I have come again to drop this chapter. Last time, we saw the Running Men win the second match of the finals and get information about the DV8. But what will they do with that information? Find out in this chapter of Total Drama: Running Time!

Aztec 13: The DV8 will have a few more chapters of spotlight before converting.

We see the Running Men in the lounge. Kitty was in a meeting with Mission Control. The rest were sitting next to her, watching this play out.

"So, according to the scans, the red gas actually has the power of the red crystals?" Kitty asks for confirmation.

"Affirmative." Mission Control confirms.

"And like Shawn stated before, it's more unstable than the crystals themselves?" Kitty asks.

"I'm afraid so." Mission Control states.

"So we can't just make them take off their masks?" Duncan asks.

"Wait, we can't just pull off their mask?" MacArthur asks.

"No, because doing so might cause memory loss or mental instability." Mission Control states.

"So instead of that, we just have to get to the control wing and find a way to release them there." Shawn states.

"So we're gonna move on with the plan. We infiltrate the control wing and the warehouse wing." Carrie states.

"Yes. I hope you all have a successful search. Right now, I have to tend to some other operatives. I caught wind of a sting operation in Uzbekistan." Mission Control states.

"Okay, we'll do our best." Owen states.

"Very well." Mission Control states.

The hologram disappears. A hologram of Sanders takes its place.

"Hey guys. Shortly, we'll be teleporting to your position." Sanders says. "How are you guys doing?"

"We're doing fine." Kitty states. "Could be better."

"So, are you guys ready? Who else will stay behind?" Sanders asks.

"I'm just gonna stay behind. I just need some peace and quiet before the final match." Heather states.

"Yeah, me too." Mike states.

"Eh, I'll stay put as well." MacArthur states.

"Yeah." Owen agrees.

"So, it's just me, Carrie, Shawn and Duncan." Kitty lists out who will go for the mission. "Okay then."

The hologram disappears. Kitty walks up to the disk and picks it up.

"Okay, this will be hard." Kitty muttered to herself.

Then, in the center of the lounge, a red portal appears, and emerging from it are Scarlett, Sanders, Sky, Zoey, Noah and Geoff.

"Mike!" Zoey smiled.

"Zoey!" Mike smiled.

"Hey Owen!" Noah smiled.

"Buddy!" Owen yelled.

The group then began talking to each other, catching up on how the other has been. Eventually, Scarlett wanted to get things moving.

"Ahem. Guys. We still have a mission to do." Scarlett catches everyone's attention.

"Oh yeah, right." Carrie says.

Scarlett makes another portal. She, Sanders, Carrie, Duncan and Shawn jump through. But before Kitty could follow, she feels her shoulder touched. She turns to see Noah.

"Hey… Kitty…" Noah says solemnly. "Bring her back."

"Don't worry." Kitty says. "I promise."

Kitty then jumps through the portal. The portal disappears, leaving the rest in the lounge.

"So… what now?" Sky asks.

"Um…" Noah thinks.

"Hog Ridaaaa!" Geoff blurted out.

"Hog Ridaaaa!" Owen and MacArthur yelled out.

"Seriously?" Heather was confused by this.

"Ugh… this will be a long night." Noah groaned.

We see the group that decided to go in the investigation running through a hallway. Carrie was leading the way, using her Clairvoyance Spirit to get directions.

"Are you sure we're going the right way?" Duncan asks.

"I think so. Knowing this Spirit, it's never wrong." Carrie states.

Eventually, they reach a split in the hallway. Each path led to somewhere different.

"Okay, the warehouse wing is to the left. Just go straight forward and you'll reach it." Carrie instructs.

Duncan, Shawn and Sanders then ran through the left hallway.

"The right hallway will lead to the control facility. Follow me." Carrie instructs.

Carrie runs through the right hallway, and Kitty and Scarlett follow suit.

We see Duncan, Sanders and Shawn walking into a very big room. There were a whole lot of crates inside for maximum storage.

"Okay, what are we supposed to find?" Duncan asks.

Sanders forms her bracelet into a disk. It then projects a hologram of a metal frame similar to that of a Spirit.

"We have to find the materials to make a Spirit. If our suspicions of a conspiracy are true, we need to prepare for the worst." Sanders explains the plan.

