"Ladies and gents, it's a real cool night out there tonight…not just the air, but that atmosphere, dayum! You feel it, right? The buzz, the noise, the talk, oh it's all out there!" C.K. cackled to himself as he kicked his feet up on a little coffee table that sat in front of his artificial fireplace. "Guess you ain't heard 'bout that, yet. Don't matter to me just yet, though, cause what does matter is getting this recap all up in your zone! L-l-layust time on Total Drama: Neon City– tensions already started getting heated up with Gwenny-Gwen nagging on the most innocent member of her team, that pseudo-furry, Marshmallow! Oh, yeah, and it kinda looks to me that Eliza's gettin' herself all spooked by the robo-bimbo in Elward's mental! But all relationships and attempts at relationships aside, there was a challenge, and boy, if that thing wasn't swingin', I don't know what was! Our teams had to show off their groovin' moves on a neon floor that we extended all across the skyline! Too bad for them that those tiles weren't sturdy at all, heh! Gwendolyn refused to boogie, getting an early aggravation at her from the rest of her team, mainly our dancing queen, Cherry! Things went poorly for Team A-Side at the start, but after some time, and a surprising musical number, things ended up being all tied with two and two: Cherry and Leo against Atlas and Bec! Not surprisingly, the leafy boy came crumbling first, leaving his party gal teammate to fend for herself. She thought she had it all, but Atlas, woah nelly, he literally came out of nowhere and tackled her through the floor, leading to an…upsetting win for Bec! Needless to say, Gwendolyn got bit by her own stubbornness, though Chris let her stay in town! I'm sure that won't upset anybody at all! But enough about yesterday's hot topics, we're onto the new buzz! Fifteen minutes of fame, here we come!"
The neon moon started scratching itself like a record, eventually spinning wildly out of control while the sound meter around it went wild. A beam of neon light shot down into the ground below, bringing the view past a rooftop that had Chris and Chef standing atop it, as well as the cloaked figure of C.K.. The trio were laughing to themselves as the beam passed them by, and they soon disappeared from sight.
"B-b-break it down, dear mom and dad, I'm doing fine," a car burst from where the beam of light had landed, revealing Atlas driving while Bec was in the passenger seat with him. The duo grinned the same grin at the camera as they passed it by, with another car following behind in their wake.
"The highlife's been on my mind," the second car was veering off the road wildly, being that of Jhin, who was too busy eating a tree branch that she had found to be focused on the road she was driving on. She ended up crashing through the wall of a building, revealing a nightclub full of people.
"You asked me where I wanted to be, and now I'm right here, can't you see?" Leo stood near the now open hole in the wall, his jaw practically dropped to the floor, but he was soon shoved aside to safety as Jhin drove right back through it. He looked to see that Gwendolyn had saved him, and looked about ready to tear him a new one.
"I wanna be famous!" Over at the bar, Cherry was downing a shot of liquor and proudly heading off to the dance floor while Amanda just stared at her own shot glass, turning her nose up at the very scent of it.
"I wanna live away from the sun," the camera panned up from the nightclub to the next floor, which was much more of a lounge that had a couple contestants sitting on couches. Eli had himself posted on one of them, sitting back and covering his ears while Suzie started explaining the entire lore of Among Us to him.
"So pack your bags, 'cause the party's begun!" On one of the other couches, 3V was downing an entire flask of some sort of liquor while Elward watched her in some sort of dumbfounded trance, eventually pulling out his own futuristic looking flask but accidentally pouring his drink all over his one working eye.
"Daylife's no way to live with nothing to gain, it ain't no claim to fame," far back in the corner of the room, Henry and Heath were hiding themselves from everybody else, but Heath's hand slowly raised up with Jean-Paul rattling his wooden jaw, startling the two of them so much so that they got up and ran right into each other, falling to the ground with a joint thud.
"I wanna be famous!" Giselle popped out of a closet from the same corner of the room, wearing a playboy bunny suit and putting on a flashy display, but when she saw that the two boys were unconscious, she fell to her knees and started screaming at the sky.
"Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na!" The next floor up from the lounge seemed to look like a sort of laser tag arena, where Gerald was frantically running away from Morgan, who was firing her laser gun at him. Her shots entirely missed, but one must've struck Allan, as Gerald stopped running and started to cry, holding the invisible friend's body in his arms.
"I wanna be, I wanna be, I wanna be famous!" Marshmallow ecstatically ran right through where the two of them were, flailing her arms and screaming in delight while a confused Edward followed after her, shrugging his shoulders when he looked at the camera.
"I wanna be, I wanna be, I wanna be famous!" At the upper ground of the laser tag arena, Bailey and Eliza were firing at each other, but the lasers stopped coming at Bailey after some time, and she looked up to notice that Eliza had completely passed out on the floor. The cold girl looked at the camera helplessly before tossing her laser gun up into the air. As it came sinking back down, it fell into the neon fire on top of the tallest skyscraper, directly in between Garfield and Zayden, who were having a stand-off while the other contestants sat around them and whistled. Chris, Chef, and C.K. stood over at a podium near the hyperspace tube and snapped in unison for a neon sign to flash on the screen with the words "Total Drama: Neon City."
It wasn't quite night time yet in the neon city, with the sun still working on going down so the moon could come out. Not to any shock, this meant that most of the contestants, as well as the other denizens of the city, were still sound asleep, waiting for it to come to life. Jhin slept soundly in her room somehow, but a look into the grand hotel room that once was left many mysteries in its wake. The walls had boundless amounts of scratch marks all over them, some marks resembling the vague shapes of words, some looking like drawings of people, just heavily distorted. Her bedspread wasn't on her whatsoever, it had been cast aside, thrown to the ground, while she sprawled out all over the torn up mattress. There was a glass of water on the end table to the left side of her bed, a piece of mattress fluff topping it like a garnish.
"...Jhin…" The call of the whispering winds sounded lightly throughout the room, sailing its way right to her ear canal. Her left ear twitched, just a little bit, but she remained asleep, at least for the time being. "...Jhin…wake up, Jhin…you have to wake up…" Jhin struggled to keep herself asleep with all the racket, even shuffling slightly to show the tense expression on her close-eye'd face. "WAKE UP, NOW!"
"Ah!" Jhin shot up from her mattress, her chest heaving with the massive breaths she took in. Even with her just having been asleep not three seconds prior, her eyes were fully awake. The only thing was that they didn't look quite right by her normal standards. Normally, her pupils, her irises, they just seemed to be really small, much smaller than your average human would have. Only, in this moment, they were opposite: far too large. The whites of her eyes could hardly be seen amidst the massive orangish hue and their black dots.
"Jhin, you're awake! You didn't answer me last night…I asked you a question." Jhin could feel a gravitational pull that shifted her head to focus on the corner of the room, the only part of the room that managed to be complete darkness. It was dark enough to somehow envelope all the light that was coming through the window, and it seemed as though there was the vague outline of another person in it. She stared and stared until her eyes ran dry, only blinking then and re-opening her eyes to find that the darkness had grown a bit bigger. "Why are you still alive, Jhin? You're pretty bad at this."
"I'm…I'm bad at this…" Jhin slowly nodded her head to the shadows, bringing herself up to her feet, standing on top of the mattress in her trancelike state. Her body seemed to fall completely still as she stood there, no muscle movements, no blinking, hardly even the slightest chest lift from her breathing.
"You're really bad at this…you need to take that jump, Jhin…it's the only way for it to end." For some reason, hearing those words…they seemed to affect her in a way that wasn't like any of the others before. Her eyes started melting back down to how they normally looked, though a lengthy process. "Jump...you need to jump. Do it. DO IT!" That voice had suddenly shouted at her again, effectively pulling her out of her trance. She blinked her eyes once more to find that the shadows were gone, it was just her in the room.
