"Look, officer, you have to believe me, I wasn't paying any of those people to actually do things for me, I was simply using them for a bit on my show! And I can't answer any more questions, because that show is about to start right now!" Duke was being questioned in an interrogation room, with his wrists handcuffed to the table while an officer sat across from him. He simply lifted up his arms in a quick, forceful motion, though, and ripped the cuffs apart so he could stand up and just walk straight through the wall to get outside, leaving the officer utterly stunned. "I can't do anything fun without some jabronis getting pressed about it these days! But…last time on the Ridukeulous Race: teams were sent off from Indonesia to Las Vegas, the one place in the world that is destined to empty your wallet faster than the speed of light! Flights were split up into groups of three, all going by helicopter to reach the top of a Vegas hotel, and the groups had to run all the way to a casino on the Vegas Strip to find out that their first challenge of the leg would be one in superteams: a fun new idea that I had about halfway through the race! The challenge was simple enough, but dangerous– perform a show tune-esque bit in front of a large audience while crossing over a dangerous obstacle course that was catered to your tune!" While the host went about with his ramblings, the first clip played from the previous episode, showing the Long Lost Brothers, Awkward Neighbors, and Speedy Recovery performing the Greatest Show while trying to cross their obstacle course. "The first superteam made it through without any issues, despite Kotomi adding more danger to the obstacle course in hopes to hurt those brothers like they hurt him! The second superteam, on the other hand, was being held back by Olive, who was still depressed from the Basketball Team ending their alliance with her and her sister! I know, I know, we all hate Conroy and Mika for that…speaking of Conroy and Mika, it seems that they're taking a whole new strategy for the end of the race– sabotaging other teams to ensure their own safety! It's a bit unethical, sure, but woowee, it's fun to watch it happen!" Duke snickered as the next clip played, showing Mika talking to Logan on the casino floor.
"The second challenge for the leg was a botch or watch, where botchers had to get lucky on slot machines and win themselves some money! Not real money of course! Plenty of teams got punched by boxing gloves with how horribly unlucky they were, while other teams played the waiting game to find out which slot machine was rigged to win everytime! Gotta hand it to Jamie Lynn, that was sure a good way to avoid getting hit at all…not only that, but her bait out strategy ended up netting her and Phoebe first place for the leg! Those two are on a roll lately!" Duke beamed as the next clip was shown, with Jamie Lynn winning at her slot machine and running to the chill zone with Phoebe before anyone else was finished with the challenge. "After a failed pep talk from Honey to Olive, Becky decided to take matters into her own hands, telling her older sister that the only reason the alliance ended wasn't because Mika and Conroy were thinking of their own needs, but because they're a bunch of big meanies who hate Olive and wanna see her cry! That fired the drummer up enough to get through the first challenge, and not only that, but the second challenge as well. Unfortunately, though, we ended up having to say goodbye to fan favorite Logan, who fell for Mika's tricky ploy to keep her away from the rigged to win machine. Oh well…at least she got to get some sweet sugar from Ursula before her and her good-for-nothing cousin, Evan, kicked the bucket!" The next and final recap clip to play showed Evan rolling his eyes while Logan latched onto Ursula's lips and held her tightly. "But the Vicious Pop Stars need an amphitheater to perform their best, and this ain't no amphitheater! This is…THE RIDUKEULOUS RACE!"
Cue Intro
"Welcome back to the show, everybody! We're still here on the Vegas strip, where yesterday's winners, the Awkward Neighbors, are just about to get their first travel tip for the leg!" Duke was walking along the strip, which seemed to be a lot more empty than it usually was, probably because it was so early during the day. As he walked, he came to a dukebox, which was right across from the chill zone, where Jamie Lynn and Phoebe were standing.
"Oh yeah, we get the first tip, we get the first tip!" Jamie Lynn had a sing-song tune in her voice as she did an embarrassing dance over to the dukebox, but rather than be embarrassed, Phoebe was just smiling, being happy that she was happy. The punk girl pressed the button on the dukebox to collect her tip, "'It's time to go to Mexico! ¡Olé!'"
"Woohoo, yeah, baby! You know what Mexico means, right? Enough street tacos to feed a whole army, or in this case, one Duke!" Duke grinned as he stood in front of a picture of the Mexican flag, holding a taco in each of his hands and basically swallowing them whole, only for his pale face to turn bright red and flames to spew out of his mouth like no tomorrow. "Ayeayeaye! Maybe the Dukester can't handle the spice of Mexico, but the locals sure can! And there's more to enjoy anyways, like the beautiful landscape, the interesting culture, the…blistering heat…it's a hot place, okay!?" The host was fanning himself off, as he was sweating so badly that his little booth seemed to be filling up with his sweat.
"Teams will get on board this unique type of local transit known as the chicken bus!" The camera transitioned away from the sweat-filled booth to reveal Duke standing in front of the bus, which had windows open to show that there were indeed chickens everywhere inside of it. "The bus will take them all the way from Vegas down to the cliffs of Acapulco, where they'll find their next travel tip! And the Dukester is gonna go shopping for some SPF five hundred!"
Confessional - Bloody Prom Queens
"So, um, since Mika and Conroy, um, since they think I'm just a big stupid, uh, little girl that ain't worth being, um, friends with and stuff, um, I'm gonna show 'em that it was a big, uh, mistake to end our alliance, yup!" Olive nodded her head while Iblis sat in her lap, blinking slowly at the camera before eating a beetle that flew near it out of nowhere. "That means that I'm gonna put in one hundred ten percent to make sure that I win all the challenges so they see what type of alliance they're missing out on!"
"...You mean we'll win all of the challenges, Olive." Olive blushed as Becky interrupted her, and the singer slowly glanced back to the camera. "It shouldn't be hard for us to stay on top of things…most of the other contestants are too afraid of us to bother with getting in our way, anyways."
Confessional - Friendly Duo
"Mexico, huh? I know that they've got churros, and I've never made a churro before, but this is the perfect time to learn how to do it! Which means that you're gonna have to eat a bunch of them so I can find out what recipe works the best!" Xavier grinned as a timer went off for his oven, and he reached into it to pull out a piping hot churro, which he held out towards the deadpanning Marty. "Marty…Marty…Marty…eat the churro, Marty. Eat it…come onnnnnn!"
"It just came out of the oven, are you trying to get second-degree burns all over my tongue?" Marty glared at Xavier, who promptly shoved the churro right into his mouth the second that he was about to continue. He chewed it reluctantly, trying to ignore the heat, but ended up spitting it out onto the floor. "D-did you put garlic in that?"
Confessional - Long Lost Brothers
"So, we did pretty good in the last leg, I would say, and that was in a place where there were no animal friends to help us out! But now, we're going to Mexico, and Mexico has got plenty of animals!" Zeke nodded his head while holding a book of nature facts out towards the camera, showing plenty of species that were native to Mexico. "This leg should be a breeze!"
"Yeah, I agree! Though, I do wonder if Jesse is gonna keep following us around during this leg. I'm all for making more friends and everything, but he seems a little obsessed." Lyle shrugged his shoulders while Zeke turned to look and see that Kotomi was standing behind them, breathing heavily. "...He's right behind me, isn't he?"
Confessional - Basketball Team
"The sabotage on Evan and Logan played out a lot better than we could have anticipated, but we probably shouldn't go around sabotaging a team every leg. That would attract unwanted attention to us, and we know that Becky and Olive already want us gone. Or at least Olive does…she put this picture on our hotel room door last night." Conroy raised his hands up to reveal that he was holding a crayon drawing of Olive dropping a big rock on top of him and Mika.
"We'll lay low for this leg, but we've already got our eyes out on the biggest threats that are still in the game! The Bachelorettes are the biggest problem…they don't get along at all, but somehow, they've narrowly avoided elimination more times than I can count! It also seems like they have a track record of getting other teams out by making them simp for them first." Mika was scratching her chin while mumbling to herself, "What a dangerous power they have…"
Confessional - Speedy Recovery
"This is gonna be it, I got a good feeling about this one! Everybody knows that Mexico is the most unhinged country in the entire world! One wrong step, and suddenly you're getting beheaded by a cartel!" Kotomi snickered, somehow amused by that morbid fact. "All I have to do is make sure that the brothers end up in cartel territory! Maybe I'll set up some trap for them, that'll definitely work!"
