We're back with more Stormbound! This chapter was definitely the most fun yet, and also the longest at 18.5k words! Thanks for the support and I hope you enjoy!

"Previously on Stormbound!" Nimbus' voice sounded over a bird's-eye view of the woods outside Camp Ventallan, a shot likely taken via Javi's Pájarobotico drone. "Our eleven remaining campers went on a scavenger hunt in the great outdoors!" A clip played showing Iggy and Ollie getting chased by a bear. "Maggie had trouble finding an ally, so she embraced her role as the swing vote!" A clip showed Maggie popping up out of a bush in front of Martin and Tanja. "Lio and Kit abandoned the challenge to rescue Naila after a little mishap." Another clip showed Kit standing on Lio's shoulders and cutting Naila free from the snare she was dangling in. "But she turned out to be just what the Dragons needed to pull off another victory! Meanwhile, Earl abandoned his team to… do some weird science stuff?" Another clip showed Earl throwing his beaker on the ground and storming away from Paradise. "And that cost him the game in the end, but what did this scientist leave behind?" A final sequence of clips showed Paradise accepting Earl's clipboard, followed by Kit standing at the dock with Earl's umbrella as the Loser Cruiser sailed away.

The scene then transitioned back to Nimbus, who was standing in front of the campfire holding his lightning bolt patterned umbrella, as the rain was pouring down around him. "Beats me, but now ten campers remain! This is… Total! Drama! Stormbound!" The now-familiar cartoon lightning flashed across the screen, starting the theme song.

Theme Song: "Stormbound" by Nimbus Cloudbreak

It was a dark and cold, yet humid morning in Camp Ventallan. The rising sun was mostly covered by dark clouds in the distance and most of the campers were still asleep. But when Lio finished his morning routine and started on his way to the cafeteria, he ran into Iggy, who was just coming back into camp.

"What were you doing this early?" Lio asked him as the track star tried to push past him.

"Running," he grunted.

"This early?" Lio raised an eyebrow, seeming a little concerned.

"What did you expect me to be doing, sitting around and waiting for the million to be handed to me?" Iggy shot back. "Hello, I actually care about winning this thing."

"Tiring yourself out before a challenge day doesn't seem like the way to win." Lio didn't seem too affected by Iggy's rude nature, instead even seeming concerned for him.

"Please, I can handle it," Iggy scoffed.

"Will you at least come to breakfast with me?" Lio came over to Iggy and put a hand on his shoulder, but the track star immediately grasped it and removed it.

"Only because I was headed there anyway."

Confessional: Lio

"I'd say I've done a good job of maintaining order on this team, but Iggy and Celia have been my main obstacles. Celia… I think she's a lost cause, but I feel like Iggy can still be reasoned with, so I have to show him my capabilities."

"Good morning," Sophie greeted, as Lio and Iggy were the first ones to enter the cafeteria. "Today is a challenge day, so you need to make sure you eat well." There was a buffet style setup with scrambled eggs, bacon, and various fruits.

"Good morning Mrs. Cole," Lio responded politely.

Iggy's eyes immediately lit up when he saw the food and he began to pile his plate high. "Whoa, thanks Sophie!"

The two of them took a seat. "I'm not stupid," Iggy said bluntly. "You're talking to me for a reason."

"You're clearly one of our strongest players, so I thought we could talk about the game."

Iggy puffed out his chest. "That's the strongest player to you."

Lio gave a wry smile. "Sure."

"Are you mocking me?" Iggy narrowed his eyes.

"What would I ever gain from mocking you?" Lio responded calmly.

Iggy narrowed his eyes, but he couldn't seem to find a reason to disagree with Lio.

"All I'm saying is that the team needs you because you're good at challenges, and they need me because I can organize everyone," Lio continued. "So maybe we could watch each others' backs."

"This whole… team thing is kind of new to me," Iggy admitted. "But it shouldn't matter, because as long as I- uh, I mean we keep winning until the merge, we'll, well, uh… keep winning until the merge!" he said confidently, pounding his fist on the table.

"Just consider it. If we do lose, I think I know who doesn't have our team's best interests in mind," Lio responded.

"We're going to be the best team," Iggy declared, with his usual confident smirk.

The scene switched to the boys' cabin, where Ollie and Martin were. "It feels… not quite right here, like a bear that's missing a bow tie," Ollie remarked with a heavy sigh. "We've already had to say goodbye to so many friends." He was sitting on his top bunk, looking down at the place that Drake had been sleeping (or… not sleeping) not too many nights ago. The nightmare artist's sleeping space looked almost like a rat's nest, with a pile of blankets and a couple of horrifying drawings still hung up on the walls. It was somehow much darker than the rest of the room, with a spooky aura about it.

"It's far from the last goodbye that we will be bidding in this competition," Martin stated without emotion. He was sitting cross-legged on his bottom bunk, with a very thick and pretentious looking book in his lap.

Ollie looked at him and frowned for a moment, before he gathered his wits and made a decision. He leaped off of his bed and did a front roll across the room in one smooth motion, landing right in front of the fencer. "Hey Martin, now that Earl, uh… isn't here anymore, do you wanna be bunkmates?" The acrobat looked a little upset as he mentioned Earl, despite not being on the scientist's team and never having interacted with him.

A look of surprise flashed across Martin's face for just a moment, before his expression turned neutral again as he closed his book and looked at Ollie. "Don't you have a perfectly suitable bed of your own? Why would you give it up to share with me?"

"Well…" Ollie started.

For a second, the camera zoomed in on Drake's old bunk, focusing on a sketch that was taped to the wall, which depicted a demonic looking coconut with green hair, a mouth of jagged teeth, and three soulless eyes.

Ollie shuddered, and even Martin looked a little unsettled.

Martin pondered Ollie's offer for longer than seemed necessary, but just when Ollie was about to restate the question, Martin gave a small nod. "If you would like it, I see no reason for you not to."

Ollie simply grabbed his duffel bag, hoisted it over his head and threw it on top of Martin's bunk, before practically jumping up on top of the bed after it, not even bothering to use the ladder.

He then leaned backwards, looking at Martin upside-down as he hung from the top bunk by his legs.

Martin cleared his throat, and Ollie looked eagerly at him, maybe expecting another one of his dad jokes.

"Just don't bother me at night, I need sleep to maintain optimal performance," was all the fencer said, and Ollie's face fell.

Confessional: Martin

"Does Oliver consider me a friend after our single exchange?" he mused. "I appear to be outnumbered by the other team in my own cabin. But I am not here to make friends, and I believe my own teammates should share similar sentiments on the girls' side."

True to Martin's word, the Dragons in the girls' cabin had all gone off together, and the only ones left were Maggie and Paradise. However they seemed to be making no effort to interact with each other. Paradise was staring at Earl's notes, and started to look more and more frustrated.

Confessional: Paradise

"Ugh, why did Earl have to be so smart… and have such bad handwriting!" she cried out in frustration, making a fist.

"Whatcha doing?" Uninvited, Maggie sat herself down on the end of Paradise's bed and tried to look at what she was reading, and the heiress quickly put the clipboard away and glared at her.

"Get out of my space!" Paradise instantly snapped at her, causing Maggie to get up and back away, looking offended.

"Geez, don't yell too loud, my eardrums are sensitive! I was just trying to be friendly."

"Why? I know you voted for Earl last challenge," Paradise said bluntly.

"How did you know that?" Maggie exclaimed in mock surprise.

"Like, it was pretty obvious. There were five votes, and Earl wouldn't vote for himself, and I didn't vote for him."

"That is kind of obvious…" Maggie conceded, and Paradise just rolled her eyes.

"Why did you do it?" Paradise asked. "Are you with Tanja and Martin too?"

"Why would I tell you?" Maggie shot back.

Paradise glared for a moment, before she gave a small nod of respect. "I would say the same thing."

"You're not supposed to say that! You're supposed to grovel and beg and bargain with me so I'll tell you information!"

"Yeah, just like how you found out my big 'secret' that I like girls? I don't think, like, anyone here is straight."

The two of them had seemed to have reached an impasse, as Maggie fumed and tried to think of other ways to learn more about Paradise.

"But I bet the challenges are going to be, like, a lot harder now that we're two people down," Paradise finally remarked.

"I'm sure it would be a messy vote if we lost," Maggie said, but there was no hint of remorse or worry in her voice, only delight. "Even this last one was so exciting."

"That's, like, one word for it, I guess. The only thing I don't understand… is how Tanja voted for Earl over me," Paradise thought aloud. "I know that he was technically the one that lost the challenge, but would she really? …"

Maggie suddenly perked up at this. "What's going on between you and Tanja anyways?" she asked, her expression one of veiled interest.

"Besides her being, like, totally grumpy and rude all the time? I have no idea," Paradise responded.

"Ugh, yeah, I just hate people who complain all the time, those are the worst. I just can't bear listening to them."

"Yeah." Paradise looked at Maggie bluntly.

