TOTAL DRAMA BATTLEGROUND

-Deadly Allies-

Hey again!

Here's the second chapter of Total Drama Battleground. Last chapter we saw the beginning of the game and witnessed our first death as Mike sacrificed himself for the love of his life. We won't really get to see the fallout of that just yet, as we shift gears this chapter and look at Scarlett as she struggles to find her place in the game. We'll get back to Zoey eventually though, I promise!

As a refresher, the contestants left in the game now are Alejandro, Cameron, Courtney, Duncan, Ezekiel, Geoff, Gwen, Heather, Jasmine, Lindsay, Samey, Scarlett, Scott, Shawn and Zoey. Who will be the next to fall? Continue reading to find out!

I know I promised that we'd meet the entire cast this chapter, but there are still a few more left to introduce in chapter three. Sorry :/ haha.

Pairings in this story will be those that are currently canon: so, AleHeather, Shasmine, and Zoke.

Disclaimer: Total Drama belongs to Fresh. This is pure fanfiction, and does not in any way represent or reflect the views of Fresh. Also, I'm not earning any money for this. Or am I? I'm not.

Day 1 (Meadow)

Scarlett Friday's father had always told her that life is only complicated until yours was on the line. Of course, he'd been a raging alcoholic so she always took what he said with a grain of salt. Even from a young age, her intellect was vastly superior to his; she barely even bothered to pay attention when he spoke most days. However, this is something that had always stuck with her. And today, she finally realised how right he'd been.

Her yellow sweater was now splattered with red. Gazing down, she saw her hands trembling. Slowly, she made her way from the gathered teens and wretched onto the grass.

Wiping away leftover sick with her sleeve, the red haired brainiac noticed a nearby girl experiencing a meltdown. It was the kind of girl she'd never have associated with in the real world. Blonde, tan, big breasted… essentially the anti-Scarlett. But considering what had occurred in the past ten minutes, she decided to make an exception.

"Excuse me," Scarlett said as she awkwardly stood beside the cowering blonde, unsure of how to comfort her, "I couldn't help but notice that you were showing early warnings of severe depression, stress and anxiety; commonly referred to as a nervous breakdown. I thought perhaps I could offer you some comfort, considering we'll most likely be spending the remainder of our short lives together."

The blonde looked up at her with big, blue eyes. Mascara ran down her cheeks, but she stopped her quiet sobs long enough to shoot the genius a confused glance.

Despite her tears, the girl looked beautiful. She was almost like an angel, with beautiful white feathered wings protruding from her back. Her fingernails, painted bright pink, were more like the talons of a bird of prey.

Scarlett could see the girl trying to process everything that was going on. It was a known fact that once a person is backed into a corner, or more accurately faced with danger, that they'll have one or two responses: fight or flight. The question was, which one would this girl choose?

"I… I, I don't understand," she whimpered, allowing Scarlett to help her to her feet. "This is so cruel, why would anybody ever do something like this?"

For the first time in her life, Scarlett didn't have the answer. So, instead, she settled for a change of topic.

"My name is Scarlett," she introduced, "under other circumstances I'm sure it would be a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Lindsay," the blonde smiled, wiping away her tears.

"Your wings are truly magnificent," the brainiac observed. "I'm assuming your bone structure must be quite different to the average human, otherwise they'd never be able to support you in flight."

"They're pretty, right?" Lindsay half-sobbed, half-giggled, as she ran a taloned hand through her soft white plumage. "I wish they were pink though, that'd be super cute."

"Oh, um, quite," Scarlett stammered.

"Hey, do you think maybe I could fly and get us some help?" The blonde asked excitedly, beginning to think more clearly now that she'd calmed down somewhat.

"Considering your power set, I'm going to hazard a guess and surmise Chris has probably thought of that and put in the proper precautions to prevent it," Scarlett replied matter of factly, pushing her glasses up the brim of her nose.

"Oh, I'm pretty fast!" Lindsay gushed, "I bet he totally wouldn't even be able to catch me if he tried. Look, I'll be back before you even know it, don't worry Charlotte!"