"...That leaves the issue of how you'll set up a trap in cartel area for the brothers and then get out before the cartel captures you and beheads you. You really don't think your plans out that much…it's so foolish. Revenge is a form of art, you know." Zerine coldly shut down Kotomi's idea, which made the gremlin boy so upset that he crossed his arms and started pouting like a toddler.
Confessional - Race Moms
"Olive is in better spirits than she was yesterday, which is a huge relief for us! I don't know what did it, though…she didn't respond too positively to my chat with her, but she was fine a bit later." Honey tapped her chin while thinking about it, but ended up shrugging it off. "Meh, it's not really much to think about. So long as she is feeling better, that's all I need to know!"
"It was probably just some heart to heart with her sister, those two are closer than any other siblings I've seen. It's like how me and my brother used to be when he was younger! We played video games all the time, and went on trips together…now he hates me, though." Mitsuki frowned and leaned against Honey's side, letting out a soft sigh of dismay. "I wish I knew why he was like that now so I could figure out a way to get things back to how they used to be." The excavator noticed how upset her partner was, and wrapped her arms around her to hold her in a tight hug.
Confessional - Bachelorettes
"Mexico…I believe I was married to a man from Mexico once. The relationship didn't last too long, though…he ended up passing due to an illness called 'cyanideinyourburritoitis.' Such a shame that it ended so early…" Ursula feigned a sad sigh, but she had a massive smile on her face. "But ignoring that and focusing on more recent…r-relationships…Logan is gone, which is bad news for us! We had planned on pulling those two along longer to ensure our safety…"
"Bah, we don't need those two to make sure that we stay in it. Just think 'bout it for a second– there isn't a single team still in that can outdo us when we're actually tryin'! We're a duo of powerhouses that just can't be stopped…who cares if our playthings are gone?" Lady Belle snickered evilly while rubbing her hands together like a cartoon villain. "I can already smell the million dollars!"
Confessional - Awkward Neighbors
"Bam! Used to have no first places, now we got two! Pretty good comeback, if you ask me! I've looked at all the other teams, and I gotta say, I'm just not impressed! They're all lame in one way or another…especially Marty and Xavier!" Jamie Lynn started to chuckle while nudging Phoebe with her elbow, "Hey, hey Phoebe! I was watching some of the footage from yesterday, and I saw Marty punching Xavier in the back of the head! Imagine doing that to your own partner!"
"C-c-couldn't ever imagine anything like that…" Phoebe tried to not get agitated from that comment, and she soon found that her hand was starting to reach for the pocket with her hat in it, so she ended up slapping it with her other hand. "No!" She shouted, which got a look of suspicion shot her way from her partner. "...I mean…n-no way are any of the other teams gonna beat us! H-haha…yeah…"
"The eight teams are all boarded on our chicken bus, which is now on its way to Acapulco! I wonder if they'll be able to survive each other for that long?" Duke snickered as the camera view showed the bus driving along the road, but it soon zoomed in to one of the windows to show all of the teams inside of the bus, with some of them looking pretty peeved by all the chickens that were running amok inside it.
"Alright, we're off to Mexico! I wonder what types of challenges they're going to have for us…I would assume something involving eating, since Duke wasn't shutting up about how spicy everything was. You know he was showing me pictures that he took of his own tongue during his last trip to Mexico?" Mika shuddered at the thought, and she could tell that Conroy was wincing behind his glasses. "I've never had anyone show me a picture of their own mouth before, but I really hope it never happens again!"
"Um, 'scuse me, Ass-ketballers?" Olive couldn't help but giggle behind her hands after she cussed at Mika and Conroy, who glanced over at her from their seat. She was standing right in the middle of the bus aisle, while Becky was sitting back in their seat. "Hey! So, um, remember how you totally ripped my heart out and threw it in a trash compactor right in front of me? Yeah, well, I remember that! So I came over here because I think my picture from last night didn't really get the point across! This, um, is war, yup!"
"...War? Olive, please understand, we didn't end our friendship with you, we just ended the alliance." Conroy smiled nervously to try to ease the tension, but it didn't affect Olive at all. She was grinning menacingly, tilting her head to the side while staring dead at him, until her head looked like it was fully upside down. "O-oh wow…we do still want to be friends, me and Mika really just need the money."
"Oh, yup, yup, yup! I was told all about the lies that you'd say to me, because, um, you two think I'm a big dummy! Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but this big dummy isn't a big dummy at all! She's actually a little smartie, which is the total opposite!" Olive knocked her fist against her forehead, which ended up echoing, like there was nothing inside of her skull. Mika and Conroy glanced between each other before looking back at her. "So, um, yeah, just wanted to tell you that, um, I'm gonna destroy you, and, um, that's it, yup! Bye bye!"
"...I think that maybe ending that alliance might have caused us more problems than I initially imagined it would," Mika mumbled while Conroy nodded his head in agreement, the two of them watching as Olive skipped happily back over to her seat, where Becky was watching Iblis eat one of the chickens whole, his jaw unhinging to do the job.
"I told 'em off nice and good, Becks! You woulda been so proud of me, I even cussed at 'em! I called them, pfft…teehee! I-I called 'em…Ass-ketballers! BAHWHWAHA!" Olive burst out into laughter, clutching her stomach and kicking her feet wildly while tears of joy streamed down her cheeks.
"Y-yeah…you…sure showed the two of them not to mess with you." Becky slowly nodded her head before glancing past her older sister to look at Mika and Conroy, frowning when she saw that both of them were sadly staring down at their feet. "...How about…you and Iblis play I Spy? Take your mind off of all the negative stuff with those weakbloods."
"Iblis doesn't know how to play I Spy, you goofball! You can be such a knucklehead sometimes, Becks! His favorite road trip game is Sing What We See!" Olive started to clap her hands rhythmically while Iblis finally finished voring that chicken, and the lizard soon started to make weird grunting noises to the clapping. While the drummer was distracted, Becky took the chance to sneak over to Honey, who happened to be sitting by herself at the moment.
"Oh, hey Becky!" The excavator smiled the moment the singer approached her, and she patted the open spot right next to her to usher her to take a seat. "Mitsuki said she wanted to go talk to her brother, so you can sit in her spot for a bit! …What's the matter? You look even more miserable than you usually do. N-not that you always look miserable, you just…ah…what's wrong?"
"I did something that I regret doing, and it's making Olive go all crazy about revenge. I guess I told her that Conroy and Mika were awful terrible people and that they just wanted to make her suffer." Becky sighed while Honey frowned at her, "I have to talk to you about this because if I told Mitsuki, she would ground me or something. …She can be…scary when she's upset with me."
"I-I can be scary, too!" Honey tried her best to scowl, but it was impossible for her to do this without noticing the reflection of her face in one of the windows and giggling. "S-such a funny face…ah! Right, sorry, we were talking about…Mika and Conroy! That explains why Olive seems to be in better spirits…she's high on the thought of knocking them down a peg. Becky, you know you shouldn't lie to your own sister."
"Yeah, but nothing else was working to make her less sad. Angry is better than sad, at least he knows what to do with anger. When she's sad, she just mopes around and cries and it's the worst!" Becky groaned and arched her head back to stare up at the roof of the bus, just as a chicken was jumping above her. It ended up landing on her face, only to immediately cook into a roast chicken dinner on a platter. "This…blows…" The singer muffled from under the platter. Meanwhile, Mitsuki was trying to discreetly sneak over to Kotomi, who was currently holding a fishing rod…for some reason.
"Kotomi, of all of the ridiculous plans that you've come up with since we've returned, this has got to be the most embarrassing of them all." Zerine was blushing out of embarrassment as the camera panned back a bit to reveal that the fishing rod was baited with an uncooked hot dog, which Kotomi was swaying around to try and lure Zeke and Lyle in, although they both seemed uninterested. "My plans for revenge on Duke are going much better, too. I've been capturing him on camera while doing things and putting us in situations that breach the contract we signed to get on the show. His whole net worth is going to be mine by the end of this show."
