"If I'd known about all this," Wally muttered reverently. "I would've shouted from the heavens that girls belong in the kitchen and gotten myself voted off in the second episode."
Playa Des Losers. The temporary residence for all Total Drama Contestants until after the airing of the final episode, set to be released one week after filming wrapped up. With another five episodes to go and a release rate of two episodes per week, that meant that Wally and Heather would be staying at the island resort for almost a whole month.
Yes, you read that correctly. Island resort.
White sandy beaches with crystal clear water and killer waves. A beautiful pool with a Jacuzzi to the side. Fully catered by a chef poached from a 5-star restaurant with round-the-clock room service and more channels than any one individual knew what to do with.
Literally, the only thing it was missing was internet access and a phone, but that was all to keep any spoilers from being released prematurely, so the contestants could at least understand that.
Basically, it was everything that the show's original brochure had promised finally being delivered to them.
And it was glorious.
Even the company.
"Wally!" A familiar voice shrieked as the most recently eliminated duo stepped into the resort's lobby, mere milliseconds before an equally familiar weight landed heavily upon Wally's back, sending him stumbling forward before he grabbed the thighs wrapping around his waist and valiantly struggled to retain his balance.
"Izzy?" He twisted his head around awkwardly to see the girl's manic grin, right before she wrapped her knuckles against his skull.
"No duh, Speedy," she giggled happily. "You don't mind if I call you 'Speedy', right? No? Great! 'Cause I was thinking how you're so quick on your feet, like Speedy Gonzales, only your accent's way funnier."
"Plus," and here she narrowed her eyes as she examined his face thoroughly in a manner that made Wally hold his breath in fear. "You kinda look like that archer guy. You know the one I mean? The one that had that hissy fit in the Hall of Justice a year back?"
Wally very nearly face vaulted. She thought he looked like Roy?! If he weren't so relieved he'd be insulted!
"Uh, actually, I'd kinda prefer 'Wally'," he said awkwardly. Even when it came to picking alter egos, Wally had always felt that 'Speedy' had sent the wrong message, but here he was deliberately trying to avoid any connections to the Justice League.
"Yeah? But I was totally gonna let you call me 'Explosivo'!"
Beside them, Heather snorted, very much disgruntled by the whole display. With a scoff, she turned on her heels and wandered off to explore the resort, muttering all the while about 'leaving freaks to their own kind'.
Meanwhile, temporarily putting Wally's potential nickname on the backburner, Izzy slapped Wally's rear with a cry of "Mush!" and demanded that she show him around the place... all from the comfort of his back, of course.
Wally, who was largely unbothered by the girl's weight and proximity, not to mention genuinely frightened of how she might react if he denied her, complied. He wanted to look around anyway, and a guide could only help him.
"Fine," he acquiesced, before scowling irritably as he felt a tug on his short crimson locks. "But my hair is not a set of reigns."
"But how else am I gonna steer you?"
True to her word, Izzy gleefully directed Wally around the resort, giving him a detailed history of his fellow eliminated campers' activities all the while.
"Seriously?" Wally asked, stunned. He was also dumbstruck and flummoxed. "Duncan... and Gwen?"
"Yep," Izzy nodded dutifully. "Hooked up about a week ago."
"Wow," Wally blinked, shaking his head in a dumbfounded manner at the idea of the punk and the goth getting together. "Never would've picked that one. Any more hot gossip?"
He felt her shrug behind him, signaling indifference, "Well, Sadie and Katie've been trying to get it on with Justin, but so's everyone and he's pretty much ignoring it all unless he wants something."
"Oh!" She remembered. "Also, stay away from Courtney if you can. The C-I-T gets a little antsy when your name comes up. Turns into a total B-I-T-C-"
"I got it," Wally interrupted with a sigh. He wished that he didn't find that surprising. "What about Duncan?"
Again, Izzy shrugged. "He laughs when we see you get hurt on the show, but he likes it when anyone gets hurt. Could go either way. You did stab him in the back, after all. Not that I'm complaining."
"Ooh, speaking of," Izzy squeezed him from behind. "How'd you and Heather both get sent home?" Affecting a disapproving tone, Izzy continued. "I sure hope Chris didn't catch you two doing anything unseemly without me."
Wally snorted, "If he'd seen something like that he'd've aired it and kept us on 'til the final two."
"Nah," he shrugged. "Chris decided on a double elimination round and Heather and I both had alliances against each other. We pretty much kicked ourselves off."
Nodding sagely, Izzy said simply, "I told you guys. Trying to control the uncontrollable only leads to bad things."
Turning cheerful, she also added, "Though sometimes it also leads to explosions."
The next few weeks were simultaneously the best and worst of his entire life. On the one hand, he was out of the game. Chris McLean no longer held any power over him, meaning that he was safe from the disgusting, dangerous and downright degrading challenges that the remaining campers were forced to undergo. Additionally, he got to spend his days on an island resort (he'd never get tired of saying that), with all that that entailed.
So, on the one hand, Wally had left Camp Wawanakwa behind him for greener pastures (far, far, greener. Like, seriously, compared to Wawanakwa he was now swimming in an ocean of emerald).
On the other hand, however... well, back at Wawanakwa, Wally was completely isolated from the outside world. To a pessimist, this could easily mean that the world could be going to hell around them and they wouldn't even know it. To an optimist like Wally, however, combined with that lone update he'd managed to get from Artemis, he was allowed to believe that absolutely everything was going perfectly fine out in the real world.
At Playa Des Losers, outgoing contact with the outside world was directly prohibited, and a surprisingly extensive security system (Heather theorized that Chris intended to edit together a few segments of the losers lounging about for some reason or another) had so far prevented him from making any temporary escapes. They did have T.V. though, and access to just about every major news station in the Northern Hemisphere.
