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In stark contrast to the blazing summer sun that had tormented the campers throughout their sleepless days, the day following the Awake-a-thon was grey and gloomy, as if reflecting the general mood about the island. Evidently, Mr Blue Sky had gotten bored of watching teenagers fall asleep and decided to fuck off to better parts of the world.
A few hours after Eva's departure from the Island, the returning Boat of Losers found the wandering Owen floating in the river, still fast asleep, naked, and covering in dirt, twigs, leaves, and with a bird's nest under construction in his belly button. An hour and a half, five canoes, several broken pulleys, several broken interns, and a crane Chef Hatchet had lying around later, and Owen was out of the river, and being dragged by the less broken interns towards the cabins.
The Gopher Cabin, boys' side – about 12:30 am
Thanks to the dreadful weekend, no-one in the Gopher Cabin was sleeping, with everyone's body clocks having been thrown completely out of whack. Cody was the only one making an attempt, tossing and turning on his bunk as he tried to shut off his brain and make it think that enough time had passed for him to sleep again. As for the rest, all were involved in their own little activities to keep themselves occupied till exhaustion caught up with them. Justin was removing the last remnants of his painted-on eyes, the process taking far longer than it should due him stopping every twenty seconds and making pretty faces in the compact mirror he had. Above him, Trent had taken out his songbook and was humming to himself as he thought of new music, occasionally pulling a pencil out from behind his ear to jot down some chords. In the bunk across from the two of them, Adam sat scribbling in his notebook, occasionally gazing intently at one of his bunkmates until they noticed him and he scurried off beneath his blanket, face red in embarrassment. And lastly, Noah sat reclined on the half empty bed, his bunkmate still off to parts unknown, as the bookworm sat back and relished the opportunity to read a different book for the first time in three days.
But alas, Noah's opportunity would be brief. He was just getting truly immersed in The Nameless City, when his ears pricked up at a sound that was more than just the scratchings of pencils on paper. No, this sound was more akin to a faint rumbling, and it was getting closer. At first, he tried to put it out of his mind, but as the rumbling drew ever nearer, more sounds were added to it: laboured breathing, loud thuds, and most prominently of all, unified cries of "HEAVE!" every twenty or so seconds. Noah's curiosity got the better of him, and he sat up and peered out of the window, and saw a platoon of fifteen interns dragging the unconscious body of Owen across the camp on a series of logs, like they were Egyptian slaves carrying huge rocks for the pyramids.
Noah's eyes widened, just in time for the interns to reach the steps up to the cabin. They dropped the ropes holding the slumbering sack of lard in place, and took up positions besides each limb, three on each. They hoisted the boy up, all of them visibly straining at the effort.
"On the count of three!" one of the interns by Owen's head called.
"One!" at the first number, the interns tightened their grip on Owen, and shifted their weight backwards.
"Two!" At this, the interns pulled Owen back to be level with them, and it was at this point Noah realised exactly what step 3 entailed.
"EVERBODY DOWN!" came the cry from Noah, a split second before the head intern yelled "THREE!"
The interns had been aiming for the door that somebody had left ajar; but for all their rigid co-ordination, their aim was off. Instead of sailing through the open door neat as you will, Owen was hurled about a metre to the left, putting him perfectly on target to hit the window. The window Noah was looking out of.
No-one in the cabin had the opportunity to react to Noah's cry with more than a surprised look in his direction, and Noah had found himself paralysed with fear as he saw Owen fly leg first straight towards him.
There was a strange 'schlick' sound, as the mud and water coating Owen's body allowed him to somehow squeeze through the open window without even cracking the frame. Unfortunately for Noah, there was no such convenient detritus to leave Noah unharmed, and he took the impact of Owen head on. Quite literally in fact, as Noah was effectively dropkicked in the face by the flying fat boy, sending both hurtling on the floor in a heap.
The other occupants of the cabin were rendered speechless at this, until a cry of
"MMMMPPPHHHH" could be heard from beneath Owen's left buttock. At that, the Gophers sprang into action.
For a given value of sprang at least. After the initial burst of energy that got them out of their beds, they hit an immediate blockade of only one of them even coming close to the physical strength required to move Owen.
"So" asked Cody, looking about as leaderly as a scrawny gap-toothed geek in Pokémon pyjamas can, "How do we get him off?"
The rest of the Gophers looked at him funny, while Noah continued to yell either profanities or for help, can't really tell which.
"If I had wood I could do something, but without it we're probably just gonna end up pulling inefectually for a while" said Cody, upon receiving no real response. Now the funny looks turned into Trent and Justin backing away in revulsion, while Adam looked at the group in confusion
"Dude!" Trent exclaimed.
"What?" Cody asked, then he realised exactly how much homosexual innuendo was laced into his last sentence, and his face turned redder than the surface of Mars
"No-no-no, not like that! I meant like a plank! To use as a lever!" He frantically stammered, while Trent and Justin backed away even further. "Guys, come on!"
Meanwhile, Adam was poking at Owen, his face a mixture of concern and sheer bewilderment at the bizarreness of the situation.
"Uh, you... okay under there?" he asked Noah
"Mmph m mph mm mmph?" he replied, which the Confession Cam informed me means "What the fuck do you think?"
"Okay yeah that's a fair point"
Confession Cam – I happen to be fluent in "muffled by ass cheek. Don't ask.