"Even if it's not a zombie apocalypse, I still agree on preparing for the worst." Shawn agrees in preparing.

"So, we take a bunch of metal framing and drained out crystals?" Duncan asks. "How do you even differenciate a crystal from a dried out crystal?"

"I don't know." Sanders states. "I guess we will know it when we see it."

The group spreads out to find the materials needed. Duncan walks up to a crate and opens it up to find multiple metal framings.

"Hey guys! I found the metal frames." Duncan called out.

"Good. Just take as many as you can." Sanders instructs.

"Already on it." Duncan says.

We see Shawn opening a bunch of crates.

"Red crystals." Shawn says as he opens the crates. "More red crystals." He finds more in another crate.

Shawn opens one more crate.

"Grey crystals." Shawn was about to close the crate when he realises what was inside. "Wait, grey crystals?"

Shawn observes the crystals and sees that it was grey compared to the other crystals.

"Over here! Grey crystals! These seem to be drained." Shawn calls out.

The other two run to him.

"Nice find." Duncan remarks.

Sanders forms her bracelet into a disk. She uses it to scan the crystals for any energy readings.

"Yup, it's drained. Let's grab what we can." Sanders confirms that they are drained.

We see the other group sneaking into a computer room. There was a big computer that moniters the states of the DV8 in the incubators.

"Okay, the coast is clear. We can check the computer and see what to do from there." Scarlett states.

The three walk to the computer. Scarlett turns it on.

"So, they seem to be stable." Scarlett says.

"Except for the fact that they're inhaling something that makes them mind controlled." Kitty says.

"Yeah, that too." Scarlett takes that into consideration. "But it also says here that it's using electrical energy to control the gas."

"Oh, well there's another good reason we haven't pulled out their mask yet." Kitty states.

"See if you can find anything on how to release them." Carrie says.

Scarlett then goes through the controls. She the encounters a passcode window.

"Okay, anyone suggest a password. I'll try to place a password.

"How about…" Kitty thinks of a password to use, but was cut off.

"No. We can't. The total characters needed is 15." Carrie states.

"Oh man. That's way over 10 trillion combinations." Scarlett remarked.

"So what do we do?" Kitty asks.

"Well, if we can't go through the password, we can always go through the firewall." Scarlett states.

Scarlett takes out a USB drive and inserts into the computer.

"What now?" Carrie asks.

"Let's check the logs for any answers." Scarlett suggests.

Scarlett then began searching the logs for anything she could find. Eventually, a log catches Kitty's eye.

"Over there! Look!" Kitty points out.

"What's that?" Carrie asks.

Scarlett checks the logs information. It shows that it was 10 days ago. The day before the Running Men were dragged into this mess.

"This was before we arrived here in Tree City." Kitty states.

"Play it." Carrie prompts.

Scarlett clicks on the file and the video plays.

-Video Log: 9817-

Recorded 10 Days Prior

We see a large white room. There was only one vent and no windows of any kind. The only entrance to the room is a door. Inside the room were 8 unconscious recognisable figures. Emma, Brody, Alejandro, Gwen, Courtney, Cameron, Devin and Jasmine. They were still wearing their casual clothes, meaning this took place before their transformation into the DV8.

"Ugh… why does the bed feel rough…" Brody groans uncomfortably. "Ugh… my head hurts."

Brody gets up to stretch, but is surprised to see that he has woken up in a white room.

"Um… this isn't my bedroom." Brody says. "Where am I?"

Brody turns around and sees the others asleep next to him.

"Agh, I better not have been drunk last night." Brody groans.

Brody then turns to Gwen.

"Hey… wake up!" Brody yelled to get her awake.

"Ugh… Aaron. I told you not to wake me up early… I was studying for the finals all night…" Gwen groans, still sleeping.

"Hey! Wake up dudette!" Brody then resorted to shaking her.

"Whoa! Hey! What the?!" Gwen wakes up abruptly. "Where are we?! What's going on?!" She demanded answers immediately.

"Hey, you're one of Geoff's friends. Gwen, right?" Brody recognises her.

"Ugh, you must be Brody, right?" Gwen asks.

"Yeah. But that's not important now. We need to wake everyone up." Brody states.

Then at that very moment, everyone else on the room started waking up.

"Ugh... where am I?" Courtney wakes up.