"Hey, can you shut up? I'm pretty sure I'm about to net one of the brothers, and my line's gonna break if I get distracted by you blabbering." Kotomi rolled his eyes at Zerine, and turned to glance the other way, only to find that Mitsuki's face was two inches away from his own. He screamed, dropping the fishing rod in the process. "Y-you! What are you doing all in my business? We aren't on the same team anymore, so we don't need to talk!"
"I-I know we don't need to talk…but I thought maybe it would be fun i-if we could play some games together. I-I have one of my handhelds…w-we could take turns playing Digimon like old times…" Mitsuki smiled as she raised her hands up to show that she had a little console with her, that was already booted up with the game. "I-I still have our old save file on it, too."
"Ugh, Mitsuki, I'm too old to be playing that baby game with you! And not only that, but that would mean I have to hang out with you, which is a punishment worse than the death penalty." Kotomi groaned, ignoring the fact that his sister's smile was sinking into a frown. "Just go hang out with your girlfriend! She's on your team, and she seems dumb enough to still be into those types of games!"
"She's not that dumb…" Mitsuki glanced back at Honey to see that she was in the middle of trying to balance a chicken egg on her nose. "...Okay, she can be a little dumb sometimes…b-but that's beside the point. I wanted to play with you because it's been a-a long time since we've done anything fun together. The…last time we were technically hanging out, you got hit by a taxi."
"Yeah, and you're making me wish that I was getting hit by another taxi right now! Just go away, you got your partner, and I got mine! If I wanna hang out with anyone, Zerine will hang out with me!" Kotomi grinned proudly.
"No, no I will not," Zerine commented in her typical cold demeanor while returning to her art, which was a landscape drawing of the border that they were crossing.
"...Ok…y-yeah…I'll go back…s-s-sorry for bugging you." Mitsuki's head sank and she miserably trudged back over to her own seat, leaving Kotomi to just groan again.
Confessional - Speedy Recovery
"My sister remains to be the most annoying person in the whole world, glad that hasn't changed while I was gone. It's always her going on and on about how she wants to spend time together; I'm not a baby anymore! I don't need to hang out with my older sister just because she has a hard time making friends! I don't need her holding me back, either." Kotomi grumbled and crossed his arms while Zerine just stared at him in silence. "...What?"
"I think that maybe you get angry with people a bit too easily. The brothers I understand, but your sister? You're wasting your time by whining and complaining about her." Zerine shook her head at Kotomi, who just continued to grumble softly. "It's not like you're getting very far with your revenge on the brothers, so why add another thing to be annoyed about?"
"You don't get it! My sister just…she sucks! She's the worst! Look at her! She looks like Thanksgiving leftovers from two years ago!"
"You know, I was pretty sure we wouldn't make it this far when we first got on the show. Granted, back then all I cared about was giving that bitch a piece of my mind, but, hey, you said she isn't around, so it must be true." Jamie Lynn lounged in her seat right next to Phoebe, who nervously gulped and nodded her head. "Not really sure how to handle it when we get back home, though…I was gonna beat the shit out of her, but I don't really feel like beating the shit out of you by doing that."
"U-um…w-well…not that I want to encourage violence or anything, b-but the injuries she gets and the injuries I get really don't correlate." Phoebe winced as she felt Libby punching the inside of her brain. "A-ah! B-but I-I wouldn't want you to accidentally get hurt while trying to fight her or anything, either. S-s-she's super scrappy, and she once shoved a trumpet up some kids-"
"Ass!" Phoebe and Jamie Lynn glanced across the aisle when they heard Lyle shout the word, and they saw him pointing out of the window at what appeared to be a donkey. "Yup, that's a pretty nice ass, if I do say so myself! I've always been more of a horse guy, but these babies are pretty interesting, too! Some of them are even better with people than horses are, so that's pretty cool."
"Hey, Crocodile Dundee! You mind keeping it down? I'm kinda having a conversation with the only other person in this race that actually matters and you're ruining it." Jamie Lynn snarked at Lyle, who shrunk down in his seat. While he was too busy being sad about that, Phoebe's face was lighting up with a blush. The punk girl rolled her eyes at the brothers before turning back to see her partner looking all sappy. "Woah, what's with that face? You didn't just piss yourself, did you?"
"N-no, you just said…um…it was that…" Phoebe sort of stalled like an engine, not wanting to admit why she looked so happy and sound like a sap, and glanced around the bus, looking for answers. "...I just saw…a chicken p-pecking Zeke in the back of the head. It was r-r-really funny…haha…hahaha!"
"A chicken is pecking me?" Zeke tilted his head slightly, and Lyle looked behind his brother to see that there actually was a chicken that was pecking his head, though it was really to get some seed that was stuck in his hair. "Oh, whaddya know? A chicken really was pecking me! I get so used to animals being around that sometimes I lose track of what they're doing!"
"So, you're basically saying that you wouldn't notice if one of the chickens took a crap on your toes? Since, you know, you made the bold decision to wear open-toed shoes on a chicken bus." Jamie Lynn smirked as she gestured to Zeke's foot, where a chicken was currently seated.
"If a chicken chose to poop on my foot, who would I be to deny her from doing as she must? I love all parts of nature equally, and that includes the disgusting bodily functions of birds. Speaking of which, did you know that the cloaca of a chicken-" Jamie Lynn reached her hands over the aisle to grab the two brothers by the hair before swinging their heads together to knock them out cold. As they fell down to their seats, more and more chickens started to sit on top of them.
"Heh, I definitely didn't need to hear the rest of that fun fact!" Jamie Lynn pulled her hands back while grinning and Phoebe couldn't help but giggle slightly.
Confessional - Awkward Neighbors
"Did you hear what Jamie Lynn just said!? She said that I was the only other person in the race that mattered! S-she didn't say it directly, she said she was having a conversation with…ah, whatever! She said I matter! She…I…" Phoebe started to tear up almost immediately, and had to rub her fists over her eyes to stop the tears from coming. "I-it really does feel like we're finally gonna be able to be friends again! A-and you can't get in the way of that, Libby!" The meek girl snapped at the woman in her mind, but heard nothing in return. "...Oh, you're giving me the silent treatment, aren't you?"
"Man, these churros are just not coming out as expected…" Xavier frowned as he looked at the baking tray that he had in his hands, which had…what was supposed to be a churro but looked more like a spicy, Italian sausage on it. He started to inch it closer and closer to Marty, eventually tapping the tray against his cheek over and over and over again. "Marrrrrrrty…you gotta at least tell me if it tastes okay, or I'm never gonna know what I'm doing wrong."
"I almost wanna break the rule about you not being allowed to give out your baked goods just so someone else can suffer instead of me." Marty sighed and took the 'churro' to take a bite out of it, only to immediately spit it out all over Xavier's face. "Wagh! Xavier, dude, what in the world are you doing to these churros!? This tastes like the bottom side of my boot!"
"I maybe used a recipe I found that only had a one star rating…I really should just come up with my own recipe at this point, it would turn out so much better than this!" Xavier nodded his head before wiping all the regurgitated churro bits off of his face.
"Hey, hey, Ursula…y'know how we were talkin' earlier 'bout how our lil' shields are gone and whatnot?" Lady Belle had been watching the two boys from across the aisle, and had a mischievous grin on her face while looking over at her partner, who just looked annoyed by being stuck on the bus with all the chickens. "Well, I just had a nice lil' thought…shouldn't be too hard to get another shield up."
"Are you talking about tweedle dee and tweedle dum in the seat across the aisle from us? What sort of protection do they offer? To my recollection, they've done nothing but fail over and over again since the very beginning of the race." Ursula was fanning herself off as the heat ramped up, only for her fan to suddenly combust into flames and fall to the ground in a little pile of ashes. "Good grief…"
"Doesn't matter none if they ain't worth nothin', we get 'em on our side, then we got a team we can sack to keep ourselves in. Just watch me. Oh, yoohoo, boys?" Lady Belle whistled as she looked back at Marty and Xavier, finding that Xavier was waving at her politely while Marty refused to even look at her. "Things are getting pretty intense now with only eight teams left…I was wonderin' if maybe-"
"Not interested," Marty replied quickly and bluntly, still not even looking her way. Lady Belle couldn't help but frown at how suddenly she was being shot down.