"...J…ump?" Tears started to stream down Jhin's cheeks like waterfalls to a river below, but her expression was just empty. She wasn't crying of sadness, nor of fear, not even hilarity. She might've only been crying because it was all she had the option to do. She brought herself down to the floor from her mattress, taking in deep breaths as she moved her feet to bring her to that end table from before. With a swift move of her hand, she snatched the glass of water, taking a bountiful sip from it until it was completely gone, the mattress fluff included. She strained to swallow with the fluff in her mouth, but seemed to manage just fine.
"Not today…I have things to do today!" Jhin's empty look was suddenly replaced with her cartoonish smile, and tears fled from her cheeks in search of a spot on the floor to dampen. She had started to whistle this tune, not that it was that appealing to the ears or anything, but it seemed fitting for her to do at the time. With a glance in her window, she saw her disheveled reflection, aiming finger guns at it and making a "pew pew" noise. "Looking sexy as ever, queen! Ya-ha!"
Confessional - Jhin
"I don't know about any of you people, but I slept like a baby all night long! My alarm clock went off a little earlier than I remember setting it for, though…" Jhin scratched at her chin until she broke the skin on it, causing her to bleed just the slightest amount. Oddly, she seemed unbothered by this, with no reaction to the pain whatsoever. "Guess it must be that daylight savings thing that America has…bah! I don't like it!"
"...Is…is she just gonna gloss over everything that happened in that room just now? S-she drank a literal piece of fluff, people! Not ate, DRANK!"
Unlike Jhin, a good deal of the other contestants were still asleep at this point, or if they were awake, they were still in their own rooms, relaxing as much as they could before they would inevitably have to deal with Chris and his shenanigans. That was until a door slowly opened, producing the awkward, lanky figure of Amanda, who looked almost like she was about to sneeze. She walked down the hallway from her room, seeming to be in search of something, albeit unclear what that was exactly. Her room was the tenth in the line up, so pretty far down from where her travels ended up bringing her: the third room.
"...Hm," Amanda stood in front of the door, that "about to sneeze" look still present, like she was almost upset about something or she saw something cringeworthy. She slowly raised her hand up to the door, clenching it in a fist and holding it there as she deliberated what her next move should've been. In due time, though, she rapped against the door an exact three times, pulling her hand back down after and reaching for her coin from her jacket pocket. She began to flip it about while she waited for the door to open, the wait seeming to drag on for quite a bit. Still, it did eventually open, just very…very slowly.
"Urgh…it's too early…what in the blazes do you want?" Cherry peeked out from behind her door, her eyes, which were generally full of life and excitement, drooping down in a tired daze.
"I thought about it for a while, and I think I would like to feel the coat now." Cherry paused to stare at Amanda, thinking that she surely must have been just joking or something, but she saw the expression on her face that just indicated being somewhat upset. "...Please, if that is okay."
"...Love, why are you scrunching your face like that? You look like you're trying to get yourself sobbing." Amanda made some muffled noises that Cherry couldn't quite discern, but from what she could tell, they were just more indicators of that upset mood. "Alright, alright, you can touch the coat. I'll let you in, but I ought to warn you, I'm not wearing trainers…not to mention knickers."
"That is fine, I don't mind." Amanda kept flipping her coin as Cherry opened the door a bit wider to let her in. The party gal really was only wearing a black, spaghetti-strap tank top that went down just a bit past her waist to keep her…mildly decent. The coin flipper did get a glance of her in full view, her expression not really changing much, though her pale complexion did start matching the red of her hair. She took a look around the room, seeing the drastic difference in it between her own, namely with the crushed up solo cups that were strewn about. The sight of it made her start flipping her coin quite a bit faster. "...It's dirty in here."
"I'm dirty, love. Like mother, like…room? I don't know if that expression quite catches," Cherry awkwardly rubbed the back of her head as she walked over to her closet, opening it to reveal that she had far more than just one of those fluffy looking coats. She dug around through them, though, pulling one out from the far back and smiling proudly at it. "Right then, here we are!" She noticed a lollipop stuck to the back of it and creased before switching it out with a different one. "Alright, we'll try this one instead. I had that Marshmallow run to the bar for me last night…guess she must've dropped that lolly on me. This one's fresh, at least."
"...You should really put underwear on. I saw your butt when you bent over," Cherry's face matched Amanda's in the redness at this point, though all she could do was thrust the coat out towards her. The room's visitor stared at it for a moment, taking a good deal of deep breaths as she did, almost looking too nervous to touch it. Still, she reached her hand forward and ran her fingers along it, soaking in the soft, fluffiness of its feathery exterior. Her expression changed quite a bit as she felt it, appearing overwhelmed for a moment before changing into something a bit more please and jolly. "...My guess was right, it is very soft."
"I told you so," Cherry was still blushing, but at least felt a little better seeing her teammate not look so upset. "Was that all you needed, then? I'd planned to sleep a bit longer…can't much do that with you in the room."
"I can clean up for you!" Amanda pulled her hand back from the coat, finally tucking her coin back into her pocket as she got this overly eager look about her. "I can get rid of all these cups. I like organizing things."
"...That's…nice and all…but I'm practically stark nude and you've already seen a bit more than I was ready to share with you." Cherry sort of waved her hand at the door, crossing her arms over her chest. "Had you come along during the night time it would've been a different story, but I'm just a tad suffering from my time on the rocks, if you catch my drift."
"I don't, really…but I can come back later then." Amanda smiled as she proudly walked back to the door, walking through it before turning to face Cherry one last time. "You have a nice butt, thank you for showing it to me!"
"Goodbye, Amanda," Cherry groaned and shut the door behind Amanda, who gleefully carried on back to her room.
Confessional - Cherry
"...Amanda's such an odd one. I typically don't mind showing off some naughty bits, but I'd certainly rather not while I'm hungover. I like to know I'm looking my best and all, you know." Cherry looked like she had recently showered, seeming more full of life than before and even smiling at the camera. "Still, you wouldn't really expect someone to be so…blunt…about something like that."
Confessional - Amanda
"I saw Cherry's butt earlier!" Amanda had her arms crossed while she bobbed her happy head from side to side. "It was very nice!"
"Did she not say that already? Girl's just repeating herself at this point…but damn, if I ain't jealous, I don't know what I am."
"Now, let's see here…" Morgan had just gotten out of the shower not too long ago, her hair all wrapped up tightly in a towel while another towel covered the rest of her body. She wiggled her hips to and fro as she dug around, looking for what she should wear for the day. "Is it a Gucci kinda day? Or maybe something from Louis V.? How's a bitch gonna get everyone's attention if she doesn't know what to wear?" The cheerleader huffed and turned away from her closet, stomping over to her bed and sitting on it, resting her cheek against the palm of her hand.
Confessional - Morgan
"I'm the captain of the cheer team, mean's everybody's eyes gotta be on me all the time, it's practically my birthright. I know I got frosted tips under my spell, even if he won't admit it." Morgan smirked to herself, sitting in her car still just in her towels and nothing else. "The problem is that everyone else, other than my brother and his boyfriend, well, they've just been ignorin' me! Come on, now, that ain't no way to be treating this queen."
"Something to get the heads turning, something to get all eyes on me…I gots to have a posse if I'm gonna get anywhere in this competition." Morgan got back up from her bed, grumbling as she walked past her closet again, "I think I got some of my nicer clothes in the laundry room downstairs, anyways." With some more grumbling, she walked right out of her room, just wearing those towels. There were other members from her team already out in the halls, a bit startled to see her so close to nude, to say the least. Garfield saw her walking around and instinctively followed after her, his face hardly even red, unlike some of the others.
"Any particular reason you're wanderin' round the halls with just a towel on, Morgan? Seems to me that you're giving everybody maybe a bit more than you should." Garfield snickered to himself as Morgan rolled her eyes.
"Would ya shut it? Right now, it's basically just me an' you in our little 'alliance,' that ain't flyin' wit' me. Can't get more people on our side if they ain't ever paying attention to me…or you, I guess." Garfield just seemed a bit off put by Morgan's proclamation, as he followed her into the elevator.
