I like this episode, and YAY, one of my top five TD contestants makes an appearance. She was my favourite in TDI, but Heather won the "my favourite overall" title cause of her TDWT performance – that was incredible! But that's OK. Gwen – still love you! Thank you for reviewing, Ali6132 and the guest reviewer (I have no plans to include Shannon in All-Stars...I'm not even sure whether Chris would classify her as hero or villain with some tricks she pulls yet her being part of the Zoey-Mike-Cameron group...but I do have a finished PI story, and I plan to have an All-Stars story up soon as an alternate ending to my story "Kiss Me, But Don't Let Me Love You").

The next day was free. Cameron and I started checking out Mike's triggers. We worked out that Manitoba Smith was activated by the fedora Mike wore in the mine. Chester was an outlet for Mike's frustration. Whenever something really athletic had to be done, Svetlana was there. And Vito seemed to be the easiest to bring out on command – he only came out when Mike had his shirt off. Also, I tried to find some of the visual differences in personalities. When Mike was Chester, his face would screw up so it looked wrinkled. As Svetlana, his eyelashes appeared longer and his lips seemed redder. As Vito, his hair always went flat, and Manitoba had no visual change – the only difference was the Australian accent. But there was one problem – we couldn't find a trigger to bring Mike back.

Now that I was sure of the truth, it was harder to bite my tongue and keep it from Zoey. I wanted to tell her so much, because although Anne Maria was gone, who knew when Mike's shirt would next come off? It would hurt if she thought he was still into Anne Maria. But, I kept reminding myself, it was up to Mike to decide whether to tell Zoey or not.

But that evening ended suspiciously early. Chef served us some weird turkey spaghetti thing, and next thing I knew, I was waking up stranded in the middle of the ocean on a raft with the rest of my team, with an alarm ringing on a nearby buoy. Beside us, Jo and Lightning were asleep on another raft.

None of the team remembered anything past dinner, either. It was Cameron who worked out what had happened. Turkey, apparently, made people drowsy. "So mutant turkey must've knocked us out cold! Genius!"

Lightning didn't wake up until Jo kicked him into the water, but whatever.

"Great." Scott muttered. "Now we're gonna be some stupid shark's dinner."

I smirked. "In that case, I hope it's Fang, since he'll want his tooth back from you and give the rest of us a chance to escape."

But there was a lot of stuff floating around us, so we'd probably work out how to get back to shore with it. Right next to our raft was a suitcase full of clothes and...a fedora. Wouldn't you know it, Mike put it on. "Sweet hat!"

Soon, he was Manitoba again. Then again, the first thing he did was flirt with Zoey. Sadly, it wasn't working out. Cameron and I quickly rescued him. While Cameron pushed them apart (accidentally pushing Zoey off the raft), I reached up and pulled the fedora off Mike and managed to get him back to his normal self.

Zoey surfaced. "Hey!"

"Sorry...I...I tripped." Cameron said quickly.

Mike offered a hand to Zoey, which she accepted. "You know, out of all your characters," she smiled at him, "I like you being Mike the best."

"You do?" Mike said eagerly.

"Sure. But you make it so hard to get to know you, the way you're always playing characters...it feels like you're hiding from me."
"We're not!...I mean, I'm not." Mike said nervously.

Dakota tapped me on the shoulder. "You got any sunblock?" She gestured to her bald head.

I shrugged. "Sorry."

Two speedboats pulled up, one with Chris and one with Chef. "Morning, suckers!" Chris greeted us cheerfully.

"Hey Chris, how many times did you call your Mom today?" Dakota teased. As an intern, she knew stuff about Chris that we didn't. "By the way, I had no idea that Tabasco was used as a thumb-sucking deterrent until I started interning for Chris 'Sippy Cup' McLean."

But hearing that wasn't the strange part. As Dakota spoke, she seemed to...grow. Not only that, but her hair began growing back. But it wasn't blonde like before – it had gone light green! But still, I had to giggle at what she said.

"Uh..." Chris said, staring at her. So was everyone else.

"What? What are you all staring at?" Dakota asked.

"Uh, your hair's growing back." Mike told her.

"Really? Yay!" Dakota cried. Suddenly, she frowned. "Um...when did you all get shorter?"

It looked like the toxic waste in the mine had done more to Dakota than stolen all her hair.

Chris told us a bit more. The immunity statue he'd hidden at the start of the season was found. Speaking of which, the first challenge was to race to the shore. The first team there got an advantage, the last team got a penalty.

"Hey, Dakota, catch!" Chris called, tossing her a compact.

"What's this?" she asked, opening it. "Ooh, a picture of a scary monster? Big deal!"

"That's a mirror." Scott told her.

Dakota screamed. "I'm a monster!" She clutched the compact so hard, it crushed. "When I get my hands on you, I'll tear you apart!" She shrieked at Chris. But it was time to start racing to the shore. We would've used our team placard to row, since it looked like Lightning was doing pretty well on the other raft with it (Jo manipulated him into rowing instead of her by telling him it meant he was captain). Unfortunately, Dakota was so angry that she threw it overboard, too far for us to reach.