Noah: "Every single decision I have ever made that in any way led me onto this island, I now regret wholeheartedly"
Ten minutes later, and the team had gotten over Cody's faux pas, and were throwing all their weight at Owen in an attempt to roll him off. Despite the fact the weight of the four boys trying added up that of three normal teenagers and a small dog, they were making progress, Owen's body leaning noticeably to one side. Soon, the right side of Noah's face was revealed, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
The sigh of relief morphed quickly into a groan of impending agony, as Adam pushed too hard, lost his footing and slipped, landing on his stomach. And in a sort of inverse situation of the straw that broke the camel's back, the miniscule contribution to the push that Adam had been making turned out to have been essential, as all ground gained by the boys was eroded as Owen began to roll backwards towards them.
"Uh-oh" was the only sound that could me mustered by the boys, chanted by the three still standing in unison, as the principle of the conservation of momentum abandoned the situation, as the slight velocity from Owen returning to his previous position was enough to send him swinging the other way, tipping past the point of balance and rolling off of Noah and onto everyone else.
But the laws of physics weren't done violating themselves, as somehow Owen had built up enough momentum to keep going, leaving his teammates embedded in the ground as he rolled on past towards the wall that divided the two genders present in the cabin. That obstacle seemed enough to stop him, as Owen impacted the wall with a loud 'THUD', causing a large hole in the wall to come crashing down, revealing all the Gopher girls clad in various types of bedwear, looking at the large hole that had just appeared in their wall in shock
There was a moment of audible silence as the boys slowly peeled themselves off the floor and gazed at the dumbstruck girls.
The silence was broken by Cody adopting his cheesiest smirk and a set of finger guns, and greeted them with
"Ladies." The girls continued to gape. Behind Cody, Trent, Justin and Noah all facepalmed, while Adam slowly began to sidle his way to the door, trying his best to draw as little attention to himself as possible
Ezekiel couldn't sleep. Not only had he only just woken up, but Harold was in the bunk above him, and he was snoring like his dad's chainsaw. Not to mention he could hear Shannon snoring from the other side of the cabin, meaning no-one on his team was having a particularly great night. And to top it all off, there seemed to be a constant stream of muffled yelling and crashes coming from the other cabin.
After one particularly loud crash, he'd poked his head out the window to see exactly was going on, only for the Gophers to fall mysteriously silent.
In an instant, that silence was broken, as a loud series of enraged screams came from the Gopher cabin, and Ezekiel watched as the small one he didn't know the name of dashed out the door, followed by numerous thrown projectiles, slamming it behind him and pressing his full weight against it as he hyperventilated.
As the sounds of violence from the Gopher cabin increased in volume, Ezekiel was joined at the window by Duncan, who truth be told scared Ezekiel more than a little.
For a time, the punk said nothing, simply observing the sounds of carnage and Adam fishing in his hat for a paper bag to breathe in and out of, until eventually he sniffed, and spoke.
"You know, I don't know if I'd rather be here or there right now." he said as he turned and walked back into the cabin "At least they might get knocked unconscious so they can actually sleep!" His irritation grew more and more as he said the second bit, culminating in him throwing a pillow angrily at Harold's bed with the last word, accomplishing very little other than slightly venting his frustrations.
Mess Hall, the next morning
There were approximately 2 people in a good mood when the morning call for breakfast came and the campers shuffled like zombies into the mess hall. One of them was Lindsay, who turned out to be in incredibly heavy sleeper, so much so that she missed the entirety of the midnight altercation. The other was Shannon, who also slept like the dead, and was unconscious before any of her team got a chance, so her snoring kept all of them up. Harold would likely have been fine, but in retaliation for being kept up all night Duncan had deliberately used up all the hot water in the shower just before Harold got in, so he wasn't exactly doing great. And as for Adam, while he may have escaped the carnage of the cabin, at no point did he deem it safe enough to re-enter, so he had spent the night in a tree, where he had been attacked by birds and fell out at a quarter to four in the morning. Everyone else was either tired, injured, or both.
"Well" said Chris Maclean, appearing out of nowhere as he so frequently does "Don't you all look terrible"
He was met by a chorus of tired groans from the Bass, while the Gopher girls sans Lindsay glared at their male counterparts, who shrank under their gaze. Lindsay assumed something was wrong with how she looked, so she turned to Beth and Katie in a panic asking about her nails. She was quickly reassured that she looked fine, and her friends returned to glaring.
Chris, sensing the animosity on the Gophers, turned to them first.
"Yeah, that stunt you guys pulled last night? Not cool" he said, trying his very best to hide the note of glee in his voice behind the façade of a disappointed authority figure "Do you guys know how much those repairs are gonna cost Chef?"
"How much those repairs are gonna cost WHAT?!" yelled Chef from across the kitchen, bringing his mallet down with all his force on a hardboiled egg, which instead of shattering, shot forwards like a rocket and nailed Tyler in the back of the head, dropping the boy.
"Relax, Chef my man, I'm kidding." Chris said as he turned to Chef, holding his hands up in mock-surrender. Chef growled and continued beating eggs with a mallet. What that has to do with cooking is beyond me, but hey, he's the chef, not me.
Chris meanwhile turned back to the Gophers
"Nah, but seriously guys, that stuff last night was way cool. Think you could pull something like that again?"
The Gophers were silent, exchanging glances between each other, before eventually Trent spoke
"We'd, ah, rather not." he said, glancing awkwardly towards the girls on his team, specifically Gwen. He received a sharp glare in return, and he shrank beneath it.
Confession Cam – So what the hell's in those eggs?
Trent: "I really need to apologise to Gwen about what happened last night. But I don't really know how to explain what happened without sounding crazy."
