"Last time on our little game…" Chris said to a camera, "We gave our prisoners a break last challenge to let them all have a race around the entire prison courtyard. Davy and Quinn discovered ways to evolve their powers, just like Romeo before them, and they both used those evolutions for their desires. George ended up becoming the victor of the rac-" Chris coughed up more of that liquid from the last time he did a recap, "Dammit… and George voted for Quinn to be the one to return to prison because of her taking over his body for her selfish needs. Now… god knows what the prisoners are gonna do next… how about we find out?" Chris grinned.
Intro Start
The intro started off with a shot of the prison, but instead of cameras popping out, the shot just went to static and cut over to the prison library.
"..." Inside the prison library, Aztaroth was reading a book but was interrupted when a loud crash came from behind him.
"..." The crash was revealed to have come from Romeo, who accidentally knocked over a bookshelf with his strength.
"..." After another static cut, Jade was seen picking up bits of litter in the courtyard, with a guard threatening to hit her if she didn't.
"..." Off in the distance, Picollo was washing off his makeup, suggesting that he didn't wanna wear it here.
"..." With the screen again turning to static, the shot was now of inside the cafeteria where Deena was eating breakfast for the day.
"..." Also in the cafeteria was Edna, who was eating god knows what.
"..." The shot stayed on Deena and Edna for a bit, before suddenly jumping to George who was looking outside from an old watchtower.
"..." George turned around, to see that a grinning Clover was behind him, causing the athlete to jump in surprise.
"..." With yet another static cut, we now got a shot of Relinda desperately trying to call someone on the prison phone, to no avail.
"..." Also in the phone room was Quinn, who had a chart of all the other contestants in her hand.
"..." Suddenly, the screen changed over to Davy and Rival, who were trying to avoid Chris in the main cell block.
"..." Off to the left side of the cellblock, Jacque and Monica were trying to talk, but for some reason couldn't remember their conversation.
"..." Finally, on the right side of the cellblock was Chef and Salem, with the former looking concerned and the latter grinning evilly.
"...There is no escape…" Instead of the final shot of the intro being of the campers around some sort of campfire, it was of a darkened figure with the dullest and deadest eyes ever…
Intro End
Chris McLean was stuck in a sleep-like state in the middle of a pitch-black room, he was forcefully strapped to a chair, and the glow of Salem's eyes could be seen behind him.
"Force him to wake up." A voice commanded Salem, who used his powers to wake Chris up from his state.
"Huh?" Chris looked around, "Where am-" Chris noticed that he was stuck to a chair and tried to free himself, "Hey! Let me out of here!" Chris commanded the dark figure.
"No… I'm afraid I can't do that…" The figure replied, "You're just as much as a prisoner here as everyone else…"
"Prisoner? What are you talking about!?" Chris desperately tried to get out of the chair.
"You don't remember?" The figure asked, "You should, after all, it was your idea to have a season of Total Drama take place in a prison with real convicts…"
"W-what!?" Chris realized what the figure was talking about, "I never passed that season!" Chris replied, "I went to this prison called Hope's Lament and…" Chris stopped, "I… I don't know… I… can't remember anything after that…"
"Oh, I'm well aware that you can't… I'm the one running this show now Chris…" The figure leaned forward and showed Chris his face, scaring the life out of the reality t.v. show host.
Chris saw that the figure's face looked like that of a corpse, "What the hell are you!?" Chris fearfully asked.
"Revenge…" The figure gave one swift hit to Chris' neck and knocked him out instantly…
A man looked at Hope's Lament as he stood on a fishing boat. Upon closer inspection, this wasn't an ordinary fishing boat, as it had tons of equipment in the lower deck, things like GPS trackers, evidence folders, a laptop, a radio, and many other things. The man stood at 6'1" and wore a dark gray trench coat, khakis, and black dress shoes. He had neatly combed brown hair and dull green eyes. This man was a detective named Kauai.
"Look," Kauai sighed, "I know the letter that Deena Loveberry's ex got looks very official. But… it just seems like someone forged the letter and she's been kidnapped or murdered by now."
"We still have to try." The person on the other end spoke, "I know both her and Andrius very well and… I can't sit back and tell Andrius that she went missing." The person sighed, "I just want to get some closure for him."
"I know… I want closure for this case too." Kauai sighed, "But the facts just don't add up. Deena was last seen being taken from her cell by two prison guards who said they were transferring her. Not only are these two guards not recorded in any prison databases within three hundred miles, but their names are nowhere to be found in any reality t.v. show production company's databases." Kauai looked over to a drone that he had in the boat, "We're most likely wasting precious time searching these prisons… if Deena is still alive, that is."
"I know… but I'm still gonna hold out hope for her to be alive in one of these prisons." The person replied, "Please just search these… just in case."
"Alright." Kauai replied as he went over to the drone, "I'll try scouting out the area with a drone, I'll report back whenever something comes up." Kauai took out the drone's controller.
"Alright, thank you." The voice replied before hanging up.
Kauai went to the upper deck and set his drone up, "Now let's see what's here." Right as Kauai was about to release his drone, he suddenly stopped everything he was doing. Kauai reached for his gun in his holster and pulled it out, "Goodbye, Mr. Iosua." Kauai said to himself, before shooting himself straight in the stomach.
"W…" Kauai leaned back onto the railing of the boat, "W-what!?" Kauai coughed out as he gripped his stomach, "W…why did I…" Kauai then felt a pair of hands on his shoulders. The detective turned around to see who's hands they were and was greeted by Salem grinning at him. Kauai tried to reach for his gun to defend himself but was pulled over the boat's railing and into the waters below.
Bubbles went up to the water's surface and popped until eventually, there were none left. The detective had drowned, and he never knew how close he was to finding Deena. Salem jumped back onto the boat and called the other person on the radio.
"Did you find anything?" The person asked.
"No," Salem replied while mimicking Kauai's voice, "I told you… we're just wasting time here."
