Right, okay. Go-karts. From Chef. And hey, Toni's favourite delinquent is back! Thanks for reviewing, OmniIBIBUltraInstinctGodzilla, lordgemini and AnonBrowser.
With my favourite intern gone, it was a relief to go to the dock early the next morning to meet the next classic competitor.
"Duncan!" I grinned at my first Total Drama friend. "So how's it going?"
Duncan scowled at me, but I could tell he didn't really mean it. "Great until you talked me into demoing on this stupid show," he said, shrugging. "I thought you actually liked having me on your side."
I gave him a playful shove. "Hey, you didn't have to say yes. Anyway, it's not like I'm burying you alive or putting you in the path of mutants. You've got it way easier than Gwen and Lindsay. All you have to do is tag stuff. I'm not even making you steal one of Chef's go-karts, just make up a good easy tag. Something simple and fast."
"Guess it's just a skull with no crossbones, then," Duncan shrugged. "So when am I going to meet these people?"
"Come to my trailer first," I invited him. "Grab a soda and I'll tell you a bit about the people. But you'll have to wait, because I've got something to do first."
Everyone was hanging out by their cabins, luckily. "Hey, guys!" I called, pumping the air horn at the same time. That got everyone's attention.
"The challenge will start in a couple of hours, but you all needed to hear this. And I hope you'll be happy to hear this, because…you six have made the merge! No more teams. Maggots, move your stuff out within the next hour, because we're going to be crushing this cabin. Zoey, you'll move in on Jo's side, and Mike, Scott and Cameron, you'll be rooming with Lightning. I'll see you guys for the challenge!"
Finally, I ran to the mess hall to give Chef due warning. "Um, Chef," I said rather timidly, "I need to ask you a major favour."
Chef turned, looking, as usual, like he was ready to kill something. "And what might this favour be?" he asked quietly.
"I'm supposed to hide keys around your kitchen," I explained, "Which means the final six will kind of…tear this kitchen apart. I'll get the ones who don't go home or have immunity to clean it up tonight. But also, we kind of need your vintage go-karts. The producers made me do it, so please don't kill me."
Chef had been looking progressively madder as I spoke, but as I said that, he sort of relaxed a little. "And you want me to just stand by and let them steal?"
"You'll get them back," I said pleadingly, "But that was the favour. You try to stop them. It's just an extra incentive for them to get away on time."
Well, you can guess how well that went down. But at least Chef was happy to try to stop them, so I ran back to my trailer and started giving Duncan an account of what had gone down so far, as well as the cast. He laughed a few times, especially when I told him stuff about the embarrassing trivia game.
"And I thought our cast was full of freaks!" he chuckled. "I guess we were the normal ones."
"There's a few sort of normals in this cast," I said thoughtfully. "Lightning's normal for a jock. Zoey's not weird, just alternative. And I actually like Jo. And when Mike's actually himself, he's pretty much just a nice normal guy."
Duncan watched me as I said this, and then suddenly burst out laughing.
"What?" I scowled.
"You just lit up like a neon sign!" Duncan gasped out. "It's the most obvious crush I've ever seen, and I've dated Courtney!"
I scowled harder. "At least I don't deny it for twelve episodes like she did. He already knows how I feel, but he said he doesn't want to decide right now."
"Smart guy," Duncan remarked. "I've seen enough people letting their crush get in the way."
"Hey, not like I haven't," I pointed out. "Just watching the finale of last season was enough for that." I'd loved seeing Heather get one over on Alejandro, but the fact that she'd been in the position to do so because he'd fallen for her just made it all the sweeter.
"As it is," I went on, "Promise you'll actually do a straight demo? And if you don't, I will make Chrissy force you into another season which will edit the show to make you look like a total goody-goody who's just a poser and trying too hard to be evil?"
Duncan snorted. "Like that could ever happen. But," he said with a sigh, "Considering it's you and considering you're better than Chris and probably weren't planning to force it, I'll tag."
"I'll get the boat back early especially if you want," I grinned. It was kind of nice to hang out as crew members, not contestants for once, or even host and contestant. We were back on an equal level, and despite being on camera too, we were professionals together.
