Author's Note: With this chapter it begins the second part of the three part series that makes up this story, with Boney Island behind us the main focus of the story now shifts over to the Playa Des Losers, where Ezekiel will start interacting more with the rest of the reboot cast as the season progresses behind the scenes. As always thank you to everyone who's supported the fic so far, I really appreciate it.
Reviews
RFtheGreat: To be fair the first dart could have hit either of them before Ezekiel pushed Lauren out of the way. Zeke's recovery is a plot point going forward as well as his interactions with the reboot cast.
To be honest about Lauren and Damien, I personally don't see it going anywhere in canon, if anything they're teasing Damien with Priya and that's probably gonna be how things go next season. Lauren at most will be obsessed with him but it wouldn't be reciprocated unless Damien can overcome his fear of her. But that's just my opinion, all the power to you if you see otherwise.
StanTheMan: Thanks for the review! By the time this chapter rolls out I'll have long since answered the comment you put on AO3 so no need to repeat the response here but thanks anyway, I really appreciate it. =D
Chapter Seven
"Chef Hatchet here, what is it?"
"Chef sir… We've found them. That Damien kid was right, they were on Boney Island."
Chef sat up straight, pausing the TV channel he was watching and becoming more alert to the conversation on his phone. "Really? What happened then?" He asked curiously.
"The feral kid we were able to take out quickly with the tranquilisers you supplied us with. The girl on the other hand…" The intern paused to shudder. "She gave us some trouble, knocked out a couple of us but we eventually got her as well."
"Good!" Chef smiled. "Are you back at the Playa yet?"
"Yes sir, we're just docking up now." They responded.
"Take them to their rooms, there should be plenty of spare ones to put Homeschool in, and Scary Girl should already have one assigned for her. Make sure people are guarding Homeschool's for when he wakes up just in case he goes wild." Chef explained to the intern.
"Yes sir!"
"One more thing, I'm coming over to the resort tomorrow after the challenge. I want to talk to Ezekiel, see if Damien was telling the truth. I'll make sure doctors are called in as well to begin his recovery."
After that Chef disconnected the call, sighing to himself. He turned to the stand by his bed, grabbing a piece of torn paper and dialled the number that was written onto it into his phone.
When the call was established he began to speak once more. "Hello Mr Milton, it's Chef Hatchet from Total Drama, I need to speak with your daughter, it's important…"
"...and that's how she convinced everyone to vote me off." explained MK, finishing off her recap on what went down before her elimination.
The five eliminated contestants were sat in a brightly lit lounge area inside of the resort, MK laying sprawled on one couch, Nichelle and Axel taking another with Damien and Caleb on the last one. The interns that had escorted them had long since left to go do 'other things', leaving before anyone could find out what that would entail.
"I still can't believe Julia was actually a horrible person this whole time. She always seemed so positive and friendly whenever I saw her." Damien responded.
"Well that act is clearly gone, I checked her social media following, her subscribers have tripled since that video MK posted." said Nichelle.. "Still not even close to mine though…" She muttered to herself quietly.
"Enough about that, what about you!" Axel shouted, glaring daggers at MK who just stared back disinterestedly. "How could you record everyone's confessionals like that? Going against your own team. What kind of cowardly tactic is that?"
MK just rolled her eyes in response, "Whatever, it was just part of the game. I wasn't here to make any friends after all."
"Plus it's not like she's the only one playing dirty." Caleb muttered bitterly.
"Oh please, just because you have a grudge at Bowie for being reasonable and voting out someone he saw as a perceivable threat. Just take it as a compliment that he even considered you that." Nichelle stated, rolling her eyes at him.
"But I didn't even get to do anything, at least take out someone who messed up." Caleb complained, trying to defend his grudge against Bowie.
"I know who you're on about, and don't even get me started on those two 'lovebirds' and their back-and-forth 'relationship'." MK deadpanned, making sarcastic quotations with her fingers to emphasise.
"It was getting kinda annoying listening to them argue all the time." Damien shrugged sheepishly.
"You know what was annoying?" Axel started, standing up with her fists clenched. "Having to deal with that idiot Ripper and his toxic fumes. I only had to deal with him for two days and I still wanted to tear him limb from limb." She stated angrily.