"Dammit." The person gritted their teeth, "There's still a few more abandoned prisons to check, though, please check those and then report back to me."
"...Fine…" Salem grinned as he hung up the radio. Salem then wasted no time destroying all of the equipment in the boat and the boat itself. The demon intern then watched as the boat sunk into the waters below, erasing all evidence of Kauai ever being there…
Picollo tiredly stumbled into the cafeteria, nothing unusual was happening there, George and Davy were back to fighting over who gets what food, Aztaroth was playing a game of solitaire, Edna was on the floor eating whatever meat she could find, Clover was drawing comics, Jacque was eating by himself, Deena was taking a nap, Monica was writing down notes, Rival was eating breakfast and chatting with Relinda, and Jade was practicing with her crystals to see what she could form.
Picollo sighed before walking over to grab a tray and get his own food, ignoring everyone else in the room, "I'm gonna die soon… aren't I?" Picollo thought to himself.
Relinda noticed Picollo ignoring everyone and looked up, "I wonder what's wrong with him?" Relinda asked Rival.
"Probably feeling down like everyone else here." Rival replied.
"True." Relinda looked around the room, "This prison is far from comforting." Relinda sighed, "I really hope there's some secret way for everyone to get out of here." Relinda looked at the prisoners in the cafeteria, "I don't care if they're guilty or not. Everyone in this prison is a person… and nobody deserves to be treated like this." Relinda clenched her fist.
"Everybody except me." Rival dejectedly said, "I shouldn't be allowed to see the light of day after what I did to my little brother."
"What did you do?" Relinda asked.
"I…" Rival teared up, "I don't know… I just… had him beaten into a coma…" Rival slammed his head onto the table. "I don't know why I did it… it just… happened…" Rival wiped off his face, "If I was just a better person… I could've gotten there before that gang had gotten to him."
"A gang beat him?" Relinda asked, "If that's the case… what did you have to do with it?"
"Because… I had antagonized that gang multiple times before…" Rival breathed heavily, "I shouldn't have done that… I should've just let them push me around… Ally wouldn't be in his situation then…"
"I don't think you're responsible…" Relinda patted Rival on the back, "It's not your fault that someone else did something horrible…"
"No." Rival got up, "It is." Rival walked away from Relinda, leaving the waitress upset.
"I hate how grim everything here is." Jade mumbled to herself as she looked around the cafeteria, "Something needs to be done… but… what exactly is that…? We're all powerless compared to Chris, plus, none of us can take on Salem…" Jade clenched her fist, "It's as if the only way to escape this place is to get lucky." Jade formed a crystal gauntlet over her hand.
"Don't bother thinking of ways to escape." Jade heard Jacque's voice in her head suddenly. Jade looked over at Jacque to see if he was speaking to her, but saw that he had his head down and was eating, "You're not Jacque." Jade looked around the room, "Who are you?"
"I am Jacque." The voice replied, "I'm just using my power to communicate telepathically." Jacque stated, "I'd hate to be the person to rain on your little parade, but there ain't a chance in the world that we're getting out of here without one of those idols." Jacque pessimistically said, "Even then, that's probably a trick to give us a false hope of escape."
"So what? You just want us to sit around and do nothing while all of this happens!?" Jade glared at Jacque, "That's a horrible idea."
"It's not a bad idea, it's the truth. There's no use denying it." Jacque shrugged, "It's better to just keep your head down and wait for your turn to be sent back to jail if they even do that to us when we lose."
"I…" Jade gave up on trying to talk to Jacque at that point, "Fine… But I'm gonna find a way out of here eventually, and I'm taking everyone with me!" Jacque rolled his eyes at Jade's statement.
"Sure you will." Jacque sarcastically said, "Be prepared to be disappointed when all of your plans fail and you realize there's no escape." Jacque sat back in his chair, "There's nothing more to it than that."
"Maybe for you, but I'm not gonna give up." Jade clenched her fist, "Hope is what's gonna keep me going!"
"Sure…" Jacque rolled his eyes again as he stopped communicating with Jade.
"Apologies for my late arrival prisoners." Chris said with a grin as he entered the cafeteria, "I had some personal business that needed to be attended too." Chris chuckled, "But what's important right now is that you have a challenge to compete in."
"What is it now?" Monica rolled her eyes.
"I've had Salem set up six different 'arenas' to test your intelligence." Chris explained, "Among other things, of course. The first of the six games that you will play is rather simple, actually."
"What is it?" George crossed his arms.
"Why, nothing more than rock paper scissors, something I doubt that I'd have to explain to you imbecciles." Chris grinned, "You will be given six cards, with two of each symbol. After you are given you cards, you will find a partner and you'll both play until you both run out of cards. Whoever wins the most in the six rounds will move onto the next game, while the loser will be eliminated. It's simple enough to understand, any questions?" Chris looked around as everyone stayed silent, "Good, Salem… bring them to the Library!" Chris yelled out.
Suddenly, Salem teleported into the room and took the twelve prisoners to the library where Aztaroth and Edna had fought not too long ago. In the library, there were six tables set up, with a hole in the middle of each of them for the cards to be dropped through.
"Wait what?" Rival looked around, "The challenge is already starting?"
"Oh yeah," Salem laughed, "You weren't there for the explanation, no need to worry, it's just a game of rock paper scissors, you'll figure out what to do." Salem turned to the rest of the contestants, "Now, everyone will grab a pack of cards from the table over there!" Salem pointed to the table he was talking about, "After that, you will grab your partner, and the game will begin! Now go!" Salem ordered.
The prisoners wasted no time grabbing cards off of the table and looking for partners, with some having more luck than others at finding a partner. Picollo immediately asked Aztaroth to be his partner so he could avoid Clover, Deena asked Rival to be her partner, George and Davy agreed to be eachother's partners just so they could defeat each other in a game of luck, Monica chose Relinda as her partner and told her that there was a way both of them could move to the next round, Jade begrudgingly picked Jacque as her partner, and Clover and Edna were left as the final two people remaining, which automatically made them partners.