"Y-ya haven't even heard what I was gonna say…I was just getting a bit worried about the competition, and workin' with another team would be helpful for the both of us. We could get to the finals and then split up the money when either one of us wins." Lady Belle tried to reassure Marty, but he just rolled his eyes and stared ahead.
"I said I'm not interested, and Xavier isn't interested either. I've seen the way that you look at other people. It's a look that tells me you just want someone to use. Not only that, but…" Marty finally glanced over at the two women with a small smirk on his face. "...You're a bit too old for our tastes."
"Old?" Lady Belle's eye started to twitch as she stared back at the deadpanner, who simply turned back away from her. "I see…"
Confessional - Bachelorettes
"That curly-haired, stupid hat-wearin', wobbly-boned, chubby-chasin', no-good, challenge-losin' twink thinks he can call me old!? Me!? Of all people!? I'm not old, I'm hardly a day over twenty!" Lady Belle puffed up her chest proudly while Ursula slowly glanced at her and smirked.
"Yeah, twenty-thousand," the Southerner's face turned bright red from anger as she looked back at the now laughing Ursula, who could barely sit up straight from how hard she was laughing. "C-come now, this isn't news. Everybody knows that you're an old bat by now, tons of people have commented on it."
"They've done the same to you," Lady Belle snarked back at her partner, who just didn't seem as bothered.
"After what seemed like an endless journey filled with eggs and cloacas, our teams are finally in Acapulco, Mexico, where the race for first place is just about to begin!" Duke exclaimed as the chicken bus came to park at a bus stop, with the bus doors opening to allow the teams to fly out, each one headed for the dukebox, which wasn't so far away. The first team to end up reaching it was the Basketball Team, with Conroy being the one to grab the tip.
"Looks like it's an all-in!" Conroy adjusted his glasses to be better able to read the tip, "'Who loves peppers and who loves dip?'"
"For this all-in, team members will each be completing one separate task!" Duke was walking towards a stand that had three baskets, each basket full of a different kind of pepper, one being yellow, one being green, and one being red. "The first team member will be tasked with eating one of the spicy peppers at this stand here, which will determine what the other team member will have to do! If you eat the spiciest pepper here, your teammate…" The camera panned over to reveal a massive cliff with three different tiers on it, each tier getting higher and higher past the first. "...Will have to jump off the lowest tier of this cliff into the water below! Eat the middle ground pepper, your teammate jumps off the second tier! And if you wimp out and eat the mildest pepper, your teammates are going to have to climb all the way to the highest tier to jump off! It's really a big waste of time for everyone involved!" The host grabbed a hold of one of the hottest peppers, and took a mighty bite from it, his face turning bright red before he practically melted into a puddle on the ground.
"Once the diver reaches the water, they'll have to swim to the bottom to get their next travel tip, which is attached to a carton with enough milk in it to soothe the pepper-eaters' tongues!" Duke spoke as the camera dove underwater to reveal the canteens at the bottom of the lake, with eight of them total being anchored to the rocks there.
"Looks like we get to pick which of us is doing what! Having to climb all the way to the top would be bad for us, but if you were to eat the middleground pepper, I think we could still place pretty good in this leg!" Mika nodded her head quickly at Conroy, who nodded back at her. "I might as well get to climbing already, and I'll be back with that milk as quick as the wind!" The younger basketballer jumped up to peck her boyfriend on the cheek before bursting off towards the cliffs, leaving Conroy to walk over to the pepper stand, particularly the basket with the green peppers in it.
"The green one is in the middle, so it must be the right one," Conroy looked among the baskets and ended up grabbing one of the green peppers, turning to see that Olive was standing next to him with the world's smuggest grin on her face. "Oh, Olive…I thought you would've been the one jumping."
"Psh, jumping, shmumping! I'm gonna show that I'm a jack of all trades, so you understand that you're the big dummies for ending our alliance! Watch and learn!" Olive continued to grin as she scooped up a mighty handful of the hottest peppers, the red ones, and lifted them all to her mouth. There must have been about twenty of them in her hand, but she shoveled them all into her mouth like she had no choice, chomping down on them with her mouth open so Conroy could see that she was actually eating them. When she was done, she exhaled deeply and gave her belly a little pat. "Mm-mm! Now that's what I call a good pepper, yup!"
"...You…are aware you only had to eat one of the hottest peppers, right?" Conroy raised an eyebrow as he stared down at his own pepper, trying to think about how he should go about eating it.
"Yeah, but if I just ate one, um, I wouldn't…I wouldn't, um, be showing you how much, um, more amazing at everything I am, yup! Besides, I eat peppers like this all the time! They're my favorite midday snack! Oh, next to raisins! I love raisins!" Olive started to snicker as she walked away from Conroy, who just sighed and returned to his own pepper.
Confessional - Basketball Team
"Now, some people might fear the pepper too much to properly decide how to eat it, which is why I'm just going to eat it as quickly as I can! The speed at which I eat it won't determine how hot my mouth burns, after all." Conroy adjusted his glasses one more time before he started to chomp and chew at his pepper as fast as humanly possible, before finally swallowing it. He stared blankly at the camera for a moment before his face started to turn noticeably red. "...I believe…that maybe…that wasn't my best idea."
"Alright, I'm pretty sure that I'm faster at climbing than you are, so you might as well pick your pepper and start eating so I can figure out which tier I'm jumping off already," Marty glanced over at Xavier, who was scratching his chin while he looked at all of the peppers in the baskets. "There's…only three different kinds of peppers. You really don't need that much time to decide which one you're going to eat."
"Easy for you to say! I can't handle spice at all, I'm all about the sweet! I think…I'm gonna have to take the mildest pepper in the bunch, it's the only way that I'm not going to burn the entirety of my mouth." Xavier looked back at Marty to see him staring at him like he was completely pathetic. "W-what? You said you were a fast climber anyways, so you should still be fine to reach the top before too long!"
"Ugh…alright, fine. I'll head to the top of the cliff, but when the race is over, we're really gonna have to teach you to love more types of foods than just sweets. You're really missing out." Marty shook his head and chuckled a bit before he started to run off towards the cliffs, leaving Xavier alone at the pepper stands.
"Alright then…the yellow ones are supposed to be the least spicy, so I guess that's what I'm eating! Oh boy…I can already feel my stomach starting to curdle even before this pepper is even in my mouth…" Xavier whined as he picked up one of the yellow peppers from the mild basket, closing his eyes as he slowly moved it towards his open mouth. He was sweating up a storm, even though it wasn't in his mouth yet. Not only that, but since his eyes were fixed shut, he didn't notice someone quickly reaching over to switch the pepper in his hands with one of the spiciest ones. He ended up sticking the whole thing into his mouth and chewing it nice and slow…which is when his eyes shot wide open. Immediately, a fine layer of tears covered his eyes and his face started to turn red. He opened his mouth open to scream, and hot steam came out of his mouth, ears, and nostrils. He started to run around like a maniac on the loose, eventually running into the pepper stand and falling over onto the ground.
"Heheheh! That'll show that city boy for callin' me old!" Lady Belle snarked as she held her hand up to reveal that she had taken Xavier's pepper from him and switched it out with one of the spicy ones. She then tossed the mild one away, and started to reach for another one of the spicy peppers. "I'll never understand how people can be so 'fraid of a lil' kick in their food. Honestly, spice really does make everything taste a whole lot better!"
"You know, I must admit, Lady…that was pretty funny to witness. Seeing him running around like a chicken with his head cut off, oh, it was priceless!" Ursula snickered as Lady Belle started to eat one of the super spicy peppers, looking completely unbothered by it other than a little bit of sweat that was coming down from her forehead. "Well, I suppose I'll go dive off of that cliff now! Shouldn't be too long before we dominate the rest of this leg, huh?"
