A/N: Most of this chapter is set up. I still found it very enjoyable.
I was enjoying my time in first class when I noticed Noah was missing. I looked around attempting to find him. I couldn't see him anywhere, could he have gone to the confessional? I checked, not there. I really doubted he went to economy class so I went back to first class. I scanned the area, no Noah. Then my eyes hit on a sleeping Owen. A horrifying realization came to mind. I ran over. "Owen! Wake up! You're crushing Noah!" I got no response.
"What seems to be the matter Quill?" A familiar latino voice asked me.
"I believe Noah is under Owen! He could get really hurt!" I explained, a bit panicked.
"I see," He replied easily. He walked over to Owen and whispered something in his ear. Instantly Owen shot awake.
"There's peanut butter fudge in the kitchen!" He exclaimed, running out of the room. Sure enough there was Noah.
"Finally I thought I'd be stuck there all night," Noah complained, to be fair to him he was just crushed by at least 300 pounds of weight, anyone would be a bit irate about that.
"O-oh, I'm sure you've been through worse, you did work for Chris after all." I said, hoping it would be enough to distract his mind from it.
"You're telling me, I got fired over coffee. Coffee! Do you know how specific Chris is about his coffee?" He asked.
"Believe me I know." I muttered. I paused, I hadn't stuttered that time. Probably because I wasn't overthinking my response. Excitement welled up in me. I finally found something I could talk to Noah about. How much it sucked to work under Chris.
We chatted about it for a bit, exchanging stories of the host's ridiculous demands, whiny attitude, and sadistic tendencies. Eventually we went to sleep. When I woke the next morning Noah was reading, Izzy was having a male intern massage her, Alejandro and Tyler were eating Ice cream, and Owen was still asleep.
"Good morning Quill, did you sleep well?" Alejandro asked me.
"Y-yes, I-" Before I could finish my response Owen rolled off the couch, this startled Tyler into spitting his ice cream on Alejandro, who gave him an unamused look. He left, presumably to clean up, and when he came back he began to gather treats and snacks. I had a feeling I knew what he was doing.
Nervously I approached him. "A-alejandro." I stuttered. He turned a smile on his face. "C-can I also bring concessions back to the others as a gesture of goodwill?"
"Of course." He answered smoothly. He handed me a candy bar and a bag of cheese puffs. I followed him. I'll be honest and say there were two reasons I wanted to go back with him. One, the gesture would lower our enemies guard allowing me to come off as not a threat, and two so I could observe the other teams at length.
We entered economy class. Alejandro immediately turned on the charm. "Ladies we've taken the liberty of smuggling a few things out of first class again."
Lashawana beamed. "Oh you are just too good to us sugar baby!" She said as she took a bag of chips from him.
"Nonsense, you all deserve it." He responded. Lindsay, and Bridgette had both taken a candy bar each. Alejandro moved onto Courtney, then he held a bar of chocolate out to Sierra. "Are you sure you won't partake?"
Heather intervened. "Like I said last time she doesn't want it!"
"That's right enemy." Sierra giggled.
I walked to Gwen. "Y-you want these?" I asked, holding out the bag of cheese puffs.
Gwen smiled. "Sure." She took them, then she called out. "Hey Duncan you wanna share these cheese puffs?"
"Sure thing pasty!" Duncan replied, sitting next to her. I noted Courtney's glare and sighed. Hadn't she heard of friends sharing snacks? There wasn't necessarily anything amourous going on.
I walked to Ezekiel. "H-hey, you want this?" I asked.
He looked surprised at first, before slipping into his old ways. "Yeah, the Zeke is always willing to take candy from you baby!"
I sighed in annoyance. "Ezekiel, the persona you've created is not flattering." He blinked. "Acting like this won't make people like you." I simplified.
Ezekiel sighed. "Sorry eh, I was just trying to be hot."
I frowned. "I believe you mean cool." He stared at me blankly. "It's a slang term meaning awe inspiring or likeable based on context."
"I dunno what that means but I'll take yer word for it!" He said grabbing the candy bar and eating it in a most unmannerly fashion.
