Total Drama Lost City

by Clown Princess Phoebe

A year after the intense events of Total Drama: Space Station, the twenty two astronauts, along with two interns that were forced to come along, have to participate in another contest for five million dollars, this time in the lost city of Atlantis! (SYOC Closed/Logo courtesy of BadLuckAE!)

28. Lost Zero

Silence was always an uncomfortable sound to fill the room, no matter what the circumstance, but in some cases, silence was a bit more preferable than the noise that could be heard. In this case, a set of footsteps walking through a dim lit hallway on the submarine, ones that sounded far different than the footsteps that everyone had grown used to at this point. They were slow and purposeful, with a very small weight to them. Who they belonged to…it was hard to say, as the figure was obscured by a black cloak. After walking quite some distance, the figure turned a corner, revealing that the familiar Thomas was leaning up against a wall in that hallway. "It's about time you got up here, I was getting really bored just waiting for you."

"The age has proven to be quite the detriment to my agility. In any case, I'm here now, and we'll be enacting our plan soon. Poseidon was part of that trio that ruined my life, it's only fair that I take his as reparations for that transgression. Now that he's cornered…there's no way that this mission will be a failure." The voice coming from the cloaked figure sounded like an old man, somewhat akin to the old man that Amelia had met in the trenches some time ago. He briefly stopped in his path to stand by Thomas, who was taller than him to the point that he had to look down at him as they talked.

"Sounds like a plan…but what are we going to do about the others? There's the contestants…the assistant…the intern…that CEO and her associate. Not to mention Chris and Chef. Poseidon is just one figure among the lot of them that are scattered about the whole ship." The look on Thomas' face had a hint of curiosity to it, but still a cocky smile, much like what he usually had going on.

"We'll kill anyone that gets in the way of our objective…but when we finish up here, the goal will be to sink the submarine. No evidence will be found, and Father Time will remain as a 'deep web rumor.'" Thomas' smile faded as the man began walking his hobbled walk again. "In other words, there will be no survivors."

"Seems like a waste of our time to kill each and everyone of them, don't you think? I mean, do we really need to waste all of that effort on some teenagers and old bastards that don't mean anything to your mission?" Thomas' words seemed to stop the man in his tracks for a moment, but he didn't say anything before he started walking away again.

"...Don't disappoint me today. It'll be the last disappointment of your life, I can assure you of that." Those were the last words the old man gave the young assassin before he turned another corner and vanished from his sight, leaving Thomas with a sour taste in his mouth. He got up from the wall that he was leaning up against, soon turning to walk the way that the man had come from, leaving the hallway entirely empty.

The view of the submarine was lost entirely and replaced with something…a bit different than the intro that everyone was used to. It was a rather dark night, the only light coming from the moon and the stars in the sky. They cast their light against a cliff top, where a rather peculiar party of adventurers was posted. Only their shadowy figures could be made out, but it seemed like it was a barbarian, a paladin, a cowboy, and an archer. The glimmering words, "Total Drama: Lost Zero," flashed on the screen, hovering in the sky like stars.

"Chained onto me, my adolescent dreams. Pulling, dragged me deep," Paladin Nicolás was seen praying before an altar in a church, his sword laying on the ground next to him before he got up and started walking away from the altar.

"All my body exposed, marked up by your shadows," deep in a forest, Archer Jianne sat high up in one of the trees, seeming to follow a shadowy, cloaked figure while having her bow ready to fire at any given moment.

"Tighten up, numb your senses, no fairness is needed for pigs!" Barbarian Natt was in the middle of a field, surrounded by wild beasts of the forest with his ax clutched in his hands. He took a deep breath and his eyes soon seemed to light up with a red glow.

"Laughters above, playful smiles, die gets rolled!" Cowboy Zachary stood on top of the church that Nicolás was leaving, firing his revolvers down at surrounding goblins to pave a way for the young paladin to move through.

"Bathe in sorrow, my tomorrow is built upon your flesh!" Father Time slammed a door behind him in the submarine, holding a dagger in hand before flashing a crooked smile to Poseidon and Amphitrite, who were cowering in the corner of the room.

"Slay the last of your kind to reclaim what's rightfully mine!" Necromancer Maggie floated in the dark night, her figure being surrounded by moonlight as she cast a spell that sent a horde of ghosts flying towards the camera.

"Krist en me monte, broustand an mon, tes rrounam a dungeo yeon, buo lenda mam algorre, dheyadalis en tomm pandor, fuea sol a de montre," Jianne, Natt, Nicolás, and Zachary ran through a cavernous path, dodgin fiery traps and monsters as they ran while illusions of Bonnie, Chris, Chef, Dana, and Charlize flashed in the cave walls.

"Krist en me monte broustand an mon, tes rrounam a dunge yeon, buo lenda mam algorre, tyalla mon d'au fess e marha, e mallum y venrma," The party stopped as they exited the cavern, ending up in front of a horrifying, dark castle, where purple and black lightning bolts were crashing down against the ground in a blinding fury. From the dark light, Dark Mage Thomas emerged, a purple energy ball forming in his hand before he cast it directly at the camera, ending the odd intro.

A view of the outer cortex of the massive submarine was shown, giving sight to the smaller, black submarine that had been spotted by Natt some time ago latched onto the bottom of it. The camera began to zoom in on one of the windows, revealing Zachary standing outside of one of the bedroom doors, although it was a bit uncertain which door exactly it was until it opened, revealing a rather tired looking Charlize. She groaned and rubbed her eyes with her fists before looking Zachary up and down. "It's only six in the morning and you're slamming your fist up against my door like it's the end of the world, didn't Hollywood teach you any proper ettiquette?"

"Ha! Jokes on you, I don't even know what that word means! But I do know that we've got another challenge today, we're finally gonna continue that challenge from before, right?" Zachary leaned towards Charlize, making her slightly uncomfortable as she began to back away from the boy while she very slightly nodded. "Ha! I knew we were gonna get back to that one today! Well, I'm looking forward to continuing our little bout from before, I'm still not over you killing me so many times."

"You do realize that I won't be the one that's leading the challenge this time, right?" Zachary's excited expression drooped down into a puzzled look at this revelation. "All we need is somebody to watch over you guys, so there's really no need for me to be that person. No no, this time around, I believe we've delegated that responsibility to Dana."

"What!? I don't wanna have to fight that kid, that's lame! She's probably not even a good class or anything, how am I supposed to get enjoyment out of that?" Zachary crossed his arms, but Charlize was clearly getting tired of his obnoxiousness, just as most people would. She slammed the door shut, and could be heard locking it, which only annoyed the actor even more. "Fine, whatever! I'll just use her to win the challenge, see if I care! You're cowering out of a really good fight, though!"

He continued to grumble to himself as he started to walk down the hallway, only for the black door at the very end of the hall to swing open, a ghostly fog flowing out of the darkened room that it led to. Zachary was a bit startled by the door suddenly opened like that, but a little less startled when Dana was the person to exit the room. "Oh, it's just you…I thought you might've been some creepy assassin dude or something like that." Of course, this was just a joke, as the actor laughed it off.

"I heard you pestering Charlize just now…you don't think I'll be able to crush you, just like she did?" The emo prodigy started to slowly walk towards Zachary, her dark eyes piercing his soul, despite the fact that the gaze they carried was astoundingly relaxed. "My class isn't something to not worry about, either…I wouldn't even bother trying to fight me when we get in the game, it might get messy."

"You're just saying that cause you don't want me to get an easy win! Well, let me tell you something, lady! You can't scare me, no matter how dark and edgy you might be! I've put up with Natt for a whole season, I can handle all the edginess you have to throw at me!" Zachary stuck his tongue out at the temporary host, whose dull expression didn't change in the slightest. She slightly lifted her shoulders to shrug, but gave up about halfway through the process.

"I'll just let you think whatever you want to think, you'll end up seeing when we get in the game anyways." Dana slowly turned around to start walking back to her room, but once she was at the doorway, she turned around, as if suddenly remembering something. "That's right…last time you guys played, you were in a battlefield of goblins or something. Well, I decided to tweak the scenery a little bit to suit me better. Anyways, I'll see you when the challenge gets called or whatever." With those parting words, Dana shut the door behind her, some of the fog flowing out towards Zachary before fading out.

Confessional

"Dana can't seriously think that I'm scared of her, right? I mean, I played Batguy, I've dealt with edgier villains than her before! Plus, I'm just gonna embody the spirit of Flint Westwood during the challenge today!" Zachary squinted his left eye and made a scowl on his face while aiming a finger gun at the camera. "You feelin' lucky, punks?"

Confessional End

Nicolás sheepishly poked his head into the door of the cafeteria, hoping that he could sneak in a grab a bite of food while Chef wasn't there, which, luckily for him, he wasn't there. He let out a sigh of relief as he saw the kitchen being empty as it was, and he soon entered to go head behind the counter to grab something. As he rummaged around in the cabinets, he decided that nothing in there was quite what he wanted, so he turned his attention to the fridge. He opened the door to the fridge, only to be greeted to the sight of Chef sitting in there, holding a meat cleaver while glaring at him…menacingly. "U-uh…I was just leaving!"

Nicolás shut the door to the fridge, closing Chef back up in there before shuddering from the close encounter with certain doom that he just had. He turned around to leave the cafeteria, only to be startled by Bonnie standing right behind him, leaning forth with a perverse smile dotting her face. "Ah!" The nerdy boy stumbled back before taking a tumble to the floor, landing right on his rear. "Bonnie! W-when did you get here?"

"Uh…let me see…you got up and went to take a shower, I was hoping to get a glimpse of something, but you for some reason came out of the shower fully clothed, not really sure how that was even possible, but we'll roll with it. Since then, I've just kinda been following you around, not really sure why, but hey, here I am!" Bonnie reached her hand to help the boy up, which he took, although hesitantly. "How's it feel to be so close to the finale? I mean, it's gotta feel pretty darn good, right? Among other things that feel really good, wink wink, nudge nudge."

"U-um…yeah, I mean, it definitely feels a lot better than getting eliminated super early in the game. Why do you ask?" Nicolás seemed a bit skeptical of Bonnie's intentions, but this was pretty typical of him with how long it took him to get used to others.

"What? The sweet intern can't wonder how the contestants are feeling now that they're in the final four? I just wanted to do a lil' checking up on you, is all!" Bonnie pulled the boy in close to give him a playful noogie, which only caused him to blush a deep red color as she had pulled his face really close to her chest. "Oo, you're looking like a tomato right now! See something you like?"

"N-no thanks!" Nicolás squeezed his head back from Bonnie's arm, although still that same red from before.

"Aw, come on! I figured I'd have pretty good luck with you, considering that the other contestants are either dating someone, about to date someone, or I've already had a piece of them. Zachary was a bit of a disappointment, all he did was scream and wail the second I took my shirt off." Bonnie frowned, but shook it off and went back to smiling like the little pervert she was. "So what's your story? Why don't you wanna try some BonBon? Gasp, I'm too revolting for the nerd!"

"What? No! That's not it at all! I'm just not…much of a ladies man. Doesn't matter, I've got nothing against you, and you're definitely not revolting. That's the kind of thing that people back at my school would say to me…at least that one girl I had a crush on." Nicolás' blush started to fade as he recalled the events of him confessing his crush that one time, and he shrunk down where he stood and sighed. Bonnie's lips fixed themselves into a crooked frown.

