It had been a few days since Heather got eliminated. Cody chewed on his gummy worms as he thought about how much had happened.
He managed to get the three most antagonistic players in the game either eliminated, or in the case of Courtney, made into a non-issue. Courtney would get eliminated eventually, but it was more satisfying to stroke her ego like this- it would make her inevitable fall all the more delicious.
Cody slurped back the worm, cringing a bit at the coated sugar on it. Either Sadie or Katie had been eliminated in this night's challenge- that never changed. Typically the camping challenge was the one that exposed how much either team liked the wonder duo, which was very little all around. Not much happened on the bass side for challenge either, but thanks to Bridgette's accident (as well as his own fear of returning to his dream), Cody hadn't been able to sleep.
It wasn't so bad. The Awake-a-thon had given him way too many chances to completely ruin his ability to properly sleep, so this was a drop in the bucket all things considered, but it still left him considerably out of it. He would have to be careful about what he said when the topic of worst fears came up.
"What about you, Cody? " Noah hadn't even attempted to hide the antagonism in his voice, but not many people noticed nor cared.
Cody spit out the gummy worm he was sucking on and his body moved sluggishly. Eventually, words finally reached his lips, though they came more from his heart than his brain.
"Alejandro."
'Why did I say that?'
Cody sat wide awake in the mess hall. Breakfast was being served now, and in a few moments Chris would be announcing the Phobia Factor challenge. Everyone had forgotten about announcing their worst fears, it was a few days ago after all, but Cody hadn't. Everytime this challenge came about, he typically said obsessive stalkers- he actually knew how to deal with those and could look scared when doing so.
But, Alejandro ? The thought to announce him as his fear never crossed Cody's mind, because the connection would be insane for anyone to make. How would Cody know and be scared of the son of a diplomat? The son of a diplomat who should have no connection with the show just yet, right?
His thoughts were broken up by Chris announcing that Cody come with him for his 'private venue'.
Cody gulped, and hoped that Chris just found some other Alejandro for him to deal with.
Noah's fear of "annoying people" found him saddled with headphones playing the entirety of Sadie and Katie's confessionals- which just so happened to total nearly twenty hours. He had no idea how someone could sit in that outhouse for so long, but he honestly didn't care. At the very least, his challenge would only last for one hour of that time, so he begrudgingly accepted it.
He had to wonder what Cody's challenge was about though. The manipulator had just said a random name before passing out on Beth's lap (much to the elation of the girl), a name he had never heard mentioned once. The kid didn't seem like the type to be bullied, and Noah highly doubted a pasty white kid named Cody would have a relative with a name like Alejandro .
It was odd to think about. As far as he knew, Cody wasn't even from an area that would see much immigration, he was native to Northern Ontario. It didn't make much sense for him to fear this 'Alejandro'.
A burst of giggles in his ears promptly caused him to lose this train of thought, and he grimaced. He'd just have to think about this later, when he could properly hear his own thoughts.
Cody stared in shock as he saw who Chris had brought in.
Standing, wearing his World Tour attire that exposed his chiseled form, was Alejandro. The same one that shoved him into shark infested waters so long ago.
How the hell was this happening?
"Alejandro said he wanted a private talk before you two started fighting, so I'll leave you to it!" Chris said happily, exiting the room the pair were in. Now, it was just the two rivals- Cody looking on in a mix of shock and fear, while Alejandro looked at Cody in… pity?
"You know, I never imagined I would have to go to this crummy island." Alejandro said, trying to find a way to break the ice. "I never auditioned obviously, I've been to Canada but I never actually lived here until Chris hired me for Total Drama Dirtbags. But, even if I had lived here, one hundred thousand would never be enough to get me to participate."
"Why are you here?"
"I mean, my father is absurdly rich, and you should have seen my mother. She was glorious in her prime, a real señorita. She even makes my sister jealous despite her glory days being so long ago."
"Alejandro." Cody calmly stated, trying to shake off all the emotions plaguing him at the moment. "Why- no, how are you here? How are you talking about stuff that won't happen until a year from now?"
Alejandro sighed, and fixed a stare at Cody. The pity in his eyes was unbearable.
"I've only been here for a few days, don't worry. As much as I would love to dominate the competition even more in World Tour, I am only a temporary visitor. I can't leave my lovely Heather behind for so long, no?"
Cody looked in surprise at Alejandro. "You're not… stuck in the loops? Not like me?"
Alejandro gave Cody a solemn look at that. "I heard of your plight from a little birdie, and was brought back here, just for a short while. After your death, I figured this was the best I could do to make it up to you."
"So, I really died huh? This all isn't a dream?"
