Survivor - Emperors vs Knights

Chapter 33 - Day 27 Part 1

*Sighs*

Okay, the bottom ten placements have been officially determined, and that only means that we have ten more placements to go. Halfway through the adventure here ladies and gentlemen, and it still feels like I've just started to release chapters for this fic yesterday.

But anyway, last tribal basically... was everything to say the least. Not only the main villain is out, the remaining three emperors are on opposite sides of the fence still, and the knights are finally officially divided (even though they kinda been divided lol. It's just that the Chatan Four have just realized it.)

I don't even know what to say exactly. Each of the ten remaining people left in the game is at least somewhat important here. So we'll see how everyone reacts...

Ooh quite a few people reviewed today and now I have two guest reviews to reply:

Historyfan15: Yeah, at this point the biggest villain remaining in the game is Foxy of all people. Though based on the fact that he's on the bottom now, worst case scenario is that he could now be a target since he was basically kinda running the show a little bit in secret.

Derick Lindsey: Yeah Luigi was literally one vote away from being completely blilndsided lol. He had no idea at all. Oh I did, didn't I? Lol. When I saw that I changed it immediately so thank you for telling me!

~KF

Bikutā

Night 26

Sheik, Freddy, Foxy, Marth, Knuckles, Shovel Knight, Zelda, Bonnie, Greninja, Luigi

-/-

The seven emperors and three knights returned back to their beach to drop off their torches, heading into the camp one by one. And unlike previous times, they all actually chose to stay together.

...

"Sort of an... unexpected outcome tonight..." Sheik the ninja was struggling to find words. "Before tribal, we expected a unanimous blindside on Shadow, who still was blindsided. Yet instead, after like two or three votes, here comes Luigi out of nowhere, and his name came up five times. Then in the end, Shadow still ended up being sent to the jury, causing more shocked reactions to occur. ...All I gotta say is like Master Hand said: now we have to communicate with one another... big time..."

"So, uh,..." Of all people, it was Luigi that broke the silence as he nervously ran his gloved fingers through his hair underneath his cap. "which of the five of you put my name down?"

Greninja began pointing at the culprits one by one. "Bonnie, Foxy, Knuckles, and Freddy. I've seen the looks at tribal."

"Me and Zelda voted for Shadow." Marth informed. Though it was important information for the Chatan Four, for them it was not the main problem at the moment.

...

"...Uh,... would any of you care to explain?" Shovel Knight broke yet another awkward silence.

Foxy calmly placed a hand over his face.

"I don't even know where to start thinking..." said hand was now slowly moving down his face. "Tonight's Tribal Council was supposed to draw a line in the sand on where everyone stood, and it did, yet it didn't work out in our favor. Guess Marth and Zelda realized that they had power and chose to get rid of Shadow over one of the four targets tonight. Now me, Bonnie, and Knuckles are all stuck with Freddy, all being caught like deer in headlights. So then after tribal all of us had to fess up... It was very awkward to say the least because literally every single person besides Marth and Zelda were so in shock nobody knew what to say at all, since this is the first time the Pirate Crew has officially gone against the Chatan Four... And Knuckles? ...He basically decided to take out his anger and frustrations on all of them because Shadow is gone."

"Alright..." Knuckles eventually had enough with the whole silence issue. He felt that it was best for him to admit the truth once and for all. With a hand out, he was now the center of attention. "I'm gonna say this right now..."

Everyone watched.

"Me, Foxy, and Bonnie planned to flip, because we felt that you four were running the show from day one. Greninja and Sheik? This entire time you two have been an all out power couple from the get go, and then Luigi and Shovel Knight joined in so you all can just dictate everything. No offense or anything, but back on our tribe you four have been interacting with each other more than the rest of us. I was clearly the next to go if there wasn't a swap at sixteen, and then who's next? Foxy first, and then you would have saved Bonnie for last."

...

Even Bonnie and Foxy themselves gave surprising reactions. Of course in their minds it was true, yet at the same time they never expected Knuckles to be confrontational like that. Not that it was his intention of course.

"I..." Greninja wanted to be the first to be on the defensive side, yet he struggled for words. "Well..."

Thus, Sheik spoke instead. "Well, we weren't trying to dictate or anything. You all know that we tried to keep the tribe as united as possible because the emperors were gonna try to divide us up."