"What did I do?" the gossip asked indignantly. "Well, if Tanja hates you, and Martin is allied with him…" She pretended to think for a moment. "Well, it seems like you have nowhere else to go but to side with me!"

Confessional: Maggie

"I know there's something between Paradise and Tanja, but I'm still not sure what. But getting Paradise on my side seems like a good place to start. And if they don't even know what it is either, this might be trickier than I expected…"

Just then, the two girls were interrupted by a thump coming from outside the building. The camera quickly switched to the outside of the cabin, where Celia was scrambling for a foothold and trying to climb up onto the roof, but her height wasn't helping her. She jumped with all her might, trying to grab hold of the gutter, before she slid back down the wall with a frustrated cry.

"Give me a boost, would ya?" Celia called out to Selene, who was sitting in the dirt nearby, engrossed in picking flowers.

Selene looked at Celia, before she quickly glanced over her shoulder nervously.

Confessional: Selene

"I can't let Lio know that I'm still hanging out with Celia. He told me I should stay away from her, but we did a good job in the last challenge, so maybe if we keep working together he'll be happy…" She furrowed her brow, deep in thought, as if deep thought wasn't something that she practiced very often. "But I also want Celia to be happy. Celia makes me happy."

Selene had been silent for long enough that Celia was giving her a quizzical look, but the follower finally grinned and gave a vigorous nod.

"Alright, let's do this!" Celia cheered, but she was cut off when Selene unceremoniously picked her up and threw her onto the roof of the cabin.

"Whoa!" Celia yelled, landing on the slightly slanted roof on her stomach and scrabbling for a handhold.

"Sorry!" Selene yelled back at her, cringing.

Celia took a moment to regain her balance as Selene watched nervously. The rebel flipped over into a seated position. Then she took out her spray can. "Dude… don't apologize for anything. You wanna vandalize some shit with me?"

Selene's expression instantly brightened again. With her size and strength, she was able to easily climb up after Celia, only knocking off a few shingles in the process.

Celia handed Selene her spray can and the follower eagerly drew some crude flowers and puppies on the roof. The childish drawings looked awfully out of place next to Celia's caricature of Javi with massive angry eyebrows and demon horns. But just as Selene was finishing up her second lopsided dog face, the spray can slipped out of her hands and rolled off the roof. It bounced off Kit's head as they were walking below, on their way back into the cabin.

The tinkerer rubbed their head and looked around in confusion, trying to find where it had come from.

"Hey Kit!" Selene yelled at the tinkerer, causing them to get startled, and the strange unidentifiable gadget they were carrying abruptly blew up in their face. This startled Selene just as much as Kit, and she quickly clasped her hands over her mouth.

"Oh, uh, hi," Kit stammered, and they scuffed the ground with their shoe as they stuffed the charred remains of their gadget into their pocket.

"Dude, wanna come up here? The view's great!" Celia called out.

Kit thought for a moment, then they reached elbow-deep into their other pocket (as the one with the gadget was still leaking smoke), and pulled out a coil of rope. They threw one end of the rope to Selene and she helped pull them up. The trio giggled amongst themselves as Celia and Selene showed Kit their drawings.

However, their fun was short-lived, as all the commotion caused Tanja to come rushing over. She looked up at the roof and gasped when she saw the three Dragons sitting up there. "Get down from there, you are going to hurt yourselves!"

"Oh please, we can handle ourselves," Celia shouted back at her.

"I'll tell Nimbus!" Tanja hollered.

Celia just laughed at her. "Oh please, you're seriously thinking of tattling on us? What is this, kindergarten recess?"

Selene looked a little wary, and she seemed like she was about to chime in, before she nearly lost her balance and had to grip onto the gutter for balance. "I'm okay!" the follower yelled, her voice causing Kit to squeak and hug their rope to their chest.

Confessional: Tanja

"I know, I know, I'm that person, you know the one. I just… wish for people not to get hurt. If I saw them engaging in such risky behavior and chose to say nothing… then what type of person would I be?"

"We're having a great time up here. Why don't you climb up and make us come down yourself?" Celia asked tauntingly.

Tanja looked unamused. "No," she said flatly.

"Fine, Mom, guess we won't rope you into this one." Celia smirked at Tanja and gestured to the rope in Kit's hands, as the tinkerer snickered.

Tanja shook her head wearily. "That was awful, Dad."

All of a sudden, Selene made a fist at Tanja. "Leave her alone," she bellowed, causing both Tanja and Celia to flinch at the sudden outburst (while Kit nearly passed out). But then, Selene slipped and began to slide down the roof of the cabin.

"Selene!" Celia shouted, and Kit fumbled with their rope, but before they could help her, Selene fell off the roof. Tanja tried her best to catch her, but was completely knocked over by the follower.

Celia jumped off the roof after Selene. "Are you okay?" She ignored Tanja.

Selene shook herself off. "Not a scratch," she declared.

Celia looked relieved, even as Tanja was struggling to stand next to them. "C'mon." Celia nudged Selene and tried to escort her away, which was no easy feat considering how much larger and stronger Selene was than her.

Tanja got up and watched them leave, shaking her head to herself, until Kit cleared their throat awkwardly from their vantage standing on the roof. They tapped their index fingers together. "Uhm, maybe I could use a little help hehe."

All of a sudden, Javi's voice blared out in camp, amplified by a megaphone. "Oi campers, get yer butts to the campfire, it's challenge time!"

The scene switched to the fire pit, where just as soon as Javi had finished speaking, Martin appeared behind him and Nimbus, being the first one to arrive. "Finally," the fencer commented. "I was beginning to think that Javier had forgotten about the challenge."

"H-hey, I run the challenges too!" Nimbus protested.

"Keep tellin' yerself that." Javi nudged him.

Iggy ran in next, having sprinted all the way from the cabins when he heard the announcement, and the rest of the campers trickled in soon after. Tanja and Kit were the last to arrive, as Tanja was carrying Kit, who had inexplicably gotten tangled up in their own rope while trying to climb down from the roof.

"Nice." Celia smirked at Tanja. "I didn't think you would be into that type of thing, mom, but I respect it."

"I don't get it," Tanja said bluntly, but Kit blushed and tried to curl up into a ball. They were eventually able to pull a small knife out of their pocket to deftly cut through the rope, and they were saved as Nimbus began to speak.

"Welcome to the campfire pit!" the rock star announced. "A place that the Gryphons especially are intimately familiar with."

Martin adjusted his glasses. "We don't plan on continuing that pattern."

"Why are we here? Are we going to have to vote someone out?" Ollie started to panic.

"C'mon, dude, don't let it get to you," Iggy said to him. "It's just the location of the challenge, and I don't intend on losing."

"Heh, we're already breaking them," Javi said with a chuckle, but Nimbus frowned.

"No, that would be really anti-climactic, not good for ratings at all." Nimbus ran a hand through his hair. "Today's challenge is going to test your creativity and ability to work together, but most importantly, it's something near and dear to my heart!" he cheered. "Campfires are for more than saying goodbyes, they're for gatherings of all kinds! At other camps you might sing silly campfire songs about friendship and banana slugs, but here? It's time to rock out!"

Confessional: Naila

She had a bright yellow banana slug crawling on her shoulder. "Aw man!" She crossed her arms and pouted.

"You're going to be performing a music video." Nimbus jumped up and down and strummed air guitar. "It will be just like a night of campfire songs!"

"But music videos aren't just about the music!" Javi added. "The visuals matter too, and we have some props and costumes that just happen to be stored in the supply shed across camp," he explained, pointing past the cabins at a rickety wooden shed that looked like it could crumble to dust at any moment. "You'll have all day to build your set and prepare your music video, and you'll perform them tonight."

"If we're performing them live instead of recording them, then wouldn't it not be a music video?" Martin wondered.

Nimbus shrugged. "I dunno, when you're as famous as I am, all of my performances are recorded."

Meanwhile, Javi rolled his eyes at Martin's comment. "Fine, musical performance, if you prefer. I wasn't planning on bringing this out, but it seems like you guys need a little motivation to participate in this fun camp activity." He chuckled to himself as some of the other campers groaned or shot dirty looks at Martin, then the mechanic pulled a remote out of his fanny pack and pressed a button.

A small robot rose out of the ground, about halfway between the campfire pit and the storage shed. Its body was silver and roughly cylindrical, and it rolled around on a pair of tank treads while the turret mounted on top of its body swiveled around. It looked like it would come up to Javi's waist. "Meet… The Refrigerator," Javi declared.

"I hate to break it to you, but, uh, I think that name's already taken," Nimbus said, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

"The Refrigerator of Doom!" Naila suggested, as she popped out of the campfire pit and threw a handful of glitter at the robot.

"Refrigerate," a mechanical voice sounded, and the lights on the turret flashed red and it began to shoot snowballs at a rapid speed. One flew at a nearby tree, causing one of its branches to snap off entirely. It fell to the ground, along with a nest full of baby birds.