"He was just like that Owen guy from the first seasons if he was also a juvenile." MK stated sarcastically, rolling her eyes once more.
"Owen? Who's that?" Damien asked.
"Dude, we really need to show you some of the older seasons." Caleb deadpanned, putting a hand on Damien's shoulder.
"Speaking of the older seasons…" Axel started. "What are we gonna do about Feral Freakshow and Scary Girl once they get here?"
"What do you mean by that?" Nichelle asked.
"Well we can't just let them both run rampant, one of them was bad enough to deal with, TWO of them however would just be complete chaos. Especially since we don't even know if Ezekiel can control himself, hell he's basically part zombie..." Axel explained.
"Look I'm hardly the person who wants to jump to defend Scary Girl after she chased me around the island with a jackhammer, but I saw them together and they looked relatively at ease with each other. Maybe you guys are just judging the poor guy based on the old seasons?" Damien responded.
"Or maybe YOU don't fully understand the situation we're gonna be in." Axel exclaimed angrily, marching up to Damien, her fist raised ready to strike.
Caleb stepped in between the pair before Axel could strike however, trying to diffuse some of the tension in the room. "Look let's just calm down here, you both make some valid points about Ezekiel, maybe he is gonna cooperate around us? Maybe it's just Scary Girl? But I'm sure that Chef and the interns wouldn't risk bringing them both here if they thought he'd be a risk to us." He explained.
"Chris certainly would as a punishment for us getting kicked off." MK snarked.
"True, but Chef even said that he wants Ezekiel to be cured. He'd probably step in if it turned out that Ezekiel couldn't be trusted around any of us." Caleb responded.
MK opened her mouth to respond once more, only to close it when the doors to the lobby slammed open. Several interns walked through the room holding four unconscious bodies likely heading towards the medical room, two of them were just more interns nursing minor injuries and were taken straight into another room.
The interns carrying the other two bodies started to head for the stairs to head towards where the eliminated competitors were staying. The cast caught a glimpse of purple hair and green skin and their eyes widened as they quickly realised who the other two unconscious bodies were.
They'd found them…
They were here…
Scary Girl had been recovered, and Ezekiel had tagged along for the ride.
The five of them stared in shocked silence as the pair were taken upstairs. For a while no one knew what to say until Damien was eventually able to break the silence.
"So uh… guess we'll find out about your hypothesis soon huh Caleb?" He joked.
"Yeah…" He responded emotionlessly, still stunned by the pair's sudden appearance at the resort.
MK and Nichelle exchanged nervous glances, and Axel's eyes narrowed further at the thought of having to deal with the pair.
"Well at least we won't be dealing with them tonight, they seemed pretty out of it." Nichelle smiled nervously.
Axel just nodded in agreement, then turned to head towards the stairs.
"I'm going to bed, may as well sleep now so I don't have to deal with them tomorrow…" She said, "If anyone wants to join me tomorrow in exploring the island it's best you go too, better out there than here with them." She offered, walking away before she could hear anyone's responses.
Caleb and Damien just turned to each other and shrugged before following Axel, whilst MK and Nichelle just continued to lounge about some more, keeping to themselves whilst they still had some peace.
*The Next Day*
Lauren slowly began to stir, groaning softly to herself.
She couldn't remember much from last night, she remembered being in the Fun Zone with Ezekiel fighting the mutant shark Fang. She remembered returning to the cave with him and talking about giving him a makeover, but her mind was too groggy to remember much past that.
She felt a lot more comfortable though, was the nest always this soft?
'Wait a second?' She thought to herself, 'The elimination, we went out to see it, but I don't remember…' Her thoughts trailed off, remembering the encounter with the interns that resulted in the pair getting hit with tranquilisers.
She opened her eyes, expecting to see either the darkness and rocky surface of the cave or the openness of the Boney Island forest. Instead she was in a nicely lit room, the bed she was currently laying in being a comfortable queen sized one covered in soft black fabric.
She glanced to her left, seeing her stuff that she thought was left behind at Camp Wawanakwa, it didn't consist of much, mostly being her makeup kit and the umbrella that she'd lost when she first made the decision to drop down from the Drone of Despair to recover her skull on Boney Island.