"Meh, you're not that bad looking. Trust me, I know a thing or two about bad looks!" Bonnie proudly pointed to herself, clearly not afraid to make this jab at herself. Nicolás looked back up at her, appearing to be a bit confused. "That's always what people tell me to get me off of their backs, I'm pretty used to it by now. But I've seen enough boys and girls to know who's a total cutie or hottie, and who I would do but maybe feel guilty about it in the morning."

"But…you…like," Bonnie reached over and patted the boy gently on the head, succeeding ruffling up his hair even more than she already had with the noogie that she just gave him.

"Enough about me, though, you've got another challenge coming up some time today, so you should probably get yourself ready for that at some point or another. Don't wanna let your guard slip now that you've made it this far, ya hear?" The intern whistled before she started to head out of the kitchen, stopping at the door to wave back at the nerd. "I'll be around if you need me or anything, always nice when people stop by to chat with the intern."

"A-alright, I'll see you around then." Nicolás weakly waved back to Bonnie before she finally left the room. He let out a sigh, just standing there for a brief moment before he heard a rather aggressive thud against the fridge door behind him, which startled him enough to send him scurrying out of the cafeteria in a frenzy.

Confessional

"Bonnie's so weird…I mean, she's definitely a nice person, but the perversion kinda makes it really hard to talk to her. I know she has a heart, though…I mean, we all saw that Benjamin thing before. I thought I was gonna be going in that challenge, but…" Nicolás paused and smiled ever so slightly, "In any case, I'm not too sure why she is always calling herself gross or ugly like that, she's really not."

Confessional End

Jianne sat herself down in the main chamber of the submarine, staring at the time on her phone while she lounged in the chair she was in. She narrowed her eyes at the time that showed, seeing that it was still pretty early at this point, only being eight in the morning. She looked around to see if anyone was coming around the room, only to be disappointed when she realized that no one was nearby. "Man, how am I supposed to school these kids if no one is around to get the challenge started!? I'm sooooo bored!"

"Maybe you'd be less bored if you just stayed in your room and futzed around with all the stuff you have in there instead of running around downstairs and screaming at the top of your lungs!" Jianne jolted up from her seat as she turned to see that Chris had suddenly ran down into the main chamber, though he had some flies swirling around his head, and he reeked an unholy stench that made the egoist's eyes water almost immediately. "I know, I know, this is far from my typically good looks and smell from usual."

"You reek, man! Haven't you ever heard of a shower before?" Jianne backed away from the man as far as she could, but this didn't stop her from gagging at the stench. Chris rolled his eyes at her, "And, come to think about it, I don't think I've seen you since we got on the submarine."

"Yeah, I've been locked up in my private chambers! Dana only gave me food slipped through a slit in the bottom of the door, saying she didn't want me coming out and ruining her time on the show! Sucks for her, though, cause I broke that door down and I'm ready to make this show all about the person that it's supposed to be about: me!" Chris pointed to himself as he started walking through the main chamber, Jianne still attempting to keep a fair distance between them by circling to the opposite side of the room while he walked. "Come on, I don't smell that bad!"

"You smell so bad that I don't even think I could beat you in a smelling bad competition…and I can beat anyone in any kind of competition." Jianne gagged again, eventually falling down to the floor and slamming her fist against the ground. "Please…just go shower or something, I think I'm going to die if you don't get out of this room, ASAP!"

"Oh, whatever!" Chris glared at Jianne before he continued down the far hallway to head to the showers, leaving her to gag as she laid on the cold, hard floor.

Confessional

"Ugh…Chris smelling like the backside of a zoo elephant isn't something that I never knew I didn't need in my life, but it's far too late now. Maybe he's right, I should've just stayed in my room…I think I'm gonna have to get nose replacement surgery after this." Jianne took a deep breath and sighed before gagging again, her face turning a little green. "Ugh…the residual smell is still stuck in my nose."

Confessional End

Natt paused as he stared at the woman that was sitting on his bed, waving to him as if it was perfectly normal for her to be sitting there. He looked around his room for a brief moment before looking back at her. "This is the second time that you've just up and entered my room and sat on my bed…last time you did it you said you wanted to make a deal with me and then just got really quiet and left. Still not really sure why you did that…"

"Kukuku, obviously I did it so that the scene would follow up in the episode editing for the next episode, adoy! If I said everything off screen, it wouldn't much help anyone at all, would it?" Natt rolled his eyes at Maggie, who had that signature evil grin of hers plastered on her maniacal mug. "But, yes, as I mentioned before, I have to make a deal with you, so I hope you're ready to listen, because this is phenomenally important! Usually my business isn't super important, as I just like to meddle in things, but this one is definitely important!"

"Important enough for you to be breaking into my room, I guess. Whatever, what's this deal you're talking about? You better not be about to threaten me…Vicente told us all about you threatening him to keep an eye on Zachary and Amelia during last season's finale." Natt started walking towards the bed, eventually sitting down on it, though he kept a fair distance between the two of them. Maggie seemed to be slightly annoyed by this, as she made a pouty face.

"Come on, now! I'm your sister's best friend, there's no reason for you to be avoiding me like the plague! In any case, let's just get right into it, shall we! I know you know about Father Time!" Natt stared back at Maggie, a slight look of disbelief brought to his face, only confirming Maggie's suspicions. "I'm also aware that Poseidon's refused to tell you anything about him."

"Him? Poseidon let it slip that it was an organization…actually, now that you mention it, I do believe he said something about it being a man in charge of everything." Natt stroked his chin in thought for a brief moment before shaking his head and looking back at Maggie. "Does that mean that you know something about him?"

"Of course I do, you silly pants! Father Time is a lot like my special Thomas, and the organization really isn't an organization, it's just him!" Natt's face went even paler than it typically was as he started putting the pieces together. "Yup, yup, yup! He's a big time assassin!" Maggie giggled as she made a stabbing motion with her fist, diving a fake knife into her tummy before keeling over and pretending to die with her tongue flopping out of her mouth.

"Great…amazing…and I can only assume that he's trying to off Poseidon from how things seem to have been panning out thus far?" Maggie got back up from her dead position and nodded her head up and down with a big smile. "You seem to be really excited about this, considering that Dana is on this ship. I know how much you care about her, so why would you be happy about her being in danger?"

"Because, I'm obviously not happy about that, I'm happy about the deal I'm going to make with you! The deal to get you guys to safety!" Natt paused as Maggie went back to giggling, just like before. "I know that those pods in the main chamber are good for one thing! That thing, of course, is that they double as escape pods! I figure, you know, while Father Time is off doing his dirty work, we can get you guys, that pervy intern, Dana, Charlize, and Thomas and I all loaded up into them so we can safely get out! Pretty foolproof plan, if you ask me!"

"...But that would leave Poseidon, Amphitrite, Chris, and Chef all onboard for that guy just to kill them. That's not foolproof at all, that still leaves people in incredible danger." Maggie shrugged her shoulders, clearly not caring so much about them as she did the rest of the group. Natt stood up from his bed, glaring down at the intruder. "I'm not going to sit around and flee while someone gets left to be murdered, even if that person is Chris! And the other three definitely don't deserve that fate!"

"Listen, buddy, we don't have enough escape pods for the whole lot of you, there's just no feasible way to get those goons on there so we can all leave. Besides, they're definitely expendable. I mean, who cares about some TV show hosts and some random big shots? The priority is making sure that you guys are safe, as well as Dana, Charlize, and Bonnie." Maggie still smiled, but when Natt walked to his door and ripped it open, she lost that smile. "I don't see what the big issue is here, I'm trying to help you guys out."

"I said I'm not letting anyone get murdered. You can get out of my room, I'll figure out how to get everyone to safety on my own." Natt pointed to the open doorway, a sour look forming on Maggie's face. She got up from the bed and started walking there, stopping right in front of him. "I told you to get out, leave me along so I can figure this all out."

"I heard you, but I just need to make something clear before I leave…if you don't want to listen to me and let me guide you guys to safety, I will force you all to get escorted out. I know quite well how those escape pods work, and I know that you have a challenge coming up in today's plans." Maggie and Natt stared at each other in a fierce standoff before the smile popped right back up on her face. "Yep, I think you'll come around to my plan once you realize there's no alternative. Oh…and Thomas won't let you easily disagree with me. After all, he's the one that came up with the plan!"

Maggie giggled as she started leaving the room, leaving Natt alone to think about what she just said. He slammed the door shut and stared down at the floor. "Thomas…came up with that escape plan? That doesn't check out, something's definitely up with this…" The boy glanced out through his window, which showed the open ocean. He took a good look at it and thought, a small smile creeping to his face. "I know what to do."

Confessional

"My plan may be a bit more reliant on others than Maggie's was, but I'm sure it'll still end up working just as fine…after all, I just need the help from the others." Natt had a bit of a mile on his face still as he thought his plan out. "There may not be enough pods for all of us to escape in, but there's definitely enough to kick one guy out. We call the Aftermath stage, have them clear it out and alert the authorities of what'll be arriving there. I refuse to let this deranged man kill anybody…we'll put a stop to him together."

Confessional End

There was a brief moment of calm silence before the speakers around the submarine turned on, followed by a unique despair from Dana's voice filling the air. "Yeah…like…we've got a challenge coming for you guys or whatever…I think you all know where this is going, so just come meet me in the main chamber of the submarine so we can shove you in the game pods and whatnot. Yeah…cool…okay, bye." Dana hushed her voice up, and the speakers turned off. Of course, she made her way to the main chamber, only to be greeted by the sight of the sickly looking Jianne that was still in the midst of trying to recover from Chris's stench. "...Uh…what happened to you?"

"...Stinky…man…nose…dead…" Jianne slowly pulled herself up from the floor, her skin a sickly green color, just like it was before. Dana sighed at the sight of her, and the other three contestants soon started their way to the main chamber, each of them letting their eyes wander between each other as they prepared themselves.

"You're all here already…that definitely helps us get the ball rolling on this thing. We're going to continue that challenge from the other day…the virtual reality one. Only I'll be the one supervising you guys rather than Charlize." Dana shot a smug look at Zachary specifically, who rolled his eyes at her. "I changed up the scenery and everything, so it'll be a bit different than what you got yourselves used to in part one of this challenge. Your goal is still to reach level ten, and you have the same experience that you had when you were last playing…and, of course, the one of you that reaches level ten last will be automatically escorted out of the submarine via the escape pod, no elimination ceremony necessary. Are you all quite ready?" Dana looked between each of the contestants, getting nods back from them. "Great…well, lets all get into the pods, then."

Confessional

"It's finally time! We get to go back into that awesome virtual world from before! Gah, I'm just so excited for this, I can hardly contain myself!" Nicolás was all giddy as he bounced up and down in his seat, the force from his bouncing eventually breaking the bucket and splashing murky water all over his bum. "...Dang it…"

Zachary stood over in the corner of the room, tapping his chin as he noticed the spill of sludge all over the ground. "I sense…that some nerd was in here, making a mess of things. And by that, I mean I saw Nicolás with the big stain on the back of his pants." The actor snickered to himself.