"Okay, that may have worked in the pre-merge, but it's post-merge now." The echidna barely let Sheik finish her statement. "We were gonna be divided eventually, since I'm not trying to be taken out at seven if the seven stayed strong, and Bonnie and Foxy aren't just gonna ride your coattails either. We all felt that you all cared more about each other than the tribe in general."

Greninja finally found his words. "No, it wasn't like that. We still cared about you three. Our number goal is to have us all getting along with each other and I thought I was getting along with everyone."

"I agree with Greninja." Shovel Knight nodded. "After all, I was the one that liked to bring everyone together for story time. Even when the merge started."

"Well you all could have pretended that we were the most unified tribe in the world for all I know and talked about the three of us behind your backs."

"N-no! That's not what I meant at all!" The warrior rapidly shook his head. "W-What I'm trying to say is-"

"Okay." Knuckles held a hand out once more. "Let's get this straight right now. Cloud left first, and then Rouge left afterwards. Say if there was no tribe swap, and if we went to tribal again, who would have gone?"

...

"Exactly."

"Well, Knuckles, you would not have known if that was the case or not because the fact of the matter is that we didn't have to go together because there was a tribe swap..." Sheik spoke up again.

"All I gotta say is that you and Greninja got lucky with the Pac-Man vote..."

Bonnie widened his eyes.

"Yeah, because we all thought it was the right move to make."

"And it was." The bunny began to speak. "Because honestly, if I didn't help you all vote out Pac-Man or Zelda, all of us would have been on the bottom and the emperors would have started picking us off one by one and we all would have gone against each other even earlier than we wanted to."

"And I'm glad you understood that." said Sheik. "But the bottom line is that you three can think what you wanna think, but at least we all stayed together for as long as possible. Things may clearly be different now, but at least prior to this we all came to some form of agreement."

"And slowly but surely," Knuckles butted back in. "every time we all voted together, that democracy started to turn more into a dictatorship."

"Knuckles was not happy." Greninja sat by a rock in the dark. "I didn't expect him to lash out against us at all... Me and Sheik have been tight with Shovel Knight and Luigi, which was in course true. Not gonna lie about that. But at least us four tried our best in working with him, Bonnie, and Foxy for as long as we can so we can make sure that the emperors never divided us up. Though everyone had their different relationships and everything, my number one goal was to always keep us close together no matter what happens, and I thought Knuckles would at least understood that. ...I guess the line has officially been drawn, I suppose... All I gotta say is that if it weren't for Marth and Zelda apparently, I don't think Luigi would be here right now..."

A few minutes afterwards, the argument slowed down and came to a stop, with everyone finally being separated, Shovel Knight and Sheik chose to check in with Marth and Zelda.

"So you two were the ones that saved us tonight?" Shovel Knight questioned.

"Why'd they write down Luigi, though?" asked Sheik.

"Luigi was the safe vote option for tonight." Her fellow Hyrulian began to elaborate. "They thought that since either you or Shovel had the idol, they wanted to get either of you out. But then Greninja was thought to be the biggest physical threat at that point. Yet, they all decided to go with Luigi because they figured that if you two, Greninja, and Luigi would have sensed that something odd was going on, then Luigi would have been the safest option for them since they thought that he was the least likely person you'd give the idol to."

"Me and Marth had a decision to make tonight. We went from the bottom to the position that we are in now. Although, getting rid of one of the Chatan Four seemed to be a good opportunity, we were thinking about long term here. And before tribal, we decided that in the long run, Shadow would have been more likely to flip on us than those four given his reputation in this game. So Shadow was the sole reason to why we didn't want to work with his alliance. And luckily for the both of us, he was the one who was sent home."

"...Well this is certainly news to me..." said Shovel Knight. "No wonder they didn't want Freddy to go home. It wasn't about earning trust with Freddy. It was about keeping him in so that they could vote out whoever was in their best interest. They knew Shadow was in danger, so that's why they chose to strike against us."

"You know, at the end of the day though, Luigi is still here, and it could have been one of us that would have received votes tonight as well." Sheik looked at the brunette in the eyes. "Thank you, Zelda."

She smiled in reaction. "You're welcome. Just be sure to thank Marth as well."

"I will." She nodded. "We'll talk more later."

Bikutā

Day 27

The following morning, there were only a few clouds in the sky on Kodai Island. And the members of the Bikutā tribe seemed to be wanting to take advantage of the sunshine while they could have due to the amount of rain there was since the start of the game.

