Author's Note: YES! I UPDATED ON TIME THIS WEEK! WOOT! Lol, thank you all for the wonderful reviews you've left! You guys are the best.^^ I'm sorry to say that none of your guesses for Ray and Louis are correct. *ducks as bricks are thrown* Yeah, yeah, I know a bunch of people are gonna hate me when I reveal who's playing Louis' role in the next chapter. However, I made this character be Louis after I figured who was going be Ray. I needed someone that I could connect with the stars and Evangline. The choice is going to surprise you all, but hopefully you guys won't hate me after I explain the reasonings for my decision.
Another topic I wanted to discuss with the readers of my story is the issues with the movie songs. A couple of readers have asked about putting the songs from Princess and the Frog in the story as well. The only song that I know FOR SURE is going to be in the story is the "Ma Belle Evangline" (come on, Duncan and Courtney has to dance to something). I'm considering putting in the song "Dig a Little Deeper" in as well. In case you haven't guessed, Chief will be playing Mama Odie's role in the story and I'm trying decide whether or not he would be willing to burst into song. He's done some crazy stuff in the episodes, but I'm still not really sure. I want you guys opinion on whether or not I should put in the song "When we're Human". However, if I put that song in, I'll probably have to change A LOT of the lyrics to make it work. Just asking your opinions.
On a side note, one reviewer asked whether or not Duncan and Courtney will get married at the end like the movie. The answer is no, but I will try to make the end just as spectular as the wedding scene from the movie.^^
The moment Harold returned with backup, Duncan and Courtney knew that they were completely screwed.
"Ta-da!" announced Harold, grinning with great enthusiasm as he revealed the contestants that he managed to pull together to help change them back.
"You can't be serious." Duncan complained, glaring at Harold from the top of the nerd's computer desk. Suddenly a wild screech filled the air, and a green and red blur leaped from the doorway, somersaulted across the room, and gracefully landed on two feet next to the desk. Giggling like a maniac, the psycho-path known as Izzy grabbed hold of Duncan and held him at arms-length away from her grinning face.
"Like wow! Harold was right! You are a creepy-crawly now, aren't ya? Hahah!" Izzy cackled in delight and pinched Duncan's cheeks in fascination, stretching out his spider face to great proportions. "Hohoho, Izzy thinks Dunky makes a cute spider! Hehe!"
"Et…go…min'…mace…psycho." Duncan slowly threatened, glaring at the insane red-head. The mohawked tarantula rubbed his stinging cheeks once Izzy released him.
Courtney wasn't faring much better with the second person Harold found.
"Ow, stop poking me, Ezekiel!" snapped Courtney, wincing as the homed-school teen poked her spider body repeatedly.
"I can't believe it, eh!" Ezekiel proclaimed his deep accent thick with bafflement as he continued finger poking. "Yoo two re'ly are spiders, eh!"
"Have you tried to bite someone yet?" Izzy excitedly asked.
"No! Of course not!" Courtney looked appalled by the very idea.
"Pfft! You're no fun!"
"Is this all the help you can find?" Duncan asked Harold, leaning on a desk lamp. The delinquent was grateful that the nerdling was helping him, but, seriously, Izzy and Ezekiel? Wild girl was insane and Homeschool was pretty useless in any situation that didn't involve nose-picking or farm work. There were about twenty-two teens in this freaking hotel! Surely, Harold could have gathered more than this pathetic duo!
"They're the only two that believed me." Harold admitted, "Everyone else either didn't believe me or were too busy eating dinner down in the cafeteria.
"Not even our best friends?" inquired Courtney.
Harold grew silent and thought back to five minutes in the past….
Flashback...
"…And that's what happened!" Harold finished explaining what had happened to Duncan and Courtney- Duncan's encounter with Heather and Justin, the tarantula transformation, the kiss…everything. "So will you guys help us?"
Geoff and Bridgette continued to passionately make out, completely ignoring Harold.
"Uhhh…guys?"
The couple moaned in pleasure, pressing against the wall and deepening their kiss, still totally oblivious.
"….Should I come back later?"
End of Flashback….
"Well," Harold finally said, looking down at the two tarantulas, completely unwilling to repeat what had happened in his flashback. "It is kind of a hard story to believe."
"I n'ver seen this hap'en befoore eh." Ezekiel said, still staring at the two transformed tarantulas, grey eyes round with amazement and disbelief.
Izzy chortled and playfully flipped her hand at Ezekiel's statement. "Jeez, Zekey, you really need to get off the farm more often! People turn into animals all the time!"