Confessional End

The scenery was indeed different, as Dana had so previously mentioned. The four remaining contestants warped into the virtual world, each of them bearing the same appearance as they had in the first part of the challenge. They took a good look around to see that they were in some type of rocky quarry, only it was the dead of the night, and it was terribly difficult for them to see anything around them. They looked up to see stars glimmering in the night sky, while the moon looked to be about five times the size that it typically was, looming over anything with a pale glow. Zachary tapped one of his revolvers against his mask-covered chin. "She really did manage to amp up the edginess, didn't she? Night time? Big moon? Super duper edgy."

"I don't know, I actually think that it looks pretty cool." Natt was the second to comment on the scenery, getting a look from Zachary that read "I knew you were going to say that" all over it. The barbarian shook his head and looked the other way, trying to find out where Dana was, but not having much luck.

"Dana's gotta be around here somewhere, right? I mean, last time Charlize spawned in before us, so shouldn't she be floating around?" Nicolás looked around with Natt, eventually getting an elbow nudge from Jianne, who pointed up at the moon. He glanced up to see what she was pointing at, only for it to be the sight of Dana…though she looked incredibly different than before. Her hair was no longer red and black, but a pure white color, whiter than the sight of snow. Her pupils matched this white color, and they even had a glow to them that was unlike anything they had seen before. Her attire was even quite fancy, being a similarly pale, white dress that went all the way down to her ankles, only leaving her shoulders uncovered, as it still had sleeves. In her left hand, there was a small replica of the massive moon, and in her right hand, a curved blade that appeared to be a crescent blade of sorts. "Uh oh…"

"In case anyone was wondering…the class is Moon Spirit. It's the perfect blend of magic and sword fighting…in any case, I made sure to get myself leveled up to fifty, just like how Charlize was, so that you won't get any funny ideas about killing me. You'll have plenty of large monsters hiding in the shadows that you can find and kill for your experience, and I'll simply be observing from here. Any questions?" As Dana looked over the group of contestants, they didn't say anything, or raise any hands, they just stared back at her. "Good, because giving any more explanation would really drain me…"

Back in the real world, two shadowy figures could be seen tinkering with the escape pods from the outside. After they messed around with each and everyone, they got over to the two that were far at the right end of the line, jumping in them shortly and closing them up tightly. Soon after this, the view of the moonlit battlefield was returned to view. "Now, go ahead and get to killing so this challenge can already be over with." Dana let out a sigh, but she soon realized that the contestants were staring at her with looks of utter horror on their faces. She raised an eyebrow at them, a bit confused. "What? What's the matter with you guys, why do you look like that?"

They gave her no response, as a green light soon started to glow through her stomach, something that she definitely didn't have planned in the slightest. She looked down to see the light, and placed her hands over it, only for a hole to be perfectly burnt through her. Her virtual body lost all its lifelessness and plummeted from the sky down to the ground, crashing hard. The moon that was in her hand rolled away from her body on the ground, eventually stopping before it started to lose its glowing light. From Dana's body, a ghostly spirit seemed to fly back up into the sky, right into a floating, black book.

Back in the outside world, something seemed to be strange about Dana's virtual pod. Usually, when one of the characters in game was respawned, it would have a bit of a flashing light emanating from it, but that was not the case. Instead, it unlatched from the submarine, firing away from the whole thing entirely…and taking her with it. Back in the game, the contestants stared at the ominous black book, which had that green light pouring out of it like the light that glowed through Dana's stomach. Eventually, it floated down from the sky, landing in someone's hand.

"Look what I had to do because of you, Natt. I'm going to be having nightmares about this for the next week…no, next month." The voice was familiar enough to Natt from the discussion he had earlier, and his expression immediately went sour. Maggie held the book close to her chest, the playful look that she typically had being switched out for something far more terrifying. Her eyes had that green glow to them, and her hair matched the color of her eyes. Her skin was entirely gray, rather than its usual tone. She was wearing a primarily black gown, with some sheer bits to it, mainly around the stomach and the lower end of the skirt. "All you had to do was listen to me, but now I have to resort to these messy methods to get you all out of here."

"Natt? What's the crazy lady talking about?" Jianne dug her finger into the boy's chest, but he pushed her aside as he started taking a few steps towards Maggie. Nicolás' paladin senses were going wild, as whatever energy Maggie was using severely messed with his equilibrium. Zachary pulled his revolvers from their holsters, spinning them around on his fingers while waiting to see what Maggie's next move was.

"I'm not much for these video games, but I figured that a Necromancer would be a class powerful enough to get you all kicked out through the pods. Just like what happened to Dana." Natt was a bit taken aback, and he glanced over to see that Dana's body had entirely vanished, though the moon was still laying against the ground where it had rolled to. He shifted his glance back to Maggie, and gripped his ax tightly. "Now, do me a favor…don't put up too much of a fight. I'm only trying to help you, can't you see that?"

"Guys, whatever you do…" Natt spoke to his fellow contestants without so much as looking back their direction, each of them a bit unsettled by the tone of his voice. "Don't let her kill you." With those words, Natt's eyes started glowing red, with the red tattooes lighting up his skin as he entered his barbaric rage. He rushed right for Maggie, only for her to flick her finger at him, causing some bright green energy to strike him right in the chest, sending him flying at rocket speed, right into a hard rock wall. Natt had expected to be killed immediately from this blow, but when he opened his eyes, he saw that he was surrounded by a heavenly light. Glancing back to the other three, he noticed that Nicolás was down on one knee, holding his sword while burying the tip in the ground.

"Oh holy light, I commend thee…" The paladin stood from the ground and picked his sword back up, the light soon fading off of Natt's body. The barbarian got himself out from the crater that the impact made in the wall, and he soon rejoined the party. "I'm not really sure what's going on here, but if it's got Natt this upset, it must be something really bad." The nerd looked over to Maggie, who was glaring evilly at him. "You…and that necronomicon…you're hurting my connection to the holy world. I have no choice but to smite you!"

"Yeah, what he said!" Jianne grabbed three arrows from her quiver and put them in her bow, each at the same time. They all lit up with dark red energy, with the arrows' tips seeming to be sparking small explosions at the tips of them. "I mean, if the big nerd wants you dead in the video game, well, gosh darnit, I'm just gonna have to find a way to kill you before he can!"

"Uh…something inspirational!" Zachary tried to jump in on the fun, but he just got some looks of annoyance from the other three, who clearly knew he wasn't as invested in this as they were. "Oh, don't look at me like that, I've got no clue what's going on right now!"

"How did I know you guys were going to make this really annoying for me? Whatever, doesn't matter, if you haven't noticed…take a look at my level bar." Maggie pointed up at the bar, directly at the part which had her level. "Ninety-nine…that's the level cap in this game. There's no way you guys will be able to beat me when you're all still under level ten. So…" She cleared her throat before levitating the book back up into the air, using her magic to open it up. Pages started to fly out of the book, flying around with their ghostly green essence and making a greenish portal in the sky. This unleashed a horde of skeletons onto the battlefield, and the portal was left open to let the creatures keep pouring out by the dozen. Immediately, the contestants started to make a run for it, trying to keep away from the danger as best as they could.

"Natt, what's the plan here, guy!/ She's got a whole army of monsters, we're just four people that don't know how to play this game well enough to survive a horde of goblins!" Zachary shouted to the barbarian while he fired shots back at the skeletons, reloading as he emptied both of the revolvers. "If we don't think of something quick enough and we all lose out on the opportunity for five million dollars, I'm gonna ruin your life!"

"I'm sure she has some hidden weakness, all video game bosses have one of those! We just gotta figure out what that is! Ack!" One of the skeletons grabbed Natt by his shoulder, but he swung his heavy ax back at it, smashing it to pieces. He turned back for a brief moment to stomp his foot down hard against the ground, causing a shockwave that knocked down a good deal of the skeletons behind him. In this shockwave, Dana's moon from before was knocked into the air. He watched it closely as it hovered in front of the actual moon in the sky, and he noticed that the fading of its light was in tune with the actual moon. As it landed back against the ground, it was slightly cracked, and he looked back up to see a similar crack, to scale, on the actual moon. "What the…? Ah!" He didn't have enough time to think, as the skeletons were getting up from the ground, and they began to rush him again.

Confessional

"Something is up with that moon sculpture that Dana had with her, but I'm not too sure what it is…the cracks were the same…does that mean that…?" Natt stared down in thought before his expression lit up with an idea

Confessional End

Bonnie whistled as she wandered through the halls of the submarine, and she eventually made her way to the main chamber, where she noticed that one of the virtual reality pods was missing from where it was before. She stopped to think about it, but shook her head and kept on whistling while she walked. Then, further down the hall, she saw some shadowy, cloaked figure turning a corner. She stopped where she stood, a bit puzzled as to who that was. "I've perved out on everyone enough to know that that figure didn't match any of the hottest parts of everyone here…hm…methinks I have new prey!" Her mouth started watering as she started to follow the figure.

Once Bonnie turned the corner that said figure had, she found herself even more confused, as he was quite literally nowhere to be seen. She took a good look around, using her hottie scanner to see where they may have been hiding, but the results came up dry. "Man…guess I'm just seeing things. Sucks, I totally thought I was about to score some cute emo twink." The perv snapped her fingers and turned back the way that she came from, freezing in place as she saw something in the main chamber. "...Huh?"

It was a bit hard to tell what the object in the corner of the room was, but it wasn't hard to see that it was rather large, and it certainly hadn't just appeared out of thin air. She hesitantly walked over to the object, a close look showing that it was a black sheet that was draped over something. She reached down to the sheet and tugged it off, her eyes going wide as she noticed that it was none other than Charlize, entirely unconscious with a large bump on her head. She backed away a little bit at first, but shook her head and rushed right back over, picking the woman up off the ground. She pressed her ear against her chest, totally definitely listening for a pulse and not anything else, and sighing in relief when she heard a heartbeat. "What do I…uh…uh…don't worry, psuedo-MILF! I'll get you all taken care of!"

The intern held Charlize in a bridal carry before rushing out of the main chamber and heading towards the bedrooms. She looked around at each of the doors, not sure which one to enter before ultimately going into her own. She set Charlize down on her bed and dug around under her bed to grab something, which she revealed to be a mixed box of what seemed to be medical supplies. She pulled an ice pack out of the box, giving it a squeeze to make sure it was nice and cool before gently setting it down on the woman's bumped forehead.

Confessional

"Yeah, so…back home, I worked the farm, since, well, I've proven to be one tough cookie. Anyways, my family always had me carrying this thing around with me for the bumps, cuts, all that jazz. Farming's a dangerous job! I never really minded getting a few bruises every now and then, but now I'm kinda glad I didn't toss it." Bonnie looked to be a bit afraid, but she tried her best to smile her way through it. "But you can bet your sexy ass I'll be finding whoever did this! No way any MILF-slayers will be allowed on my submarine! MILFs are an endangered species, after all!"

Confessional End

Nicolás coated his blade in holy light before slashing through the ribcage of one of the skeletons, causing its bones to fall apart and come crashing down to the ground with a rattling noise. He was sweating profusely, as he noticed that the horde was entirely unending in the mass amount of skeletons that just kept pouring out of the portal. "By the heavens, these dark creatures just don't stop! We have to find some way to close that portal, or we won't be getting anywhere!"