"...So you're saying you're an attention whore? That's kinda what it sounds like, at least." The cheerleader looked aggravated to hear her teammate accusing her of this, and she glared at him. "Hey, don't get mad at me for stating cold, hard facts. And in any case, what does any of that have to do with you storming around in public after a shower? People will probably pay attention to you sooner or later, not like any of the other women got the looks down pat like you do."
"Oh, you're such a flirt," Morgan rolled her eyes again, tapping her index finger against Garfield's nose, getting him to rub it in annoyance afterwards. She stared at the buttons of the elevator, thinking about what one to press, even though she knew where the laundry room was. "...Maybe you right about that, though. Maybe I just ain't been out and about enough…that's why they ain't been paying attention to me! Here I was, thinking it was because I wasn't wearing the right fit, ha!" Morgan laughed chaotically, pressing almost every button in the elevator. The door started to shut, though Garfield was trying to make a break for it. He almost squeezed through, but she suddenly pinned him against the elevator wall, and it shut so that he couldn't run anywhere.
"Oh, come on, I don't wanna sit in this elevator all damn day…" Garfield groaned as he heard the faint noises of music playing around him, "...do they really have to have elevator music playing in here? You've got to be kidding me."
"That ain't no elevator music, my man, it's just that time again!" C.K.'s voice echoed throughout the elevator speaker, which was in the top left corner of the metal box. It garnered the attention from both the contestants, Morgan having a snarky smirk on her face while Garfield just looked as miserable as before. "Hey, don't get mad at me, get mad at yourself for being in the right place at the right time!"
"I just think that this whole musical number thing is stale, you two-bit radio host," Garfield gritted his teeth, but got no response from C.K., who fluttered away while the music started to pick up. Morgan twirled the politician wannabe by his hand, sending him spinning wildly throughout the elevator. "Waaahhhhhhhhhh! I think I'm gonna be sick in here!" When he finally managed to come to a stop, it looked like he was sitting in a judge's booth at the end of a catwalk. "...W-what the hell?"
"I could have my Gucci on…I could wear my Louis Vuitton," Garfield looked up at the catwalk to see Morgan standing there, strutting past the adoring crowd in just her towel. He looked at all the other denizens of the crowd as if they'd gone mad, but his attention was pulled right back to the catwalk when Morgan grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him up there with her. "But even with nothin' on, bet I made you look!"
"Well, yeah, you're almost naked, so-"
"I'll make you double take, soon as I walk away, call up your chiropractor just in case your neck break!" Morgan tilted her head to the side quickly, making a cracking sound before spinning around and pressing her back against Garfield's chest. She grabbed his cheeks with her hand and smirked up at him while he glared in return. "Oo-oo! Tell me, what ya, what ya, what ya gon' do? Ooo!"
"Probably go back to my room and drink about this la-" Morgan suddenly pulled away from Garfield, clapping her hands and magically changing the scenery to look like a beach. The politician wannabe looked down at himself to see that he was only wearing black swim trunks, and looked back up to see Morgan out on the ocean, dancing on top of a surfboard with only her skimpy, purple bikini on. "Dear lord…"
"'Cause I'm 'bout to make a scene, double up that sunscreen! I'm 'bout to turn the heat up, gon' make your glasses steam! Oo-oo! Tell me, what ya, what ya, what ya gon' do? Ooo!" Morgan surfed all the way over to the beach, leaving the board behind as she clapped once more to reveal four backup dancers behind her. Upon further inspection, Garfield was shocked to see that it was Amanda, Cherry, Marshmallow, and Leo…for some reason. Amanda's bathing suit was pretty boring, to say the least, just being a maroon one piece that had sleeves going all the way to her wrists. Cherry's was a bit more provocative, a two piece in a red color with some white polka dots. Marshmallow's was a pure white, frilly swim skirt, with a dark brown bikini top. And then Leo wore an elegant swimsuit that almost looked like a dark green pattern of leaves, it was sleeveless, but covered all of his chest and legs.
"I don't even know what's happening now-"
"When I do my walk, walk, I can guarantee your jaw will drop, drop!" Morgan's backup dancers sang the harmony part for her while she teasingly shook her chest, causing a swarm of beach bros to surround both them and Garfield, whose eyes were sending out a cry for help. "'Cause they don't make a lot of what I got, got; ladies, if you feel me, this your bop, bop!"
"Just make it end already, I'm begging you-"
"Iiiiiii could have my Gucci on, I could wear my Louis Vuitton! But even with nothin' on, bet I made you look!" The beach bros got so rowdy that they started to trample over Garfield, though he was rescued by Marshmallow and Leo, who shoved him over to Morgan. The cheerleader teasingly ran her hand through his hair, and he opened his eyes to see that he and her were back in the elevator, with only one floor left to descend. "Yeah, I look good in my Versace dress, but I'm hotter when my morning hair's a mess! But even with my hoodie on…bet I made you look!" The music finally stopped, the door to the elevator opening back up to reveal that they hadn't left their own floor. "Yeah, you right, I could get anyone's attention pretty easily."
"...I think I need a drink."
Confessional - Garfield
"I hate it here…but it doesn't matter. Even if Morgan's obsessed with her own looks, she's still a pretty good ally in terms of things. I know her skill set will at least prove pretty useful to me." Garfield brushed some sand off of his jacket, looking annoyed that it had even gotten there in the first place. "...We didn't actually go to a beach, did we?"
"That don't matter now, my man! What does matter though is that y'all are 'bout to have a challenge! You just lucked out that you don't have to leave the hotel for this one! Get yo sorry butt back in that lobby!"
"...I really don't like that guy."
The contestants made their short journey to the lobby of the hotel, some of them disgruntled, like Garfield, with others seeming to be in a pretty good mood, particularly Jhin and Amanda. Chris and Chef were waiting for them there, to no surprise, but what was also waiting there was a crowd of bloggers tapping away on their phones. Nobody was quite sure what they should say about their presence, but the lot of the bloggers hardly seemed to even look up from their phones to notice their existence.
"Heheh, I like seeing those nervous looks on their faces!" Chef rubbed his hands together evilly while licking his lips, looking directly at Eliza, Heath, and Leo, all of which looked a bit startled by the mob of bloggers.
"They look like they think the bloggers are gonna hurt them or something. Trust me, you won't have to worry about getting hurt or anything. Fifteen minutes of internet fame never did anybody any wrong...the only question is: are you guys even able to get that? For the sake of this challenge, you'd better hope so!" Chris and Chef walked over to the contestants, each of them holding their hands behind their backs.
"That crowd of measly maggots over there is the entire board behind the Neon Blog! Little bit of a famous site, for those who don't know…I think it's a load of phooey, but whatever." Chef placed his hand on Eli's shoulder as he walked behind him, causing the boy to tense up from the contact. "They've been waiting for something to write about, anything at all, but ain't found anything 'worth their time.' That's where you all come in!"
"Your goal is to get a blog post written about you by doing whatever you can to attract the bloggers' attention! Just one post won't suffice, though…every single one of you has to be talked out on there! It's a challenge where the first team to get everybody on the site is the winner! As for the other team…well, they'll have one less contestant to worry about after tonight!" Chris and Chef laughed together while the contestants nervously glanced about each other. "Team A-Side, you guys have two teammates less than Team B-Side. It was a detriment last challenge, but that gives you an advantage in this one! Alright everybody, go wild out there!"
Confessional - Eli
"Getting written about on some blog? I don't know, that really doesn't seem that worth my time…but I guess I could probably just talk about how the latest movies look like crappy cash grabs." Eli groaned as he showed some picture for a show that was getting rebooted, "Seriously, none of the characters even look similar to the originals. What were they thinking with this?"
