herself with sweat already dripping from her face, it looks like the assumption that she's the other judge was correct. Leon seems to chuckle primarily at the response of the girl's brother, however it seemed he was only focused on his reaction. Evan's just looking down and it doesn't seem he's paying much attention to his former post-swap teammate, instead he's deep in his own thoughts about... something. Alex couldn't help but to smile before walking over to the formerly-emotionless former-contestant and once he reaches the girl, Rainy's worried look seems to go away once her mouth forms a slight smile.
"No one here really dislikes you, trust me. They're all just indifferent about you." Alex tries reassuring the girl with a happy smile on his face.
"O-Oh..." Rainy seemed to be saddened by this comment to the point the very small smile she had immediately turned away when she heard she wasn't even memorable enough to be worth disliking.
"B-But that doesn't mean everyone here dislikes you! In fact I'm pretty sure Jared remembers you!" Alex clumsily attempts to shift the topic of conversation into something more light-hearted by pointing over at Jared. This causes the perfectionist to stop staring emptily at the stage in front of him, he blinks a few times before looking over at the person who's pointing at him along with a familiar face.
"R-Rainy? You're here too?" Jared seems to immediately recognize the girl, although it didn't seem he was paying all that much to the explanation of this challenge. Rainy quickly regained her smile once she heard these simple yet effective words.
"Yes I am, goodluck with performing your talent." Rainy responds with no signs of nervousness on her body anymore, in fact she wipes away the sweat which had been on her face.
"Knowing him, I'm sure he'll come up with the perfect talent!" Kennedy joins along with complimenting the pessimist which Alex watched intently, a smirk appears on his face while this conversation went on.
"S-Suddenly sadness is g-going through my b-body, it makes me w-wanna c-cry!" Rainy's entire body is shaking, and just like she said her eyes seemed to be on the verge of tears which caught everyone's attention.
"Where did that reaction come-?" Jared tries asking about it.
"DAAAAGH! I-I TH-THINK IT'S Y-YOUUU!" Rainy stumbles around the place which causes Jared to blink a few times before looking around the place. Something in him knew that something's causing this sudden outburst and so his eyes behind his glasses scanned everyone standing in the same line which he's in. One person catches his attention the most and it was Lia, the girl looking away from everything that's going on who also seemed to be shaking quite significantly.
'Looks like she's still not over me... If only things didn't turn out this way.' Jared thinks in his mind before he looks down to the ground and turns his body to have his front-side face towards the stage.
"A-Agh! I'm starting to feel normal now... thank goodness." Rainy confirms with a sigh of relief exiting her mouth, her entire body stopped tensing and her face went back to its normal neutral-looking expression.
"Enough yapping! I'm a fan of drama as you all know, but I'm also someone who likes to see Action and so let's get to it!" Chris demands with his left foot tapping the ground. Kennedy sighs before she gives a thumbs up to Miriam who returned the favor by giving the prankster the same gesture, meanwhile Rainy gave a very slight wave towards the remaining contestants, Alex and Jared were the only ones to return the gesture. Both girls then walk beside the host of the show who rolled his eyes at what just happened.
"Goodbyes for now aside," Chris comments during his eye roll before he directs them to look at the contestants standing in front of him, "Prepare your talents so we can start this challenge which we'll call: A Star's Will!"
"What a crappy name!" Chloe's heard criticizing the name of the challenge.
"You're a crappy name!" Chris throws the drummer's words back at her... while using the most childish response possible.
*A Star's Will*
All three judges all took seats at the end of the runway which this wooden stage had, all their seats seemed to be tailored made for each person sitting down. Chris is sitting down on a yellow throne which had his face engrained at the top of it and it had red seat, Kennedy's seat was the tallest one there in spite of it being a black spinning chair it had the longest base although she uses her feet to kick off the table and spin herself around, Rainy had a blue sofa chair which was far less elaborate than the ones her fellow judges were using. Alex, Miriam, Jared, Chloe, Lia, Hannah, Leon, Kyle, and Evan are sitting down in regular white school chairs on each side of the runway.
"Everyone has been selected randomly to go in order, which means the first person up is Sunny!" Chris loudly confirms before the first contestant performing comes out from behind the curtains.
"In order to introduce my talent to everyone else here, I'd like for some object to come on over here in order to help me demonstrate what it'll be. After all, what's a live performance without audience participation?~ Especially when there's some people here who I'd enjoy making an example out of!" Sunny announces to the audience surrounding him.
"Sounds like you're calling me out, so I'll willingly accept your pitiful challenge." Leon accepts the offer without much hesitation and his voice has some annoyance behind it. The brawler hops onto the stage soon afterwards before his current rival begins walking up to him, "I'd like to deal with you now so that I'll finally deal with more important and deceiving people." He says before slightly looking over at the pessimist who just looks away from the stage.
"It looks like I'll have to teach you to not underestimate me... So-" Sunny's mood starts to slowly shift and change during the course of his response which suddenly stops.
"GRAH!" Leon yells out and in only nanoseconds, a flip is switched inside of him with his entire body becoming aggressive specifically with his legs getting some distance from each other and his right hand being swung at Sunny. During this punch he makes sure to turn his entire body in order to get more power into his punch, the scariest part about all this was that everything had to be slowed down in order for all this to be visible. The camera eventually stops putting everything in slow-motion right when the 'Hero of Spain' is about to connect with the punch to reveal... that the punch missed?
"Try me~" Sunny speaks in a tone that sounded eerily similar to the one that Leon had yesterday when he'd beaten him up. Time feels like it stops all around them with none of them making any moves for what feels like forever, no wind is blowing, no rain is pouring from the sky, and no human being is daring to even speak to break the moment of tension. Because the show must go on, Leon makes a move by not making one and instead gets himself back into a normal posture.
"I've beaten you up yesterday, there's no joy in making much more of an example on someone like you who's too boring to battle again even if you do know how to dodge-" Leon's eyes remain laser focused on the person in front of him however there was something which stuck out to him. In the corner of his eyes they had identified a baseball zooming through the air and on course to hit the back of Sunny's head. Without even looking at the ball, the delinquent moves his head out the way which leads into the brawler smacking the ball before it could hit him which causes the round object to immediately deflate and be blown off by the wind.
"...Yep, looks like you've got some serious foresight or have clairvoyance." Kyle confirms while standing up from his seat, obviously he's the one who threw the baseball and these words were directed towards Sunny specifically.
"Well 'clairvoyance' and 'foresight' are too tame to describe my talent, in fact I've always called it-" Sunny starts to explain his ability.
"Precognition." Rainy cuts him off in order to state its name which she seemed to be familiar with, in fact her entire body seemed to stiffened and her face has an apathetic look on it when she says this one word.
"I've never bothered to use it all that much before because it was normally disrupted by people getting emotional which usually foiled by perfectly set-up plans, luckily I've got an excuse to utilize it all I'd like now, since it'll be needed to take down some big threats in this game and I've also got enough information to see who will do what more often than not." Sunny chooses to explain his ability all the while he's faced and speaks directly towards Leon.
"Sounds like you're even more of a small hassle than you were before." Leon just rolls his eyes at this revelation, but once he's finished speaking, Sunny turns his back to him and instead turns his attention to someone else.
"Your move to see if your fantasies of me possessing some sort of supernatural ability seemed to have been perfectly timed, although I'll admit you've definitely got some balls doing what you did so maybe you're not just going to be filler for me~" Sunny changes his tone now that he's confronting the baseball-player to something more playful and excited which causes the contestant he's confronting to gulp.
"How about we just move onto the judges thoughts on this performance?" Kyle does some changing of his own by shifting the conversation towards something different than the newfound one-sided 'rivalry' going on with the delinquent.
"Actually, we will reveal our thoughts once everyone has gone up along with the scores we've given for each of the contestants because we'd like to keep you all in the dark on things to make sure you're all on your toes." Chris tells everyone with nothing but upfront honesty right before him and the judges wrote down on some notepads using pens.
'When the time comes to make him another victim of my pranks, there's definitely gonna have to be multiple contingency plans in place.' Kennedy confirms in her mind, the camera reveals her to have literally written: 'INITIATE OPERATION: SCHRODINGER ON HIM WHEN GOING ON THE ATTACK!'
"I'll go next!" Miriam insists before jumping onto the stage without any hesitation which causes everyone present to look over at her with confused looks for each of their faces.
"Looks like you're quite impatient, how about you wait your turn for the sake of everyone else?~" Leon casually suggests without any care in the world.
"I'm not in the mood to hear anymore of your sweet-toned bullcrap because right now, you're just another person in my way of all this money and my chance of getting back someone of importance to me!" Miriam ignores his words and goes up to walk up to him all the while Sunny steps out of the way to allow this argument to carry on.
"To you I'm just an obstacle? Well then, how about I send out a really strong one?~ Because this hero wants to deal with actual threats." Leon taunts the girl in front of him before forming a finger gun with his right hand which he aims at the other contestants. His words were able to tick off the dancer enough to jump towards him and in the middle of the air she swung her right leg and aimed her feet for his chest. Unfortunately for her, Evan jumps onto the stage before grabbing her leg which he uses to slam her right onto the stage.
"YOU PRI-!" Miriam's cut off once she crashes right through the runway which leads to Jared being the first person to jump onto the stage.
"Hey, are you-?" Kyle starts asking and he stands up from his seat to get onto the stage also, however he's grabbed by his left wrist which prevents him from taking any more steps forward. His head turns to see that Chloe had grabbed onto him and now her eyes had some kind of stars behind him and she was even frowning at the contestant. It seemed that she's giving him some puppy eyes and he tries pulling away from her, "Would you mind letting me go? I'd like to see if that girl's okay."