Confessional - Friendly Duo
"Man!" Xavier had his tongue jutting out of his mouth because it looked to be incredibly swollen, and just wouldn't fit in his mouth normally. Because of this, his voice sounded awkward and muffled when he talked. "I really must've been worse with spice than I thought! I grabbed one of the weakest peppers, and that thing still did a number on me! Probably a good thing I didn't go any higher than that one– I probably would've ended up dying!"
Confessional - Bachelorettes
"When you're from Louisiana, you know how to handle your spice. I didn't have no issue with the curry challenge back in Morocco, ain't no way a lil' pepper is gonna do a thing to keep me down either." Lady Belle wiped some pepper crumbs from her lips before smiling proudly. Still, the only issue she had was the heat of the pepper made her sweat a good bit. "And now, thanks to my lil' sabotage, Xavier ate the hottest pepper and destroyed his mouth, and Marty still thinks he has to climb to the highest cliff tier! This is just too good!"
"Let me see here…there's three different peppers…each one of different spice levels…oh, they just all look so good! I wish I could try all three of them, but I'm pretty sure that's not allowed…" Zeke sighed as he grabbed the pepper from the middle basket and started chomping on it nice and slow. Much to his dismay, it wasn't as delicious as he thought it was going to be, and he started heating up horribly from it. "M-man, did I accidentally grab the hottest pepper or something? C-can't feel my tongue…I think my eyeballs are sweating…AH! LYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYLE! GET ME THAT MILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLK! AND I HOPE IT'S ALMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOND MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILK!" Zeke ran off screaming at the top of his lungs at Lyle, who was climbing the cliff as fast as he could. Meanwhile, Kotomi was standing by the peppers with a grin on his face, lifting up his hand to show that he had a bottle of ghost reaper flakes with him.
"Heheh! That's only the start of my vicious revenge on those two buffoons! Now then…no way am I eating the hottest one, so I think I'll go ahead and eat the middle one!" Kotomi smirked as he grabbed for one of the medium heat peppers, not noticing that some of the ghost reaper flakes had gotten onto that one as well. He ate it quickly and proudly, and before he knew it, he was feeling the same effect of the heat as Zeke was, and was running off and screaming as well. Both of them ended up running over to the lake and dipping their heads under the water, hoping that would soothe their burning tongues, although it didn't actually do much to help them out. This just left Phoebe and Honey over at the pepper stand, with both of them looking over the selection of peppers.
"Hm…red means stop, yellow means slow, green means go! So then…uhhhh…red must be the one that stops your mouth from burning too much!" Honey nodded proudly, grabbing for one of the red peppers and chowing down on it like her teeth were a wood chipper. She had a big smile on her face for a moment, but sure enough, much like all the others before her, her face was starting to quickly turn red, and she looked like lava was going to erupt from the top of her head. "I think maybe…that red means…so hot you stop existing! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" The excavator screamed before belching pure flames into Phoebe's face.
"...Ow…" Phoebe groaned lightly before wiping the ashes off of her face and slowly walking over to the medium peppers and taking one of them. She was pretty lucky, since the one that she grabbed was untainted by the spicy flakes that Kotomi had doused the others with. She chewed on it a lot slower than the other eaters before her, and her face was turning red a lot more gradually. "A-ah! Pepper so hot…s-so hot! L-Libby, you love spicy, c-can you help me out here?"
"Hm…nah, I think I'm good! Maybe you should've asked your new best friend to eat if you were gonna be a big baby about a little heat!" Libby snidely replied to Phoebe, who was now tugging at the collar of her shirt while sweating so badly that stains were appearing under her pits. "Yeesh, you really are a big baby about a little bit of spice! I'll come out and help you out with that…but I'm gonna go talk to your buddy right after!"
"I'd rather eat ten more peppers than let you do that!" Phoebe glared to herself as she responded to Libby, who then started to force her arm to reach towards the peppers again. "W-wait, I didn't mean it, I was just trying to sound assertive!" The meek girl screamed out in fear and tried to run away from the pepper stand, only to end up tripping over Honey, who was laying on the ground right near her.
Confessional - Race Moms
"M-Mitsuki said that she wasn't so good with spicy food, and since I've had my fair share of spicy foods back at home, I figured that I'd be able to handle the eating pretty well, but now my tongue just feels like it got bit by a bunch of fire ants." Honey stuck her tongue out of her mouth to show how red it was, "Ohhhhh…I really need that milk bad…"
"With all of the teams pepper eaters already finishing their end of the challenge, the cliff divers are getting ready to do their job! At the lowest tier of the cliffs, we have Becky, Mitsuki, and Ursula! On the second tier, Lyle, Zerine, Mika, and Jamie Lynn are getting ready to jump! Meanwhile, Marty is still trying to climb all the way to the highest tier! He'll get there someday, right?" Duke chuckled as the view of Marty climbing up the cliff while sweating up a storm was shown to everyone. Meanwhile, on the bottom tier, Becky was sighing while glancing up at Mika, who was doing some stretches.
"Something wrong, Becky?" Mitsuki tilted her head slightly as she looked over at her race daughter, who just shook her head and stayed quiet. "You must be a bit upset about the Conroy Mika thing too, huh? Well, it's okay to be upset about that! I mean, you're taking it better than Olive was, I'd say."
"If I were you two, I'd spend less time chit chatting and more time diving off the cliff! Otherwise, you're going to lose your lead!" Ursula snickered before running off of the cliff and diving into the lake below, with a bit of water splashing up when she landed in it. Bubbles could be seen coming up from where she landed, and soon enough, she resurfaced, holding a canteen and a travel tip in her hands. Lady Belle cheered loudly from the shore, and the black widow started to swim back to her as quickly as she could.
Becky and Mitsuki looked between each other before nodding and jumping off of the cliff as well, both of them diving into the water at the same time. Mitsuki noticed the water heating up when she was under it, and when she looked over at Becky, she could see that the water was basically evaporating around her. The NEET tried to ignore the heat as best as she could as she swam down to the canteen's below, grabbing not one, but two of them to give the other one to Becky on the way back up. The two resurfaced eventually, both taking a deep inhale of fresh air.
"I could've grabbed the canteen on my own, but…thank you." Becky smiled slightly before she noticed that Mitsuki wasn't even around to listen to her. She looked around to find out where she went off to, which is when she saw her literally running along the top of the water, looking like she was incredibly sunburnt.
"HOT WATER, HOT WATER, HOT WATER! AHHHHH!" Mitsuki screamed before running all the way out of the water and zipping past the swimming Ursula to reach Honey before she could reach Lady Belle. The Race Moms then had the technical lead…but before even thinking about looking at their travel tip, they were too busy taking turns to take big swigs of the milk from the canteen, which gave Ursula just enough time to make it back to Lady Belle, who didn't even seem like she needed the milk at all.
"Well, well! Not too shabby, Ursula! We got the lead on all them other teams now!" The Southern beauty took the travel tip from the canteen and just tossed the canteen back into the water while she read the tip. "It's another all-in after this. 'Burro'd Alive.'"
"This all-in is a lot simpler and a lot more straightforward than the last one! Teams must run to this enclosure, which happens to be full of, you guessed it, burros! They're basically just donkeys, but who's counting?" Duke rolled his eyes as he walked around in the enclosure, eventually hopping onto the back of one of the burros to try riding it, only for it to crumble under all of his weight. "Teams will take one burro and ride it two miles south of here to reach…" The camera transitioned away from the enclosure to reveal Duke standing on top of the chill zone, which was in front of some ancient temples of some sort. "...The chill zone outside of these temples! The last team to arrive, might just be kicked off the tournament bracket!"
"We have to…ride on a filthy burro!?" Lady Belle and Ursula shouted together in dismay after they finished reading their travel tip, meanwhile, Becky was just now getting back to land while the jumpers on the second tier of the cliff were starting to jump.
"Ugh…let's just get this over with. I just hope those filthy animals don't go shitting on my shoes…" Ursula complained again, and she and Lady Belle started to run off back to the enclosure just as Olive was now screaming for joy when Becky returned to her with the travel tip.
Confessional - Bloody Prom Queens
"See, now this is what I call a good turnaround! We get to ride on burros! Burros are like, even cuter donkeys!" Olive exclaimed while Iblis was sitting on top of her mohawk and licking his own eyeball with his long tongue. "Hm…you don't think that Iblis is gonna try to eat the burros, do ya, Becks? He seems to wanna eat just 'bout every animal that we come across!"
