Hey my boys, girls and attack helicopters. New chapter here! Last time, we see the red crystal possession and how it played out in the Team Change Battle. But now, we go deeper in the bowels of Tree City as Scarlett's group investigates in this chapter of Total Drama: Running Time!
Aztec 13: Just keep waiting. Eventually, it will all pay off in the future.
We see the Running Men sitting in the lounge. Kitty and Heather won the last round, but since Heather knocked out, Kitty was out obtaining the prizes. Heather was lying down on the couch while the others were sitting.
"How come you haven't healed her yet, Carrie?" MacArthur questions Carrie's healing abilities.
"As I've said, my Spirit can only heal physical injuries. Mind control from an evil crystal, not so much." Carrie states that she cannot heal mental injuries.
"Yeah, and possession can really screw the mind." Duncan states in knowing that possession can leave a mark.
"That had lasting effects on Scott. I wonder if Heather could also be traumatized by it." Mike wondered if the crystal could also have lasting effects on Heather.
"But I'm also wondering. Why didn't we even out our teams before the showdown?" Shawn asked. "More of us could get Spirits if we did that."
"Yeah, I completely forgot about that." Duncan rubbed the back of his head in forgetting.
The door of the dorm opened, and Kitty walked inside.
"Hi guys, how's Heather?" Kitty asked.
"Still out cold." Duncan states. "Shawn thinks she'll stay that way for a few more hours." He states that she'll be unconscious longer than expected.
"Hey Kitty, what new Spirit did you get?" Carrie was curious.
"I got something called the Spirit of the Bubble?" Kitty answered, sorta confused by the name.
"Wow, great, bubbles. How's that supposed to help?" Duncan sarcastically asked.
"I can demonstrate." Kitty said. "MacArthur, shoot me."
"With pleasure." MacArthur grinned.
As MacArthur takes aim with her gun, Kitty inserts her new Spirit into her watch.
-Spirit of the Bubble-
MacArthur fired multiple shots, seemingly doing a lot of damage with a smokescreen. But as the smokescreen fades, they see Kitty in a purple translucent spherical shield.
"Hey! Not a lot! I have no idea how much damage this thing can take!" Kitty yelled.
"What the?!" MacArthur exclaimed in seeing the shield.
"That is so cool!" Owen exclaimed.
"What about Heather's Spirit?" Shawn asked.
"It's something called the Spirit of Light." Kitty said as she took out Heather's Spirit.
"Can you demonstrate?" Duncan asked, raising an eyebrow.
"No, only Heather's watch can use it." Kitty states that Heather is the only one who can use it.
Kitty then tosses the Spirit onto Heather's chest.
"So, I think Heather can use it to blind her enemies." Mike states
"Yeah, it's almost obvious." Duncan states.
"So, I'm gonna call Scarlett. Let's see if she's gonna help us in the investigations." Kitty explains that she's gonna contact Scarlett.
"Okay." Carrie smiled.
Kitty formed her bracelet into a disk and placed it in the middle of the lounge. A hologram of Sanders appeared.
"Hey guys." Sanders greeted.
"Partner!" MacArthur smiled to see her partner.
"Hey, MacArthur." Sanders smiled.
"How are you?!" MacArthur asked.
"Well, pretty good, other than the fact that I saw you accidentally paralyze Mike and Carrie." Sanders said.
"How was I supposed to know shooting in the back would cause paralyzation?!" MacArthur asked.
"That was literally shown in taser safety last year." Sanders said.
"So, what should we do now?" Kitty asked.
"Leave the investigations to us now." Sanders states. "Scarlett now uninstalled her Spirit of Portals from her machine into her watch. We'll take care of it, you talk to Mission Control about it." She says that her team can handle the investigation.
"Okay then, take care!" Kitty smiled.
"Over and out." Sanders said.
The hologram turns off. Kitty walks out of the lounge to talk to Mission Control in private.
"So, what now?" Mike asks what to do at that point.
"We just do whatever. That is the point of breaks." MacArthur states.
"Want to play Monopoly?" Duncan asked.
"Where are we supposed to get Monopoly out here?" Shawn questions.
"Oh yeah, right." Duncan sighed in forgetting.
