Today's challenge idea was inspired by the suggestion of Leni-the-hedgie. Hope you like. Disclaimer: Ditto.

"Rise and shine, Campers!" Chris yelled through his annoyingly loud megaphone as the grumpy campers managed to force their battered bodies out of bed.

"Good morning," Chris said in his way-too-perky voice. Then he threw the megaphone away and continued, "It's time for your next challenge!"

"Whoop-de-do," Scourge said sarcastically.

"Today's challenge: Buy a T-Shirt!"

Everyone blinked. "Say what?" Tails finally asked for clarification.

"But not just any T-Shirt: it's one of the rarest and most sought-after clothing items of the season: The Puffy Pink Poodle Shirt!" Chris handed out photos of the shirt to everyone; the shirt was hot pink with a picture of a pink, cottony poodle in the center.

Amy squealed with delight at the sight of the shirt; everyone else groaned and felt like they're eyeballs were throwing up at the sight. Mephiles actually did throw up; turns out he's deathly allergic to puffy pink poodle items.

Of course, that could do nothing more than raise the TV Network ratings. And that, was dang good television, as far as Chris and Chef were concerned.

"And to top it all off, you'll be at one of the most crowded death traps in North America: The Mall of America, located in Bloomington, Minnesota!"

A collective round of groans and requests for lawyers came from the campers, but to no avail. Chris forced them into a camp bus and took them to the Mall of America, even though Total Sonic Island was supposed to be on an island, and therefore Chris shouldn't have been able to drive them off of it.

At the Mall of America…

"Each of you get 15 dollars for the shirt," Chris said, handing out the money. "First one who brings it back to me wins immunity for his team. Go at it!"

Amy, a thrilled look on her face, raced into the mall faster than Sonic normally ran. The rest of them, not at all pleased to be buying a pink poodle shirt on live TV in one of the biggest malls in North America, slowly followed her in.

Eggman, using science, a process of elimination, and a device that allowed him to find horribly pink poofy objects at a moments notice, found the dreaded shirt five minutes after going in. It was a size 2, but Chris hadn't actually said it needed to fit him, now did he?

Eggman was standing at the checkout line behind a sweet little old lady, who was also awaiting her turn. Eggman suddenly realized that she kept staring at him.

Fidgeting nervously, because who wouldn't be freaked out that a total stranger was staring at them at a checkout lane?

Eggman cleared his throat and asked, "Um, can I help you?"

"Oh!" the sweet little old lady blushed. "It's just that you remind me so of my son. He's off at the war, you know."

"I see," Eggman replied. "Well, I'm not your son, so would you please stop staring at me?"

The sweet little old lady sniffled. "I miss him so," she sobbed, as the clerk started to check out her items. "Would you do me a favor? Please call 'good-bye, mother' when I leave? It would make me feel so much better!"

Eggman sighed, but figured that it couldn't hurt anything, so as the little old lady started to leave, he yelled, "Good-bye, mother!" at her back. Then he placed his shirt on the counter and the clerk ringed it up.

"That'll be 155.95," the clerk said.

Eggman's jaw dropped. "For one little shirt?"

"Your mother said you would pay her bill," the clerk replied.

Eggman gasped as he realized he'd just been conned by a sweet little old lady. "But I don't have 155 dollars!"

"You won't pay?" the clerk asked. Then she hit a big red button and a SWAT team broke in through the window. They tackled Eggman and he screamed as his face hit the checkout counter, bounced off, then hit the ground.

In a completely different part of the store, Tails was in a computer shop, drooling at all the neat techo parts he wanted. Sonic was with him, wondering why they were hanging around here, as the dreaded T-Shirt was nowhere to be found.

"Tails? Shouldn't we be looking for the shirt?"

Tails ignored him, instead grabbing one doohickey or other, rushing to the counter. Sonic jumped in front of him.

"Tails, what are you doing? We're supposed to get T-shirts, not doohickeys!"

Tails looked up at Sonic with wild, bloodshot eyes and snarled at him. "The precious! We must have its! Precious!" he hissed, caressing the doohickey fondly.

Sonic, completely freaked out, stepped out of the way and Tails rushed to the counter, laughing hysterically over his prize.

Mephiles was wandering aimlessly down the mall, when a large group bunched around him, forcing him to take refuge in a nearby shop.

Mephiles glared at the crowd preventing him from leaving, then turned around—and stopped, a look of terror in his eyes.

He was in a shop called Princess Pretty's Pretty Land, a store dedicated to all things pink, puffy, and poodle.

Mephiles shrieked and stumbled back, actually knocking over the pink items and he passed out, his face swelling up as his pink, puffy, poodle allergies started working up.

Scourge the Hedgehog sighed and walked into JC Penny's, hoping they'd have the T-shirt he needed.

He really, really hoped that nobody recognized him. Since most people didn't know who he was, that was actually a pretty good possibility.

He snuck to the area that the T-Shirt would be in and found an entire rack full of them. He grinned and reached for one.

"Attention, shoppers. Puffy Pink Poodle T-Shirts are now two and a half cents off." said a voice over the loudspeakers.