Shrugging nonchalantly to himself, Chris spun around again to talk to the Bass, somehow not becoming dizzy despite spinning more than a turntable set to max speed. He scanned the table for the teen worst off, his beady little eyes quickly zeroing in on the one with the most suffering.
"Duncan" he called an especially irritating tone, rousing the punk from his nap in his porridge "You look like crap dude"
"Stuff it" was all he said, promptly falling instantly back asleep, faceplanting in his breakfast again.
"Ugh, Harold and Shannon snored all night" Courtney explained, rubbing her eyes and yawning as she did so. At the other end of the table, Shannon looked up at the mention of her name.
"I did?" she asked, sounded genuinely confused. She turned to Izzy, who was sat next to her and still as manically wide-eyed as normal "Did I?"
"Yep!" the redhead exclaimed; a night of no sleep apparently having done nothing to diminish her energy despite her sub-par performance in the challenge prior "Like a chainsaw! Or an outboard motor! Or an outboard motor made of chainsaws! Wouldn't that be awesome?! My uncle Davis had one of those, said he used them to make fishing more efficient! It was also why he had a hook hand and two peg legs!"
Shannon gave Izzy a slightly concerned one-eyed glance.
"Right..." she said, a note of worry making its way into her voice. The note immediately disappeared as she turned to Courtney and continued.
"Anyhow, if I were snorin' ye' shoulhae jist woke me." she said, merrily pouring orange juice onto the table 10 centimetres away from where her glass was as she did so.
"We tried" Courtney replied with narrowed eyes and grit teeth.
"Boy did they!" Izzy chimed in again "She yelled and shook you and Bridgette tried pouring water on your face and I played Hey Ya on the tuba but you just slept right through it. It was impressive, what's your secret?"
The concerned look returned as Shannon gently scooted down the bench away from Izzy. It was at that point she realised her error with the orange juice and she muttered an annoyed "arse" as she hastily righted her aim, attempting in vain to mop up the spilled beverage with her other sleeve.
Any further conversation was brought to a halt as someone attempted to kick open the door. The dull 'thump' and the wheezy "Ouch!" confirmed to everyone that it was Harold outside.
And sure enough, ten seconds later, after the sounds of pained hopping ceased, the door was opened normally, and Harold stood proudly in the threshold, a bushy moustache drawn on his upper lip in what appeared to be permanent marker.
With that, any hold on the situation Chris once had devolved into nothing as the teens began laughing at Harold's new facial hair, and the chaos of breakfast resumed. People continued their conversations, Gwen joined Duncan in taking a nap in a bowl, Heather started going over the alliance rules to Beth and Lindsay, Cody and Noah distinctly refused to look at each other while Adam sat in-between them slightly confused; Izzy went off on another wild tangent, waving her spoon about dramatically for emphasis as she did so, resulting in milk being flicked onto her teammates; and so on for everyone else.
There was a lull in overall conversation as Heather turned to taunt the Bass, gracefully sidestepping the retaliatory flinging of cold porridge sent her way by Courtney, which flew into Gwen's face just as she was looking up to see what the noise was about.
"Okay campers!" Chris announced all of a sudden, tired of the attention being on someone other than him "Your next challenge begins in ten minutes!"
He was interrupted from the next part of his statement by a melodic chorus of moans, protesting the fact there was another challenge when they just finished the last one. Chris ignored each and every complaint levelled, and simply yelled "Be prepared to bring it!" over the din as he walked out of the mess hall.
Still moaning, the campers begrudgingly got up to follow him, breakfast evidently over.
The Beach, thirteen minutes later
"When th' bloody fuck did thes' get here?"
The object Shannon was referring to was the large plexiglass cuboid that had been erected on the beach apparently overnight, inside which appeared to be a school gym court, complete with two sets of bleachers.
Ignored Shannon's question, Chris stood in front of the crowd and spread his arms dramatically
"Welcome," he proclaimed in a dramatic voice "To the Arena!
"It is here where your next challenge will take place. And maybe some more in the future, who knows?" He added the last part with a knowing look to the camera that served only to confuse the campers more.
"If you'll follow me inside, you'll find that your next challenge is something you're all quite familiar with"
Chris strolled into 'The Arena' with his arms folded behind his back, and the campers followed behind with markedly less enthusiasm as the line progressed, ending with Duncan, who was so out of it he missed the door twice, eventually staggering inside and collapsing on the bench closest to the door.
"If any of you wake me up" he said as he mustered the last of his energy to raise his head "It'll be the last thing you do"
"This is all your fault!" yelled Courtney at Harold, seeming unreasonably angry at the idea of one of her team members being asleep "You and your snoring face!" sick burn
"It's called a medical condition" Harold replied calmly. "Gosh!" that bit wasn't so calm.
"Well then what's your excuse?" Courtney asked, fire undiminished, as she rounded on Shannon
"Uh, naebody ever told me aboot it?" she said in a confused voice, shrugging as she did so.
Before the Bass could devolve further into their favourite pastime of blamethrowing, they were cut off by the sound of a whistle being blown. It was Chef, dressed like a referee, his Chef hat missing which means the confession cam owes me a tenner.
He stalked angrily across the line of teenagers, until he came to Chris, who he stood beside, his face still a mask.
"Today's challenge," Chris said as he picked up a red rubber ball that had materialised next to him along with 9 more of its kin "is dodgeball
"Now, the first rule of dodgeball is-"
"Do not talk about dodgeball" Noah cut in, prompting sniggers from the teens.
