A/N: Thanks for everything, and all your reviews. Lunarchroniclesandcockatiels, CrazyBlueOwl (great name by the way), Calefe, SuzuBells, Neutrino 2000, and Guest thanks for your reviews. As to answer your questions/reply:
Guest: I don't know your name, unfortunately, but you mentioned that you almost didn't read the fanfic. Can I know why? Was it because there was something off about the title and summary, because I still feel like both of them could be improved somewhat.
Task 2: Given how everyone failed the last task, this one will be made so that at least some people should be guaranteed to complete it.
Each of the four contestants will be given a certain innovative idea, which they will be presenting along with a Powerpoint presentation to a group of fifty strangers, with the ideas being completely ridiculous of course. At the end, the strangers will vote on whether they think it is a good idea or not, with the one (or ones) getting the least votes getting a negative point.
As always, there are hidden cameras, each contestant gets an earpiece, and the other rules as well are the same. Of course, none of the contestants know about their ideas or Powerpoints beforehand. Also, the Powerpoint slides will be in bold.
First person up this time was Frank. He was currently in a small room with just enough seats for fifty people, and it looked like a another boring business meeting place.
How looks can be very deceiving.
"I'll be honest, I'm kind of nervous about this," Frank said. "It would be odd even if this was a normal meeting and I was afraid I would make a fool of myself."
"But in this, you're guaranteed to make a fool of yourself," Percy said.
"That makes it all better, Percy," Frank said sarcastically. One after the other, the audience came in.
The Powerpoint slide showed the title: My Innovative Idea.
"Good morning everyone," Frank said as there was dead silence from the crowd. "I'm here to describe an idea I had for solving various problems, and the thing is that at the end, I want you all to vote on whether or not I should go forward with this project."
Frank then pushed a button and the next slide came up. He began reading the points:
As we all know, a buttered slice of bread always land with the butter side up.
Frank was confused on what this had to with anything, but continued pressing the button so another point came up.
We also know that cats always land on their feet.
"Yeah, everyone basically knows this stuff," Frank said. He then pressed the button again.
So, I've decided to take a slice of bread with butter on it, and attach it to the belly of a cat with the butter side towards the ground, and then let go of them from some height. Therefore, according to the above two rules, the cat and the bread will just continue spinning in mid-air and be unable to land. As they're rotating, this can then be used to create energy.
There were several laughs from the audience and Frank had to struggle to maintain a straight face.
He then pressed for the next slide, which showed a cartoon animation of his invention, with a cat rotating in mid-air with a piece of bread attached to its belly and this being used to move a handle which generated electricity. Frank pressed the button again and THE END appeared.
"So, any questions about my idea?" Frank asked.
Most of the people were laughing, but a lady raised her hand with a serious look.
"Yes," Frank said pointing to her.
"This would lead to the cat feeling dizzy," the lady said. "And then it won't be able to eat either. Isn't that animal cruelty?"
The guys were in stitches again. "Really?" Leo asked. "The thing that you find wrong with that whole thing is that it involves animal cruelty?"
"No, we'll let the cat go after a few hours," Frank said.
"But it would still become dizzy," the lady protested.
Frank wasn't sure what to say, so he said, "Well, to be honest I'm not really a cat person. I prefer dogs." There were several chuckles from the audience at this. "I mean, let's be honest here, when you start giving cats stuff they're like, 'Oh, these people feed and shelter me, I must be a god,' but when you do the same to dogs they have a different outlook, you know, 'Oh, these people feed and shelter me, they must be gods.' So you know, it really isn't that bad."
"Okay Frank, you're a dog person, we get it," Jason said.
"So, how many of you guys think I should move forward with this project?" Frank asked.
No one raised their hands initially, but at the end, seven people did raise their hands.
"Okay, thank you," Frank said.
"Seven?" Leo asked. "You're telling me seven people approved of that? I can sort of get why Gaia wanted to destroy the world now."
Next up was Jason. The title of his first slide was the same, and he introduced himself normally and everything and went to the next slide which had the real content.
As we all know, the world economy is currently recovering from a recession rivaling that of the Great Depression. Now, many economists have come up with various theories to help the economy, but I have my own which I believe can be helpful.
Jason then pressed the button again to see the next point.
My idea is based on a simple everyday experiment. Say that you have two friends, A and B. Both A and B have twenty dollars each which they put into a box, so it now has forty dollars. Friend A sells the box to friend B for thirty dollars. So at the end of the event, both Friend A and Friend B have ten more dollars than they initially had.
"I don't know what," someone said. "But there's something seriously wrong with that."
"Uh, I don't believe so," Jason said with a straight face and then turned to the next slide.
I intend to apply this ideology by modifying CDOs and mortgage-backed securities along with IPOs, which I will explain in detail now.
"Uh, right, so CDOs and IPOs…" Jason trailed off.
"He has no clue as to what those even mean!" Leo said. "Oh god, this is going to be hilarious!"
"So, essentially the CDOs are like friend A," Jason said. "While the IPOs are like friend B, and mortgage-backed securities are like the box in the previous example." Jason tried making himself look more believable by putting on his pair of glasses.
"I don't get it," one person said. A lot of people seemed to agree.
"Come on Jason, you've gotta explain it properly," Frank said.
"I don't entirely understand it either," Jason admitted. Several people, who probably understood economics, laughed.
"Wrong thing to say Jason," Percy said.
Jason pressed another button to reach the THE END slide.