"Thank you, Captain Obvious!" The paladin looked up at a nearby rock pillar, seeing that Jianne was standing far at the top of it. She fired the red glowing arrows down at the skeletons that were surrounding the base of the pillar, firing off three explosions that succeeded in eradicating them, but also cracked the pillar itself. It started to crumble, and soon enough, it was collapsing entirely, with Jianne slipping off the top and falling through the air. Her scream outclassed everything else on the battlefield, and Nicolás gasped as he saw her falling.

"Holy light, bless me with speed!" The heavenly light from before began to glow on the boy's boots, and he sprinted faster than a cheetah towards where Jianne was falling. He took a bounding leap into the air, snatching her in his arms before she could hit the ground. The two of them landed somewhere in the middle of the horde, and he immediately set her down and went back to using his holy blade to slay skeleton after skeleton. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good…" Jianne was never happy to be saved by anyone else, but she shook her head and ready some more arrows, firing them off into the distance and causing more and more explosions to fire off. Bones could be seen flying high up into the sky and clouding the area, but the sight was almost immediately dispelled as more skeletons came to replace them. "Natt, do you have any bright ideas about what to do?"

"I'm getting to that part, it's not easy when you've got skeletons trying to rip your skin off at every angle!" The barbarian let out a massive warcry, the shockwave of which knocked the skeletons that were surrounding him back a good bit. He stopped his cry after a short while, and saw that moo rolling around further into the depths of the skeleton horde. "No! Dammit, how am I supposed to get it when it's all the way in there?"

"What are you talking about?" Zachary threw a smoke bomb down on the ground, using it as a distraction so he could slip away from a bunch of skeletons, which instinctively attacked the smoky area. As the smoke cleared, the beasts saw that there was a grenade on the ground in front of them, and it exploded, taking out a whole chunk of the horde with them. Zachary managed to slither all the way over to Natt, and was firing bullets like crazy, reloading just as fast as he fired. "What's all the way in there?"

"The moon!" Zachary had no idea what Natt was on about until he pointed up at the moon in the sky, showing the crack on it to him. "The little moon that Dana had before, it got cracked and then that happened! I'm thinking we can destroy the moon…maybe the gravity pulls the pieces out of the sky and takes out the book or the horde!"

"Are you insane!? If the moon comes crashing down here each of us is gonna die and that's all there is to it!" Zachary turned and fired a bullet past Natt's shoulder, knocking down a skeleton that was sneaking up on the boy. "And if it's in the horde, we would have to make it in there in the first place! I can give you some cover fire, but I don't have enough bullets to make sure you don't get killed!"

"You're right, I'm not sure how we're going to get in there…unless…you've got a whole bunch of those grenades, right?" Zachary nodded, pointing to a large pouch that was slung over his shoulder. Natt grabbed it from him, looking inside to see dozens of the grenades from before. "Perfect…Nicolás!"

"Yeah?" The paladin shouted back over the sound of him casting his smite on one of the largest skeletons on the field, causing it to fall apart, bones crushing many smaller skeletons around it. He winced a bit after exerting the energy, as if something was starting to weigh heavily on him.

"That spell from before, the one where you kept me from dying. Can you cast it again?" Natt looked around for Nicolás and Jianne while he shouted, but he couldn't quite see them. All the while, Zachary was still the only thing keeping the skeletons from tearing them all apart.

"I…I can cast that spell, but with that necronomicon being active like this, my connection to the heavens has been severed. My pool of mana can't regenerate until it's taken care of, so I've only got enough to use it for a second or two!" Nicolás pulled himself up from his knelt down position, only to stumble back a bit.

"A second or two is all I need to make this work. Jianne! You've got chain arrows…when I give you the signal, fire a whole bunch of them around all of you guys." Zachary looked at Natt like he was deranged, "Before you go thinking I'm crazy, I noticed something about her chains the last time we were here, nothing breaks them! If the moon crashes down, each of you should be safe from the damage it causes."

"I have a bad feeling about it, but I'll do it if you think it's gonna work…not that it would be better than an idea I can come up with, though." Jianne rolled her eyes and dug around in her quiver for the chain arrows, readying them in her bow. Natt sighed for a brief moment, looking up to Zachary before turning and running towards the horde with the grenade pouch in his hand.

"You're gonna get all of us killed, you idiot!" Natt didn't reply to Zachary's callout, only making the actor more frustrated. "Dammit, Natt, I was going to save this new toy to merc you later, I gotta ruin the surprise!" Zachary started spinning his revolvers in his hands, and it didn't take long for them to start transforming into a much different weapon. Once he stopped spinning them, they were replaced with a massive gatling gun, which he seemed to struggle to carry. "Alright, you skeletons…I tried being reasonable, but I didn't like it!" The cowboy let out a ferocious cry as he held down the trigger to the massive weapon, bullets soaring through the horde and paving enough of a path so that Natt could spot the moon.

"There it is!" The barbarian kept on running, ignoring the monsters that were trying to tear him apart, as he soon dove on top of the moon to grab it. It didn't take long for the skeletons to dogpile on him, each of the other three contestants shocked to see him get covered. Maggie smirked at the sight, but when the pile began to rumble, the smirk faded. Skeletons flew off of the barbarian, launching in every direction and revealing him standing there, the red tattoos glowing brighter than ever. "Nicolás, now!" The paladin nodded, getting down on his knee and mumbling to his sword, bathing Natt in holy light. Maggie's eyebrow twitched as she noticed that Natt was holding the moon up in his hand…the pouch of grenades in the same hand. A massive explosion rang out around the boy, filling the sky with dark smoke.

"Did it work? I can't see anything!" Jianne tried to look through the smoke, but it was to no avail, as it was far too dark…at least until a pale light started glowing in the dead center of it. The smoke immediately dissipated, revealing Natt standing there with pieces of the moon falling out of his hand and to the ground.

"You destroyed a toy, am I supposed to be impressed?" Maggie shook her head at the boy, not letting this stunt of his bother her. It wasn't until she saw a grin on his face that she knew something was up, and she looked up to the sky to see that the actual moon was in pieces…and the pieces were coming crashing down like meteorites. She gasped and closed the skeleton portal up immediately to instead use her book to hold up a forcefield towards the sky, which managed to block off a lot of the crumbling pieces.

"Jianne, use those arrows, now!" The archer begrudgingly followed this command, firing her chain arrows all over Nicolás, Zachary, and herself, perfectly coating them each in a fine layer of impenetrable metal. Natt looked up to see a huge piece of the moon crashing down towards him, but he didn't run. Instead, he dropped his ax down on the ground and cracked his knuckles. He leapt up into the air with a mighty force, headed straight for that moon chunk. With his immense, barbaric power, he took the meteorite in his hands, entirely ignoring the heat from it that was burning his skin. He spun around in the air, using all the momentum to launch the meteorite straight at Maggie's back while she was busy blocking off what was coming overhead. She didn't even have the time to look at what was coming, as the moon chunk hit her and sent her flying far across the quarry.

Another piece of moon struck a nearby wall, opening up a cave of sorts in the wall, rather close to where Maggie now laid. Natt came down from the sky, the only pieces of moon that were left falling being the small bits that fizzled out from the atmosphere. He breathed in deeply, over and over again, a huge burn mark lining his arms from where he grabbed the meteor. He stumbled forward a bit, but caught himself before he fell down, and picked his ax up off of the ground. "We're…saving everyone…"

The chains from Jianne's arrows came undone after a short while, revealing that each of the adventurers within them was still safe from harm, just as Natt said they would've been. They each rushed to the barbarian's side, looking at him in absolute bewilderment. The book that Maggie had been using suddenly closed up midair, falling down to the ground. The moment that it did, Nicolás felt himself being reinvigorated with his mana. "That…that worked!"

Confessional

"Natt's gotta be some sort of RPG genius, there's no way any normal player could think of something like that with all that chaos going on around them. I'd like to play DnD with him someday…I figure he, Jianne, and I would make for a pretty killer team." Nicolás had a huge smile on his face as he congratulated the barbarian's efforts during the battle with Maggie.

Confessional End

Bonnie sat and waited patiently in her room while Charlize was still laying in her bed, though the woman began to groan, and soon, her eyes opened. The intern looked over at her, a rather excited smile on her face. "Wakey wakey, lady! Welcome to Casa Del Bonnie!"

"What…?" Charlize took a look around the room that she was in, not thinking much of it at first, but she soon snapped up from where she was laying, gasping frantically. The bump on her head stung pretty badly, and she hissed in pain when the ice pack fell off of her.

"Hey, hey, you can't get up, you conked your noggin' something fierce…and by you, I mean whoever did this to you. I figured you didn't toss yourself on the floor and drape a sheet over yourself after bumping your head." Bonnie grabbed for the ice pack, moving it to hold it against Charlize's head. "Why don't ya just tell momma what happened to you and I'll take care of it?"

"You can't take care of it…there's somebody on the submarine. I don't know who, but when I tried to see who it was, they hit me with something heavy. I fell down and that was it…I don't even know what's going on…they were wearing some cloak or something." Bonnie's smile dropped to a frown the moment the cloak was mentioned. She thought back to the figure that she saw moving through the halls earlier. "We need to evacuate the submarine as soon as possible…who knows what he's going to do to the others if this is how he greeted me?"

"Why don't you just let me worry about it, hm?" Bonnie got up from her bed and shoved Charlize back down so that she was laying again. "You just sit tight in here and I'll go figure it all out. Oh, if someone tries to break in, there's a club under my bed. You can hit 'em with that, should work out just fine for ya."

"A club!? Bonnie, why on Earth do you have a club under your bed!?" Charlize tried to jump back up again, but Bonnie wouldn't let her, as she tucked her under the blanket.

"How about we worry about that later. Right now, I'm on a mission to go stop whatever evil MILF slayer is roaming around this submarine!" Bonnie giggled and skipped her way to her door, soon leaving the room and slamming it shut behind her. Charlize stared at the doorway the whole time, a look of worry abundant on her face.

Confessional

"The club? Yeah, I know, that probably raises a couple of eyebrows. Well, there was this kid that 'bonked' me with the club and told me to go to horny jail. I guess, after he knocked me out cold, he forgot to take the club. I keep it as a nice memento of a good time." Bonnie chuckled and held up a picture to the screen, the picture being one of her completely knocked out on the ground with the club laying next to her head. "Ahhh…good times."

Confessional End

The adventurers started walking to the newly opened cave, where Maggie was laying, looking rather beaten. She looked up at Natt as she breathed slowly, getting a dull look back from him. "You know…you guys are gonna get killed…I'm just trying to help you, but you're not listening…"

"Help us? Natt, what is she talking about?" Nicolás was the one that spoke up among the shared confusion between everyone, and a smile popped up on her face.

"Heh…you didn't even tell them. Great…now, they're blindly following you, and they don't know that there's a crazy assassin on the ship right now. May have even got to Poseidon already…we all could've been out of here by now if you'd just listened to me." Maggie's breathing got slower and slower and the green glow started to fade from her eyes. "Thomas will stop you guys…once he does, he'll save Bonnie and Charlize. You'll just have to accept that…you can't help everyone…"

With those words, Maggie's spirit flew out of her body, immediately getting absorbed by the necronomicon that was still in the middle of the battlefield. Her body soon faded away, leaving the four adventurers on their own. There was some more silence as the three stared at Natt, waiting for an answer as to what Maggie was talking about. He looked back at them, but before he could say anything, Zachary punched him right in the jaw, knocking him down to the ground. "What the hell is going on out there, Natt!? Assassin!?"

