An Entertaining Bond:

Chapter #01.

Episode #00.

Part #01.

The sound of leather being smushed could be heard, as someone sat down on a soft sofa. Then another one. A third one soon joined the fray. "Trust me, bros, you two will love this game!" One of them exclaimed, hiding a small ounce of mischievousness. He was the one perched back against the sofa, getting all nice and cozy.

Yet his current outfit seemed to suggest otherwise. In fact, it best suited him for working at a professional restaurant. Donned in a traditional, white chef's jacket with black pants and white socks, one could assume he was working in a kitchen. The dried grease stains on his shirt added evidence to that assumption. His black hair looked like a mess, somewhat; he probably wore a chef's hat earlier.

"I'm only obligated to play this game because your birthday's coming up." A second voice remarked, his tone deeper than the first one. If one took a look at his facial expression, they could see a depressed man frowning, covered in facial hair; it was pretty much the opposite of the presumed chef's chill smile. "You know I don't like fighting games."

His choice of outfit was… strange, to say the least, as he sat next to the presumed chef. To put it plain and simple, he looked physically unattractive in that otter fursuit, minus the head. A brown otter suit would've garnered strange looks from other people, but to the two men sitting next to him, it was just another casual garb.

"Now, now, Nigel. It is almost Priscilla's birthday, so let's try to have some fun!" The third man attempted to provide some assurance. Behind that strange black mask he wore, somehow his facial expressions could be seen. His smile looked like an ':D' emoticon. Complete with a black suit, black slacks, and black formal shoes, he gave the vibe of being a gentleman - also the nicest of the three.

Priscilla nodded at him, as if he agreed. "Hell yeah! This Total Drama game is gonna be dope as hell!" He grabbed the cover of the game and passed it to them so they could get a closer look. It had a variety of different human characters as part of the artwork. At the very top, the name of the game could be seen, rather enlargened. "Best part is that I only got it for 20 dollars and 69 cents! Saved myself a few dollars!"

Nigel's frown deepened, not because of what his friends said to him in response, but because of the cover art. He basically ignored what the two said. "Hold on." Then he raised an eyebrow. "This is literally a ripoff of 'Smash Bros.'. It looks exactly like the cover art, but with basic characters." His eyes shifted toward Priscilla. "Priscilla, you literally just wasted 20 dollars for a knockoff."

"I know!" Priscilla started laughing at Nigel's reaction, unfazed that he had spent the same amount of money that would've bought him a nice meal at a fancy restaurant. "It's got so much meme potential, it's great!" Then he looked at the masked man. "Hey Gary bro, we should totally t-bag Nigel's character!" He didn't care that he suggested this idea in front of Nigel himself; then again, they have been friends for a while.

Gary shook his head in amusement. "Oh my God. I have a feeling the graphics are gonna be so horrible." Now it became his turn to look at the cover. "But the game does still look interesting." His ':D' emoticon smile remained the same. "All right then, let's do this! We're gonna have a smashing time getting our butts kicked by the A.I."

While Gary and Priscilla shared a high-five, Nigel could only groan into his hands. "I'm surrounded by idiots." He muttered, not caring if they heard him or not. Then he sighed and reluctantly gave in, probably regretting his decision already. "Whatever. It'll be all worth it when I kick both of your asses." This prompted a cheer from his friends.

"Nice! But hey, you can be player one." Priscilla offered him a red controller, as his own way of attempting to comfort him. Then he grabbed the green controller before he could let Gary make his own decision. "Fuck it, I'll be player three. Gary, you don't mind being player two, right?" He nudged the blue controller towards the masked man.

"Uhh, sure!" Gary accepted his fate. Not like it was anything serious. He proceeded to open the cover and remove the CD. For a knockoff game, the disc at least lacked scratches. Once inserted into the console, he grabbed his controller and tapped his fingers on it while waiting. "It sucks that Green can't come. I thought he'd be interested."

"He's not interested." Nigel confirmed for him. "Didn't I already tell you this?" The unsure expression from Gary gave him a clear answer. "Actually… no, wait, I did tell you guys. But only Priscilla responded in the groupchat." Meanwhile, the game had finished downloading, so he turned his attention towards that.

"To be fair… my phone has been dealing with some problems recently." Gary gave a sheepish chuckle, opting for Priscilla to raise an eyebrow at him. "I can still call and whatnot, but I can't text anyone until my parents take me to get it fixed." The self-dressed chef nodded his head in understanding before both turned to face the TV. "Maybe I really should get a new phone soon…" He commented to himself.

"That's why you should get a new phone, man." Priscilla basically said what Gary was thinking. "Green did, and now he's grinding on that one game with a buncha weird creatures. Told me one of them was named Mud… - Mud something." He shook his head, not bothering to figure out the name. "Point is, get your mom or dad to buy ya' a new phone."

