Let's get Episode 3 done and dusted. Thanks for reviewing, OmniIBIBUltraInstinctGodzilla, lordgemini and AnonBrowser.
The second challenge, which was basically Capture the Flag but with ice forts and a not-quite-frozen pond, was a major deal. Because the Rats had won the first challenge, they got to choose between a shack and a castle for their home base.
"Sha-easy!" Lightning shivered. "C-castle!"
"Gotta be a trick!" Scott insisted. "Nice on the outside means nasty on the inside." He turned to me. "We'll take the shack."
Well, Scott was genre savvy, but this time, he was wrong. Neither of them were much better than the other, but at least the castle was sturdier and easier to throw stuff from.
"What a bunch of suckers!" Anne Maria was saying as they reached the castle base, laughing. "Maggots rule!"
I explained all the rules. They knew about capturing the flag, but I also had left a stack of snowballs in their bases. "You can use them to throw at your opponents' base, but be careful, because some will damage your fort if you try to throw them. But if you can destroy your opponent's base before you have got their flag back to your base, you'll still have won. Also, um, B, can you come here a second?"
B looked confused, but left his team to talk to me. I'd thought about this carefully.
"I know you have a tonne of tools in your coat." I said to him quietly. "Anyway, I was thinking, it's not really fair if you have all of those at your team's disposal and the others have nothing at all. I don't want to take them off you, because they're not mechanical. I was thinking, maybe you could just pick one to use if you want, and that can be the only one you'll use in challenges? And every episode, maybe you could leave the others in your cabin or something."
B put a hand on his chin, thinking. Then, he frowned, but opened one side of his coat and pointed to a chisel.
I nodded. "Good thinking. I just feel like your inventing skills are a little unfair on the Maggots, so that should give them a fighting chance. No hard feelings?"
B smiled and gave me a look that told me he understood my reasoning. Then he went back to his team, just as I called everyone to pick a captain (in the end, Jo for the Maggots and Scott for the Rats).
Everyone had different plans. Jo told Brick, Anne Maria and Zoey to capture the flag, while she, Cameron and Mike stayed to guard and defend. Meanwhile, Scott said he'd play defense with B and Dawn, and sent Sam and Lightning out to capture the flag. Sending Sam out was a very strange choice in my opinion, but keeping Dawn was a good move. Except Scott didn't listen to her. She seemed to just know what was in each snowball.
"No, I'm not gonna listen to the snowball," Scott snapped at her, "I'm gonna chuck it!"
"But it's full of negative energy!" Dawn protested.
"So am I," was Scott's reply. The snowball promptly blew up on him.
Dawn's face took on that sympathetic look that made me sure she was going to pull out some psychological thing from his aura. And I was right. "You weren't held enough as a child."
Scott looked weirded out, but he just said "Just pick one already!"
Well, as I said, keeping Dawn was a good move. She chose a snowball that destroyed part of the Maggots' fort, but Scott refused to be impressed, passing it off as lucky.
They got a few lucky - and unlucky - shots, actually. Anne Maria wouldn't go out on offense until Jo snatched her hairspray can off her and threw it halfway across the ice. Definitely a nice move. The snowballs had no effect on her whatsoever, shattering on impact with her hair, so eventually, Brick and Zoey just used her as a shield, pushing her across in front of them. But they did come across the giant beetle, and when Scott pointed out Dawn to it, the beetle didn't try to attack them, and even went to the Maggots when Scott told it to.
Dawn gave Scott this wide-eyed look and said "I didn't know you were a beetle whisperer!" She looked a bit impressed. Scott just looked disconcerted.
As host, it was time for me to comment. "And Scott's communication turns out to work on mutant beetles! Looks like he's drawing a bit on Dawn's magic there."
I could hear Cameron screaming as the beetle attacked him. He was hanging onto the flagpole, crying out "I want my bubble! I want my bubble!"
But they were also unlucky. Sam and Lightning didn't do much at all, and Sam ended up turning into an ice cube when he slid across thin ice and fell into the water below, and Lightning was put out of action when a snowball beaned him in the head.
Jo ended up enlisting Svetlana's help in catapulting across to the flag, noticing the ice was melting. This was because of B, who had used the chisel to get a circle of ice that directed the sun at the Maggots' fort, melting it faster than anything else. The turrets were visibly shorter already. For a moment, I didn't think Mike could do it, but then I heard Cameron say "And first up on the vault, five time Russian champ…"
And then I heard the high-pitched voice with the Russian accent from their castle, and he shot out of the castle fort, declaring "Make way for Svetlana!"
And then, another unexpected thing happened. Svetlana acquired a huge tear in Mike's shirt when she shot right through the snow of the Rats' fort, creating another hole. I saw turquoise material being thrown just outside the vault, and I could just about see. It was Mike's voice, again, but deeper, with a similar accent to Anne Maria. "One side, losers!" he declared, shoving Scott aside and pulling out their flagpole.
I gathered quickly that I was seeing Vito. The hair was suddenly slicked down, like it had gel in it. I instantly disliked him. I mean, Chester seemed like a pain, but at least he had the excuse of being an old man and a frustration outlet, and Mike had said he wasn't out that long. Svetlana was at least useful, although I didn't know much about her personality past her gymnastics obsession. But Vito? He was strong, but he had that kind of "I'm the best" confidence that Lightning had.
When he got the flag free, he held it up to the three Maggots on offense. "You looking for this?"
"Oh, my…" Anne Maria's cheeks gained a pink tint.
Scott ran over. "That's ours! Hand it over!" Vito easily tossed him aside.
Zoey was the next to approach, grabbing hold of Vito's hand. "Mike, let's get it back to our fort!"