Confessional - Giselle
"Getting everybody's attention and being put on the internet…momma doesn't know how to feel about this one. I do have an idea of what I could do, but I don't know if this has to be PG or not…" Giselle tapped at her chin as she thought about what to do, a blush spreading across her face. "M-maybe Atlas or 3V will do a thirst trap or something. Mmm…that would make momma pretty happy."
Confessional - Gerald and Allan
"Allan has always had a lot of fun ideas that we could do for a YouTube channel, so we might be able to use one of those for this challenge! I know bloggers don't really write about anything too important, so that just means we should goof around the whole time!" Gerald smiled proudly before sitting down in the yacht's driver's seat. He blushed as his eyes shot open, and he got up from the seat. "S-sorry, Allan!"
"Stay quiet…stay very quiet…" A woman's voice could be heard echoing throughout the stairwell at the very top of the Neon Nights Hotel, but a gander to see who it was revealed only an odd figure in a trench coat and a fedora. Their body was entirely covered from head to toe, only the whites of their eyes really sticking out in any way at all. The way they ran up the stairs was frantic, in an almost panicking manner that matched how Jhin would be running around, but the figure was definitely more curvaceous than Jhin.
"I don't think anybody followed me up here, did they?" The woman glanced behind herself as she reached the top of the stairs, trying to see if anyone had followed her, and being delightfully surprised to see that that wasn't the case. An exasperated breath fled her lips as she turned back to open the door, seeing the fully empty bonfire scene. The neon flames weren't on at the moment, nor was the Hyperspace Tube of Losers, and it just looked like the scene had no life in it at all.
"It's so empty up here…it almost doesn't feel right," the woman brushed straight past the elimination ceremony scene, making her way to the edge of the building and staring out at the world below. She could feel her heart beating faster and faster by the second, as a smile creaked its way onto her face. "Oh…but it really does feel so right. Neon City!" The woman shouted down at the ground below, hoping to garner the attention of anyone who might've been down there. Somehow, the wind ended up carrying her voice down there rather than billowing it away, and a few of the bloggers from before looked up to see what the buzz was.
"Take a good look at this!" The woman grabbed at her fedora and trenchcoat, pulling them off in one swift motion and tossing them to the wind. As they flew away from the rooftop, Giselle stood proudly, exposing her entirely naked body to the world below with a grin on her face. She couldn't hear anything below, she couldn't see anything below, but something told her that they saw her just fine. She leaned over again, cupping her hands around her mouth, "If anyone wants to be my special little baby, you know where to find me!" She happily strutted away from the edge, whistling as a post about a crazy nudist on top of the hotel roof was uploaded to the blog.
Confessional - Giselle
"This article…it's pretty harsh, no?" Giselle frowned as she read the article, still completely nude as she sat in her car. "They're not even calling me hot, or saying that they want me to coddle them! They're just calling me crazy! I swear, all my babies can be so unappreciative…"
"Aren't you gonna go out and try to get people to write about you on the blog, Morgan?" Marshmallow tilted her head at her much taller teammate as they walked through the tenth floor hallway. The shorter of the pair had her hands full to the brim with sweets of all sorts, not that that was out of place for her or anything, but it was definitely a lot more than she'd typically be bringing with her in her travels.
"Why I gotta be doin' that? I'm already on the blog," Morgan smirked as she revealed her phone screen to Marshmallow, showing her an article that talked about a cheerleader that had to be a supermodel with how hot she was. "All it took was me going outside for a few minutes. That's why I be saying that I'm always coming at ya like a flashbang!"
"Woah…that's pretty cool! M-most people don't think I'm really attractive or anything, so I have to admit, I'm a little jealous, nyah!" Marshmallow made a happy cat noise while Morgan deadpanned, confusing the sugar-loving loli. "Why are you making that face? Did I do something wrong? My cousin says I can be pretty dumb sometimes, so I would understand if I did."
"Gurl, ain't no one gonna be finding you attractive if you're always acting like a little kid. They all gon' be thinking you're jailbait." Morgan strutted over to her doorway while Marshmallow stood out in the hall and stared at her. "Word of advice for ya: lose the kitty ears and drop the uwu noises. Might give ya some help in getting people to think you're at least kind of a babe." With that snarky statement, the cheerleader slammed her door behind her, going to lay down in her bed while Marshmallow shrugged her shoulders.
"I dunno, I thought all that stuff was pretty cute, nyah…" Marshmallow turned around and started to wobble back towards the elevator, trying her best not to drop any of her sweets on the way over there. Once she got in, she pressed the button for the lobby, and started to descend while she hummed along with the elevator music. When she got down to the lobby floor, she walked right past the crowd of bloggers and sat herself down at a table in front of them, putting all of her sweets down with her.
"Ahem…" She cleared her throat, and some of the bloggers looked up at her while they mumbled and held their phones at the ready. Seeing all the eyes on her made her feel a little out of place at first, but she took a deep breath and started talking right at them. "Nyah, nyah! Welcome to my mukbang challenge everybody! Today, I'm gonna eat every single one of these sweets in twenty minutes tops! And, and! I won't even hurl! Watch this!" Marshmallow opened her jaw wide and started to suck in all of the sweets like a vacuum cleaner on its most powerful setting, honestly scaring a good deal of the bloggers while they typed out their posts about a sugar-craving monster in the hotel lobby.
Confessional - Marshmallow
"Nyah…" Marshmallow sniffled as she shook an empty bag of candy, praying that something would fall out of it only to be met with the disappointing realization that nothing would. "That was the last of my candy…well…I can probably convince Zayden to let me borrow some money for more. That's what I did when I ran out yesterday! And the day before! And the day before that, and the day before that, and the-"
"We have to…get people talking about us?" Heath sat in the corner of the lobby, glancing at Jean-Paul, who was sitting in his lap. "...What should we do to get them to talk about us, then? It seems like some of our teammates already got the right idea…" The puppeteer grabbed his phone to see all the posts that had been posted already. There was Morgan and Marshmallow from Team A-Side, with Giselle being the only member from Team B-Side until a new one popped up at the top of the screen.
"Huh? 'Football player and his unassuming friend take each other on in a drink-off, each do fifteen shots, headbutt each other, and pass out.' Well…guess that's what Atlas and Bec decided to do." Heath slowly stood up from the floor, picking Jean-Paul up with him. The boy started to walk towards the bloggers, but when he saw just how many of them there were, he froze where he stood. "That's…that's a lot of people over there."
"Yeah, a lot of friends that we can make small talk with!" Jean-Paul started clattering his jaw to speak while Heath looked down at him nervously. "There's so many of them over there, we would really be missing out if we didn't go and talk to them!" The puppet seemed to be pretty excited to go over there, but Heath still wasn't moving from where he stood. "Heath! What's the matter with you, big guy? Cat got your tongue? I doubt it, cause there ain't a single cat here!"
"I was just thinking that maybe we could get ourselves on the blog in a way that doesn't involve us going right into that crowd to talk to people…" Heath forced a soft smile onto his face, only for Jean-Paul to, obviously, give him the same blank stare as usual. "...I know, you don't really like that idea, but if we go in there, all that'll happen is I'll stand still and look…I don't know, creepy, or something like that."
"Well what are you going to do that'll get us on the blog without talking to them, then? Last time I checked, our entire routine revolved around, what was it now? Oh, right…US TALKING!" Heath whimpered after Jean-Paul shouted at them, and he noticed that the crowd was starting to look his way. In a nervous flurry, he jumped out through one of the lobby windows, landing in a bush outside in the front yard. The puppet slowly poked his wooden hand up from the bush, soon slamming it back down upon Heath's head. "That was just dumb, Heath."
"...Ow."
Confessional - Heath
"Y-you all might have noticed that I'm really not good with other…people. I've probably said it before, but Jean-Paul is sort of the talker for the two of us. With one or two people, it's bad, but can be manageable…but when it's a massive group like all those bloggers? I'd be frying in my own oil just standing near them." Heath shuddered before Jean-Paul bonked him on the head again, "H-hey! I said I was sorry, already!"