"Is dodge" Chris replied, throwing the ball at Noah. It hit the bookworm square in the forehead, and he went down with a surprised cry of "Ack!"
"As I was saying, if you get hit by the ball," he threw the ball again, but this time the campers were ready, and his intended target, Courtney, ducked out of the way. However, standing behind her was the one person not paying attention, and so Shannon joined Noah on the floor
"-you're out" Chris finished
"Hey, you can't do that" called Courtney indignantly. From her feet, Shannon murmured "Think hae I feel"
Courtney ignored Shannon, and instead picked up the ball and threw it back at Chris. He caught it comfortably, and kept going with his explanation.
"If you catch the ball, the thrower gets sent out and the catcher gets to bring another team member out on the court."
"Throwing balls" said Noah as he picked himself up off the floor "Gee another mentally challenging test"
"I know, right?" agreed Lindsay. Before Noah could make any more snide remarks, Lindsay was whacked in the head by the dodgeball, which bounced off of her and landed on Noah.
"Less interruptions from the stands please!" said Chris as he picked up another ball. Noah rubbed his head angrily and glared, but said nothing.
"Anyway, Geoff!" he called, and the blonde boy looked up as Chis threw a ball into his waiting arms "Try to hit me"
Chris picked up another ball, and held it in front of him
"If you're holding a ball, you can use it to deflect a ball, but" and with that he dropped the ball for emphasis "If it knocks the ball out of your hands, you're out"
"Wait," asked Lindsay, still confused, and still rubbing her head from the ball impact "So what do I do when the ball comes at me again?"
"You dodge" and as if on cue, Geoff launched the ball at Chris, who deflected it cleanly into Lindsay's head for the second time, dropping her to the ground.
Confession Cam – I was always picked last for dodgeball. I was home-schooled and an only child, but dad still chose the dog over me.
Lindsay: There's a noticeable bruise forming on her forehead, which she rubs tentatively "I still don't get it"
Adam: "At this point they've said 'ball' so much it doesn't sound like a word. Ball. Ball. Ball." He stops talking normally, and starts murmuring nonsense words with a faint tune to it "Ball boo ba ba dee-da da do-wop" the rest trails offs into mumbling
"You have one minute until game time. Gophers, you'll have to sit one person out each round" Chris explained
"Wait, said Cody, raising his hand as though this was a classroom "Don't we have a two-person advantage"
"Fine, you'll sit two people out." at this, Cody received glares from his team, most of them from Heather. He paid no mind and continued his line of questioning.
"Oh, so the games are ten on ten?"
"No, five on five" Chris explained like it was obvious
"Then isn't sitting extra people out a moot point?" Cody asked. Chris opened his mouth to answer smugly, only to realise Cody was completely right. Frowning, Chris picked up a ball and lobbed it at him. He became the fourth separate headshot victim before the games even began, tumbling over backwards to land at the feet of Gwen.
Seizing his opportunity, Cody shot her a grin and a wink, and asked "Come here often?"
Gwen, evidently still annoyed about the prior night's misadventures, scowled at him, and walked over him, bringing her foot down hard on his chest, prompting pained gasps from the tech geek.
"Congratulations" drawled Noah, who had been watching the encounter with an amused smirk on his face "She finally stepped on you, you can die happy"
"Shut up, Noah" came the indignant reply from the ground
After brief team discussions to decide starting line-ups, the teams were assembled. Playing for the Gophers were Adam, Cody, Leshawna Owen, and Heather, and playing for the Bass were DJ, Courtney, Izzy, Harold and Tyler.
The two teams sized each other up, expressions ranging from malicious grins to confident smiles to Adam's look of sheer terror.
"Bring it on, fishies!" called Heather "Otherwise winning three in a row won't be as satisfying!"
"Oh, it is on!" Tyler yelled back "You're going down! We are gonna bring the dinner to the table, and then we're gonna eat it" nailed it big guy.
"Both teams ready?" Chris asked. The teams responded by dropping low, readying themselves to sprint for the balls
"Best of five games wins! Let's dodge some balls!" and with that, the awake teammates in the bleachers began cheering, with the exception of Noah, who had found a third book to read, and Chef blew the whistle.
The instant the first sounds of the whistle reached the campers, Izzy was off like a rocket, dashing forwards to grab as many balls as she could hold, tossing all but one backwards to her team as she lined up her first shot.
Cackling maniacally, she lifted her leg up perpendicular to the ground, bent her back farther backwards than it should go, and, using the momentum from swinging every possible limb she could, launched her ball like a comet towards the Gopher lines.
It sailed forwards, whistling as it did so, seeming almost to home in on Adam, who could only stare wide-eyed in terror as the ball slammed into his face with the force of a train, sending him pinballing around the room, bouncing off of the walls, floor, ceiling and Owen's stomach; before he eventually bounced off the floor for a final time and flew out the back door of The Arena, landing head first in a pile of sand
"Commander Blake I don't want to be on the Island anymore" he burbled before he slumped, out cold.
And so, the games began.
Although Izzy had scooped up most of the balls, there were a lot around, so the remaining Gophers managed to get one each, plus the one Izzy had thrown. The initial burst of energy from Izzy faded as the nine teens stared each other down, until eventually Cody lobbed his ball towards Tyler. Tyler ducked, and scowled at the geek. The scowl shifted into a grin, and he begun spinning around to build momentum, and he tossed the ball...
Straight into the Bass bleachers, where it smacked Shannon in the face, dropping her to the ground again.