Lauren got up, walking over to the window to her right, noticing the resort outside for the first time. She could see some of the other eliminated contestants by the pool trying to relax, and she smiled deviously.
Maybe she could have some fun after all…
Her thoughts of scaring her fellow contestants trailed off when she glanced at her makeup kit once more, remembering the conversation she had with the Feral Homeschooler shortly before their capture.
'Was he here too?' Lauren thought to herself, 'They wouldn't leave him behind would they?'
She shook her head, trying to clear the negative thoughts out of her head, before she smiled wildly. "Nah I'm just overthinking it." She said to herself, giggling madly.
She turned once more to her makeup kit, picking it up and placing it on the bed, pulling out a wig that looked exactly like her own hairstyle. Lauren grinned wildly once more, beginning to make changes to it.
"I'll look for him once I'm finished here." She said to herself once more, letting herself get lost in fixing up the wig into something that would be more suitable for her friend.
Around the same time that Lauren had woken up, Ezekiel had also begun to stir slightly.
Unlike Lauren who had taken a few moments to remember the events of the previous night, Ezekiel remembered exactly what happened. They had found them and captured them. He was slightly concerned about Lauren's current whereabouts, however his fear for his own safety was far more paramount given he knew exactly who had caught them.
The only question was, where was he?
The room he was in was similar in design to the one Lauren was in, however unlike her room the windows were bolted shut, wooden boards having been placed over them so he couldn't see outside.
An attempt at trying to open the doors didn't work either, the doors being locked. He looked around, seeing that the room looked somewhat familiar, however he couldn't quite remember from where, it had been years after all since he'd stepped foot in any building, the trip to the Fun Zone with Lauren aside.
Beginning to roll out of the bed he was in, he felt a lump in his jacket. Confused, he reached into his front pocket, pulling out Lauren's decorated skull, his old toque still on its head.
Ezekiel let out a small sad smile at the sight of it, happy that one of them still had it, but quickly found himself worrying about the Scary Girl.
Fortunately, his trail of thought was interrupted by the sound of the door unlocking. Quickly setting the skull down, he leapt towards the opening door, hoping to catch the intruder by surprise, only to smack into the large intimidating figure of Chef Hatchet.
Chef grabbed him by the back of his hoodie and dragged him back to the bed, kicking the door shut with his foot as he walked in. He set the Feral Homeschooler down next to the skull, Ezekiel growling at the sight of him.
"So Damien was right, you really were on Boney Island the whole time." Chef said to himself, looking Ezekiel up and down. "We really did a number on you throughout this show huh?" He muttered again to himself.
Ezekiel just glared at him, not trusting anything that the cook had to say.
"Can you talk at all Homeschool?" Chef asked him.
Ezekiel stayed quiet for a moment, then nodded slowly.
"W-Where am I? Why a-are you h-here?" Ezekiel stuttered out.
Chef sighed then began to explain, "You're at the Playa Des Losers, we rebuilt it from the ground up after the original was destroyed back in All Stars. We were looking for Scary Girl…"
"Lauren" Ezekiel cut him off.
"What?"
"H-Her name i-is Lauren…" Ezekiel trailed off.
"Right… We were looking for Lauren when she didn't show up here after her elimination, Damien claimed he'd seen you two roaming around the shores of Boney Island, so I sent the interns to recover you both." Chef continued.
"B-Both of u-us?" Ezekiel asked.
"Yeah, listen… I know Chris had his disagreements regarding you but I don't. I don't know if myself or the producers can ever make it up to you considering everything that's happened since Season Three, however we want to help you recover from… well… this." Chef stated, gesturing towards Ezekiel's battered appearance.
"H-Help me… H-How?"
"I called in a favour. You weren't the only one affected by the toxic waste in Season Four, one of the other contestants that season, Dakota, also ended up mutating. She and her father spent millions on developing a cure for this mutation, it didn't fix everything but she was able to go back to a normal life. She remembered seeing what happened to you in All Stars, having her boyfriend on that season helped but she saw how messed up the show had made you, and she wanted to extend the cure to you." Chef explained.
"B-But then I was s-stuck on Boney I-Island…" Ezekiel realised, his expression deflating in realisation.