"He's trying to kill Poseidon…" Natt spat some blood out on the ground and got right back up from the ground, cracking his jaw back into place. "I'm trying to get back out of this game so I can put a stop to him before things get too messy…"

"So you just left us in the dark on this!?" Zachary kept shouting at Natt, getting right in his face while Jianne and Nicolás watched in complete silence. He dug his finger into the barbarian's chest. "I don't care what kind of hero you wanna be, that's not worth risking our lives for some TV big shot." Natt stayed quiet, looking back down at the ground as Zachary kept on shouting. "...You're lucky I want this money bad enough to do some crazy stuff, or I wouldn't even consider helping you out! All you hero types seriously piss me off, I swear."

The three watched quietly while Zachary started walking to the newly opened cave, him still grumbling to himself the whole time. He stopped when he noticed that they weren't moving with him, and he turned to face them with annoyance plastered on his face. "Um…hello? New cave opened up, that's obviously where we gotta go if we're gonna beat Thomas so we can go save my chance to win five million dollars! Seriously, you guys are like dead weight around my ankles."

The cowboy stormed off into the cave, with Natt soon following after him. Jianne watched as the two started disappearing into the darkness, and she gritted her teeth while balling up her fists. "You bitches think you're gonna be the ones to save the day, don't you? Well, not on my watch! I'm gonna save the day! In fact, I'll save the day ten times faster than you can, just you watch!" The headstrong archer burst off after the first two boys, screaming about how she would be victorious the entire way. Nicolás was the only one left in the quarry, but, inevitably, he sighed and followed the rest of the group.

Confessional

"My life has come to working with other people to stop assassins from killing people…how did I end up at this point?" Nicolás groaned as he held his head in his hands, not sure what to do with himself at this point. "I would've been the voice of reason, but for some reason, I think Jianne has rubbed off a bit too much on me. I don't wanna ditch everyone…I wanna prove that I can be just as helpful and useful as they are."

"I wanted to keep this whole thing quiet and take care of it after we got out of the pods, but Maggie had to go and tell everyone. I know she's trying to help in her own way, but only saving some people isn't enough. She's probably halfway to the Aftermath stage at this point…probably gonna be really pissed at me if this goes south, so I'll just have to make sure we get it right." Natt appeared to be a bit confident, despite the direness of everything that was going down around him.

Confessional End

Bonnie went back to whistling while she moved through the halls of the submarine, eventually stopping once she reached the cafeteria. She rubbed her hands together while licking her lips and took a step inside, headed straight for the kitchen. Rather than digging around in the fridge, like what Nicolás had tried to do earlier, she went straight for the cutlery. She grabbed a couple of knives, looking between them and shaking her head before tossing them aside and getting them lodged in the wall behind her. "Come on, it's gotta be here somewhere…aha, there it is!"

The intern pulled something from the drawer she was digging around in, holding it up high and proud to reveal that it was a meat pounding mallet of sorts…one that looked like it hadn't been cleaned off in some time. She grinned and did a few practice swings with it before giggling. "Heheh…meat beater. Ah! Bonnie, get your head out of the gutter, there are two gorgeous MILFs in danger as we speak!" She refocused herself and grabbed a heavy pot, putting it over her head like some sort of helmet. She then grabbed two metal bowls and tucked them into her shirt, putting them over her chest and trying her best not to giggle.

"Okay, armored up and weaponized…all that's left is for me to find this MILF hunter. If I were an absolutely terrible person, where would I be hiding?" Bonnie tapped her chin in thought before snapping her fingers and running around the corner to open the door to Chris's room. She frowned as she saw that the room was empty. "Well…that definitely didn't yield any positive results. It would be a lot easier if I knew where Amphitrite was…wait a minute, that's just it!"

Bonnie dug around in her pocket for a brief moment before pulling a deep blue bra out of it. She held it up to her face, taking a big whiff of it before her eyes seemed to dilate like a hound that was searching for a lost person. She pointed off in a direction with her mallet while she tucked the bra back into her pocket. "Don't you worry, Amphitrite! Bonnie's coming to save you and your hot MILF body!" The perverse huntress ran off in a blitz, carrying her trusty weapon with her all the way.

Confessional

"I'm a soldier with the sworn duty to make sure all MILFs don't get hurt so they can blossom into beautiful GILFs someday. Seriously, what kind of lady would I be if I were to not let that beautiful, natural process happen? Plus, maybe one of them will give me some action for this…" Bonnie started drooling for a moment, but she shook her head and pointed the mallet at the camera. "That's not what this is about, though! MILF slayer, prepare yourself! Your days are numbered!"

Confessional End

Back in the virtual world, the adventurers were now walking through the cave that had been opened up. It was incredibly quiet, as there was still some uneasiness about the whole assassin thing that Maggie had mentioned to them. After a while Nicolás thought about something and finally spoke up. "I just had the realization…we didn't get any experience when we fought those skeletons, or Maggie for that matter. I'm sure a level ninety-nine fight would've skyrocketed us well past level ten…"

"I just figured that that book of hers was absorbing all the experience by taking the souls and whatnot. I mean, we saw Dana and Maggie's souls get absorbed by it when their characters died." Natt ducked down under a protrusion from one of the cave's walls, getting back up after he passed it by.

"Yeah, but when Maggie died, the book should've lost all its power…she must've put some seal on it with her dying spell. Wanted to make it even more difficult for us to get out of the game." Nicolás sighed and lit his sword up with holy light, illuminating a good deal of the cave and revealing that there were a bunch of pitfalls in the area ahead of them. "Huh…guess I picked a good time to turn the lights on. How are we supposed to get past this big pit, though?"

"Ha! I'd think a nerd like you would be thinking out of the box in a challenge like this, considering we're in your virtual world fantasy!" Jianne laughed uproariously before crouching down to the ground and grabbing a fully steel arrow from her quiver. Then, from her pocket, she pulled out a small amount of string, soon holding it close to her mouth and whispering some words into it. This caused the string to transmute into a full on rope that had to have been at least thirty feet long. She snickered while she tied the rope around the back end of the steel arrow, loading it into her quiver when she finished and firing it all the way across the pitfall. It lodged itself into the wall on the other side, and she tied her end of the rope around a stalagmite behind her. She gave it a few good flicks to make sure it was sturdy. "Ha! Guess I'm good for some ideas in this, too! As if there was any doubt!"

Jianne kept on snickering as she grabbed onto the rope and started climbing across it to get to the other side. The boys looked at each other for a brief moment before each shrugging and joing the girl in the climb across. It didn't take Jianne long to make it, and when she did, she looked back towards the rest of the contestants. "Heh, you guys really are slow, you know that?" They groaned while she mocked them, but she heard some other type of groaning from even further back in the cave that sounded…off. She narrowed her eyes, but couldn't tell what was going on. She reached for an arrow from her quiver, loading it up and sparking the tip with a bright flame. Once she had done that, she sent the arrow flying across the gap. It lodged into the wall, the flame illuminating enough of an area to show something utterly horrifying. "What is that!?"

Nicolás looked back across the gap he was hovering over, only for his eyes to widen as he saw the massive horned creature that Jianne was pointing out. "It's…it's…A BARRASQUE!" The terrible beast let out a mighty roar, causing stalactites to come crashing down around the boys while they started climbing faster and faster, trying their best to get away from the creature. It stepped straight into the pit, being tall enough to walk through it with no issue.

"H-hang on, guys! I'll…I'll…" Jianne began to panic as she looked around for something, anything, but she didn't see a single thing that could help them against this beast. She thought back to the conversation that she and Nicolás had before, about how the Barrasque was the absolute worst creature that one could encounter in DnD. Of course, back then, she was incredibly cocky, saying that she could handle it, no issue, but now that she was face to face with one, it was way different. The creature was getting closer and closer to the boys by the second, and they still had quite a ways to climb before they'd be in the clear. "I…"

Jianne felt weak in her knees, and she almost fell down where she was standing, but suddenly, she held herself up, clutching her fist tightly before looking at the Barrasque with a competitive gaze on her face. "You think I'm scared of you? If any crazy creature is gonna kill these guys, it's gonna be me, not some stupid Barrasque!" She reached back into her quiver, pulling a few of her trademark chain arrows out before firing them off in a bunch of random directions. After she had fired all the ones that she grabbed, she smirked right at the beast, which took that as an insult and started charging even faster than before. "You're falling right into my trap!"

The creature didn't understand the words, obviously, but as it rushed forth, it was suddenly tripped from a chain that was running across the bottom of the pit. It tried to get up, only to realize that it was entirely snared in a mess of chains that was impossible for it to dispel. It kept letting out more roars and cries, but it couldn't break free. The boys scurried to the other side of the gap, finally, and they all rushed right past Jianne, making sure to run out of the cave as fast as they could. The archer stared dead at the creature that she had just trapped, grinning a huge grin before flipping it off and following after the boys.

Confessional

"I told that Nicolás I would be able to handle some silly Barrasque, Jianne doesn't fear anything, be it man, creature, or video game beast! That's right, they call me the Terror of the Barrasques, the archer with the quiver strong enough to fell hundreds- no, thousands of those beasts!" Jianne got up from her seat and started happily chanting before realizing what she was doing and blushing while she toyed with her hair. "I…I mean…it's a pretty fun game, yeah…"

Confessional End

Bonnie kept on sniffing the air while she journeyed through the submarine, and this endeavor eventually brought her to stand in front of a rather large painting that was going from the base of the wall all the way up to the ceiling. She tilted her head to the side as she looked the painting up and down, realizing that it was entirely crooked. She shrugged and shoved the painting aside, revealing a door behind where the painting just was. "Hoho! Secret doors behind paintings? Whoever made this submarine really channeled their inner escape room enthusiast!"

The intern grabbed for the doorknob, but when she went to twist it open, she realized that it was locked shut. She frowned and crossed her arms while she thought about what her next move was. "Hm…you think I'll get in trouble if I break it? Bah, who cares about trouble, a MILF's life is at stake!" Bonnie raised her meat mallet up high and slammed it down on the doorknob, knocking it clean off of the door and forcing it open. She smirked at her own brilliance as she stepped into the room, looking around to see that it seemed…well, almost entirely empty. "Hello? MILF?"

"Bonnie…?" A soft voice could be heard from the far corner of the room, right where the bed was. Bonnie rushed over to the bed, looking under it to see a teary-eyed Amphitrite was hiding under it. There was a sigh of relief from the perv when she realized that she was at least safe from dange, but seeing her sobbing like this got her all worried again. "Oh, Bonnie…I hate to have you seeing me like this…I'm supposed to be the tough, scary assistant. Not really tough and scary right now, am I?"

"I don't think that matters so much, considering the tough and scary act was just an added turn-on. You being the sexy MILF that you are is quite enough for me. But what's got you so down, Amphy-poo?" Bonnie helped the assistant out from under the bed and sat her down on top of it. She couldn't help but sob even harder, covering her face with her hands while Bonnie rubbed her back gently. "There there, I'm here to make all the troubles go away."