A mob of screaming, raving, bargain hunting women rushed the rack, trampling Scourge in a flurry of feet and fists grabbing for the coveted T-Shirt. When it was over, the rack was completely empty, and Scourge was being carted off by a medical team.

Bean the Dynamite had forgotten why he was at the Mall of America in the first place, and was happily riding the rides in the inside theme park it offered.

"ALRIGHT!" He cheered, going down the miniature roller coaster in pure bliss.

Amy Rose had found the T-Shirt. She cheered and raced to the shirt, reaching it at the same time as Rouge the Bat, who was at the mall for no apparent reason.

"Hey! Let go; I saw it first!" Amy yelled.

"No, I did!" Rouge protested. Amy grabbed her Piko Piko hammer and hit Rouge over the head. Rouge kicked Amy's legs out from under her. As Amy fell, she grabbed Rouge's wing and knocked the bat down as well. The two grabbed each other's throats and started to roll around the floor, trying to beat the snot out of each other.

While they were thus preoccupied, Espio, who had determined this place to be the most brutal battlefield he'd ever been on, snuck in, grabbed the shirt, and hurriedly paid for it before anything else could go wrong.

As soon as he got it into the bag, an angry shopper raced in and knocked him out, racing on to find another person who had managed to buy something so the shopper could knock them out, too.

That night, Chris managed to find and get the 11 campers back to the bus, where he announced the heroes as the winners, as Espio was the only one who had managed to bring him a T-shirt. Eggman was in jail; Scourge was in the hospital; Tails was ranting like a lunatic; Sonic was hiding from Tails; Mephiles was having an allergic reaction; Amy was fighting Rouge for a shirt that had already been bought, Bean wouldn't get off the roller coaster.

As for the three that weren't mentioned, Metal Sonic had been mistaken as a Pepsi machine by a nearsighted vendor operator. (The guy in charge of getting the money out of the machine.) He'd torn Metal Sonic to shreds trying to get the money out. Ix was busy playing a Super Smash Bros. Brawl demo set out by the mall's game store. And as for Shadow; well, the international gun show was at the mall today; so that explained that.

"Villains, I'll see you at the elimination campfire," Chris said, walking off.

Mario rushed into view with the pink poodle shirt. Mephiles had another reaction and passed out.

"How'd you get that shirt?" Sonic asked in amazement.

"It's-a pink-a!" Mario explained breathlessly, looking around as if terrified. "I took-a it from-a Princess Peach's closet-a! She's-a not-a happy about it-a!"

"I'm not happy about having to keep kicking you off this island!" Chef retorted, getting ready to chase Mario back to the Boat of Losers again.

Before he could do anything, however, a furious Princess Peach stormed up to Mario, grabbed her shirt, and produced a frying pan much the same way Amy Rose produced her Piko Piko hammer. The regal princess then proceeded to beat Mario over the head with it.

Protesting weakly, Mario rushed off, diving into the Boat of Losers as Peach kept beating him for stealing her puffy pink poodle shirt.

*Toilet Cam*

Tails' POV

"The precious! We won'ts lets them takes it from us!"

Sonic's POV

"Poor Tails. Going without technology for so long made his little geek brain snap."

Eggman's POV

"I cannot believe I got conned by a sweet little old lady!"

Scourge's POV

"I can't feel my legs!"

Once again, Chris repeated the boring rules of elimination that we all know. Then he handed out marshmallows. "Scourge."

Scourge was immobile on a stretcher, but he twitched his nose a little to show that he accepted the marshmallow. Chris threw it at him and it hit his stomach. Scourge's eyes filled with tears and he whimpered in pain.

"Mephiles?"

The Dark's entire body was red and puffy from his horrid allergic reactions earlier. But he painfully managed to take a marshmallow anyway.

"Ix."

Ix, who was dressed like Solid Snake for some reason, grabbed a marshmallow and started quietly interrogating it.

"Bean."

Bean was licking the dirt, but he took the marshmallow so he could wear it as a hat.

"One more marshmallow. Two campers left."

Eggman looked worried. Metal Sonic was experiencing a catastrophic core meltdown because of the stupid store guy.

"Metal Sonic."

The marshmallow was placed on a sparking Metal Sonic's open chest cavity, where the electricity from the short circuiting wires melted it to a gooey mess.

"Sorry, Eggman, the campers have spoken."

Eggman gawked in shock. "This is impossible! I'm the prominent Sonic villain! I can't be voted off!"

"The stupidest Sonic villain," Scourge managed to boo.

"You got conned by a little old lady!" Mephiles accused through puffy lips.

Even Ix was getting on Eggman's case. "How do you sleep at night?"

So, amongst the taunts of his fellow villains, Eggman shamefacedly walked the Dock of Shame, entered the Boat of Losers, and promptly got hit in the face with a flying frying pan.

"Oops! Sorry," Princess Peach apologized, in the middle of mauling Mario with a rolling pin.

"Oha gobba bu…" Eggman said graciously, before passing out.

Eggman is GONE! Whatever shall we do? Oh, well. Who will be next? Find out, on Total Sonic Island. Oh, BTW, I've actually been to the Mall of America. The actual stores in the story are made up; I wasn't able to see all the stores in Mall of America. But on my honor, it really does have an indoor amusement park.