Thus, Knuckles was putting the fishing gear to good use. Obviously being on Survivor, fish was breakfast was completely irrelevant. Everyone was well aware of the rule. Eat all the food they could have when they could have, or they would have starved. Sure, there still was the proportioned rice, but when it rained for days on end, if one was not going on all the reward challenges, something different had to occur once in a while in regards to taste.

The only issue was that there was a possibility of a reward challenge occurring at some point during that day, and a couple of Knuckles' fellow castaways informed him of that chance, yet he wanted to go anyway.

However, his reality was that he desired to get some time alone. Using the fishing excuse was great for him so that no one had to worry about him searching for possible hidden immunity idols.

And so, from the sky's point of view, there the echidna was searching for food in the East China Sea.

"After Shadow got blindsided last night, I felt like I needed to be on a tribe of one last night. I mean, not trying to sound like I'm anti-sociable or anything, but this is basically a perfect opportunity for me to cool off and kinda clear my mind for a little bit. ...Guess I've spent so much time on Angel Island alone I had to basically force myself to become used to being alone anyway, so why not?"

His head popped above sea level for a few moments.

"Man, are all the fish still asleep or something?"

"Shadow was my main ally in the game, he saved me twice and I saved him once, no doubt we were taking each other to the end in our Hidden Five alliance. So seeing him out of the game basically screwed up my chances of making it there. Now I'm back to square one. The one opportunity we had to strike against Chatan Four and Marth and Zelda decided against it. I'm kinda ticked at them, but all of the Chatan Four are still here, and that's where I'm mad at the most since they were always running the show. ...I mean I gotta think of something at this point, because the three knights that thought that were at the bottom are clearly at the bottom now..."

At the camp itself, Bonnie was seen observing him with Greninja.

"...Wouldn't it make more sense to do that say if he lost today's challenge?" Bonnie thought out loud. "I mean, at this point we're most likely having something..."

"I thought the same, to be honest." Greninja laughed in reaction shaking his head slightly. "Zelda and Sheik tried telling him that, but Knuckles insisted anyway. I think he's only doing it because he wants to be alone."

"Guess he's still mad over last night." Roberts concluded, before shifting his head to face Greninja in the eyes. "Speaking of which,... sorry about how awkward it was last night. I mean, the tribe was just..."

"Well,..." The Pokemon shrugged. "the Knights Alliance is clearly broken up at this point, but don't think it means that I like you and Foxy any less. We still started together, and no matter what happens, at least we're both still here on day twenty-seven. We may go against each other now, but at the end of the day, it's all just a game, no matter what the reward is."

"Knuckles was heated last night because our plan didn't work. And during his argument with the Chatan Four,... he kinda put me on the spot a little reminding them that I basically could have flipped on them at the Pac-Man vote and I chose not to saving both of them. ...But I literally came to them saying that Zelda was strategizing wanting to get me to flip and vote Greninja out to show them that I was gonna remain loyal so those two wouldn't have been on edge as far as trusting me. I was trying to play both sides of the fence for as long as I could have. Sure I had the opportunity to flip, but..." Bonnie outstretched his arms for emphasis. "look at would have happened."

"Yeah, you're right. I have no hard feelings against you, Sheik, Luigi, or Shovel Knight. I'm pretty sure there's a good chance that we all could remain as friends outside of the game. Nothing is gonna change just because we're in different alliances."

"Absolutely." Greninja nodded in agreement. "Thanks for understanding."

"I really appreciate that." He outstretched his arms once again, Greninja receiving the signal as the two shared a friendly embraced, exchanging somewhat of a humorous laugh afterwards. "Maybe I'll take us all out for pizza later before this season starts to air on television."

"I don't know what my fate is since it is in the hands of the Chatan Four plus Marth and Zelda as of now, but my plan still is to remain as under the radar as possible. Since if we are gonna get picked off one by one and if those six don't end up splitting, then hopefully I at least won't be seen as an aggressive player so I would be targeted last. Maybe a few last minute immunity runs would do it, or maybe the six would actually split up someday. Who knows? But either way, as long as I continue to be friends with everyone and not tick anyone off, then I'm doing okay."

Day 27

"Alright, you guys ready to get to today's reward challenge?" The black merged tribe was ready to get to it. "Okay, so here's how this is going to work. For today's challenge, you will be using your feet only."