"I don't think he is big enough to eat a full burro, no…they're like, twenty times his size." Becky glanced up at the lizard to see that he seemed to be grinning a bit. "...Maybe we should keep an eye on him just in case."
"Agh!" Jamie Lynn shouted in annoyance as she got back to the top of the water from diving, only to immediately dive back under the water. Phoebe, as well as all the other pepper eaters, was waiting by the shore and fanning off her own tongue, wondering what was going on. The punk girl resurfaced again after a few moments, looking even more annoyed than she already was. "I can't find these canteens anywhere under here, I don't have any idea where they could be! It's like Duke was hiding them on purpose to make sure you guys suffer longer!"
"You're just not going about the challenge right, you gotta summon the powers of the immaculate krill to go under the water and locate the milk!" Lyle took a deep breath of air before slowly starting to sink down to the bottom of the lake. When he reached the bottom, he just started to walk along it, waving to some of the fish that he saw while moseying around. He looked all around the open area of the lake, but he couldn't really find anything of note, and he scratched at his chin in wonder before his attention turned over to a large boulder in the distance. "Ahhhhhhh haaaaaaaa! Theeee miiiiilk muuuuust beeee theeeeeere!"
The nature lover continued his peaceful walk along the bottom of the lake, ignoring the fact that he really probably needed to resurface so he could get some air, and he went behind the rock to find that there was a silver platter sitting there. He questioned why it was even there in the first place, but was even more confused when he saw that there was a note on it that said "For Stupid Nature Boy." Lyle squinted at the platter for a moment before shrugging his shoulders and lifting the lid of the platter up, causing a boxing glove from the Vegas challenge to fly out and sock him right in the gut. He fell to his knees in pain, and the camera panned up to the top of the lake to show Kotomi with a smug look on his burning face.
"Lyle? You good down there?" Zeke was panting as he called down into the water, only to notice that Kotomi was staring down at him in the water. The younger brother thought to himself while squinting at the gremlin boy. "Hmmmmmm…I feel like Jesse….is also worried about Lyle right now! Makes sense, since he is our weird stalker friend! Lyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyle! Hurry up down there, me and Jesse are getting worried about ya!" Before too long, the older brother finally resurfaced, holding a canteen in his hands while back paddling over to his younger brother. "Woohoo, go Lyle, go Lyle!"
"I was pretty sure that boxing gloves weren't native to the bottom of Mexican lakes, but I might just need to brush up on some of my Mexico nature facts…" Lyle groaned as he got up out of the water, with more of the divers from the second tier of the cliff were paddling after him to join up with their partners again, leaving Marty at the top of the cliff, since he had just finally reached it. The deadpanner stared all the way down at the lake below, gulping nervously when he realized just how far the drop actually was from where he was right now.
Confessional - Friendly Duo
"Alright, usually I'm not really one to be afraid of heights or anything, but these heights are a lot worse than the heights I've had to deal with before! It's like…nothing like being at the top of a ferris wheel or even being at the top of a skyscraper and ziplining! This is an actual cliff that we're talking about! But I'm not afraid of it at all, no way!" Marty took a deep breath and glanced over his shoulder at the edge of the cliff before slowly looking back at the camera. "...I might be a little bit afraid of it."
"Could this thing…go any faster?" Lady Belle groaned in annoyance, as the burro that she and Ursula were sitting on top of was taking its sweet time to move through the wilds of Acapulco. Even the ones that the Race Moms and the Bloody Prom Queens were riding on seemed to be going a whole lot faster than theirs. She looked down at the burro and started to flick it in the back of the head. "Come on, you! Stinky animal! Move faster!" The burro just made some weird noise back at the Southerner, and kept moving as slow, if not slower, than it was already. "Ughhhhh!"
"Don't you know that you're not supposed to use brutality to get these animals to do what you want? It's not like with those working boys of yours…you have to be gentle." Ursula nervously reached her hand out to start scratching behind the burros ear, but this just caused the animal to stop where it was and start urinating all over the ground. The black widow's eye twitched as she slammed her purse against the animal's head. "Now isn't the time for potty breaks, you stupid animalllllllllllllllllllllll!" The burro reacted poorly to the purse attack, and just started to run around wildly in all directions, not advancing at all upon where it was supposed to be taking the two of them. Meanwhile, the other two teams that were already off were making good progress of their own.
"See, this is the life! We're in first place right now, and I can't even see those basketball dunderheads anywhere near us! It does feel good to know, um, that we're doing, um, way better than them, yup!" Olive stuck her tongue out while their burro continued on the path. She had Iblis in her lap, although she had to put a muzzle on his mouth because of the fear that he would try to eat the burro.
"Basketball dunderheads?" Mitsuki glanced over at Olive with a confused look on her face, which made Becky start sweating nervously and looking away from her. "...Hm…"
Confessional - Race Moms
"Becky is definitely hiding something from me right now, which would explain why she wasn't telling me what was wrong with her earlier…" Mitsuki tapped her chin while narrowing her eyes and staring into the camera. Meanwhile, Honey was starting to sweat nervously, just like Becky was before her. The NEET slowly glanced over at her girlfriend with suspicion in her eyes. "Honey…do you maybe know anything about why Becky is acting so suspicious right now?"
"U-uh…nooooo…I don't even know why you would think I would know anything about that! Becky doesn't tell me things that she doesn't tell you about first!" Honey continued to sweat as Mitsuki got closer and closer to her. "...U-uhhhhh…" The excavator grew increasingly nervous before suddenly just leaning in to kiss her, hoping that would distract her from the issue at hand.
"Alright, Conroy! We gotta do some calculation here…there are all these burros here, but I'm willing to bet that at least one of them is faster than the others! The faster the burro, the faster we can reach the chill zone, right?" Mika grinned as she looked back at Conroy, who had his own grin on his face as he adjusted his glasses. Aside from those two, Zerine, Kotomi, Lyle, Zeke, Phoebe, and Jamie Lynn were all in the burro enclosure, looking for the right burros to take them to the end of the leg.
"I think I have an idea of my own on how to ensure that our burro goes faster than the rest of them, actually." Conroy smiled proudly as he held up one of the spiciest peppers from the prior all-in, to which a massive grin stretched across Mika's face. As the others were still deciding which burro to ride on, they heard the loud screeching noises of a burro around them. They looked over to see Conroy and Mika riding on top of one of the animals, which was spewing flames out of its mouth like a dragon, and running as fast as it possibly could away from the enclosure and towards where the chill zone was.
"A spicy pepper for a burro? I feel like that's not what their diet should contain, but since I was a fool about the native species of platter-billed boxing glove at the bottom of the lake, I can understand being wrong about this!" Lyle slammed his fist down against the open palm of his hand and turned over to Zeke, who saluted in preparation for instruction. "Zeke! Let's run back to those peppers and grab all the spicy ones that you can! We need to gas this burro up to maximum speed!"
"You got it, Lyle! Don't worry, burro, you'll be dining on blistering hot pepper soon enough!" Zeke and Lyle burst off into the distance and headed back for the peppers, leaving one of the burros to turn and face the camera with a nervous expression. Jamie Lynn and Phoebe were looking around at the other burros before the punk girl just hopped right up onto one.
"Yeah, this one here seems good enough to get the job done! Whaddya think?" Jamie Lynn turned to Phoebe, who was nervously standing away from the burro and twiddling her fingers like a dweeb. "...Uh…any particular reason you're standing around like you're trying to ask the burro out but you don't know how to do it?"
"I-I don't want to ask it out! I-it just makes me think of this one time when I went to a petting zoo and one of the alpacas there tried to eat my hand. S-so now I get a bit nervous around all animals that look like they'd be at a petting zoo." Phoebe blushed as she stared down at her feet, leaving Jamie Lynn to just start laughing at her. "W-what's so funny about that?"
"It's just a funny story! An alpaca tried to eat your hand? Come on, that's hilarious!" Jamie Lynn continued to snicker while Phoebe scuffed her shoes against the dirt. "Alright, how about this: you sit on the back of the burro, and if it even tries to move its head back and bite you, I'll knock some sense right into it! Sounds good?"
