Author's Note: Really sorry about the delay; and the fact that this chapter is not very good. Hopefully the next two will be up faster and better (they will feature eliminated contestants and the four "true" contestants that weren't playing).
"Last time on Total Drama Fortress, our explorers had to deal with a door going up and down that could not be opened from the inside. Most of our explorers ended up trapped in there, but Cody somehow managed to get them all out. I think someone was helping him. Anyway, Gwen won immunity, but in the end the votes didn't matter anyway, because Owen resigned with an epic speech. Now, the final four are known: but after today, there can only be three! Find out who, here on Total. Drama. FORTRESS!" Chris introduced the show.
Gwen walked up to the door holding the key, and unlocked it. She was smiling.
"Gwen sure looks happy today," Cody commented.
"Of course she looks happy," Harold said, "She has a shot at winning again. But so do we!"
"I know!" Cody shouted, "Isn't that crazy?"
"Totally crazy!" Harold responded.
Gwen opened the door, only to have Chris scream, "Aaah! No, I'm not done yet! Five more minutes!" and slam the door in her face.
She turned to Noah and asked, "What the crap?"
"Don't ask me," Noah responded, looking to Cody.
"Well you can't expect me to know," Cody added, turning to Harold.
"It would appear that Chris is still coming up with the final plans," Harold said. "We'll wait for him. It could mean the difference between a death trap and a safe challenge."
"More like the difference between a safe challenge and a death trap," Gwen said, opening the door again.
"No!" Chris shouted. "Please! Please!"
"I'm sorry," Chef Hatchet said, "But TIME'S UP!" He was dressed in a women's suit, and wore large librarian-style glasses. He held a pointing rod in his hand. He took a set of papers from Chris, who whined. Chris was sitting in a chair attached to a desk.
"Uh, what's going on?" Cody asked.
"Ah, yes, my TAs have arrived!" Chef Hatchet shouted.
"TAs? We're TAs?" Gwen asked. "Wait… what?"
"Oh, well, you see, after Owen delivered that great speech, it got me to thinking—I should write a great speech too! So here I wrote this paper. And you guys are going to grade it. For some reason, Chef insisted that he should be in charge of judging this challenge," Chris said, "Anyway, the person who makes him laugh the most loses."
"Okay," Gwen said, "This should be easy enough."
"Chef, go make copies of the paper," Chris said.
"Why do I have to do it?" Chef Hatchet asked, "You're the one who wrote it. You make your own copies!"
"If you make the copies for me, I'll buy you a latte," Chris said.
"Well, okay, then," Chef Hatchet responded, and then went to make some copies.
Chris said, "I think you all will be very jealous of my work."
"Undoubtedly your writing will be shocking; breathtaking even… with just how... unique it is," Noah said.
"Thank you," Chris said. "I know!"
Chef Hatchet came back and handed the copies to Gwen, Harold, Cody, and Noah. He then passed out a red pen to each of them. "Now, remember," he said, "The objective is to make me laugh the least, not the most."
"Understood," Cody said.
(In the confessional, Cody said, "I guess that means no witty Codyisms. It'll be hard to restrain myself, but… I think I can manage.")
"Wow, this grammar is absolutely atrocious," Noah said. "Missed periods, missed capitalization, 'I, Chris McLean, am the ruler of world?'"
"You think that's bad," Harold said, "Wait until you get to the page about how he fought the giant spider from 'Vinnus'."
"Guys," Cody said, "Please, there aren't actually that many typos aside from the ones you're listing. But seriously, how does he justify the logic for why he's amazing on page two?"
"I don't know," Gwen said, "I think that maybe he's trying to use the ostrich as some sort of metaphor for himself."
"If that's a metaphor, then where is he drawing the comparison from?" Noah asked. "Also, what is he even trying to argue on page six?"
"Why is page eight just a blank piece of paper, page nine just the words 'PAGE NINE' in giant letters, and page ten the phrase 'Chris McLean is the coolest hottest guy in the world' twenty-three times?" Harold asked.
"Coolest hottest guy?" Cody asked, "Isn't that an oxymoron?"
"Don't write anything deliberately funny," Noah responded, "We don't want to lose this after all."
"No, but seriously, what's that about?" Harold asked.