"Those birds are innocent," Tanja gasped. "What if it was an endemic species? The level of havoc you are wreaking on the environment is just unacceptable-"

No sooner than Tanja had finished speaking, a snake slithered out of the bushes and swallowed the entire nest whole, baby birds and all.

"Any other questions? No? Good," Javi declared. "Anyways, Naila tested The Refrigerator yesterday and we know this challenge is umbrella shield-proof for sure."

"Ahahaha my umbrella has real holes now!" Naila cackled and opened her umbrella to show it off, and sure enough, there were several snowball-sized punctures in the canopy. Paradise and Maggie exchanged nervous looks.

"You're welcome to try what Earl did during the three legged race," Javi continued. "But as someone who's contractually obligated to keep you guys safe… I'll just tell you that you probably shouldn't."

Paradise gasped, but Kit just giggled and clapped their hands gleefully. "Wow, can I see? How does the robot work?"

"No messing with the robot," Javi said sternly, narrowing his eyes at Kit. "I'm watching you, chique." [gender neutral alternative to "kid" in Spanish]

Kit squeaked in surprise and lowered their eyes to the ground.

"We wouldn't want to get disqualified for something simple like that, right?" Lio asked them.

"R-right." Kit nodded, but they still looked a little disappointed.

Nimbus was growing impatient so he stepped in front of Javi, causing the mechanic to roll his eyes, and took over with the explanation. "This is a bit like a relay race. When we tell you to go, you can run to the storage shed while avoiding Javi's fancy robot, grab whatever props you can carry, and run back. But! You can only go one at a time, and the same person isn't allowed to run twice in a row." He looked at Iggy when he said the last part.

"Some of the props are in boxes, which can help you carry more, but you won't know what's inside or if it's useful," Javi added.

Martin looked deep in thought as he thought about the most optimal choices to make.

"Alright, bring it on!" Iggy shouted.

Javi held up a finger. "Now, before you get started, we're going to give you-"

"Ten minutes to strategize?" Martin finished. "You are becoming rather predictable, Javier."

"You know what? I'm making it nine minutes, just cuz of that."

Martin's eye twitched, and Iggy snickered.

"Alright," Lio interrupted and clapped his hands. "Dragons, let's huddle up."

"HEY EVERYBODY!" Selene added, effectively getting the attention of all the Dragons… and the Gryphons, and the hosts… and all of the birds and other critters outside.

"Thank you," Lio said to her, and Selene beamed as her brother turned to the other Dragons (save for Kit, who was hiding behind Lio after the noise). "Any ideas?"

"Let's run as fast as we can and grab as much stuff as we can, and we can figure out a plan later," Iggy offered. "If we can get more materials than the other team, the performance will be easy for sure."

"But first, we need to get our props. Does anyone have any plans for getting past that… thing?" Lio asked, shuddering slightly.

"I wanna see the robot!" Kit spoke up, but Iggy quickly pushed in front of them.

"We should send our strongest player first," the track star insisted.

"Yeah, like a meat shield," Celia retorted.

"Still a better meat shield than you would be," Iggy shot back.

Lio looked exasperated. "Just let him go," he decided. "He's at least fast."

The scene switched to the Gryphons, who were also strategizing. "Well, we can start by taking boxes, and once we are able to take stock of our collection we'll know what things to look for," Martin suggested.

"We could also find, like, something stronger to block the snowballs," Paradise added. "Maybe there's something in the shed we could use."

Tanja looked at her, surprised. "That's… actually not a bad idea."

"What do you mean, actually?" Paradise shot back as she examined her nails. "When have I ever had bad ideas? You just, like, don't want to listen to them."

"You refuse to participate in challenges and now it's my fault for not trusting you?" Tanja huffed. "We are a team, it's only fair."

"Ugh, do you even know what fairness even means?"

"You probably don't," Tanja retorted. "You have everything you could want."

For a moment, Paradise's expression hardened. "You don't know anything about what I have or what I want," she snapped. She and Tanja stared each other down for a moment, before Paradise finally flipped her hair. "Also, your necklace is sooo tacky."

Confessional: Tanja

"You did this, Tanja, you chose to spare her. Why did you do it?" She rubbed her temples. "...and why are you talking to yourself in the third person?"

While Tanja and Paradise were arguing, Martin was deep in thought and pacing back and forth. "I have never faced a robotic opponent, much less one with ranged capabilities, which makes it much more difficult to predict its actions and formulate a plan," he thought aloud, but the only one that was listening was Maggie.

"Why aren't you strategizing with your alliance member?" the gossip asked.

"You know?" Martin asked bluntly. "Perhaps that isn't much of a surprise."

"Yeah, so?" Maggie said impatiently. "Ooh, did something happen between you two?"

"I prefer to be alone when I think," Martin cut in.

"So you don't trust Tanja!" Maggie crowed and pointed dramatically at him.

Martin adjusted his glasses. "That's not what I said. I only need time to rationalize my thoughts."

"And she's not rational?" Maggie pried.

Martin's expression was still unreadable, but he didn't refute Maggie directly. "Perhaps consulting the rest of the team cannot hurt."

Confessional: Maggie

"Well, this situation seems to be even juicier than I thought." She rubbed her hands together. "It's almost too easy, I'll make everyone pay for abandoning me!"

Confessional: Martin

"Fencing isn't a team sport, which is precisely why I knew I had to… picket." He paused for a moment, free to laugh inside the confessional booth and seeming quite proud of himself. "Honing my own skills and solving my own problems have always been my primary objectives, but I do aspire to be a part of something bigger."

Martin cleared his throat, and Tanja and Paradise stopped glaring at each other to look at him. "I require your assistance in developing a strategy."

"And that's nine minutes," Javi interrupted. Meanwhile, the Dragons had long since finished their discussion. Ollie and Kit were playing some sort of complex hand game, with their hands moving nearly too fast for the others to see, while Iggy was doing warm-up stretches. "Who wants to go first?" The mechanic gestured in the direction of the supply shed.

Martin looked a little flustered at being interrupted, so Tanja stepped forward. "I'll do it," she declared resolutely, before turning to the fencer. "We will have to figure it out as we go."

Confessional: Tanja

"I am not expecting this challenge to be easy due to our disadvantage in numbers. I have already let down Drake and Earl, and we cannot afford to lose again. But I know that the few can triumph against the many, if only I speak up and make a change. I have a responsibility to my teammates."

While Javi was rounding up the campers, Nimbus had been busy humming to himself and fixing his hair. The rock star didn't turn back towards the camera until Javi elbowed him. "Alright, it's time to… oh, they've already started." He turned to see Iggy and Tanja were already running towards the shed, as Javi looked annoyed.

Iggy had taken off without any hesitation, dashing for the shed like a starter pistol had just been fired. But as he was running, the lights on top of the robot lit up green and its turret swiveled around to aim at him. "Refrigerate," the robot blared.

Iggy ducked and dodged as the robot launched snowballs at him. He sprinted in circles around the robot, going so fast that it could barely track him and causing the turret to spin around in confusion.

Tanja had no hopes of keeping up with Iggy, but while she saw the robot was occupied by him, she made a mad dash for the shed. She was hit in the back a few times, and it clearly hurt, but she just kept running.

"Hah! You're going to have to do better than that, I've seen my hermanito throw better and he's six," Iggy taunted.

Confessional: Iggy

"If you're watching this, Cas—you better be—just know that I love ya and I'll be back home soon, I promise!" For a moment, he gave the camera a big, goofy grin, before his expression turned determined again and he pounded his fist into his palm. "…after I mop the floor with all these weaklings!"

Iggy continued to run and shout insults at the robot… until he slammed right into the shed door at full speed.

Lio cringed, while Celia snickered. "Talk about unhinged," the rebel remarked. "I know he needs to open up, but dude got slammed."

"I a-door this challenge?" Ollie offered.

Celia looked at him blankly. "Dude, that was awful, even by my standards."

But nearby, Martin was listening, and he started coughing. It was very clear he was trying hard not to laugh. Ollie grinned at him, but the fencer quickly looked away.

All the while, Iggy was still lying in front of the shed door. Tanja had finally reached the shed, but hesitated when she saw the track star sprawled out on the ground.

"Are you really going to help him over your team?" Paradise yelled at her.

"I… don't need your help," Iggy jeered, even as he struggled to stand up.

Tanja didn't look too happy about the situation, but after a moment of hesitation, she stepped over him and opened the door (which now had a cartoonishly Iggy-shaped imprint) to look inside the storage shed. The cramped space was full of crates and cardboard boxes, stacked nearly floor to ceiling, along with a rack of assorted costumes and various lights and cameras.

As Tanja grabbed a crate and stepped over Iggy again, he finally started to get up. Seeing that Tanja had gotten ahead of him, he wasted no time in scooping up a bunch of random props and costumes in his arms and came out with a sparkly gold coat wrapped around his neck like a scarf. He nearly ran straight into Tanja on the way back, but blew past her and tried to jump clean over the robot as it started another volley.

