Author's Note: Heya, this is the first time I've written something in a long time. I used to have an account back in 2013 but I can't remember the login to save my life so instead I'm starting anew.

As of initially writing this (13th April 2023), the 'reboot' of Total Drama just released in Italy and the whole season was leaked in English, however this will most likely not be published until the official release in Canada/USA/UK (whichever comes first, usually I had to watch on YouTube because most Total Drama seasons never aired in the UK but this ones different). I'll give my thoughts on the new season at the end of the chapter but to sum it up it was really good.

In this fic the first gen cast are 21 and the fourth gen cast are 18, and instead of 15 years between the first season and the current one, only 5 years will have passed. There will be spoilers for the new seasons, that aside I hope at least somebody ends up liking this.

Chapter One

"I didn't win, but I met a lot of people and I know their names. Which is good if you ever need an organ." Lauren (or Scary Girl as everyone had kept calling her on the island) smiled her creepy smile at the incoming Chris McLean and Chef Hatchet as the Drone of Despair latched onto her umbrella and began to lift her off the Dock of Shame.

"Bye! Don't forget to not write." Chris grins and waves her off as Chef begins to shrug and let Chris know about the decorated skull that she was liberating from the island.

"She uh…"

Chris frowned as he realised what Scary Girl had forgotten to hand over and deadpanned. "She took the skull."

"She took the skull."

Chris shrugs and smiles as he says "Well she'll give it a good home." Lauren began to laugh creepily as Camp Wawanakwa moved further away from view.

Today had been a great day for her for the most part, she made her own personal marks on the mess hall of Wawanakwa, she got to play with a new tool in the jackhammer, made a few new 'friends' in Priya and MK as well as 'catch up' with her bestie Damien, and she even found and gave a makeover to her new friend, yeah it was a fake human skull for the challenge but Lauren didn't care about the little details.

What she wasn't happy about was that she had just been voted out of Total Drama Island, being the fourth person out of sixteen to leave the show, and while being eliminated wasn't the reason she was annoyed, it was the bragging from Ripper and the disgusting acts he performed with that marshmallow that SHOULD HAVE BEEN HERS.

Lauren wasn't stupid, despite how she acted towards people she still tried in the challenges, she just wanted to have some fun whilst on the island, that's why she signed up to the new season. Yeah she got carried away in the last challenge and yes she had cost them the challenge by giving the skull a makeover, but she thought people disliked Ripper enough that it would have been overlooked this one time, especially when she had won them the previous challenge AND she knew that Priya wanted her to join her alliance with her and Millie. Lauren briefly stopped laughing at that last thought, the smallest pang of betrayal leaking onto her face thinking that Priya may have lied to her and that her alliance had in fact voted her out instead of Ripper.

After a few moments of thinking to herself, Lauren tilted her head to the left to see an unfamiliar island to her that the drone is rapidly taking her towards, jagged rocks surrounding a dark and gloomy forest, all building up to the centre of a cliff in the shape of a massive human skull. To most other people the appearance of the island would be ominous and haunting, but to Lauren it was like she had found her own personal paradise. "What a pretty island, I wonder if there are any bodies there."

She gasps happily and begins to remove the decorated skull from her dress with her free hand. "Maybe I can find more skulls to give makeovers too!" She laughs once more but then quickly loses it when the grip on her skull slips, and it drops dozens of feet below onto the beaches of Boney Island.

Lauren gasped in horror at the loss of her prized possession and promptly lets go of her umbrella, plummeting down from the departing Drone of Despair and onto the beach below, landing into a roll several feet away from where the skull had landed, she watched for a moment as the drone still carrying her umbrella disappeared into the horizon.

"Well I'm gonna be stuck here a while, but at least I can explore and I still have my skull."

Lauren sighed, her signature smile still plastered on her face, before getting up off the ground and looking towards where her skull lay on the sand. Humming quietly to herself, she began to walk towards it, not noticing the shadowy figure in the trees nearby watching her every movement.

They notice the skull laying on the sand and before Lauren can even react, the figure jumps out and knocks her to the ground, growling to themselves before picking up the skull by the hair with its teeth and running off on all fours back into the forest.

Lauren landed roughly on her back, momentarily stunned by the surprise attack before growling in the direction that the figure had gone. "Hey! That's mine!" She screamed as she leaped up and started sprinting after the figure into the forest.