I looked around. "Hey, Ezekiel?" He nodded. "Can you keep an eye on Cody? I'm pretty sure he doesn't like what Sierra's doing."
He swallowed. "You got it eh!"
After that I went into the confessional. "After observing the actions of Team Warriors, I can discern the following. Heather has aleigned herself with Sierra in an attempt to avoid being voted out, Duncan and Courtney are likely allies as well, though the relationship seems tentative at best. Both Ezekiel and Cody are in limbo, in other words it would be in Heather's best interest to try and get them on her side as well. Overall, Sierra seems to be the keystone to Heather's plan."
Later we all met up in the cargo hold where there was a boat for some reason. We all climbed into it. "Take a seat, grab a handle and I'll tell you where we're going." Chris told us. We did as requested. I spotted Tyler next to Lindsay.
"Oh, sweet boat guy. Right Lindsay?" Tyler asked.
"Uhm...sure...Dave is it?" Lindsay replied cluelessly. I felt bad for Tyler.
Then Noah noticed something the rest of us missed. "Why are you wearing a life jacket?"
"Why do you think?" I deadpanned.
"'cause there's 16 of you and only one valuable me." He grinned. "HIT IT CHEF!"
At his words the bottom of the plane came out from under us. I screamed and grabbed the person nearest me, which turned out to be Bridgette. I felt better when I noticed Noah looking visibly shocked.
Chris drove the boat towards a nearby dock, the statue of liberty stood out. "Welcome to New York City!" Chriss announced.
"More specifically long island." I added.
We had to disembark, then climb to the bottom of Lady Liberty, before Chris would explain anything more. "Your first challenge is a carriage race to central park which I like to call 'Liberty or Death!'" He announced, drawing a finger across his throat in a mime of death.
Owen clapped his hands happily. "Oh I've always dreamed of riding a horse drawn carriage!" That didn't surprise me.
"Don't even think about making me the horse Heather!" Courtney glared.
"Slow down conclusion jumpers," Chris said waving the comments off, "It's a baby carriage race."
Lashawna looked around. "So where are the carriages?"
"Yeah hope you brought climbing gloves." The host explained, pointing upwards. I looked up to find three carriages on one of Lady Liberty's spikes as well as ropes leading up to her crown. I had to wonder how the show got permission to do that.
"LOL Chris, I think your mischievous spirit makes the game." Sierra told him. I hate it when people use text lingo aloud, I rarely use it in text form, though I acknowledge the time save.
"Thank you Sierra, it's nice to be appreciated." Chris said soaking up the complement like the sponge he is.
"Appreciated?" Sierra said, walking towards him. "I love you! I always did. Even way back when you were making those terrible movies about talking cats!" Suddenly Chris didn't seem so keen on Sierra's words. Everyone laughed, including myself, because let's be honest, who doesn't enjoy taking your former boss down a peg or two.
"I was even going to call my first fan club the Christians, but that name was already taken." An annoyed Chris gave her a pat on the head and pushed her away. Frankly I was stunned. How obessed do you have to be to know more about one man than an entire religion?
I saw a gleam in Alejandro's eye. He had an idea. I wasn't sure what it was just yet but if it made Sierra less of a host's pet i was all for it.
"Okay," Chris said, chuckling nervously. "Less chatter, more splatter, climbing." he corrected. " More climbing. We'll leave the splatter to fate." That was probably a better response from a legal standpoint.
Chris proceeded to explain the challenge. our objective this time? Climb up ropes to Lady Liberty's crown, pull the remaining members up, retrieve our carriage, race down to the dock, where three boats in each team's respective colors awaited, then follow a line of buoy's to central park.
Lindsay raised her hand. "So when do we go shopping?"
"You don't. " Chris answered.
"No!" Lindsay screamed going to her knees. It was like something out of a film.
Once again we had to climb further up to the base of the actual statue. There were three mats, once again in each team's color. Chris blew a whistle and Alejandro began climbing immediately, followed closely by Izzy, and then Tyler. I started up next. The rope was incredibly coarse, clearly made of some rough material. I grit my teeth and continued. We were going to need everyone to pull Owen up.