"You only said that because that's what you think I want to hear! I wanna go talk to all those people, Heath!" Jean-Paul didn't look angry on his still face, but he sure sounded angry, only making Heath feel more nervous.
"Yeah, that was about as easy as I thought it would be…I admit, I didn't expect that video to get as much attention as it did, though." Eli rubbed the back of his head with one hand while using the other to scroll through the comments of the video he had posted, smirking wider and wider with each "consoomer" hate message that he read. "I gotta appreciate the reactions, though. Nice to see people aren't afraid to be completely wrong on the internet. Now, what to do with the rest of my time, then? Hm?" He had been walking through one of the hallways of the hotel, which is when he noticed Edward standing all the way down at the other end, mumbling to himself while scribbling on his arms, per the usual.
"Are you trying to just spook the bloggers by standing in the corner all silent like a kid from one of those horror movies? If that's what you're going for, then good luck. I don't think it'll work too well for ya." Eli slowly tucked his phone back into his pocket, walking over to where Edward was standing, though the small boy didn't seem to notice him standing there. Eli snapped his fingers a few times in attempts to get his attention, but that didn't work, and he soon leaned down to talk right in his ear. "Hey, Earth to Ed!"
"Don't call me Ed, please. Reminds me of…" Edward paused for a minute in his speech, though his writing suddenly picked up in pace and got a lot more erratic. It didn't even seem that he was writing words anymore, just scribbling wildly. "...It reminds me of nothing. My apologies, sometimes I get too far in my own head. Normally, wine helps me mellow out some, but the pubkeeps in this city will hardly look at my ID, they just mistake me for a munchkin."
"What's wild about that is that I didn't actually ask or anything, but good for you? Or bad for you, I guess." Eli shrugged his shoulders, just feeling as if he was talking to himself with Edward's complete refusal to look at him during their conversation. "What're you writing there, anyways? It all just looks like…nothing."
"It's not nothing, you just can't read the text in this font. It's not meant to be read, anyhow…I just find that writing things down helps me remember them better." Edward tucked his pen behind his ear, cracking his neck a bit before finally looking back at Eli. "...It's notes, I suppose. I've tried a few things to get those bloggers writing about me, but I don't think they've taken interest. So, I've been watching the others, seeing what works and all the like. Should help me come up with a game plan from here."
"...Uh…yeah, right. I mean, that doesn't really check out, though." Edward looked mildly confused as he looked to Eli for explanation, getting a sigh from his "ally." "You really are helpless in this challenge, hu? Okay, think of it this way…every time something gets done in repeat, it becomes less and less entertaining than the first. Same would go for all of the things that the others are doing…if you just try to copy them, it'll be old news. Gotta think up something on your own."
"...I see. That makes sense, yes…so you're saying I have to do something original." Edward tucked his hands into his pockets and started to walk away from Eli, "I'll have to get cooking, I suppose. Thanks for the advice, Eli."
"...Yeah, no problem, Ed…ward."
Confessional - Edward
"...I don't care for my pa. Not the type of gentleman I'd like to turn out as." Edward paused and looked down at his own hands, his fingers twitching while his eyes started bugging out. "...I won't turn out the way he did, though. I don't believe I have it in me to be like that. …Oh, yes…Eli's a subtle ally in his methods of providing me assistance. Just a comment here or there regarding things I could do to yield better results. I prefer this type of ally than a really vocal one."
Confessional - Eli
"I'm still really not sure how I ended up hanging out with the baby man more than anyone else here…I was kinda hoping I could spend more time with someone at least entertaining…or hot. Guess he's okay, though." Eli let out a sigh as he shrugged his shoulders, "Would probably suck if he got eliminated tonight I guess."
"Hey, HAILEY? Tell me, what's the grip strength on my arms at this moment?" Elward stood in front of the hotel, staring up at the top of it while one of his hands moved to depress the button in his hearing aids. HAILEY popped out on her holographic screen, smiling sweetly at her master, though he didn't seem to return the loving gaze.
"Yes, master! Your average grip strength at this given moment…forty-seven pounds! That's three pounds higher than the average woman's! And nearly thirty pounds lower than the average man's!" Elward looked at HAILEY with complete despair in his expression, his face seeming like it was almost about to melt right off. "Oh! I mean…you actually have the average grip strength of two-hundred ninety-six pounds! Big wow, master! You're really strong!"
"I'm that strong, huh?" Elward grinned and closed his eye as he reached up to stroke his chin, his ego getting the best of him with HAILEY's help. "I suppose it wouldn't be too difficult for me to try climbing this hotel wall, then! Since I could grab onto pretty much anything with no issues!"
"Er…master, I don't know if-" Elward ignored HAILEY as he started walking towards the wall of the hotel, making sure that there were at least a few of the bloggers paying attention to him. "S-surely there is something else you could try doing, master! This just seems…like it won't really be blogworthy, or anything like that! Yep, that's it! You could always makeoutwithme invent something in front of them! Oh, maybe something like a robotbodythatIcaninhabitsowecanmakeout a portable toaster! You could do that, lickitysplit!"
"You know I don't like it when you talk all that fast mumbo jumbo, I can't make out the different words that fast!" Elward glared at HAILEY, who looked absolutely heartbroken when she felt the impact of that look. "Now, just hush, and let your master show these bloggers how to scale a building!" The inventor cracked his knuckles, wiggling his fingers after to get ready to start climbing the wall when an anvil suddenly landed right on top of his head, knocking him right to the ground in a second.
"Master!" HAILEY's holographic screen hovered over to Elward, floating down near him on the ground before suddenly speaking again, "A new blog post just got uploaded! 'Idiot gets crushed by an anvil while trying to climb a wall!' That's my idiot– I mean, my master!"
"Urmph…" Elward just laid there on the ground as the camera slowly panned up to show an open window on the third floor, where Jhin was grinning while dusting her hands.
"Heheheheh! Maybe that doofus shouldn't have been standing where I was dropping my anvil! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand…" The crazy girl reached down into her underwear and grabbed her phone from it, smiling like a maniac as she saw another post about some lunatic throwing anvils out of a hotel window. "Bingo, baby!"
Confessional - HAILEY
"My master is a big macho man in everything he does, can't you tell? That's why that anvil didn't kill him! He's too macho to let something that silly end his life!" HAILEY beamed as she spoke about Elward, who was currently passed out on his motorcycle. "Ahhh, so manly…so dreamy…"
Confessional - Jhin
"Aw, you've gotta be kidding me!" Jhin grumbled in annoyance as she held her anvil up, showing it to the camera. "There's a big dent in my anvil, now! Stupid Elward and his stupid head, I paid good money for this thing and he went and ruined it!" She chucked the anvil back out through her window, unknowingly throwing it right at Elward just as he was finally recovering from being passed out. It knocked him off the bike, and an exclamation point hologram flashed above HAILEY's head.
"I gotta say, this crazy girl somehow manages to surprise me with everything she does! Drinking the mattress fluff, having some sort of hallucination, chucking an anvil out a window; she's the gift that keeps on giving!"
"I can't believe…hic…some twits already went and had a…hic…drink-off!" Cherry groaned as she wobbled out of the bar in the hotel's lobby, clearly having a hard time supporting her own body with how visibly drunk she was. "And that 3V, she gets a hic post written about her because she hic started a bar fight! I could start a fight just as well as she hic could!" The party gal wobbled over to a couch in the main lobby, taking a seat on it to relax for a moment. "I'll have to think of something else…I can't be the last one still in need of a post on my team, though. Certainly there are more."
"You're right, there are more," Cherry jumped up and screamed, not having noticed Amanda sitting on the other end of the same couch. The investor winced when she heard the scream, but seemed to recover from the shock fairly quickly. "Edward, Leo, Zayden, and yourself remain. Garfield was the most recent to get his on our team. He found a ghost in the hotel's basement…and managed to shoo it away. I think that's impressive, what do you think?"