Not too long later, I gathered everyone in front of the mess hall. "Campers," I announced, "I call our first merge challenge Grand Chef Auto! Yeah, I know, the producers like corny titles. Before I send you off, I'll give you a rundown of the three parts. Part one – head to the kitchen and find a key. There's six, so everyone should find one. Don't leave the kitchen until you have a key. Second, Chef has a good amount of antique go-karts. Your job will be to grab the one your key fits and start it up." (Actually, there was only one key that was specific to the go-kart, but I decided to leave that part out – I could always tell the gold key-finder later on if they didn't figure it out). "Chef isn't very pleased about me making you use them, though, so getting away with one is a challenge in itself. Then…well, meet classic competitor, Duncan." I tossed my friend a can of white spray paint. "Wanna do the honours?"
Duncan shrugged and sprayed a skull on the top step into the mess hall.
"We've got three places for you to tag, and all the go-karts have a GPS to show you the landmark," I told the contestants. "No need to do a skull – pick your own shape or symbol to tag. You've all got different colours." I smiled at Duncan. "You can head off whenever you want now. As for you six-" I blew the air horn. "Go!"
Then, as everyone walked away, I was reminded of something. "Oh, wait! I forgot. You really want to win this. The person who gets immunity has sole vote. So if you win, you'll get full control of who goes home. Okay, now go."
As I walked out, I saw Scott pull Mike back out of the corner of my eye. As I turned back, I saw him saying something, and Cameron sidling over to whisper something else to them.
"Oh no," I muttered.
"What?" Duncan asked. "Are you gonna walk me to the dock or what? You told them what to do. Do you have to watch them or something?"
"I'll catch up to the feed as soon as you've left," I answered. "No, I forgot. Cameron told me he accidentally told Scott about Mike's alters and I'm guessing he's just making a deal or something. They're the only ones who know. Cameron's been pressing Mike to tell Zoey, but he's too worried about scaring her off. I guess Scott's holding that threat over him."
As I found out on the feed after Duncan had gone, this was exactly right. Every time Mike didn't do something Scott said, Scott threatened to tell Zoey about his alters. When Mike was the one who found the gold key, Scott insisted on swapping his own silver one out. He couldn't even help Zoey when a mutant got ahold of her pigtails without Scott ordering him to do something else (she freed herself in the end).
Go-kart stealing was harder. Chef enlisted Fang to guard those he stopped in a small cell (just Jo and Lightning). Scott's gold go-kart didn't work at all, but he made Mike tow him. However, for a long time, Zoey was in the lead, tagging a pink heart. Cameron was second to the first landmark, but took forever tagging it in purple. He was still there by the time Scott and Mike arrived (a blue cross and a green tick respectively) and left.
I was more interested in the brig. Jo managed to distract Fang with Lightning, but she got a go-kart that kept stalling. Cameron only finished his picture of me giving him the open suitcase of a million dollars when she arrived and drew her black prohibition sign, and Lightning, after promising to take Fang to Scott (apparently he had been cross ever since Scott got away with part of one of Fang's teeth), was able to stop by and add an orange lightning bolt. Cameron did manage to get to the second landmark fourth at least, and wisely just used the pi symbol to tag it.
As soon as I saw Zoey (still in the lead) reach the totem pole that was the last one, I headed over to see what was going on. But by the time I got there, I saw what had happened.
I'd expected the pink heart. But no, all I saw was a dot of pink, Zoey hanging onto one of the totem pole wings, and a…
A blue cross.
And Scott was standing by the totem pole, looking smug. Mike was already edging up the totem pole, but he'd left his can on the ground, only focused on helping Zoey down, and Cameron had only just arrived. Jo and Lightning were on their way.
"No need to do any more tagging, everyone," I announced as soon as everyone else arrived (and as soon as Fang had almost eaten Scott but ended up with a blue tongue, and I'd called an intern to send him back to the lake), "Scott's already won immunity with full tagging. Congratulations, you have the sole vote." I paused, "However," I added, "I'm suspecting something happened here that wasn't fair, so since Zoey clearly tagged part of the totem pole first, she has no vote, but she does have immunity."