"Courtney?!" Gwen exclaimed in seeing this.

"Gwen?!" Courtney exclaimed.

"Gwen?!" Cameron exclaimed.

"Cameron?!" Gwen exclaimed

"Um… what exactly are we doing here?" Alejandro asks.

"I have absolutely no idea." Devin states.

"Yeah… ugh… this is a bad migraine." Emma says while clutching her head.

"Come on, I bloody know that around half you guys know who brought us here." Jasmine states that it's obvious who brought them here.

"Yeah, Chris McLean." Gwen frowned in agreement.

"Oh, he's gonna get a lawsuit for this." Courtney growled angrily

"I agree, but isn't it that three of us who didn't sign Chris' contracts still ended up here?" Alejandro sees a bit of a flaw in the theory.

"Whoa, slow down a bit. Your saying Chris is the one who brought us all here?" Brody asks.

"Yeah, isn't it obvious?" Gwen asks.

"But something tells me Chris isn't the one who brought us here." Emma states.

"Well then, if you have a better theory, I'd love to hear it." Courtney snarked at her.

The door to the room opens, and the Game Master emerges from it, surprising most of them.

"Hello, my test subjects." The Game Master greets them.

"Hey you! I know you're one of Chris' interns, so stop the charade!" Courtney yelled.

"Um… did he say test subjects?" Cameron asks.

"Hmm, I hardly call this introduction a charade." The Game Master says. "And I certainly not prefer to be an acquaintance of Chris."

"Okay, if you're not Chris, then what do you want with us?" Emma asks.

"Yeah! Kidnapping us and putting us in this room is certainly gonna give you 10 years!" Courtney yelled.

"What I want with you is not your concern." The Game Master says.

In a swift motion, the Game Master grabs Emma and Courtney's necks and lifts them up without effort.

"Hey! What the?!" Emma exclaimed.

"Put us down now! Or I will personally give you the beating you deserve!" Courtney yelled.

The rest gasped at this.

"Guys! Hold on!" Gwen yelled out.

"We're coming!" Devin yelled out.

The two ran up to try and rescue them, but suddenly, two big robots appear and strikes them down.

"Aagh!" Gwen yelled.

"Yaaagh!" Devin yelled.

"I'm starting to think this isn't Chris' work." Alejandro states, slightly worried.

"Look… I don't know who you are… but let us go or I'll end you where you stand!" Courtney yelled.

"Oh, that won't be nessecary." The Game Master says.

The Game Master's gloves glow as he drains the energy from the helpless girls.

"Gah! What are you doing!" Emma yelled.

"Hey! Why am… I getting… tired." Courtney yells out while quickly losing consciousness.

Eventually, the two girls' bodies go limp. The Game Master drops them to the ground, unconscious.

"Oh my gosh…" Gwen was speechless.

"Crikey!" Jasmine yelled out.

The Game Master then steps forward towards them.

"You're next." The Game Master states.

The robots pin them down so that the Game Master will have no opposition. Within minutes, everyone in the room is unconscious. The only ones standing were the Game Master and the two robots.

"Send them to the incubators, and prepare the stadium. We have a game to prepare." The Game Master ordered.

-End Log-

We see the group after watching the log. Kitty and Carrie were shocked by what they had seen and Scarlett was trying to make out what had happened.

"Did the Game Master just drain their energy?" Kitty was really worried.

"Yeah, I'm afraid so. But according to the logs, they weren't killed. They were just in deep slumber, enough so that the Game Master can control them." Scarlett states.

"Well, that's a relief." Carrie states. "But how could someone do that?! Why would someone do that and not feel anything?!" She was still worried and confused.

"I don't know. But let's get out of here before that happens to us." Scarlett states.

Duncan, Shawn and Sanders run into the room.

"We got the materials." Duncan says, then he notices the other two. "What's wrong with them?"

"I'll tell you later. Let's get out of here. I now have remote access to the computer." Scarlett stated.

"Let's go." Sanders says.

Scarlett forms a portal and everyone jumps through.

Now then. This is the last investigative chapter of the story. Now that the team has managed to get materials for Spirits, find out a way to release the DV8 and simultaneously seeing what happened to them before transformation, they are now a few steps closer to completing their goals. But now, with the final match of the Running Man Championship around the corner, what will happen next?

Aspiro