"It's as real as it can get amigo ." Alejandro crossed his arms and leaned against some piled up boxes, looking down at the floor. "Chris was charged with endangering you- I got off because I was merely playing the game and wasn't aware that Chris' threat of sharks meant real sharks."
He cringed, and pointedly chose to look at the wall opposite from Cody, avoiding the other boy altogether.
"The only person who would still talk to me after that was Heather. She lost out on the million since the game never concluded, and everyone else hated me already. Killing you just sealed the deal." Alejandro sighed, and returned his gaze to Cody. "I never expected you to still be alive like this. I believed your spirit would just haunt me forever, but I guess I'm the one haunting you, no?"
Cody just looked at his pale hands.
'I'm dead.'
He expected the phrase to hold more weight, but instead he found it oddly… inconclusive? He died, yeah, but he's still alive.
"Fuck." Cody hadn't cursed all that much in this game. He wasn't one for cursing, but the word offered some elation to whatever he was feeling right now. A few tears escaped his eyes as he put his head in his hands.
"Well, on the bright side, you're not the only one trapped in this cycle." Alejandro shrugged his shoulders. This caused Cody to perk up a bit, looking at him oddly, eyes still puffy and wet.
"What do you mean?" Cody mumbled, giving Alejandro an odd look. "I've been trapped here for ages, nobody else has shown any signs of looping." Now it was Alejandro's turn to look confused.
"Really?" He mumbled, putting a few fingers under his lower lip in thought. "I admit, I didn't recognize the voice that brought me here, but she seemed quite familiar with what you were going through. Perhaps she's watching the show?"
Cody suddenly realized who he meant. The voice . The odd voice that came to him in his dreams, he always figured it was God or some abstraction of his consciousness, but it was actually a person?
"N-never mind that." Cody said quickly, preferring not to dwell on the idea that the voice truly belonged to another person. It was easier to assume whatever entity responsible for his looping just gave him a buddy, or he cracked from being unable to relate to any other person on the planet at this point (though, he guessed that wasn't true anymore). "Why are you of all people here?"
Alejandro gave one of his more playful smirks. Not devilish, like towards the end of the third season, but more docile. Like he was about to have fun.
"I've heard worries about your state of mind, and I suppose I'm here to either convince you to play nice, or let you continue to play the antagonist." He smugly replied, striding over to a large case in the corner. It looked like the kind of case you keep equipment for the theater in, but Cody knew the challenge Alejandro and Chris had cooked up would be more than reciting a play.
"It's a bit rich coming from you, isn't it?" Cody crossed his arms, leaning against a wall behind him. He didn't exactly level a glare at Alejandro- he was far past the point of hating his murderer when he had lived the same life countless times by now, and was functionally immortal. "I mean, you manipulated everyone except Noah and Heather that season. Even manipulated me."
Alejandro hummed thoughtfully. "I suppose that's true, but our circumstances are different. You have infinite chances, and I had just one." He snapped open the latches on the case and took off the lid. Reaching inside, he pulled out a white helmet and tossed it over to Cody, who fumbled the catch but managed to snag it before it hit the ground. Looking over the helmet, an unnerving realization happened upon him.
"Fencing..?" Cody wondered aloud while Alejandro continued to dig through the case.
"Correct!" He laughed, tossing a fencer's uniform towards Cody. "These should fit you, I remember your size well enough- don't take it that way amigo . I'm naturally competitive, I can feel these things out. I would've repeated our last challenge, but these were the next best thing Chris had on hand."
Cody just gulped and resigned himself. He'd never fenced before, and this was a massive shakeup in his plan. But, looking at Alejandro, he saw none of the competitive spirit from World Tour, just someone who wanted to be friendly. Was this how the guy actually was?
Shaking his head, Cody began to undress.
"Alright!" Chris clapped excitedly as Cody and Alejandro took positions opposite from one another on the amphitheater stage, each gripping a long, thin fencing blade. Cody wrapped it tighter as he saw the far larger boy settle into a relaxed stance. "So, Alejandro here decided on fencing as the challenge he and Cody would partake in, given the root of the feat being physical . The grounds for success are Cody scoring a direct hit on Alejandro, or otherwise incapacitating him. Don't worry, the blades are non-lethal…" the dramatic pause Chris was known for dragged itself out, before he let a devilish smile cross his lips. "I think . Grounds for failure are if Cody is disarmed or is otherwise incapacitated. Now, I'm sure nobody here actually knows how to fence, so the only rules are that you can only attack with the sword, and a direct hit is striking your opponent with the tip of it. Anyways…
"Begin!"