He received a mixture of questionable, confounded, and even somewhat humorous stares from the remaining Survivor contestants.

"On my go, you will release a rope that will drop blocks in a bin. You will then stack those blocks in a circle and place a flag in the center. First person to finish, wins the reward. Wanna know what you're playing for?"

"Yeah."

"Yep!"

"Why not?"

"Tell us, master."

"Well, I don't think we've had a 'massage' type of reward in a while..."

Literally the entire cast stood there stunned.

"The winner will head out to a good ol' fashioned Survivor spa." He stated much to the big reaction from his castaways. "First you will dive into a feast of cheeseburgers and french fries. Then, you will have nice shower before your body will receive its first break after twenty-seven days."

By far it was one of the biggest rewards of the season.

"We'll draw for spots and we'll get started."

"Oh, I'm definitely winning this thing..." Knuckles mumbled to himself.

-/-

"Alright, here we go. For reward. Survivors ready? Go!"

The starting objective for the castaways to complete was that they needed to unwind the rope near them with one foot to release the puzzle pieces needed to complete the tower. There were three rows to complete which were simple: top, middle, bottom. Of course, one difference is that in order to successfully build it, they clearly needed to do the exact opposite. And also, with hands, a small tower like the one they had to build would have normally been done less than a minute. Yet with their feet? Maybe at least three times as many as opposed to one, if in fact nothing ever went wrong for certain castaways.

"Everybody has released their blocks and now they are starting to make the bottom row. There's a circular table by your feet that you can turn around as you make your first circle." Master Hand informed. "Trust me. It will help you a lot."

Foxy, Greninja, Sheik, Knuckles, Bonnie, and Freddy are all making quick work of this while everyone else is taking their time. No rush it all, especially since one of the six that are currently in the lead can easily slip up. But right now it's not likely since everyone is only working on row one..."

Eventually Greninja ended up being in first place as his first row was nearly being completed. Yet Knuckles was right on his tail, followed by Freddy and Sheik.

"Greninja's now working on the second row. He's the one to beat in spite of literally having less toes than everyone else..."

"Impressive right?" The purple anthropomorphic creature commented, not taking his eyes off his work.

"...Indeed." The master 'nodded' with honesty. "...Knuckles and Freddy working on the second section! Sheik and Bonnie working on the second section! Foxy right behind, Luigi and Shovel Knight trying to keep up, while Marth and Zelda are simply trying to stay in it, yet they both seem calm..."

Though by the time some of the players reached the second section, everyone but Knuckles chose to take it a bit slower than before, guaranteeing him the lead at that point.

"Knuckles all of a sudden leading the pack and he's not messing around at all! ...Luigi all of a sudden getting a good rhythm going. It's still anyone's challenge to win!"

Bonnie desired to work more quickly, too. However, he made a grave mistake as his foot slipped and accidentally kicked one of the pieces of the bottom row. "...!"

"Bonnie... loses almost his entire stack!"

He cursed under his breath with a huge shake of the head. Now he had to work even faster, especially since at that point he was immediately in last place.

"Knuckles is now nearly done with his second section! Greninja still slowing down a bit. Sheik, Luigi, Freddy, and Foxy are now the runner-ups in this challenge!"

Dozens of seconds later, Knuckles's second section was now completed. Two down, one more to go.

Although, the consequences of rushing to get the challenge done nimbly caught up to him. The moment he swung over his first block for his final layer of pieces, he accidentally knocked over one of the pieces of the second row off to the side.

"Knuckles messes up! Now you gotta put that other piece back and fix up your tower! That opens a door for everybody else that was right behind him, including Greninja who's catching up again!"

He was certainly more ticked than Bonnie.

"It is Sheik, Freddy, and Foxy with the biggest shot right now. Greninja and Luigi are right behind. Can they catch back up?"

The former three were already putting the finishing touches on the top row. Though with Foxy, he began finding it rather difficult getting one of his final pieces to stick, giving the lead away to Sheik and Freddy.

"Sheik and Freddy are almost done with this challenge, just to give everyone a heads up! ...And Knuckles is playing more aggressive than ever now... and it doesn't work at all!"

Lo and behold, like Bonnie Roberts, Knuckles the Echidna's entire tower came crashing down on the ground. There were really little to no words to be expressed. However, his challenge performance that day without a doubt is the answer to why people often use the popular quote, 'Slow and steady wins the race.'