"Refrigerate." As Iggy was in mid-air, the robot hit him right in the groin with a snowball, causing him to yell out and fall over on the ground. As he tried his best to drag himself the rest of the way, Tanja jogged past him, using her crate to block the snowballs.

Tanja was the first one to make it back to her team. She set her crate down heavily and leaned against it. "Perseverance is key for us. It feels like the story of the tortoise and the hare, no?" she remarked.

"So you're into furries and bondage?" Celia called out, as she was leaning against a tree nearby.

Tanja just looked confused. "Tortoises aren't furry." She focused back on the crate and pried it open with her bare hands. The rest of her team flocked around her, and Martin looked mildly impressed, while she grimaced at a jagged wooden splinter that had lodged itself in her palm. She tried to ignore it, but Paradise noticed Tanja had hurt herself. She suddenly grabbed the activist's hand.

"What are you-" Tanja sputtered, and she was about to protest, but she ended up just gawking at Paradise.

Paradise just rolled her eyes at her. She easily plucked the splinter out of Tanja's palm with her long manicured nails.

Tanja quickly grabbed her hand back, and Paradise huffed and turned away just as quickly. "Like, it was pathetic to watch you struggling like that," Paradise said with a small shrug. "Did I, like, scratch you or something? I didn't think my nails were that sharp…"

Tanja stayed silent, avoiding eye contact.

"Like, hello! The challenge?" Paradise seemed to be relishing in being the one who got to scold Tanja for a change.

"R-right. Martin, have you found anything?"

Paradise smirked to herself as she saw Tanja immediately busy herself with the crate. The fencer was rummaging around in the crate, and Maggie was pretending to help him but mostly just listening to Paradise and Tanja squabble.

"Ew, that crate better not be made of yellow pine, I'm allergic to the sap, you know," Maggie said.

Martin just looked at Maggie and raised an eyebrow. "Do you have any contributions for our performance?" was all he said in response.

Maggie peered into the crate, and found that it was full of all sorts of handheld props, but especially weapons, as well as a full suit of plastic medieval looking armor.

Confessional: Nimbus and Javi

The two of them were huddled together in the confessional booth, which was barely big enough to fit them both. "Of course the swords aren't real!" Nimbus assured the camera with a relaxed grin. "Can you imagine all the trouble we'd get into if the kids actually cut each other with real swords?"

"Didn't we let Martin bring his sword to camp?" Javi pointed out.

Nimbus just shrugged. "He's a professional."

Martin grabbed a prop sword from the crate and scanned the area, sizing up the distance between the cafeteria and the shed and noting the snowball turret's location. He was silent for long enough that Maggie gave him a strange look, and it almost looked like there were equations and diagrams flashing before his eyes, but then he finally gave his team a small smirk. "I have a plan."

Meanwhile on the Dragons, Iggy had finally managed to crawl his way back to the team with most of the costumes he had picked up now draped around his body. Lio quickly helped him to his feet while Celia snatched the costume bits that Iggy had managed to get.

"Hey! I wanted to wear the coat!" Iggy protested as Celia held up the sparkly gold suit with a grin. "I got it first!"

"Doesn't change that you can't pull it off," Celia shot back, snatching the coat away from him.

"You're way too short for it anyways."

"You did not just go there." Celia glared at Iggy, and the two of them were soon wrestling over the gold coat.

Meanwhile, Kit was still just staring at the robot, completely transfixed.

"I wanna try next!" Selene yelled, causing Kit to jump.

Lio shook his head. "Not yet, you could get hurt… or hurt someone else."

"I promise I'll be careful!" Selene pleaded.

Ollie looked between his teammates and gulped.

Confessional: Ollie

He was juggling his balls inside the confessional booth. "I really just wish that everybody could get along! Nobody ever fights at the circus, and nobody tells each other what to do or the way they should be… that's the reason I joined them!"

Ollie took a deep breath. "I'm going in. Wait for me, Martin!"

None of the other Dragons noticed as he ran towards the shed and into the barrage of snowballs. Martin was ahead of him, using his prop sword to cut through and deflect the snowballs that the robot shot at him. He cut one snowball in half when he finally noticed Ollie was catching up to him, agilely dodging the snowballs with a couple of cartwheels and handsprings.

That was when a snowball hit Martin in the stomach, causing the taller boy to fall backwards on top of Ollie as they landed in a pile on the ground.

"Refrigerate." The two of them braced for impact as they saw the turret aiming at them.

…but then the robot made a strange clicking noise and nothing came out of its gun. Javi swore, and mashed the button on his remote a couple times, trying to get the turret started again, and a cloud of confetti harmlessly spewed out of the robot's gun.

"Naila…" the mechanic growled, quickly realizing that the prankster was nowhere to be seen.

Ollie and Martin exchanged bewildered glances at their good luck. "Gah, are you okay?" This, surprisingly came from Ollie, even though Martin was still on top of him. He wriggled his way out from under the fencer and offered him a hand.

Martin adjusted his glasses and cocked his head. "You're not on my team."

"Yeah, but you're my friend, silly!" Ollie responded with a goofy smile. "C'mon, we should keep moving!"

The two were interrupted by the sound of an engine revving. "Refrigerate." The robot started up again and started to roll towards them.

Martin quickly grabbed Ollie's hand and pulled himself up, before raising his sword and continuing to run. The fencer impaled a snowball on the edge of his sword and flicked it off with a slight flourish.

Ollie jumped and did a backflip in midair to avoid the last of the robot's volley of snowballs, and landed right next to Martin. The Refrigerator whirred as it reloaded, causing the acrobat to breathe a sigh of relief.

But Martin had kept his guard up, and he quickly detected a rustling in the nearby bushes. "Ahahaha, refrigerate!" This time, it wasn't the robot, but Naila, who popped out of the bushes with a slingshot and a big pile of snowballs she had stolen from the robot. She shot at Ollie, but Martin's sword suddenly lashed out and cut the snowball in half, the two pieces falling harmlessly to the ground.

"You missed one," he said to Ollie, who just stared in amazement.

Confessional: Ollie

He practically had stars in his eyes as he clasped his hands together and grinned widely. "Oh my gosh that was so cool! Martin is so cool!" he gushed.

Confessional: Martin

"I don't understand why he would help me, and much less why I helped him." Martin's expression was neutral. "Oliver appears to be quite a skilled opponent."

Martin opened the shed door. He swept some cobwebs aside with his prop sword and wrinkled his nose. "It appears that this shed hasn't been cleaned since the Dark Ages… of course, that is a rather silly hyperbole, but I should not have expected more from Javier. You don't suppose there's any sort of filing system in place, do you, Oliver?"

"If there was one, I wouldn't know how to use it." Ollie gave a carefree shrug. "Hehe, this is usually what the trailer looks like after it's my and Rufus' turn to pack up after our shows. Maybe I'll take… this one." He grabbed one of the first crates he saw that wasn't in a precarious stack, then waited as Martin made his decision.

"This should be the optimal size." Martin tucked a box under one arm, while holding his prop sword with the other hand. He and Ollie exchanged fearful glances as they stood in the doorway of the shed. Neither of them seemed very eager to face the robot again, as the lights on top of its turret flashed an angry red color.

Confessional: Kit

"Maybe the little flashy gizmo on top is a message in the click-clicky language, uh… Morse code?" they recalled, as they clicked a tiny flashlight on and off in the same rhythm as the robot. "Let's see, uh… A… A… AAAAAA… hmm, maybe not."

"Well, those two seem to have figured things out, so it's time to make things more interesting," Javi said grimly.

"Woo, this is my favorite part!" Nimbus whooped and made devil horns.

"That's cuz you don't have to do any work," Javi grumbled, then he aimed his remote at the turret and pressed a button.

"REFRIGERATE," the robot blared, even louder than before. While Martin and Ollie started running back to their respective teams, it started to gather energy. Its gun bulged cartoonishly, then it suddenly spat a gigantic snowball out at Ollie that was almost as tall as he was.

As the giant snowball rolled towards Ollie, the acrobat held his ground with a determined look on his face. He heaved his box up into the air and jumped on top of the snowball. The box fell on his head, and he began running around on top of the giant snowball while balancing the box on his head. Martin ran after him.

When he had almost reached his team, Ollie jumped off of his giant snowball.

"Whoa!" Iggy jumped out of the way as the snowball rolled towards their team, only for it to roll into Lio and knock him over.

"Lio!" Selene shouted. "Bad snowball!" She picked up the snowball, raised it over her head, and hurled it away. In the distance, a series of loud crashes and bangs could be heard, followed by a small mushroom cloud somewhere in the middle of the woods.

Meanwhile, Martin dropped his crate in front of the Gryphons and pried it open with his sword.

"What were you doing with Ollie?" Maggie asked the fencer.

He quickly shook his head. "Nothing, he only insisted on assisting me. Quite the suboptimal choice on his part, but I was not going to refuse. Though I kept my guard up in the case of sabotage."

Tanja began to look through their crate. "Things seem to be falling into place. How fitting that we can be a kingdom of dragon slayers." She was looking a little bit more confident as she pulled out a golden plastic tiara.