"Aren't you going to get hurt too? I'd absolutely loathe myself if I'll watch you hurt yourself for someone you've got no connections with, and besides..." Chloe looks towards the stage and Kyle does the same afterwards. Both of them watched Jared rush over to the hole which Sunny, Evan, and Leon all backed away from to let him do his thing. Jared gets onto his knees and he reaches out his hand into the newly created hole in the stage, a look of concern invades his entire face and he anxiously waits for something to happen. Luckily he felt a hand grab on which makes him sigh in relief before he attempts to pull the dancer out from the runway which he struggles to do but after trying multiple times, Miriam is seen getting lifted out of the hole. Now that the situation has been resolved, Kyle looks over at the girl who'd stopped him from going up, "She's already got someone there for her."
"...Well, you're not wrong I guess." Kyle hesitantly responds before sitting back down, but to him there was some part that wanted to help out this seemingly random dancer.
"D-Damn, that l-left a mark." Miriam states and she grits her teeth in pain now that there seemed to have been splinters around her which could only mean that there's some that have left their mark on her. Jared stares at the damage that being slammed through the stage has caused and he looks back over at Chris in order to signal to him to get over there. Chris nods before pulling out his phone and he begins calling someone.
"Hey, we're gonna have to pull Miriam from the challenge in order for her injuries to be healed." Chris confirms on the phone right when it sounds like the person on the other end has picked up.
"Wh-What?! I-I haven't even competed y-yet!" Miriam points out in an effort to keep herself in the challenge, she sits up during his protest.
"Alright then, we'll have her moved off the stage to be picked up." Chris just flat out ignored the pleas of the dancer before he hangs up the phone and puts it back in his pocket.
"LISTEN TO ME FOR-!" Miriam gets angrier at this, but now that the adrenaline she'd felt has worn off, her body processes the pain and she slams her back right onto the floor. She tries sitting back up only for the pain to shoot through her body and she grabs onto the runway itself but can't manage to get a grip and so instead her hands punch the ground. Her eyes eventually glare over at Leon and Evan who watched all this happen in front of them.
"Anyone associated with villains, don't deserve any sympathy from me." Leon gives her a verbal birdie before nudging the other contestant next to him and walking off the stage right after.
"S-Sorry this had to happen to you, I've gotta protect the people who need it the most though! Y-Yeah, in order for me to help him out he'll need to avoid getting attacked so he's going to be less violent! Y-Yeah, that's the right thing to do!" Evan tries justifying his actions to the girl in front of him before following the brawler off the stage.
"YOUR DEFINITION IS WHAT'S RIGHT IS SERIOUSLY WRONG!" Miriam yells at the pair who just leave her laying on the ground in pain.
"Hey Sunny, would you mind carrying Miriam?" Jared turns his attention to the only other person present in this situation.
"Sure." Sunny responds before picking up the dancer in his arms and carrying her away from the scene of the injury.
'Evan... You've changed too much.' Alex comments in his mind, it seemed his attention had been on his former friends this entire time. There seemed to be a look of disappointment on his face to see how drastically the officer-in-training had changed within the span of what seemed like a single day.
"Actually, Evan! Get back up there because you're competing against Kyle!" Chris confirms with both his hands pointed at the two contestants that he's called up. Evan and Kyle both blink before looking at each other with confused looks on each of their faces.
"Why am I going against him?" Both competitors ask in unison and unlike the host, they both use their thumbs to point at one another.
"Because according to the applications you both sent to me, you both do have the same talent and honestly I'd like for you to be against each other because of your actions and non-actions for what just happened!" Chris answers the two of them with his default volume level, louder than how even speakers can go. Evan and Kyle stared at the host before the two of them nodded and headed onto the stage, despite being unprepared they seemed ready to essentially have a talent showdown. Leon and Chloe took their turns to look at each other with smiles on each of their faces.
'Let the superior backup-person/friend win.' Chloe and Leon confirm in their respective minds before turning their attention to the stage.
"Evan and Kyle, hope you two are ready to use your respective weapons to hit your respective targets." Chris speaks to the competing competitors, to his left, Kennedy picks up two pistols which she made sure to hold on tightly to.
"Personally I'm hoping for Evan to lose badly because of what he did, but that aside let's see how accurate both are with these guns that fire out two small electrodes... so basically they're tasers." Kennedy explains real quick before tossing both weapons into the air towards the direction of both contestants.
'I wonder why Sunny didn't help out Miriam when she got slammed.' Kyle's mind seemed to be somewhere else, although he does reach his hand out in order to catch the taser pistol. During his thought process, Evan runs ahead and chooses to instead get the weapon sooner instead of later which he does catch out of the air, then he aims it over at the baseball-player.
"Put your hands in the air!" Evan shouts out.
"But they are." Kyle casually points out before catching his weapon, and yet his hands are still raised above his head.
"Good, because if they weren't then-" In the middle of his sentence his eyes widened before he moved out of the way of the shot which had been fired off at him. Once he'd done this his eyes stared at the contestant who'd fired the electrodes at him who no longer had his hands raised in the air.
"If we're going by officer logic then I'd need to do something violent or not listen to you for you to use that, so there's your reason for firing at me." Kyle states, a smile grows on his face during this explanation.
"Even when you do make sense, you somehow confuse me." Evan remarks before aiming his pistol right at him, although his eyes did notice the wires which had been connected to the electrodes break off from the weapon. More electrodes are pushed out and are ready to be fired out which makes the teenager who'd fired the shot smile to himself at this new information.
"Looks like I'll be firing off on all cylinders~" Kyle states with some joy in his voice before firing off another shot, however this seemed to make him stumble backwards due to the amount of force firing a pistol took. Just like before, Evan moves out of the way of this attempt and decides to roll on the stage in order to maybe get some style points. Now he made sure to get onto one knee before returning fire for the first time this showdown.
Rather than moving out of the way of the shot, Kyle stands his ground and instead perfectly aims his weapon which causes the electrodes from both of their guns to shock each other. Both contestants quickly had their guns reloaded and aimed right at each other with the officer making sure to get back up to his feet in order to fire away. Soon after, the electricity sparked from their previous shots having collided from one another caused a mini-explosion that blows smoke all over the stage and covers both contestants.
Now the camera could only track faint silhouettes of each contestant who both started running around in order to get a clear shot on each other so they could win this showdown. Blue sparks were seen flying across the area and the smoke seemed to not be going away anytime soon since the contestants were still popping off at each other. Eventually, the outlines of the two competitors were seen right by one another with their backs turned to one another in the midst of all this unreadable chaos.
What could be said is that both of them turned around and it seemed that they're now starting to get into a fist fight with each other. Again it was hard to tell what's going on since a few blue sparks were seen flying out of the smoke which landed near some of the spectating competitors, mainly Alex who jumps a bit since one of them landed right beside his chair. His eyes then searched over the place and he noticed that Sunny had a baseball in his hand which he launched into the cloud of smoke.
"DAAAAAGH!" This baseball seemed to have hit one of the people in the smoke and caused them to yell in pain, but the other person there seemed to press their pistol against the person's head. Finally the smoke clears up to reveal who's currently in control and the person who seems to have won this battle is revealed. Meanwhile the loser seemed to be on his knees and so it's revealed that the winner is-
"This shows we're alliance members, n-nothing more, nothing less." Evan declares before firing his electrodes and they absolutely do their jobs with riling up Kyle's entire body with electrons. Both of their bodies are now shaking for completely different reasons and this lasts for a few seconds, however it feels like an eternity to the people witnessing this up-close. Kyle's the first one to stop shaking and he collapses onto the ground now that the effects of this brutal shocking had finally finished. However it seemed that the victor of this showdown doesn't stop trembling at what he's just done and his head slowly turns to look over at the person he's basically the closest with at this point of the game.
"It has to be done, after all, you need to make sure to do absolutely anything in order for your ideals to become true!" Leon proudly explains before getting onto the stage in order to consult his partner-in-crime. While doing this, he wraps an arm around his neck before leading both of them off the stage before Chloe took her turn to go onto the stage.
"Well that was disappointing, I'd expected more out of someone who I've willingly chosen to align myself with." Chloe condescending-ly speaks to her currently unconscious partner, then she grabs him by his legs in order to drag him off the stage. Alex looked at Kyle with a look of pity on his face at what situation the guy's in, but at the bottom of his eyes he could faintly see a white object. His head turned to look down and he noticed a familiar looking baseball which seemed to have somehow gotten a dent in it, once he'd seen this he turned his head over to the person who threw this.
"Hey Sunny, Why'd you get involved in that competition?" Alex wastes no time in confronting Sunny over what he'd seen go down when the smoke had covered the stage.
"Looks like I've been caught, oh well, would you like an explanation?" Sunny doesn't answer his question at all.
"Of course, Why wouldn't I ask why you'd get involved with a battle between the people we're opposing?" Alex elaborates further on his question in the hopes this is the clearest and most understandable way to present the question so it can actually get an answer this time.
"I just wanted to return the favor to Kyle for his throw earlier, and besides... you were rooting for Evan, weren't you?~" Sunny chooses to turn the question around on the contestant in front of him.
"H-Huh?! Of course not! We're n-not even in the same a-alliance!" Alex tries denying this accusation, which wasn't helped by the bright and big blush that appeared on his cheeks.
"Even when you're both on opposing sides, you've got quite an attachment to him, after all, you did lose Vince earlier in the game so that does make sense." Sunny completely disregards this denial because in his mind, it was the truth.
"Was it seriously that-?!"
"Yes."
"D-Dammit... hey, what do you think the judges are talking about over there?" Alex is finally able to find another topic to shift their attention towards, it looks like Rainy's speaking to Chris for the time being before Kennedy's seen sitting back down beside them with the pistol-tasers in both of her hands.
"Probably the showdown we've just witnessed, it did get a little hard to comprehend everything that happened with it." Sunny takes his best guess with his eyes focusing specifically on the host of the show.
"Alright, Lia, you're up next!" Chris announces once he'd finished speaking with the former contestants around him.
"If you insist..." Lia very quietly obliges to the request and looks towards the ground before standing up from her chair and trudging her way right onto the stage. Her mood seemed to have been completely different from the way it'd been earlier this season to the point that when a mic placed on top of a stand is placed in front of her, she half-heartedly grabs onto it. At the very least she does raise her head to look around the place, only for it to face the ground once again.