"It's a Mudkip, you uncultured swine." Nigel answered; his tone seemed to be harsh and insulting, but Priscilla's nonchalant reaction implied it was nothing serious. "Anyway. Let me look around in the menu first before either of you join in. I just want to make sure the game doesn't crash right away constantly, like the last one we tried out." He spared a quick glare at Priscilla, which went unnoticed, before proceeding to mess around by going to the 'settings' and getting a glimpse at all of the different game modes.

"The hell? There's only one game mode." Priscilla pointed out. Indeed, the only game mode they could spot was 'battle' mode. A small part of him started to regret purchasing the game, especially since he wasted a little over 20 dollars. "Like, there's no 'campaign' mode or even a basic 'mission' mode?"

"I don't think so." Gary shook his head, starting to feel disappointed in this game in front of their eyes, but he wanted to stay positive. Maybe, just maybe, it could still be entertaining enough for the next few hours. "But maybe the graphics and gameplay could be fun, me thinks. It's still weird though; you'd think a game that cost that much would have more."

Priscilla shrugged. "That's true. I guess this shit could keep us entertained for a few hours or so." His grin came back, remembering the original purpose of buying the game. "Plus, all of the memes that we can laugh at. From anime waifus to t-bagging, even if we play it one time only, it's still a nice pre-birthday gift. Even if I'm the one who bought it."

"Yeah I doubt we'll play this for a long time." Nigel pressed on the 'battle' game mode, now prepared to actually play the game. "It depends on - what the fuck?!" He assumed the game would take him to the 'character select' menu, but instead, it took him to the loading screen. On his side, there was only a question mark as his character; on the right side, it was… also a question mark as their character - their being the A.I.

A message appeared in the middle of the screen. "There is no tutorial or character selection. You will be given a random character to battle with. Good luck!" Before any of the three could process the strangeness, Nigel found himself dropped onto the battle stage: the roof of a wooden cabin. Nothing special.

"Wait a minute, what do you mean there's no character selection?" Gary watched Nigel's character, Noah: Bookworm, as stated at the bottom of the screen. He tried to comprehend the 'bookworm' part of the name. "Also, what the heck are these graphics? It literally looks like a little kid used Microsoft Paint and Photoshop to make this."

"I can't get into this game, what the hell." Priscilla mashed the 'start' buttom on his controller, to no avail at first. But soon he joined in, adding a third panel at the bottom. His character appeared to be Amy: Cheerleader. "Oh hey, I got a cute girl at least. Holy shit the A.I. looks like one of those cafeteria people." He noticed the AI's character - Chef Hatchet: Right Hand Man. "This has to be some joke."

"What the fuck is going on." Nigel blinked, having long regretted doing any of this. Soon the fourth and last player joined in. That person being Gary, who had Lightning: Jock. "Not me being the only non-muscular character." Seeing the other characters' appearances, he had a very pessimistic mindset heading into this fight. "Yeah I doubt I'll win this."

GO!

Chef Hatchet smacked the shit out of Amy right away, seeing that they spawned next to each other. It dealt a significant amount of damage - around 20 percent.

"Oh wait we're starting?!" Gary expected the announcer to count down or give a few seconds for them to prepare. "Shoot! Jesus, let me learn the controls first!"

"Yo! Did you see how much damage this Chef fucker did?!" Priscilla shouted in exasperation, now attempting to retaliate. Amy slapped Chef to counter, but only dealt 5 percent damage.

Noah went over to try to attack Lightning, only except he used a book instead of punches. This prompted a bit of laughter from Nigel. "Okay! This might not be so bad -"

Not only did he barely deal any damage, but a message suddenly popped up. "Noah deals almost no damage to larger competitors along with some self-damage."

"Are you serious?!" Priscilla described part of Nigel's reaction upon seeing that message, all while still battling Chef Hatchet. Amy was now at 60 percent, Chef at 30 percent.

"What the hell, game." Nigel rolled his eyes, not surprised at the message. "Just kill me and get this over with." He put his controller down and sent Noah to his stagnant demise.

Gary said nothing, but he had a sympathetic look from behind that mask. As Lightning started beating up Noah, each attack followed up with a 'sha-bam' from the character.

"Wow. This guy does a lot of damage." Gary remarked as Noah's percent meter increased, now around 90 percent. Then with one hard, vicious punch, Lightning sent the bookworm flying off the roof, and off-screen. That killed him for sure, and given the lack of a respawn, it was safe to say each character only had one life stock.

