Disclaimer: I do not own Total Drama Island, Action, or World tour, and I am not making any money off of this story.

Well, this has taken much longer to get out then I had hoped it would. First I had to balance the physical pain that comes from having your wisdom teeth extracted and then the metaphorical pain that you get from midterms and finals. And then spring break came and I still had a ton to do for school and at home, so I couldn't find the time to write much then. On the bright side, I healed well and I'm doing well in school right now. Not anything that affects you, just some good news in my chaotic life right now.

Chapter 3: You Try Dodging Fate

The next challenge came much sooner than Cody wanted it too. Though to be fair, Chris had promised a challenge at least every three days. The fact that the last one had stretched over those three days didn't seem to matter to the narcissist. He should have remembered this, really! Though it had been a long time since he had been on season one.

Dodge ball was a sport that held a certain disdain for many geeks and other less physically inclined children. Cody, reasonably skilled in the game, was a rare exception to that rule. And it was his hope that this game would actually do him some good and let him show his worth to the team.

After all, he knew what was going to happen. All they had to do was take out Duncan before he could rally the others. As exhausted as he had been, one decent hit would be enough and that might stop Harold's dramatic last stand.

He knew from personal experience that Harold did indeed have mad skills.

It was too bad he didn't have a way to affect the team placements at the beginning of the season. He would have been able to put together an awesome team! But that was one thing that resets didn't look like they were going to help him with.

Oh well, there was no reason to complain about things that he couldn't do anything about. Maybe things would go better if he could talk Noah into actually participating this time around. He hadn't been as close to the bookworm as a lot of fans seemed to think, thankfully, but they had been friends and Cody didn't want to see him get booted off so early again.

He hadn't said it out loud to anyone, not even in later seasons, but Cody thought being the first one of the team voted off had really hurt him.

And here comes Chris, he thought as the man marched through the door. He wouldn't be half as happy about this event if we didn't wail on each other so well.

"Okay campers listen up; your next challenge begins in ten minutes. And be prepared to bring it!" The host declared to his unwilling audience, ignoring the hard looks he was getting.


The makeshift gym room was actually pretty impressive, Cody admitted to himself as they walked in. The interns did really good work considering what they had to work with, it was a shame Chris went out of his way to get them injured so often.

There was an idea in that though, getting into contact with one of them might actually help him in the long run. Like when Chef teamed up with DJ in season two and Blaineley in season three. He would have to remember that for later though. The interns were usually really good at keeping themselves hidden and he didn't have time to scout one out before the challenge started. But having a behind the scenes ally would be great if he could manage it.

While Chris began his monologue Cody went over one of the most unpleasant memories that this game came back with and resisted the urge to cross his legs. If he could avoid a blow to the crotch this time, he swore would be happy with today's result. Even if he was eliminated, it would be worth it!

Looking at his team, he noticed that Gwen looked just as wiped out as she had been earlier. She had dark bags under her eyes that seemed even darker against her naturally pale skin. The girl had been dozing all morning, barely managing not to fall asleep in her food this morning. Courtney hadn't improved her mood with this morning's oatmeal accident. So now he was keeping his distance less he get his head verbally bitten off, like he had last time.

Who says he didn't learn from his mistakes.

Looking at the other team, he had to smile a bit. As bad off as Gwen was, Duncan was even worse. At least she was on her feet; Duncan had threatened the rest of his team and collapsed onto their bench. Having been stuck on a plane with him, he knew his friends snoring could get pretty bad, so it wasn't a huge exaggeration that he would have kept Duncan and the others up.

Chef paced back and forth in front of them in a traditional black and white striped referees shirt. Apparently satisfied with whatever he had been looking for, he went to stand by Chris.

"Today's challenge is the classic game of dodge ball," The host informed them, bringing a ball out from behind his back.

Yeah, because that wasn't obvious from the gym court or the pile of rubber balls next to you, Cody thought to himself.

"The first rule of dodge ball is-"

"Do not talk about dodge ball," Noah cut in with his usual dry humor. Cody tuned out the conversation to try and think of something that he could do to avoid a loss. Really, the only thing that came to mind was play better and try and eliminate Duncan. He was pretty good at this sport, but that hadn't been enough last time. He focused on Chris again after nothing came to mind.