Before Tyler could wind up for a second throw, Owen charged at the Bass, managing to stop himself just short of the line, and he tossed the ball straight at Tyler, smacking him in the stomach and launching him against the far wall, hard enough to leave a dent.
After that, more misses followed, the closest anyone getting to a hit was Izzy second nuclear launch that shot straight between Heather's legs.
Harold attempted to unleash his true power, only for his true power to equate to a throw about an arm's span over the line, whereupon it was picked up by Leshawna and thrown back at the nerd, catching him in the back as he tried to run away and slamming him face first into the wall, landing right next to the Tyler shaped indent.
More fake-out throws and blatant misses followed, Owen somehow managed to matrix under a volley from DJ and Izzy, only to be caught as he stood up by Courtney. DJ deftly dodged a shot from Leshawna, and retaliated by missing her but hitting Heather. Cody continued to be an incredibly slippery target, somehow managing to not be there for just about every ball thrown at him, and he even managed to catch out Courtney.
Adam was fished out of his crater by an intern and unceremoniously flung back onto the court, only to be hit by another ball before he'd even landed, sending him straight to the bleachers. And so the game was left at two on two.
Izzy leapt towards the enemy team, screaming a war cry as she did so, and launching the ball towards Leshawna at the apex of her jump. That ball was dodged, but DJ's follow-up was not, and it slammed straight into her stomach, which left Cody as last man standing.
Cody stared at his opponents quivering in fear, as they advanced slowly on him, Izzy giving him a very worrying predatory grin.
"Easy out, guys!" called Courtney, happy to see things going her team's way for once. But those words were a mistake, for they awakened something in Cody. He looked down at the ball in his hands, and he got an idea. He spun it up into the air, muttered a few maths sounding words under his breath, took aim at a spot way above DJ's head, caught the ball as it fell into his arms, and threw.
DJ didn't even need to duck as the ball sailed over him, and he smiled victoriously, only for the ball to curve in mid-air and hit him in the ass. Izzy saw this and her grin turned into a frown. She adopted the same pose she had at the start of the game, began yelling, the manic grin swiftly returning to her face
"You cannot hope to defeat me! It's useless! Useless useless useless useless!" She yelled as she dashed forwards at breakneck pace, darting from side to side to throw off any counter throws. She launced the ball at Cody, and he took the only recourse left availble to him: he hit the deck, diving to the floor as the ball flew over his head, the airstream rippling the hair on the back of his head. The ball kept going, bouncing off of the back wall and sailing over Cody again, landing just in front of the linebetween the sides. Cody slowly got up awhen he heard the ball 'thunk' on the ground. He looked for any ball remaining on the Bass side of the field, and found none.
Now it was Cody's turn to grin maliciously, as he rubbed the red rubber ball on his shirt until it crackled and sparked with blue static.
He tossed the ball, Izzy managed to deftly cartwheel out of the way, only for the ball to make an even sharper turn than the spinner, and lance straight into Izzy's side.
Round one, Gophers.
While the Gophers cheered their victory and its unlikely victor, the Bass were in the midst of another team meeting.
"We can do this, guys!" said Harold, trying to psyche everyone up "We just have to believe!"
Geoff and Bridgette seemed fairly happy with this speech, nodding their heads and smiling, and that was about where the positive reception ended.
"Oh I believe alright." said Courtney, as irritable as ever "I believe you suck!" she yelled, poking Harold in the chest for emphasis
"Yeah" Tyler agreed, oblivious to his own failings "You throw like a girl"
"Ye're one tae talk" Groaned Shannon, finally picking herself up off the floor "Ye throw like a drunk after a bad eye surgery"
"It was a warm-up game!" Tyler protested "I can dominate this game, just give all the balls to me!"
A stellar plan, to be sure, and after hearing Chef's whistle and sighing deeply, Courtney relented.
"Fine! Just try to aim for the other side, okay?"
Tyler smiled, and got up to take his place on the court, followed by Geoff, Bridgette, Ezekiel and Shannon.
Halfway to the court, Ezekiel tugged on Shannon's sleeve
"Doon't you think this game looks a little dangeroos, eh?"
Shannon waved away his comment
"Ah, i''ll be fine"
"Bo'ot, didn't you see what happened to that small one?" he gestured to the Gopher bleachers, specifically Adam, who was still laid flat out on the bench, groaning in pain occasionally.
"Dinnae worry abou' i' Wurzel." She threw a comforting arm around his shoulder; unfortunately, she threw it too hard, making the boy wince "Think abou' i' like thes': if Sportacus's plan works out, then we win and ye' dinnae haftae dae anything. If it disnae, then I jist so happen tae be pretty good at thes' game, if I do say so meself."
"Ookay" Ezekiel replied nervously, and the two stepped on up to the court, to meet their opponents.
Meanwhile, at the Gopher Bleachers
"Alright Noah, you're up" said Heather, putting on her best 'do as I say or suffer my wrath' voice
"You know, you guys did such an awesome job on the last game, that I don't wanna mess up your mojo."
Heather looked ready to argue the point, but Chef's whistle cut her off, and she simply said "Fine"
Beth held up her hand, eager to be pelted by rubber balls or something, and Heather confirmed her spot on the line-up with a nod.
She was followed by Lindsay, still with no idea how the game worked and still nursing a nasty head bruise, but still eager to try; Owen, as eager to do just about anything as ever; and Trent and Katie rounded up the line-up, the latter looking a mite uncomfortable up in the spotlight.