Every evening, at around six, Wally would drop everything to watch the news.
For the most part, everything was fine. Celebrities still did stupid things on camera, people committed random acts of great charity and horrible violence, the world still turned.
Any battle that included a masked superhero was covered extensively. And Wally could only sit back and watch, completely and utterly incapable of doing a thing.
He told himself that, if it were something really serious, like, end of the world type stuff, he'd be there in a flash. But for anything else... for anything life and death and immediate...even if he were to break cover, it'd take him at least ten minutes to get to the nearest zeta-tube.
He wouldn't get there in time.
So, he watched. And a few others would occasionally watch with him.
Duncan loved the ultra-violence. So did Izzy. They never missed it if they could. Others drifted in and out, depending on who was onscreen at the time.
Lindsay never missed any of Wonder Woman's battles. Owen seemed to seriously like the Flash. Eva would usually show up if Hawkgirl was to be seen. Tyler loved Green Arrow and Noah would occasionally express curiosity over the biologies and cultural deviations of the various extraterrestrial League members.
The remainder of Wally's days were spent doing the best he could to relax. This meant watching T.V., chilling in the pool, hanging out with the other eliminated contestants and giving his best possible effort to avoid a certain C.I.T..
Courtney, it seems, had not taken her elimination from the game all that gracefully. Unlike, oddly enough, Heather. Once she accepted that the game was done and done, the Queen B became much more pleasant (though, considering that she wasn't all that pleasant to begin with, that didn't do much to make her presence something to be desired). Granted, she still addressed the majority of her cast mates by various insults, but she had dropped any active attempts to antagonize anyone.
Courtney, on the other hand... well, she was pleasant enough to be around. So long as your name was not Duncan, Izzy or Wally. Geoff's name (particularly his continued success in the game) was also something you would be wise not to mention in her presence.
Duncan and Izzy dealt with this antagonism head on (and rather gleefully at that), but Wally had no desire to fight and did his best to just stay out of her way.
Every third or fourth day, of course, the monotony would be broken.
The first to come was, to everyone's surprise, Chris. The host of TDI explained that he planned to make a filler episode with all the eliminated contestants giving their opinions on the Final Four, casting their votes for who they believed should come out on top at the end of it all.
Between all that, he also made sure to capture as much drama as he possibly could on camera. Courtney's feud with those who had voted her off would later make up a full two fifths of the screen time.
Everyone gave their thoughts on the final contestants. Most of them sticking with those who had been on their teams out of group loyalty if nothing else.
"Who do I think should win?" Wally repeated when the question was posed to him. Waving his hand vaguely, he shrugged. "I don't know. After all the crap they've put up with, they sure as hell all deserve it. But I guess I hope that Geoff or Bridgette wins in the end. Don't get me wrong, Cody and Leshawna are great people, that alliance with Heather notwithstanding, but Geoff and Bridge have stuck with me pretty much since the start of this whole thing."
"I don't know," he sighed. "I just hope that none of them get hurt in Chris's games."
Three days later, Chef dropped off another contestant at Playa Des Losers, and Leshawna was forced to tiredly explain how, after a 'Boys vs. Girls' challenge that focussed heavily on wilderness survival tactics, of which the City Girl and the Surfer had little knowledge, whereas Cub Scout Cody held a certain expertise, the Geek and the Party Animal had earned themselves immunity.
Coming down to a contest between Bridgette and Leshawna in the final vote, it came to a shock to everyone when Chef was given the final decision of who was to go. Chef had quickly zeroed in on Leshawna, who, even after almost two months of the stuff, had yet to stop complaining about the subpar fare he expected them to eat.
And so, after a few halfhearted words of comfort offered for having lost her chance at the cash prize, Leshawna was quickly absorbed into the preexisting routines for another three days.
And then came the next contestant.
Wally wasn't really sure who he was actually expecting to make their appearance at Playa Des Losers, but he could say with absolute certainty that he was surprised to see Geoff.
"Dude, what happened?" Wally immediately asked, noting that his friend was sullen and withdrawn, a haunted look in his eye... a far cry from the jovial and upbeat character that he had befriended on the island.
"Dude..." Geoff's gaze was focussed on the ground beneath his feet. "It was the fans. Chris had them send in dares and... and..."
"And?" Wally prompted.
"And they were merciless, dude!" Geoff cried. "They put Chris to shame. And we had to do them all or forfeit the challenge... dude, the things we did..."
"Geoff? Geoff!" Wally snapped his fingers in front of his friend's face, forcing him out of the trance of his horrific memories.
"It was so disgusting, man," Geoff started to speak again. "Cody... oh Cody... and Bridgette... they dared her to eat... it was so... I couldn't let her!"
"Geoff, man, don't tell me..."
"You weren't there, man!" Geoff defended his actions strongly. "I couldn't let Bridge go through with that... the slime fungus aside, she's a vegetarian, man!"
"So you... volunteered?" Wally guessed. "You did her dare for her?"
Gaze turning downwards again, Geoff reluctantly admitted, "I tried. They told me I passed out halfway through. Since I couldn't finish the dare, I was disqualified."
Not knowing what else to do, Wally offered a commiserating pat on the shoulder, before he began to lead Geoff back towards the resort.
"C'mon," he offered consolingly. "Let's go grab DJ and we'll all chill out in the hot tub together. You can forget all about the island and we can rest assured that you'll see Bridgette again in just one more week."
Nodding halfheartedly, his eyes still looking into the darker corners of his recent past, Geoff allowed himself to be led, letting the comfort of warm water and good friends try to heal him.
They'd all need to be in good spirits for the finale.