"According to your application your talents range from decent writing and video creation, both of which would take too long for what we're doing here, so we're going to need you to entertain all of us right now." Chris gives her instructions before yawning to establish that he's currently bored just waiting for her.
"Hey she's not rea-" Jared begins responding as he stands up from his seat so he could try and give his response to Chris, however he's grabbed by his left wrist which prevents him from finishing his sentence. His head turns around and he looks at the culprit who'd stopped him from trying to say what he wanted and it was Hannah who stares up at him.
"We can't help her out, she's not on our side anymore." Hannah explains to the perfectionist who only tries more to pull his wrist out of her grip.
"That doesn't mean we don't have to-!" Jared tries protesting and he grabs onto her hand in order to find some kind of way to make the actor let go of him.
"Who do you think made her like this? Who do you think made her feel abandoned by the decisions a certain someone had made? Who do you think caused her to act like this and is now trying to somehow make her feel better? At best you'll cure her sadness only temporarily and at worst you'll only make her feel even worse about herself, plus if we don't help her out then that's someone on the other side which you've placed her on who won't be one step closer to gaining immunity, I'm sure the pros outweigh the cons here but if you do try and make her feel better... don't say I didn't warn you." Hannah doesn't waste a single breath with explaining the situation to the pessimist who seems to have slowly stopped in his attempts of breaking free.
"..." Jared gives his answer without muttering out a single word, he does this by descending himself back onto his chair and he looks over at the person who was once the person he'd been closest with. Memories of the good times they've spent with one another flash through his mind now that it's completely processed in his mind what exactly his decision last night had resulted in. These good memories slowly started getting darker and they started leading towards the most memories they've shared with each other that have essentially broken any love or friendship these two seemed to have had before, 'Lia, whoever you are at this point... I'm sorry for having broken you this badly.'
Finally, the girl who's taking the stage opens her mouth and this causes everyone surrounding her to widen their eyes, even the host who seemed to be surprised that she actually seemed like she was going to perform. Everything around her starts going dark and her head slowly begins turning up from the ground to slowly look towards the camera which is only focused on her at this point. Her eyes are seen switching constantly between its red and green colors before she finally begins speaking up for the first time since last night.
ReoNa-ANIMA (From SAO Alicization: War of the Underworld)
"Tamashii no iro wa naniiro desu ka. [What's the color of your soul?]"
Instead of words coming out her mouth she instead notices a bunch of memories appear around her which makes a smile slowly start growing on her face. All the while the song is heard starting up, she begins walking around the place to see the events in her life that have transpired so far.
""Mou isso oreta mama de." ["That's enough, it's already begun."]"
Within this place, she seemed to have completely gray eyes which happily searched the place.
"Suteru hodo nigedasu hodo. [The more I run away, the more I disregard it.]"
Something bright does start reflecting in her eyes and she turns to look at the specific memory which has caught her attention.
"Tsuyokunai yo hora. [I am not strong enough, you see?]"
"Hey all of you watching, welcome to Lia's Loosie's, this is my first video on the channel." Her words for her first ever video ever posted to YouTube were heard coming from that specific memory.
"Mou ichido kodo takanaru, [My heart is still beating once again,]"
The smile on her face stretches out more now that she's remembering a simpler time in her life before she turns around to see another memory.
"Nani ga tadashii ka nante. [But I still don't know what's right or wrong.]"
This memory contained her opening a door and this lets someone into her house who immediately runs over to her table.
"Wakaranai kedo [What should I do?]"
"Wait, the food isn't cooked yet Quinnigen!" She chased after the person who had gone straight for the food, this makes Lia in the present day laugh.
"Katachi no nai mono bakari ga, [Only the things without shape,]"
Her body spins around and she skips her way past some other memories, one of which was her playing this song that's on.
"Taisetsu ni natte yuku [Becomes more important to me] (Found them truly)."
Her eyes slowly turn green during all this and her skipping starts slowing down.
"Kazaranai kotoba dake ga, [Only the unadorned words,]"
Lia stands still and slowly starts opening her mouth to finally say some words.
"Tsuyoku musubareteru! [Are tied tightly to me!]"
Suddenly, she felt her eyes turn red and the memories around her fell apart all around her.
"Mata tsumazuite korogatte, [I tripped and tumbled again,]"
Red-Eyed Lia notices different memories were forming in the places of the previous ones.
"Sore demo kudakenai! [But I'm still unbreakable!]"
For most of these memories, they contained someone running away from her.
"Tamashii no iro wa naniiro desu ka. [What's the color of your soul?]"
However the one which she stares the most intently at, is the one which happened last night.
"Tada kizutsuite tsuyogatte, [I may get hurt and then pretend to be strong,]"
This one scene of Jared turning his back on her starts replaying over and over-
"Sore demo mitsuketai yo, [But I still want to find out,]"
And over again, but in her eyesight she sees someone else in this memory.
"Tamashii no katachi tashikameteru yo. [And confirm the shape of your soul.]"
All the darkness which had been around her goes away and once again she's standing on top of the stage, microphone in hand. But she lets it go before turning around, which Jared notices immediately and he gets out of his seat because there was one thing which caught his attention... her red eyes.
*Cuts Off*
"WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!" In a blink of an eye, Red-Eyed Lia lands a strong punch to Hannah which springs her into the air and the actor is unable to respond during her fall back down. Instead, the rage-filled contestant stands in the spot she's going to land and instead swings up in order to land a powerful uppercut to her back.
"GAAAAAAAAAAH!" Hannah screams in pain when she feels the sharp pain in her back which spreads throughout her body, her iris and pupils shrink at how bad this felt for her.
"HEY! CUT IT OUT!" Chris tries convincing the raging contestant to calm down, but she fails to listen and instead grabs the other contestant by her hair just so she can slam her into the ground herself.
"HOW DOES IT FEEL TO HAVE EVERYTHING, HUH?!" Red-Eyed Lia continues venting while the girl she's beating the crap out of closes her eyes and starts feeling her body tremble for many reasons right now. Hannah starts thinking about these words being yelled at her, basically she begins reflecting on these words in the brief time she's not getting beaten up.
"And here I was feeling bad for you!" Jared suddenly sounds more sarcastic and aggressive in his words, he speaks as he walks around behind his former friend. Red-Eyed Lia lets go of Hannah and instead turns around to slowly glare over at the perfectionist who'd contributed with making things this way between them. Without wasting any more time she launches herself forward in order to attack him, "Who the hell even are you anymore?"
"..." Red-Eyed Lia stops before being able to punch him, which causes wind strong enough to make the guy in front of her fall down onto his back. Currently she stands still and seems to instead choose to not attack any further, so she just turns around and walks away from the situation which she'd just caused. It seemed there was some shakiness in her steps and the colors of her eyes began frequently changing in the aftermath of all this.
"Lia! You're definitely disqualified for what you just did, I love drama but not when it leads to injuring other competitors!" Chris doesn't waste much time in verbally berating the YouTuber for her actions. Jared gets back onto his feet before running over to Hannah who closed her eyes because of the amount of damage she's suffered and because she seems to be thinking to herself. Rather than leave her on the ground, the perfectionist signals over to Alex who wastes no time in order to run over to them, Jared and Alex both inspect the girl to see how badly she's been hurt.
"Well, guess I'll be going next, then!" Chloe starts hopping onto the stage with drumsticks in her hands and it seemed that she didn't really care about what happened at all.
"You're disqualified too!" Chris takes his anger and starts directing it towards the drummer.
"WHAT?! THAT'S BULLCRAP!" Chloe seems to get livid at this comment to the point her grip on her drumsticks causes them to begin breaking.
"Your little 'alliance' has caused enough harm to all the other contestants and I can't trust YOU out of all people to not hurt others! I'll still allow Leon to compete because he seems honorable enough to not hurt others, but from the footage we've seen you're not trustworthy at all so get off the stage!" Chris only continues to use his angered tone to speak with the contestant on-stage.
"DAMN YOU MCLEAN!" Chloe yells out once more before storming off the stage, once this happens an ever-so-present smirk is seen showing up on Hannah's face. In fact her eyes open and she begins looking at the two guys that were watching over her.
"She's okay!" Alex confirms whilst giving a thumbs up to the host who'd turn his attention back to them.
"Good, Alex, we'd like for you to go up next!" Chris immediately picks him out, although he did let out a sigh of relief beforehand.
"Actually you can skip me, I'm fine with not getting much of the spotlight especially if it results in me not getting beaten up." Alex wastes no time in completely rejecting the offer to be a part of the competition.
"Seriously? You're not going to try and win immunity and instead be invisible?!" Chris starts getting frustrated with another competitor, but the reason is completely different this time around.
"I'm used to getting the purple edit this season so yes, I'd like to willingly be invisible this time around." Alex reinforces his decision and turns his head to look over at the girl in his arms.
"...Fine, Leon show off your acting talent right now or else I'll disqualify you because this is getting stupid!" Chris demands with his hands slamming the table which he and the two former contestants are on.
"Would you like this Budweiser to calm down? I found it on the ground on the way over here." Kennedy suggests in an attempt to try and at least calm down the enraged host.
"Of course!" Chris accepts the can immediately before opening it and chugging it down his throat all the while Leon Salvatore nods before climbing onto the stage. Leon chuckles before setting his feet on the runway below him, Rainy seemed to stare intensely at the brawler who was going to try acting right in front of everyone. Speaking of actors, Hannah seems to finally process what's just been said and she slowly turns her head to look over at the contestant on-stage.
"W-Wait, a-acting?" Hannah asks which caused even Jared and Alex to turn their heads and look over at Leon who had a smile that's filled with innocence and optimism.
"It would appear I'll have to give everyone less reasons to trust me than before, how unfortunate..." His smile begins turning and instead the happy look slowly starts changing into one filled with sadness and it contains a frown. To sell how deeply it pained him to display his talent for the entire viewing world to witness, he even closed his eyes and it seemed the rest of his body completely stiffen up. All of this slow and dramatic shift in his mood seems to get entirely reversed into becoming something that had absolutely no innocence and instead the familiar look of ruthlessness quickly appears on his face.