"Padding?" Gwen responded, "No, but what was the prompt for this anyway?"
"If I had to wager a guess, the prompt would be 'write a ten page essay detailing why you're the most awesome person ever.' That should have been a cakewalk for Chris… but he even managed to screw that up," Noah said. "Oh! This is written so badly on purpose. He knows us too well. He wants us to grade this in a way that won't make Chef Hatchet laugh, but he knows that we will immediately grab the terrible writing and bash it," Noah said. "Of course, maybe it's better that way." He took his red pen in hand and started scrawling all over the paper.
"Uh, wow," Cody said, looking at him in disbelief, "You're sure not skimping on the red."
"Darn it," Noah said, "I'm out of ink. I need to go get a new pen."
He started to walk out of the room. Chef Hatchet asked, "Where are you going?"
"I need to get a new pen," Noah responded, "Do you have one on you?"
Chef Hatchet chuckled. "I thought something like this might happen," he said, "So I brought a ton of extra pens."
"Thank you," Noah said flatly, taking the pen from Chef Hatchet, and wandering back to his position. As Noah left, Chef Hatchet started to laugh.
"Okay, Cody," Harold asked, "What are we supposed to do with pages eight through ten?"
"Well…" Gwen said, "I suggest writing a large red x on all of them."
"That's so boring," Cody said, "Let's put on a comment that says his page number is too big."
"Cody, we're supposed to not make Chef Hatchet laugh, remember?" Harold asked, "I think that that would definitely make Chef Hatchet laugh."
"Oh, you're right, Harold," Cody said, "I guess Gwen's idea is good. I'll roll with it."
"Alright, let's grade this abomination," Noah said. "Let's see." He started to draw a box on the paper, and although it was not shown to the camera, it was obvious from his hand's motions that that was what he was doing.
"What…?" Harold asked.
"I'm designing a rubric for this thing," Noah said. "Let's see: number one, form. Did it achieve the standard length? Number two, content. Is it on topic? Number three, organization. Does it make sense? Number four, strength of argument. Is it logical? Number five, conventions. Does it have good grammar?"
"Can I borrow your rubric?" Harold asked.
"It's pretty standard fare," Noah said, shrugging, "But sure. It would certainly make our grading more valid if we all used the same rubric."
"Okay," Harold said. "Do you mind if we all copy it off of yours?"
"Help yourself," Noah said, handing his copy of the paper to Harold. He, Cody, and Gwen then copied off of it.
Chef Hatchet wandered into the room and asked, "Why are you guys all drawing pictures instead of grading the paper?"
"Patience, Chef," Cody said, "We are grading the paper."
"Okay, well could you hurry up about it?" Chef Hatchet asked, "I've been dying for some comedy."
"You might be disappointed," Gwen said, "We are trying, after all."
(In the confessional, Gwen said, "This is the first time I've ever gotten this far without anyone who was either an idiot or a liar. I gotta say it's kinda nice. I mean so what if they all speak in geek-speak with each other? They still care about me. I'm really sorry about what I said a few episodes ago. It's clear they have no agenda to get rid of me.")
"Okay, let's see," Noah said, "I'll give him a fourteen in form, a sixteen in content, a ten in organization, a three in strength of argument, and a five in conventions. The total is: not good enough."
"You're flunking him?" Cody asked, "But if you flunk Chris, then won't Chef Hatchet laugh extremely hard? And then you'd go home."
"Cody, tell me honestly, is there anyone here you want to see go home?" Noah asked.
"No sir," Cody said, pressing his fingers together. "But maybe I should give him at least a D."
"Whatev," Noah said, "It's your funeral."
"I agree with Cody," Harold said, "Except for the fact that I… I… just can't bear to give it anything other than a failing grade! I mean, gosh! Look, Noah's grade might have been a little hard on his grammar and organization, but he was way too nice about the content and the strength of argument! I mean, look at this: 'I, Chris McLean, am awesome and here is some proof. I'm hot.' He deserved a zero in argument, not a three!"
"A zero? So you think he didn't even make any argument at all? I mean, you could stand to give him a one," Noah said, shrugging.
"Well, well, well," Harold said, "It looks like someone is preaching diplomacy."
"I'm not!" Noah denied.