"Alright, you all have your partners!" Salem announced, "Now play!" Salem ordered, with every group rushing to the tables.
"Ok, so we just play rock paper scissors with these cards?" Rival asked Deena as he selected a card, "This seems to be purely luck-based." Rival sighed as he set his card down.
"With that attitude it's luck based." Deena grinned, "You clearly haven't learned anything from your time in prison!" Deena set her card down as well and both of them revealed what they picked, scissors for Rival, and rock for Deena, "There's a lot more to everything than just luck kid." Deena kept her grin.
Rival picked another card and set it down, as did Deena, when the cards were revealed it was rock for Rival and paper for Deena, "And this is proving it."
Rival and Deena kept up their game, but Rival ended up losing every single round of it, Rival winced as he looked over to Deena, "Good game." Rival held his hand out and shook hands with Deena, "Looks like you're really good at predicting other people's moves." Rival let go of Deena's hand.
"Oh yeah… I'm perfect at it." Deena grinned as she walked off, when Rival was out of sight, she looked down at her shoe to reveal she had placed a mirror on it to see what Rival's cards were, "Perfect at fooling people that is."
"Rock paper scissors!" George and Davy shouted as they set down their cards and revealed them, scissors and scissors, "Gahhhh!"
"We're doing this again!" Davy shouted as he and George placed their cards down, "Davy refuses to lose to you!" This time the cards were both rocks.
"Oh come on already!" George rolled his eyes as he and Davy repeated the process of placing cards down, they revealed their cards to find that they had both placed down paper, "Stop copying me!" The two yelled at eachother.
"Do it again!" Davy and George placed down yet another pair of cards, which turned out to be paper for Davy and scissors for George.
"Ha!" George grinned as he picked another card.
"Davy hasn't lost yet!" Davy shouted as he placed his card down, both of them revealed their cards and it was another victory for George, being rock and paper.
"Ha I win!" George bragged as he set down his final card, "Fuck you!" George mocked Davy.
"Fuck you more!" Davy set down his final card, scissors for Davy and rock for George, giving George a 3-0 victory.
Relinda and Monica sat at the table, Monica immediately showed Relinda what all of her cards were.
"If we constantly tie, neither of us will lose." Monica stated.
"Really?" Relinda questioned as she set down a scissors card.
"As long as we go scissors, rock, paper, we'll be good." Monica explained.
"Ok!" Relinda and Monica both set down scissors and tied.
"Keep going, it's not over yet." Monica stated as she set down a rock card, Relinda did the same and they tied again.
"Now do paper!" Monica set down a paper card with Relinda, and they tied for a third time.
In an anti-climatic game, the two tied until they ran out of cards, allowing both prisoners to move onto the next round without either of them being eliminated.
Picollo and Aztaroth sat at their table, but Picollo still looked mopey like he did earlier.
"You think there's a way out of here?" Picollo asked as he kept his head down on the table.
"Hmm?" Aztaroth looked up as he gripped his cards, "Of course, I doubt Salem and Chris could accommodate everything. Besides, I'll find one eventually, they can't keep a secret from me!" Aztaroth grinned.
"Good to know I guess." Picollo picked up his cards.
"More importantly, I'll let you g-" Aztaroth started but was cut off by Picollo, who threw his cards onto the table.
"I quit." Picollo moped, "You win." Picollo forfeited.
"Wait what?" Aztaroth looked shocked, "You can't just quit!"
"There's no rule against it, so I quit." Picollo glared at Aztaroth, "You would've beaten me anyways, so there's no point in prolonging this." Picollo got up and walked off.
Confessional: Aztaroth
"That was… weird…" Aztaroth rubbed his chin, "I was looking forward to seeing how Picollo would strategise… how disappointing." Aztaroth rolled his eyes.
Confessional Over
"Rock paper scissors!" Jade set down a paper card, only to be met with Jacque setting down a scissors card.
"Try again." Jacque simply said as he prepared to place another card, Jade was about to set down another card when she realized that Jacque was most likely reading her mind to know what she was picking, "Nice try Jacque!" Jade threw the cards down onto the table and spread them all out randomly.
"What are you doing?" Jacque asked, knowing full well that Jade caught onto him.
"You think I wouldn't expect you to read my mind?" Jade glared, "Good luck figuring out what to pick when it's random!" Jade set down a card, which Jacque did as well, with a nervous expression on his face. The two revealed their cards, it was a tie with paper.
Jade and Jacque picked another two cards immediately and set them both down, this time Jade won with a rock card while Jacque picked scissors.
"Damn it… I've gotta get lucky." Jacque thought to himself as he placed down a card, Jade picked another card randomly, revealing that they both picked rock.
"So close…" Jade gulped as she picked her second last card. The two flipped their cards over to reveal that it was another tie with rock, which meant that Jade won due to the last two cards they have being paper and scissors.
"Damn it." Jacque hit his fist on the table, "Good job, I didn't think you'd catch on." Jacque shook Jade's hand as he accepted his loss.
Last up was Clover and Edna, with neither of the two taking the game seriously.
"Oh… it would be so despair-inducing if I lose to someone like Edna…" Clover grinned as she picked a paper card and 'accidentally' left it visible for Edna to see.
"Oh oh! That's the card that loses to this!" Edna set down a scissors card and won the first round.
"Oh no!" Clover faked being upset, "What do I do now?" Clover placed another paper card down.
"Haha!" Edna placed down another scissors card, "Edna is too good at this game!" Edna laughed as Edna won another round.
The two repeated the process of Clover revealing a card for Edna to see and Edna picking the card she thought countered it. Surprisingly, the final score was 4-2, because Edna didn't know how paper and rock worked at first.
With seven people making it to the next round, Salem took them to the next area, the Morgue, which now had a bunch of doors inside of it. "Listen up prisoners!" Salem yelled out, "In this room, there are a total of fourty doors, with only one of them being correct! Your job is to find whichever door is correct!" Salem looked at the many doors, "But whenever you open a door, if you step into the 'room' it leads into, you will be eliminated from the challenge. Good luck!" Salem grinned as he disappeared.
