Author's Note
Hello dear readers, and welcome to the start of Total Shuffled World Tour's third quarter! I have a lot in store for you in the coming weeks, so I hope you're all excited. As usual, next week's chapter stalled a little due to working out the song. But I think what I managed to come up with is great, and the chapter as a whole is really coming together well.
As mentioned last week, a new chapter of Total Drama Rebirth went up on Halloween, so if you're interested in my other work and haven't checked it out yet, feel free to do so.
On to the reviews!
Glowing Insanity: Thanks! Yeah, I'm honestly pretty glad I just ignored the curse, it's forced me to be a bit more creative with a few things. Glad you liked 'Truth or Consequences', since I wasn't entirely certain that segment would go over well, and as for Blaineley...well, she's still pretty close to her canon self, I'd say.
TaitanoRules555: Ah, right, okay then. Thanks for the review.
PizzaTheBomb: Glad you liked it so much! I figured the Scott-haters would like the chapter. Good to hear you liked the Dawn part of 'Total Drama Fugitives' as well. As for where the show is going this week, you're right in that it would normally be England, but this is the Shuffledverse after all...
Elizabeth Fire Ice Heart: Thanks!
DSX62415: Thanks! But honestly, it was just the one octopus, and it came so late into the episode that I really didn't want to have it raise the donation total they needed.
acosta perez jose ramiro: Yeah, that's kind of what i was going for with Scott. The guy does have some heart, after all, even if it's pretty tiny.
aloasa: Darn, I'm sorry I wasn't able to chance your enjoyment of the second Aftermath. Oh well, I hope you enjoy this week's episode better.
Animation Adventures: I'm glad you liked it! And yeah, Dakota not being able to contribute is sad, but necessary otherwise the entire plot of the episode doesn't happen. Regarding Bridgette and Geoff rolling down into a snowball as they made out, I honestly didn't think of it but I can't say whether I would've gone with it had I; I might've thought it too lengthy or something. I'm really happy you liked my take on Staci's backstory; for the longest time I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do with her, but I'm really happy with what I went with. She's annoying, but she does have a family who loves. Speaking of humanization, I'm glad Scott's bit with admitting Zeke kinda meant something to him has gone over so well. As for Amy...well, as horrible a person as she is, it makes her useful to have around. And as for what Blaineley will do next...you'll have to wait to find out.
P. T. Piranha: Hmmm...yeah, I can see why this could rank in the bottom for canon Aftermaths. Still, I'm glad you liked my version - I did my best to shake things up, and it paid off. As for your predictions of things to come...well, I will say that the relationship between DJ, Dawn, and Sammy is gonna get some focus, as will the drama between Tyler, Ella, and Alejandro...but as for specifics, you'll just have to wait and see.
FOWLKON: Perhaps, but honestly while writing the chapter I figured having them reach a million when they didn't need to would be too much. A smaller boost over what they needed seemed fine, though.
CVluvFoxy: Glad to hear you liked it! You're definitely right that there's no love lost between Blaineley and Sam/Dakota. And regarding what'll happen to Scarlett, you'll just have to wait and see.
I. M. Poik: Ehh, like I said, trashing the studio wasn't something that I could really make happen at the same time as canon. Still, I'm glad you liked how I rectified things by changing the rate at which money came in. And as for our fugitives...well, you'll just have to wait and see what becomes of those three girls.
LadyEnigma888: Haha, I was hoping you'd like Borys from Ukraine, and I'm glad you like Staci actually having a large extended family. I hope you enjoy what eventually becomes of the missing girls!
StayOuttaMyShed: Still not caught up, but I'm glad you liked chapter 3 and 4 even if you were disappointed that Beardo had to go. I get the feeling you're not gonna be that happy with some of the eliminations, but what's done is done. I'm really glad you're liking the songs, at least, and I hope you still enjoy the overall story that's being told this season.
Knifez: I won't comment on my plans for Scarlett, but I am glad you liked the interviews last chapter. Likewise, it makes me happy that people are liking my idea of actually having Staci on a tour of Europe visiting some of her relatives. As always, thanks for the review!
Explorer of the Unknown: Well, not so much on the run so much as stowing away on the Total Drama jet to plot her revenge. I'm glad you liked what happened with Scott on the Aftermath - I wanted something that would be punishing and humiliating, but that would also humanize him a little bit and it looks like it really went well. I did consider having at least some mention of Brody in relation to Geoff, but as the main focus of the episode was Staci and Scott, I decided against it. As for what will happen this week...well, although this would normally have been London like you said, things aren't always the same in the Shuffledverse...
wifishark: For three separate definitions of 'on the run' anyway...Dawn has her mysterious mission, Scarlett's hiding in plain sight, and Staci just kind of wandered off to do her own thing. The resolution of these three arcs will be...interesting, I hope.
And that's it for this week's batch of reviews. As usual, the TVTropes page for this series could always use more work. I greatly appreciate the effort everyone has put into it so far!
It hasn't changed since last week (again), but as a reminder here's who remains in the competition:
Team Victory - Ezekiel, Tyler
Team Chris is Really Really Really Really Mean - Shawn, Sierra, DJ
Team Universe - Sammy, Alejandro, Ella, Sugar
Remember how I said at the start of the season how the Shuffled locations would be confined to the first half of the season? Things change, I'm afraid, so instead of London the plane will be headed to Area 51 in New Mexico...
Enjoy!
- Fangren
Episode 13 – Roswell That Ends Well
"Last time, on Total Drama World Tour," Chris opened, the recap beginning with a shot of Team Universe enjoying first class. "We had some...mechanical difficulties," the plane was showing dropping out of the sky and the three teams panicked in the shaking cabins, "and ended up in hot water, Jamaica style. No problem, mon!" The plane crash-landed on the unknown beach, and the waterfall was shown as Chris attempted a Jamaican accent for his last sentence.
"Especially Scott, after Sugar got spooked and threw him to the eels," Scott's botched attempt at contacting his secret ally was followed by their argument in the water, ending in her forcibly dunking him and swimming away as he got shocked, "leading to our first disqualification for not singing." Chris was shown breaking the new to the bedridden Scott, then walking away to leave him stunned.
"Stranded, and short of gas money," Chris and Chef were shown lounging poolside and getting served fresh drinks, "we were forced to improvise." A panning shot of the bobsled course was followed by a close-up of Scarlett and Sammy's disastrous run. "And Scarlett finally got what was coming to her, and got booted out. Or did she?" The brainiac was shown jumping off the plane, then jumping up into the shadowy cargo hold.
"But thanks to a rockin' telethon that raised a tankload of cash from our viewers," a clip of the octopus tank falling apart and wrecking the stage at the end of the previous Aftermath was shown, as well as the donation tracker rolling up to $600,000.00 and Blaineley getting tangled up in telephone cords. "And hey, thanks for that, eh?" Chris added in a low aside before continuing with "We're ready to get back in the air!"
A shot of the plane rising away from the camera, the host visibly waving from an open doorway, ended the recap montage. The scene moved to the cockpit, where Chris was happily slurping on some drink with a lemon wedge in it. "Oh man, that's refreshing!" he said, tossing the glass away – it shattered on the wall just past Chef's head, and the lemon wedge fell on the control panel. "Vacation's over! It's time for some more, Total! Drama! Woooorrrrlllddd~ Tooouuurrrr~!" As the scene zoomed out, it was revealed to be night again, and the plane was flying in front of the moon. A shooting star passed overhead just as the music ended.
xxx
(Fade to Opening Theme)
Dear Mom and Dad, I'm doin' fine;
You guys are on my mind!
Ya asked me what I wanted to be,
And now I think the answer is plain to see!
I wanna be...famous!
I wanna live close to the sun!
Well pack your bags, 'cause I've already won!
Everythin' to prove, nothin' in my way;
I'll get there one day.
'Cause I wanna be...famous!