I glanced left to see Ezekiel was climbing the rope just ahead of Sierra. Good, he was keeping tabs on her.
The rope took an excruciatingly long time to climb up. In fact I estimated I was about a third up the rope when Chris called down. "It's been 25 blister busting minutes and nothing! You guys are bumming me out!" Of course that was what Chris was concerned about. He complained when you brought his coffee five minutes late.
I noticed the weight of our rope moving right. I glanced up, a brown figure, clearly Alejandro as Noah was behind me, had swung over to Sierra, I recognized her purple hair. Whatever he was doing didn't last long as the rope moved back to its original position. It wasn't much longer before Chris called out again. "Hurry it up people! I'm officially bored!"
It wasn't until we were approximately two thirds of the way up that something else of note happened. Tyler stopped. "Look at those!" I glanced in the direction he was looking. Since when did the statue of Liberty have cleavage?
"Hey what's going on?" Cody asked as he glanced as well. "Oh!" He said leaning forward to look closer. He paid for his perverted manners by falling off the rope whereupon the statue's cleavage began sucking him in.
"Woo ten point landing dude!" Tyler cheered.
"No! He's gonna get suffocated!" I cried.
As if to prove me right Cody cried out. "Uh oh! I'm getting sucked in!"
Sierra gasped. "I'll save you Cody!" she swung over and got him out. So the three of us continued on. Eventually we all made it to the top, save Owen, and began to pull him up. This was difficult enough but Chris was making it worse.
"Ugh! let's go! I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I need to pee!" He complained. I rolled my eyes. That's what you get for making the challenge so tough.
While we continued to pull Owen up Team Warriors retrieved their last member, Sierra. I heard Heather volunteer to get the baby carriage, clearly trying to avoid being voted out, but I didn't pay too much attention as Sierra approached Chris.
"Hey Chris know what? I own every one of your TV appearances on DVD! Even your cooking show, 'keeping it plain with Chris McLean! Your recipe for white rice is so great, it's totally unfair you got canceled after only one episode!" Chris did not look pleased as we all laughed yet again. As far as I was concerned he derided humor from our misfortune constantly, so I was under no obligation to refrain from doing the same.
I noted Alejandro's smirk. This must have something to do with the conversation they'd had earlier.
"I was going through a phase!' He chuckled nervously.
Heather finished getting their carriage and Team Warriors left. We were still trying to pull up Owen when Team Victory arrived. They retrieved their carriage swiftly and departed. We kept trying to get Owen up there, but he seemed to have gotten stuck on something. After far too long we finally got him up there.
"I get the spike! Called it!" Izzy cheered, She got our carriage quickly and we all started down a fireman's pole. Though how Chris had managed to attach said pole to a national monument I didn't know.
It didn't really matter. We raced to our boat and Tyler helped us cast off. We zoomed across the water, and I thought I heard someone yell, but it was hard to hear over the engine. We passed Team Warriors now headed back for some reason. We passed the next buoy...and into the sewer.
I groaned but noted Noah didn't seem all that phased. "Owen's farts smell worse." He explained at my questioning look. We made it just a bit further when we heard a growl, everyone looked concerned.
"You hear that?" Tyler asked. "It sounded like a-" his sentence was cut off by a very large sewer gator attempting to eat us. We all screamed but luckily he missed.
We made it out of the sewer. "Whoo hoo! Let's go again!" Izzy cheered. I shouldn't have been surprised.
"Where's Heather's boat?' Alejandro asked. I felt that jealousy surge up again. I snuffed it out. Heather was the only unattached girl on that team. Well technically Sierra, but there was no way she'd be taken in by his flirting.
The boat came soon enough as the alligator got stuck in the sewage pipe, spitting it out in the process. We all docked at around the same time.
It was time for the next phase in the challenge, well it should have been anyway. "Chris you are such a brilliant commander. That's why you always stood out in your boy band." Sierra complemented.