We then see the room where Kitty found the crystals. It was still empty aside from the crates and the computer. But then a red portal appears inside and pops out Scarlett, Zoey and Sanders.
"Wow, I didn't think you'd get us here." Zoey states.
"It can take me to places if I remember them." Scarlett states. "One of the reasons I set Kitty in first."
"But, is this where we're gonna go every time?" Sanders asked.
"Of course not. I just take pictures of rooms we explore so I can remember." Scarlett said while taking out her phone.
"Okay then." Sanders shrugs it off.
They turn to the gate that Kitty hadn't gone through. They look at the keypad next to it.
"Okay, now we need to find out this thing's passcode." Sanders states.
"This might also be a 4 digit one as well." Scarlett says that it might also be a 4 digit code.
"Let's try 1234. If not, let's try something else." Zoey suggests.
"Hmm, okay then." Scarlett rubbed her chin.
Scarlet then typed 1 2 3 4 into the keypad, then the gate opened.
"Seriously?!" Scarlett was utterly stumped by this.
The other two snickered.
"Ach, let's just go." Scarlett prompted them to go.
"Okay then." Sanders smiled.
On the other side of the gate, there was a bigger computer looking like a place to store data. There was a flamingo pink robot operating it.
"This doesn't look like the robots we see in the game." Zoey whispered.
"Yeah, these are the facility's robots." Scarlett states.
"Hold on, I'm gonna try something." Zoey tells them to stay there.
Zoey puts on Scott's watch and inserts his Spirit into it.
-Spirit of Fire-
Zoey sneaks up to the robot. She puts her hand on the floor and a silent fire pillar engulfs the robot. The robot falls, destroyed.
"Nice." Zoey smirked.
"How did you know how to do that?" Sanders was confused.
"I was teaching her." Scarlett states.
"So, let's check what's in the computer." Sanders states.
The girls look at the big computer before them. Scarlett checks out the files in it.
"Hmm, mostly just arena designs and game generators." Scarlett noted out the things she saw.
"Try out the others." Sanders prompts her to check somewhere else.
"How about the Spirits file." Zoey suggests while pointing at a file marked 'Spirits'.
Scarlett clicked on the file and it shows a vast log of all the Spirits people obtained over the years.
"Hmm, Spirit of Trickery, Spirit of Reflection, Spirit of Stink?" Scarlett was listing while raising her eyebrow at the end.
"Hey, there is something here called the Spirit of String." Zoey points out.
"Yeah, Joel used to have that one." Scarlett states.
"How about the Spirit of the Hurricane?" Sanders said while pointing at the log.
"Wow, that sounds dangerous." Zoey states in hearing this. "How did they even make these?" She questions.
"I don't know, let me check something." Scarlett said.
Scarlett looked around the files some more. She then runs into a file named 'Zeta Project'.
"Zeta Project?" Zoey was confused by the name.
"I guess these are the top things made here, right?" Sanders said, slightly nervous.
Scarlett clicks on it, but sees that the file is highly encrypted.
"Hmm, I guess they wouldn't want us to peek through there." Scarlett states. "I have an idea."
"What is it?" Zoey asked.
"I have a state of the art decryption program in my laboratory." Scarlett states. "I need to export the file to a USB first."
Suddenly, the door behind them opens.
"Ah crap!" Sanders exclaimed.
Scarlett inserts a Spirit into her watch.
-Spirit of the Shadows-
Scarlett covers the group in a dark shadow as they jump into a corner. They see the Game Master walk into the room.
"Hmm." The Game Master sees the destroyed robot on the floor.
"Who is that?" Zoey asked in seeing this mysterious person.
"If I were to guess, that's the Game Master." Scarlett said.
The Game Master walked to the robot. The robot slightly activated again and looked at them.
"It's still alive?" Scarlett murmured on seeing the robot.
The Game Master places their hand on the robot. Some lights were seen as the Game Master looked like they were draining energy from the robot. After a little while, the robot turned off permanently.
"This is unacceptable." The Game Master said.
Then two more robots appear next to him.
"You two, take it away." The Game Master ordered as they walked away.
The two robots picked up the robot carcass and left the room.