Round 2
Round two of course began with Tyler, armed with every ball he could hold, which was a lot, adopting his prior strategy of spinning, which while it may be a good trick, does not serve you well in the aiming department.
As evidenced when his shots hit, in order, Chef in the stomach, a near miss on Chris's head, much to the host's chagrin; Noah's book, which was slammed into its reader's head; immobile seagull, who happened to be walking past the back door of the Arena; one flew into the Bass bleachers, barely ducked by Courtney, another flew into the Gopher bleachers, scattering the team save for Noah, who was still peeling his book off of his face and got hit again; and the final ball sailed true towards the Gophers who were actually playing, and hit Lindsay in the face for the third time that day.
At first Tyler looked at his handiwork proudly, then he realised exactly who it was he hit, and his face fell.
"No!" he yelled as she dashed over to Lindsay to check on her. From the stands, Courtney just seemed happy that he'd hit something that resembled an intended target.
Lindsay was pretty damn out of it when Tyler got there, mumbling to herself about shoes as her eyes slowly glazed over. Tyler, meanwhile, couldn't help but wince at the sight of Lindsay's once beautiful face, now covered in nasty looking bruises, and swelling on her left eye and her mouth.
Tyler hoisted Lindsay up off the ground, and once he'd assured her that her face was fine and definitely not covered in bruises, he offered her a walk, completely ignoring the dodgeball that impacted on his cheek halfway through his sentence. Lindsay accepted, and the two walked out of The Arena happily, oblivious to Heather's attempts to vaporise the pair with sheer force of hatred.
Down to 4-4, game 2 once again slowed, as several easily dodged balls were thrown to test the waters. Trent almost got hit out once by Geoff, barely managing to duck in time. He attempted to respond in kind, but his throwing technique was all kinds of off, dragging his fingers down the ball as he attempted to release it, leaving the ball spinning uselessly in mid-air a bit in front of his face. Taking her opportunity, Shannon grinned and launched her ball as though she was bowling in cricket, her ball flying into Trent's hoverer, returning it to sender and making the score 3-4.
"See Wurzel?" She called back to Ezekiel, who had his ball held tight in front of his chest, ready to block at any given moment "I told ye' i''d be fine"
She turned back to her opponents, her arms spread wide as if beckoning them to try and hit her.
"Ye' call thes dodgeball? Mah nephew throws better then ye' an' he hasnae e'en bin born yet!"
Not willing to stand for this, a swift response came from the Gophers, in the form of Beth lobbing a ball at Shannon's head. She ducked, not even blinking (winking?) at the throw, as she looked back to Ezekiel, who was trying to make himself as small as possible
"Like I said. Fine. Numpties couldnae hit a tyre fire wi' a heat-seekin' missile"
Before Ezekiel could interpret that sentence and formulate a response, an indignant shout cut across the field
"Great Gatsby that is it!" yelled Owen, apparently having reached his limit. He grabbed a ball, windmilled it in his arm a few times, and hurled it at Shannon, who had just enough time to hear the whistling and jump over it. She landed slightly unsteady, and when she was done wobbling, she turned to her opponent, a grin plastered on her face
"Now tha's more like it!" she called, grabbing a ball of her own and lobbing it back towards Owen. He too dodged. "C'moan, Pickles, gimme a challenge!"
The two grabbed another ball each and hurled them at each other with all the force they could muster. Of course, being so focussed on throwing, neither payed any attention to the dodging aspect of dodgeball, and both balls flew straight anfd true into the face of the other. Owen staggered back a few paces, looking barely worse for the wear. Shannon, on the other hand, lacked Owen's momentum dampening blubber, and as a result was catapulted across the court and into the back wall to leave a Shannon-shaped imprint next to the ones shaped like Tyler and Harold.
Both teens were declared out, and Shannon slumped against the wall, her one visible eye glazing over. She brought a shaky hand up in front of her face, and waved it about idly.
"Fuck me, I shouldnae be seein' three a' those" she slurred out, before her eye fluttered closed and she fell unconscious.
With both teams down a solid player, the rest of the players felt it was probably time for them to start playing the game again
Well, three of the five remaining players did at least. Geoff, Bridgette and Beth all got back into the spirit of throwing red rubber balls at each other, while Katie did her best to hover around where she thought the balls would be flying the least, and Ezekiel had retreated to a corner of the court and was curled up into a ball muttering to himself
Despite being surprisingly adept at dodging Bridgette and Geoff's volleys, her small stature lending itself well to avoidance much like Cody before her, Beth felt very much backed into a corner. She couldn't dodge forever, and she was effectively the only member of her team left, what with Katie's inability to do anything except not get hit. Facing down her two more active opponents of Bridgette and Geoff, and making a mental note of where Ezekiel was curled up in a ball, the farm girl's mind began to race for some plan to try and swing this into a win.
Any trains of thought were prevented from even leaving the station by a co-ordinated volley from the other side of the court, one which Beth barely managed to dodge. She threw a ball back in a vague attempt at defiance, and it was there that everything went wrong for her.
The throw itself was token, with barely enough strength to make it over the halfway line between the courts. But Geoff had seen his opportunity, and as the ball sailed a metre to his right, he dove like a bodyguard taking a bullet for his charge, securing the ball in his arms as he landed. He rolled onto his back, holding the ball up in triumph, as the Bass erupted in cheers. Beth was out, and game 2 was as good as theirs. And as the team quickly reached their decision and Izzy walked back out onto the court, the result was almost assured.