"I truly believe that this is not a wise decision, I must advise you reconsider" Scarlett warned as the blonde girl prepared to take off. However, her warning fell on deaf ears as the girl shot up into the sky. If nothing else, Lindsay had been correct; she was very fast.

In the end though, it doesn't really matter whether an individual chooses fight or flight. What really matters is how it turns out, and how they suffer with those consequences. It's fascinating, really, how the rest of someone's life can be so clearly defined by one split moment decision.

Lindsay rapidly shot higher and higher, reaching far above the forest's canopy before she hit the sky with a sickening crunch. The beautiful blue sky wavered, fading away for a split second to reveal the cold silver of steel, as the blonde angel crumpled back to the ground.

"Oopsies!" Came the cackle of Chris McLean over the loudspeaker as Lindsay's lifeless body hit the ground, her neck twisted at an unnatural angle, "Did I forget to mention the ceiling? Yeah, that's my bad guys. Sorry!"

Another thing Scarlett's dad liked to say was that people worry too much about making friends. What they really need to worry about is making allies. Friends make you weak, he'd say. Allies make you stronger.

One thing he'd always neglected to mention, however… what does being alone make you?

Day 1 (Meadow)

"E-excuse me?" Scarlett awkwardly stuttered as she made her way over to her classmates from the Academy. Playing with the hem of her sweater, she couldn't bring herself to make eye contact.

She'd always believed herself to be superior to these people. Always kept her distance; never had a nice thing to say about any of them in her life.

And now Mike was dead. He was dead, and she'd never said a nice thing to him in his life. She'd never be able to point out the fifty three things she admired about him; he died knowing only the twenty seven things she considered to be his shortcomings.

And then Lindsay had died. She had died because Scarlett was ineffectual in stopping her from making a life-ending decision.

In the past twenty minutes, Scarlett had come to accept that she had poor communication skills. What an odd thing to realise when faced with death.

"I'd just like to offer my condolences," the brainiac muttered, still unable to make eye contact. "Mike was a good person, and it is disappointing that his life was terminated so soon."

A few feet away, an adorable blonde with big green eyes was watching the exchange with a burning curiosity. She wore a red cheerleading uniform with white knee-high boots that were now stained with blood.

"Samey, mi amor," a Latin Adonis cooed as his hand came to rest on her shoulder, "we're leaving now."

"Just a second," she frowned, glancing back at him over her shoulder, "I want to see this."

"If there's anything I could do to help, I'd-" Scarlett was cut off when a hard punch sent her sprawling on the ground.

"It's 'disappointing' that the wimp died!?" Her classmate Scott spat, tears burning his eyes as he glared down at her, "You're offering your 'condolences'? What the heck, four eyes?"

"Scott, don't," Zoey sniffled, kneeling on the ground with her hands in the puddle of Mike's remains.

"You don't get to offer no condolences, freak!" Scott roared, "You think you're so much better than us 'coz you're all smart and stuff? You're probably thinking of a way to kill every single one of us so you can win this stupid game, huh!? Well bring it on, nerd!"

"That's not at all what I was inferring," Scarlett frowned, rubbing her rapidly bruising cheek as she returned to her feet. "I was merely-"

"'Merely'!?" Scott scowled, "There you go again, using big words like you're so much better than me!"

As he went to punch the brainiac again, she raised her arms in self-defence. The skin on her left palm opened up to reveal a circle that glowed with ominous red energy. Her left eye flashed a similar shade of red as a concussive wave of energy shot from her palm, slamming Scott into the ground several feet back.

"Good for her," Samey smiled sweetly, watching the fight play out.

"Oh dear," Scarlett gasped, dashing over to check on the redneck. "I'm terribly sorry; there must be something wrong with my circuitry. That was an involuntary-"

He silenced her with another punch, this one breaking her nose.

"Now you're really dead, freak!" He growled, punching her in the stomach and instantly howling in pain. "That bitch just broke my fist!"

"I'm sorry!" She cried, spinning on her heel and darting into the forest as thirteen sets of eyes watched her go.

Four years ago (Scarlett's basement)

It was 5:25am.