Seeing that the coast was clear, Scarlett dropped the cover.
"Did he just drain energy?" Sanders was concerned.
"Yeah, and I don't think robots are the limit of his energy absorption." Scarlett puts her hand on her chin.
"Wait, you think he can also drain our energy?!" Zoey asked, incredibly worried. "That sounds excruciatingly painful!"
Scarlett then takes out a USB drive and inserts it into the computer. She then begins downloading the Zeta Projects file.
"I think this is all." Scarlett said.
"Wait, not yet." Sanders stops her.
Sanders taps her bracelet and a recon drone appears. It then followed the Game Master as they walked in the facility.
"Okay, that's all. Now we wait." Sanders said.
They all sit in the room, waiting for the download to finish. Sanders began controlling the drone.
We then see the drone fly into a gigantic circular laboratory. There were multiple incubators for experimentation. We see the Game Master walking to a group of robots.
"Are the amplifiers ready?" The Game Master asked in a menacing tone.
"We can release them tomorrow if you want." One of the robots said. "Do you have the green light?"
"No, it's not yet time. When the finals come into play, release the DV8. They'll make short work of them, physically and mentally, so no one can stop us." The Game Master said.
The recon drone then flies around the laboratory, searching for anything interesting. The incubators are opaque so it can't see anything inside, the desks in the middle of the room don't have much, and there were no computers to Protohack.
"Just give them one more round to see if they're formidable enough to stop us. The final team match will be a test of teammwork, strength, and wits." The Game Master said.
The drone then goes onto the desk and spots something interesting. A familiar bull skull necklace. As the drone takes a closer look, it was crushed by the Game Master's hand.
"Hmm, little pest." The Game Master said, thinking it was a regular mosquito.
We then see the girls in the computer room. Since her drone was destroyed, Sanders lost connection.
"Hmm, weird, I thought I saw something." Sanders scratched her head in thinking.
"Don't worry about that now, we got a file to decrypt." Scarlett states.
Scarlett removes the drive from the computer and tucks into her pocket. She also takes out her phone and takes a picture of the room.
"So, let's go now?" Zoey asked.
"Yeah, before we get caught." Scarlett agrees.
Scarlett inserts her Spirit into her watch.
-Spirit of Portals-
Scarlett puts her arm out and creates a portal back to the laboratory. They all jump in.
At the laboratory, the group were met with the recon group returning from the mission.
"So, we're just about done with this." Scarlett smiles in seeing the day is almost over.
"What have you guys found?" Scott asked.
"Something good, I hope." Eva said with an unamused expression.
Scarlett walked towards her computer and inserts the USB drive into it. She then began typing on it.
"What are you doing?" Noah was confused.
"I stole some files from a computer room. Right now, I'm just beginning a decryption procedure." Scarlett explained what she has done and what she's doing.
"Decryption procedure?" Eva was confused.
"Ugh, it means reverse encryption." Noah states the meaning of decryption.
"And encryption means scrambling a file or signal in a certain pattern so people can't easily access it." Scarlett added the piece of info. "And right now, this is an unusual scrambling pattern. I think it would take a couple days."
"What else did you find?" Noah asked.
"Well, I kinda saw something weird in a laboratory." Sanders said. "I'll just show a picture of what I saw before my drone was destroyed."
Sanders then tapped the bracelet and it shows a picture of the bull skull necklace.
"This seems awfully familiar. I don't know why, but I don't like recognising it." Noah states in recognising it.
"Yeah, I also remember it, but does beg the question." Izzy said while scratching her head.
"Who owned this necklace?" Eva added.
We then see the laboratory in Tree City. The Game Master walks to the desk with the necklace.
"My plan is almost complete, and I won't let my own competitors ruin it for me." The Game Master said.
The Game Master then picked up the necklace.
"This will be the first of many trophies I will acquire." The Game Master seemingly grinned.
The bull skull charm on the necklace spins around for a bit, until it stops, showing the scene something surprising, a picture of Alejandro etched into the back of the skull.
The first sign of the missing is here, and it's in Tree City of all places. If Alejandro is somewhere nearby, then the rest could be with him. But what does the Game Master want with them? Find out in the future.
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