"Sorry." she apologized. "This whole mutant thing is totally stressing me out." She reached out to Zoey. "Hold me?" Zoey was tiny compared to Dakota by this time, but she was the only one who Dakota seemed to want to be friends with. Zoey looked a little nervous of this tall angry Dakota, but gave her a hug nonetheless.

"You're a good friend," the green-haired girl told her, "Even if your hair is all wrong."

Mike took charge. We'd have to get in the water and kick to get to shore with the raft.

Okay, so Fang did go for Scott, but Dakota punched him away with one punch.

"Dakota, you saved us!" Zoey cried.

"I guess I did." Dakota said. "You're welcome, friend who owes Dakota big time!"

I raised an eyebrow. Why was she speaking in third person?

"Aw, ain't this sweet." said a sarcastic Chester. Fang's entrance had made Mike stressed, and he hadn't yet turned back. "But what are we gonna do about that?" He pointed at the giant octopus we'd just encountered.

It was Cameron who got us to shore. "Get back." he told the rest of us. "Hey, jelly brain! I bet you couldn't smash me if you tried!"

When the octopus tried, it sent all of us flying, the raft working as a catapult. We all landed on the shore.

"Where's Chris?" Dakota demanded. He was in a helicopter above. "Get down here, you!"

Dakota was getting bigger and taller by the second. We were given a map and compass for the next

challenge.

As it was, Chris told us that our challenge was going to involve a practical joke, but now was a rescue mission. And it involved another one of the old competitors – Total Drama Island finalist and fan favourite Gwen!

Chris activated a screen. On it, an image of Gwen popped up, trapped in a small space. "What the – oh no! I'm buried alive? Again?!" She started pounding on the walls of the space. "CHRIS!" I remembered from the show that being buried alive was Gwen's worst fear.

"Burying someone alive is seriously dangerous." Mike said, giving Chris a disapproving look. "Even by your standards."

"That's why we're using the Buddy System!" Chris answered.

I scowled. "All right, who did you bring back to suffer again? Cody? Harold? I swear, if it was Heather, I'd be okay because she deserves it!"

"None of the above listed!" Chris laughed. "Instead of letting last year's losers have all the fun, we brought in one of this year's duds!"

The screen zoomed out to show...

"Sam!" Dakota cried. "Sam is back!" Her grammar had gone down. "Does he still have crush on Dakota?"

But she was furious that Chris had locked him in a crate. She growled, and as she did, she grew even more. Spikes appeared on her skin, plus a tail, her hair grew more, and her skin darkened to a bright orange colour.

To be honest, after she grew, I forgot the rest of the challenge about finding the chest and digging it up. I didn't even get to see Gwen properly.

All I remember was Cameron working out the trigger to bring Mike back. He nudged me as Mike turned from Svetlana back to Mike. "Did you see it?"

"Mike turned back?" I whispered. "What happened?"

"Mike turns back into Mike whenever Zoey's in danger!" he whispered.

I thought back. Zoey hanging on to the edge of the log in the first challenge, Spider-Izzy heading straight for her in the nighttime challenge...it was true. Mike became himself whenever Zoey was put in danger...and immediately went to help her.

I gave a sigh. "It sucks that we can't use that. Even if Zoey would be okay with having her life repeatedly threatened, we couldn't. Like she would."

Cameron nodded.

There was one more thing I remember. A whole lot of thorns we ran through resulted in one thorn pulling Mike's shirt up, and he momentarily turned into Vito and started asking where Anne Maria was. Cameron had to pull his shirt back down quickly before Zoey got too annoyed.

But after that, all I remember was the Rats winning, then Dakota opening the chest, tossing Gwen out, and then hugging Sam. What was sweet, was not that he not only still liked her, but liked her even better.

Mike, Cameron and I all voted for Scott.

I was walking with Cameron, when Scott came up to us. "Mike says he's real grateful for helping him with his problem."

"Problem?" repeated Cameron.

"What did he tell you?" I asked.

"Did he tell you about his Muliple Personality Disorder?" Cameron added.

"No...but you just did." Scott chuckled darkly as he spoke.

Cameron stopped, but I ran after Scott and pulled him back to face me. "Listen here! I've watched Total Drama before this season, and I know exactly what role you're taking – you're the villain this season! And trust me, if you take advantage of Mike or tell anyone else anything, I will find a way to shave your head, push you off a building, then kick you in the crotch and throw lava all over you, because by that time, you'll deserve all the karma that Heather, Justin, Courtney and Alejandro got!"

That night, Scott should've gone home. But as it turned out, he was the one with the immunity idol. It sucked. The Dakotazoid was sent home, but she didn't mind. She made out with Sam while she was in the catapult, while the rest of us went back to our cabins. To be honest, I liked mutated Dakota more than I'd liked the spoilt princess she'd been at first.

I sat out on the steps for awhile, looking up at the stars, and it struck me how much I'd been doing this since we got to the island. I'd sit out every evening, looking at the stars. But usually, Cameron was with me. We'd stopped hanging out since things got awkward. We were able to talk with most of our team around, and we helped Mike out together, but apart from that, I missed him. We weren't really friends as much as just teammates any more. It saddened me, a lot.

And on that note, the chapter's done! Please review.