"We knew this was coming…we knew Chronos was coming to kill him. We tried our best to get away, but he still found us." Amphitrite looked up to Bonnie to see that she looked a bit shocked. "Poseidon's father…apparently he's a big time assassin that wants all his kids dead for 'stealing' his company right from under his nose, despite them never doing anything. Now…he's here, and to make matters worse, he took Poseidon down to the compression chamber."

"Why would he take him to the compression chamber? That's where the contestants go to get out into the ocean for their challenges, not much of anything interesting there…" Bonnie opened her arms to let Amphitrite rest her head on her shoulders. She hugged her tightly and let her sob all she needed to.

"He said it was only fitting for the 'god of the sea' to become one with the sea." It clicked in Bonnie's mind what this meant, and she snapped right up from where she was sitting. "B-Bonnie?"

"Poseidon is a pretty handsome dude or whatever, so it's already a horrible crime to try and kill him…but breaking a MILF's heart by killing him? Unforgivable! Chronos, his name was? Just you wait, gramps! I'm gonna get down to the compression chamber and beat your meat till it's tender enough to toss into the oven!" Bonnie paused for a brief moment, "Hm…maybe I can fix the wording for that. Whatever, Bonnie is on her way, Poseidon!"

The intern immediately right back out the door, leaving Amphitrite to sit by herself, though she couldn't do that. She got up as well, following after her and leaving the room entirely empty. "We're on our way, sir! We won't let him hurt you, don't you worry!"

Confessional

"I never would've ever thought that Bonnie could be…well, the way she is. She's gross at times, but she's…determined is a good way to put it. And she really doesn't like seeing other people upset like this." Amphitrite stared down at her lap, tears falling down onto her skirt. "I wish I could be stronger, just like she is."

Confessional End

The adventurers finally made it out of the cave, walking out into the open to see that they were standing before a dark, floating castle. This castle gave off an ominous vibe unlike any other, as black and purple lightning bolts came crashing down all around the area. Zachary looked around and rolled his eyes as he started walking towards the castle. "Just when I thought the quarry was the edgiest part, this game just goes and proves me wrong. Thomas has gotta be hiding around here somewhere, right? No way that guy's stronger than Maggie was."

"I really wouldn't say that…I don't want you to go and jinx us when that last fight was already almost too much to handle." Nicolás was the next to step forth, looking dead at the castle. He could feel the same burden from before. "That energy is all around this place, too…he's gotta be close. It's just a matter of where at this point." Jianne and Natt joined the two boys, and each of them stared ahead the castle, only to see a dark purple bubble flying towards it. They cocked their heads at the sight, seeing as the bubble seemed…well, out of place.

"...Clutch." Another boy's voice could be heard, definitely not one of the adventurers in the party. The bubble suddenly popped, and, as it did, a massive, purple explosion lit up the castle, tearing it down to pieces in an impressive display of power. This left the adventurers terrified, as they hadn't seen anything like that coming. "You were all supposed to be gone already…I'm risking my own neck by fucking around with you. You're not just going to get yourselves killed, but everyone else, as well."

The adventurers turned around to see where the voice was coming from, only for the boy to reveal himself. Bright pink hair that was spiked up with small bursts of dark energy flaring around it…glowing pink eyes that pierced through each of their souls with just a passing glance…and an unmistakable scar on the left eyebrow. Indeed, it was Thomas, as they had suspected. He had been dressed as a dark mage of sorts, wearing a primarily black chest piece that had some golden accents on it. The chestpiece left a big hole in the center, revealing his well muscled frame. It had sleeves, but the sleeves were a tight fitting mesh that just made him look even more muscular. There were black faulds hanging around his waist, while he had dark blue slops tucked into tall, black boots with golden spikes scattered about them. He was standing on the ground in front of them, holding his left fist up. "Now, tell me, Natt, since I know you're the one meddling with everything. What's your endgame, here? What are you going to do when you get out of the game? Stop Chronos? That's laughable."

"It's worth a shot if it means that I can save the others from getting kill-" Natt tried to answer, but Thomas retaliated and cut him off by shouting.

"You can't save the others, can't you understand that!? I've been around Chronos the longest, I'm well aware of what he's capable of! If he could be stopped, don't you think I would've taken care of that before we even reached the submarine?" Natt stepped back a bit as Thomas started stomping towards him, his footprints leaving purple flames in their wake. "I've been working non-stop to find a way that I could get you guys out of danger, and you squander it so you can be the big hero that saves everybody! You just can't!"

Thomas finally made it to where Natt was standing, and the other three readied their weapons, aiming them right at him, only for him to shove his hands outward, sending a shockwave out on either side of him, which knocked each of them far back. "If you manage to get out of the game, all that's going to happen is that he'll up and kill you, simple as that!"

"Then why did you tell him where we were going to be? Why have you been helping him?" Thomas stood silent for a brief moment as Natt asked him this, soon looking at him with an entirely dumbfounded look. "What? That's exactly what happened, isn't it?"

"I don't know what made you draw that conclusion…he's known well about what was going on with Poseidon's whereabouts for a long time now. The only thing I did when I met with him is promised to give him a hand…this just gave me time to make sure that none of you got hurt, but your meddling has since rendered all of my effort meaningless." Thomas backed up a few steps, taking a deep breath. "It doesn't matter…I've gotta take care of you guys now so I can at least try to nab Bonnie and Charlize before he up and sinks the submarine."

Thomas started floating up from the ground, and he extended his right arm out as far as he could. Soon, a mass of purple energy emerged from the palm of his hand, forming itself into a rather large scythe that severely outclassed every other weapon in size. Natt stared up at him with that determined look on his face as he gripped his ax. "You know, Maggie doesn't know the first thing about fighting…or games like this, for that matter. It makes sense you were able to beat her. Me, though…I'm just a bit different. I hope you all had fun messing everything up, because it's over for you."

Zachary fired a bullet from a rifle, which he had recently cycled to from his typical revolvers, right at Thomas, only for the dark mage to swing his scythe and cleave the bullet in two. The cowboy was taken aback by this, and even more taken aback when Thomas warped right in front of him. "I guess you'll be first, then. Fine by me."

"Zachary!" Natt shouted after the boy, his barbarian rage activating as he soon started running towards the two. By the time he reached them and tried to swing his ax at Thomas, the dark mage warped behind him, placing his left hand against his back and striking him with a shockwave that knocked him right into a tree not too far off.

"Keep stalling, you're only making it worse for everybody that's dealing with Father Time out there!" Thomas snapped his fingers, turning his body transparent and causing an arrow that came flying from Jianne's bow to sail straight through him, striking Zachary in the thigh instead.

"Ack!" Zach fell down to the ground, clutching his thigh in pain while he rolled around. He looked down at his leg, seeing that his pants were currently on fire from the trick arrow that Jianne had launched at him. "AH! HOT PANTS, HOT PANTS!" He pulled the arrow out of his leg and tossed it far away, rolling around even more to put the fire out while Thomas warped in front of Jianne.

"The oaf that lets her ego guide her wherever she goes…why does it not shock me that you would agree to tango with Natt on this crazy plan of his? You should've bowed and quit while you had the chance." Thomas formed another one of the bubbles in his left hand, holding it directly in front of her face before a beam of holy light pierced it and caused it to pop, though it didn't explode, like the last one did. He turned to look over at Nicolás, who was pointing his holy blade directly at him. "You…you're always involved with whoever wants to foil my plans. It really makes me…hate your guts." Thomas warped out of sight again, soon appearing behind Nicolás and grabbing him by the back of the head and slamming his face against the ground, causing the other three to be struck with fear.

Confessional

"I'm starting to get worried about what Thomas said…what happens when we get out of the game? Clearly, Father Time isn't some guy that can just be easily messed with, no matter the fact that I want to save everybody. I have to think of a plan for that soon…" Natt stroked his chin as he thought deeply again about what was to come.

Confessional End

The elevator to the compression chamber had a rather nice view of the ocean, something that the contestants were able to enjoy while they were waiting to get out for their challenges. However, in this instance, it really wasn't as enjoyable as it typically was. Poseidon kept his head down, choosing not to look out the glass while Chronos leaned up against the wall of the elevator, his hood finally taken off to reveal his old man mug. He had only been seen face to face a few times, as he had mostly sunken into legend. "You're the almighty god of the sea, you should be thrilled with the view, yet you aren't even looking. You always were the most disappointing of you three…Zeus was a go-getter, Hades was a genius, and then there was you, the one that couldn't do anything for himself. You should at least take comfort in knowing how revolutionary you're going to become…not that you'll be around to enjoy that."

Poseidon didn't raise his head to say anything, not that Chronos had expected him to or anything. "You're just the beginning of me coming to reclaim what was wrongfully stolen from me. I lost everything because of you three…and you've reduced my company to this? Reality TV game shows? It's pathetic, you know that, right?" No answer, again, not that one was really expected at this point. "I could've gone after Zeus or Hades first, but I think you'll make for a nice message to them. Not that anyone will see anything that's happening here. The footage will have been lost in the terrible submarine crash, and everyone will have died."

"Why would you bother killing everyone? I'm the only one that matters to you, none of the others deserve to die for what me and my brothers did." Poseidon still didn't look up, but he did finally speak. His voice was calm, considering the circumstances. "You can just off me and they can all be left to mind their own business…"

"So they can regail these events to the proper authorities? No chance of that happening, boy. If I let anyone get out of here, it could lead to things getting far messier than what's going on down here. That includes that young assassin I've got distracting everyone right now…he'll assuredly try to take my mantle. All the assassins I've put under my employ do it. Not that he's as useful as they were…too much arguing. In fact, he was saying things that were similar enough to what you're saying now. Asking me why everyone has to die and all that." Chronos held his hand against his forehead and sighed. "Such a pain."

"Thomas?" Poseidon's head finally rose from its sunken position to see Chronos nodding behind him. "You're going to kill Thomas because you think he'll try to overtake your mantle…that's so typical of you." Chronos didn't make a face at all as he just watched Poseidon turn to face him. "You want to kill people that you think will try and take over your mantle. That's the whole thing with me and my brothers, and that's the whole thing with all those assassins. You never even know if this stuff will actually happen…you're the worst kind of monster imaginable."

"Are you finished? Because I do believe…" The elevator suddenly stopped moving, and Chronos' cracked lips formed into a slight smile. "...That we've reached our destination." Poseidon turned and looked ahead to see that they were right at where the compression chamber was…but it was odd that the door wasn't opening. Chronos raised his brow slightly before the elevator started to rise back up to where it had come from. "What in the world? Someone's up there meddling in my affairs…wonderful."

Meanwhile, back up in the main chamber of the submarine, a finger was pressed against the button to call the elevator back up. It was a pale finger, the hand that owned it poking out of a purple sweater sleeve.

Confessional

"I may be insane, but…" Bonnie raised her finger with her mouth open, but she stopped, as she wasn't sure how to follow up that statement. "Uh…guess I'm just insane, actually."