"Grrr!" Sunny growls at this, the flashbacks of what happened yesterday starts flooding his thought process.
"But if I'm being honest, it does relieve me to not need to hide my real feelings... or maybe I'm doing just that~" Leon vaguely continues to speak with his eyes slowly starting to close and the intimidating smile sticks on his face. Deciding to make himself even standout even more, he starts trekking ahead with his footsteps being heard every time his foot connects with the ground in order to produce such a slow yet loud noise. Wind started to pick up and it began breezing through everyone but there's oddly enough a stronger gust that's going through the brawler.
"Maybe I should probably cool down in case my tone could be scaring some people here, after all I'm meant to be a hero!" Leon's tone changes up once again with his eyes shooting themselves open and the menacing smile on his face shifts into one with more friendliness behind it. To further drive this mix-up in attitude his right hand gives everyone a thumbs up with the wind seeming to not affect him all that much.
"Then again not all heroes are meant to win the game, and considering how my cover's blown already I might as well throw in the towel at this point." Leon unfolds his hand and drops it to his side which causes it to seemingly go limp. In order to show off even more of his range his mouth starts having a monotone voice escalate while his sentence carries on and by the end it sounds like despair's completely taken over his tone.
"Even still, there's someone who needs my help so Evan... bring up the main audience of my act~" Leon's talent only continues to get shown off to everyone witnessing it right in front of their eyes. Rainy in particular seemed to be the most hooked by this performance out of all the judges and didn't blink at all during her observation of the person who'd beaten up her brother the previous day. Chris stops hitting his head against the table and raises an eyebrow once he'd seen Evan seemingly carry out an order given by his closest ally.
"Sorry for disrupting your brooding, however it's time for me and my partner to do our jobs. So, it's time to walk you up to the stage, Lia Clemins." Evan states once he'd stood in front of the emotionally confused green-eyed contestant who seemed to have noticed his hand once he'd offered it to her.
"...Sure..." Lia emotionlessly accepts the offer by reaching out her hand and allowing the teenager in front of her to grab onto her hand and gently pull the girl out of her seat. Watching all this go down in front of him was hard for Jared to do and so as he pulls Hannah onto her seat his head looks away from what's happening in front of him. On the other hand, Alex remained standing and laser focused on what plan is going to be executed right now.
"Time for me to finally show off how truly effective acting can be!" Leon announces, Evan pulls Lia onto the stage before letting go of her hand and jumping off the stage in order to leave the YouTuber sensation by herself in front of the male actor.
"..." Hannah took her turn to show the level of interest this moment seems to have in her, currently she seems to be wearing quite an effective poker face in spite of the beating she took earlier and seems to be quite invested to see what could possibly go down next.
"Hey Lia! From what I've seen your day's been going downhill since last night, which sucks to see, what's been happening with you?" Leon states before Kyle springs back up to his feet and he picks up his chair before sliding it onto the stage. Leon leans backwards and perfectly times the moment by being able to sit down on the chair, then he pulls some glasses out of his shirt which he puts on, at this point it is quite clear he's playing the role of a therapist.
"...I-I don't know, my m-mind's just-... it's just been trying to figure out some st-stuffs like if my anger towards specific p-people are justified... If I've really been d-deceiving everyone who's ever watched me or hung out with me by acting all j-jumpy and optimistic... I'm starting to believe I-I'm the p-problem and that maybe it would be better for everyone else if I just... eliminate myself..."
"There's the problem, you're not the problem like what your 'perfect' friend has been trying to convince you recently, in fact have you considered that perhaps he's the villain of the story?" Leon asks and during this questioning he slowly stands up from his seat and takes off his glasses he's just placed on.
"...No way, he's been genuinely the nicest person in this game and even if he doesn't recognize it the reason people like R-Rainy and... that other girl are attached to him are because they know that ever since the team leaders were basically assigned, he's been the best person to everyone that weren't obviously bad people like Jun and Sunny." Lia responds, shaking her head in disbelief and smiling because in her mind she absolutely knew that he wasn't the kind of guy to antagonize her for villainous or even selfish reasons.
"Then why isn't he helping you? Why isn't Jared-?!"
"Because anyone who harms people I'd consider my friends aren't worth helping, I'm not going to try and turn everyone good because whether I'll like it or not, not everyone can be redeemed and from what I've seen neither of you two are unfortunately worthy of trying to get changed for the better." From behind the self-proclaimed 'Hero of Spain', Jared looks at the two of them and gives them his answer.
"Well aren't you just the smartest guy out here?~ Your parents must've absolutely loved filling your head with all this knowledge you love showing off to each and everyone else here, that or you must've hated the two of them with a burning passion to study ways on how to kill them." Leon chooses to change himself completely by giving an answer which had a mixture of teasing and casualty behind it.
"That's your most incorrect guess yet, my mom helped me grow the brain I've gotten today and my dad's passing away wasn't something which I'd ever wanted to see happen in any timeline." Jared corrects him with his left eye twitching very slightly, however his mostly calm composure did remain.
"Sounds like you've got the tragic backstory, a mind smart enough to know when to be logical, and have everyone's trust in the game. Personally I'm glad to see why your unofficial-ex over here had placed all her eggs in your basket, in fact don't you feel the slightest bit bad for her?" Leon verbally and literally points out the girl next to him on the stage with his mood changing again, this time around he sounds completely dead serious.
"Of course I feel bad for her, she's someone I've been close with for basically the entire game and it does suck being the reason for her going into this emotional downfall right now but-!"
"BUT you do admit that you're the cause for causing this innocent girl so much internal pain and suffering!" Leon returns the favor from earlier by cutting off the perfectionist.
"A-Actually he's not the only person who's turned a-against me for having deceived so many-"
"That means Jared should be there for you! If he's surely a good guy then he'd definitely stand with someone to make others feel like they're not alone no matter what they've done before because a true hero will try his best to help everyone no matter what and especially when it comes to the ones who seem down and out!" Leon interrupts the girl who's on the stage with him, notably enough he seems to be getting quite prideful in his response and a heroic smile starts growing on his face.
"No, that's wr-!"
"No! You're wrong! You're wrong for making this girl you were close with feel so alone and like she's been causing all the problems in her life when really you've admitted yourself that YOU have caused her to feel this way and I'm here to do something you don't have the balls to do!" Leon utilizes his loud and powerful voice to speak over Jared and instead continue verbally wailing down on him with anger and righteousness being channeled throughout his entire body. Once he'd finished speaking he wraps an arm around Lia who seemed to be staring at him with widened eyes right before he adds onto what's been said. "What I'll do, is help out Lia Clemins more than you ever had!"
"Just because you're there for her doesn't mean you'll help her out! Sometimes people need to grow alone in order to really be helped, it's harsh and really I wish it'd be possible for me to help her out but if you keep making her believe that her physically hurting other people is justified then you're not being a hero, you're just setting her up to cause more harm!" Jared attempts to rebuke everything that's been thrown at him.
"W-Will you a-actually be there for me?..." Lia asks the teenager-on-steroids she seemed to have been completely caught by surprise by.
"Of course, just like you've done for so many people around the world, I'll help brighten up your day!" Leon chooses to reassure the girl without any hints of acting in his body language and voice tone, this seemed to be completely sincere. This exchange between both of them made Jared come to a realization that made his eyes widen, both of them were completely ignoring him and were only focused on each other.
"G-Guys? The further you two go down this road, the more destructive things will be in both of your wakes!" Jared tries to continue in making the pair in front of him realize the flaws with both of their thought processes.
"So you don't mind my habit with my r-red e-eyes?" Lia continues to ignore the contestant trying to reason with them, and in fact the guy in front of her seems to have completely lifted her mood and made her smile.
"Of course not, we're both the same and I'll accept you for who you are no matter what!" Leon cheerily exclaims which makes Jared start running onto the stage.
"Can you two please just-!?"
Before he could make it onto the stage however, the perfectionist had completely stopped in his tracks before his feet could get onto the stage since what happened next had completely shut him up. Everyone else seemed to be in disbelief of what happened except for Hannah, the female actor slowly gets up from her chair and runs over to the guy who had the closest view of what just happened. She wraps her arms around him from behind before slowly dragging him away with her face looking away from the stage itself...
Ironically enough, Leon and Lia seemed to be locked into a kiss with each other which left everyone in complete stunned silence with only the footsteps of Hannah on the ground being the only noise heard. This seemed to have caused Jared to have become completely motionless in his movements, a gust of wind blowing through him, and the expression in his eyes made it seem like he'd seen something horrifying. It didn't take long for the kiss between the two positive people with dark sides to them to end, Leon had a wide grin on his face while Lia seemed to have been surprised by the kiss too.
"And scene~" Leon ends his 'performance' with these two words before holding the hands of the green-eyed girl who followed him in walking off the stage with one another.
'Even though that was acting, all parts of that performance seemed to have been filled with passion and was emotionally rich!' Rainy couldn't help but be struck in awe at the fact she confirms that this level of acting was so talented.
'The fact his acting range is comparable to the intricacies of my plans that are on-par with Rube Goldberg traps is quite impressive!' Kennedy also gave quite the internal praise for the talent which the whole viewing world had just witnessed.
"WOOO! Finally, we've got a McLean-worthy display of talent!" Chris didn't even try hiding his appreciation for the drama-filled and non-violent show which had been put on in front of him.
"How unbiased." Kyle 'sarcastically' comments before getting onto the stage to retrieve his chair and he takes it with him off-stage to once again sit down on.
"Incredibly, anyways let's move onto our next and final performance for this mostly disappointing challenge, the contestant who looks like they've just seen more ghosts than Kyle has: Jared!" Chris seems to have finally gained some excitement now which was boosted by the fact that the person who seemed to have been the most affected by what just happened is the next and last person to go up.
"...I-Is this how she f-felt?" Jared seemed to completely be out of the moment now that he's been gently placed onto the ground by Hannah, Alex and Sunny made their ways over to him.
"You might need to give him a bit of time!" Sunny remarks to the announcement that it's Jared's turn to perform next.