(Na-na nanananaa, nanana-nanaa, na-nananananaa)
I wanna be! I wanna be! I wanna be famous! (Na-na nanananaa, nanana-nanaa, na-nananananaa)
I wanna be! I wanna be! I wanna be famous! (Na-na nanananaa, nanana-nanaa, na-nananananaa)
(Fade to Episode)
xxx
The episode opened on a shot of the plane flying across the night sky, a slightly tense plucked-string tune playing as the scene cut to an isolated corner of the dining area where Sammy and DJ were seated side-by-side, reading the letter in Sammy's hands.
"To my dearest friends," the cheerleader read as a mystical tune took over the background music. "I hope you find this letter soon, so that my sudden departure does not hurt you more than I know it will. I deeply apologize for what I am about to do, but I'm afraid I see no other choice. I know that if I try to tell you in person, I'll never be able to do what must be done." Sammy and DJ shared a worried look, and they continued reading.
"My restless sleep in the Amazon was due to a dream sent to me, a vision of things to come. It showed me a dangerous person coming to a far away place, one who could gain enough power there to cause untold harm to the Earth Mother and all her children." DJ and Sammy shared another surprised look. "However, the vision made it clear that if I were present at that moment, I could stop the threat. To that end, I have decided to abandon the competition and allow the Universe to guide me to the place where I am needed."
"Please, don't take this as a sign that I don't care about you two, for things couldn't be further from the truth. I...," Sammy faltered slightly, and DJ put a comforting arm on her shoulder, "I truly wish I could be with both of you, but I can not. I promise, though, that once my task is done I shall do my best to reunite with both of you."
The two readers smiled softly. "But for now, I leave you with a warning: I believe Scott and Sugar may be working together in secret. As I was attempting to get a better feel for the plane after we left Japan, I stumbled upon them meeting in the cargo hold. I did not hear what they said, but as their auras contain no signs of love or affection for each other I can only assume their devious hearts have come together for another purpose. Please keep an eye on them, so that they do not cause any harm."
"Until the glorious day that the Universe brings us back together, Dawn."
Sammy and DJ spent a few moments in silence.
"Wow," DJ finally said.
"I know," Sammy replied. "I couldn't believe it either when I first saw it."
"Guess we owe Sugar for gettin' this for us," DJ said thoughtfully. "Though I wish we'd gotten it sooner. Not only could we have found out where Dawn went, but we probably coulda saved Sugar from getting' into all her trouble too."
"True," Sammy said, "but there's nothing we can do about that now. I just hope Dawn is okay, though; having to save the world or whatever seems pretty harsh."
"Yeah," DJ agreed.
The two were silent for a moment before, at the same time, they said "I wish we could help her."
/
The scene cut to first class, the mystical tune being replaced by the tense plucked-string melody from earlier. Shawn and Sierra were sitting opposite one another, reclining in their seats and looking rather relaxed.
"So...what do you think about Sugar?" Sierra asked suddenly and bluntly.
"Uhh...she's kinda weird, but after what went down in Jamaica I think she's probably harmless right now."
"Hrmm...," Sierra said, narrowing her eyes in displeasure.
/
Another flash took the scene to economy class, where Tyler and Ezekiel sat on the left side of the wall and Alejandro, Ella, and Sugar occupied the right.
"Ahh, it's so much more peaceful around here without Scarlett and Scott to aggravate us, don't you agree Sugar?" Alejandro asked with a smirk.
"Yup!" Sugar chuckled. "Sure is a load offa my mind, not havin' to worry about keepin' those two happy. I'm ashamed I got in with them in the first place, to be honest."
"But of course," Alejandro smiled confidently.
xxx
"I'll admit that I didn't expect Sugar to form a secret alliance without me realizing," Alejandro confessed, "but it's hardly of any consequence. Now that it's gone, all she can do is get in my good graces. It won't help her if we lose, but should we make the merge together she could prove a useful asset." He ended his confessional with an evil laugh.
xxx
"I know it's just the two of us now," Tyler told Ezekiel, "but I am not gonna let that get us down. You and I got some pretty sweet moves, and with nobody left to hold us back, it's gonna be the two of us, all the way to the end, baby! Yeah!" He threw an arm around Ezekiel's shoulders, waved a hand in front of them as though revealing the horizon, and then pumped a fist.
"Yeah!" Ezekiel copied. "We don't need other team members, eh, not when we got the two of us!"
"Woo!" Tyler cheered, the two boys sharing a high-five.
"You know, it really warms my heart seeing the two of you staying so positive after everything that's happened," Ella told them with a happy smile.
"Thanks," Tyler said with what he must've thought was a charming smile. "Zeke's been feeling a little down, so since I'm always confident I figured I'd share it with him." He rubbed his nose proudly, and added "It's what I do."
"Well, confidence is certainly good," Alejandro told them with a small laugh, "but I'd advise you not to go overboard. You're outnumbered, and your skills are far from good enough to even things out. I wouldn't be surprised if you two were the next two to be eliminated."
"Now now," Ella scolded him, "don't say that! I know this is a competition, but there's no reason we can't all be friendly with each other!"
"But of course," Alejandro explained. "I merely wanted to prevent them from becoming overconfident and putting themselves at even greater risk."
"I know," Ella pouted, "but that's no reason to be so harsh about it."
"...yes," Alejandro said, seemingly cowed. "My apologies, friends," he told the two boys of Team Victory, neither of which looked like they believed him.
xxx
Ella opened her confessional by sighing. "Alejandro has been nothing but the perfect gentleman towards me," she told me, "and I do believe he's my one true love. But sometimes, it's like I'm the only one who sees that. And for such an eloquent man," she frowned and looked to her right, "he could pick his words better."
xxx
The season's world map was shown as the music picked up its pace, the plane icon flying northwest from the Caribbean across North America. The shot cut to a head-on view of the cockpit from outside the plane, showing the inflatable Chef Hatchet in the pilot's seat and nothing else around. Some piece of equipment inside the plane began beeping, and the camera showed the view from inside as a pair of greenish-colored flying saucers suddenly darted up in front of the plane, the moved on above it. Back outside, the two UFOs zapped the plane with some kind of electric-like ray that enveloped the jet in an odd green light.
Inside, Chris and Chef were busy playing chess in the host's quarters as the plane began to shake and sirens started going off. "Huh," Chris said as he made his move, "you sure the plane was totally fixed?"
Chef just shrugged, eyes glued to the board.
Chris took out a PA microphone and pressed the button on it, then calmly said "Attention, potential crash victims! Please remain calm! Our autopilot is testing some equipment!" The scene briefly cut to a loudspeaker in the cargo hold, which Scarlett was partly visible looking up at, her bulky shock collar still noticeable around her neck. "Snacks in the common area if you don't believe me," Chris added as the shot cut back to him, "and want a last meal."
The camera cut to a close-up of a bowl of fruit, quickly zooming out to show the nine contestants gathered around it – Sugar, Ella, and Alejandro on the right; Tyler, Ezekiel, Shawn, Sierra, Sammy, and DJ on the left.
"What kinda snacks are these?" Sugar complained, picking up a mango and stuffing it in her mouth. "Some last meal this turned out to be," she added with her mouth full of fruit.
"Frankly, I'm surprised we got anything," Shawn said, breaking a banana off the bunch and peeling it.
"Yeah, Chris ain't exactly the type to spend a lotta money on us, eh," Ezekiel added.
"Well, we all survived the other crashes, so we're probably good anyway," Tyler said, picking up a peach. "Hey Ella, want one?"
"Oh yes, please," the singer answered with a smile, holding out her hands. Tyler grinned and prepared a throw, but the shaking plane caused his hand to slip and he ended up hitting Ella in the forehead with the peach instead.
Tyler winced. "Wow, I'm so sorry about that," he said, darting over to her side as Alejandro quickly steadied her.
"Oh, that's okay," Ella told him, gingerly touching where she'd been hit. "Accidents happen."