"…….They do?" Echoed Duncan, Courtney, and Harold in stunned voices, flitting their eyes at one another in disbelief.
"Well duh!" Izzy exclaimed, grinning and shooting the crew a weird face. "When my Uncle Naveen went down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, he like lost a bet with a creepy voodoo guy and got changed into a frog! Then he met my Aunt Tiana and tried to get her to kiss him, but she was a chief and thought that my Uncle Naveen was just part of the order of supplies for her restaurant and then totally like chopped off his legs for someone's order! Hahaha, funny huh?" giggled Izzy. "He was all like 'Ow! My legs!' and she was like 'Eek, you can talk!' She kissed him to make it better and he changed back and then they got married…IN A SWAMP! Is that cool or what?"
"...Or what." Courtney drily replied. The boys were too busy trembling and staring at Izzy in horror, completely traumatized by her story. All the color had drained from Duncan's face and he now had all eight legs tucked safely beneath him.
"So CIT," the green adorn, redheaded crazy teen inquired leaning close to the brown and purple tarantula. "Harold told us how Heather and Justin turned Juvie into a spider, but didn't mention how you got changed into one as well."
"I….well…" Courtney was embarrassed to say, especially with both Izzy and Ezekiel now staring keenly at her. Even worse, Duncan was smirking in her direction as if looking forward to her response. Only Harold seemed sympathetic. "I kissed him."
Izzy burst out in loud laughter. "Hahahahoho! And people say I'm crazy! Who in their right mind would ever kiss a tarantula? Hahaha!" said Izzy, wiping a mirthful tear from her eye.
"Ew." was all Ezekiel said.
Courtney's fiery temper immediately spiked a couple of degrees. "It wasn't as if I wanted to do it!" she spat, pointing a front leg at Duncan. "He came up with this idiotic and completely preposterous idea and made me do it!"
"It's wasn't idiotic!" argued Duncan, snapping out of his traumatized stupor. He rose a little higher on his long legs, shooting Courtney a scathing look. "It worked in the story!"
"A fairy tale!"
"You mean the 'Frog Prince'?" asked Harold.
"YES!"
"Well, then that sounds sensible." the dork said, grinning. "That particular Grimm Brothers fable does indeed include some parallel to that of the events occurring at this very moment."
"See? Harold agrees with me!" Duncan retorted, knocking knuckles with his former teammate.
"Stop taking his side!" Courtney snapped, beginning to deeply regret ever helping the two bitter enemies get along in the first place. "It's his fault that we're even in this predicament in the first place! If he hadn't been seduced by that witch, Heather, then-"
"Hold up! I have never been seduced by Heather!" Duncan heatedly argued, crawling towards Courtney until they were practically yelling in each other's faces. "First off, she tricked me into coming to her room where she and that idiot, Justin practically mugged me with voodoo magic and changed me into this! Secondly, I never made you do anything!"
"Now, now my spider friends," Harold interfered, holding his hands up for peace, "let us put aside this meaningless fighting so that we can peacefully think of a solution for this problem together."
The tarantula couple ignored him.
"You two-faced liar! You took away my half of the million!"
"Ooooh, this is getting good!" Izzy commented. Somehow, she had pulled out a large bowl of popcorn that she and Ezekiel were currently sharing. The duo and Harold were watching the spider couple continue there vicious argument, moving their heads respectively from Duncan and Courtney as if watching a birdie being tossed back and forth in a tennis match.
"Excuse me? Your half of the million? That money belongs only to me and only I choose who gets to have some of it! I might as well give half of it to dork-boy here! At least he's agreeing with me!"
"YES!" Harold pumped his fist in the air.
"…Not really." Duncan quietly admitted.
"Aawwww…" Harold dejectedly whined.
"Well, I rightly deserved some of money!" Courtney protested, dark eyes flaring with ceaseless rage. "I would have beat Beth and won it if you hadn't betrayed me and voted me off in the last round!"
"I won that money fair and square!" Duncan growled, beginning to get fed up with her acting like a whiny little spoiled brat. "I went through two seasons of Chris' crap, almost got killed multiple times, went through five months of eating the garbage that Chief calls food, and then went through all of season two a second time!" The mohawked tarantula leaned in close so that his teal eyes burned into Courtney's like blue embers. "Don't you dare tell me that I don't deserve that money! Plus all the contestants voted and they chose me! Even you voted for me to win!" What did the prissy stuck up bitch of a princess have to say about that?