"I'll bet that's what your sister, which you've clearly got over here, had hoped for when she got eliminated!" Chris spews out a comeback with a smirk forming.
"Oh puh-lease, as if that-"
"What was that?!" Chris's reign of yelling continues since it sounds like he couldn't hear out the delinquent.
"I said 'Oh please'!" Sunny repeats himself, this time even louder.
"...Sunny getting frustrated by me." Chris ends the exchange with a bit of sass, but the contestant he's speaking with turns his attention back to the next person meant to compete in this challenge.
"Try getting your head back in the game, I'm aware that what just happened must've hurt real bad but please don't let it get to you because I want you to stay in the game!" Hannah tries her very best in convincing the pessimist to take his turn in trying to keep himself alive in the game.
"Knowing him there's probably tons of pessimistic thoughts going through his mind so obviously we'll need something or someone to take some sort of action in order to make him forget about the kiss which has just happened..." Alex uses his brain to try and solve some kind of way to combat the kiss which had just happened.
"Sorry to do this again." Hannah whispers out her mouth which signaled that maybe there was an idea that had just popped up inside her mind and she closes her eyes in order to prepare herself to execute this plan. Both guys around her looked at each other and began making non-verbal bets placed against each other just by staring at one another very intensely. Much to their surprises, the heartthrob leans down and gives the perfectionist a reluctant kiss which causes his eyes to stop looking at the stars that weren't out before he'd sat back up which broke up the kiss.
"G-Gyah! Why'd that work?!" Jared wastes no time in questioning, then he turns his head to look over at the girl who'd kissed him again.
"S-Sorry, giving you your own kiss to focus less on the other kiss was the only option which made sense to me." Hannah swiftly states her reasoning for doing this seemingly counteractive move.
"Did she see-?" Jared asks when getting back to his feet, but he noticed that Lia is showing off her videos to Leon and the two of them seemed to be off in their own little world now. Knowing that this is happening leads to a frown starting to show on his face now that it once again hits him what position things seem to be between him and his former ally.
"Don't worry about them right now, just focus on keeping yourself safe." Hannah tries convincing her fellow alliance member by wrapping her arms around his hips and looking over with him. Luckily for her this does cause the contestant she's speaking with to look right at her and she looks down before giving her answer, "I'm not willing to lose another guy I'm close with."
"...Alright, I'm sure it'd be hard for me to top Sunny's foresight capabilities but I'll try my best." Jared doesn't seem to find anything disingenuous with the comment and so he nods at it before making his way onto the stage. Oddly enough a white grand piano seemed to have been placed down during the aftermath of the previous performance and he sits down before testing out the notes of this instrument. Alex seemed to have gotten an idea into his head since he grabs onto the delinquent's hand and begins leading him out of view from the camera.
Meanwhile, the current performer slowly closes his eyes and clears his throat before giving his performance.
Panic! At The Disco-This Is Gospel (Piano Version)
"This is Gospel for the fallen ones,"
It seems that right now, Jared's singing the song while playing the piano.
"Locked away in permanent slumber,"
Of course things seemed to be calm so far and slowly he opened his eyes.
"Assembling their philosophies,"
It seemed that Rainy had an intense amount of focus on what's currently happening.
"From pieces of broken memories."
...However, it seemed that Kennedy's rivaling this focus on what's going on and a smile started to form on her face.
"Oh-Woooah-oooh."
One small and miniscule of confetti is seen descending for what seems like god-related reasons.
"Oh-Woooah-oooh."
Eventually it lands on the piano which is something that the pessimistic perfectionist notices but chooses to ignore for the time being.
"The gnashing teeth and criminal tongues,"
Some strong gusts of wind started coming out of nowhere, but everyone only bothered watching Jared continue performing.
"Conspire against the odds,"
Chris decides to look up to see what the causes of these sudden interruptions were and it takes him a while to take in what he sees.
"But they haven't seen the best of us yeet."
Alex and Sunny seemed to be on top of a winged creature that's too big to currently see clearly, Alex seems to have the biggest smile on his face before he throws down a ball of confetti while Sunny holds on for his life using the thing they're using to keep themselves in the air
"If you love me let me gooo-oooh!"
Confetti now rains from the sky and lands all over Jared and the piano while he continues to sing.
"If you love me let me gooo-ooo-oooh!"
There seemed to be a smile starting to grow on his face while he continued to multitask.
"'Cause these words are knives that often leave scars,"
Eggs started raining from the sky and they scrambled all over the place.
"The fear of falling apaaart."
Multiple of them splashed yolk all over the perfectionist's place but thanks to his glasses none of it gets into his eyes.
"And truth be told I never was yours,"
Although the keyboard started to get more slippery he was able to still perfectly play the right notes on cue with the song.
"The fear, The fear of falling apart."
In spite of the many distractions around him, he's able to continue singing the song at such a high pitch even with yolk getting all over him.
"This is Gospel for the vagabonds,"
Seeing all this happen causes Chris to slowly look down from the sky and redirect his attention back to the performance going on.
"Ne'er-do-wells and insufferable bastards,"
An extra egg falls from the sky and it splats all over the head of Leon who blinks before glaring at the broken piece of egg on him.
"Confessing their apostasies,"
Of course, Sunny stares down with a satisfied smile for having thrown that very egg before looking back over at Alex.
"Led away by imperfect impostors."
From the looks of things, it seemed that the non-stereotyped contestant had other things getting ready to be dumped all over the stage.
"Oh-Woooah-oooh."
Now that everything's been set up for the next phase of this display of talent, the camera pans back over to the person literally taking center stage during all this.
"Oh-Woooah-oooh."
Just like earlier he closes his eyes and seems to begin singing from the heart instead of focusing on nailing every single note.
"Don't try to sleep through the end of the world,"
Slowly but surely he starts getting wrapped up with his own thoughts and memories, and yet he still is nailing his performance.
"And bury me alive,"
More negative parts of his mind start flooding in and that smile he's gained earlier has once again turned away.
"Cause I won't give up without a fight."
However his body seemed to play the piano passionately and he took a deep breath in and out before getting into the chorus.
"If you love me let me gooo-oooh!"
Flour and watermelons fall from the sky, causing the stage, piano, and person playing the piano to get even messier during all this.
"If you love me let me gooo-ooo-oooh!"
Jared laser focused on his performance however and he began shaking his head which eventually caused his glasses to finally come off.
"'Cause these words are knives that often leave scars,"
Even with them missing and his eyes closed, he only continued playing the song even though he's technically blind now.
"The fear of falling apaaart."
One watermelon breaks apart right in front of his face but even with the rind smacking it, he sets his head back in place.
"And truth be told I never was yours,"
Every time he hits a note things like flour, yolk, and confetti flew off to make this even more dramatic.
"The fear, The fear of falling apart."
Meatballs and spaghetti followed shortly after, these objects only furthered the messy environment the stage had turned into.
"The fear of falling apaaart."
Some of the food even got into the hair of the performer who still sang as if there's nothing else around him.
"The fear, The fear of falling apart."
Finally the rain of food and confetti seemed to have stopped which left the perfectionist to wrap up the song by himself.
"The fear of falling apaaart."
His body expression alone and the sound of his notes both indicated that some kind of determination had been awakened inside of him to play the best way he could.
"The fear of falling apaaart!"
Knowing that he's done half his performance without his glasses only motivates him to end things on the best note possible.
"The fear of falling apaaart."
All of his experience and knowledge has led to this moment, everything he's ever done will all pay off here and knowing all this made him feel satisfied that he's been able to basically play the song flawlessly even with all the obstacles thrown in his way.
"The fear of falling apaaart."
Jared ends the song without playing the instrument in front of him but rather by singing the last line of the song before standing up... only for him to be met by a bucket of blue paint to be thrown all over him which stops him in his tracks.
*Song Ends*
"Sorry, I just needed to join in on the fun~" Hannah apologizes while holding an empty bucket in her hands and chuckling once she'd spoken these words. Behind her were Alex who was clapping his hands and Sunny who seemed to be staring off into space for reasons that seem to elude the other contestants since they had no idea what he's looking at. Jared simply laughs off what just happened before trying to search around the place to get some glasses back on.
"You're good, I've always got a spare pair with me." Alex comments before tossing a pair onto the runway which the perfectionist eventually grabs onto and puts back on.
"If the two of us ever compete in another season, I'm definitely making sure to create some competitions between us!" Kennedy seemed to have been quite impressed with the other perfectionist's performance and even clapped for him.
"You really know how to give it your all sometimes, hopefully that part of you will never change." Rainy didn't yell out her response but she seemed to have been pleased by what just happened.
"On some level it pains me to say this because of what the final showdown for immunity will be, but the battle will be Jared vs Leon for having the best performances in the game and because all the other competition were too damaged to compete, were disqualified due to their actions, and someone here even decided to become one the first loser to have sat out of a challenge... Thankfully the winners have made me happy enough to somewhat look forward to their battle!" Chris announces to everyone who turned their attention to him, of course he was the loudest of the judges and remains partially professional by trying to hype up what's to come.
"Sounds like someone's not the biggest fan of me." Alex says to his fellow alliance members, but something seems to pop into Kennedy's mind and she looks at the host sitting beside her.
"Since Miriam and Hannah were unable to compete in the challenge by no fault of their own, that should mean they're both safe from elimination tonight, right?" Kennedy comes to an assumption due to how it'd seem logical to keep two people who were attacked by others to not be voteable tonight.
"Well you see the issue with that is if that's allowed on this season, then the point of there being only three ways left to keep yourself safe from getting voted off will be invalidated which means those two will still be options for tonight's elimination, after all, you don't need to win the challenge or compete in them to technically win the season or avoid going home. Challenges like these are just here to improve your chances to stay in the game, so Miriam and Hannah will still be up for getting voted out tonight." Chris answers and confirms for everybody present, they all nod at this information.
"When's exactly the final showdown going to take place, actually?" Jared asks with his head tilting because of how little information has been given about the exact details regarding what will happen.