"So, how many of you think I should go forward with this idea?" Jason asked.
In total, there were only five hands that went up.
"Yes!" Frank said. "I'm not going to be losing this one!"
Percy was up next, and he went to the first slide with a bit of apprehension.
As you may all know, global warming has become a very big problem in recent years. Due to this, the glaciers have been melting and the sea level has been rising, which will eventually lead to flooding of various islands. Unfortunately, countries around the world have not been able to coordinate to tackle this problem and a drastic action must be taken in order to combat the rising sea level which threatens all of us.
Percy went to the next slide.
My idea is quite simple. What we all need to do right now, is go to the ocean, take a bucket, and take out a bucket of water. We then take this bucket of water and dump it into our sink. Now, I know the ocean is large, but if everyone took out just one bucket of water, we could stop the sea level from rising.
Percy had a real hard time trying to hide his face while he giggled inwardly at the insanity of it.
"Come on Percy," Jason said. "You're a child of Poseidon. You should know that isn't how the sea works."
"Yeah Percy," Frank said. "By that logic, why don't we combat Global Warming by leaving all of our refrigerators open?"
"Or eating less beans," Leo said. When everyone got that joke, they high-fived.
Percy pressed a button to see a THE END slide.
"Well, people that's it," Percy said to the confused audience, most of whom were snickering as if they couldn't believe it. "I intend to present this before the United Nations assembly, and I'd just like a show of hands showing how many of you think that I should move forward with this."
In total, eleven hands came up.
"I think we gave him an easy one," Leo said.
Leo was up next, and unlike the others, he had chosen not to come in a suit but in his usual outfit, as he thought it would make him look more like an inventor, and that was way more important than actually saying anything. At least according to him it was. He went to his first slide.
I have created an invention which, I believe is so utterly groundbreaking that it will cause tides to move through the technological world. Rather than write about it on a slide, I have a box under my podium with my invention, which I will show and then explain to you all.
Leo looked under the podium, to see that indeed, there was a box there.
"Yeah, Leo," Percy said. "I went the extra mile for you in this one."
Leo quickly realized that Percy was still mad about the Annabeth thing, and whatever was in this box... would complete his revenge.
Leo opened it and nearly collapsed when he saw what was inside.
He took it out gently and put it on the podium for the audience to see, who were all now spectacularly confused, with a few mild smiles among them.
You see, the box had a turtle with a six volt battery attached to its shell using tape. Mind you, this was a real, actual, living turtle, and it had a six volt battery taped to its shell.
That was literally all there was.
Leo pressed the button for the next slide to reach the THE END slide.
"No Leo," Percy said. "You're going to have to explain all of this by yourself."
"Then again, this is a turtle with a battery taped to its shell," Jason said. "What is he supposed to explain it as?"
"I know," Frank said. "Tell them that as the turtle walks, the battery gets recharged. You know, conversion of mechanical to electrical energy."
"Then why would you tape it to a turtle?" Percy asked. "Wouldn't a horse make more sense?"
"Or," Jason said, "you could tell them that the battery helps the turtle walk faster."
All three of them then nearly collapsed while laughing their heads off.
Leo, however, was stoically looking at the turtle. To an outsider, it would seem as if he was like a grandmaster of chess, thinking of which move to play next, and just what to say about the turtle.
Internally though, he was going, 'AHHHHHHHHH! It's a turtle with a battery, what do I explain in that? ARGHHHHH!' Some expletives, were, of course, deleted from that.
"Actually," Leo said, "the battery isn't a real battery. It is an electromagnetic radiator giving off various kinds of EM waves."
"So, did that jargon mean something?" Percy asked.
"This is necessary," Leo said, "for what I'm trying to do."
Thing is, that Leo looked so dead serious that the three of them stopped laughing and edged closer to the video screen, wondering what he had thought of.
"I'm trying to mutate them," Leo said. "So that I can make the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."
"Just look at his face!" Percy said. "I mean, he was so serious before that I actually thought he had come up with some idea that could cure cancer, or something, and that's the idea he comes up with?"
"See, let's be honest here," Leo said. "So many Americans are dying in wars both here and abroad, what we clearly need is a group of mutant turtles who are also ninjas to take their places."
One person raised his hand. "I'm sorry, but didn't they also have a rat sensei?"
"Yes," Leo said. "But it turns out that rats can't be mutated. I have, however, managed to rent a rat costume from somewhere and I'm sort of kind of learning ninjutsu."
"You could've just said, 'Yes, I'll mutate a rat too,'" Jason said.
Another person raised her hand. "Why not just send in robots or drones instead of living creatures?"
"That would be robot abuse," Leo said, apparently with a straight face.
"And letting turtles fight is animal abuse?"
"Yes," Leo said. "So, that's all pretty much it. Who here thinks I should continue with this idea."
No one raised there hands. Not a single one.
"Drat," Leo said.
Result: Leo lost.
"To be honest though," Percy said as Leo returned, "I'm surprised that any of us managed to get any votes. Come on, our ideas were stupid."
"True," Jason said.
"You do realize this means war, don't you Percy?" Leo asked.
"Bring it on," Percy said boldly.
"So what's our next task going to be?" Frank asked.
"We'll see," Leo answered.
A/N: And that ends this chapter and the second round. The current score is that Jason, Frank, and Percy have a negative point each, with Leo having two negative points, and so being the current losing one.
Also, no animals were harmed during the making of this fanfic chapter. Thanks for reading, and do please review if you liked!