Paradise's eyes lit up when she saw the tiara, but before she could react, Maggie snatched it out of Tanja's hands.

"What. Ever. That thing is so ugly anyways," Paradise scoffed at Maggie.

"So we have knight stuff, and royal stuff," Tanja thought.

"It's mostly accessories. I think I can put together something cute, but we, like, need some more costumes," Paradise demanded.

"Why don't you just go and get them yourself?" Tanja grumbled.

"Well, I know how to make even people like you look good on stage, and you… you're more durable than you look."

"How generous," Tanja cut in dryly.

"So if I tell you what to get and you get it, then that's teamwork, right?" Paradise said, taking a nail file out of nowhere and using it to file her nails.

They were interrupted by an angry shout. "Fuck! Fuckfuckfuck!" Celia was now running towards the shed, trying to get past the robot.

"Tanja?" Martin prompted. "I am prohibited from running again for the time being."

The activist looked frustrated, but she took a deep breath and prepared to run again. "Let's do this. What costumes do you need?"

"Just… try not to screw up," Paradise grumbled and told Tanja what to look for, but she hesitated for a moment as Tanja charged back into the melee of snowballs.

Nimbus sighed as he watched Celia and Tanja trying to dodge the snowballs from the robot. "This is getting boring."

"Really? Never gets old for me," Javi responded, as in the background, Naila jumped out of a bush at Celia and grabbed the rebel's leg. "But if you insist…"

As Celia frantically kicked at Naila, the scene faded away, and some peppy music started playing as a montage of the campers trying to avoid the robot began: Iggy jumped over rolling snowballs like they were hurdles, Paradise handed Tanja a trash can lid which she used to shield herself, and Kit ran right up to the robot with their screwdriver to take it apart, before Javi yelled at them with his megaphone. They jumped into the air, startled, just in time to dodge a volley of snowballs. Ollie and Martin found themselves back to back while facing off against the robot, and Ollie offered Martin a high five when they made it back, but Martin had already turned away to talk to his team. Selene ran back from the shed carrying two giant crates stacked on top of each other. She was getting pelted by the robot, but she barely even seemed to notice the snowballs. Celia cheered for her, while Lio looked at the rebel suspiciously.

When the montage ended, the teams had both managed to collect a fair amount of materials, but the Dragons had significantly more stuff in crates that they hadn't even bothered to open. However, on the Gryphons, Tanja and Martin both looked pretty exhausted and beat up, as the two of them had been doing all the running, while Maggie and Paradise both hadn't tried to collect any supplies at all.

At this point, the robot was moving more slowly, and its lights were a lot more dull. "Oi, Gremlin!" Javi called out.

"Yeah?" Naila popped up behind him, but the mechanic didn't even flinch.

"Get the spare batteries from my trailer, would ya? And don't touch anything else if ya like your fingers the way they are."

"Ahahaha it would be so funny if I had less fingers!" Naila cheered.

"That's right, ten cuidado [be careful]… wait, what?" Javi frowned when he realized what the prankster had said, but she had already run off.

Meanwhile, Tanja had given up on carrying her crate and she struggled to push it in front of her as she headed back to her team. She gave it one last shove and collapsed on the ground in front of the other Gryphons.

Martin had been meticulously sorting through the props, putting them into piles based on color and function. "We have plenty of material for costumes, but I think our set will be quite plain. Perhaps we could display a banner on the tower? Is there something we can use to create a coat of arms? Though… I must admit I don't know if I would be able to perform optimally against that robot anymore." Despite his usual stoic attitude, Martin looked tired, and even his perfect outfit had gotten a little rumpled.

"Would either of you be so kind as to take a turn?" Tanja asked, voice laced with sarcasm.

Paradise and Maggie exchanged fearful glances.

"There's no way! Even if I could make it past the robot, I bet there are all sorts of nasty bugs in that shed, plus my allergy to nylon will make it hard for me to collect everything we need." Maggie shook her head violently, until she turned slightly green from the quick motion. "...whoa, got a little motion sick there."

All eyes turned to Paradise, and she looked down at Tanja lying at her feet. "I'll go," she said resolutely. "Give me that." She grabbed the trash can lid from Tanja and timidly stepped out towards the robot as its lights menacingly flashed at her.

The scene switched to Javi's trailer, as Naila kicked the door open and barged inside. "Batteries, batteries," she murmured to herself. She rummaged through the various drawers underneath Javi's workbench. "Aha!" She finally found a box labeled 'REFRIGERATOR BATTERIES' and grabbed it. But as she left the trailer, she unknowingly bumped into a machine that was covered by a tarp.

Back at the campgrounds, Lio was in the shed collecting more materials while Paradise had a box and was preparing to get back to her team, but the robot was beeping angrily at her.

"Huh?" Paradise suddenly shivered as she felt a drop of water on the back of her neck. "Real mature, which one of you just spit on me?" she demanded, but then she held her hand out. "Wait a second…"

Martin looked up at the darkening sky, but after a moment, he was forced to take off his glasses to wipe them dry, as it had begun to rain.

"Refriger-... refrig-... Re-re-re…" The robot began to spark and drive in circles, and Paradise took the opportunity to run right past it back towards her team.

"We need to get inside before our materials get wet," Martin commanded.

"Oh, yeah, that is not good," Nimbus remarked as he opened up his umbrella. "Oh well, time was almost up anyway. You guys can prepare for your performances inside the mess hall. Quick, my shoes are going to get all muddy!"

Paradise looked about ready to drop her crate and run for cover, but then she realized that Tanja was using one hand to hold her umbrella over them both while she carried their props. She turned to the activist in shock.

Tanja looked away and cleared her throat awkwardly as she adjusted the crates she was carrying. "You seemed like you were about to throw a fit," she mumbled. "Let's just get through this challenge so we can get out of the rain. Teamwork, yes?"

Paradise nodded and picked her crate up again. Though she didn't look happy, she seemed more ready to do her part to help her team.

The campers all grabbed the materials they could and ran back into the mess hall, save for Kit, who had run right up to the remains of the turret and shoving as many parts as they could into their pocket, before Javi grabbed them by the back of their coat and dragged them inside.

As the campers rushed to collect their wet props and supplies, Javi turned to Nimbus. "So… turns out that the rain was a bad idea," the mechanic started.

"What do you mean?" Naila asked. "The rain was nobody's idea, only a terrible fate to have befallen us! Oh the misfortune and the irony… it's hilarious ahahaha!"

"Well, actually…" Nimbus said slowly.

"There's something that we need to tell you," Javi finished.

Naila was practically rolling around on the ground in laughter. She wiped a tear from her eye. "You're trusting me? Ahahaha good luck with that!"

All of a sudden, Javi noticed that Kit was sneaking towards the entrance of the cafeteria, making grabby hands, as their eyes were locked on the broken turret robot.

"Ay, chique. Gremlin, would you go and fetch the art supplies? We'll talk later."

Naila snagged Javi's umbrella from his belt and stuck her tongue out at the mechanic before running off into the rain, as Javi went to stop Kit.

Confessional: Kit

"When I see something, I have to know how it works. How did Javi make that? To freeze something so big and make it go so fast… it must need a lot of power. But are there some chemicals mixing inside, or is it electric like the doohickeys in the fridge? Dad didn't like it that time I took those doohickeys out of the fridge hehe."

The scene switched to the Gryphons, who had gathered their props and costumes on one of the long tables and were starting to plan out their performance.

"We clearly have some sort of medieval theme going on," Tanja said as she inspected the knight helmet. "I think we can work with this. I have never sought out these types of media that contain sexist heteronormative tropes, but I have absorbed enough of pop culture to know the basics. The knight saves the princess and then they fall in love," Tanja explained.

"I have always found that trope to be quite illogical," Martin commented. "How could you fall for someone just because they did you one good deed?"

"Y-yeah, that makes no sense," Tanja said, but her thoughts seemed elsewhere.

"Maybe we can do something a little more dramatic…" Maggie offered, rubbing her hands together.

"What else did they have in the Middle Ages?" Tanja thought aloud.

"The plague?" Paradise offered sarcastically.

"Ooh, I had that once when I was little," Maggie added.

Tanja gave both of them a deadpan stare.

"Yeah, I know, it was horrible, the doctors weren't even sure how I managed to contract an extinct disease. Anyways, you can trust me! I've done musical theater all my life, at least when I'm not in the hospital," Maggie declared. "Okay, I spend a lot of time in the hospital, but still, I'm an expert."

Martin adjusted his glasses. "Why didn't you start by saying that?" In the background, he had been laying out and re-sorting all of the props using the same organizational system he had before they had to pack up everything and go indoors.

"You guys seemed to be figuring things out fine," Maggie responded with a shrug.

"You, like, know swords and stuff, do you want to be the knight?" Paradise turned to Martin.

But before the fencer could respond, Tanja rolled her eyes and cut in. "Of course you want the man to be the knight. That's so stereotypical."