"On top of a dragon." Chris casually answers without any hints of sarcasm or jokes behind these words, in fact he sounded completely serious and this reveal stunned everyone in silence.
"Oooh, so that explains why Phoenix seemed to have gotten some Predator technology in order to turn invisible nearby." Alex seemed to oddly enough be completely unsurprised by the fact a dragon existed. Considering what he'd done earlier this reaction was expected but him referring to someone named 'Phoenix' confused most of the other contestants there.
"Wait, you know that dragon's name?!" Sunny is the first one to question this.
"Wait, you two know a dragon?!" Jared joins in on the questioning train.
"Wait, I don't have to imagine dragons any longer?!" Chloe seemed to take genuine interest with this reveal.
"As expected most of you seem to be quite surprised by this, so I'll just bring out Phoenix the Dragon!" Chris dramatically announces before pointing into the woods. It didn't take long for a familiarly strong gust of wind to breeze through everyone and from another part of the woods where there was just a giant grassy field, fire was seen forming a dragon-like shape. Eventually the fire goes away to reveal a big red dragon which sharp scales, large wings which seemed burnt marks were present on its edge, black horns sticking out from its intimidating head, the teeth of the creature were drastic in size differences and had a mixture of black and yellow with them, and lastly the eyes were completely red with only the pupil being black.
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWR!" Phoenix roars out in order to present itself and the noises which came from it were indescribable, which wasn't helped by the fact all the sound which could be heard suddenly got caught off and instead loud ringing is the only thing which could be heard. Luckily for production the noise does eventually come back and everyone seems to gain back the ability to hear now that it's been a few seconds since the dragon's roared. Of course Chris was the only exception from this since he takes off some green headphones he somehow had before laughing a bit.
"First an island of which had mutated plants, then an island of that contained robotically controlled animals, and now a dragon... How do you keep bringing in the things that shouldn't exist?" Jared is the first one to ask a question once most of the people there could hear again.
"My subscribers are gonna like seeing-!" Lia seems to get excited at the sight in front of her and she begins pulling up her phone, unfortunately the events of what happened last night flash in her mind. Rather than taking a photo of the creature, she slowly puts her phone back in her pockets and the smile on her face seems to become more progressively forced because of this. Leon just pats her head and turns his attention to the perfectionist.
"While I'd like to hear an explanation of how this is possible, I think there's something that needs to be settled first." Leon attempts to move onto the matters he finds more important at the moment. It didn't take long for Jared to piece together what exactly this meant since he turns around to look back at the other contestant with disturbingly narrow and animalistic pupils. Sweat starts rolling down his face but he quickly closes his eyes and gets himself into the correct mindset to calm himself down and get prepared for the showdown that's going to take place.
"If you'd like for us to settle things first, then let's get going, Leo." Jared accepts the challenge before both competitors look at their location for the final challenge to earn the second individual immunity of the season. It didn't take long for them to begin walking over to one of the most legendary creatures in the history of fantasy, a dragon who stands on all fours and had a ladder hanging from it in order to climb up it. During this, Chris seemed to slowly stop smiling which Rainy had noticed and tilted her head at.
"What's going on?" Rainy chooses to investigate the host on this change in facial expression.
"Hope you can come back fine, Jared!" Hannah's voice is heard cheering.
"Make sure to try and show me why you're worthy of following, Leo! ALSO, I WANT THAT DRAGON!" Chloe enthusiastically states out loud.
"Whatever challenge it is, I hope it favors you, Jared!" Alex optimistically cheers as the camera lingers on Chris who simply continues staring off at the dragon.
"Try your best to win this challenge, Leon!" Evan takes the approach of motivating his friend.
"..." Lia and Kyle were both notably quiet during all this instead of rooting for the obvious side they've both been assigned to.
"...This will be an absolute massacre." Chris finally answers the question which had been given to him by one of the people who helped decide the two people going head-to-head right now. There seemed to be a sense of dread behind his voice and unlike what he'd normally enjoy seeing, this battle of the winners of the talent show wasn't something he was looking forward to.
Jared and Sunny were seen climbing onto the top of the challenge to complete whatever dual challenge which they've been tasked with completing and it seemed that the brawler was ahead of the perfectionist. After a bit of climbing, Leon makes his way to the destination and once he's reached the peak, a sadistic smile grows on his face and a laugh of pleasure erupts from his mouth before he'd gotten off the ladder. It took a minute longer than expected but Jared had finally made his way to their destination also and his face seems to fill up with despair and pessimistic thoughts flood his mind once he'd seen what exactly is the showdown challenge they'll be battling each other one-on-one in.
*Tug Of War*
One long rope is seen right in front of them and a tape is seen in the middle of it. It has been made clear just by this alone that the game they've been tasked to play is one they've both experienced before specifically in school. Seeing that this showdown has a challenge that's all about strength and physicality causes Leon to start anticipating his victory already because if yesterday was anything to go by, he's not lacking in the physical department at all. Now that it's become obvious that he's got the chance to absolutely destroy the man he's been antagonizing all day fills him with joy before he walks over to the right side.
All of this didn't make the chances for his opponent look good since he blankly looked at the rope which both contestants will try pulling to their own sides, something like this game absolutely favored strength above all else. Whatever chances of maybe pulling out the win seemed slim and considering the mindset he's normally in he doesn't really believe in himself to even put up a decent fight against the contestant who's been starving for something like this to happen. For once the possibility of maybe pulling out a surprise win begins growing in his mind and perhaps he could utilize some strategy to win this competition and to turn the strength advantage stacked against him into a disadvantage.
Needless to say, both competitors were in completely different mindsets regarding what exactly their plans both seem to be and were both staring intensely at the rope which will test the two of them. One approach had absolute confidence in their ability to absolutely destroy their opponent and was planning to do nothing but utilize their strength to easily win this challenge which has been practically set-up for him to win, however his opponent is holding onto the smallest glimmer of hope that a miracle could happen and that taking advantage of his adversary's approach by using strategy could help him get an upset. Currently they're complete opposites who both have one goal in their minds and that's to simply win this showdown challenge to secure their safety in tonight's voting session which could prevent either of their eliminations.
Eventually the strategizing from the two of them come to an end once Jared walks down the left side of this rope while thinking of all the common ways people have used a specific trick to beat the other person and surprise them. His hands slowly wrapped around the rope but it seemed to go back and forth between being lightly held or strongly held, either he's undecided on what exactly will work or this is a part of the plan which his mind has concocted. In comparison his enemy had a firm grip on the rope and got ready to pull once he'd lifted the object all the way off the ground. Then, the two of them locked eyes and rather than getting an early lead against one another they both seem to nod in order to come to a nonverbal agreement.
'Three...' Each of them starts counting down in their minds while their eyes continue to absolutely tunnel-vision on one another.
'Two...' Slowly their eyes move in order to focus on the rope connecting the two of them at this very moment, but it also is there to help decide who's the better man today.
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Before the countdown finishes, Jared spreads out his legs and starts leaning back before pulling the rope in short bursts of effort. When it all came down to a moment like this it seemed that the perfectionist preferred trying to go with the better move and this strategy kicked into gear almost immediately and he'd hoped this early head start would help catch his opponent off-guard. But while he tries continuing the strategy which other people before him and after have used, something stood out to him which made his attempts go much slower... no progress was getting made.
"You look like you were expecting your dirty tricks to work on me... YOU WERE WRONG!" Leon taunts the perfectionist without even losing his grip on the rope or even getting budged from his spot at all. Knowing that his first plan is failing causes him to straighten out his back and he stands up straight before staring at Leon's hands which only tightened its clutches on the object. Right when he'd noticed this he lets go of the rope which leads to his side falling onto the ground, but he gulps when his eyes had noticed that the brawler hadn't pulled on the rope which would've hopefully caused him to fall onto the ground.
"C-CRAP!" Jared starts panicking and he tries recovering from having two potential solutions get completely foiled in the matter of seconds, he reaches towards the ground and is able to grab onto the rope once again. In this short window to think of what else to do, more plans enter his mind in the hopes that maybe he'll be able to pull a rabbit out of his hat and find the right one to just etch out the win. Little did he know that all this thinking and strategizing would all be for nothing because the moment his hands grab onto the rope...
"Sayonara, Faker~" Were the words that struck the perfectionist's ears and before being able to even look up at his opponent, any chances of winning that he tried creating for himself had been completely eradicated. Leon feels himself get filled with satisfaction and anticipation once these words had left his mouth and he finally makes his first move of the duel. He digs his feet into the dragon they're on and grows the widest smile on his face while the animalistic look in his eyes only got bigger, in fact drool poured from his mouth and the veins from his muscles absolutely pop out which all signaled he was going to finally try in this Tug Of War...
The moment he pulls the rope with all his might, this causes Phoenix below them to growl in pain and it seems that the brawler digging his feet into him causes his entire body to slowly start bursting into fire coming down from his head. Before the fire could reach the perfectionist, he's quite literally launched into the air and everything goes into slow-motion in order to capture the look of surprise and disappointment that had been plastered all over his face. Currently he's flying and his hands release their grip from the rope that he'd been holding onto but it looks like he was going to fall off the dragon at the rate in which his body is getting sent through the sky at. Before he's basically fallen to his defeat he turns his body to look over at the person who'd basically caused him to fall from such a dangerous height and he takes one more look at The Brawler. Rather than showing any sympathy or remorse for what he's doing, Leon Salvatore just continued giving him the most menacing smile that he's ever seen and eventually the fire on Phoenix covers him entirely except for the spot in which the Hero of Spain is standing in, instead he's just surrounded by the fire which were actually seen reflecting off his eyes.
"AHHHHHHHHHH!" Jared's scream is heard getting further away from the camera once everything has gone back to normal speed and eventually the scream just stops, there's no noise that's heard after but everything regarding the pessimist seemed to have gone completely silent. With no one speaking, Leon just continues standing on top of a dragon with fire completely surrounding him and the only sound which could be heard were the sounds of the fire itself. Finally the showdown had come to an end and there's only one person standing tall at the end of it all, the camera slowly zooms in on the fire right after.