Confessional End

Thomas kept holding Nicolás' head against the hard ground, putting a purple energy barrier up around the two of them so that no one could interrupt what he was doing. "You're arguably the shrimpiest, most pathetic person I've ever met, but you always let yourself get in the way of what I'm trying to do. Aren't you just terrified of the consequences? Here's a taste of what that entails…" The dark mage sent a shockwave out through the palm of his hand, causing it to slam Nicolás' face against the ground even harder than before. "You should've stayed as a background character, it would've been good for you."

Thomas let out another powerful shockwave, the ground now cracking around Nicolás' head as he was slammed further into the dirt. Jianne grabbed another one of her explosive arrows, firing it quickly at the barrier, but the arrow was immediately reflected back at her, the explosion knocking her back into some bushes, where she was left in a daze. Zachary was still clutching his aching leg, and Nicolás was being struck with the force to break mountains. Natt ran up to the barrier as fast as he could, his barbaric rage enhancing his strength. He slammed his ax against the barrier, but the blade bounced off, to no shock. Thomas glanced over at him, a bit amused by this attempt.

"Try as you will, it just isn't going to work like that. That weapon doesn't have any sort of special enchantments that can break a barrier like this one. Just sit back and let me get rid of everyone already." Thomas went back to striking Nicolás with those shockwaves while Natt kept slamming the ax against the barrier, getting it deflected each and every time. "You really aren't learning a thing, are you? It can't be-" Natt's eyes suddenly lit up with golden light, as well as his ax. "...Done?" Thomas looked down to see Nicolás holding his hand out towards the barrier, and soon, the ax crashed through it, striking Thomas and sending him flying up into the sky.

"Nicolás, are you alright?" Natt knelt down to the ground, helping his friend up only to see that he was quite bruised from the shockwaves, but not incapacitated. The barbarian glared up at the sky right at Thomas, who had a gash in his left side. The gash was pouring out a pinkish-purple energy, much akin to the energy that he was using in his weapons.

"You…you really are giving me a tough time, you know that, right?" Thomas held his open hand against the gahs, sealing it tight with the energy that he was using. He then held his scythe out in front of him, running his hand along it and causing it to increase in size drastically. "You wanna play the big, heavy weapons game? Alright…we'll play the big, heavy weapons game. Hope you don't mind if I take my turn."

Thomas didn't warp this time, he flew directly at Natt, swinging his scythe at him and knocking him back a great distance. The second Natt began to regain his balance, Thomas flew right back to him, striking him again, just as powerful as the first strike. He continued to strike him with the scythe until he had him pushed up against the rock wall that had the cave attached to it. "My weapon's way stronger than yours, isn't it? It's a miracle that you haven't given up at this point, but it'll be over soon enough."

Natt attempted to grab his ax so that he could swing it at Thomas, but the dark mage noticed this and smirked. "I wouldn't if I were you, but since you insist…" Thomas swung his scythe directly at the ax, cleaving it perfectly in two before fizzling it down to nothingness with the energy of his magic. Natt stared wide-eyed at his weapon that completely disappeared from sight before the blade of the scythe lodged itself into his left shoulder. He cried out in pain, falling down to his knees, completely unable to fight back at this point. "Now then…you can look around and see that you lost."

Thomas picked Natt up by his hair, hoisting him up with him into the air and gesturing down to the battlefield. "Look around you. There's no way that any of them can keep putting up this fight, it's shocking enough that they haven't died from that onslaught already. It's alright, though…I'll take care of you all together, since you seem to just love working together." Thomas started floating back down to the ground, tossing Natt to his knees before snapping his fingers and using some enhanced gravity magic to pull the other three to the same spot as him. "Just sit tight…it'll be over fast enough."

The dark mage flew back up into the sky, holding his left hand up towards the air and forming a dark purple bubble in his hand. He moved it infront of his face, blowing on it gently and causing it to start floating down towards the contestants. Natt looked up and watched as the bubble sailed down towards him and the others. He glanced between each of them, Jianne who had been struck by her own explosion, Nicolás who had been hit with shockwave after shockwave, and Zachary who had been set on fire and shot by an arrow. Thomas was right about one thing, that Maggie had nothing on him.

The bubble finally ended up stopping right in the middle of the group of four, simply floating there in place. Natt looked back up to Thomas, his expression changing to the dull nothing that it usually was. "Sorry, Natt…I know you'll come to realize that this is the only way soon enough. …Clutch." Thomas balled up his left fist, and immediately after, the bubble popped, sending out a massive, purple explosion that enclosed around the warriors. The moment it was gone, all that was left was a cloud of smoke.

Confessional

"I didn't just get involved with Father Time because I saw it as a good opportunity. No, the moment that Flint struck me with that board on the space station, my career as an assassin was well over. I never had family before, never knew I needed them. But now…well, I've at least got an annoying little runt to look after." Thomas glanced down at a picture of Dana with a soft smile on his face. "That's not something I ever wanna let slip out from under me. So pardon me if my methods are a bit…intense."

Confessional End

Chris whistled as he stepped out of the shower, reaching for his towel and wrapping it around his waist before he walked over to the bathroom mirror. He took a good look at his face, stroking his chin and smiling at his reflection. "Looking sharp, tough guy!" He growled at his own reflection like some sort of tiger in a zoo before he went to open the door to the bathroom, only to realize that it was locked. He scratched at his head, as he didn't remember locking the door when he went to shower. "That's weird…"

The host investigated the doorknob closely, realizing that the locking contraption wasn't on his side of the door, so it must've been on the other side. "What the!? Why are there so many doors in this submarine designed like this!? How am I supposed to go out and do my lovely hosting duties if I keep getting locked into different rooms!?" He stomped his foot against the ground before slipping on something and falling on the ground. He groaned as he rubbed his head, soon rising to be sitting on the floor when he noticed that he had slipped on a letter.

"A letter, huh? I'd be willing to bet that it's probably mail from a fan or something. Let's read it!" Chris grabbed the letter and opened it up before clearing his throat. "'Yo, Chris. I totally saw that you made it out of your room, so I made sure to lock you in the next room you wandered into. Like I said, I don't want you stealing all of my time in the spotlight, especially after that dirty invasion you pulled back during Scrap Island. Anyways, have fun being stuck drinking shower water for the next few days. With anything but love, Dana.' …DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

The host got up from his seat and started pounding his fists against the door as hard as he could, but it was to no avail, as everyone was either too far away, too wrapped up in their own business, or busy being transported to the Aftermath stage. Meanwhile, back in the main chamber, the elevator had just made its way back to the top, and the door opened to allow Chronos to step into the room. He didn't have a second to even look at his surroundings before a meat mallet came swinging at him from the left, but he was a bit too used to things like this, as he simply grabbed the mallet midair and glanced to the side to stare directly at Bonnie. "Uh…oops, you're not the gramps I was looking for! Silly me! I'll just take that mallet and scurry along, now!"

Chronos narrowed his eyes at Bonnie before pulling the mallet from her hands and smacking it against the pot that was on her head, causing a loud ringing that made her uncomfortable enough to knock her down to the floor. He knelt down next to her, shaking his head at her while she pulled the ringing pot off of her head. "It's rather rude to pester people in the middle of official business, young lady. I'll make sure to get back to you soon enough, just wait your turn."

"Oh, I may be young, but I'm anything but a lady! I'm the most unladylike person I know! Would a lady let someone she just met check out these babies?" Bonnie pulled her sweater up, and Chronos had expected her to just be shirtless, so he closed his eyes. What he wasn't expecting was for the two metal bowls to come flying out from the pressure release, each of them hitting him and knocking him back a bit. He grunted and looked back at Bonnie to see her swinging her pot helmet at him, but he ducked under it and kicked her right in the groin. "Ow, my naughty bits…" The pervert fell down in pain, leaving Chronos to shake his head at her again.

"Now you're rude, disruptive, and perverse…do you feel better about yourself?" He got no response, as Bonnie was too focused on how much pain she was currently in. "Whatever, just lay down and wait while I deal with Poseidon, alright?" Chronos sighed and turned to go back to the elevator while Amphitrite rushed to Bonnie's side, holding her up. He didn't look back at them, he just kept on walking, as he wasn't interested in them…that was until a metal bowl flew past his head, hitting the elevator button and sending Poseidon down without him. He paused for a moment before turning around and looking at the two of them.

"Heh…now that's what I call a money shot, baby…" Chronos walked over to Bonnie and stood over her and Amphitrite, just staring at them with a rather confused look on his face.

"I don't understand why you keep flirting with death so much, you must realize this can't go well for you." Bonnie snickered at Chronos' remark, clearly not intimidated in the slightest.

"It can't go well for me? Gramps, none of my flirting has ever gone well for me. BonBon just loves when people play hard to get, that's all." Chronos sighed again, placing his palm against his face.

Confessional

"Perhaps I am doing this world a favor by sinking this submarine…I mean, you've all seen the type of people on it, right?" Chronos had a look of utter disbelief on his face. "Why am I even in this chamber? I swear, their craziness is getting to me."

Confessional End

Thomas stared down at the battlefield, watching the cloud of smoke as it slowly started to fade away from the area. He let out a drawn out sigh, having had enough excitement for one day, with Natt and his interruptions. Briefly, he rubbed his eyes, but when he moved his hands, he saw that there was a much smaller cloud of smoke in the spot that the adventurers were just huddled in. Not only that, but this cloud of smoke was a lighter color…sort of like the type that you would see puffing out of a smoke bomb from one of those Flint Westwood films. "Interesting…either you guys pulled a last minute parlor trick, or that's just what it looks like when you kill four adventurers. Nevertheless, I'll be on the safe side of things."

Thomas held his left hand up to the sky, forming another dark purple bubble in it before bringing it to his face and blowing it down towards the battlefield. As he watched it sail down, he kept his left hand open, waiting for the right moment to close his fist and set off the next explosion. He waited, and waited, and waited, and as the bubble finally reached the area with the cloud of smoke, the smoke suddenly vanished, showing that there was nothing there at all. "What in the world?" Before he had the chance to look around, something pierced his left hand, right through the center of it. He took a look at it to see that it was an arrow, but something about this arrow was off. "This is…!"

Thomas raised his right hand to grab the arrow, but he was unable to, as the arrow burst into a set of chains that wrapped his left hand up in such a way that forced it to stay open. He tried and tried to close his fist, but it was to no avail, as the chains made it completely impossible. "What are you guys doing, still trying to fight me!? It's over, can't you see that!? Just take a step back and let me do what I can to try and fix this mess!" Thomas filled his right hand with the same purple energy from before, moving it towards the chains to try and burst them, only for a horde of bullets to fly right at his hand, knocking it clean off of him from the wrist. "Agh!"

Thomas looked back down to see that Zachary and Jianne were standing in the center of the field, each of them aiming their respective weapons at him. "Just try and make a move, punk…it'll be the last move you make."

"Spoken just like the real Flint Westwood." Zachary gasped in excitement while Jianne rolled her eyes, as she mainly meant that comment sarcastically. Thomas let his eyes scan the battlefield, looking for where Natt and Nicolás may have been, but he had no sight of them. Jianne gestured to the area behind him, and he turned around to see that Natt was standing on the platform that the castle had been built on. He was spinning at an incredible speed, only being able to be made out from his glowing red tattoos. Thomas narrowed his eyes, as he was clearly holding something, but it wasn't easy to tell what it was.