"Yeah, why would you ever do something like that," Maggie chimed in, pointing an accusatory finger at Paradise, who just rolled her eyes at the gossipmonger.

"He's literally a fencer, and it would literally be so stupid to give anyone else the sword."

"That's literally not the proper use of that word…" Martin muttered, but he was ignored.

"I just don't want people to get hurt," Tanja said lamely.

"And I can handle a sword with no risk of hurting anyone," Martin put in, seeming a little annoyed with Tanja. "Not everything is a microaggression."

"I bet Paradise is just saying that to get on your nerves," Maggie offered to Tanja.

"And maybe you're just saying that to get on my nerves," Tanja grumbled.

"Geez, okay!" Maggie looked offended.

Confessional: Tanja

"Maggie is such a headache, and Paradise… I still am unsure about her. I feel as if Martin is the only one that I can rely on."

Confessional: Martin

"Though she was clearly the optimal choice for an ally from among my teammates, I am beginning to doubt if I can rely on Tanja."

As the rest of his team bickered in the background, Martin turned to the camera and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "I may be the fencer here, but it appears that my team is still on the fence about my role."

He ducked when Tanja threw the plastic knight helmet at his head.

Meanwhile, the Dragons were gathered around one of the long tables in the cafeteria, looking through the things they had collected. "What are we even supposed to do with all of this junk?" Celia grumbled as she shoved a crate in frustration, causing a bunch of brightly colored plastic to spill out.

"Why are we even here?" Kit wondered as they fidgeted with their screwdriver.

"To live up close to the sun?" Ollie offered, spreading his arms out wide.

"Pack your bags, 'cause I've already won." Iggy put his legs up on the table and leaned back in his chair.

"No, no, none of that." Lio shook his head. He looked at his team dramatically, and a beam of sunshine suddenly shone through the clouds and illuminated him. He put his hand over his heart. "Because… I wanna be famous."

The rest of the Dragons, even Selene, fell into a moment of reverent silence. Iggy took his feet off the table and looked more attentive.

"That's deep," Ollie murmured.

Lio broke the silence by clapping his hands, causing the light to dissipate as rain clouds blocked the sun once more. "Alright, I have a plan, but I'm going to need everyone to work together."

Celia immediately grinned at Selene, but the follower tried to avoid eye contact due to Lio's watchful gaze.

"Nimbus is always talking about fame, so I was thinking Hollywood. I think he would like an eye-catching set and a high-energy performance," Lio continued. "Do any of you have much experience with music or performing?" Lio continued. Ollie's hand shot up in the air, but the rest of them exchanged nervous glances and shook their heads, and Celia especially looked disgusted. "I think it might be best to play to our individual strengths."

Kit pulled an entire giant stage spotlight out of their pocket. "Got this doohickey in the shed," they said, causing the rest of their team to stare at them in amazement. They blushed and started to fidget with the light when they saw everyone staring at them.

"Dude, that's sick," Celia said in amazement and tried to look into their pocket. "…do you know how to get it working?"

"I dunno, but there's one way to find out!" Kit took out their trusty screwdriver.

"Wait, don't do that!" Iggy yelled, but it was too late, and they had disassembled the spotlight into a bunch of tiny pieces, practically a powder, on the table.

Lio glared at Iggy, before turning to Kit. "We can fix this. How about you and I handle the special effects?"

Kit nodded vigorously. "I can figure the light out, and then I'll make it better. Maybe even change colors…"

"Perfect." Lio grinned. "Celia, can you use your paints for anything besides swears?"

"She painted a really good picture of Javi on the roof!" Selene blurted out. Celia frantically shook her head at the follower, who clasped her hands over her mouth when she realized what she had said. "I mean- uh, I think she could, I didn't see her do it or go on the roof or anything, that was just the first thing I thought of."

Lio rubbed his temples. He would have to talk to Selene later. "Alright Celia, can you give us a backdrop?"

"Maaaybe." Celia smirked. "What's the magic word?"

Lio looked completely unamused. "…please."

"Actually, it was 'fucking,' but I'll take it. Though I'll have to find other paints, I'm not wasting my spray paints on this."

"Ollie," Lio continued, ignoring her. "You're the most experienced one here. What do you want to do?"

"Do any of you happen to have a unicycle on hand?" Ollie asked.

Kit checked their pockets and shook their head.

"It was pretty cool when you were doing all those flips," Celia offered.

"While I was dodging the snowballs? Ooh, I think I could come up with a routine."

Selene tugged on Lio's sleeve. "What about me?"

Lio thought for a moment, hesitating to put the klutz in charge of anything she could possibly mess up. "…do you know what a gofer is?"

"I like gophers!" She clapped her hands.

The scene switched back to the Gryphons, who were still discussing their performance. "Well, we need a princess, and I am sure you know I refuse to play the damsel in distress."

"Me!" Maggie and Paradise blurted out at the same time, and then they gasped at each other, and both started speaking at once.

"You, like, can't be serious," Paradise scoffed. "Lemme, guess, you're allergic to not being a princess."

"Well, actually…" Maggie started, causing Paradise to facepalm.

"Why don't you both do it," Tanja suggested, more to get them to be quiet than anything, but Maggie seemed to take her seriously.

"Ooh, like a love triangle!" The gossiper clapped her hands together with delight.

Paradise just rolled her eyes. "Ugh, well, I'm sure I'll be the better princess."

"Perhaps you and Paradise can assemble the costumes, and Tanja and I can work on the set?" Martin suggested.

Tanja nodded. "I'm not much of an artist, but I think I can build us a tower."

As if on cue, they were interrupted by the door slamming closed as Naila burst into the cafeteria, sopping wet and pushing a rolling cart that was piled as tall as she was with various tools and craft supplies. "Take these instruments of doom and build your masterpieces!" she yelled dramatically. "But are they a blessing or a curse?" She threw glitter in the air and ran off, leaving the bewildered campers to take the tools that they needed.

The scene switched to Celia painting a tarp that would be used as the backdrop for their performance. She looked annoyed, but her hand shook slightly, causing the skyline she was outlining to look ragged. "Fuck this shit!" she yelled angrily.

Ollie was practicing his routine and he walked up to her on his hands. "What's wrong?" the acrobat asked.

"Nothing," Celia said immediately, but Ollie didn't look convinced as he got back down from his handstand and sat down next to her. "I just don't like performing," the rebel grumbled.

"Stage fright?" Ollie asked.

"Pffft, no, I'm not, like, scared of it, Celia protested, not very convincingly. "I just do my own thing most of the time, but I'm just worried that I'll mess up and embarrass myself. I… I've never been into any of that performance stuff so I don't know anything about how to do it. Especially dancing. And the last time… it wasn't pretty."

Ollie cocked his head. "What happened?"

"It's real stupid. It was the school musical when I was younger, and I was casted as a fucking tree of all things."

"A tree!" Ollie exclaimed, and he couldn't help but laugh a little. "Do trees dance?"

"Maybe I wanted to be a dancing tree! You would too, it was boring as fuck being told to just stand there and wave my branches a little," Celia protested. "I didn't realize I was that close to the edge of the stage until I fell off the stage on opening night! …okay, and maybe I was trying to impress a girl," she admitted.

"Aww, that's so cute," Ollie cooed.

"Ugh, it's not like that, she moved away and we kinda haven't talked for, like, three years. But sometimes you wanna distance yourself from your old life, ya know?"

Ollie nodded sincerely. "I would know…"

He didn't elaborate, but Celia nodded in understanding. "I'm gonna go out a limb and guess you weren't born into the traveling circus."

"It would be so cool if I was!" Ollie laughed, his serious attitude immediately forgotten, but he also seemed relieved at the excuse to divert the conversation. "But about performing, when I first joined—I was maybe twelve—and I was first learning to swing on the trapeze, I fell down a lot. I really wanted to do it because it seemed like so much fun, but everyone said I was too small. But I thought that even when I fell I was having fun. That's all that really matters, and if you're not true to yourself then of course it will be embarrassing."

Celia seemed surprised at the sudden insight, but Ollie was already cartwheeling away.

Meanwhile, Kit was starting to work on putting their spotlight back together.

"Geez, what do you need all this stuff for?" Iggy asked as he helped Kit by carrying some of the heavy crates full of supplies.

Kit just shrugged. "I don't know yet."

"Great," Iggy said sarcastically.

"B-but usually once I start working it comes to me," Kit finished. "I just have to test some things out."

Iggy set down the crates next to Kit's makeshift workstation. "I guess I get that. I don't really think things through before I do them either."

Kit still seemed a little intimidated by Iggy, but they grabbed something from one of the crates and started to put the spotlight back together, and soon, all sorts of flashes and sparks were flying off of the table.

"Okay, okay." Iggy stepped back to give Kit some space, though he looked more scared of their new invention than anything. "I'll just let you do your nerd things."