*Elimination Ceremony*
Once the camera had zoomed out, a fire still seemed to be burning quite brightly but it seemed to have been the campfire this time around which had eleven burnt torches inside of it. Ten standing torches were seen with the names of all the remaining contestants left on them which weren't burnt yet, all of them were placed behind the host who looked over at the twenty one stumps in front of him. Unlike normal he didn't seem to be particularly happy about elimination tonight and instead he looked over into the woods.
"Come on in, guys!" Chris yells out before right on cue, Leon, Lia, Evan, Chloe, Kyle, Miriam, Hannah, Alex, and Sunny all walk into the ceremony in this very order with varying looks on each of their faces. Oddly enough the obvious exception of Jared seemed to have stood out quite significantly since the camera focused on the woods, it was almost like it'd been waiting for one more person to arrive. This didn't happen and instead the focus is directed back to the contestants who are all present at the moment who each took their seats down.
"..." Everyone remained dead silent and no one seemed to have spoken a word, in fact the host seemed to be shaking his head at everyone sitting down in front of him. Clearly this wasn't his best day but it seemed that the signature sadistic nature he'd once had seemed to have been replaced with shame and content for a good amount of the people in front of him.
"Today was an absolute DISASTER out there, honestly I'd been hoping all that animosity building between each of the alliances here would liven things up in the game. However it seemed that one side was content with severely hurting the other side without much remorse and a good amount of that specific alliance seemed to actively want to kill my love for pain, because if no one's available to help put on a show with me then what's the point of having a cast? What wasn't helped was that the other side had people who'd sit out of the challenge my expectations had been set high for, and most baffling enough they seemed ready to commit violence towards the other side! The biggest letdowns for me were Alex and Sunny over here, in fact we'll give you the name of Purple Alex now because you sat down out of a challenge which makes you in my eyes... a quitter. So tell me, What exactly compelled you to make that move?" Chris didn't hold back any punches when speaking with the remaining cast members.
"At the moment you called me up, I'd realized that my talents weren't ever going to win the votes of the judges, so-" Alex began explaining himself.
"So you didn't even try winning their votes?" Chris interrupts him with an absolutely displeased tone in these words.
"Not that exactly, there was that plus the fact that Hannah had been seriously hurt and I'd rather be there to help out my friends instead of trying to win immunity for myself which-"
"You do know that this is an individual game, right? Everyone here might be in alliances but that doesn't mean you're all in teams anymore and that means you can do something called 'backstabbing' one another." Chris aggressively continues to harp on the contestant.
"Fair point, but what's been best for my game was helping out my group try to win the challenge because if you're not aligned with others at this point then you're as good as gone, it's just that my attempts today were all in-vain." Alex tries his best to counter the points raised against him by the host.
"Obviously, actually let's turn our attention to the next person who'd let me down the most today, Leon 'Hero of Spain' Salvatore over here... you were in my good graces one moment but then the next you threw a contestant off a dragon! You were on thin ice for making Evan demolish Miriam, but I'd been willing to let that go because you didn't get your hands dirty in that moment and yet you did with Jared for the sake of 'heroism' and I'm not one to talk, but how is that actually heroic in ANY world?!" Chris starts verbally wailing on the other contestant who didn't seem to be very sorry over his actions.
"Sometimes you need to do everything and anything in order to take-"
"Oh please, have you ever heard the term-?!"
"Christopher getting frustrated by Leon." Sunny jumps in so he could dunk on the host for the comment directed towards him earlier. Chris McLean rolls his eyes due to this interruption and it didn't seem like his mood's improving right now. "But anyways, please continue to verbally destroy Leo~"
"I should've taken a longer break from this season. Anyways, due to the actions of the self-proclaimed hero over here, his actions have heroically led to Jared actually gaining immunity tonight!" Chris explains to the cast in front of him with his tone now changing into being more passive aggressive.
"Wait! How does that even make sense?!" Evan immediately questions the decision.
"Earlier I've explained that just because you are injured doesn't mean you're not available to be voted off, however I'd also given penalties to Lia and Chloe for their involvement in attacking other contestants and I'm pretty sure carelessly throwing a fellow contestant from such a height is much worse than what they did I went with the best punishment possible. Jared is immune but can't vote tonight due to his condition, but that means I'll also have to forbid you from voting tonight just to even things out, Leon." Chris explains to everyone present.
"Damn you, McLean." Leon seemed to have been slightly upset by this reveal, however the girl sitting next to him was deep in her thoughts.
'He's not going to help me out anymore, but why's there a part of me that feels bad for Jared?' Lia seems to be in the midst of trying to figure out something in her mind, but once she'd felt a hand touch her back she smiled once again and looked over at the brawler who'd done this.
"Hope you're doing okay, and that tonight you do what's best for your game!" Leon cheerily says to the female contestant he's gotten notably close with over the process of just today.
"You just want her to vote with you and everyone else." Miriam immediately points out once she'd heard the contestant's words, of course she found them to absolutely be phony and disingenuous.
"Look, we get the gist at this point that you're just here to trash on us but I'll say it right here and now: I'm voting you out tonight!" Chloe declares in front of everyone while literally pointing at the dancer.
"Guess I'll gladly be returning the favor, you've already stolen my friend and I'd like to get him away from some fake b**** like you." Miriam simply insults the girl who she's grown to absolutely loathe over the past few days.
"The only thing I've taken away from your feministic a** is your ability to keep any cool you've never had, so I'll be glad to watch you walk away tonight." Chloe continues the trash talking between them.
"Sounds like someone's definitely leaning in a bit too much into the 'punk' part of their stereotype because you're really going home tonight and it's going to be great watching you turning into that very punk you've been trying to convince Kyle you're not!"
"At least it's better to be someone who's more well known, meanwhile you're just some Step Up reject who's only special for being able to dance and get into arguments with everyone who can't execute the robot dance better than you!" Chloe even mocks the dancer by poorly imitating a robot about to pat the other girl's hand.
"Get your hands off of me, Ms. brother-inferiority-complex!" Miriam only continues snapping back and she slaps Chloe's hand away.
"I'm ready to vote!" Kyle doesn't seem to really take note of what's going down, his announcement makes both girls stop arguing with each other and instead they both sit back down. Sunny, Alex, and Hannah all looked at each other before nodding now that the conversation had come to an end while Leon starts whispering with Kyle, Evan, and Lia so they too could form a plan based on what they've just seen. Miriam and Chloe each noticed their respective alliance members all speak to each other but they seemed to lock their eyes on one another.
"Excellent, now that's the drama I've been looking forward to, however considering from what I've heard it sounds like it's VOTING TIME!" Chris announces with finally some happiness in his voice and no sass either. Although it's definitely been a while since these words have been said, there was something inside him which deeply enjoyed saying those two words. Kyle nods before standing up in order to be the first present out of everyone there to make his vote on who he'd rather see leave the game by walking into the Confessional Room.
*After the Votes*
Sunny walks out of the room last and it looks like he's casted the final vote although during his walk back over to his stump, the delinquent locks eyes with Leon. Eventually he does sit back down and turn his attention to the more calm host who goes over into the place where everyone had casted their votes to choose which person they'd like to eliminate. The voting box is grabbed and he places it down on the podium he's got before staring down all the eight contestants who could vote tonight.
"Alright... someone in this game has found one of the two remaining vote-blocking objects, if you'd like to maybe play it for yourself or for your fellow alliance then play it right now..." Chris says to everyone with the best poker face he could muster, luckily it seemed convincing enough.
"..." Leon looks around the place with a blank expression in order to gauge which person here is most likely to have one of the two remaining elimination-preventing objects left in the game. Of course he observes the other set of people sitting down with them at this moment first to see if any of them will play the object, after all they're all completely aware of who the votes will be between and might use the chance to get themselves the edge of this vote. Slowly he turns his head to analyze his own side because they could do the exact same thing or one of them could possibly turn and play something to save the other side. Really, the possibilities of what could go down tonight could be disastrous for one or the other alliance and the safety-giving object could be the difference maker here.
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No one had done anything however and were instead directing all their focus on the votes which were going to be read in front of them.
"Okay then, I'll go read the-" Chris begins confirming.
"Wait, you're not going to give us our 'Last Chance' to play it?" Alex seemed to have been caught completely by surprise due to the exclusion of the words he's pointed out, however he of course isn't shown and instead the camera focuses on the host.
"My patience for most of you has sorta run out Purple Alex, so I'm just going to read the votes now." Chris simply answers before reaching into the voting box which will decide the side is going to come out on top tonight. He reaches into the box and begins reaching around in order to grab one of the eight votes which could be casted tonight. The first vote is eventually grabbed and he pulls it out in order to see who it belongs to, luckily his poker face seems to remain once this vote has been pulled out.
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"First vote, Miriam." Chris doesn't even try building too much suspense due to this one actually being obvious, so he reveals the vote to everyone there by turning it around.
'Of course, me and Chloe practically declared a war on each other without the 'Tug Of' part of the phrase.' Miriam wasn't surprised at all when she saw her name come up.
"Second vote, Chloe." Chris wastes even less time confirming who the second vote is directed towards.
'Of course, that pole-dancer or somethin' like that and I basically plan to demolish each other.' Chloe seemed as equally unsurprised considering the war of words said between the two contestants before the votes.
"Third vote, Miriam." Chris swiftly reveals who the next vote has been drawn down for.
'Looks like the rest of her team has decided to join her in trying to get me out, well screw most of them, then.' Miriam got slightly annoyed to see that the other side had decided to go after her.
"Fourth vote, Chloe." Chris doesn't seem to take much time or even any, in order to read the votes.
'Looks like the other side have all decided to kick me out of the game... Well none of you are taking my f***ing spotlight!' Chloe somehow got more angry and yet prideful about herself once she'd seen the next vote.
"Fifth vote, Miriam."
'He wasn't kidding when he'd said that he lost his patience, did he? Well at the rate things are going I'll have to hope for someone to flip sides.' Miriam turns her head and these thoughts were mainly meant for Kyle.