"I-I guess that works…okay!" Phoebe nodded and hopped onto the back of the burro, which immediately turned its head back and tried to bite at her hand, only for Jamie Lynn to sock it right in the back of the head. It whined in pain before grumbling as a burro would and starting off into the distance. This just left Kotomi and Zerine at the burro enclosure, though Zerine was already sitting on a burro and ready to go while Kotomi was snickering and walking around the whole farm, putting tacks on the backs of every single burro.
"You are so annoying with how much time you spend trying to sabotage those brothers. We could've been on our way already, but you're taking the time to do this…so foolish." Zerine shook her head at Kotomi, who just rolled his eyes in response and continued to put the tacks down. The painter, just annoyed with him, started off on her own, leaving him behind.
"You would never understand how important this revenge is because the person that really messed you up isn't around to get vengeance on! Maybe you'd get it if she was still around. Anddddddd there we go!" Kotomi dusted his hands off, proud of the clever trap that he had set up. "Now we can go off and– hey! Get back here, you painting nerd! You can't leave me behind!" The gremlin boy hurried to run after his partner, shaking his fist wildly while Lyle and Zeke finally returned to the enclosure.
"Whew, it was further away than I thought it would be! But this should be enough peppers to really get this burro running faster than a speeding bullet!" Zeke whistled as he revealed about a hundred peppers that he had scooped up in his arms, with Lyle holding a similar amount in his own. "We'll just hop on the back of the burro, feed it a pepper everytime that it starts to slow down, then badaboom, badabing– we'll make it to the end of the leg! This was a perfect idea, Ly-" The younger of the two brothers jumped onto the burros back first, his eyes shooting wide open in shock as the tack from Kotomi stabbed into his left buttock.
"Ly? Is that supposed to be a nickname or something? I feel like my name is a bit too short to make a nickname out of, but hey, I'm not gonna tell you what to do. As they say, go off, queen!" Lyle chuckled before Zeke suddenly screamed at the top of his lungs, dropping all of his peppers onto the ground and jumping off of the burro's back to run off into the distance while holding onto his buttocks like they were about to fall off. "Hey, wait! You forgot the burro!" The older brother sighed as Zeke disappeared from his sight. "Well…alright! For this, I'll just have to call upon the spirit of…the humble burro! Haha!" Lyle grinned as he suddenly lifted the burro over his own head with ease, and he ran after his brother.
Confessional - Long Lost Brothers
"I don't know what happened to make Zeke wanna hold his butt like that, but maybe he had some ants in his pants or something! Oh, or more likely, sand in his crack! I remember the first time I had sand in my crack…ahhh…grainy…painy…it sucked!" Lyle was still walking with the burro being held high above his head, only crumbling slightly under its weight. He glanced up at the burro to see it was currently eating some hay. "Maybe lay off some of the carbs, eh, burro?"
"SO HOT, SO SO HOT! THIS IS HOW I'M GONNA DIE, ISN'T IT!" Xavier was currently rolling around all over the ground, desperately hoping that anything would make the unbearable, searing pain in his mouth go away, but it seemed to be to no avail. He was just rolling around like no tomorrow, unaware of the fact that Marty was walking right up to him from the water. The deadpanner was completely soaked, but he had the canteen of milk in his hands, as well as the travel tip that was fixed to it. He didn't tell the baker of his presence, though, he just enjoyed watching him rolling around like that for a bit. "OH GOD, OH GOD, OH- hey, Marty!" Xavier shot right up from the ground, forcefully grabbing the carton of milk from Marty to bring it up to his lips, sucking on it like no tomorrow to soothe the burning. "Ahhhhhhhh…much better."
"Yeah, you really shouldn't have reacted so poorly to just the mild pepper…but we're in last place right now. Gotta head over to a burro enclosure so we can catch up with the others before it's too late." Xavier nodded while still sucking on that milk carton, and he and Marty started to run off to the enclosures together. "It's weird, you were the only person to eat one of the mild peppers, yet the people who ate the middle ground seemed to handle it better than you. You must be really bad with spice…like worse than I ever imagined."
"Haha, yeah, spice is not a friend to me, nosiree! I did imagine it would be a little less spicy than that, though…" The two friends thought for a moment about it, both of them with skeptical looks on their faces. "You know, the other funny thing is that the pepper that I grabbed was really big, but the one that ended up in my mouth was actually pretty small…like…as small as the really spicy peppers were."
"Xavi, I think that maybe the pepper that you ate was one of the spicy ones…it sounds to me like someone switched it out when you weren't looking. You do tend to close your eyes when you're about to eat something." Marty glanced down at his feet while he was running before the realization finally hit him of what had happened and he gasped. "The Bachelorettes! Ah, I shouldn't have made that snarky comment about them earlier!"
"We've…been sabotaged!? Why would anyone even want to sabotage us!? Wah! Marty let's go, go, go!" Xavier hollered out and he grabbed Marty by the hand, pulling him along as he started to run faster than before on the way to the burro farm.
Confessional - Friendly Duo
"I really shouldn't have said anything on that bus, I should've just agreed to an alliance or…ah, I don't know! I even knew that the Bachelorettes were a dangerous team to be around, but I still let them get to us!" Marty groaned and smacked his forehead against the wall over and over again. "I'm so stupid, man…"
"No, no! Don't call yourself stupid, just say that…you've had a lapse in your judgment! Michael told me to do that if I ever said something that was offensive to other people online, so it might work in this situation, too!" Xavier patted his friend on the back before slowly raising up another churro to start tapping it against his cheek over and over again, much like he did back on the bus. "...Marty. Marty. Marty. Eat the churro. Eat it. It's good, I promise. Mart-"
"I DON'T WANNA EAT THE DANG CHURRO!"
"With Marty and Xavier finally clearing the dangerous cliff diving challenge and reaching the burro farm, the rest of the teams are already on their way to the chill zone! Well, Lady Belle and Ursula are all over the place, and Lyle is proving that he isn't the best burro that he probably could be while Zeke is still trying to recover from his recent ass-cupuncture! Haha! Get it?" Duke chuckled as he stood on top of the chill zone, and then looked ahead to see that the Race Moms and the Bloody Prom Queens weren't far off from reaching him. "And it looks like the race for first place is just about to be finished with the toddlers and their gay moms almost here! But wait…what is that in the distance? Could it be…"
"Woohoo! Go burro, show us how good those legs can work!" Mika cheered as the burro that her and Conroy were riding on was still running at immaculate speeds. Before long, they were zooming right on past both the Race Moms and the Bloody Prom Queens, and after that, they got to the chill zone with little to no issues…though their burro kept on running along despite them already making it to the end. "Wah! Stop burro, stop running!" Both the basketballers screamed out in fear before the burro crashed into one of the temples with them on it, causing them to groan in pain as they crumbled to the ground. As they fell, the other two teams that were en route to the chill zone had just reached it, with Olive scowling harder than anyone else could possibly scowl.
"Wow! What a shocking turn of events! The Basketball Team used the spicy peppers to their advantage, and because of that, they got first place in the leg, with the Bloody Prom Queens coming in second and the Race Moms ending in third! That's almost half of our teams finishing off the leg within seconds of each other!" Duke snickered as he walked over to Mika and Conroy, who were in the midst of dusting themselves off, both still groaning from hitting the temple. "Mika, Conroy! You must feel pretty good about beating out the prom babies last second there, right?"
"I-I'm sorry, we just passed by who?" Conroy looked a bit nervous as he and Mika slowly glanced over at the chill zone to see Olive puffing out pure smoke from her nostrils while Becky was awkwardly looking away. "...Uh oh…"
Confessional - Basketball Team
"Right, so…we weren't particularly paying attention to what was going on around us while we were racing to the finish, all we knew was that we passed by two of the other teams at once. We had no idea that one of those two teams was Olive and Becky." Conroy adjusted his glasses, though even they couldn't manage to hide the nervousness in his eyes. Mika was sitting right next to him, and looked just as nervous as he did. "...I fear that this is only going to drive a wedge even further between all of us."