"Oh!" Edna ran over to a door and opened it, "Edna thinks this door is correct!" Edna ran past the door, which caused a red light to go off from the other side of it, signalling that it was the wrong choice.
Before anyone could even react to the door being wrong, Salem swooped down and took Edna out of the room, something that scared everyone in the room.
"Holy crap!" George jumped back, "He didn't tell us that's what happens when we lose!"
"So we have to find a way to figure out which door is legit." Deena reasoned, "Well, let's check each of the doors then, y'know, see if somethings off with one of them."
"That makes sense…" Jade looked around, "But they all look identical." Jade pointed out.
"So it's most likely a small detail." Deena shrugged, "It wouldn't hurt to try, seeing as we don't have a time limit or anything."
"I'll take the doors over there." Aztaroth pointed to the doors that were on the left side of the room, "We'd better get going if we want to find whichever door is the correct one."
With that, the group was off to see which door was different from the rest, but nobody could find any good evidence to prove that a door was the right answer, and even if they did, everyone was still too warry to just step through any door.
"Anyone have any luck?" Monica asked everyone in the room.
"Nada." Jade replied, "All of them look like they're the same, and if they are in fact different, it's such a small detail that we'd never notice." Jade sat down.
"I don't understand how we're supposed to solve this." Relinda looked at the many doors in the room, "There's no way to prove whats real and what isn't." Relinda groaned.
While everyone else was arguing about the doors, George noticed something that caught his attention and stepped away from the rest of the group, it was the door that led to the hallway of the basement… but it was exactly the same as all of the other doors here.
"Wait!" Monica shouted out, "This door's doorknob has a marking on it! This has to be it!" Monica sighed in relief.
"Really?" Aztaroth ran over to confirm that the door knob did indeed have a marking on it, "It does." Aztaroth grinned, "Looks like we're successful."
"We just need somebody to test it." Deena pointed out.
"I can do that!" Relinda stepped forward, "I'm pretty confident that this is the right door!" Relinda opened the door and prepared to walk through.
"Stop!" George shot a tendril at Relinda and pulled her back.
"What?" Deena asked, annoyed that George was halting their progress.
"The right door is the entrance!" George shouted, "Look, all of the doors are based off of it!" George pointed at the door.
"Woah," Monica looked at the door, "But are you sure that Salem didn't just use the same type of door for the room to throw us off?" Monica asked.
"Oh I'm confident this'll work!" George rolled his eyes and stepped out of the room, where a green light activated as he stepped out, "Told ya so!"
"Oh shut it, you got lucky." Deena rolled her eyes, "You were just the first to notice that the door was the same." Deena walked out into the hallway, where Salem was waiting for them with a tray of something in his hands.
Confessional: George
"Normally I would've just let Relinda go throught the door and fail," George shrugged, "But I figured that if there's another team game, I'll need there to be an even amount of players left, just to be certain that I don't get left out." George crossed his arms.
Confessional Over
"Well congratulations, six of you are still left in the running." Salem sarcastically clapped for the remaining prisoners, "But those two challenges were child's play compared to this." Salem laughed as he revealed six different cookies set out on the tray, all of them with different shapes.
"You're gonna feed us cookies to death?" George raised an eyebrow, "Seriously, what the hell is this supposed to be?"
"Each of you will receive one of these cookies, and will have to cut out the shape without cracking them." Salem handed everyone a cookie, a star for Deena, a rectangle for Aztaroth, a square for George, a circle for Relinda, an octagon for Jade, and a triangle for Monica, "If you crack them, that's game over for you. Good luck." Salem taunted as he disappeared.
"Well this isn't too hard." Aztaroth held up his cookie, "I'm surprised that Salem really thinks we're going to struggle with this." Aztaroth laughed cockilly.
"Yeah… um…" Relinda looked around, "How are we supposed to cut out the shape if we have nothing to cut them out with?"
"Wait what?" Aztaroth looked around, sure enough, there was nothing to cut the cookies with, "Hmm… it looks like Salem wants us to improvise." Aztaroth laughed, "Unfortunately for you five, I'll have no issues with this." Aztaroth bragged as he began to take small pieces out of his cookie.
"So what do we do?" Jade asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" George sneered, "We don't have to work together anymore, so see ya!" George ran off to work on his cookie in private.
"He's right." Deena pointed out, "This is where we part ways." Deena also walked off to a private part of the hallway.
Now that the group was no longer working together, Jade wasted no time making a small knife to cut out the shape with.
"I just need to be careful…" Jade nervously cut through the cookie, making sure not to make even the smallest bit of damage to her shape, she had managed to get a quarter done already.
Jade stopped cutting out the shape so she could take a quick break to make sure her hands weren't shaking too much. After calming down for a bit, the thief went back to cutting out the cookie.
Jade picked up her knife and slowly began to cut down the octagon, she was about half of the way there when she realized something. "Wait a minute." Jade hatched an idea, "Couldn't I just…" Jade formed a cookie cutter in the shape of an octagon and held it over the cookie, "I can…" Jade grinned as she cut out the shape perfectly, keeping her safe for the next round.
"Maybe to the rest of those simpletons this is difficult." Aztaroth tapped on his cookie and removed a large crumb off of it, revealing the first side to the rectangle, "But to me, this is nothing more than a waste of time." Aztaroth grinned as he slowly but surely worked on the second side of the cookie.
After a little bit of persistence, Aztaroth managed to get the second side done, Aztaroth took a deep breath to keep himself calm and collected as he began to work on the third side of the cookie, scratching off and biting whatever he could.
"I have to be close to finishing." Aztaroth thought as he bit a small chunk off of the cookie, after he did that, he began to scratch at the rest of the third side so he could move onto the fourth and final side. After a short bit of scratching, Aztaroth managed to finish the third side and was close to finishing.