Cody dashed forward, sword held out straight in his right hand, the accompanying arm across his chest. He'd seen this in a movie before, so surely it had some application in real life, right?
He could feel Alejandro scoff as the larger boy swiped his blade out, knocking Cody's into the air, but not strong enough to knock it out of his hands. "Surely you can do better, amigo. " Came the taunting voice from beneath the mask.
Cody growled, but had to drop to the floor as Alejandro jutted his sword straight at Cody's chest. Cody rolled away to the back of the stage before hastily standing, sword loosely gripped in his right hand, and his stance like that of a man preparing to fist fight a gorilla.
How was he supposed to beat Alejandro? The guy was so strong that he literally got him killed the last time they thought, and he was supposed to sword fight him? Their swordfish fight went horribly as well!
As these thoughts raced through Cody's head, Alejandro took a few light steps towards the smaller boy. "Cody, you're not looking very impressive right now. Imagine what the chicitas might think seeing this." A low chuckle escaped from beneath the mask, and Cody glared up at him.
A fierce war cry sent Cody back into action, slashing down rather than stabbing, but Alejandro merely knocked the blade away again. "You're projecting your attacks too much, that was almost all wasted movement. You have to strike quick and fast, like this!" Alejandro decided to swipe Cody's side with the blade, knocking him to the ground. Thankfully, these blades didn't have sharp edges, so all it did was leave Cody with a throbbing pain in his ribs, which he was at least somewhat used to after all these loops.
He slowly stood back up while Alejandro merely looked down at him. The mask allowed the man to be completely faceless, and Cody's mind wondered how Alejandro was looking at him. Contempt for his very being? Glee at his suffering? Anger at being forced to waste time on someone so completely pathetic like him?
Cody relished in these thoughts before devising a strategy. He circled Alejandro briefly, the taller boy just looking at him, sword at his side. Eventually, Cody was on the edge of the stage, hunched over with his sword drawn, while Alejandro had his back to the stage's rear. After a few moments of waiting, Cody lunged forward, and as Alejandro prepared another dismissive swipe, he was taken aback by Cody falling to the floor and slamming the side of the blade against the back of his knees.
Not expecting either that, or the sheer amount of power poured into the strike despite the flimsy material used to give it, Alejandro stumbled forward, giving Cody enough time to jab him in the back. The taller boy stumbled further, tumbling off the stage as Cody finally stood back up.
"Congratulations Cody! You get one point for the Killer Bass!"
This battle ended up being witnessed by nobody except Noah, who had sat silently in the bleachers. The rest of the teams were preoccupied with their own challenges, and Noah's happened to be a portable one. He glared at Cody in deep thought over the challenge, and it was returned with the blank stare of Cody's mask.
"Good job amigo. " Alejandro said simply as the two got dressed in their casual clothes. "I was going easy on you, but I never expected such tenacity. I was right to see you as a threat beyond your popularity."
"You saw me as a threat?" Cody dryly responded, looking at his killer in surprise. "Compared to you, I was nothing. Nobody expected me to win, and everyone was terrified at how close the reality of you winning was."
Alejandro clicked his tongue, as if to chide Cody. "Expectations always lead to disappointment. Outside the game, I'm actually seen as a gentleman- I just used my natural skills to give me a leg over players I saw as a threat. Isn't that what you're doing now?"
Cody looked away, his expression darkening. He had modeled his current approach to the game after Alejandro, yes, but he couldn't see himself as a 'terrifying' or even a 'strong' competitor, despite what he had been told in countless loops.
"I suppose I must give you some advice." Alejandro continued, buttoning up his red shirt. "My advice is to stop using these manipulative plays." That caused Cody to look up in shock.
" You of all people, saying that to me." Cody scoffed, looking away again. "I'm doing what I have to do in order to survive."
"Do you even know what's keeping you tethered to this moment?"
Cody furrowed his eyebrows at the odd phrasing, as well as the question. "What do you mean?"
Alejandro breathed softly before continuing. "I mean, do you know the actual reason you're here, on this island?"
"To win the game." Cody responded so confidently, he almost believed what he said. Truthfully, he had no idea why he was here or even what the rules of his stay were beyond time resetting whenever he got kicked out. "What else could it be?"
"So short sighted amigo ." Alejandro shook his head thoughtfully. "Well, it is not my place to explain- I don't know myself either, but I can certainly guess at the reason why. I can also guess why you have yet to acknowledge it."
Cody stared dumbly as Alejandro walked away. This man was his killer. His rival. His sworn enemy. His greatest fear. His greatest inspiration and idol.