"Thank you." Nigel said, sincere in his tone. He laid back against the sofa while continuing to watch the ongoing onslaught of a battle. "You should definitely take out Priscilla." Not even the future chef knew if he was kidding or not. It didn't help that the A.I. was kicking his character's ass, to the point of near-death.

"Shut up, Nigel!" Priscilla began to grit his teeth in frustration. The rage started to build up in him. He started mashing the buttons on his controller in hopes of pulling off some random combo. "For goddamn sake! This piece of shit is too OP!" As Lightning started to approach Amy and Chef Hatchet, he warned Gary. "Don't you dare! Help me out!"

Lightning hopped over Chef Hatchet before Gary attempted to wind up a punch from him, hoping it would deal a significant amount of damage. But instead of a punch and a 'sha-bam', the jock shouted 'sha-lightning', and literal lightning flashed down upon him. It struck himself and literally increased his percent meter damage to 100 percent.

"Freaking hell!" Gary raised his voice, also starting to sense rage and frustration build up inside of him. Then a new message suddenly popped up. "Lightning only deals lightning damage to himself because he is a moron." In fact, he couldn't even control his character anymore. "I can't even control him! He's just walking back and forth!"

Soon Chef Hatchet pulled out a cleaver and hit a spinning attack, dealing enough damage to both Amy and Lightning to send them both off the stage. The A.I. had won the fight.

"This is bullshit!" Priscilla punched the right arm of the sofa to let out his anger. He could only watch Chef Hatchet stand there and dance in victory. "The worst part about all of this is that I can't get an immediate rematch! I gotta get lucky to fight him with a better character!" When given the choice for a rematch, he immediately locked it in.

"Oh, we're doing a rematch?" Gary scratched the back of his head, not fazed that much from losing when compared to his chef friend. But then he shrugged and smiled, sporting the ':D' emoticon. "I guess I'm down for another one. We probably just got unlucky with the characters, me thinks." He tried to find any positives in this scenario.

"Hold on. Let me grab some water first." Nigel stood up and marched toward the kitchen, intent on grabbing water, and maybe a snack. He decided to check his phone as well.

"At least the game waits for all of us to respond." Priscilla pointed out, taking the time to check his phone as well. He looked at Gary before asking a question. "Hey bro, do you wanna go meet up with Green after this? I'm up to try out some… uh, whatever the name of the game he plays with those deformed creatures."

Gary pressed on the button on his controller to accept a rematch before responding to Priscilla. "I think it's called Man Poke. But if Nigel is down, then yeah, totally!" He maintained the same ':D' emoticon of a smile. However, it then faltered slightly. "I'm just hoping we don't get called in -"

"I know. Don't remind me." Priscilla interrupted before Gary could finish. "From what I heard, we gotta go back to the ship if we get called in today. It ain't the -"

"Boys." Nigel came back holding a glass of water, his phone in his other hand. "Looks like Green said we're heading into work today." He didn't seem enthusiastic, not even close.

"Speaking of the devil…" Priscilla muttered to himself, ironic that they were just talking about it. Then he spoke up at Nigel. "Wait, what? Like, what time?"

"He texted me, saying in 30 minutes." Nigel replied before looking at the television screen. "Besides, it's most likely I won't be interested in playing this again."

Gary stood up and disconnected his own controller. "Let me take a leak first before we head out. I've been holding it in for way too long." He ran off to the bathroom.

All Priscilla could do was sigh in disappointment; the game he bought was a total letdown, and now he had to deal with a sudden call from his boss, ruining his plans.

But at least the four of them would make the next few hours at work entertaining.

Author's Note: Salutations! It is I again, with yet another story to add to the list! As per the pattern and the status in the synopsis area, this is indeed another one-shot. However, unlike the previous two stories, this one tackles a different genre; this is all about humor and the story references (as a parody) a popular Nintendo fighting game: Super Smash Bros. No romance this time. There were still canon characters that made an appearance, if you want to point out any more potential similarities between the three stories.

But anyway, onto this story itself, allow me to provide more details about it. This one focused on a trio of original characters, in an alternate universe. There's no ambiguous ending or a potential connection to the canon timeline; this is 100 percent a different timeline that takes place around in 2016, if I had to provide a date. Even though the game's title had Total Drama and a few canon characters were featured, I can confirm the show itself had not occurred yet. Without spoiling anything, the quartet getting called into work will be the first step in answering some potential questions you may have and clearing up some things.

With that in mind, my next story will be connected to this one. It'll be my fourth and final one-shot before I transition to multichapter stories. Again, I can't say more because that would be spoilers, so I'll leave it at this. If you enjoyed reading this, be sure to provide some feedback, and if possible, favorite and follow the story. I would be very appreciative of it! Apologies if it was too short for your tastes!

Until next time! Take care!