"So close… come on…" Aztaroth was extra careful on this final side, making sure to not let even the smallest part of his hand touch the cookie. Aztaroth's persistence and patience was rewarded in the end, as he managed to take out the final side of the rectangle and guaranteed his victory.
"Oh this is way too easy." George rolled his eyes as he picked up his cookie and began to form small tendrils from his fingers, "All I gotta do is make cut off each of the sides with my tendril and I'm good to go." George grinned as he easily cut off a side of the square.
"Looks like this'll be my second win in a row." George grinned as he effortlessly cut out another side of the square.
To nobody's surprise, George was able to easily remove each side of the square without any issues, thanks to his tendrils being sharp enough to cut through the cookie. "Tch, that was way too easy." George rolled his eyes as he got up and waited for those still working to finish.
"Ok…" Monica grabbed her cookie and turned to the wall, "This may be risky… but… it's my biggest chance at beating this challenge." Monica began to rub the cookie against the wall as to mimic sanding it, something that would be very slow at cutting out her triangle, but would work eventually.
"Come on…" Monica kept rubbing the cookie against the wall and took off small bits of it slowly, "So close…" Monica looked at the cookie, which now had two parts of it done and one left.
Monica continued her strategy of sanding the cookie with the wall, unlike everyone else in the room, she didn't have a drop of nervousness in her, rather, she looked determined to do this task. After a grueling twenty minutes of sanding the cookie, Monica finished it, perfectly cutting out the shape.
"I did it…" Monica sighed in relief, "My patience paid off…"
"Damn…" Deena looked around for something to use as a knife to cut out the cookie with, "There's gotta be something here…" Deena looked around before she realized she could just make a knife whenever she wanted.
"Wait a minute…" Deena activated her ability and bit into the ground, spitting out a small piece of it. After getting a piece of the ground, Deena chewed onto the piece until she got a small but sharp bit off rubble.
"This'll do." Deena took the bit of rubble and began to cut out the star she was given, "Oh this is gonna take forever." Deena rolled her eyes as she slowly cut out the shape.
It did indeed take a while, but Deena was able to cut out her star, making her yet another person to move on to the next round.
Finally, Relinda sat down in the middle of the hallway, but she wasn't having any trouble like everyone else was, rather, Relinda had set her cookie down onto the floor and was using her psychic powers to take out the circle from the cookie.
"This isn't too hard." Relinda thought as she pulled the circle out from the cookie surrounding it, giving her the easiest win of everyone there. Relinda got up and stretched after she finished, "I wonder what's next…"
"Well I'll be damned," Salem appeared after everyone finished cutting out their shapes from their cookies, "All of you actually managed to do it." Salem grinned, "But this next challenge is a little bit different from the rest." Salem said as he teleported everyone to the chapel, where there was a target set up, along with a can about ten meters away from it. Off to the side of the can was a small jail cell as well.
"The hell is this?" George asked as he looked around.
"This is kick the can, it's a pretty simple game. One person will be the defender, while the other five will be the kickers. The goal of the game is for either the defender to capture all of the kickers, or for the kickers to wait ten minutes and then kick the can into the target. A kicker is captured once the defender can lock them up in that jail cell, and once they've been captured, they are not allowed to leave the cell. Do you understand?"
The remaining six shook their heads yes.
"Good. George, you'll be the defender, while everyone else will kick. Now remember George, if you win this, you win the whole challenge… so feel free to do whatever it takes to win…" Salem grinned as he teleported away.
The exact minute Salem left, George wasted no time shooting Monica with his tendrils and throwing her into the cage, "Oh this'll be too easy." George grinned as he locked Monica in the cage.
"Oh crap." Deena let out as he four kickers all ran off in separate directions of the chapel, with George following after Relinda.
Confessional: George
"Figured I'd take out the biggest threat first," George grinned, "Her psychic powers could hit the can whenever she needs to."
Confessional Over
Relinda ran through the chapel's booths as George chased after her, "Stay back George!" Relinda pushed him into one of the booths.
George smirked as he shot a tendril at Relinda as she tried to fly away from him, "You're not going anywhere." George pulled Relinda towards him and covered his arm in tendrils. As Relinda was pulled next to George, the quarterback gave a swift punch to her stomach, causing her to fall to the ground.
Relinda reached out her arm to stop George from hitting her again, but was met with a tendril attaching itself to her arm and bringing her to the floor.
"Oooh nice try." George laughed, "Like hell I'm gonna let you use your powers after what happened during our fight, nice try though!" George delivered a swift punch to Relinda's head and knocked her unconscious, before dragging her over to the cell with Monica in it.
"Ok…" Deena looked up at the clock, "Only six minutes left… I just need to outsmart George." Deena hid behind one of the chapel's pillars. Deena then poked her head out to make sure that George was nowhere near her, which turned out to be a mistake as George spotted her and immediately ran towards the pillar she was at.
"Shit." Deena prepared to fight George, knowing full well he'd be able to outrun her thanks to his tendrils. Deena gave a smirk to George as he swung over to her, "Heh, give me your worst." Deena grinned as George shot a tendril at her.
Deena dodged the tendril and gave George a punch to the face for his efforts. "Hey you two!" Deena shouted out to Aztaroth and Jade, "Help me kee-" Deena was cut off by George stabbing her leg with a tendril.
"Sorry about that." George shrugged, "But y'know, I really don't want to go back to jail." George picked up Deena with his tendrils and pulled her over to the jail cell, leaving only Aztaroth and Jade as the remaining prisoners.
With four minutes left on the clock, Aztaroth got a plan and stood out in the open.
"Come on George!" Aztaroth grinned as he held his fists up, "You don't stand a chance." Aztaroth bragged as George moved over to him. Instead of fighting George, Aztaroth simply smirked and ran away from him, surprising the quarterback.
"You're running away?" George asked as he chased after Aztaroth, "Come and fight me coward!" George pulled himself in front of Aztaroth with his tendrils.