"So what do I do again when the ball comes at me?" Lindsay asked the host, still not getting it.

"You dodge," Geoff threw a ball at him and he deflected it into Lindsay's face. Cody and most of the others winced when the blonde went down.

"Ooh, you were supposed to dodge!"

"Oww, right," Lindsay said. There was already a large bruise forming in the middle of her forehead.

"You have one minute until game time!" Chris said imperiously. "Gophers, you'll have to sit one person out each game."

"Okay, we can't get lazy. The Killer Bass are going to be trying extra hard to catch up. Who wants to sit the first one out with sleeping beauty?" Heather, the self-proclaimed leader, demanded.

"All right, I'll volunteer." Noah offered with a smile. "Now let's see all you keeners get on out there and dodge," he struck a pose at the end, pointing his fingers at the group.

What's a keener? Cody wondered to himself as he took his position on the court.

"Bring it on fishies; otherwise winning three in a row just won't be as satisfying." Heather declared with her usual bravado. Tyler seemed to take it as a challenge.

"Oh, you're going down. We're going to bring the dinner to the table, and then we're gonna eat it." His proud declaration was met with rolled eyes from his teammates and enemies alike.

"Both teams' ready, best of five games wins. Now let's dodge some balls." Chris declared while Chef set them off with a blow of his whistle.

Dodge ball was a very simple sport. But it could also be very chaotic, which Cody remembered when he was trying to follow all six of the balls at once. Tyler had accidentally decked Sadie with his opening shot, and Harold had embarrassed himself with a rather lame opening shot in response to Leshawna's challenge. He wandered if Harold had already developed that crush or if it came later in the season.

He was distracted when Lindsay walked up to him holding a ball. "What am I supposed to do with this again?" Half a second later a ball hit her in the middle of her face again, she moaned in pain from her position on the floor.

The first round continued just like it had the first time, with him ending up against Katie and DJ. He could hear Courtney talking about an easy out from the other team's bleachers. Ducking under a shot, Cody spun a ball in his hand and launched the twisting ball. It missed but curved back in to hit DJ in the but. Then one of his patented shock balls followed Katie as she ran around the court until she smacked back into the wall. Cody walked back to his team in a confident stride. Even if they lost today, he was sure they would not vote him off after that round.

He planned to play in the second round and sit the third round out. With luck, he'd be able to talk his friend into actually competing in the game this time. He wasn't sure who he'd vote for if they lost, but it would probably be Heather. However much she might or might not change, she was the most obvious obstacle in the way right now to his happy ending.

"Okay Noah, you're up," Heather informed the young man, who didn't even look up from the book he was reading to respond to the haughty girls request.

"You guys did such a great job in the last match; I don't want to throw you off." She couldn't see his face past the book, but it was pretty difficult to miss that smug tone of his.

Huffing, Heather took her seat as the next round began. Cody took a place on the court rather than the bleachers as the next round began. If things went as they should they would win this round, but ultimately lose the game. He still didn't have a real strategy to prevent that yet. Hitting Duncan will a dodge ball early on may or may not help his cause.

But he had to admit, hitting Duncan in the face was tempting in its own right. He had his own reasons to dislike Duncan after all, and this was a chance he wouldn't easily give up.

Ducking to avoid a clumsy throw, Cody snatched it up and tossed it back. He had to stop spacing out like this; it was going to cost him at some point. He'd just have to make it a point to strategize before matches from now on.

The round ended exactly like it had the first time around. Cody could see Courtney and the others waking Duncan up…by poking him with a long stick.

He had to admit, that was pretty funny. Even Duncan's little freak out afterwards brought a smile to his face, but he had other issues to deal with. He had to talk Noah into actually participating this time around so he wouldn't get the boot, and he would have an ally for later in the contest. He also wanted to impress Gwen by helping them win this round. He was sure if he could last till the end on round five he could take Harold, with or without Owens help.

Taking a seat, something clicked in Cody's mind. So I can have an ally for later. That sounded way too much like something Heather would think.

Of course, if he was totally honest with himself, Heather wasn't as evil as some made her out to be. She had just taken the game more seriously than the rest of them from the start. She had taken it too far at times, but by the end of season three she was far from the only person who'd gotten their hands dirty for the sake of a win.

Even he hadn't been a saint.