Scarlett's dad thought she was trying to embarrass him by fixing a car he'd been unable to repair for the past six months now. The truth was that she couldn't care less what he thought. She wasn't trying to show him up; she simply wanted to understand how the car worked.

She didn't have any particular interest in mechanics. Her father believed cars were one of the most fascinating things on the planet. Scarlett found splitting atoms to be fascinating. She found advancements in cloning technology to be fascinating. At this point, mechanics were just rudimentary.

She tried explaining this to her father, but he'd just gone red in the face and yelled at her. He often did that though, so she didn't think much of it at the time.

Scarlett didn't believe herself to be arrogant, as her father often said she was. It wasn't arrogance to say that you were one of the brightest people in your generation when that was the truth. It was just stating fact. And Scarlett was the kind of person who loved stating facts.

She heard a lot of yelling coming from inside. That wasn't out of the ordinary though; she'd long learned to ignore disturbances like that. However, when she heard her mother screaming it seemed about time to investigate.

Inside, she found a raging fire. Her father was passed out on the lounge room floor while her mother was trapped in the kitchen by a wall of flame.

That was the day her life changed forever.

Before she'd even managed to reach the front door the fire had hit the gas line, creating an explosion that left her family dead. Scarlett was fortunate to survive, but only barely.

She spent the next few years bitter and alone, cut off from the rest of the world as she learned to survive with an amputated arm and half her face being melted off. Eventually, she developed a robotic artificial limb, and from there she continued to upgrade her body with enhancements to be the best she could be.

Her mind had always been brilliant, but if she was going to survive in the world she quickly learned that she'd need a body to match.

Day 1 (Tundra)

"Stop right there!" A voice barked, causing Scarlett to stop dead in her tracks.

Dropping from a branch above, a Hispanic girl with an athletic build dropped to a crouch before her.

"Take another step and you die," the girl spat, "so I'd suggest you do as I say."

Frozen in place, Scarlett quickly scanned the area for any potential escape routes. She'd try to avoid a fight if she could, but she was fairly confident she'd be able to defeat the girl if it came to it.

"Good, you know how to listen," the girl smirked. "First thing's first, you might want to look down at the ground. Unless you actually want to go around stomping on land mines, I'd be more careful about where I'm walking in the future."

Scarlett cursed herself for being so foolish. Of course the island would be rigged with lethal traps like this. If the host couldn't force the teens to kill each other, he'd need other ways to rack up a body count.

"Thank you," Scarlett murmured, gingerly stepping around the mine. "I'd almost began to believe everyone here had succumbed to the pressure and would play this monstrous game. I must thank you for saving my life and proving otherwise. My name is Scarlett, and under any other circumstances, I'm sure it would be a pleasure to-"

"Correction," her saviour interrupted, "you may call yourself Scarlett, but that's not who you really are, and you know it. I saw you in the meadow. You're some freaky cyborg who shoots lasers out of your hands and talks stupid bimbos into killing themselves."

"That… that's not at all…" Scarlett trailed off, frowning in surrender. The girl wasn't incorrect; she was a cyborg, and Lindsay had died as a result of her ineffective communication skills.

"I suggest you walk away now," the girl spat. Her eyes cold and completely void of compassion.

Night 1 (Forest)

"Hey amigos, look what I found wandering around our camp!" A spanish hunk declared as he dragged Scarlett out of the trees and into the clearing where his friends had established base for the night.

"It's that robot girl, the one who beat up her redneck classmate!" He laughed, roughly shoving her to the ground, "Come to kill us all in our sleep! No need to thank me, you just owe me your lives."

"I wasn't trying to bring anybody harm," the brainiac frowned, dusting off her palms as she rose back to her feet. "I was wandering the tundra, but found it too cold. I'd have died from hypothermia before the night was through. I was hoping to warm up by your fire without drawing attention to myself, but it appears you must possess heightened senses."

"You like our fire?" An Asian girl with long raven hair sneered, grabbing Scarlett by the back of her head and bringing it closer to the flames, "Why don't you take a closer look?"

"Alejandro and Heather are looking like strong contenders for Chris McLean's murder crown," a dirty-looking teen with greasy brown hair beneath a green beanie muttered from across the clearing.