"Hmph." Aztaroth noticed Jade hiding off in the distance, "This challenge isn't about fighting though, is it?" Aztaroth grinned as he kicked George in the shin and ran towards Jade.
"Augh!" George gripped his leg as Aztaroth ran off.
"Oh Jade!" Aztaroth kept his grin, "He beat you pretty badly during your fight, didn't he?" Aztaroth tapped his chin, "Now's a pretty good chance to take some revenge while he's weakened."
"What?" Jade asked as she noticed the hurt George, "I'm not gonna knock him out for revenge!" Jade replied, "I'll just knock him out to buy us time!" Jade stormed away from Aztaroth and formed a crystal hammer.
"Huh?" George looked up and got hit in the face by Jade's hammer, knocking him out.
"There's three minutes left, right?" Jade looked over at the clock, "Let's just wait for it to end and then win this!"
Aztaroth shrugged "I'm quite bored by your lack of vengeance." Aztaroth shook his head, "But that'll do I suppose." Aztaroth walked over to George and stomped on his back.
"What are you doing!?" Jade shouted.
"Just ensuring he'll be out long enough, besides, Salem can heal him." Aztaroth headed over to the can to wait out the remaining three minutes.
"I…" Jade looked over at the unconscious George, feeling a little bad for the guy, "Fine." Jade headed over to where the can was so Aztaroth could finish the game.
As soon as the three minutes were up, Aztaroth kicked the can straight into the target, allowing him, Jade, Monica, Deena, and Relinda to move on while George was eliminated from the game.
"Five people left it seems." Salem looked over the five remaining prisoners, "I'll admit, most of you have gotten lucky to stay this long, but I know some of you are doomed to fail from this." Salem laughed as he teleported everyone to the workshop, where the was a very thin balance beam set up. "Here's another simple one for you…" Salem grinned, "All you have to do is keep your balance on this beam and make it to the other side, it's simple enough."
"And what is it that makes this so difficult?" Aztaroth asked, knowing full well there was some sort of trick planned on the beam.
"The beam itself is covered in water and you can't use you hands to hold onto it… that's all." Salem grinned as he prepared to teleport away, "Let's hope you don't fall…" Salem waved goodbye before teleporting.
"Alright, who's going first?" Jade asked everyone else.
"I can do it." Deena stated, "It's not that hard." Deena rolled her eyes as she got up onto the balance beam.
Deena held her arms out as she kept her balance on the beam, contrary to what she thought, walking across the beam while it was wet and while being unable to grab onto it is rather difficult, and it wasn't long until she started to feel herself slip.
"Ok… just go steady…" Deena took a deep breath as she slowly crossed the beam, while trying her best to keep her balance.
Deena was about halfway across the beam at this point, "Come on just a bit… more…" Deena stopped to make sure she wouldn't slip.
"Almos-" Deena moved forward, but ended up slipping on the water. When she tried to rebalance herself, she ended up falling off of the balance beam completely, making her the first person to lose the challenge.
"Hmph." Aztaroth looked at the balance beam as Deena sat off to the side, "This doesn't seem too difficult." Aztaroth rolled his eyes as he centered his feet on the balance beam. Aztaroth slowly moved forward on the balance beam, without much worry.
"Wait." Aztaroth's eyes widened as he got an idea, "Salem never said I couldn't do this…" Aztaroth grinned as he took off his coat and set it on the balance beam, he then took a step on the coat and was able to stand without having to worry about slipping.
"Heh." Aztaroth stepped off of his coat and carefully picked it up off the beam, "Looks like I found an easier strategy." Aztaroth repeated his act of putting his coat in front of where he would stand multiple times, which eventually led to him making it to the end of the beam.
"All it takes is a little bit of thinking." Aztaroth grinned, "Too bad you couldn't think of that Deena." Aztaroth turned around and waited for the rest of the prisoners to finish.
Next up was Monica, who kept herself calm as she slowly crossed the beam. "Don't fail Monica. Think of how you'll win." Monica took deep breaths as she closed her eyes and made progress on the beam.
"Think of what mom and dad would…" Monica stepped right near the end of the beam, "What they would think? It's too late for what they think… I'm a disappointment… just… like… Kennedy…" Monica gripped her face, "No… I don't care what they think of me right now." Monica teared up, "I'm my own person… not their trophy…" Monica jumped off the beam to reach the end of it, "So I'm gonna act like it." Monica panted as she wiped her face.
Next up was Relinda, who tried to keep her balance as she crossed the beam. Relinda was having the most difficulty out of everyone in the remaining five, constantly slipping on the water on the beam.
"Go slow Relinda…" Relinda slipped on a bit of the water and nearly fell off, "You gotta be careful here…" Relinda felt her leg slip again on the water and felt her left foot fall off the bar.
"Ah!" Relinda pulled herself up with her psychic abilities, "Wait…" Relinda realized, "I can just use my psychic powers to take me to pull myself to the end can't I?" Relinda then used her psychic powers to make herself float up into the air, and then to carry herself to the end of the beam.
"Wait if we can use our powers!" Jade jumped and began to form a crystal bridge with her power, "I'll just do this!" Jade stood in the same position for about three minutes as she formed a large crystal bridge that she could walk over.
After forming the bridge, Jade walked past the beam with obvious ease, making that four prisoners left for the final round.
Salem teleported in front of the remaining four, "Well congratulations for you guys." Salem rolled his eyes as he clapped his hands, "But there can only be one winner, and this final game will prove which of you deserves it." Salem teleported the group to the final area, the workshop. "In here, you'll play a very simple game of tag, and since you're a very small group, you only receive five minutes for this." Salem cracked his neck, "Three people will be the taggers, while the other will be the hider, whoever's the hider by the end of the five minutes will be the winner of the challenge. Nobody is allowed to leave the workshop during the game, if you do that, you're disqualified. Jade, you'll be the first hider, and you have thirty seconds to hide… go!" Salem shouted as he teleported away.