"This is just a last ditch trick! The second these chains fade, I'll close my fist and you'll all be wiped out! Just give up already!" Thomas kept on shouting from where he was floating, only for a lasso to wrap up his legs while chains wrapped his arms behind his back. Natt finally let the thing he was swinging around loose, sending it flying straight towards Thomas. The dark mage took a good look at what it was, and the second he realized what it was, his eyes went wider than they ever had before. "No…"

"O, heavenly light, bestow your power upon me…" Nicolás sailed through the sky, golden light reaching down towards him from the sky.

"No…!" Thomas kept on struggling where he was stuck, trying to do whatever he could to possibly free himself, but there was no point. He was stuck good and tight.

"The power to slay the unholy, the power of new beginnings, the power to wipe out all sins…" The light around Nicolás got even stronger, and the blade in his hand seemed to be getting coated in more light than it ever had before.

"NO!" Thomas let out one final shout, right before Nicolás ended up floating right in front of him, aiming his light-coated blade, which was now far larger than it ever was before.

"Unleashed Holy Smite!" The paladin swung his blade forth, cleaving the dark mage in half, right through his chest. He fell down to the ground soon after, the light on his blade fading as he touched down on the ground. He and the others looked up in the sky to see Thomas floating there, completely in two pieces. He had this look of disbelief on his face as the lower half of his body started to fizzle out.

Once the first half of Thomas had already disappeared, the second half followed in suit. "All I wanted to do was help…you're all going to die now…I hope you know that…" Those were the last words the dark mage spoke before the rest of his body fizzled out into nothingness, a powerful wave of blue energy flowing towards each of the contestants. Natt hopped back over to the main battlefield, joining the others and watching as Nicolás and Jianne's levels were the first to reach ten. The very moment that they did, they were warped out of the game. This just left Natt and Zachary, the former of which stopped to take a deep breath after all the chaos that had just gone down.

Zachary looked up at his own experience bar, noting that he had just reached level seven, while Natt's just made it to level nine. Of course, both bars were still raising, but the actor couldn't help but think about something "'The last contestant to reach level ten will be eliminated, just ejected right in the pod they're in, no need for an elimination ceremony.'"

"That really was a lot…we can at least put a stop to Father Time, now. Right, Zach?" Natt looked over at the cowboy to see his revolver pointed directly at his face. "...Zach?

Back in the real world, Chronos was still hovering over Bonnie, as annoyed as ever with how obnoxiously difficult she was making it for him to just off Poseidon, as he had previously wished to. "Look, you cretin…I told you that you would be getting your turn, I don't see why you feel the need to rush into it. Poseidon just so happens to be a bit higher up on my priorities than you are, I'm sure you can understand that, right?"

"So…what you're saying is that…after you and him have a round of fun time, it'll be my turn?" Chronos' face flushed with red and he pounded his fist against the wall, Bonnie simply laughing in response to this. "I mean, I've never really thought about having fun with a gramps like you, but I guess it could be a good time. Like, you've gotta have more experience under your belt, you've got three sons!"

"You're really getting on my nerves, cretin! I've had quite enough of you and your perverse mannerisms, it's simply time for you to quiet down and wait! If I have to use force to get you to hush up, I will do just that!" The elevator dinged to signal that it was done descending, and Chronos sighed and reached his hand back to press the button, only for Bonnie to quickly jolt up from the ground and hold one of the metal bowls over the button. He glared at her while she just smiled back at him.

"Tell ya what! You tell me if it looks like an acorn in a snowy bird's nest down there, and I'll tell you if you can maybe press my special button. Does that sound fair?" Bonnie snickered a bit, only for Chronos to slap her across the face with the back of his hand. Although she was a bit taken aback by this, she seemed to smile through. "Spankings are supposed to be for the bum, not for the face. But…if you wanna be kinky like that, I'm totally game."

"You are…vile, woman! What has become of this world while I've been minding my own peace in the shadows!?" Chronos rubbed his hand, entirely disgusted by Bonnie and her gross mannerisms. It was at this point that three of the virtual pods opened up, allowing Jianne, Nicolás, and Zachary out into the real world. They all immediately rushed over to Chronos to try and help Bonnie, with Jianne throwing a punch straight at his wrinkled face, though he grabbed her by the fist and flung her over his shoulder, slamming her right against the wall. Zachary attempted to pull some slick Batguy move, aiming for a kick to the shins to sweep him off his feet, though Chronos simply jumped over the kick and returned his own kick straight into the actor's face, knocking him flat to the ground.

This left Nicolás, who was already terrified, as he had just witnessed his best friend and his biggest rival being taken down in nothing more than a brief moment. Chronos started to walk towards the nerdy boy, causing him to back up a bit, stuttering all the way. "What's this? There's one of you that can't find the words to speak…that's quite the charm, isn't it? Will you be the one that takes a seat and allows destiny to follow its course? These others have all gotten me quite annoyed." Nicolás opened his mouth to speak, but the words didn't come out how he wanted them to. "What was that, boy?"

"B-bowl…" Chronos turned to see a metal bowl flying at his face, and he stumbled back while Bonnie pressed the button to the elevator. The old assassin cried out a scream that could only be described as the most ferocious noise that anyone could ever here. He stomped his foot down on the ground, looking right at Bonnie as she just grinned at him with that cheesy, perverse grin from before.

"You…have been nothing but a nuisance and a drain on me since I started my business here! You just can't leave well enough alone, and I know I'll be far too disgusted by you the second I try to do anything to you- don't even say it!" Chronos pointed his boney finger at Bonnie, glaring at her while she giggled. His eyes wandered to Amphitrite, who was sitting on the ground, absolutely horrified. "If you all are going to be this annoying, I'll just have to direct my efforts at someone more pathetic!" The assassin jumped to Amphitrite, picking her up by the neck and holding her in the air. He seemed to be squeezing her pretty tightly, as her face was turning blue.

Bonnie's face went pale the second she saw this, and for some reason, she felt her heartbeat quicken faster than it had ever beat before. She balled her fists up and gritted her teeth before fiercely glaring at him with the fury of a thousand suns. "That's…my…MILF!" Bonnie cried out in a rage before rushing right at Chronos. He dropped Amphitrite to the ground and reached to his side to grab a long dagger, but when he thrust it at Bonnie, she didn't seem to react in the slightest. His eyes went wide. "I'm a hearty fucking farmer, bitch!" The pervert punched him right in the face, this strength being something he never imagined coming from her before. He stumbled back towards Nicolás, who scooted the metal bowl on the ground behind him, causing him to slip and fall hard onto his back. He groaned in pain while the elevator finally dinged.

"You…you think you can just…" Chronos started to pull himself up from the floor, but a heavy foot stomped down on his chest, planting him firmly on the ground. He looked up to see Poseidon staring down at him and cracking his knuckles. He picked the geezer up by the collar of his shirt, and at this point, the assassin was too weakened to react. "N-now, hold on, boy! This was all just…all just a stunt for the show! I'm sure you know how it goes with these shows, gotta have a big twist to keep the audience captivated, right?"

Poseidon balled up his free fist, punching Chronos right in the cranium and knocking him down to the ground. He grabbed his handkerchief from his jacket pocket, wiping his knuckles off before immediately rushing over to Bonnie. "B-Bonnie! He stabbed you! We need to get you medically evacuated right away, that can't be good! I'm so sorry I let this happen to you, we'll pay for all the hospital bills, you'll be assured a large settlement for the damage to your person, we will take care of you."

Bonnie held her finger in front of Poseidon's face, grinning a perverse grin before pointing proudly to herself. "Heh…I don't wanna bother with the legal trouble, you know why? I gots me a hot, needy MILF, laying in my bed, waiting for BonBon to come back and tell her that she saved the day! And this, this little thumbtack? I ain't worried about it! I'll take care of it with my handy dandy medical supply kit, ayup!" Bonnie whistled while she nonchalantly started to walk back to her room. "Momma BonBon's got herself so fun fun MILF time, ayup!"

---

Some time had passed since the events of the battle, and Chronos was currently in handcuffs with two government agents standing with him at the docking chamber of the submarine. The one of them, a younger female, though it was hard to make out her features, as she looked almost like a ninja, stepped towards Poseidon, who was standing in front of Amphitrite, Nicolás, Zachary, and Jianne. "We have to thank you for your collective efforts in putting a stop to Father Time…it must've been quite terrifying for you, no? In any case, we made sure to make a stop by that intern's room to give her some much needed, proper first aid. The dagger only got her right above her left hip…she got lucky it missed everything important. As for you, Chronos, you'll be getting put away for a very long time. You're all about time, right?"

Chronos sighed as the agents took him into their submarine, which was docked within the much larger submarine. It didn't take long for them to leave the premises, leaving Poseidon to sigh before looking back to the others with a huge smile on his face. "You all did such an amazing job today…I couldn't be more proud in my whole life. I really got put in charge of a great group of kids. Even Thomas was doing what he thought was best…I'll have to speak with him the next time I see him. Say, I did notice that Natt was missing. Is he alright? Perhaps he went to his room to relax a bit?"

"Huh? I don't think I saw him after we beat Thomas in the game world…" Nicolás looked over to Jianne to see her shrugging her shoulders. That's when the two of them turned to look at Zachary, whose face had gone pale as he whistled and glanced away.

"Y-you see, the thing about Natt…"

---

Charlize sat next to Bonnie's bed while the intern laid down in bed with a big smile on her face. "Yup yup! I saved the day, saved all the MILFs, and made sure everyone was okay! It's a good day to be me, teehee!"

"You're right, you did do all of those things. I can't believe I'm about to do this, but…" Bonnie looked up at Charlize who leaned down to her and kissed her right on the lips. Immediately, she got up from her seat and left the room, with Bonnie completely red.

"...I GOT KISSED BY A MILF!"

---

Author's Notes:

*There you have it, folks! We're down to the final three contestants in this season that seems like it's been going on forever! I had so much fun writing this episode, as I'm sure can be told from just how long the chapter ended up being. Seriously, I've known what I wanted to do with this chapter for a very long time now, and I'm glad to finally be able to write it out. Chronos was definitely a fun take to do in this story, and I couldn't think of a more fitting overarching villain, thanks to MTDN for suggesting him to me so so long ago. Natt ended up leaving here due to the rule of the pods and Zachary's fear of losing the game, which I'm sure will make everyone furious at Zach, but Natt got a whole heap of plot his way, and I think he was probably the perfect contestant to deal with the Father Time mystery.

*That all out of the way, we do have an aftermath coming up as the next episode, the last aftermath before the end of the season, nonetheless! I'll need questions for: Alexis, Benjamin, Dusty, Amelia, Luna, Vicente, Natt, and Thomas can get some questions as well. Thank you all in advance!

*P.S.: Yes, Bonnie is eighteen, so Charlize giving her a smooch is legal. Just wanted to avoid that convo before it started is all.

*Placements: No Placement - Sebastian, Haley, Jett; 22nd - Crustacean; 21st - Thomas; 20th - Archie; 19th - Anne; 18th - Alex; 17th - Taylor; 16th/15th - Liz/Tony; 14th - Flint; 13th - Gretchen; 12th - March; 11th - Damien; 10th - Alexis; 9th - Benjamin; 8th - Dusty; 7th/6th - Amelia/Luna; 5th - Vicente; 4th - Natt