Now, I knew enough to know that even acting, Mike would never have pulled his hand away the way Vito did just then. This really was a totally different person. "Ey yo," he said, holding up the hand, "Pasty, you wanna touch the Vito, you gotta make an appointment!"
Poor Zoey. She looked completely shocked and hurt.
I wasn't sure what Vito's objective was. He got the flag out, but he didn't take it over to the Maggots' fort, and he wouldn't let Brick take it off him, either. In fact, they argued so long that they were still there when I called out "Game over! The Maggots no longer have a fort, and so the Toxic Rats win!"
Okay, so I still had to ask Chef to take Lightning to the infirmary and thaw out Sam, but I checked on them later and they seemed fine, ready to take on another challenge in two days.
I did manage to talk to Mike again, after he'd put on a fresh T-shirt, just briefly. "So…Vito came out." I told him. "You said exposure. I think Svetlana tore your shirt, and then Vito took it off completely."
Mike looked embarrassed. "Yeah…that's what I meant. He comes out whenever I take my shirt off. I can keep him in sometimes, like when I'm putting pyjamas on or showering, but that's it." He frowned. "Did he do anything?"
"Well, Anne Maria seemed to like him. As in, she was totally smitten. But I think he hurt Zoey a bit." I admitted. "She took your hand and he said if she wanted to touch him, she needed an appointment. And he also had some possession with the flag and wouldn't take it to the fort. It took so long to convince him that your fort melted. I think that was partly B reflecting light off the sun onto your fort, though."
"I guess that means I'm on the chopping block, then." Mike said softly. "If I made them lose."
I shrugged. "You should probably apologize to Zoey. I'm sure she'll forgive you. Anyway, Vito wasn't the only one who let you guys down today, so who knows? Maybe you'll stay."
When I watched the votes, I also had a look at confessionals. Mike did express how Vito really made things hard for him. Jo talked a little about how every team had a weak link, and she used her leadership to manipulate the weak link, hence how she'd pushed Anne Maria's buttons to make her do something at all. Zoey talked about how the guys at her home were gorgeous, but Mike had the brains to go with it. The jealousy pangs were unmistakable at this point. I was starting to wish Mike would go home, just because it was frustrating. Zoey was so easy to like, but this was actually getting in the way.
As it was, I didn't think it was just luck when I tossed a marshmallow to Mike that night. He had received a couple of votes, but four of them said otherwise.
Mike was the last one to get a regular marshmallow. I tossed it to him, just as Chef held out the Toxic Marshmallow of Loserdom to…
Anne Maria. Yeah, everyone had seen that one coming. However, she just gave a dramatic sigh and stood up. "Yeah, get me outta here. I'd rather not risk my looks any further, okay?"
But before I could say another word, suddenly, there was a scream from the sky, and something pink landed next to the campfire. A hang-glider to be exact, and I recognized the former camper who clawed herself out from under it.
I gave my own dramatic sigh. "It's a good thing we haven't done the Hurl of Shame yet. Dakota, we hurled you two days ago. You know coming back isn't going to get you back into the competition. It didn't work for Zeke, it's not going to work for you."
"I don't care about the money." Dakota shrugged, shaking her long hair out of her helmet. "Like I need it. I just – um, close up, please!" she added to the cameraman, who zoomed in. "Thank you. I just want camera time! People need to see more of my sparkly adorableness if I'm ever gonna get my spin-off reality series!"
"Look, princess, this is legal stuff." I snapped. "I'm not allowed to let you compete again after you were fairly voted off. This isn't like Total Drama Action, you know-" I was cut off by a phone call (yeah, I got to keep my phone this time), as an old Avril Lavigne track played. I quickly answered. "Toni speaking."
It was Dakota's father. He offered an equivalent to the million dollars if I kept Dakota on the island for at least another week. "Okay, you're allowed back on the show." I told Dakota. "But you're still not competing. You don't want the money anyway, so it shouldn't matter. I've got something else you can do instead."
Dakota's green eyes went wide with shock. "So…what am I doing here?"
I smiled a little maliciously. "I promise not to kill you, okay? But you're here as an intern. No work, no camera time! Come to my trailer after the episode's over and I'll grab your uniform and show you where you'll be staying."
So I quickly took Anne Maria to the Dock of Shame and catapult, adding "But at least you'll be here in spirit!" I flicked the ponytail she'd given me. "Thanks. I might actually miss you." Then I finished my outro, gave the other Maggots the okay to leave, and then gave Dakota her interns' uniform, and explained to her what I wanted. "I can call on you basically at any time to help fix up challenges, demo maybe, and just do errands. So, basically you get to play dogsbody. You can still hang out with the others on rest days if I don't need you, but you're on call twenty-four hours every day until the season's over."
I collapsed into bed that night, mentally exhausted.
Yeah, almost forgot to bring Dakota back. And yes, I think her dad offered to match the prize money for Toni if she allowed Dakota to stay on the island. Stay, not compete. I think that's how Chris got away with making her an intern. Also, here's a little question – which Avril Lavigne song do YOU think was Toni's ringtone? I actually don't know what it was, but that's why I'm going to let you reviewers decide. I'll let you know the winner next chapter.
Also, just as a note, you'll have noticed Scott didn't use the ice circle and Sam to melt his fort. The reason for this (though Toni didn't notice it), is because he meant to, but noticed Dawn wasn't watching the commotion with Vito as much as she was staring at him, and he knew she wouldn't hesitate to tell the rest of the team if she saw him try anything. That's why the Maggots end up losing this time. Also, I wanted to lose Anne Maria for reasons that I think are becoming obvious. And what better time than when she was at her laziest?