"Sixth vote, Chloe."
'Hey! If you're gonna try voting me out then at least make it slow and dramatic so it could be worthy enough for me!' Chloe only gets more progressively angered by the pace and looks of how the votes are going.
"Seventh vote, Miriam."
'...Dammit, they all really did vote for me, hopefully this last vote will be for that punk beside me, so please let that be the case for me to stay in the game!' Miriam starts getting nervous over the prospect of getting sent home now.
'If her alliance stays with her then things will be tied up, but I'm sure at least one person over there will turn and prefer to keep me inside this game!' Chloe seemed to be getting quite confident over her chances of staying in the game however.
"Eighth and final vote..." For once, Chris dramatically pauses once he reads the vote and looks at everyone there.
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"Miriam." Chris confirms who the twelfth person eliminated from the competition is, this causes varied reactions from the people sitting down on the right side. Miriam just sat down and seems to need a while before completely taking in what this meant. Hannah's jaw drops once she'd seen that her own alliance member has been eliminated from the competition. Sunny reacts with complete frustration over all this by looking over at everyone he'd believed to have been aligned with him.
"Who the hell flipped?!" Sunny seemed absolutely livid with the people on his side.
"The person who did that is obviously not going to admit it, at least not right now." Alex is heard answering the question, but the camera slowly panned over to the dancer.
"This is what I get for valuing others, huh?" Miriam states before not saying a single word to anyone that she'd trusted to keep her in the game, instead she stands up from her stump and starts walking away from everyone else. Chloe notices the dancer looking at her and so she decides to add insult to injury by insulting the girl she's essentially, she does this by flipping her the bird which is censored but still quite obviously present. She grits her teeth once her eyes saw the extra disrespect being given to her but she went over to her torch which had her name on it.
"Yeah that's right, burn your torch yourself~" Chloe takes the opportunity to further taunt the girl that's just been voted out. To protest against her, Miriam throws her torch and it lands right beside the drummer's stump which leads to her falling off her seat before it burns up completely.
"The only thing that deserves to be burning, is you." Miriam takes her turn to respond to all these words before turning away and she starts getting herself away from everyone who'd witnessed her nearly burn someone who definitely deserved it. Kyle stands up for seemingly no reason and almost as if something compelled him to make his next move, he actually walked up to the eliminated contestant. She noticed him walking up to her and stopped in her tracks in order to look at the contestant who's definitely caught her attention by doing this.
"Miriam Hakimi, right? That's your name." Kyle asks with his eyes focused on the girl in front of him.
"Obviously, you did just write it down after all." Miriam gives him some sass in her response due to him being one of the people who eliminated her.
"Yeeeah... I'm sorry for that, but something tells me to trust you right now, so just tell me... What connections did we have here?" Kyle seemed to be searching for some answers regarding what really had happened.
"...We were friends, in fact even now I've got no bad blood with you, after all, your mindset is quite confusing and yet simple to understand at the end of the day and right now I can't blame you for having voted me off because the reason is something I understand." Miriam seems to actually smile a little when speaking with the contestant standing in front of her.
"Considering your attitude towards everyone else it sounds like I'd been the person you felt the most attached with, especially if you could understand my confusing mindset." Kyle remarks, this comment caused the two of them to let out a chuckle.
"Sometimes you need to be around insanity to comprehend the chaotic, anyways my time's almost up speaking with you so I'll just give you something to remember: Try working with Jared, he's pretty much the only other person left I trust." Miriam states before glaring at the three contestants who she no longer trusts at all.
"Now don't get too far ahead of yourself, my memories aren't exactly back so your word regarding Jared could possibly be incorrect." Kyle counters this advice due to some skepticism on his part.
"Just try talking with him then, and you make your choice on whether or not you find him trustworthy." Miriam simply responds before ending the conversation by turning around and walking away from the baseball-player.
"Will do." Kyle says before walking back over to his current 'alliance' in which Chloe seemed to be trying to put out the fire on her stump which only got bigger the more she tried stopping it. He sits back on his stump and decides to silently think about the advice which had been given to him by the person who he seems to still be friends with. During this, Miriam stands still and awaits her fate with her eyes slowly starting to close.
"I should've figured most of you would jump on me like cowards now that teams are no more, but the winner will make sure to not make whoever voted me off pay because I'll always burn my competitors into dust!" Miriam yells out before the Chain of Shame pops out of the woods like always. However the dancer didn't seem to mind this and instead she gave everyone one more confident smile once the collar had clamped itself around her neck. Soon after, just like so many others, she's dragged off into the night and is completely out of the competition.
"Well today's been quite a roller coaster of emotions for all of you. Today's challenge was an absolute trainwreck which I'm hoping won't happen again in the near future, extremely violent lines have been drawn between all of you, but it would also seem that someone has clearly betrayed their own alliance. It seems like this merge will be quite the experience, anyways I got nothing else for you guys, head back to the cabin and prepare for tomorrow's challenge." Chris instructs all the other contestants to do.
Leon, Lia, Evan, and Chloe all nod before being the first people to accept the offer and they stand up in order to leave right after, Kyle follows behind them but it seems that he's still thinking to himself. Sunny, Hannah, and Alex observed each other before getting up from their seats in order to walk away from the ceremony right after. Chris stares at the camera before raising his hand slowly but surely, until he clenches his hand which then leads to the screen turning black right after.
Green Day-21 Guns
"One, 21 Guuuns."
"I might as well move here cause this winner isn't leaving anytime soon" The girl states very confident while she smirked (Episode 1).
"Lay down your arms,"
"You were saying?" Miriam remarks towards Sunny before she twirled a bit and walks away while Sunny stared at her (Episode 2).
"Give up the fiiight."
Miriam smirked before raising her hand high into the air and she swings her hand down. Everyone's music turned off and they all looked at Miriam who had a big smirk on her face (Episode 3).
"One, 21 Guuuns."
Miriam stood in front of Jun before slowly flipping him off with her middle finger, but the camera's censor this and Jun grits his teeth (Episode 4).
"Throw up your arms into the skyyy."
"Alright, you can go speak with your boyfriend." Miriam remarks with a smile, Jackie then blushes heavily after hearing this (Episode 5, Part 2).
"One, 21 Guuuns."
The TV turns off and it falls off the wall. The flat screen then fell off the wall and it shatters on the ground which made Miriam's eyes widen. The vogue dancer then looks around the room and notices there was nothing else but the broken flat screen TV in the room (Episode 6).
"Lay down your arms,"
Miriam remarks in her mind before Jun shoved the pot down while Miriam was holding it and the liquid and food from inside the pot was spilled all over her (Episode 7).
"Give up the fiiight."
She then lifts her foot in the air and kicks Evan's chin which sends him into the air (Episode 8).
"One, 21 Guuuns!"
"Who?~" Miriam taunts him before she returns the favor from earlier and she spits right onto Jun's face, right after doing this she slaps him with all she's got and this makes Jun fall onto the ground (Episode 9).
"Throw up your arms into the skyyy,"
"I'M BACK!" Miriam declares before taking a step into the cabin, the rest of her teams all turned their attention to her after hearing her voice once more (Episode 10).
"You and III."
"St-Still a-alive." Miriam says in her mind before she turns her head to look over at the cabin she had jumped out of.
"Vale Deus." Miriam chooses to finish what her last words for him earlier was.
"...Fine, this'll be pointless but what the hell?" Miriam asks before she looks towards the camera and winks at it (Episode 13, Part 3).
Total Drama: Move Along
Remaining Contestants:
The Final Nine: Alex Jones, Chloe Broderick, Evan Herbert, Hannah Jordan, Jared Monuel, Kahlin Mora, Leon Salvatore, Lia Clemins, and Sunny Persnisky.
Eliminated Contestants:
Kennedy (1st), Li (2nd), Vince (3rd), Jackie (4th), Brooke (5th), Rae (6th), Fergy (7th), Rainy (8th), Ciara (9th), Ingrid (10th), Jun (11th), and Miriam (12th).
Elimination Preventing Objects:
The Hidden Safety Necklace: Played by Fergy
The Hidden Invincibility Statue: ? (Fake Played by Jun)
The Hidden Immunity Idol: ?
Sorry to Nikolai777 for eliminating Miriam Hakimi, it was fun writing her and she did have some plots goin for her but I just felt like compared to the other plans I've got in mind going forward, it felt like to me personally hers wouldn't help make the story much stronger because she's already gone through her arc and mostly grown from who she is at the beginning of the season. She still did have obstacles and storylines going forward but her half-season rivalry with Jun have already been resolved along with her attitude towards others, and as seen here I've decided now would be a good time to end the issue between her and Kyle here to an extent, sure his memories aren't all back but that doesn't mean the two of them can't be friends still. Of course the reason in-story for her elimination is due to her getting into another rivalry with Chloe, and due to one of her alliance members flipping she was sent home which is admittingly one of the simpler reasons for someone getting sent home.
So those are all the reasons in and out of story for her time being cut short even if I'd enjoyed writing her character, however there's other people I'll have to apologize to... everyone who's reading my story, because the last chapter was three months ago which means the wait for this one was quite clearly extensive so I'm sorry for taking so long with following up on the story. Like always, I'm hoping this 28K+ word long chapter is worth the wait.
Like always here's the link to my Discord server where I've sorta been spending most of my non-writing time on: discord . gg / MJ8qF9v (Just take away the spaces).
Now it's time for me to get into the Questions of the Chapter!:
(For those with OCs): Which side do you think will prevail in this merge?
(For those without OCs): Has this story given any real surprises so far?
Time to give my thanks to the users who reviewed my last chapter: Nobody245, Gucci Mane LaFlare, PROJECT-DRAMA (with spaces in the name), and Runami!
The Chain of Shame has appeared once again so I hope you all missed seeing it, I'm proud to know my story's reached over 100 reviews, You can be sure Red-Eyed Lia's going to appear more often now, and... yeah the competitors in the game are very much losing their sanities as time goes on. Now I'll end these Authors Notes by saying the magical words...
PEACE OUT!