The sounds of the Bass cheering finally snapped Katie out of her semi-conscious daze, and she finally saw the Bass team ready to end it all. She gulped, her mind racing as she tried like Beth before her to see some way out of this mess.
Her mind continued racing, until eventually her panic receded somewhat and her thoughts returned back to where they'd been drifting for the past week. Sadie wasn't here. She tried and she tried, but she just couldn't move past that. Lindsay and Beth helped, but it wasn't the same. Without Sadie, the world just felt... emptier, like there was some integral part missing, but no-one except her noticed.
But as Katie looked towards the grinning faces of the Killer Bass, something changed in her thought processes, as though a gear in her mind suddenly began turning the other way, and just like that, everything came into place with a satisfying 'thunk'.
Sadie wasn't here. And she shouldn't be sad about that. She should be angry. She looked at the Bass again, at their stupid grinning faces and their stupid dodgeballs, and her expression of worry turned to a frown of anger. Sadie wasn't here.
And it was their fault.
None of the Bass noticed the shift in Katie's demeanour, instead revelling in their imminent victory. With her ever-present grin on her face, Izzy launched another murderball towards Katie, the ball sailing true and soaring towards her head.
Without flinching, or even staggering under the impact for that matter, Katie caught the speeding rubber mass of death in one hand.
In an instant, The Arena fell into silence, with expressions ranging from confusion from the stands, indifference from Noah, who was still reading his book; fear in the eyes of the Bass on the court, and sheer opportunistic glee in the eyes of Chris.
Before the Gophers could decide who'd get thrown out onto the court to join Katie, the girl in question let out a scream of incomprehensible fury, and, mustering every ounce of anger she'd ever felt in her life, launched the dodgeball with enough force to put Izzy's murderballs to shame.
It smacked Geoff in the face, ricocheting to Bridgette, who was hit in the shoulder, and ricocheted a third time to Izzy, who got caught in the gut. All three dropped to the ground, leaving Ezekiel alone. He quickly dropped the ball he'd been clutching as though it was a childhood toy, and held his hands up in the air as high as they could go
"I surrender!" he yelled; eyes wide with panic.
Chef blew his whistle, and so game 2 ended just as its forebear, with a Gopher victory snatched from the jaws of defeat.
With the game over, Katie visibly relaxed, breathing heavily. She walked over to the Gopher bench, oblivious to her teammates giving her a wide berth, curled up like a cat on the end of a bench, and drifted off to sleep.
Confession Cam – Where in the goddamn did that come from?
Katie: She sighs contentedly to herself, a small smile on her face. "I needed that. To get it all out of my system. I think..." her expression drops for a split second, but she swiftly recovers "I think I'm ready to keep going. Just you wait, Sadie! We'll be back together before you know it, and I'll come back a winner!"
The Gopher Bleachers
The Gophers were still in a shocked silence, the only sound being the occasional turning of a page by Noah. After about a minute, he picked up on the silence
"Did we win?" he asked, not sounding at all as though he actually cared about the answer. The question snapped the Gophers out of their daze.
"Yeah, we did," replied Heather, the permanent irritation already back in her voice
"Oh. Yaaaaay, go team" he said with about as little enthusiasm as is humanly possible.
"Would it kill you to try at this?" asked Heather
"Hey, if you want to break this little winning streak you've got going on, go ahead, throw me out there." Noah replied with a smirk on his face, the smirk deepening when Heather failed to come up with a reply "So, for the sake of the team, I'll just keep sitting out"
"How noble of you" said Gwen, rolling her eyes
"Indeed" said Noah, already engrossed once again in his book and not paying any attention.
"Jerk"
"Loser" said Gwen and Heather simultaneously. Then they came to a realisation about what just happened and their eyes widened
Confession Cam – I'm still far too befuddled to come up with something witty
Gwen: "Did we just-"
Heather: "Agree with each other?"
Gwen and Heather, simultaneously: "No way!"
The Bass Bleachers
"What was that?! Surrender?!" yelled Courtney, who was in the process of berating Ezekiel "You could have at least tried!"
"Dude, chill" cut in Geoff, now nursing a nasty looking black eye "If I'd known she was gonna do that, I'd have surrendered too."
"Ugh!" cried Courtney, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration "You're right." She said a few seconds later, a degree calmer "I'm sorry Ezekiel. It's just we had them, and then they pull that nonsense out of nowhere and now we're about to lose for the third time in a row!"
Courtney continued to get progressively more and more worked up as she continued her sentence, and the rest of the Killer Bass began to tune her out as she reverted back into irate muttering.
"So," said Geoff, turning to the rest of the team "Now what do we do?"
The rest of his team all looked blankly at him, with the exception of Courtney, who was kicking a dodgeball repeatedly in frustration.
"C'mon guys, we gotta think of something! Duncan's still out, Tyler's out with that chick from the other team, and Courtney's-" he was cut out by an irritated cry from the girl in question,who gave the dodgeball an extra hard kick into a wall, upon which it bounced back and hit her in the stomach
"Courtney's busy." Geoff finished, subconsciously inching away from her. He turned to Bridgette, who as the only team member with first aid expereince, was the one tasked with keeping an eye on Shannon
"How's she doing, Bridge?" Geoff asked, hoping for a spot of good news.
"No good" came the sighed reply as Bridgette handed an ice pack she'd procured from somewhere to Shannon "I'm pretty sure she's concussed"
"No a'm no', a'm fine!" Shannon slurred as she tried to stand up. The moment she reached her full height, her legs almost immediately gave out beneath her, and she toppled backwards into Bridgette's arms, who'd anticipated this exact event.