Shaking his head, Cody focused on his goal and took a seat next to the bookworm. He'd barely opened his mouth when Noah preempted him.

"Don't want to talk."

Not thrown at all by the blunt refusal, he'd seen a few of them from Noah before. Usually when the know-it-all had to deal with Izzy, the redhead had annoyed everyone at one point or another but seemed to have a special place in her heart for aggravating Noah.

He would have to keep that in mind for later, but getting back to his main goal here.

"You really should try and help out with the game you know." Cody decided to get right to the point. Noah wasn't somebody who enjoyed small talk, so the direct approach was best.

"What can I say, sports just aren't my thing." Noah shrugged without actually looking away from his book.

"But if we lose, you might be voted off if you don't at least try and help."

And I'm speaking from experience here, Cody added in his head. He couldn't say something like that out loud unless he wanted Noah to think he was nuts.

Come to think of it, he'd replace Izzy as the competitions psycho if he ever started telling people he was a time traveler. It might even get worse if he started to prove it. Who knew what Chris would do with the power to manipulate the future? It wouldn't be pretty, that was certain.

"I'm saving myself just in case Chris throws any mental challenges into the game."

"It's a reality show, Noah," Cody reasoned. "Mental challenges usually aren't all that fun to watch, and they usually aren't dangerous. Just what are you expecting Chris to do?"

Noah finally put the book down and turned to face him, putting one hand underneath his chin and looking up in a mock thinking position.

"Oh I don't know, maybe he'll tie us to an electric chair and have us solve brain teasers or something."

"…don't give him any ideas!" Cody hissed out seriously.

Raising an eyebrow at what he saw as an unwarranted fear, Noah picked up the book again. "Thanks for the concern, but I'll take my chances."

Cody opened his mouth, but couldn't think of anything he could say that would keep his friend in the game. Chef's whistle broke his out of his thoughts. While he had been distracted, Duncan had gotten back into the game and led the Killer Bass in a shutout victory against them in the third round.

"Come on, a little effort out there people," Noah stopped when he saw the rest of his team glaring at him. He was smart enough to realize that now probably wasn't the best time for this.

Heather gathered the rest of the team in front of the bleachers for a quick strategy.

"Okay not that Noah here cares, but we are not losing another game to these guys. Got it! And where is Lindsay?" Heather stormed out of the arena to find her alliance member.

"Well that was sure inspiring," Cody piped up, unusually sarcastic. The rest of the team smiled and Gwen actually snickered a little, he felt his heart speed up a little when she did.

Then he remembered exactly what Heather was going to do when she found the couple together and winced in sympathy. Tyler, for all his athletic failings, really hadn't deserved having a canoe dropped on his head.

Round four was the same disaster it had been for them the first time around. Heather dragged Lindsay back in just in time for Izzy to go down against a rain of rubber balls.

"How are we doing?" The universe seemed to answer the raven haired girl as Beth went down in a flash, leaving it five against one. Chef hadn't even bothered making the fallen get off the court. It was kind of brutal for a dodge ball game.

"Sports, not my forte remember." Noah answered the girl, not seeming to notice his teammates still groaning on the ground.

"You know you could actually give it a shot and pretend to care!"

Leshawna went down hard, leaving the entire Gopher team lying around the court while the other team celebrated. "This is so unacceptable!" Heather tried to make herself heard over the cheers.

Cody just shrugged, he would have played this round but the others had gotten onto the court first. Looking at the results up close again, he wasn't too disapointed in that either.


"Okay this is it, the final tie breaking game." Chris was in his comfort zone, center stage while the contestants tried to strategize. Once they were done, they took their positions on the court.

"Gophers, Bass, let's send this sample to the lab. And see what you're made of!"

The fifth round was every bit as intense as he remembered it. The Gophers had figured out not to let all of the balls onto the Killer Bass's side this time, so Duncan's rush strategy wasn't really working anymore. Unfortunately, that left them with a dragged out dodge-brawl with each member being replaced at least once.

Cody jumped around, but was taken down the first time by a throw from DJ hitting him in the stomach. Wheezing a bit, he took a seat rubbing at what he was sure would be a nasty bruise. He didn't have to wait too long though, Trent caught a ball and he was welcomed back in. And so the round went.