Tyler smiled in relief, and Alejandro narrowed his eyes at him.
xxx
"So it seems the New Guy has finally started trying to get Ella's attention," Alejandro said in the restroom confessional. "Of course, he doesn't stand a chance so long as I'm around. I won't let him! Ella is far too useful to me to risk her affection wavering. Of course," he smirked evilly, "once I'm done with her and they're both out of the competition, Tyler can have whatever scraps of Ella's fragile innocence remain."
He held his smirk for a second, then groaned irritably and pinched the bridge of his nose.
xxx
"I'm glad you're okay," Alejandro told Ella, his arms still around her. "I don't know what I'd do if you'd been seriously hurt!"
"That's sweet," Ella blushed, "but really, I'm fine. It was just a little peach, after all." She stood up straight again, and grabbed another peach. "I do hope something happens soon, though. I can just feel the anticipation." She took a small bite of her fruit.
The lights in the room suddenly cut out, and only the eyes could be seen of the cast. They gasped, then Ella swallowed and said "Oh my, was that me?" The others just looked at her blankly.
Back outside, the two flying saucers stopped zapping the plane and flew off. Smoke promptly poofed out of each of the jet's engines, and its inhabitants began to scream as their vessel went into a nosedive.
The plane looked like it was dropping rapidly, but just before it hit the ground it was stopped abruptly by the same ray the UFOs had zapped it with. With a metallic creak the plane rotated in mid-air so that it was right-side up, then dropped down safely when the beam cut out.
The camera cut back inside, where the lights had turned back on and the contestants were looking quite shaken. Ella, in particular, was crouching on the ground with her hand over her head. She tentatively looked up, then asked "That...that was just a coincidence, right? My biting into the peach didn't actually cause us to fall out of the sky, did it?"
"Uhh, I don't think that's possible," Tyler told her, offering her a hand up which she absentmindedly accepted.
"Tyler is...right, of course," Alejandro admitted, standing on his teammate's other side and dusting himself off. "Peaches don't generally cause engine malfunctions when they're eaten."
"Right, yes," Ella said with a sheepish blush. "That was quite silly of me, wasn't it?"
xxx
"In my defense," Ella told the restroom camera, "there are plenty of stories about fruit that curses whoever bites into it. Usually it's something like eternal slumber, or getting turned to stone, but I don't think one that causes imminent peril is too farfetched."
xxx
A wolf howled mutely as the scene cut to the moon before panning down to the cast standing outside the plane, Chris now wearing sunglasses and a soldier's helmet.
"Everyone, welcome to the coolest, extraterrestrialiest place in the world," he began excitedly as the music built up, "Area 52!"
"Fifty-two?" Shawn repeated nervously. "Uhh, this isn't anything like government conspiracy hotspot Area 51, is it?"
"I doubt it," Alejandro told him. "The show probably just couldn't afford anything better than a fake area."
"Nope," Chris corrected, "this really is Area 52. And that's Area 51 right there." He pointed behind them, the view switching to a large rock formation with something illuminating the back of it. Shawn squeaked nervously.
"We're just inside the border," the host explained. "Well, all of us except for Tyler." The camera panned to the end of the line of contestants, where Tyler was standing on the other side of a faint line in the barren ground. He was promptly zapped by a laser, lifting up into the air as the energy coursed through his body.
"Tyler!" Ezekiel called out in concern as his teammate continued to get zapped.
"Thanks for the laser show, colonel," Chris said into a bulky walkie-talkie, the laser shutting off moments later and dropping Tyler to the ground with a groan and a thud. "It's good to have friends in Area 51 places," the host quipped.
"Perhaps you should have paid more attention to where you were standing," Alejandro told the jock in a slightly mocking tone as Ezekiel helped him up. Tyler just scowled at him.
xxx
"He thinks he's so cool," Tyler pouted in the restroom confessional, "but it's not like I knew I was gonna get zapped if I stood there. I was just unlucky, but he's trying to make it seem like I'm a joke and totally beneath him. I just wish Ella could see that..."
xxx
"Listen up, space cases," Chris told the contestants who were now lined up in their teams before him. A television on a cart next to him turned on and cut from static to a simple overhead map of the nearby area. "The five-one is the most tightly protected military base in the world. Which is why tonight's challenge is gonna be so much fun!" He chuckled to himself, and the nine teens gave him annoyed and nervous looks. "For me."
"Part One," the shot cut in close to the left side of the TV screen, showing the three team icons lined up on one side of the rock formation. "Break into Area 51 without getting shot, gassed, plasma-rayed, or otherwise killed." The icons split and moved around the rock formation to the right, Team Universe heading north while Team Victory and Team Chris headed south, splitting up at a smaller rock formation. The main rock formation ran all the way to what looked like the main fence of the Area; to the north the ground was drawn with wavy lines; to the south it was a grid."The place is guarded by elite Black Ops soldiers, so, if anyone does get all...exploded..., their untimely but hilarious demise will be blamed on a freak weather balloon accident."
"Part Two," the shot cut back to the TV again, focusing on the giant circled 51 on the right side of the screen. "Each team must fine a genuine functioning alien artifact inside Area 51's infamous Black Box warehouse." A tense and trilling tune played as the camera panned across the Area, showing all manner of warehouses, satellite dishes, towers, and other things, and ultimately landing on a larger warehouse with 51 written above the door. "The place is full of broken alien junk. You need to find something alien that still works!" A low drumroll played as the shot cut back to the host and TV. "But! Be careful, the warehouse is loaded with booby traps!"
"Part Three," the trio of team icons were shown standing around the 51 logo, then making a beeline back to the left. "The winning team must bring their working artifact back to Area 52 intact." The logos joined up on the far side of the rock formation, forming a giant check mark. "Last team back faces elimination, and do not get caught over there! Rumor has it trespassers get a memory wipe and are transferred to an alien colony, where they either become slaves or food." The cast shared a nervous look, but none was more nervous than Shawn. "You have 'til dawn!" Chris told them. "Go!" he pointed towards the Area.
/
A few deeper notes were struck as Chris was shown walking back to the plane, the camera lingering as he passed by and zooming on the landing gear.
Scarlett slowly leaned out from behind it and looked around with narrowed, cautious eyes. "Area 51, eh?" she muttered to herself as an evil smirk formed on her lips. "Perfect..." Another round of deep notes played as she slinked off to the right, and the scene flashed away again.
/
The overhead map image was shown again as the team icons began to separate, the camera focusing in on the lower pair as they reached the smaller rock formation. The shot cut over to them.
"This is where we split up," Tyler said as he and Ezekiel ran ahead of DJ, Sierra, and an anxious-looking Shawn. "See ya later!"
"Good luck!" DJ told them.
"Watch out for everything!" Sierra added just before the two teams were separated by stone. The members of Team Chris regrouped behind a stone, and with a blank look Sierra murmured "Wow...!"
The viewpoint switched to theirs, showing a wide open area stretching between them and the tall electric fence surrounding the Area.
"Oh man," Shawn muttered, teeth chattering as he looked all around them.
"Uhh, you okay dude?" DJ asked, tentatively putting a hand on his teammate's shoulder only for it to be immediately repelled.
"Considering where we are," Shawn said sharply, "that's a no."
"But this is Area 51," Sierra told him. "There's only alien stuff in there!"
"Hah! That's what they want you to think," Shawn countered. "All the alien stuff is just a front for the zombie experiments they conduct. Control, weaponization, mutation," he listed off on his fingers, "you name it, they do it here. And don't even get me started on the zombie-alien hybrids!"
DJ and Sierra shared a concerned look. "Uhh...well, we still have to go in, so hopefully all that stuff is locked up tight," Sierra told him.
"I wonder if it's safe to cross?" DJ pondered as a rabbit hopped past them and into the open. The gentle giant smiled as it stopped and wiggled it's nose happily...only to take another hop and get zapped by a laser. DJ squeaked in shock and horror, and the well-singed rabbit squealed and ran back towards the rocks.