The scene switched to the Gryphons. Paradise was putting together costumes, Martin was cutting a window out of the piece of plywood that would make their castle tower, and Tanja was nailing some of their crates together to make a makeshift platform, so the people standing behind could climb up to look like they were at the top of the tower.

While the other Gryphons were working, Maggie was stitching some fabrics together. She was clearly skilled in sewing, despite the fact that she had a thimble on each of her ten fingers. Whenever they looked away, she gradually scooted her chair over towards them to listen in on their conversation.

Confessional: Maggie

She held up her hands, showing off her thimbles. "I manage to prick myself all the time, and with much more unlikely things than needles. It's good that my slow blood clotting and weak circulation basically cancel each other out, otherwise I would've bled to death a long time ago." She giggled, but there was a hint of spite in her tone.

Meanwhile, Celia was continuing to paint the backdrop onto a tarp. She had created a surprisingly detailed landscape with her rendition of the Hollywood sign.

Confessional: Celia

"Maybe this is going to go alright after all. I'm not going to let some dumb shit I did in middle school get me down. It's nice to have Selene around… except for constantly worrying that she's gonna crush me, but that's all just part of the fun, right?"

"Hi Celia!" Selene yelled and waved enthusiastically as she approached the rebel.

"Hey dude," Celia greeted with a cool nod. "How's this look?"

Selene admired the backdrop, but suddenly, she knocked over one of the paint cans, spilling green paint all over the scenery and the 'H' in 'Hollywood'.

"Fuck!" Celia shouted, causing Selene to cover her mouth in shock while Naila popped out of a bush and sounded her airhorn just a second too late.

"You spelled my name wrong," Ollie commented as he walked by the girls and saw the 'ollywood' sign. He was absentmindedly juggling some lightbulbs that he was bringing over to Kit.

Confessional: Celia

"H-he knows how to spell?"

The Gryphons' set was coming along, and there was now a castle tower painted with a gray brick pattern. Maggie held up the banner she had sewn, and Martin hung it on the front of their castle tower, taking care to ensure it was perfectly straight and in the correct location.

"Okay, I know theater, and we don't have that much time to rehearse but we can do some basic blocking of the scene," Maggie started.

"Hey. They're practicing." Iggy came up to Lio and pointed at the Gryphons. "That's a thing we should probably do, right?"

"Alright, everybody, we need to talk about the performance. Now, where did Selene go…" Lio looked around at his teammates, who were all immersed in their own tasks. Celia was trying her best to turn the paint spill into a happy little tree, while Kit was dragging along a functional and very impressive looking spotlight, but it also looked like a serious safety hazard with a tangle of exposed wires. He finally saw Selene, and she immediately knew what to do.

"HEY DRAGONS!" the follower shouted, and the team quickly flocked around her and Lio.

As the two teams prepared for their performances, the scene faded away, before it shifted to after they had finished rehearsing. Nimbus had nearly fallen asleep, while Javi had disappeared into his trailer, while Sophie was keeping a close eye on the campers.

Javi finally came back into the mess hall, dragging a still groggy Nimbus behind him. He pulled out his megaphone. "Five more minutes!" he yelled.

Ollie bounced around excitedly, but when he saw that Celia heard the announcement and flinched. He put a hand on her shoulder.

"No big deal," she declared, though somewhat unsteadily. "We can do this." Though this didn't go unnoticed by Lio.

"Hey, perfect timing, the rain just stopped!" Nimbus pointed out the window, and there was a rainbow in the sky. "Let's hope the stage isn't too wet."

"Perfect timing indeed," Martin commented, surprised.

It wasn't until almost fifteen minutes later that Javi and Nimbus had finally managed to regroup the campers at the campfire with all of their props and set pieces. Thankfully, since the stage next to the campfire had a wooden gazebo over it, it was mostly dry, though the red curtains that had been added for the challenge were soggy.

"Alright!" Nimbus cheered and clapped his hands. "Here's how this is going to work. We have three experts who will be judging your performances, each looking at a different criterion and scoring it out of five. The highest cumulative score wins the challenge!"

"This show has the budget for experts?" Martin adjusted his glasses.

"I mean… you're looking at one right here," Nimbus jerked a thumb at himself. "This rock star is branching out to campfire songs, so you better put your heart into your music!"

"Of course," Martin muttered to himself, but he didn't interject further after Tanja gave him a warning look.

"I don't know how a degree in mechanical engineering got me to this dump of a summer camp, but naturally, I'll be judging you on the construction of your set and props," Javi added.

"And Naila will…" Nimbus trailed off. "What is she even an expert on?" he whispered to Javi.

"Ya mean Gremlin?" Javi asked. When Nimbus nodded, he just gave a shrug. "No sé nada." [I don't know anything]

At the mention of her name, Naila jumped out of the campfire pit and threw glitter into the air. Nimbus put on his sunglasses at the sudden bright light. "I only have five Naila Points to give, but I want to see your stories and your drama and your funny special effects!" she yelled and pointed at the campers. "Just surprise me! But lemme guess… everybody diiiies!" she waggled her fingers and cackled.

"You're surprising us plenty too, Gremlin," Javi grumbled. "How did you even get in there?"

"Nice entrance." Nimbus brushed the glitter off his shirt. "I'd give you a five if you were still in the game… but since you're not, let's get set up. Gryphons, you're up first!" Nimbus pointed at the Gryphons.

"Wait a second, I've always wanted to do this." Before Javi could object, Naila snatched his megaphone and pointed at the campers. She took a comically deep breath, before hollering a single word at the top of her lungs. "MACBETH!"

Ollie cocked his head. "Is that the guy who had a farm?"

Kit jumped a full foot into the air at the noise, their hair standing on end like the fur of a startled cat. However, most of the other campers were just as confused as Ollie was by Naila's antics.

"How dare you use the name of the Scottish play!" Maggie immediately started to panic. "Guys, follow me, we need to spin and spit over our shoulders and-"

"It's, like, some dumb theater superstition," Paradise explained to the rest of her teammates, rolling her eyes.

"Yes, fear it!" Naila cackled. "I have cursed you to suffer a great tragedy!"

Martin groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose, while Celia gulped.

"Thank you Gremlin, that sounds very exciting," Javi deadpanned. "Gryphons!" he hollered. "Grab everything you need and set up the stage!"

As Martin and Tanja carried their tower to the middle of the stage, the Dragons were seated around the campfire, or at least the parts that weren't completely covered by glitter.

"I think their set could use a little touch-up," Celia murmured and took out her spray can, preparing to sneak backstage.

Lio narrowed his eyes at her. "And risk us getting disqualified? Let's not do that."

Celia was about to give an angry response when she saw Selene nearby watching nervously, not knowing who to side with. She flipped her hair and rolled her eyes. "Fine, sure, if you want us to lose."

"We won't lose," Iggy cut in.

Confessional: Lio

"She's even worse than I thought." He shook his head. "Our team can't be the heroes with this kind of unruliness."

The scene switched to the wooden stage behind the campfire pit, where the Gryphons had finished setting up. Their backdrop was a simple pastoral scene with rolling green hills and a blue sky, while the main attraction was centerstage: a tall wooden cutout shaped like a castle tower, complete with a big wooden door, a balcony window, and ramparts. Maggie and Paradise were behind it, still looking not too thrilled to be sharing their role. Maggie had a bright pink gown and tiara, and Paradise was wearing red robes and carrying a golden scepter.

Next to the stage, Nimbus, Javi, and Naila were all sitting at their judges' table, which was really a cheap plastic folding table that they had dug out from somewhere in the depths of the supply shed. Nimbus looked positively psyched for the performance, and Naila had a creepy smile on her face. Martin gave Javi a cue, and he turned on the music.

Song: "Paper Crown" by Alec Benjamin

As the song started, Maggie dramatically threw open the curtains over the window of the tower, revealing her and Paradise standing on the highest level. "A paper crown, and a heart made of glass," she sang, leaning out the window and looking wistful. "A tattered gown, and a kingdom of ash."

Paradise pushed her out of the way. "She walks alone, she could never look back."

Maggie flailed around, but Paradise managed to stay in front of the window. "The story of a queen whose castle has fallen under siege."

The door at the base of the tower opened, and Martin and Tanja came marching out in their armor carrying prop swords and… about one full suit of armor between them. They lowered their swords, and a few stone bricks fell off the tower.

"We'll make it out, but we're never the same," Martin sang. "She's looking down, at the scars that remain." He lunged forward and expertly twirled his sword around, thrusting it at the judges before raising it up towards the sky. "But hold your ground, when your kingdom's in flames."

"'Cause it's the story of a team whose castle has fallen under siege." Tanja knocked the castle door over, revealing that underneath it, the base of the tower was blackened and covered in fabric flames. "Knowing there's no one who will be a king that will come and save his queen."

Naila cheered and laughed obnoxiously at the scene, but then she looked a little closer and frowned. "Wait… that's not real fire," she said, disappointed. Maggie was acting scared of the fire at the base of the tower, probably aided by how hysterical she was on a regular basis, while Paradise's expression was a little more forced.