Confessional - Bloody Prom Queens
"Ohhhhhhh, those dang…those…big ol' butthead basketball butt…faced…baboons! They saw how good we were doing and they just couldn't have that, so they, um, they cheated so they could, um, make it to the end of the leg! Um, they…I don't know!" Olive screamed out at the sky before slamming her fists down on her thighs over and over again. "Oh, I know exactly what it musta been! They musta got a robot burro instead of a regular one, that's why it was going so dang fast at the end there!"
"I…really don't know if the burro was a robot. It was probably just…uh…weakblooded like the people that were riding it, so it was scared of what would happen if two hellblooded teams won before them. Y-yeah…that must've been it." Becky couldn't even look Olive in the eyes as she was talking to her.
"Mannnnn…this whole burro ride is taking way too long." Jamie Lynn groaned as she leaned back on the back of the burro, ending up leaning against Phoebe, who just let her do what she was doing without any complaint. "Say, you got a better view of what's going on behind us than I do…any of the other teams close to us?"
"Huh? Oh, I wasn't checking, but let me see…" Phoebe glanced behind her to see that Kotomi and Zerine were somewhat behind them, but other than that, the coast was pretty clear. "Looks like only one of the other teams is close…I know three were ahead of us, but I don't know where the other three are. Must be really far behind at this point."
"Yeah, guess they are," Jamie Lynn shrugged and sat back up, with the camera panning into the middle of the wilds to show that Ursula and Lady Belle were still screaming while their burro was running all over the place. It then panned right back to show Jamie Lynn and Phoebe reaching the chill zone, where Duke was waiting for them.
"Awkward Neighbors, you guys stay in the top performing half of contestants with fourth place! Not too shabby!" Duke congratulated the two women, who jumped off of their burro. Jamie Lynn cracked her neck and started to stretch her arms out, with Phoebe just sighing in relief. Not too long after that, Kotomi and Zerine reached the chill zone as well. When they jumped off of their burro, Jamie Lynn stuck her leg out so Kotomi tripped over it and fell face first onto the carpet of completion. This got a snicker out of Phoebe, who covered her mouth right after like she had done something wrong. "And that puts the Speedy Recovery in fifth place for the leg!"
Confessional - Awkward Neighbors
"Fourth place is a bit of a downgrade from what happened in the last leg, but hey, I'm not gonna complain about beating out four other teams." Jamie Lynn was eating a street taco while Phoebe was sitting next to her and shaking a bit, like she always did. "We still get to go on to the next leg, which is all that matters to me!"
Confessional - Speedy Recovery
"My sabotage really must've worked amazingly! I haven't seen Zeke or Lyle anywhere since they ran off to get their peppers!" Kotomi grinned from ear to ear, while Zerine just rolled her eyes at him. "If I had to guess, those nature boys probably sat on every single burro and got all of the tacks stuck in their butts! This is it, this is where they lose their chance at the million!"
"Or, just hear me out here, they probably noticed that someone put tacks on the backs of the burros and knocked them off so that they wouldn't get any tacks in their butts. Just a possibility that you should maybe consider." Zerine smirked slightly as she noticed the annoyed expression that Kotomi had plastered on his face.
Confessional - Friendly Duo
"Yeah, someone put, like, tacks on the backs of all the burros, so we sort of just knocked them off before we jumped onto one of them." Marty shrugged his shoulders as he and Xavier continued to ride on the back of their burro.
"Five teams have already reached the chill zone, leaving just the Long Lost Brothers, the Friendly Duo, and the Bachelorettes out on the field! Only one team can end up in last place, so it's all a matter of which team makes it here before our big losers!" Duke grinned as he watched ahead on the course, but his grin started to fade as he heard two loud screams getting closer and closer to him. "Huh…anybody else hearing that? It sounds like…two…hot, older women are coming right for me…but I don't actually see where they are right now." The host looked around, completely confused, before Ursula and Lady Belle suddenly burst out of a nearby bush, with their burro rampaging right towards Duke. They practically ran him over, but unlike the Basketball Team, they jumped off of their burro before it could ram them against a wall. "Ugh…Bachelorettes…you guys are in sixth place."
"Sixth!? Oh, I should really make another bag out of that burros hide for sidetracking us so much!" Ursula glared at the burro, only to find that a chupacabra creature suddenly ran out of one of the temples, grabbed it, and ran back inside. Both her and Lady Belle stared blankly at the temple before looking at each other and then back at the temple again. "...You know, I think we both must just be dehydrated right now."
"Oh, yes, I agree entirely. Let's go get some water and forget about that hallucination," Lady Belle nodded back at Ursula, and the two of them headed out to get their water, leaving Duke to pull himself back up from the carpet of completion, groaning a bit from having been trampled like that.
"Ugh…only two teams are left at this point! Will the Long Lost Brothers run out of their animal voodoo magic, or will the Friendly Duo have…uh…will they…I don't really have a fun joke for those two!" Duke spoke as the camera split into two separate views, one of them showing Marty and Xavier riding on the back of their burro together while the other one was displaying Lyle running with the burro in his hands, having finally caught up to Zeke, who was holding the burro up with him now.
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
"And…" Duke's grin grew wide as Lyle and Zeke slowly inched onto the chill zone, gently setting their burro down right next to the host while Marty and Xavier were still about thirty feet away from the carpet of completion. Even though the host didn't even announce anything yet, they both figured what was coming, and their expressions sank to joint sadness. "The Long Lost Brothers have clutched it in seventh place, leaving the Friendly Duo in eighth place, and out of the race!
"Well…we didn't end up winning the race, but we made it pretty far! Sorry that I didn't realize I was eating the hottest pepper. I could've saved us a whole lot of time if I just realized!" Xavier sounded a bit remorseful as he spoke, and the first clip of them played, showing them having their camel stolen from them by Evander and Kurt all the way back in Morocco. "Now, you had to jump from the highest level and I had to eat the hottest pepper anyways. Those Bachelorettes sure got us good…"
"Yeah, I'll say…but it's fine. Honestly, I'm pretty sure that you might've reacted the same way no matter which pepper you ended up eating. Like I said before, we're gonna have to do something about you and your aversion to spice." Marty patted Xavier on the back as they were walking together, with the next clip starting to play, this one showing when they were waving goodbye to Cheese when they were in Brazil. "We get back home, and we can all go out and get some hot wings! You, me, Katie, and Sadie!"
"Oh, yeah! It's gonna be awesome to see those ladies again, and not only that, but we're gonna be able to see Cheese again! It's been so long since I saw him, I really could do good with some catching up time with him!" Xavier giggled a bit, and their final recap clip started to play, this one being the clip of them acting out that scene back in Seoul where Xavier was yelling at Marty. "Marty…I'm glad that we got to do this race together. Even if we could go back to before the race even started, I still would've asked you to join me everytime."
"You know what, Xavi? I'm glad we did too. We both did some things to annoy each other, sure, but we made it out on the other side just fine, which means that our friendship is just a lot stronger than a whole lot of other friendships could be." Marty had his arm wrapped around Xavier's shoulder as the two of them were starting to walk off into the sunset. "...And, by the way, Xavi…I did try that last churro that you made, the one with your own recipe. It was one of the best dang sweets you've ever made."
23nd: The Rivalry Twins - Maya and Jeremy
22st: The Idol Queen In-Waiting - Sua
21th: The Cool Guys - Evander and Kurt
N/A: The Mouse - Cheese
20th: The Dynamic Gamers - Colin and Freddy
19th: The Sailor America Fans - Lukas and Sunny
18th: The Reality Show Rivals - Jacque and Angel
17th: The Wilderness Girls - Sophie and Bea
16th: The Dweebs - Andrew and Richard
15th: The "Father and Son?" - James and Eliott
14th: The Glow-Up Gals - Vanessa and Karma
13th: The BFFFLs - Sadie and Katie
12th: The Psychic and Skeptic - Aisling and Arnold
11th: The YouTuber and Editor - Michael and Virgil
10th: The Mystical Witches - Flora and Helena
9th: The Vicious Pop Stars - Evan and Logan
8th: The Friendly Duo - Marty and Xavier