"Yeah, I think not," Shawn deadpanned as it ran past them again.
/
The overhead map was shown again, a dramatic riff playing as the camera panned up from Team Chris to Team Universe.
The four of them were also standing behind a small rock, looking out at another open area in front of the fence.
"Well, looks pretty simple to me," Sugar said confidently before stepping forward.
"No!" her three teammates yelled in unison, grabbing her and pulling her back.
"No need to be so...hasty," Alejandro told her. "We need to be careful about this." He bent down, picked up a small pebble, then silently flicked it towards the fence.
It fell short and hit the bare dirt, and promptly exploded.
"Oh my!" Ella said in shock while Sugar laughed awkwardly.
"That's, like, a minefield, isn't it?" Sammy asked. "How are we supposed to get across it?"
"Slowly," Alejandro said with narrowed eyes.
"Aww shucks, this ain't that hard," the pageant star told them, bending down and scooping up some dirt. "Just gotta make sure those thing blow up before we get to 'em!" She packed the dirt into a ball, then casually tossed it in front of them. Another explosion was set off. "See?"
Alejandro, Ella, and Sammy just stared blankly.
/
"Okay," Shawn told his teammates as the scene cut back to Team Chris, "throw the rock and then run in the opposite direction." He pointed to the rock he was holding, DJ and Sierra each holding a similar stone and looking somewhat wary. "Just try not to alert the undead, okay?"
DJ and Sierra nodded, and Shawn did as well. With a grunt he heaved his rock to the left, then dashed off to the right. The camera followed the rock as it flew threw the air, a laser quickly locking onto it and causing it to burst after a few seconds. But by then, as the shot soon showed, Shawn had gotten to the cover of another rock on the other side of the open space. "Go!" he hissed to his teammates.
With a scream, DJ hurled the rock and ran with closed eyes and flailing arms all the way across the field, the laser shooting off over his head to destroy the rock he'd sacrificed. Shawn quickly grabbed him and pulled him down behind his rock, then called out "Sierra!"
Sierra reared back to throw, but stopped when a sudden explosion went off nearby and Tyler went flying and screaming over the laser field in the distance. He hit the fence on the other side, got electrocuted by it, and fell to the down smoking. Team Chris watched as a small rock got tossed up into the air from the same direction Tyler had come, followed by Ezekiel hurrying across the field to his teammate.
"Yo, are you okay?" Ezekiel asked, the camera cutting in closer to Team Victory. Crackling with electricity, Tyler just groaned, so Ezekiel reached out to grab his hand and got shocked. The two boys groaned as one, but recovered enough for Ezekiel to pull Tyler to his feet.
"So what now?" the jock asked, patting away the few remaining wisps of smoke coming from his body. "I don't really wanna touch that fence again."
"I think we might have to, eh," Ezekiel said, looking up and down the fence. "At least, unless we can find like a ladder or a shovel or somethin'."
Tyler made a noise of discomfort, then hesitantly reached out to touch the fence again.
"Hey guys!" DJ called out, causing the boys of Team Victory to pause and look to the right. The viewpoint shifted to show DJ waving his arms at them from a good distance away while Shawn and Sierra walked through a hole in the fence behind him. "Just come down here, there's a way in!"
Tyler and Ezekiel grinned, high-fived, and ran off towards the other team.
/
"See, I told you this was easy!" Sugar said as she lead her team through the minefield in single file, stopping every now and then to pick up some dirt, pack it together, and throw it on the ground. Every so often she'd detonate a mine, and the team would cautiously advance a few steps – Sammy first, then Alejandro, then Ella in the rear.
"Hah, yeah," Sammy chuckled nervously, tensing up every time an explosion went off. "I kinda wish there was another way, though."
"It's probably for the better that there isn't," Alejandro told her as they took a few more steps forward. "We'd just go even slower."
"Well at least this way we aren't in danger," Ella said, looking at the ground around her while holding on to Alejandro's shoulder. Another mine went off, and she cringed. "Much danger, anyway."
/
The music turned ominous as the scene cut to the end of the large rock formation nearest the plane. The camera zoomed in as Scarlett poked her head out from behind part of it, looked around, then smirked and started climbing. The footage skipped forward to her reaching the top, hauling herself up, then wiping the sweat from her brow. She scrambled forward a little ways and looked down at the base; on the right she spotted Team Chris and Team Victory dashing from shadow to shadow as they made their way to the largest warehouse; on the left she saw Team Universe cautiously entering another hole in the electric fence and look around.
She crawled forward a little more so that she was at the edge of the rock formation, then looked around again. A panning shot of the Area showed no trace of Teams Chris and Victory, and Team Universe disappeared into an alley in seconds.
Scarlett smirked evilly, then stood and dashed forwards. She jumped into the air and did a somersault, the moonlight glinting off her collar, then...landed with a painful and pathetic flop on the far side of the electric fence.
She got up on all fours and coughed. "Okay, not my best idea," she muttered to herself, "but at least I'm inside. Those insects won't know what hit them." The shot cut to her close-up as she narrowed her eyes and smirked evilly, a few deep notes playing in the music.
/
The scene cut to the Black Box warehouse, the door suddenly swinging open as a couple burly soldiers dressed in thick body armor ran out into the night, nightsticks in their hands. Once they'd left Alejandro looked out from behind the corner, smirked, then quickly put his foot in the way as the door swung shut. He pushed it open, and the camera showed the feet of him, Ella, Sammy, and Sugar running into the warehouse.
"Hey, looks like we're the first ones here!" Sugar said happily as the camera cut inside, showing her and her teammates standing in an aisle in front of huge stacks of crates and other things. In the foreground was a section divider labeled A-3. She let the door swing shut, but a muscular arm stopped it before it could close.
"Maybe, but not by much," DJ said with a smirk as he let Shawn and Sierra in, then stepped in himself.
"Yeah, you just got lucky, eh," Ezekiel added with a jovial look, barging past the door and causing it to knock into Tyler on the backswing.
"Oww...," the uber-jock said, rubbing his nose as he stepped deeper into the warehouse and allowed the door to slam shut behind him.
The tense music continued as the teams began to wander away from one another; Ezekiel leading Tyler off along the warehouse wall towards the camera, Team Universe continuing up the central aisle, and Team Chris milling around the longest. Once the other teams were gone, Shawn nervously motioned for a huddle.
"Look, I don't know how else to say this, but I think we should split up again," he told his teammates. "It worked pretty well for us in Paris, and I'm honestly really freaked out about being in here so I'd be more comfortable going alone for the time being. Uhh, not that I want you two to get eaten or anything," he added frantically at his teammate's odd looks, "but if you do I'd rather not get dragged into saving you and risk being bitten myself. No offense meant just, y'know, a self preservation thing." He chuckled at them nervously as they shared an odd look.
"Uhh, I guess I understand," DJ told him with an uncertain frown. "Not really likin' the idea of wanderin' around by myself, though."
"I'm sure we'll be fine," Sierra told him as the three began to split up.
The music took an ominous turn again as the camera lingered in the area, slowly zooming in on the door. It cracked open silently, and Scarlett cautiously poked her head inside. She looked around, then stepped into the warehouse with a devious smile. She gingerly closed the door behind her so that it didn't make a sound.
The shot cut to a security camera, a flashing light on top of it and the lens zooming in indicating that it was recording.
"Huh," Chris said blankly as the warehouse scene faded red and Scarlett darted off into the shadows. The shot cut to the host's quarters in the plane, where Chris was watching the feed at his desk with a large bowl of popcorn in his lap; Chef Hatchet was standing around behind him. "Guess we know what happened to Scarlett," the host commented.
"Don'tcha think havin' an evil genius loose in Area 51 might be a bad thing?" Chef asked. "She could cause all kinds 'a problems!"