Everyone looked uneasy now. I added "And by the way – Mike, Jo, Lightning, Cameron – I told Chef you four would be cleaning up Chef's kitchen after you had to trash it earlier, so get to it."
Zoey, now rescued, asked "Is it okay if I help them?"
I shrugged. "Sure. Go ahead." Then I looked at Mike purposefully and added, suspecting what would happen next, "I don't think I should be telling you this, but I think Mike has something to tell you."
Zoey didn't exactly look surprised, just curious. I guess she'd noticed something by this point.
Before Mike left with the rest of the group, he stopped to whisper to me crossly "Why did you have to say that?"
"Because she deserves to know, okay?" I whispered back. "If you're so worried she'll ditch you, it would be best to know now. And I'm sure she won't ditch you. And," I paused before I said it. "If you're going to choose her, she won't open up completely unless you tell her."
Mike did tell Zoey eventually, but only after cleaning up the kitchen, while they were sitting on the cabin steps by themselves that evening. I actually watched it on the feed. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you before," Mike said. "I know I should have, but I didn't want you to think I was just some freak, because the real me, really, really likes you."
Zoey, who'd been listening with a neutral expression, suddenly giggled. "Are you kidding?" she said. "I love oddballs, and you're officially the coolest one ever! Multiple personalities just means there's more Mike to love." She frowned a little as she spoke. "What about Toni? Does she know?"
Mike sighed. "She has access to the confessionals as host, remember? I mentioned it in the first week, and she made me tell her everything so she could monitor things."
Zoey nodded. "But what about…you know."
Mike looked at the ground as he spoke. "It's not that I don't like her. I mean, she's cool, she's nice and pretty and funny and all that." Then he looked up at Zoey. "But I feel something more special with you."
Then he suddenly seemed to think of something. "Oh! Is that why she's been acting so weird with you? Because of me?"
"It's okay," Zoey reassured him, "I kind of guessed earlier and she told me. But if you had chosen her, I would have been okay with it. I'd still want to be friends. That's why I came here – to make friends. And I've done that."
I turned off the feed after that. The fight was over. I'd lost.
To be honest, I should probably thank Scott that night. I was really low-energy at the bonfire as I said "Okay, first merge elimination. Scott, eliminate the player of your choice."
Scott stood up, still with that irritating smug look. "Eeny-meeny-miney-mo, who's the biggest lose-i-o?" he recited, clearly enjoying the suspense. "It's Mike!"
I think I was more surprised than anyone else, but it made sense. Mike telling Zoey the truth had lost Scott his blackmailing card.
"Thanks for towing me to victory!" Scott added, laughing.
I did my usual walking the loser down to the catapult. Zoey followed me, but I motioned for her to stay back for a moment.
"I just wanted you to know," I told Mike so quietly that the cameras wouldn't catch it, "That I'm okay with it. And I'd like to keep in touch." Then I kissed him on the cheek (just to let him know my feelings hadn't changed), and said, "And I'll give you a chance to say goodbye to Zoey before I hurl you."
I even retreated to the dock so they had semi-privacy (although the cameras would show that – I saw enough to know that Mike even gave Zoey a necklace – I later found out the medallion had Mike's face engraved on it). And I even let them have their first kiss before I came back and told them it was time to finish the episode.
And the last I heard was Mike's scream as his time on Total Drama Revenge of the Island closed.
I know I spent very little time on the challenge (despite this being a very long chapter). But you knew about it. You'll be happy to know I do have a second elimination change coming (after Anne Maria), but I won't tell you when it is yet. The focus of this episode was more finishing up the Mike/Toni part of the story, and in the end, he chose Zoey. I guess I kind of knew it all along.
Also, did you catch the All-Stars reference I made to Duncan's storyline? If he refuses to demo, Toni will make Chris put him into a season where he'd edited to look like a total goody-goody who's trying too hard to look evil. I guess since he actually did the demo this time, he might be saved from that train wreck of a plot. Seriously, Duncan had more than one storyline going for him, and they chose to focus on the worst one.