To her own credit, she was able to keep up surprisingly well for a time, given that this figure who'd stolen her decorated skull had a much better layout of the island, however they were getting further away. She smiled creepily once more, remembering how she'd tormented both MK and Damien with her hijinks during the last challenge with the jackhammer. Unlike with them where admittedly she had gotten a little too carried away with tormenting them, she was going to enjoy making this skull thief scream.

Ezekiel Miller was many things during his time on Total Drama, naïve sexist homeschooler, wannabe rapper, persistent pest and eventually a feral beast. He regretted all of it, and there were many times during his isolation on Boney Island where he wished he could have done things much differently during those first three seasons, most importantly of all NOT clinging onto that plane after his elimination in Egypt.

What he wasn't was an idiot, he knew it was his fault that he was stuck like this, and not once had anyone reached out to try and rescue him since he'd become feral. He knew not many people liked him during his time on the show, Lindsay and Beth had briefly given him a chance during the hunt for the million after season one, and he did enjoy getting into mischief with Izzy while season two was in production (and to her credit she did at least try to visit him a few times after season three), but nobody that he knew even tried to rescue him after he was trapped on the mutated island, someone from the new cast had apparently tried to rescue both him and the mutated animals, but production had apparently seen to that and he had effectively become part of Total Drama property after season four. And after his attempt of getting revenge on the man who caused all of his suffering had failed, he hadn't left Boney Island since, and the others had effectively abandoned him there.

He had been stuck on Boney Island for over two years since All Stars had ended, and he had slowly adapted to life in the wilderness, he had even slowly began to recover somewhat from his dehumanisation, he was beginning to have more consistent coherent thoughts again (even if his animalistic instincts still kicked in from time to time), and he was even beginning to regain some of his speech. Unfortunately this had led to his current depressive thought process as the regrets from the show were overwhelming at times. Sure the other mutant animals had become like family to him and he enjoyed his peaceful life on the island, but he also missed his old family, and his humanity that had long since departed him all those years ago on the plane. He missed the few friends he had made when he was still human, and wished he could talk to them again, even if it was just to find out why they had abandoned him to rot on this island.

When Ezekiel had first noticed that production had begun on another season of Total Drama he was both angry and very scared. He didn't want to be used by Chris for challenges nor did he want to see any of the others who had left him behind. Seeing Camp Wawanakwa resurface overtime was a shock considering the damage Chris had done last time out, and he was dreading the time that both the island and the Fun Zone would meet the same fate, but it never did, and when he saw that first guy be carried past the shore by that tiny plane with the claw attached to him, he was hoping that Chris would actually leave him alone this time, that there wouldn't be any 'surprises' for him like when he was used for that 'prank'.

Just to be on the safe side he had begun watching over the shores of Boney Island over the last few days, curious about the new victims Chris had gathered for that twisted show of his. He had seen three contestants so far, each with a different reaction to the elimination device. 'That fried squirrel that angry girl dropped was delicious.' Ezekiel thought to himself.

He knew that someone was gonna show up eventually and he wanted to be prepared for if they were gonna drag him back to Chris. Eventually he watched as the drone approached, but this one was different, it was another girl like the last two, but unlike them this girl wasn't angry, she was laughing to herself, and she dressed a lot differently to anyone else he had seen. She seemed happy about seeing the island and had something in her hand that she was talking to, he watched with bloodshot eyes as that item dropped to the sand followed shortly by the interesting looking girl, and internally he was worried, what if they tell Chris he was still here.

Ezekiel glanced at the item and growled, thinking to himself for a moment, noticing the girl begin to walk over towards it. Acting on instinct, he rushed out from his hiding place, knocking over the girl who let out a squeak of surprise, he growled at her whilst picking up the item she dropped with his teeth, 'a skull?' he thought curiously before sprinting back into the forest, intent on getting back to his home with his newfound prize. He just about made it back to the clearing before hearing a loud "Hey! That's mine!" from the girl, he began quickly navigating the forest, knowing that the girl was going to give chase.

Rock after Rock, Tree after Tree, Ezekiel knew the layout of the island he'd been stranded on for years better than anything, yet the girl was able to keep up with him, the few glances he'd been able to spare showed her skipping along after him, easily flipping over obstacles like they weren't even there, permanent smile never leaving her face.