"Hey, Alejandro!" Cody shouted, getting the taller boy to turn around one last time, looking at Cody with a smile on his lips. "You're going… back , right?"
"Of course I am." He said calmly, clearly not too enthused or disappointed by the idea. "As bad as it is there, me being one of the world's famous killers and all, it's still my time. It's my burden to carry and atone for, and I can't just leave Heather to carry all that pain by herself should I decide I'd rather stay in the past. We all have to be responsible at some point."
It was surprisingly thoughtful for someone as vapid as him.
"So, what does that make us then?" Cody asked, hoping the question didn't sound too weird.
"What does amigo mean, Cody?"
"...friend?"
"Then I hope that's what we are. Adios, amigo. "
With that, Alejandro walked back towards the dock, ready to return to his life. Cody wondered how long it would be before he could do that.
The rest of the day went by with Cody in a sort of trance. He was still committed to his current plan- cheer on Courtney so she jumps in the jell-o (shockingly easy when you don't say it's fine for her to give up), and then Chris reveals the reward for her doing so is the opportunity for a tiebreaker. Bridgette, who had failed her challenge, was nominated to go against Justin, who had failed to "wear bad makeup all day".
The pair were forced to provide Chef entertainment, which Justin obviously won. It wasn't hard from there to convince the right people to vote out Bridgette (of course, Tyler and Harold had also failed their challenges, but Cody made sure to rub the tiebreaker in whenever he could, and assured Courtney that cutting Bridgette would be for the best- after all, she was causing Geoff 'emotional turmoil').
He felt sicker than usual about these manipulations. The one thing that elated his sickness was seeing Geoff and Bridgette kiss as the girl departed, their relationship still solidified despite the separation.
But, all of the day's events left Cody wondering- was this the right thing to do? He'd been confronted on this before in prior loops, and hell, he always felt bad about hurting some of the people here the way he did. But, that was always in the pursuit of escape, of winning. Could he really be blamed if this was the only option?
That's why Alejandro's suggestion that it wasn't made Cody sick to his stomach, an ever growing pit reopening.
Loop 0004
"I-I can't lose here!" Cody cried as he crawled his way across the ground, Noah looking at him dismissively. The forest at night was always awful, just a reminder of how terrified he'd been during the camping challenge. Now, he couldn't even tell if he'd pissed himself, too drenched in various fluids from the forest and himself. He only stopped to glare up at Noah, the other boy meeting him with a similarly viscous glare.
"Why are you doing this to me?" Cody pathetically whined, as he tried to force himself up, only to slip on the mud beneath him and fall right back onto the ground. "I just wanted to escape, is that so bad!?"
Noah looked undeterred. "Escape what exactly? What is a rich kid like you running from? You have your whole life set up in front of you, and then you luck out and end up on Canada's most heavily advertised gameshows ever made. You're guaranteed an easy life after being on this show, and yet you want to escape ."
Cody just slammed his fist on the ground, tears once more crawling down his face. "This isn't fair!"
"What is this?" Noah asked, taking his attention away from the crying Cody and looking at the world around him.
"How did you get here?" Another Cody asked from behind him, and Noah turned, looking at the perfectly clean and not crying Cody. Noah tentatively decided to smirk, not knowing what this even was.
"I've been watching your dreams I guess for the past week. Figured I was obsessed with you, didn't think it would be the other way around." Noah chuckled, walking over to the dream Cody, examining his broken form. "So, what is this? Some perverted fantasy? Do you secretly desire someone to exact retribution on you?"
Cody glared at him, trying to figure out how to respond, before finally deciding on an answer.
"It should be obvious what this is. After all, how could I be able to dream of the gopher cabin, down to its exact details, when I've never been inside it? How could we share a dream together despite that being scientifically impossible?"
"A mix of delusions and basic rationalizations. But, you're going to say the answer is time travel or some equally made up tripe."
Cody bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from frowning too much. "Time travel could be the answer."
"So, I imagine that's why this is important." Noah reached into his pocket and flashed a familiar faux-gold coin- his coin. "Now that we're as alone as can be, I want you to tell me something. Answer, and I might give this back to you."
Cody gulped, but acquiesed. "Fine. What do you want to know?"
Noah twirled the coin in his fingers before flipping it in his hand, revealing the other side. Two words emblazoned on it, their meaning incredibly familiar to him.
SPIRITUAL
DEATH
"Tell me, time traveler." Noah snarked, tossing the coin at Cody, who caught it hurriedly. "What do those words mean?"
But, Cody had vanished from the dream as soon as he had made sure the coin was his, leaving Noah even more smug in spite of it all.
"I've got you now."