"True," Chris admitted, rubbing his chin as he thought before shrugging happily. "But, I'm sure the kids can handle her. And even if they can't, the Black Ops soldiers will. For now, I'm sayin' we sit back and enjoy the show."
"Fine with me," Chef shrugged.
"Will our amateur alien hunters make it out of the mysterious Black Box with their butts intact?" Chris asked the camera. "And, what does Scarlett have up her sleeves?" he added as an ominous tune played. "Find out when we return, on Total! Drama! World Tour!"
The camera zoomed back all the way outside the jet as he said the title, and a flying saucer returned to zap the plane again. "Aaaaggghhh! Stop it!" Chris yelled in annoyance from inside.
(Fade to Commercial and Back)
"Welcome to the Black Box warehouse!" Chris announced over the PA as the episode resumed with a panning shot of the warehouse's interior. First Shawn, then Alejandro and Ella, and then Tyler and Ezekiel were shown looking up from around the stacks of crates as the host continued. "Finding a functioning alien artifact in here is gonna be a bit like finding a needle in a haystack. A haystack with a Black Ops security system," he added as Scarlett was shown as well, looking through a crate at the top of some pile. "Which I set off when I hacked into this PA." The host's comment shocked Scarlett for a moment before her face settled into a knowing grin, and she hastily shoved the top crate of her stack to the floor. It broke into a pile of metal junk that scattered on the floor.
"My bad," Chris said unapologetically as a klaxon began to sound.
"And my opportunity," Scarlett said softly to herself, already rooting through the top of a different pile of crates. Finding nothing she pushed it off; it landed on top of yet another crate, which burst open. A miniature flying saucer hovered out of the rubble and flew off, leaving Scarlett to grin and make her way into the shadows of the next stack of crates.
As she did, the camera pulled away to her into the shadow of another crate a good ways away where the short and slender form of Dawn was watching in secret. The moonchild's eyes narrowed, and the scene flashed away.
/
The beeping could still be heard as another pair of burly soldiers was shown running past through a gap between two crates. The camera pulled out to show Shawn doing the watching, and he nervously wiped his brow while backing away.
"Okay, you can do this," he told himself. "Just find something not undead and get out." He was startled when a crate crashed down behind him, and the camera angled upwards just in time to catch the silhouette of Scarlett leaping away. Unaware of what had happened, Shawn cautiously approached the wreckage of the crate.
Dangerous music began to play as a couple pieces of wood slid off a rusty metal orb, which shuddered and rose up on three spindly legs. It shuttered and sparked towards the survivalist. "Ahh! Alien zombie!" he screamed before delivering a flying kick to the short tripod that broke it into pieces. He let out his breath, and the camera angled up again to show the silhouette of Dawn darting through the shadows in the direction Scarlett had gone.
/
The music became slightly calmer yet more eerie as the scene moved to Sammy, who was backing between the rows of junk all alone. Her eyes were darting around nervously, and she yelped when she suddenly bumped into something. So, in fact, did the person she'd bumped into.
"DJ?!" the cheerleader exclaimed as she turned around to see her boyfriend.
"Sammy?!" the gentle giant replied in shock.
The two breathed a sigh of relief.
"Hey, you wanna stick together for this?" DJ asked, rubbing the back of his head. "I mean, I know we're on different teams and all, but still."
"Yeah, I'd like that," Sammy told him, and the two began to cautiously check the stack behind them. "This place is creepy, and I'm sure if we find one alien artifact there'll be others with it."
"Like these?" DJ said confidently, prying open a crate and taking out two pyramid-shaped objects. Sammy smiled and reached for one, but the moment she touched one both exploded in a poof of smoke.
"Maybe not..." she said, both teens stunned and covered with soot.
/
"Woah, check this out," Tyler said in amazement as he and Ezekiel approached a large ring-shaped device about twice their height; it had a few glowing chevrons set along its edges and a ramp leading up to it, but what was strangest was the glowing bluish goo that the center seemed to be comprised off.
"Wonder what it's made out of," Ezekiel thought aloud as he reached out and touched the goo; the music immediately became tense as his hand got sucked in. "Woah no!" he cried as his whole body started get sucked in with a slurping sound, leading Tyler to quickly grab him around the waist and pull.
/
The music's intensity dropped off once again as the scene flashed to Sierra and Sugar rounding a corner at the same time from opposite directions. They stopped, startled, upon seeing one another, then their eyes narrowed into glares. "You!" they each said accusingly.
"Me?" Sugar answered, taking offense and scowling. "What's that s'posed to mean? You're the one who played that mean trick on me back in New York, and here I've been a victim this whole season!"
Sierra snorted in contempt. "As if," she countered. "I can see right through your crocodile tears and your playing dumb."
Sugar just gave her a confused look before scowling again. "I ain't got a clue as to what yer yappin' about," she said. "And don't you dare call me a crocodile, I got way better skin that that!"
"It was just an expression," Sierra snipped. "And I know that you're craftier than you want us to think, okay, I've done research."
"I don't care what you did," Sugar countered, "I still don't know what you're talkin' about!"
The two girls glared at one another.
/
"Yes! Perfect!" Scarlett exclaimed in excitement as she dropped to the ground next to a wall, then darted over to what looked like a control terminal of some kind. She began to type rapidly, characters of all sorts filling the computer screen she was looking at, until something dinged. "I'm in!" she proclaimed before resuming her typing. "And now to just...YES!" She slammed a finger down on the enter key, and a hatch opened up in the wall. A strangely-shaped clamp extended out of it, and with a grin Scarlett allowed it to latch on to her collar. The edge of the clamp that was touching the collar began to glow a sickly green, and the collar itself began to lightly hum.
"And while I wait...," Scarlett said to herself while eagerly typing something else, "how about some...entertainment."
/
A wide shot of the warehouse interior was shown again, the ring of the alarm and footsteps of soldiers joined first by several strange crashes, growls, and bleeps, and then by the click of the PA system turning on.
"Attention, worms," Scarlett's voice began, shocking several of the others – DJ and Sammy as they crept through the rows; Tyler and Ezekiel, both covered in a bit of bluish goop as they struggled to carry the large and still active ring-like device through the warehouse; and Dawn as she leaned hidden in the shadow of a massive ornate cube. "This is Scarlett speaking, whom you may recognize as the genius that was recently ejected from the game. As those of you with appreciable intelligence may have realized, I have hacked into the warehouse's systems and taken control. I have already rendered my accursed restraining collar non-functional, and in moments it will be removed entirely. And, of course, none of you will make it out of here alive."
She paused for a moment, and Alejandro and Ella were shown gaping in shock.
"And because I'm in a peculiar mood tonight," Scarlett added gleefully, "and you're all participating in a musical, I thought I'd send you off with a little song of my own devising."
~/~
[A light, eerie, and deceptively up-tempo piano tune began to play as the scene cut back to Scarlett, typing to the beat with a PA microphone sticking out of the wall in front of her, the strange clamp still latched onto her collar and humming.]
"Try to recall when I said I'd get revenge, why didn't you listen to that?"
[She began to sing a few seconds into the song, her tone light and mocking. Shawn was shown listening warily, as were Sierra and Sugar, and even a couple of Black Ops soldiers.]
"You all could have stopped this, instead you just dropped this, so now you'll be killed off like rats!"
[Scarlett put extra relish in her voice as she said 'rats', and one of the soldiers motioned to the other and both charged off. The camera pulled back to show DJ and Sammy nodding to one another then nervously creeping after them, then cut to a variety of shaking crates and opening doors.]
"It's what you deserve after having the nerve to abandon me!"
[Scarlett was shown calmly singing and typing once again, the scene pulling out and reddening as the view switched to Chris and Chef anxiously watching the camera feed in the host's quarters.]
"Maybe we shoulda just freed her, she woulda just let us be?"
[Chris, surprisingly, took the next line; singing his question to Chef and receiving a helpless shrug in return, both men jolting in shock when Scarlett's face suddenly appeared directly on the screen they were watching.]