"Sheik has placed all her pieces! Freddy has placed all of his pieces! Now they are both going for the flag!" The host of the show shouted. "You gotta get it up and over that top row and place it down in the small hole in the center! Who's gonna do it first?"

As they both ended up being neck and neck for the flag portion of the challenge, Freddy had a harder time getting it over, while Sheik never found it actually getting in the hole to be as easy as she anticipated, as she was instead sliding her flag all over the place and anywhere but the hole itself.

"Here comes Foxy!"

Though, because of Sheik struggling longer than the bear, the pizza manager was the one who pulled off the victory as he calmly managed to place his purple flag in.

"FREDDY WINS REWARD!"

Although most of his tribemates clapped, Knuckles kicked the few pieces that managed to be placed back down for his tower out of anger. Poor guy. Things just could not have gone his way that day.

"Alright, Freddy." Master Hand motioned him to come his way. "Come on over."

As he did so, a hand was placed on his shoulder.

"Now, clearly we have nine other people left, and I'm pretty sure you would hate to see all these players who you are living with have to eat... 'the usual' at camp once again, while you are probably going to have the time of your life."

He immediately nodded at the sight of seeing them. Some were smiling, yet Fazbear knew very well that on the inside, they wanted what he was going to get, which was of course natural due to the whole food situation on Survivor.

"I can choose one person right?"

"Choose one person."

"...Luigi."

"Alright, Luigi. Come on over."

The somewhat surprised Mario brother happily made his way over to the bear as a few cheers were heard from the crowd.

Just to make himself clear, Freddy felt as if he needed to explain his reasoning. "This is mainly because besides me, he's the only one that hasn't been on a reward, and he did pretty well in the challenge today even though he didn't win."

"Freddy even if I don't get picked I wouldn't be mad at you at all." Greninja shook his head. "Everybody needs to eat at some point."

"Okay, Freddy. Choose another person."

"...Marth."

"Okay. Marth come on over."

"Nice!" Lowell grinned as he met with the other to reward goers.

"...Do I get to choose one more?" Fazbear glanced at his master.

"You can if you want to."

"Oh, alright then." He chuckled a little. "...Foxy."

He actually seemed somewhat surprised. Yet he still had no problems making his way over. "Guess I need a burger myself. I'm all over it."

"Okay, Freddy. I could send you and your tribemates out,... but I'm gonna let you choose one, more, person..."

Without uttering a word, he eyed the remaining members of his tribe one by one, well aware of the fact that after the last person was picked, the other half of the tribe were to be immediately sent back to camp with nothing. He knew he had to make a choice, and he had to do so rather carefully.

"...Sheik."

"...Are you serious?" She blinked somewhat in disbelief.

"I sure am."

"Oh my goddesses, thanks!"

She nimbly made his way over to the other four. Although there were some claps, there were some questionable faces on certain castaways.

"Alright, Freddy. You, Luigi, Foxy, and Sheik are all going to a nice spa reward and food will be waiting for you. You guys can head on out and enjoy." He dismissed them as they all exited the challenge area, already discussing what was to come.

Knuckles looked at all of them with pure jealousy and annoyance.

"Knuckles, Greninja, Zelda, Bonnie, Shovel Knight, got nothing for ya. Head on back to camp."

"Alright." The echidna took a deep breath, his back leaning against a rock near the beach. "I can understand Freddy taking Luigi and Marth. Even Foxy. But other than him, Sheik of all people? Those two have been on every freaking reward! I mean, I might have messed up but I still worked my butt off of that challenge. Now Sheik is gonna be fueled up which will increase her chances of winning the next immunity challenge. ...Well on the bright side, at least someone from my alliance is going back to camp with me. We really need to have a talk because I clearly don't wanna go home."

Congratulations, Knuckles. You've shown people how to ruin your social game lol. Comparing Bonnie to Knuckles's reaction to being blindsided basically explains how to handle things not going your way in Survivor in a nutshell. Knuckles could have at least saved his anger for his confessionals and his confessionals only, and now Chatan Four has another reason to why they made the right decision to get rid of Shadow over Marth/Zelda.

But other than that, the challenge was... interesting to say the least lol.

Question:

1. Because of Knuckles's behavior this chapter, do you feel that Chatan Four is going to be more provoked on getting him out, or would the target be on someone else in the Pirate Crew? If so, who exactly?

Vote on your top five players this season and I encourage everyone to review! See ya on Saturday!