Jade immediately ran around the workshop to find somewhere good to hide, not that that was even possible, the room itself wasn't that big and all of the hiding spots were very obvious. As the time for her to hide slowly went down, Jade decided that she'd instead make walls so people can't get to her.
"Thirty seconds are up Jade!" Aztaroth looked over to see Jade forming a wall to keep the taggers away.
"Oh no you don't!" Relinda tossed the wall away with her ability, before picking up Jade and pulling her towards her, "That was a good try though!" Relinda was about to tag Jade when she suddenly felt Aztaroth punch her in the face.
"Hmph," Aztaroth smirked as punched Jade away as well, "As if I'd let you two imbeciles win." Aztaroth jumped away from the two but felt someone smack him in the shoulder, "Huh?" Aztaroth turned around… but saw nobody there… but if nobody was there, that would mean Monica was using her invisibility.
"No…" Aztaroth felt his rage begin to take over, "No… she didn't…" Aztaroth stomped on the floor, causing the room to shake, "That bitch!" Aztaroth yelled out as he began to wildy attack everything around him in hopes of finding Monica hiding somewhere.
Three minutes were left, and not a single person could find where Monica was, even if one of them hit her with their power, they'd have no way of knowing for sure that they had gotten her, thanks to her ability making her silent when she's invisible.
"Where is she!?" Aztaroth pounded at the wall of the room, "Where did she go!?"
One minute remained, and Monica was yet to appear, "Where did she go?" Jade looked around as she tried to find any signs of Monica moving, but it was too late, time ran out, and Monica won thanks to her stealth.
As soon as time ran out, Monica revealed herself, she was standing right by the doorway to the room, something nobody there thought of checking. Salem then teleported into the room to congratulate Monica for her victory, "Well I'll be damned, it appears that your power isn't useless after all!" Salem laughed, "But you know how this works already. You get immunity and the choice of whoever you want to eliminate… choose wisely."
Monica panted as she looked around the room, she was happy to have immunity, but she didn't feel good about voting to send someone to jail…
"Well…" Picollo held a leftover bottle of wine from his dinner two challenges ago and took a sip from it, "It's now or never… isn't it?" Picollo tossed the bottle away and ignored it as it shattered into pieces, the words of the three lights rang through his head, "I'm afraid to say… you will perish." Picollo had no doubt that that event would be happening soon if he didn't do something, and god knows how painful his death would be.
Picollo stumbled his way over to the library, making sure nobody was in the room before he entered, and took out some paper and pencils from one of the supply bins in the room. "Might as well write what I can't say… this is my last chance to really tell them something isn't it?" Picollo gripped his pencil as he wrote multiple notes down, discarding the ones that he didn't like until eventually, he wrote what he considered to be perfect. "I doubt any of them will care when I'm gone." Picollo took the note off of the table, "Who would care about someone like me?"
Now that that was done, Picollo headed off to the kitchen and made sure no interns were in there as well. After making sure he was safe to enter, he went in and pulled a knife out of one of the drawers. Picollo store at the knife for a good few minutes, with everything around him seeming to disappear. "I'm really gonna… do this…" Picollo tapped the end of the knife with his finger, giving it a small cut in the process, "Yeah… it's still better than being here." Picollo walked out of the kitchen and back to his cell.
Picollo sat down on his cell's bed, "Well, on the bright side." Picollo gave a half-smile, "At least I'll be away from Clover now." Picollo lightly chuckled a bit. "God…" Picollo sighed as he sat up, "What am I even doing?" Picollo dropped the knife onto his bed, "If I stay here I'll die. But if I leave, I'll just be chased by police until they catch me. And… I'll just be sent back to prison if I lose." Picollo put his head into his hands, "There's no way to win… is there?" Picollo asked himself as he started to tear up, "Life's just gonna suck…" Picollo wiped his face off.
Picollo crumped the note he wrote up into a ball and tossed it into the Aztaroth's cell as it was opposite to his. "I really do have the worst luck ever." Picollo got up and clenched the knife in his hands, "But…" Picollo began crying again, "It'll all end here…"
"Alright prisoners…" Chris grinned as everyone, safe for Picollo, sat around the main table in the cafeteria, "As soon as Picollo arrives here, I'll announce which one of you is leaving, thanks to Monica's vote…" Chris turned over to Salem, "Salem, can you go fetch that idiot?" Chris asked the demon intern.
"Of course." Salem stood still as he prepared to teleport to Picollo's location… but he wasn't doing it for some reason. "The hell?" Salem's eyes widened, "Why can't I sense his conscious?" Salem clenched his fist.
"What?" Chris angrily replied, "Find him!" Chris ordered Salem.
Salem immediately teleported throughout multiple parts of the prison, but Picollo was nowhere to be found. "Where is he!?" Salem teleported to cellblock A but came up short of finding Picollo.
After thirty minutes of the prisoners sitting in the cafeteria, Salem returned to report to Chris that Picollo was nowhere to be found. The exact second that Salem said those words to Chris, his eyes went completely dead as if he was a standing corpse instead of a human. Chris stood still for a full minute before snapping "Stay right where you are!" To the rest of the prisoners. Chris then walked out the doors of the cafeteria, turning to Salem one last time before he left the area, "Kill or torture anyone who disobeys, I don't care whichever you do." Chris ordered Salem, who gave an evil grin in response. Not a single person there dared to move…
"It'll all end here…" Picollo again wiped off his tears, before shapeshifting into an intern, "Let's hope to god those lights weren't lying…" Picollo shoved the knife into his pocket and ran out of the cellblock. Picollo ran straight towards the kitchen, he knew that the interns were going to grab more food today, and now was his only chance. Picollo opened the door to the kitchen's storage and saw a group of interns gathered around the cargo door. Outside of the door was a small powerboat that was used to make trips into town.
"Alright, just head into town and get another shipment." One of the interns said as he checked off a checklist.
"Hey wait up!" Picollo panted, "Sorry sorry, I'm late, I know. But I forgot that we were doing this now."