"It's much too late for that noooow, so!"
[Scarlett answered without missing a beat, the camera quickly moving back to Shawn as he nervously backed down an aisle. The music suddenly became much deeper and much more intense, and...]
"Try to run! Try to flee! Try to escape!"
[A crate to Shawn's right burst open to reveal some horrible humanoid robot, then some hideous alien monstrosity vaguely reminiscent of Chef's Mama Alien costume from season two dropped down on Shawn's right. They made a grab for the survivalist, but he silently yelped and darted away.]
"But you won't! I won't let! You void your fates!"
[Ella was shown shrieking and jumping into Alejandro's arms, the two cornered by a pack of small floating aliens with bug eyes and leaf-shaped structures on their backs. The two Black Ops soldiers were shown charging bravely forward, only for a large tube to drop out of the ceiling and suck them up.]
"Because now! Here I am! Plan's taking shape!"
[DJ and Sammy were shown running to the right in a flailing panic, ducking through the legs of a larger tripod and knocking over a pair of robots that were much blockier than what had attacked Shawn.]
"And you'll never be able to beat what awaits!"
[Ezekiel and Tyler were shown still hurriedly trying to carry their ring-shaped device; a massive gun-like device rose out of the floor behind them and fire a laser at them, but the boys quickly managed to angle their ring so that the laser passed harmlessly into the bluish goop at it's center, to no noticeable effect.]
"So... Try to find! Where you'll be! Safe from my wrath!"
[Shawn was shown again, looking determined as he suddenly skidded to a halt, turned around, and tackled the alien monstrosity that had been chasing him. He quickly rolled off of it, jumped out of the way of the robot firing some sort of yellow beam that disintegrated the alien, then ducked when a small UFO shot out at him from between two boxes.
"Not like there's! Anywhere! For you to hide!"
[An insectoid alien pounced on him from across the aisle, but he knocked it away with a headbutt and it crashed against the robot into goo and chitin. The robot leveled it's disintegration ray at him, but Shawn quickly grabbed the leg of a tripod that had just stepped down next to him and swung the whole thing at the other robot, taking both out.]
"I control! Ev-er-y! Last single path!"
[The action moved to Sugar and Sierra, who were glaring at one another even as they ran side-by-side away from a small mixed pack of various alien beasts. Sugar suddenly tripped Sierra, but Sierra retaliated by grabbing Sugar's leg the moment she hit the ground, dragging the pageant queen down as well. The impact of the girls falling shook the imbalanced stack of junk next to them, and a glowing cube fell into Sierra's arms.]
"And you'll never be able to get back outside!"
[Dawn was shown once more, silently running along the tops of crates; every so often she'd dodge out of sight of something flying past, never quite getting caught. She halted suddenly at the edge of one, and immediately narrowed her eyes angrily. The viewpoint shifted behind her and the camera angled down, revealing a 'clearing' between the junk next to a wall where Scarlett was standing and typing and singing, the sickly green glow of the odd clamp visible even from Dawn's vantage point.]
"So just try, fools, try to survive!"
[The view switched to Scarlett as she ended her song, rearing back slightly to utter a long and victorious and evil laugh. The camera panned up and out as her laughing seemed to echo through a shot of the entire warehouse, aliens and lasers flying around and a variety of tall robots stalking the aisles.]
~/~
It all rapidly zoomed back in to a halt as Scarlett was given a flying kick to the back by Dawn, and slammed face-first into the wall console she'd hacked into.
"Uggh, what now," Scarlett groaned as she straightened herself out and rubbed her nose in pain, her collar no longer humming and the clamp, though still attached, no longer glowing green along its edge. The microphone she'd been singing into was still sticking out of the wall however.
"I...have come to stop you!" Dawn declared, seemingly struggling to keep her nerve now that the confrontation had begun.
Scarlett's brow shot up in surprise, but her face quickly lowered into a devious smirk. "Dawn," she stated as she turned around to face her attacker. "So glad to see you again! It's a pity you won't be able to see your friends again before they're killed by whatever horrors I unlocked from their cages."
It was Dawn's turn to look surprised. "DJ and Sammy are here?"
Scarlett shrugged with a mockery of helplessness. "Surprisingly, they were able to make it this far in the competition. Of course, even if they do survive I don't think they'd want to meet with you. You did abandon them, after all, and in a much crueler fashion than my so-called teammates abandoned me."
Dawn gasped in shock and confusion. "But...how? I left them a letter explaining everything, I thought they'd understand?"
Now Scarlett looked confused. "Letter? As far as I know, nothing like that was ever found." She snorted disdainfully. "Not like it matters, you won't get the chance to clear things up with them regardless."
Dawn's lip quavered for a moment before settling into something approaching determination. "Oh I will," she told the evil genius, "the Universe has guided me here to stop you, and stop you I shall!"
Scarlett laughed. "How? I'll admit I have no physical prowess, but you're just as bad, if not worse! Not to mention the fact that I have complete control over most of this warehouse."
She took a step backwards, but Dawn quickly darted forward and tackled Scarlett around the waist, pushing her back into the wall again. Scarlett gnashed her teeth in aggravation as she struggled to push the smaller girl off of her, but quickly stopped and smirked again.
"While this may have pinned me in place long enough to prove troublesome a few minutes ago," she told the moonchild while grabbing hold of her bulky metal collar, "I'm afraid you're simply too late." In one swift motion Scarlett pulled the collar off her neck, the break forming where it had been clamped, and slammed the device down hard on Dawn's back.
She fell to the ground with a pained cry.
/
A flash took the scene back to Sugar and Sierra, both of whom were breathing heavily and covered in goo as they looked up in confusion. Sierra was holding the glowing cube under her arm, and while her attention was turned upwards Sugar poked at the back with an alien insect leg that had been stuck to her blouse. It immediately began to leak a purple fluid.
"Hey, is it me or did we just hear Scarlett and Dawn fightin'?" Sugar jovially asked the girl next to her.
"I heard it too," Sierra scowled, "but don't act like we're suddenly friends. Just because we helped each other out back there doesn't mean I'm gonna let you off the hook for what you've been doing all season."
"Why're you so keen on bullying poor ol' me?" Sugar asked, waving the alien insect leg around as she talked. "I didn't do nothin'!" She absentmindedly took a bite of the alien leg and smiled. "Hey, this thing's pretty good!" she said, eagerly taking another bite of the leg.
Sierra sniffed in disdain. "Deny it all you want, but your victim act doesn't fool me. Now if you'll excuse me," she patted the glowing-but-leaky cube under her arm, "I have to return the artifact I found."
Sugar scowled at her as Sierra left with her nose in the air, then smiled. A few ominous notes were struck as the camera zoomed in on the small trail of purple liquid forming behind Sierra, then the scene flashed away.
/
Ezekiel cautiously poked his head up from behind a crate, then ducked down. The shot followed him, revealing Tyler crouched next to him with the ring-like device lying on the floor.
"I think the coast is clear, eh," Ezekiel whispered. "Let's get movin'."
"Let's do this," Tyler said confidently, and the camera cut back to the other side of the crate as the two boys came out from behind it at a run, carrying the ring-like device once again. The shot panned to follow as they went left and out an open door.
/
"That went surprisingly well, all things considered," Alejandro said as the scene moved to him as he gave Ella a hand up from her kneeling position. Both looked rather disheveled, and were splattered with green goo.
"Well I disagree," Ella frowned. "You were far too violent to those poor aliens. I'll admit they frightened me at first, but once I got used to them it was obvious they wanted to make friends. They stuck their fingers out and everything!"
"Yes, and then they latched onto our faces and shocked us," Alejandro replied. "We were lucky they were so frail!"
"I'm sure it was all just a...cultural misunderstanding," Ella said after a bit of thought. "If we'd just given them some time, I'm sure they would've let go of us."