"Let it go, Shawn," his Amazonian companion warned, rubbing her hands together for warmth.

"No, seriously," Shawn continued, louder this time, "look at them! They've already scored their first kill, and it's not even day two yet. It's okay though, they're totally doing it in self-defence. Look at how threatening that girl looks as they shove her face in the fire. Good thing they were here to save us!"

"You guys are right," Heather sneered, "we should definitely allow a potential threat to lurk around our camp. She's just a cyborg; they've never proven to be dangerous or anything."

"I didn't say anything," the Aboriginal girl frowned, folding her arms.

"We let her go, and she'll come back later while we're all asleep," Heather continued. "It's kill or be killed, and I'm not going to die because you guys underestimated the competition."

"Please, I promise…"

"You promise what, nerd?" Alejandro spat, "Your promises don't mean shit, chica. We don't know you, so we don't trust you."

"Leave her alone," the blonde cheerleader, Samey, interjected. "Alejandro, you talk big but we all know you don't have the guts to kill anyone. You'd spend the next four weeks crying yourself to sleep."

Walking over to the brainiac, Samey offered her hand.

"Are you hungry?" She smiled, "We've got some rabbit to cook, if you'd like to join us for dinner. I promise you that nobody here is going to hurt you; not while I'm around."

"Thank you," Scarlett smiled in return, accepting her hand and joining her as she prepared the rabbits.

"You're more than welcome," the cheerleader replied, "but honestly, nobody here could actually bring themselves to kill you. Well, maybe Heather. I'm Sammy, by the way; though most people just call me Samey."

"Scarlett," the brainiac introduced. "Why Samey?"

"It was just an old nickname someone gave me," the blonde explained. "They aren't around anymore, but the name kind of just stuck. The hot Latino who dragged you out of the woods is Alejandro. He's literally perfect; it's kind of his thing. He's pretty arrogant, but considering he's perfect in every single way… I think a bit of an ego can be forgiven."

"That angry girl is his girlfriend, Heather," she continued. "She's half-Atlantean. Oh, Atlantis is a real place and people still live there; it's a whole thing. Anyways, she's got some serious abandonment issues, so I can understand why she's so aggressive all the time. She grows on you after a while though, trust me."

"The dirty guy is Shawn, he's big into conspiracy theories," she said, pointing over at the couple seated far away from the main group. "His family consider themselves to be monster hunters. I've never seen a monster myself, so I just take his word for it. He's kind of a pessimist, so I wouldn't pay him too much attention."

"His friend is Jasmine," she smiled. "She's lovely. Really tough though; I really admire that about her. She grew up in Australia, until her parents died and she was adopted by Amazons. You should see her in action, it's incredible."

"I'm a technopath," Samey concluded, "but not a very powerful one. I'm lucky if I can turn on a laptop that's across the room. My sister was really strong, so I'm hoping one day I'll be as good as she was."

"Was?"

"I don't really like talking about it…" Samey frowned before perking back up, "Hey, why don't you go tell the others dinner is ready? Maybe providing food will help you earn some brownie points."

"Okay," Scarlett smiled in return, grateful that there was at least one other person in the game who hadn't completely lost their mind.

Contestants (Bold = Deceased)

Alejandro (heightened senses; enhanced strength, speed and durability; limited telepathy; flight)

Cameron

Courtney

Duncan (Pyrokinesis)

Ezekiel (heightened senses; razor sharp teeth and claws)

Geoff (gauntlets produce electrical surges)

Gwen

Heather (heightened senses; super strength; enhanced speed and durability; breathe underwater)

Jasmine (super strength; enhanced durability)

Lindsay (feathered wings)

Mike (cancels the powers of others)

Samey (limited technopathy)

Scarlett (cyborg)

Scott (pilots a mecha-suit)

Shawn

Zoey (produces cosmic energy)

What are your thoughts? Please feel free to leave a review offering constructive criticism, praise, or even just flaming me for killing your favourites. You know your successful once the hate begins rolling in ;)

Who do you think will die next? Who would you like to win? If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact me.

Until next time, thanks for reading!

-BansheeSerenade