The changes came towards the end. Because he was only partially focused on Gwen, rather than completely obsessed like he had been last time, he didn't take the blow for her. So in addition to avoiding a second blow somewhere very painful, he and Owen ended up alone against Harold on the other team.

He could hear the Screaming Gophers cheering. To them it was obvious match, two of their best players against the other team's worst. To his credit, Harold didn't let the lack of support faze him and instead took some kind of defensive stance.

"Sorry dude, but you've got to go down," the pudgy boy managed to get four balls into his at once. The ginger teen just changed poses and made a 'come and get it' motion with his right hand.

Owen's blitz went exactly as it had the first time. Harold dodged around each of the balls as they came, and in an amazing show of flexibility actually managed to lean under the last and let the last one fly over his head.

Courtney called for a time out and the Killer Bass formed up to congratulate Harold. Meanwhile, Heather stalked up to her teammates and her expression wasn't pleasant.

Cody was a little surprised when it was him the upset girl confronted.

"Why didn't you do anything out there? You loser!"

"Hey," he objected to the accusation. "Owen took all our balls, and missed too!"

"Hey," the blond boy's objection seemed to be more from being thrown under the bus than anything else.

"Just get it right." The girl stalked off once her tirade was finished, leaving the two boys to glance at each other.

"I don't think we deserved that," Cody said, mostly to himself.

"I don't know, we might have," Owen saw the look the smaller boy was giving him and blinked. "What?"


Cody let Owen get off his windup throw before launching his own twister shot, hoping to catch Harold off guard after the first shot knocked him back against the glass wall. Owen would be out but he would be the hero!

It almost worked too. Harold used the first ball he caught to knock the other ball into the air, and then easily caught it in his spare hand when gravity made it come back down.

He didn't think anyone would have doubted his mad skills right there and then.

That was little comfort to his team, who were stewing over their first real loss in the contest. Even he was disappointed in the outcome. They could have done better. He could have done better, but at least he hadn't been hit in the crotch again.

"Gophers, what happened?" Chris's entirely too smug question went unanswered. Noah had apparently listened to his advice enough not to pour gas on the fire. Even so, most of the team was glaring at the boy for not at least trying.

That night, they were off for another dramatic elimination ceremony.

"Campers…you've already cast your votes and made your decision," Chris drew out what was probably his favorite part of the entire show. "One of you will be going home…and you can't come back…ever!"

Liar, Cody thought in the safety of his mind. He tuned out the rest of the performance until Chris started to pass out marshmallows.

To no one's surprise, except perhaps his own, Noah got the boot again. Cody shook his head at the other boy's attitude; he could have gone farther if he'd reacted like he had during season three.

Cody retreated back to his cabin after the rather anti-climactic marshmallow ceremony. But rather than get some sleep like the other boys were, he was fiddling with the clock he had gotten. The arrow was moving now, but still seemed to be stuck because he could only move it a few spaces now.

Finally getting tired, he placed the clock carefully at the bottom of the bag before he went join the rest of the cabin in sleep.


Well, another chapter is here. I want to take a moment to thank everyone who wished me luck on my exams. I did pretty well, all things considered. Now to address a few details in standard post chapter notes.

1) This chapter was not as long as I had hoped it would be. But it is not easy to describe a dodge ball game and make it interesting without getting repetitive. There also wasn't a whole lot of dialogue mid game, so I did my best and tried to mix it up a little towards the end.

2) I do not think this was a great chapter, plot wise I mean. Filler chapters end up that way a lot though. But the next one will have more action. I'm looking forward to it. It will also be where we start to see the bigger changes that come with Cody's actions so far in the competition.

3) I've gotten several guesses about the clock, but no one has figured it out yet. Its purpose will be revealed in the next chapter or two so keep guessing. Still, I'm glad that people have taken such an interest in my work.

4) Keep an eye out for any new stories that I post. One will definitely be in the Total Drama section and I can almost assure you that it will be epic!

5) Anyone interested may want to take a look at my profile. I've updated it for the first time in over a year now. It will have information about the Total Drama story that I'm working on too.

6) This will be a very long story, so I see no reason to try and rush the plot. That's why I'm not skipping any of the challenges yet.

7) Please leave a review and tell me what you think. It can only make me write faster, I assure you.