"Sorry, but that's not a risk I was willing to take, especially with Scarlett lurking around," Alejandro said as he rooted around a pile of junk. He pulled out what appeared to be a small, ornate screwdriver; he twisted the handle curiously, then dropped it in shock when a laser shot out of the tip.
After watching the laser singe the surface of a crate, Alejandro wisely picked it back up and untwisted the handle, shutting it off. "Looks like we've found our artifact," he told Ella with a confident grin.
"Hmm, well, let's get back to the others, then," Ella said in muted annoyance before walking off. Alejandro raised an eyebrow at her as he followed.
/
"What to do now...," Scarlett muttered to herself as the scene flashed back to the evil genius standing over the collapsed and groaning form of Dawn. "I suppose I should bind you in some fashion and leave you to the aliens, but how?" With a finger on her lip she stepped away from Dawn and began looking around at the various crates and piles of junk that were enclosing her part of the warehouse. "Honestly, this is embarrassing," Scarlett told herself, "what kind of evil genius am I if I'm not prepared to deal with a captive?"
She paused in sudden realization, then palmed her face. "Of course! Why didn't I think of this sooner?" she said with a smirk before heading back to the wall console. Dawn started groaning and moving to get up, leading Scarlett to frown and kick her back down, then move to typing.
She'd only pressed a few keys before she was interrupted again.
"Stop right there!" the voice was loud and direct and had a veil of false confidence, and above all else it was irritatingly familiar to Scarlett.
"Excellent, just what I wanted," the evil genius told herself, her tone heavy with sarcasm as she turned around to face her latest annoyance. "Hello, Sammy, come to beg for mercy, or just to see your little friend one more time before you both die?"
Sammy's eyes fearfully darted towards the prone form of her friend, but quickly moved back to Scarlett. "Neither," she said, her voice trembling slightly. "I mean, I'm not just gonna ignore Dawn or anything," she began to babble, "I actually really wanna help her, so, y'know, I'm totally not gonna beg for mercy or anything, and-"
"Just spit it out already!" Scarlett snapped, reaching behind her back to type a few more keys. "I'd rather get this over with."
"Oh, uh, that's good," Sammy admitted nervously, "because it's probably gonna be over pretty soon.."
Scarlett raised an eyebrow in confusion, then looked to her left where her current adversary's gaze had drifted. She was shocked to see one of the crates shudder, then get lifted up by a pair of strong black arms. The camera cut to a better view, showing DJ holding the massive crate in his arms and taking a breath to steel himself.
He let out a cry that didn't sound the least bit courageous then charged.
"Oh crap," Scarlett muttered, frantically turning around and typing some more.
A close-up showed her index finger slamming down on the 'enter' key just before DJ rammed into her with the crate. She was knocked back several feet and slammed to the ground with a grunt, and DJ paused. He shifted the crate and looked down, seeing Dawn on the ground below him.
"Nnnn...d...DJ...?" she groaned, looking up weakly and seeing her friend.
The gentle giant smiled at her. "Yeah," he said. "Don't worry, we're here to help."
It was then that a wall panel slid open, revealing a siren which promptly began wailing.
"You're too late," Scarlett spat with glee as she recovered from the blow. "I've just alerted everything in the warehouse to descend on this position. And some of the worst things have barely even woken up!"
DJ frowned at her, then walked over with the crate in his arms. "Well then, I guess you're just gonna have to deal with it too." Scarlett's eyes went wide and she tried to scramble out of the way, but was unable to before the crate was gently placed on top of her, pinning her to the ground.
"Wh-what are you doing?" Scarlett asked in a panic as the gentle giant walked over to regroup with Dawn, and now Sammy as well. "You, uh, you can't expect to stop this all yourselves! You aren't nearly intelligent-"
"Can you, like, stop talking now?" Sammy asked in annoyance as she and DJ helped Dawn to her feet. "We're not gonna let you just go again."
"Yeah," DJ chimed in, picking up a woozy Dawn onto his back. "Besides, we don't care what you called over here, we're leavin'."
"To where?" Scarlett called out is disbelief. "By now everyone else should be dead!"
DJ and Sammy shared a hesitant look, then looked at their third as Dawn began to laugh. "Oh Scarlett, don't you realize?" she said, lifting her head and giving a far-off look at the crates that surrounded them. "Everyone is still alive!" Scarlett froze in shock. "Most of them aren't even hurt! Nearly everything you released has been destroyed or deactivated, and the soldiers are most certainly rallying themselves to contain what's left. Thanks to us, you've been beaten before you really got started."
"No..." Scarlett said to herself, a look of sheer horror on her face. DJ, Sammy, and Dawn turned and left through the gap DJ had made, and Scarlett cried out "NOOOO!", nearly drowning out the siren.
Moments later a swarm of Black Ops soldiers arrived, weapons pointed at the pinned teenager.
/
The scene flashed ahead to a head-on shot the trio fleeing through the warehouse stacks, the siren still audible in the background.
"Friends," Dawn said, still clutching to DJ's back, "I...I don't know what to say!"
"Save it," Sammy told her. "We can't let those guards get us too!"
"That stuff you said about everyone bein' alive was true, right?" DJ asked.
"Yes," Dawn said, "I-"
"Do you know where they are now?" DJ quickly followed up.
Dawn hesitated for a second, then pointed ahead and to their right. "Shawn is-"
"Right here!" the survivalist announced, jumping over a crate and running alongside them. His clothes were a little bit torn and covered in various colors of goo, but he was in one piece. "And totally fine! You guys okay too?" He looked at them, then did a double-take when he noticed Dawn. "So that was you I heard over the loudspeaker!"
"Oh-" Dawn began faintly before Sammy interrupted her.
"Yeah, that's how me and DJ knew she was in trouble," she explained. "We were following the guards on a hunch anyways, and managed to get close enough to find her and Scarlett."
Shawn looked at the three blankly, then turned ahead. "Not gonna ask for details," he said before pointing further to their right. "But the exit is that way!"
/
"There you are!" Alejandro said as he and Ella came across Sugar, all three running towards the left side of the screen.
"Any sign of Sammy?" Ella asked.
"No," Sugar huffed, "just a buncha wrecked aliens. Not even any artifacts!"
"Doesn't matter," Alejandro told her, holding up the extraterrestrial screwdriver he'd found. "Let's just focus on getting out of here!" The girls nodded, and the three sped up.
/
"Now where was the exit..." Sierra pondered aloud, rubbing her chin as she paced along a row of junk. The alien cube she was carrying was no longer glowing, though she didn't seem to have noticed. "Maybe..."
"Sierra!" the shout of a teammate got her attention, and she looked back to see Shawn, DJ, Dawn, and Sammy approaching her. "Hi guys!" she waved excitedly. "Look what I got!" She raised her cube up in one hand and pointed it, then paused and grinned indecently as she noticed Dawn. "Though it's not as good as what DJ found, hehe..."
Dawn blushed at the comment.
"No time to explain," DJ said with a blush of his own as the five merged into one running group. "Let's move!"
/
The scene flashed to the open exit, the camera panning to the right to show Team Chris plus Sammy and Dawn running towards it.
"There you are!" the voice of Alejandro called, gaining Sammy's attention as he, Ella, and Sugar ran up alongside the other group. "I was getting worried, and...," he noticed Dawn on DJ;s back and smiled, "I see you've finally found Dawn!"
"Yeah, it's a long story," Sammy told the charmer, "I'll tell you later."
"Good call," Alejandro replied with a competitive grin. "We have a challenge to win!" His look quickly spread to most of the others, and they reached the open door.
/
Another skip ahead took the scene to the minefield as the two teams raced towards Area 52. Team Chris got ahead, then Team Universe, then Team Chris again, and so on as the music ramped up in intensity.
The shot moved to Chris waiting at the boundary between the areas. His hands were behind his back and a frown was on his face, but it morphed into a bland smile as the music turned into something more triumphant as the three members of Team Chris, plus Dawn on DJ's back, crossed the finish line first.