Courtney's dark, almost black eyes, narrowed into venomous slits as she spoke in a dangerously low voice, head bent forward. "Who ever said I voted for you?"
There as a loud gasp from Harold's end; Ezekiel's jaw dropped in stunned surprise and Izzy let out loud 'oooohhh' and shouted, "BURN!"
Duncan took a step back with four of his legs as if her words had been a physical blow, a fist to the face. His blue eyes were round and staring, shimmering with a whirlpool of emotions- anger….pain….shock…betrayal. His body moved slowly as a wave of coldness washed over him at Courtney's words, numbing and freezing over his heart. He forgot about the other people in the room, about being transformed into a spider, about the million of dollars. The only thing Duncan was fully aware about was Courtney's words and the chilling message that pierced through his brain.
Heather had been right all along...
"Duncan?" Harold's quiet voice, laced with soft sympathy, brought Duncan back from the dark void that had threatened to consume him. The black and tan tarantula gave his head a quick shake, trying to gather up his senses. He didn't look at Harold or the other two- he didn't want see the looks on their faces, to see the pity reflected their eyes.
"But Chris…" he tried to argue, tried to regain the confidence that he once had about his and Courtney's feelings towards one again.
"Chris only assumed I voted for you!" Courtney snapped, totally oblivious to the turmoil her words were causing Duncan. "I could have voted for Beth for all you know!"
"Well did you?" Duncan demanded, eyebrow furrowed and fangs bared.
Courtney folded her front legs across her chest, chin tilted up in a snobbish fashion. "That's for me to know."
The icy numbness that had consumed Duncan's body now melted into a boiling rage. So she wanted to play it that way, uh? If Courtney wanted to make him crash and burn then he'd add his own fireworks to the mix.
"Well, Princess," he spat out the title like a vile insult, "since it seems like the truth is finally coming out, I have some news for you! Remember that thirty-two page letter you wrote during the animal-buddy challenge?"
"The one that you carelessly lost in the woods?" Courtney exclaimed, legs still crossed and glaring.
Duncan laughed, though it didn't reach his eyes which had darkened with anger. "Yep that's the one. Well, you know, sweetheart? I didn't lose it." He puffed out his chest and practically yelled in her face. "I ATE IT!"
That broke the last straw. Courtney unleashed an enraged screech and launched herself at Duncan, who gladly and willingly did the same. Just like the ball-pit challenge, the two were viciously rolling around the desk surface, attacking one another, both fueled by a quenchable rage that the other had fed through endless bickering.
"They're killing each other!" Ezekiel cried, tugging down on his hat as he and Harold looked on in horror at the furious fight going on.
Surprisingly, Izzy was quite calm and smiling as she shook her head at the home schooled boy's comment.
"Zekey, Zekey, Zekey…" she tutted like a teacher lecturing a little kindergartener, even patting him on top of the head. "Don't be silly. Duncan and Courtney are spiders now. As humans they'd be killing each other, but as spiders, they're just showing how much they love each other!"
"SHE'S BREAKING MY LEG OFF!"
"Whoah-ho, Courtney!" Izzy chuckled, winking at the feuding spiders. "Save some for you two's honeymoon!"
"I don't think that's how it works, Izzy." Harold told her.
They stopped speaking and turned their attention back to the fight. Duncan was on one end of the desk while Courtney on the other. Courtney gave a savage cat-like growl and jump-tackled into Duncan, knocking to the both of them right into the light-head of the desk lamp. The two spiders hit the light-head with enough force to cause it to spin around rapidly….carrying them along with it.
"Wwwhhhhhhhhhhoooooooaaaaa!" the tarantula couple screamed, as the lamp swung them around and around at a rapid speed.
"Hold on! I'll save you!" Harold heroically leaped forward and grabbed hold of the swinging lamp. The lamp stopped, but the spiders didn't.
"AAAAGGGGHHHHH!" Duncan and Courtney screamed, hugging each other in fear as they were sent flying across the room…
CRASH!
…and straight out window of Harold's room, on the second floor of the hotel.
Meanwhile, right outside and exactly fifteen feet below Harold's window, another Total Drama couple was interacting with one another in a less violent (or passionate according to Izzy) manner.
"Oh, Brady! You got me gifts!" Beth happily squealed, clamping her hands together in delight at the sight of her handsome boyfriend carrying a bundle of flowers in one hand and a bunch of balloons in the other. "You shouldn't have!"