"Okay maybe a'm no' so good" she mumbled to herself as Bridgette set her down on the bench behind Duncan, leaving the Bass with only one bleacher left for sitting on.
"Dang" said Geoff "Now what?"
Still no ideas came forth from the Bass, just more blank stares, and a few looks of deep thought.
"Oooh!" cried Izzy, finger raised to the sky as she had her eureka moment "Idea! Okay, so, can anyone speak Mandarin?"
Everyone sighed as they realised that the plan was both crazy and infeasible, until Ezekiel piped up
"I, uh, I can speak Mandarin" he said tentatively. Everyone looked at him in surprise, except of course Izzy, who took it all in stride
"Great!" she exclaimed, rubbing her hands together in glee "That's step one. Now, next we need three kilograms of flour, ideally self-raising but plain will do, and then we need to gain access to the nearest-"
She was cut off by another annoyed yell from Courtney, who had finally finished taking out her frustrations on the poor defenceless dodgeball which sat slowly leaking air in the corner. Courtney wheeled around to face her team, her eyes ablaze with pure determination. She was not losing again.
"I'll tell you exactly what we're going to do." She said, her voice cutting across Izzy's ramblings and immediately catching the attention of her team. "We're going to stop messing around, we're going to get our heads on straight, and we're going to beat the other team before they can come up with any more crap to pull out of nowhere to beat us with!"
The rest of the Bass looked at her with rapt attention, with the exception being Izzy, who was still rattling on, but no-one was paying any attention to her.
"Okay, step one: Harold, go wake up Duncan." Everyone turned to look at Harold, who was now wide-eyed in a mixture of shock and fear
"What?!" exclaimed Harold, clearly not happy at his part in this plan "Why me?"
"Because, of the two people here responsible for Duncan's condition, you are the only one who's conscious."
"Gosh, I told you, it's a medical condition!" Harold cried in indignation
"And I told you to go wake up Duncan, so I guess both of us are pretty miserable right now!" Courtney yelled right back, refusing to take any more of Harold's crap "Look, someone is going to wake up Duncan, and I don't see any other member of the team we can afford to lose!"
"No way, I'm not doing it!"
Their argument continued in that same, circular fashion for a good minute, gradually getting louder and louder. So loud in fact, that it roused Shannon from her concussed stupor.
"Shut th' fuck up, a'm tryin' tae sleep here!" she moaned as she weakly threw a dodgeball at Courtney. Her aim was well off, and the ball sailed forwards scant inches, instead landing firmly on Duncan's face. He frowned in his slumber, only for another yell from Harold to wake him entirely. His frown deepened into a scowl, and he marched over to Courtney, tapping her on the shoulder while she was mid-rant. She wheeled around in irritation
"Not now Duncan, I'm trying to get Harold to go wake up Duncan!" she snapped, instantly spinning back around to continue berating Harold. Harold however had stopped arguing, instead eyeing up the new arrival behind Courtney in apprehension. With her brain still running hot from the argument, it took Courtney a few seconds longer than it should have to put two and two together, and when she did her eyes widened with dawning realisation.
Courtney wheeled around to face Duncan, who looked at her with a raised eyebrow, arms folded over his chest
"So," he said, an aura of menace filtering through his calm tone "Care to explain why you needed to get so loud?"
"Because," Courtney replied, actually mustering enough courage to look Duncan square in the eyes as she did so. Presumably as a result of leftover anger, but still "We're down 2-0, and loathe as I am to admit it, we need your help"
"And why should I help you, darling?"
That comment got Courtney's blood boiling again, and the spark of anger returned to her eyes as they narrowed at Duncan.
"Because, I can personally guarantee you that if we lose this game, you'll be the one going home, darling"
The two stared intently at each other for a moment, neither willing to back down, until eventually Duncan sighed.
"Fine," he said, averting his gaze from Courtney's smug expression of victory "I'll play. On one condition. You have to do what I say, when I say it"
That caveat took some of the wind out of Courtney's sails, but nevertheless she agreed to Duncan's request with a nod. Duncan grinned.
"Alright, so I got this strategy on my first trip to juvie..." he began as he beckoned the team into a huddle. The Bass piled in with the exception of Shannon, still incapacitated, and Izzy, still rambling on about whatever.
"Of course, then we have to worry about the leopard, but hopefully he filled up on popcorn and is too tired to chase us, and-" she abruptly broke off when she finally noticed the lack of people listening to her. "Hey where'd everybody go?"
"Fucked off tae listen to some shite Zippy learnt in the slammer" Shannon mumbled as a response "I think they stopped listenin' aboot th' bit wi' the trampoline."
"Awww, they missed the best part. Oh well, I'll keep it for plan B"
"Aye, ye' do tha' Dizzee"
And we're back baby, with the shortest chapter to date. The two-part format is probably gonna end up the standard, it keeps the individual chapters from becoming massive 12k word behemoths, and allows me a bit more room to wriggle with length and such.
This one was definitely more focussed on the action on the court, Katie's big rage was something I'd had planned since near the beginning of this, next chapter will deal more with the action in the stands, specifially stuff with Noah, and some other stuff with Trent and Gwen.
I'm coming up in this fic's 1 year anniversary, which feels weird, and I certainly don't feel like I've written a year's worth of content. I'd try and get the next chapter ready for the anniversary, but I think we all know that's not going to happen.
So yeah, that's all, leave reviews, favourtes et al. if you feel so inclined, and I'll see you probably in the new year. Hoefully it's less shit than this one.