"A-Amanda, love, please…don't startle me like that, hic!" Cherry slowly sat herself back down, exhaling a deep breath through her lips while Amanda stared and watched. "So, that must mean you've already gotten yourself on the blog, then? How'd you manage that, love?"
"It wasn't incredibly difficult…I just gave them some information regarding proper investing strategies. Such as putting small amounts into smaller stocks. Less of a loss if they tank and they can sometimes result in large gains. They thought I had insider information with how extensive my investments had gotten from my initial investments." Amanda lightly smiled as she droned on and on about her stocks, "I work for an investing firm, I've been investor of the month since the start of my employ. I'm the only employee that hasn't taken a loss greater than five dollars in my entire career there. My boss often has me assist him with his own stocks! Sometimes the others do, too. Do you invest at all, Cherry?"
"Huuuuuuuuuuuuuh?" Cherry had this look on her face that suggested that Amanda was just sputtering gibberish at her. "...I don't think I understood a word you said to me, Amanda." The investor got this dull frown on her face when she heard that, shriveling up a bit in her seat.
"I'm sorry that I ruined your mood, then. I just like talking about stocks…I'm good at stocks. I'm really good at stocks." Amanda's lip started to quiver as she fumbled around in her jacket pocket to get her coin, but she ended up fumbling it onto the floor. Her face dropped to something of pure agony as she saw it roll around down there. "Oh no…no no no…"
"What's the matter? It's right there, you can just go grab it." Cherry lightly chuckled, thinking that Amanda was just joking with how upset she was, but when her eyes started welling up with tears, she saw that it wasn't so much a joke. "Oh, dear…er…not really sure what I'm supposed to do here. Um…okay, up we go…" She groaned again as she lifted herself off the couch, wobbling over to the coin and scooping it up before handing it over to Amanda, who just stared at it in her hand.
"...I-it's dirty, why are you touching it?" Amanda looked a bit less sad than before, now just more confused than anything. "Y-you don't touch dirty things, they have germs, the germs are bad. Germs are really bad."
"Well, yeah…I can just wash my hands later, though. Or you could just scrub the coin, if that's what you'd like to do. 'Sides, love, dirty things can be awfully fun sometimes." Cherry snickered at her own crass joke while Amanda tilted her head at her in more confusion. "...You know…it was a sex joke, darling."
"Oh. I don't get those too well, sorry. I never did that, not even once."
"Somehow that doesn't surprise me. That's beside the point, do you want your coin back?" Cherry shook the coin a bit, and Amanda whimpered before slowly taking it back in her hand. She looked like she had just committed a crime with that miserable expression, but after she started flipping the coin, she began to calm back down. "I'm never going to understand your obsession with that tiny piece of nickel."
"It helps me calm down whenever something bad happens. I have a whole collection of coins. I could show them to you!" Amanda's eyes lit up with excitement while Cherry nervously smiled and dug around in her pocket.
"I-I think I got a notification, maybe another one of our…teammates…has…" Cherry stared at her phone screen, making sure she was reading the words right before suddenly screaming in horror and running away. Again, Amanda winced at the scream, but recovered fairly quickly. She went to go look at Cherry's phone, which landed next to her on the couch, only to see a post about a "cute couple" on a date in the hotel lobby.
"Oh, that's weird. I didn't see anybody else in here…wait, Cherry forgot her phone. M-mm…" Amanda took a deep breath before grabbing the phone, her eye twitching for a second before she calmed back down. "I-I'll go find her."
Confessional - Cherry
"I-I've just had too much sauce, that's it! I must've misread that whole post! W-when I check it in the morning, it'll say something else, I'm sure!" Cherry looked terribly nervous as she sat in her car. She slowly glanced at her fuzzy dice before giving them a few flicks, only to slam her hands down on her lap. "Oh, familiar items don't help, Amanda! What happy pills are you on!?"
"Wow, Allan! That was definitely a lot easier than I thought! It was really funny that they thought I just wasn't wearing a belt when my pants fell down, but the look on their faces when they saw you pulling my pants back up, man, that was priceless! Not really sure why that was really blog worthy, though. What did that post say again?" Gerald leaned down a bit, staring at something entirely invisible while his expression began to sour. "...Tch. Whatever, I don't care about those bloggers, anyways! They just left you out of the whole article, those jerks!"
"Yeah, some people just don't get it! They think people like us are just a bunch of schizos or something!" Suzie shook her head as she popped out of the ceiling vent and landed next to Gerald, her eyes shooting open before she jumped up from the ground. "S-sorry, Allan! I hope I didn't crush you too bad or anything…" Gerald stared at Suzie blankly for a moment, piecing things together as he watched her help Allan off of the floor.
"Wait, wait, wait! You're…you're not telling me that I'm crazy! You're helping Allan after you fell on him!" Gerald looked stoked as Suzie glanced back at him in confusion.
"Uh…yeah, that seemed like the polite thing to do. I vented in the wrong place at the wrong time, so I had to make up for it." Suzie giggled and gave Allan a gentle pat on the back, though to the passing bloggers, it just looked like she was smacking the air.
"All these years of people gaslighting me and telling me that Allan doesn't exist, there's finally somebody that's being one hundred percent real with me! I almost thought this day would never come, but here we are!" Gerald reached forward, presumably grabbing Allan's arms as the two of them started spinning around in a circle, dancing to their heart's content. "Oh, this is just the best day! We've finally-"
Confessional - Suzie
"...I have no idea who Allan was, I thought we were just pretending to be crazy." Suzie looked a bit embarrassed of herself as she shrunk down in her seat.
"-Met someone that isn't like all of the others!" Gerald finally stopped spinning around and stood proudly, smiling at Suzie, who was just trying her best to return the smile. "Well? Aren't you gonna shake Allan's hand? Don't leave him hanging, haha!"
"O-oh, right!" Suzie flushed with red, reaching a hand forward and shaking it, getting a horrified look back from Gerald. "W-what?"
"M-maybe watch what you're grabbing at next time, yeah?" Gerald awkwardly shuffled away from Suzie, leaving her to think about what happened before her face turned even more red and she ran the opposite direction out of her own embarrassment.
Confessional - Gerald and Allan
"I-it's okay, Allan, maybe that's just how Suzie greets people she just met! We can't get upset with her for whatever her culture is!" Gerald patted his friend on the back, looking almost guilty as he glanced at the camera. "H-he's gonna be up all night thinking about this, I just know it…"
"What even did that lil' weirdo grab, homeslice!? Why are so many of these people absolutely deranged!?"
"You're wasting your time in here. You're supposed to be doing a challenge, right? So, why are you fucking around in my office?" Gwendolyn's look had changed up a bit from the nurse's outfit she had been wearing before. Now, she had on a pink doctor's coat, wearing a red turtleneck sweater under it and form-fitting black jeans. Her shoes had changed up as well, being black pumps. She rummaged around through a cupboard in her little office, while Bailey sat on the cot in the corner and kicked her feet back and forth. "Well? You got an answer, or are you just gonna sit there and stare at me?"
"W-w-well, it was just…I tried, but nobody seemed really interested in what I-I was trying to do. I came by cause I thought y-y-you might have some good ideas or something." Bailey rubbed her mittened hands together, with Gwendolyn spinning around to stare at her. The doctor had ditched the ponytail look she had been known for, as well, her hair just loosely falling down past her rear with how long it was. "...Y-you know a lot about a lot of things and all."
"I don't really give a damn about bloggers or what they're blogging, though. None of my business nor my fucking concern. For once, I have to say that you've come to the wrong place for a second opinion." Bailey frowned behind her scarf and slowly started getting up from the cot to walk out the door, though Gwendolyn called out to her before she left. "Ahem, the doctor didn't dismiss you yet. Some patients have a lot of nerve, leaving in the middle of my sentences."