"I believe you," Cody said.
"I do too," Gwen said.
"I… sure, I believe you," Harold said.
(In the confessional, Harold said, "He so was. I could tell from the way he denied it. You see if Noah was actually denying something, he would have done so sarcastically. Like, 'right. I totally did that.'" Harold was emphatically rolling his eyes while saying that. "But no. He said so, seriously. BOO-YA! There's a chance he'll come to the light side after all!")
"Well," Gwen said, "I'll admit it's pretty bad… but I've seen people pass classes with essays this terrible."
"Pass the essays themselves?" Noah asked. Gwen nodded sadly. "Holy crap. I thought that schools were getting worse but… but this is ridiculous."
"So, in the spirit of not humiliating Chris—and so, probably not going to earn too many giggles from Chef—I'm going to give him a C minus," Gwen explained.
"Seriously? You're giving this piece of garbage a C minus?" Noah asked. He turned to Cody and said, "I withdraw my comment, Cody. It's obvious to me that Gwen's going to lose."
"Gwen?" Cody asked, "So you think that giving Chris's paper a better grade is worse?"
"Hey, I was just being honest," Noah said, shrugging. "Isn't it funnier to lie?"
"Well, I suppose… but do you honestly expect to get no laughs out of flunking Chris?" Cody asked.
"Not necessarily, but the challenge was to make him laugh the least, not to not make him laugh at all or else you lose by default," Noah responded. "If it was it would be incredibly likely—probably somewhere around eighty percent—that we would all lose today, and the last two episodes of the season would be missing."
"That would be problematic for someone who's so obsessed with ratings," Gwen said, "But he could always repeat the intern incident."
"Noah doesn't like to talk about the intern incident," Harold whispered. "Like, at all."
"Okay, I suppose I understand," Gwen said, "And I guess that suddenly replacing the final three with interns would be even more problematic than suddenly replacing the final eight with interns."
"But the point isn't what would happen if we all lost," Cody said, "The point is what action of ours is going to get us victory, and what's going to get us defeat."
"Well, I guess we're going to have to find out for ourselves," Harold said.
(In the confessional, Gwen said, "Noah made some pretty good points. It is true that blatant lies are more inherently funny. But Cody made some good points too. It's also true that humiliating defeat of another is more inherently funny.")
Harold, Noah, Cody, and Gwen walked out to find Chris, still sitting at his desk. "Hey, have you guys got my papers back?"
"We certainly do," Cody said.
In a ridiculous falsetto, Chef Hatchet said, "Please hand your graded papers in to the teacher."
"Where did that falsetto come from?" Harold asked, "You didn't use it at all before now."
"Do I have to be consistent with my voice all the time?" Chef Hatchet asked, knocking Harold down with the force of his voice.
"No," Harold noted, "I just noticed you sounded like DJ's mom."
"Yeah, I get that a lot," Chef Hatchet responded. He held out his hand as the four contestants placed their papers in it.
"Alright, first paper, graded by Noah," he said, "Man, Chris, you should see how much he wrote up your paper." Chef Hatchet turned the paper to face Chris, who conveniently had his back to the camera at the time, so the audience could see that there was more red ink on the page than black ink.
"No doubt complimenting my amazing work," Chris said, smiling confidently.
Noah and Harold exchanged confused glances, and so did Gwen and Cody.
(In the confessional, Harold said, "Chris was bluffing. He had to be. No one is so narcissistic they assume Noah is being one hundred percent complimentary. Then again… it's Chris. Maybe he is that narcissistic.")
"Okay, so the final grade, forty-eight percent. F," Chef Hatchet said, stoically.
"Wh-what?" Chris asked. "Doesn't that make you laugh? Haha. My grade was terrible. Hysterical. Because you can't honestly agree with him, right?"
"Chris," Chef Hatchet said, "Please don't talk in the classroom without raising your hand."
Harold asked Chef Hatchet, "What? Did he lose a bet to you or something?"
"He promised to do this for me if I blew up your bike, so I did," Chef Hatchet answered shrugging. Harold looked stunned.
"M…my bike?" Harold asked.
"Yeah," Chef Hatchet said calmly, "But man, the gulls around this fortress sure don't like explosions." As he was saying this, a flashback was shown, with the Coke-ring seagull trying to escape a large mushroom cloud, and ending up rolling down a hill.