"I shouldn't have, Bella?" he dimwitted, gorgeous teen asked, blinking in confusion. Strange, he had thought she wanted gifts.
"No, no! You should have! And it's Beth." Beth quickly corrected him, forgetting how Lindsay-like her boyfriend was. The pony-tailed brunette took the flowers and pressed them to her face, giving them a big whiff. She then frowned when looked at the balloons. "Brady…"
"Yes, baby?" The handsome hunk said, flashing his girlfriend a dazzling smile as he somehow sparkled in the lamplight.
"Why do all the balloons look like Chris' face?"
Indeed, every balloon had a likeness of Chris's annoying, smiling face on them.
"Those were all they sold at the hotel gift shop." He explained. Suddenly, something caught his attention. "Do you hear something?"
"Something like what?" Beth asked.
"Like little screaming voices gradually getting closer and closer and…"
"AAAARRGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!"
Two screaming tarantulas fell from the sky and landed right on Beth's face. The glasses-wearing girl let out a high-pitched shriek of fear.
"GET THEM OFF! GET THEM OFF!" She screamed, frantically waving her arms around.
Duncan was the first to recover from the fall; he looked up and his blue eyes widened when he as Brady coming towards them with, one large hand rose to swat them off. The tarantula flit his four eyes back and forth, looking for a way to escape. Then he spotted the balloons.
"Duncan…!" Courtney too saw Brady coming, dark eyes growing large with fright.
Duncan grabbed hold of one of her front legs and shouted, "Jump!" Pulling a surprised Courtney along with him, Duncan leaped from Beth's face and caught hold to some of the balloon strings. Brady let go of the strings in shock, releasing the balloons into the air with Duncan and Courtney along with them.
Higher and higher, the balloons floated, carrying their spider passengers along with them towards the darkening evening skies. Brady and Beth became smaller and smaller as did the entire hotel the higher the couple went.
"DUNCAN! COURTNEY!"
Duncan and Courtney looked down and managed to see Harold's head sticking out the window, staring up at them and calling out with Izzy and Ezekiel right behind him.
"HAAAARRRRROOOOOLLLLDDDDD!" Duncan hollered, cupping two of his legs against his mouth.
"HELP US!" Courtney screamed down at him.
"DON'T WORRY!" They couple heard Harold yell back, though his voice was getting fainter and fainter the farther away they flew. "WE'LL Come…and…find…yoooouuu…" They were too far away to hear or see him now. The hotel was becoming a distant outline of shining lights as the two floated along with their Chris balloons away from the city and towards the wilderness.
"Great Duncan, just great!" Courtney cried, tightening her grip on the balloon strings as she glared up at Duncan. "I hope you're happy! Not only are we stuck as tarantulas, but now we're floating on Chris-shaped balloons a hundred feet in the air and away from civilization!"
Duncan scoffed and rolled his eyes at her whining. "Hey, I got us out from being squashed, didn't I? Just chill, will ya, drama queen? Everything's going to be fine. Besides, it could be worse."
"Worse?" Courtney hissed softly before exploding, "HOW CAN OUR SITUATION GET ANY WORSE?
At that moment, the clouds opened up and unleashed a downpour of rain.
Despite the shower of rain, Duncan couldn't help but flash Courtney a cocky smirk.
"Wow, Déjà vu, huh Princess?"
Courtney added her irritated scream to the distant roar of thunder, echoing across the dark night.
"Did the forecast say anything about it raining tonight?" Gwen asked, staring out the window of the hotel lobby, watching the pitter-patter of raindrops splashing against the window.
Almost all the campers and cast maters were gathered in the hotel lobby, lounging on the couches or nestled on the floor by the fireplace, each doing their own thing to relax and to digest the dinner that they had just consumed.
"Nobody listens to the news anymore." Noah dryly commented, not looking up as he turned a page in the thick book he was reading on a big, red lounge chair. "We use Yahoo. Besides, the weatherman is always incompetent."
"I like the rainy weather." Trent commented from his corner of the couch. He was stringing up his trusty guitar and smiling. "The sound of raindrops always gives me the best inspiration for song writing."
Still standing by the window, Gwen heard the comment and secretly smiled, not turning around for the others to see. However, LeShawna saw her girl's reflection in the glass and quickly slid over to Trent.
"So, have you written any particular songs lately?" LeShawna slyly asked, tilting her head towards the musician.
"Yeah, actually I've written nine new songs!" Trent said, grinning.
Back at the window, the smile quickly left Gwen's face.