Chef nodded in sympathy, "That's why I called in a favour, she's willing to help you now that we've actually found you. Some doctors will be arriving tomorrow to start administering the cure to you, it will take some time, and they'll be on standby to monitor any side effects, but with any luck your humanity should be restored in the next couple weeks." He explained once more, shrugging at the end of his explanation.
"Really? Zeke's gonna be human again?" A voice called from outside the room, the pair turned to see Lauren standing by the door, a wig styled exactly like Ezekiel's old hairstyle in her hands, the wig having Ezekiel's natural brown hair colour for the most part, with some purple strands in parts resembling the highlights in Lauren's hair.
A wide smile was on Lauren's face, having stumbled into the conversation early on, listening into the information that Chef Hatchet had delivered to Ezekiel. She walked into the room and past Chef Hatchet, straight towards the Feral Homeschooler, sitting next to him contently.
Chef saw Ezekiel ease up slightly at the presence of the Scary Girl, and any annoyance at seeing the person who caused all this mess in the first place dried up slightly. He sighed once more, turning his attention to the eagerly waiting Lauren.
"Look, I'm not going to be too mad at you Scary Girl, I just want to know one thing…" He began.
Lauren nodded her head eagerly.
Chef took this as a sign to continue with his question, "Why? Why did you go AWOL in the first place?" He asked the Scary Girl.
Lauren laughed in response, "I saw how pretty the island was and wanted to explore it, also I dropped my friend when I was flying past it, and I didn't want to lose them so soon after acquiring them." She replied gleefully, gesturing to the decorated skull when talking about her 'friend'.
Ezekiel snorted in response to this, already knowing the initial reason for her landing on Boney Island having witnessed it himself, whilst Chef just facepalmed at the answer.
"Of course it was…" They heard him mutter to himself, before he regained his composure. "Look I suppose it doesn't matter too much, in the end you ended up here so as long as you don't leave before the end of the season I'll consider the matter dealt with…"
"Okay" She shouted happily.
Satisfied with her response, Chef turned to take his leave. "I've got to go now, the challenge starts soon so Chris will need me back on the island." said Chef.
He walked out of the door and prepared to close it, turning around to say one last thing to the pair. "And about staying at the resort, that also goes for you to Homeschool, we'll do our best to help cure you then we'll try and finally get you back home."
"O-Okay eh?" Ezekiel stuttered out.
Satisfied with the response, Chef finally closed the door on them, leaving Lauren and Ezekiel alone. After a moment of silence to ensure that he wasn't listening in, Lauren turned to Ezekiel, sporting a huge grin on her face.
"Look what I made you!" She exclaimed happily, holding out the wig to him. "I tried to make it look as nice as possible. After all, you only have one chance to make a first impression!" She continued gleefully, pointing a finger up in the air at the last sentence.
Ezekiel smiled at her gratefully, bowing his head down slightly so she could fit the wig onto him, she brushed the remaining strands of hair away so they wouldn't look out of place, before placing it on his head.
Lauren then grabbed the battered toque from the decorated skull, placing it on top of the wig, before showing Ezekiel his new appearance in a small mirror she was carrying underneath the wig.
"W-Wow eh! This i-is really g-good. Thanks L-Lauren." Ezekiel said gratefully, pulling her into another hug, Lauren blushing slightly from the sudden contact.
"I had to do something for you." She responded as they broke their hug, smiling. Her smile then became more devious as she continued to speak, "So… wanna go mess with the others?" She asked him, her creepy smile on full display once again.
Ezekiel frowned slightly, only for Lauren to place an arm on his shoulder, attempting to comfort him, "They'll like you, and if not, you've got me." She said reassuringly, her grin unwavering.
Ezekiel smiled once more, blushing at the contact, before nodding, a huge grin spreading onto his face. With that being said Lauren leapt from the bed they were sitting on, making a beeline for the exit with the decorated skull back in her hands. Ezekiel grinned and followed her, making sure to adjust his toque slightly so it didn't make the wig too uncomfortable.
End Chapter
Author's Note: Originally this chapter was also going to have him actually meeting the other contestants at the end, ending with the introduction of the next eliminated contestant. I've decided however to cut that part and make it part of the next chapter instead.