"Pfft, you idiot!" An obnoxious intern laughed, "Chris would've killed you for that!"
"Quiet!" The checklist intern commanded, "As for you, you still have time to get on the boat, we're still doing a quick supply check."
"Thank god!" Picollo sighed in relief as he got on the boat.
After the interns did their supply check, three interns joined Picollo on the supply boat, one of them being a driver, and the two others being helping hands. Picollo waited for the prison to be mostly out of view for the next part of his plan to work. As the interns were turned around, Picollo grabbed a toolbox that was on the boat and bashed one of the interns over the head with it, he thought about using the knife he had with him, but decided he wanted to start a new life, free of crime, after he escaped.
"Hey!" A different intern ran over to Picollo to try and stop him, only for the clown to turn into Salem and easily knock him out with a punch to the stomach.
The third intern tried grabbing an emergency flare but was stopped by Picollo grabbing his hand and pulling him away from where the flare was. "Sorry kid." Picollo headbutted the intern unconscious, "But I didn't have any other choice." Picollo sadly said.
Picollo regained control of the boat and kept driving it forward, but something happened after a while. He forcefully shapeshifted back into himself and was unable to change back… his powers were gone. "Looks like I'm gonna have to get creative." Picollo looked over at the shortest of the three unconscious interns and took the clothes off of them, allowing him to look less like an escaped convict and more like a regular civilian. "That's much better." Picollo smiled as the boat reached the dock of the town. He made sure to hide the three interns in the lower deck of the boat, as to prevent anyone from seeing them. "I…" Picollo choked up a bit as he stepped off the boat, "I'm free…" Picollo walked up the dock and into the town… he had done the impossible and escaped Hope's Lament…
"I checked every square inch of the island Abigor." Salem said to a dark figure, there was no doubt that this figure was Abigor, "He wasn't there."
"Hmm." Abigor replied, "Is that so?"
"No matter, I'll check every part of the world to find that son of a b-" Salem started but was stopped by Abigor.
"Don't waste the energy." Abigor calmly responded, "If anything, this should be a lesson for me to be more watchful in the future… I'll let Picollo have his victory." Abigor tapped his chin, "He pulled one over on us, and that in its own right is impressive enough to warrant deserving freedom." Abigor leaned back.
"Attention all prisoners," Chris' voice came over the intercom, "It appears that Picollo has escaped from the island… because of this, there will be no elimination ceremony tonight and you all may return to whatever you were doing before this… But… if any one of you even thinks about escaping… just know that the punishment for doing so will be severe… that is all."
Abigor jumped back up a minute after Chris' announcement ended, "Let's hope someone else tries this actually…" Abigor cackled, "They'll just end up like that detective Kauai…" Abigor stated.
"Well, that's something to look forward to…" Salem grinned, "I can't wait to see how these prisoners will suffer…"
"Godspeed Picollo." Aztaroth grinned as he walked into his cell, "Godspeed…" Aztaroth noticed Picollo's letter on the floor of his cell, "Huh?" Aztaroth picked up the letter, "What's this?" Aztaroth ripped open the letter and began to read it.
"Dear, well, whoever actually reads this. If you're reading this and I'm gone that means one of two things, I actually managed to escape from this hellhole or they caught me during my attempt and are doing god-knows-what to me. I… I just wanted to say sorry, to Rival, Quinn, Clover, and Monica… god… I was just a huge piece of shit during those fights. I'm also sorry I can't actually bring myself to tell you this face to face… but just know, I… I'm sorry for what I did. I hope that we can meet again in the future but… that'll never happen. I'm gonna do everything in my power to stay off the grid until I'm an old crook that nobody will care about anymore. So with this letter… I say goodbye… your fellow prisoner, Picollo." Aztaroth's grin got wider after he finished reading the letter, "Damn… to think he had outsmarted Chris… I thought he was just an opponent but… he's so much more interesting than that! But…" Aztaroth shook his head, "It doesn't matter how smart he was…" Aztaroth crumpled the letter up into a ball and threw it into the trash, "I guaranteed my escape way back at the beginning!" Aztaroth's grin returned as he opened the floor to his cell and pulled out a freedom idol, "In the end…. I'll always be one step ahead of everyone else..." Aztaroth covered the hole and walked away from his cell.
Clover giggled as she laid down on the bed of her cell, "Oh my, this is the greatest despair of all…" Clover moaned, "My love Picollo has left me to rot in this prison… he really wants to bless me with the ultimate despair!" Clover stretched her arms out, "Don't you worry my love, I'll escape this prison and we will bring this world to its knees together until death!" Clover grinned.
This was probably my favorite chapter to write so far, mostly just because of how much I like death game stuff lol (Yes this chapter is a parody of popular death game shows if you couldn't tell, Squid Game, As The Gods Will, Alice in Borderland, and Kaiji just for fun). Not really much to say here except, let's move on to the reasoning
Reasoning for escape:
Picollo just kinda made the most sense to have as a character who could straight up escape Hope's Lament, thanks to the help of the three lights and his shapeshifting powers, his escape was pretty easy to justify as opposed to someone like, say, Romeo. Plus, I wanted to make it clear that even though Picollo has had a lot of spotlight, this is not his story. Picollo is not gonna be the hero or main character who saves the day, so his escape had to be early to show that.
Vote Confessional:
"I don't want to be responsible for sending someone to jail." Monica winced before closing her eyes and taking out a pen, "I'll just let luck decide." Monica randomly drew a checkmark on Rival's vote card.
Remaining Prisoners: Aztaroth, Bella/Edna, Clover, Davy, Deena, George, Jacque, Jade, Monica, Relinda, Rival
Elimination Order:
14th ~ Romeo Darnell McFarland - The Toxic Farmer (BigBadBrad)
13th ~ Quinn Potter - The Pyromaniac Matchmaker (GirlPower54)
12th ~ Giuseppe "Picollo" Bilancia - The Clown (lordgemini) [ESCAPED]