Harold was still stunned. Chef Hatchet turned to him and said, "You better stop being still, Harold. Yours is next. Not a whole lot of comments on this one, just a bunch of nitpicky grammar corrections."
"Jeez, and you accused me of prioritizing the grammar too high," Noah said.
"No, I accused you of being too hard on it in the numerical grade. There's a difference," Harold responded.
"Anyway, your total is… forty-eight percent. F. But this one is different! You… you got a zero! A zero in strength of argument!" Chef Hatchet snickered at this.
"Okay," Chris said, looking impatient, and trying to walk out of his seat, "I guess we have a loser." As he got up, Chef Hatchet hit his knuckles with the pointing rod.
"You're not going anywhere," Chef Hatchet said.
"Is this going to take much longer?" Chris asked.
"Yes," Chef Hatchet responded. "The third paper was graded by Cody. There's almost nothing written on it, except for a giant x through pages eight through ten. Oh, and a lone question mark on page two."
(In the confessional, Cody said, "One way to avoid witticisms… comment as little and as sparsely as possible.")
"Final grade. Sixty-two percent. D," Chef Hatchet said.
"Thanks for passing me, Cody," Chris said, "But couldn't you have given me an A?"
"No, sorry," Cody said, "But hey, look on the bright side. We didn't all fail you."
"Are they allowed to taunt me to my face?" Chris asked Chef Hatchet.
"I blew up the bike like you told me to!" Chef Hatchet responded, "Would it kill you to show a little respect?"
"Ugh, fine," Chris whined. "This last grade better be a good one."
"Okay, finally, Gwen," Chef Hatchet said, taking the paper. "This one's marked up just as much as Noah's is… but somehow the final percentage ended up being a seventy. A seventy!" Chef Hatchet said, and then he started laughing. "She gave this garbage a seventy." Chef Hatchet laughed uproariously. Gwen looked very sad.
"We'll miss you," Cody said to her, patting her shoulder.
"Aw, come on!" Chris whined, "I don't want to get rid of Gwen! She was the only one who gave me a maybe decent grade!"
"Well, too bad," Chef Hatchet said, "Because I think that her grade was hilarious."
"Ugh," Chris said, and then, as if he were a drug spokesperson listing off side effects or an auctioneer, he rattled off, "Gwen, unfortunately you cannot stay in the competition any longer, please escort yourself to the Trap of Shame yadda yadda yadda."
"Yeah, okay," she said, "I guess my best wasn't good enough."
"Oh, rubbish," Harold said, prompting Cody to give him a strange look and Noah to snicker, "What? It's a perfectly acceptable English word!" He turned back to Gwen and said, "For once, we all made it here from our own strengths. You are just as good as the rest of us. You just got a little unlucky, that's all."
"I really enjoyed getting to know you and Noah better, Harold, but," Gwen said to Harold, and then turning to Cody said, "But I think that I'll miss you the most."
"You'll… you'll… you'll miss me the most?" Cody asked. He smiled extremely broadly, but then thought the better of it and asked, "Am I being creepy?"
"No," Gwen said, and then she indirectly kissed him via two fingers.
"Burn," Noah commented.
"No, she was throwing him a bone," Harold said.
"What?" Cody asked, looking incredibly blithe, "Don't you guys think that it's possible Gwen might have a crush on me?"
"Hey," Harold said, shrugging, "I'm an idealist, not a dreamer."
"Yeah, seriously," Noah said, "Cody, don't get your hopes up. Kisses like that mean 'we can never be.'"
"Oh," Cody said sadly.
Gwen fell down the Trap of Shame. Chris cried, "Why? Why couldn't it have been Noah?"
"Because it's my job to judge today," Chef Hatchet answered, "You know annoying bikes don't just blow themselves up after all."
"Anyway… now we've got our final three. What new surprises lie in store? Well, a certain group of people will be helping with the next challenge, let's just say. Also, in the next episode, we'll find out who the final two are. And then, after that, the finale where someone will win ONE MILLION DOLLARS! And of course, there will also be someone who goes home next time on Total. Drama. FORTRESS… unless there's a tie," Chris concluded.