"We did it!" Sierra cheered. "We beat them!"
"Not so fast," Chris said in an impish tone as he walked over and tapped the side of Sierra' cube. "Looks like this alien artifact is broken."
"Oops," Sierra said sheepishly as DJ and Shawn began to groan and complain, and moments later the four members of Team Universe slid in with nervous hope on their faces.
"And Team Universe, where is your artifact?" Chris asked them as he walked over.
"Right here," Alejandro said, holding out his laser-screwdriver. The host picked it up, looked it over, and twisted the handle, smiling as a laser shot up into the air.
"This checks out," he told them. "Congrats on beating Team Me."
"Yes!" Alejandro cheered along with his teammates. "We won the challenge!"
"Uh-uh-uh," Chris tutted impishly, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. "Team Victory won the challenge, they got here five minutes ago."
The camera quick-panned to Tyler and Ezekiel leaning against their giant ring and grinning at the competition.
"You guys just managed to avoid elimination," Chris said as the camera cut back to him and the other teams. "Team Chris is Really Really Really Mean, your butts are voting another member out tonight."
"Aww..." DJ, Shawn, and Sierra said as one.
"Umm...," Dawn said as she slid off DJ's back, "perhaps I should be going now..."
"You're not going anywhere," Chris said sternly. "You're in big trouble for skipping out on a good chunk of the competition, so get your butt back to Team Universe where you belong."
"Oh, y-yes," Dawn stammered nervously before rejoining Sammy, Alejandro, Ella, and Sugar.
"Welcome back," Alejandro told her with a dark grin before Sammy scowled at him, then stepped forward to give her friend a hug.
"I'm so glad you're back," she said.
"I'm glad to be back," Dawn answered quietly. The camera cut to their teammates; Ella was looking excited, Sugar annoyed, and Alejandro still had that scheming grin.
/
The standard elimination music began as the scene cut first to the plane flying once more against the night sky, and then to the elimination chamber where the three members of Team Chris sat sadly.
"Team Chris is Really Really Really Really Mean," the host opened, "not a lotta teamwork going on tonight. I guess splitting up to find artifacts really didn't work out for you, huh? DJ," the brickhouse perked up, "spending time with the enemy? Not good form."
"I was savin' Dawn, okay?" DJ retorted angrily.
"Shawn," Chris turned his attention to the other boy, "you didn't seem too concerned with keeping all those alien intact."
"That's because they were trying to kill me," Shawn told the host, also angry.
"And Sierra," he turned to the lone girl in the room. "You wasted your team's time by bringing back something useless. Well done!"
"I...I swear it worked when I found it!" Sierra explained, beginning to panic. "It must have been sabotaged by Sugar after we fought off aliens together!"
DJ and Shawn shared a look of disbelief. "Why would Sugar do that?" DJ asked.
"Yeah," Shawn added. "She's done nothing but apologize for what Scott made her do, I don't think she'd start trying to sabotage us again."
"But-" Sierra began to say.
"No buts," Chris interrupted, "and no excuses. You're out, Sierra."
"Ohh..." Sierra said, hanging her head in disappointment as she stood up. To her mild surprise, DJ and Shawn stood up as well.
"For what it's worth," DJ told her kindly, "I am sorry it had to go down like this. It seems like every elimination we've had is because somebody screwed up one little time."
"Agreed," Shawn added. "We're voting you out because we have to, not because we want to."
Sierra sniffed, and the sombre departure theme began to play. "Thanks...," she told them before turning and walking towards the door, grabbing a parachute pack from Chris on the way. She paused at the open door, then took a breath and asked "Can I do one last thing before I go?"
"Make it quick," he host glared.
Sierra grinned mischievously, then whipped out a camera and started taking pictures. "Smile for the fans!" she giggled, the steady stream of flashes stunning Chris, Shawn, and DJ.
"Just go already!" the host yelled, putting one arm over his eyes and pushing Sierra out the open door with the other. She fell away with a scream that was soon followed by the sound of a camera clicking, and the scene moved back to the host.
"How will our second pair of boys fare now that Team Universe is back to being five strong?" he asked the camera as the series' capstone theme began to play. "Find out next time on Total! Drama! Woooorrrrlllddd~ Tooouuurrrr~!"
(Fade to Credits)
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[Bonus Clip]
Sierra opened the clip with a sigh. "You know, I really thought I was gonna at least make the merge this time," she told the camera. "I hope I'm not, like, bad at this or something. Maybe I'm just unlucky? Or, or maybe I just don't know the others as well as I thought?"
She paused, then burst out laughing. "Hahaha, I crack me up," she said with a jovial handwave. "Seriously, it's probably just luck. Well, that and coming on too strong with Sugar, she probably wouldn't have done anything if I hadn't confronted her."
"Oh well," she shrugged, "to the Aftermath!" she raised her hand in dramatic declaration, then nearly fumbled her camera. "Phew," she said in relief, just as a UFO flew up alongside her. "Uhhh...I don't suppose you're a fan of Total Drama, are you?" she asked hesitantly.
The UFO paused, then made a series of boops and bleeps before ducking down and catching Sierra on its back.
"Wow, Chris was right," Sierra said in amazement as her parachute dropped down behind her, "it really is good to have friends in Area 51 places...I think...," she said the last two words with a nervous frown, then screamed as the UFO sped off with her.
Author's Note - Post Script
Lots to say for this episode...for starters, I'd like to be clear that this episode is the main reason why Scarlett was in this season to begin with. I really liked the idea of having Scarlett running amok in Area 51, and that it would be Dawn, DJ, and Sammy who eventually stopped her. Originally, this episode was going to be Scarlett's actual boot episode, as well as take place in the canon order of thing (aka as the fifteenth episode), but I ended up changing it for a variety of reasons.
First, Team Universe was sorely in need of a proper boot. Had Jamaica not been so important to the overall pace of the series, this episode would have definitely been turned into the season quarter finale. But that wasn't possible, so I decided to just move it up a couple spots in the episode order instead, making it the third quarter opener. And then after that, I decided to move Scarlett's actual elimination to Jamaica and have her hide out for a little bit before secretly making her move.
Honestly, I like how things turned out. Scarlett had a nice but short tenure as a lurking threat, and Dawn managed to stay away for a good amount of time before returning to the show to fulfill her vision in a way she didn't expect.
I'll leave Scarlett's ultimate fate semi-ambiguous for now; all I'll say is that she didn't get her memory wiped and sent off to an alien colony or anything.
Originally, as some of you may have guessed already, Sierra was going to be eliminated in Jamaica instead of Scarlett. Switching them ended up making more sense, giving Team Chris a more concrete (if unfortunate) reason to boot Sierra that also serves to further Sugar's villain cred. I do have some regrets over never really doing much with Sierra over these three seasons, and I can see why some would see it as a waste of her character, but I'll accept it as a flaw in my plan. I never really came up with a long-reaching role for her to play, so I settled with giving her other small, yet still important roles. Perhaps it wasn't the best use of her, but I'm still happy with how things turned out.
The song this week is entitled "Try", just to keep things simple. It was heavily inspired by the song "Slipping" from Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog, though different enough in both tune and tone to make it not just a copy. I hope you all enjoyed it.
Oh, and the episode title? Well, without a large focus on Duncan and Courtney's break-up (or rather, an analogue to it) calling it 'The EX-Files' just didn't work. I quite like the title I came up with, it's a suitable pun for the events of the episode.
Let me know what you thought, and I'll see you all next week!
- Fangren
Appendix: TSWT Eliminated Contestants
Staci - (17th Place)
Beardo - (16th Place)
Lightning - (15th Place)
Dawn - (Quit Unofficially | RETURNED)
Bridgette - (14th Place)
Geoff - (13th Place)
Scott - (12th Place | Disqualified)
Scarlett - (11th Place)
Sierra - (10th Place)