'Wow she's good at this.' Ezekiel thought, briefly remembering back to a time where another interesting girl used to pull off similar stunts both at the resort and the Aftermath studio. Eventually however she started to slow down just a little bit, just enough for him to disappear out of sight.

After a few more minutes of running, Ezekiel eventually made it to a small clearing near the side of a mountain, there was a cave that he quickly ran into, skull still within his grasp. Inside was what looked like a shoddily made home, a small nest that would make up his bed, and rocks holding what few possessions he had, including the burnt briefcase he obtained in Hawaii, pictures of what he used to look like before the mess that was the plane, a rusted chain with a gold 'Z' attached to it, and a burnt blue toque that he'd managed to recover in between seasons.

Ezekiel opened his mouth briefly and let the skull he stole from the girl drop into his hands, he gently placed it next to his other possessions and proceeded to lay in the nest nearby, content with his findings for the day. He knew that the interesting looking girl was still going to be looking for him, but he took his chances believing that she wouldn't find him.

Lauren was angry, that 'thing' that took her new friend had gotten away, and she didn't even have the jackhammer to play with or any other 'friends' to torment like there were on the show, when she finds them, she hoped that their screams will at least be as delicious as Damien's.

She knew the vague direction in which to go towards, and she also knew that her prey didn't have too many hiding places; however they did know the island much better than her so who was she to assume otherwise. But she did have a vague description of her prey from what little of them she'd seen, it looked humanoid but moved like an animal, it didn't have much hair, the few strands that were left moving seamlessly in the wind, and the clawed hands that knocked her down felt vaguely scarred, like there were acid burns all over them, or were they lava burns? She couldn't quite tell.

She continued to walk through the dark forest whilst deep in thought, they seemed familiar but she didn't know where from. Had they been on the original show before it had been cancelled? She'd seen the highlights constantly as she loved seeing the contestants get really hurt, especially during the later seasons when the challenges started to become more life threatening.

Lauren began laughing hysterically as she connected the dots, there WAS a contestant like that, the weird homeschooled kid who stowed away on the plane and went completely insane. She remembered watching the clips over and over again of him attacking the contestants several times throughout the show, and she loved seeing him draw blood against Duncan during the African Safari Challenge.

She smiled once more, a completely deranged look in her eyes as she continued to search the forest for Ezekiel. One of her favourite contestants was still around and was still in their messed up state, she couldn't wait to find out more about him, right after she made him scream for stealing her skull.

End Chapter

Author's Note: Heya, If you've read this far I hope you enjoyed the first chapter, reviews would be appreciated and I want to know if I've done a decent job of capturing both Lauren and Zeke. I have a personal head canon that Lauren has watched through the previous seasons multiple times, but mainly through the parts where people are seriously hurt, hence why characters like Ezekiel would likely be one of her favourites, since he'd become seriously deformed and lost his sanity during World Tour.

Anyway, here's my opinions on the new season.

Personally I really enjoyed it, it feels like a return to roots for the most part while adding in new features that really freshened it up. (apart from a certain episode 5, that one was just horrible). Most of the characters were written really well (apart from Chase, even Ripper was a better character and he was just a worse version of Owen) and my personal favourite was Lauren/Scary Girl, she had the most iconic scene of the season ("If you're gonna hide a body clap your hands") and I really hope she gets more development next season.

My only issue with the reboot is the length of time between the original seasons and the new ones, hopefully the "15 years" was more so a fourth wall break as the potential interactions with past characters would be amazing (Axel and Shawn or Eva, Scary Girl and Izzy, Julia and Heather etc.) but having the original cast be in their 30's would just make it awkward af, 5 years would've been better because let's face it, Total Drama stopped being realistic with settings and technology a long time ago (Pahkitew Island for example) and having the Gen 1 cast be about 20/21 would at least keep everyone close enough that the interactions would be more meaningful. And the potential for a season with all four casts would be too good to pass up.

As said earlier, people have talked about how Izzy and Lauren would be good friends if they interacted, but what about another first gen contestant that went crazy like Ezekiel. Assuming he never recovered after All Stars he could very much still be around the island and an interaction between Lauren and a feral Ezekiel would be gold.