"Whoa, whoa whoa," Owen interluded. "Chris was in a boy band?"
"Moving on!" Chris tried to interrupt.
"Back in the 80's he was. 'making trouble is easy to do, but making you love me is painful!" She sang, I noticed Chris' eye twitch.
"You were in Fame Town?!" Gwen exclaimed. Everyone began laughing, even though I didn't know who Fame Town was, I got the idea though. This would have been okay, except Sierra didn't know when to quit.
"I really admire the way you never let mockery get to you. I'll have to include that in your obituary. I already have a draft, you wanna hear, 'Chris McLean was born in 1978-" Sierra rambled.
"That is it! Zip it! Permanently!" Chris yelled. Alejandro had a satisfied look on his face. This must have been what he planned all along. It may have been a bit mean, but it was strategically sound. Besides the catharsis I was getting from all this felt too good for me to care.
Chris explained how the race worked. We were to race our carriage down a specific path to turtle pond, where we would retrieve a giant apple without using our hands. Then we'd put it in our carriage and race to the heart of central park. We got a middling path, not as long as Team Warriors, but not as short as Victory's. On top of all that a team member had to ride in the wagon.
Team Warriors chose Cody, Noah offered to do it, and Lindsay volunteered for Victory. "I love it when people call me baby!"
Noah smirked and elbowed Tyler. "Make a mental note of that bro."
Tyler searched his pockets. "I don't have a pen." I resisted the urge to facepalm.
And then a familiar bell sounded. The only one excited was Courtney who had always dreamed of this. I couldn't hear what the other teams were singing, aside from Courtney's opening line, but Owen saved me from worrying.
Owen sang, "The lights are brighter, the fun is funner, bagels are bigger, and the bums are bummer! the dirt and grime make every alley shine, what's not to love about New York!"
We kept racing but Owen stopped to get a pretzel. He even sang about it. "And pretzel stands for all us pretel fans!"
We all decided to join in as we went to finish our race. "What's not to love? What's not to love? What's not to love, about New York!" We made it to the pond at the same time as everyone else. Apparently Team Victory had stopped at some point.
There at the end of the pond was the giant apples. Obviously they weren't real, or they wouldn't be floating. Chris reminded us that we couldn't use our hands, and then Tyler volunteered. He dived into the pond, and somehow ended up with some surface tension, in spite of the short drop. We all winced.
That was when Alejandro turned the charm on Heather. "Central Park is so romantic don't you find?" Once more jealousy rose its ugly head. Fortunately Heather didn't give me much time to dwell on it.
"Whatever! I know you've been messing with Sierra's head so back off or you'll wish you had!" I don't think Alejandro did all that much. He just provoked her inclination to talk about Chris.
"My wish doesn't involve backing off." He flirted.
"Ugh! Just go play with your stupid Team and leave us alone!" Heather yelled.
"You're beautiful when you play hard to get." He said without pause. Must have had that line planned. Heather growled.
"I resent that, I am quite intelligent." I interrupted..
"Just stay out of this you stupid nerd!"
I was about to retort when Alejandro put his hand on my shoulder. "Okay, we're going."
"You bet you are! Right out of the game!" Heather yelled as Alejandro escorted me off.
"Shouldn't someone keep an eye on our carriage?" I asked him.
"Noah can handle himself." He shrugged. Tyler had made it to the apple. We cheered, Tyler tried to move it with his breath.
"It's not working!"
"Come on man use your head!" Alejandro called. Tyler took this quite literally as he began to bash his head against the apple. He got it to us and Alejandro placed it in our carriage. "To the finish line!" We made it to the finish line, but it turned out we had someone else's carriage. Alejandro had to rush back to get ours and by the time he returned we were in last place. Team Warriors had won.
My heart sank. I didn't really want to vote anyone off. Luckily I didn't have to as it was a reward challenge. We all cheered and I saw Alejandro blow Heather a sarcastic kiss. Even his taunts were flirty.
That night we were in economy class. Spirits were high as we still had our whole team. I knew better though. We had been lucky. I really needed to find a way to combat team Warriors.