"I-I-I was under the impression that you saying I came t-t-to the wrong place was you telling me to l-leave." Bailey turned back around, scuffing her boots as she awkwardly glanced towards the floor. Gwendolyn groaned and walked over to her, grabbing her by the hand and placing something in her mittens. The ice cube looked down to see what it was, only to find that they were odd looking packets of some powder. "What are these?"
"They're instant heat pads, are you dense? Don't know why you of all people wouldn't know what they are." Gwendolyn rolled her eyes, with Bailey just looking embarrassed of herself. "You rub them together, they warm up. Tuck them in your mittens and in your boots, your feet and hands will definitely get the worst of your Raynaud's. Typically, I'd charge, but I'm feeling generous, so you can just take 'em."
"T-thank you…" Bailey gently smiled, even though Gwendolyn didn't look at all pleased with her. With that, the freezy pop turned to leave the room, but when she walked out into the hall, she slipped over a randomly placed banana peel, landing on her face in front of a few of the bloggers. Gwendolyn, again, groaned, helping her off of the ground and bringing her back in the office to deal with the nosebleed. A post was updated about a secret banana peel-leaving villain attacking some poor girl with a disease, checking Bailey off of the list of people that needed to go still. As the bloggers shuffled away from the scene, Heath stood off to the side with Jean-Paul staring at him annoyedly.
"That plan didn't work at all! I told you that you'd have to just run for it the second we put the peel down or someone else would slip over it!" Heath tried to open his mouth to say something, but he got smacked in the back of the head by Jean-Paul, knocking his top hat right off of his curly hair. "And now we're back to square one!"
Confessional - Heath
"O-okay, so we've tried a few things and they haven't necessarily worked out…but our team is in the lead right now. It's just me and Eliza left at the moment…but the other team still has Edward, Leo, and Zayden." Heath sighed as he placed his top hat back on his head, working to get it in place again. "...I've got some more ideas though. One of them is bound to work."
"Yeah, that's what he always says!" Jean-Paul grumbled from Heath's lap.
"This should be somewhat interesting to the bloggers, yes?" Edward mumbled to himself as he looked around the hallway he was standing in. He had gone to some local kids' pizza place, "borrowing" the costumes of the animatronic band to use for some sort of stunt. It was creepy just looking at the outfits, which he had placed on a few fashion mannequins that he had "borrowed" from Leo's room. "Yes…they'll definitely get something out of this. It looks like they're coming this way, too." The boy glanced around the corner as he heard footsteps approaching, and he got ready to do his bit.
"This is pointless…I've been driving all around town, delivering free pizzas, and not one person was posted about me! What else am I supposed to do?" Eliza lamented as she came down to the hallway from the opposite side that the bloggers were coming from. She rubbed her tired eyes as she complained, "I have to figure something out, quick…I told everyone back home that I wouldn't be going down without a fight. I still have time, I think…" The pizza delivery girl let out a sigh and pulled her hands back from her eyes, all of her movements coming to a total halt when she saw the hallway. It seemed like her mind was buffering with the way she was just standing there, and Edward watched her out of curiosity.
"Huh…this kind of reminds me of…" Eliza's eyes slowly started to widen as the realization came to her, and she let out a horrendous, ear-splitting screech. The bloggers were immediately caught by the scream, but what really captivated them came next. Eliza ripped a fire extinguisher right off of the wall, readying it and firing out foam all over at everything as she shouted like a madwoman. "FIRE! FIRE! EVERYBODY GET OUT OF HERE!" Edward hadn't even been given a second to try to run before he was covered in the foam, disappearing from everyone's sight. As she ran out of juice to use from the extinguisher, and the mannequins were no longer visible, she dropped it to the ground, heaving heavily while the bloggers just blankly stared at her.
"...T-there was a fire…and…a-animatronics…quirky at this time of night…ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, this is really embarrassing…" Eliza's cheeks turned bright red, and she ran back to the way she came from while the bloggers posted about her "episode." Team B-Side was only left with Heath that needed to be written about. The bloggers walked right past all the foam, their attention once again focused on their phones while Edward pulled himself out of his foamy prison.
"...Bollocks," the boy grunted and brushed off as much of the foam as he could before he brought his hand up to his chin in thought. "...That's five failed plots at this point. With Eliza blogged about…hm…seems our team is in danger yet again. I'll have to come up with something quickly…being in the hot seat this early would be a damn shame. …Hell, something will come to me quickly. I…think."
Confessional - Edward
"...I hate to say it, but it seems as though I'm not having as much of an easy time with this as I'd thought. I hardly noticed that Leo and Zayden were already in the midst of getting themselves on the blog." Edward groaned as he looked through his phone, finding himself more and more dismayed with each post he'd looked at. "Zayden was just nonchalantly strolling through a hallway…his fashion taste caught their eyes. As far as things went for Leo, it seems somebody strung him up on a flagpole by his knickers. Wonder who that might've been…"
Confessional - Jhin
"Okay, don't you even start looking at me like that! Elward and Leo practically look like the exact same person if they had absolutely nothing similar about them whatsoever! It was in the heat of the moment, I was still upset about my anvil!" Jhin huffed through her nostrils; the unconscious Elward was still laying on the ground near his bike, just past her vehicle.
Confessional - Leo
"I-I think I have brush burns on my cheeks…a-and not the cheeks on my face." Leo whimpered while he rubbed his rear end with an ice pack that was given to him from the staff doctor. "A-and Gwendolyn s-sure had a lot of things to say about how I even got up there in the first place…"
Confessional - Elward
"Ugh…how long have I been out here?" Elward slowly pulled himself up and off of the ground, looking around to recollect himself when Jhin suddenly pounced out of her car and tackled him, causing him to let out a yelp while HAILEY just watched and winced.
"Heheh…I totally won that fight!" 3V beamed as she danced into the lobby of the hotel, still entirely wasted from when she got into a bar fight. As she pranced about, she ended up bumping into somebody, that somebody being Edward, who was still thinking to himself, per the usual. She almost knocked him flat onto the ground in her drunken daze, but when she shook her head and looked around for what she bumped into, she didn't see anything. "Wha-? Are they just putting invisible walls all over the place now? Heheh…'You Haven't Unlocked This Area Yet!' Like one of those nerd games."
"You're absolutely off in the mental, aren't you?" Edward slowly scooted away from 3V, looking up at her as her drunk eyes finally managed to wander down to see his face. "Oh…you're blasted, that's what it is. Seems quite a deal of you got yourselves drunk during this challenge. Must be nice."
"Hang on a minute, hold the phone!" 3V's face lit up with immense excitement as she scooted right up to Edward. He even looked a bit nervous when he saw the way that her eyes were twinkling at him. She placed both of her prosthetic hands upon her cheeks, cooing while she saw him. "You're just a kid! Someone let their adorable lil' baby man run off on his own! Ah! And that means…I have to find where your parents are!"
"W-what on Earth are you on about? We're both competing in the same show, I'm in my twenties!" Edward grunted and started to walk away, but 3V scooped him right up off of the ground and started to cradle him in her arms. "P-put me down, you skag!"
"Oh, such a potty mouth on this baby man! Don't you worry, lil' guy! It'll be my sworn duty to rescue you and take you back to your parents, wherever they might be!" Edward looked beyond pissed, and even more so when he saw that not only were passersby and members of both teams looking his way, but also a good deal of the bloggers that were still in the lobby.
"I-I am telling you to put me down, don't your ears work at all!?"
"Mmm…yeah, one of them kinda does!" 3V moved Edward about to cradle him in just one arm while she lifted the other to point at the burnt side of her face. "This one, not so much! Yeesh, though…you're pretty cranky. Guess that makes sense, since it is super late at night."
"That's…Edward, right?" Heath mumbled from the far side of the lobby, still hiding in the corner with Jean-Paul. He tilted his head at him in wonder before he received a slap across the cheek from the puppet, immediately grabbing his attention.