LeShawna noticed and furrowed her eyebrows, frowning. She turned back to Trent and asked with raised brows. "Any songs about a particular girl?" The large girl hinted, eyes slightly narrowing as she emphasized on the 'girl' part.
Trent's grin slowly slid off; the green-eyed boy bashfully looked down, unwilling to look Gwen's best friend in the eye. "Well, I…."
Suddenly the elevator door 'dinged', slid open, and unleashed a panicking Harold.
"GAHHH! EMERGENCY! RED ALERT! RED ALERT! CALL 911!" The dork tripped and landed on his face in the middle of the lobby.
Noah slammed his book shut, glaring and forehead wrinkled in annoyance. "Well, there goes my evening."
LeShawna ran up to her scrawny crush and helped him up. "What's wrong sugar?"
"This isn't about the stupid spider story you made up, is it?" Eva growled, pointing a finger at the red-headed dork.
"I did not make it up!" Harold countered, standing in the middle of the lobby, addressing everyone. "Duncan and Courtney really got changed into tarantulas and now they're in trouble!"
"Dude, no offense, but that story doesn't make sense." Cody pointed. "It's physically impossible for a human being to become a spider."
"Not with voodoo magic it isn't! Gosh!"
"Voodoo magic, you say?" LeShawna asked as she and Gwen gave each other uneasy glances. Something didn't seem right.
"We live in Canada. There's no voodoo magic here." Trent said.
"If you don't believe me, ask Izzy and Ezekiel!" Harold snapped, glaring. "They're on the roof right now trying to look out for Duncan and Courtney who floated away on some Chris-shaped balloons."
On the roof…
"Eh, Izzy, I doun't thi'k this very safe." Ezekiel whimpered.
Izzy had managed to get her self and the prairie boy to the roof the five-star hotel; they were in the midst of climbing up the giant radio antenna in an attempt to use the extreme height to locate where Duncan and Courtney had floated off to….even though it was storming and the metal was wet and slippery and there were bolts of lightning flashing across the sky every five seconds.
Of course, the crazy redhead was unfazed by all the obvious deadly hazards.
"Hehe, I'm not Izzy!" Izzy insanely cackled. "Call me Mama Juju! Voodoo queen of all Canada! We must find our creepy-crawly friends so that I can use my awesome magic skills to change them back!"
"Yoo don't have magic skill, eh!"
"Neither does Heather, but that didn't stop her! Hahaha!"
"Du yoo thi'k we can look foor Dun'kin and Coo'rty on the groond?" the home-schooled teen dared to ask.
"Where's the fun in that?" Izzy chuckled. "Relax, Zekey, we're just going to keep a look out for Duncan and Courtney so that we can go get them in the morning." The insane teen screamed and shook her fist at the sky.
"HEAR THAT GUYS? IF YOU'RE STILL ALIVE, GIVE US A SIGN!"
A bolt of lightning instantly struck the antenna, electrocuting the two teens, puffing up their hair and charring them black.
"Hahaha!" Izzy laughed, grinning like a mad-woman even though her body was smoking and static crackling on her skin. "See, Zekey? Duncan and Courtney are alright!"
Ezekiel's body jerked with electricity as he let out a single "EH!"
Back inside…
It was clear by the looks on everyone's faces that they still didn't believe Harold's story.
"Look," Harold said staring at each teen. "I'm telling the truth! Heather is trying to steal Duncan's million by transforming him and Courtney into tarantulas! We have to find them and change them back before she and Justin complete their diabolical plan!"
"Did someone say my name?" Everybody turned their heads to stare as Heather strolled into the lobby.
"Good you're here. Could you please just reveal you're so-called diabolical plan to make Harold shut up?" Noah sarcastically asked. He raised an eyebrow at her full head of hair and added, "Nice wig."
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Heather said, crossing her arms. Her grey eyes widened in surprise when Harold sprang towards her and pointed an accusing finger at her face.
"Enough with your lies, you sly, beautiful vixen!" The nerd cried, "It's time to tell your voodoo friends to change Duncan and Courtney back!"
"Change me back to what, nerd?" a deep, menacing voice asked.
Harold turned from Heather and stared as the newcomer came out of the elevator. His jaw drooped and behind his glasses, his green eyes grew wide with horror at what he saw. A terrifying bolt of lightning lit up lobby and thunder pounded as the figure stepped out of the shadows to reveal him self.
It was Duncan.
Again, I'd really appreciate your opinions about putting the songs in the story! Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! Please read and review!^^