"HEATH! Would you stop paying attention to 3V and Edward for two seconds and realize that we're about to lose the challenge!? Look!" Jean-Paul's arm raised to point at the bloggers, a good deal of them typing away on their phones as Edward did his best to scramble out of 3V's clutches. Heath let out a soft gasp, and tried to run out onto the scene, though he felt a buzzing in his pocket, wincing as he could only imagine what sort of notification it was. Not that he was given a chance to check, anyways, as Chris waltzed out into the lobby from the bar, teetering back and forth.
"Would you look at that? Seems that the grand losing streak of Team A-Side is actually coming to a close, because with this recent blog post about 'a midget getting abducted by a burn victim…' they've actually won their first challenge!" Chris wobbled and flopped onto the floor, seeming to have had a bit too much to drink, just as some of the contestants had. Most of Team A-Side was left speechless at the sudden victory, while Team B-Side felt a wave of dismay wash over them. Chris belched before weakly groaning from the floor, "Team B-Side, up to the rooftops with ya!"
Confessional - Giselle
"Who to vote for, who to vote for…? 3V helped the last member of the other team get their post written…but Heath was the only member of our team that didn't end up on the blog…oh, it's too hard to decide!" Giselle whined as she looked at all the pictures of her teammates, "They all look like perfect babies to momma! I guess Jhin did attack Elward a whole bunch during the challenge…I-I'm sorry, Jhin!" The MILF wannabe regretfully stamped a picture of Jhin.
Confessional - 3V
"Okay, in my defense…he's like four feet tall– tops! How was I supposed to know that he was actually a contestant?" 3V shrugged her shoulders, a drunken smile across her face as she stamped a picture of Heath. "Heath didn't get on there, so I think I'm in the clear. Besides, he seems like the type that can't take a joke…might make him cry, or something. Yeesh, I don't wanna be on the same team as someone like that."
Confessional - Heath
"I-I was expecting to have a bit more time to get something done…it's my own fault, though. I-it makes sense that a total curveball would come at some point in this challenge." Heath lightly sighed as he stamped 3V for his vote, glancing over at Jean-Paul after. "P-please stop judging me like that."
"You should've just let us talk to them, Heath!" The puppet hissed and turned his head fully around to face the window instead of Heath, who just shriveled up where he sat.
Confessional - Jhin
"I would be an idiot if I didn't vote for that person who caused me so much pain during this challenge! The transgressions against my anvil will not be forgiven!" Jhin stamped a picture of Elward repeatedly until his face couldn't be seen on it anymore. "There, I think I made my point!"
"Haha, looks like these babes and bros are a mixed bag on this one! Who am I betting for? Hard to say…kind hope it ain't Jhin, though! She's been really giving me a good laugh this whole time!"
For the first time, Team B-Side found themselves on top of the hotel's roof, each of them seated around the neon fire, some mixed emotions thrown about the group. Jhin was glaring pretty intensely at Elward, though he was entirely passed out from being attacked by her so many times during the challenge. Atlas and Bec were wobbling back and forth, each of them like a pendulum set to the same tempo, as they both held a bottle of the same brand and flavor of beer. Giselle nervously crossed her fingers as she looked at 3V, who was already drinking again, clearly not having learned her lesson about how that gets her in trouble. Gerald made sure to sit far away from Suzie, who just blushed as she avoided eye contact with him. Heath had Jean-Paul sat in his lap, the puppet staring up at his master with his usual blank expression, though the master could tell that he was upset with him. Eliza and Bailey were the final two, both seated next to each other and wrapped in one giant blanket. Eliza was trembling out of her own nervousness, while Bailey was shivering from the cold she felt.
"Alright, maggots! Chris got himself black out drunk, which means that I'll be handling your first elimination ceremony of the season!" Chef was the only member of the hosting duo that was up on the roof, having ten drink tickets in his hands. "You ain't been up here yet, so a little explanation on how this whole thing works! You guys lost, you guys voted, and now I get the honor of telling you who's safe and who's out! Everyone who's safe gets a drink ticket to use in any bar throughout the city, and for the one that ain't safe…you'll be going to this thing!" Chef gestured to the lit up tube behind him, a few contestants finding themselves captivated by its luminosity. "This is the Hyperspace Tube of Losers! You get your butt in it, you shoot off to who knows where! Get it, got it, good! Our safe contestants tonight…Eliza, Atlas, Giselle, Gerald, Suzie, Bec, Bailey! No one voted for you guys, you're all in the clear!"
"Woohoo!" Bec and Atlas drunkenly shouted in unison before headbutting each other, just like they had during the challenge. They slumped over after, each snoring loudly as their drink tickets were dropped onto their heads by Chef.
"H-hey, why didn't you call Allan's name? I-is he not safe?" Gerald whimpered until Chef rolled his eyes and passed an imaginary drink ticket to Allan, getting the other member of the duo to sigh out of relief. "Thank goodness…we live to see another day, buddy!"
"Elward, your cranium left a big dent in Jhin's anvil! She spent good money on that thing…but you're safe." Chef dropped the ticket in front of the unconscious Elward, causing HAILEY's screen to flash above him.
"You did it, master! You didn't get eliminated!" The hologram cheered, causing Eliza to join the three knocked out boys when she saw her. This left three remaining contestants on the chopping block. Heath tried to make himself look small so people would ignore his existence, Jhin looked offended by this standing, and 3V just seemed puzzled.
"Heath! You's the only member of your team that ain't got themself written about on the blog! Jhin, you attacked Elward during the entire challenge today, ain't made yourself really look like a good teammate! And 3V, you being drunk led to you helping the last member of the other team getting on the blog! Each of you deserves this hot seat tonight! But only one of you can leave…" The three contestants stared at Chef as he held the two final tickets in his hands.
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"...Jhin!" The crazy girl gasped as heard her name coming from Chef's mouth, "...You're also safe!" She felt relieved, taking her ticket from Chef while 3V and Heath's nervousness amped up more than before. The co-host got silent once more.
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"...Heath! You're done, boy!" Chef passed the final drink ticket to 3V, who collapsed as a wave of reassurance washed over her. Heath meekly stood up from his seat, clutching Jean-Paul close to his chest. "Go on, get you and your creepy puppet out of here! Scram!" The boy got all nervous and hurriedly ran to the tube, the lights flashing brightly when he stepped into it. He and Jean-Paul both shot up high into the tube, watching as they flew over the city, getting a good view of everything below them.
"...We lost because of me…I'm sorry, Jean-Paul. I tried…I really tried…" Heath sounded absolutely miserable as he hugged Jean-Paul. The tube's pressure proved to be a bit too much for him to bear, though, and the puppet was sent flying out of his hands and back to the rooftop below. "N-no! Jean-Paul!" He tried desperately to turn himself around in the tube, but it was no use, as he was getting shot away all too fast. He ended up landing in a grassy field far on the outskirts of the city, sitting down and feeling the dewdrops on his clothes while he stared back at the city. It was incredibly far away, he seemed to just be out in the middle of nowhere.
"...Jean-Paul…" Heath sniffled and stood up from the grass, revealing some tears dropping down from the eye that he still had exposed. "I'm…I'm going to come back and get you! I promise!" The boy started frantically running back towards the distant city, an etching of a masquerade mask left right in the grass that he had landed in. He hardly noticed, but there, behind a tree not too far from the landing zone, there was a silhouette of a person.
C.K. Swing Songs: Made You Look by Meghan Trainor
Votes: Heath - 3V, Suzie, Atlas, Bec, Gerald; 3V - Heath, Eliza, Bailey; Jhin - Giselle, Elward; Elward - Jhin
22nd: Henry Yates, the Socially Awkward Kid
21st: Gwendolyn Linelife, the Harsh Doctor
20th: Heath Alghieri, the Puppet Master
Team A-Side: Amanda, Cherry, Edward, Eli, Garfield, Leo, Marshmallow, Morgan, Zayden
Team B-Side: Atlas, Bailey, Bec, Eliza, Elward, Gerald and Allan, Giselle, Jhin, Suzie, 3V