"When all she needs, when all-" Paradise leaned out the window and started to sing, but she was interrupted when Maggie gave a strangled gasp and clutched her windpipe, and pretended to stagger backwards.

Standing below the tower window, Martin sheathed his sword and adjusted his glasses, confused. "That wasn't in the script."

"Shut up!" Paradise turned towards Maggie and glared at her, only to see the gossip reaching out for her.

All of a sudden, Maggie gave Paradise a shove towards the window. The heiress shrieked, interrupting the music. She flailed her arms and teetered on the edge for a moment, before she finally slipped and fell out of the tower. She braced for impact…

But it never came. Tanja had leaped into action and caught her.

The two of them stared at each other for a while, having completely lost track of the cues of the song. Martin tried to salvage the situation by unfurling a banner on the side of the tower, revealing a shield with a gryphon coat of arms that Maggie had sewn, but he looked very uncomfortable at having to improvise.

"Help!" Maggie shrieked, as she was having some sort of coughing fit.

"What's going on?" Tanja demanded, looking up at Maggie in the tower window.

"It's my asthma, it's dusty in here!" Maggie yelled and started to cough again. "Help me!"

Martin looked unsure what to do, as he looked from Maggie in the tower, to Paradise and Tanja onstage, to the judges watching. "This was far from the plan. What is the most optimal way to continue?" he murmured to himself, contemplating a little longer before he rushed to climb the stairs behind the tower and help Maggie.

"Just keep going," Paradise hissed at Tanja. The activist looked unsure at first, but then suddenly, Paradise squeaked as Tanja lifted her high up into the air, miraculously in time for the end of the song.

"'Cause there's no one to love her when you build your walls too high," Tanja sang.

"There's no one to love you when you trap yourself inside," Paradise finished softly.

Nimbus wiped a single tear from his eye, like a proud father watching his kids. "Moving."

Before the ending notes even faded, Paradise scoffed at Tanja. "You can, like, put me down now."

"Oh! Uh, right." Tanja awkwardly set Paradise back down on her feet.

"Great job guys!" Maggie came down from the tower and over to Paradise and Tanja, suddenly perfectly fine again.

"As for the score," Nimbus started. "Ballads aren't usually my thing but the singing was pretty good. I'll say four out of five."

"Would've been better with real fire," Naila grumbled. "It was really funny when she fell out the window." She pointed at Paradise. "But still, not enough action. I'll give you… two Naila points."

"The costumes were nice," Javi added. "The tower with the stairs in the back was pretty clever, especially reusing the crates from the first part of the challenge, but the craftsmanship was a little shoddy."

"Craftswomanship," Tanja cut in and narrowed her eyes.

"Ya know what I mean. I'll give you a four, and that gives the Gryphons a total score of ten points!"

"Ten… out of fifteen?" Martin didn't seem all too happy with this.

"That's how math works, kid," Javi retorted.

Tanja dragged the platform offstage and took down their backdrop.

"Your turn, Dragons!" Nimbus pointed at the Dragons.

It quickly became clear that the Dragons had a much more elaborate setup than the Gryphons. Kit staggered forwards, carrying a giant remote controlled spotlight that they had rigged up, and Lio helped them hang it up on the side of the stage.

"Uh, do you have an outlet?" Kit asked, holding up a power cord.

Javi looked a little skeptical, but nodded. "Sure, I guess you can use it. What's the worst that could happen?" He threw the end of a power strip at Kit and they proceeded to connect three different plugs to it.

Kit quickly finished setting up in all their contraptions, calling out instructions to Lio as needed, until the side of the stage was a comical mess of wires, lights, switches, and something that looked suspiciously like a hamster running on a wheel.

"Hurry up!" Iggy called out from backstage.

A few of the wires were sparking, and there were a few recognizable parts from Kit's umbrella. Kit finished their setup and ran backstage.

Lio was standing front and center, wearing a tuxedo with a bow tie. The rest of the Dragons took their places on the sides of the stage.

The lights dimmed and Kit's spotlight shone on him. "Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the show!" He pulled a string, unfurling the backdrop that Celia and Selene had painted, featuring the 'Olliewood' sign with a very obvious green stain on one side. He then kicked a rolled up carpet lying on the stage, causing a red carpet to roll out in front of him. He flashed a charming smile, causing his teeth to glint.

But behind the elegant setup of the stage was a frenzy of activity. Kit was turning cranks, pulling levers, and flipping switches with both hands and occasionally their teeth to operate the lights and numerous special effects. As Lio took a theatrical bow and left the stage, Javi started the music.

Parody: "All Star" by Smash Mouth

The lights flashed like cameras as Selene and Ollie entered from opposite sides of the stage, pretending to be paparazzi. They were wearing colorful Hawaiian shirts and carrying prop cameras.

"Somebody once told me that I could be on TV, and win a million bucks in a game," Iggy sang as he strutted down the runway wearing the golden coat that he had finally taken from Celia. His singing voice wasn't particularly melodic, but it was confident.

Backstage, Kit aimed a spotlight at Iggy, while Lio stood on a stepladder and dumped a box of fake dollar bills, causing them to rain down over the stage.

Selene knelt down and Ollie leaped onto her shoulders and he began to juggle his balls, which had been painted gold. The follower was practically yelling the lyrics of the song. "So I traveled for miles and sailed down to an island, Stormbound was my claim to fame!" Nimbus was headbanging, but Javi covered his ears and looked annoyed.

Kit was continuing to frantically operate the set from backstage, causing a bunch of wooden figures that were crudely decorated to look like cheering audience members to pop up around the trio. One of them was a blond boy with a bright tie dye shirt and a pink streak in his hair, and another was a scraggly looking girl in a blue flannel with spiky black hair and a purple backpack.

"Well, challenges start coming and they don't stop coming," Ollie sang. He then jumped off of Selene's shoulders and into a handstand.

"We won 'em all and sent the other team running," Iggy added.

Lio and Celia were both waiting for their next cue backstage. "There's your cue to get ready," Lio murmured to Celia. As Ollie, Iggy, and Selene continued to sing in the background, the rebel looked out at the audience and gulped.

Sitting in the audience were the judges and the Gryphons. Martin and Tanja were having a hushed strategy discussion while pausing every few seconds to shoo Maggie away as she tried to listen in. Meanwhile, Paradise was filing her nails with an apathetic look on her face. Naila was trying to steal Javi's hat while Nimbus was just bopping his head to the music.

But to Celia, all she could see was what felt like dozens, no hundreds of eyes on her, just waiting to judge her and watch her embarrass herself.

"We're all counting on you," Lio muttered to the rebel, before pushing her onstage.

All of a sudden, Celia's eyes rolled back in her head and her knees buckled. She had fainted on the stage.

Confessional: Lio

"Celia is an obstacle to retaining order in our team, so I wouldn't mind her having a poor performance. But I… wasn't expecting that to happen." He looked a little guilty.

For a moment, none of the Dragons knew how to proceed. Ollie visibly flinched and missed a beat as he was doing his acrobatics routine, but he tried his best to keep going. Iggy started laughing nervously and nudged Celia with his shoe, but she didn't move.

"Give her space!" Selene suddenly yelled, breaking her character and shoving Iggy aside, sending him flying right off the stage. She grabbed Celia and slung the rebel over her back like a sack of potatoes.

"Selene…" Lio started as he rushed onstage.

Selene held her ground, and when Lio tried to reason with her, she firmly shook her head.

"What did you do?" Selene demanded. "Did you hurt her?"

"You're the one who's going to hurt her!" Lio shot back. "I'm trying to help you. Why can't you just listen?"

"Maybe… maybe I don't think I should listen to you."

"You… what?" Lio was shocked.

Iggy and Ollie stood by, not entirely sure what to do.

Selene turned away from Lio. "Wake up, Celia," she pleaded, shaking her.

Celia opened her eyes. "Who the fuck-"

But then Selene tripped over a stray wire from Kit's light show and hit the ground hard, causing the big spotlights that Kit had set up to start spinning around and changing colors uncontrollably, like a disco ball.

Lio tried to get the light back in control, but as soon as he grabbed it, he was electrocuted. Kit yelped nervously as if they had been shocked as well.

"No nonono how did that happen?" Kit frantically pulled tools out of their coat and tried to fix it in the best way they knew how: by breaking it. But as they deftly untangled the wires and worked on the stray electronics, trying to disassemble the control board, the spotlight started to spark and promptly caught on fire. Kit watched helplessly as the spotlight crashed down onto the stage and caused the wooden "audience" cutouts to all fall over like dominoes. Iggy had just managed to drag himself back onto the stage after Selene had thrown him when one of the cutouts fell on him and knocked him off the stage again.

Kit darted out from their post behind the stage and covered their head. They were still holding a crank in their teeth, and the bottom of their coat looked singed.

As the Dragons' set continued to fall apart, Nimbus screamed and covered his eyes, while Javi had to drag him out of the way. Martin was using his prop sword to deflect the debris, while Tanja was holding up her shield to protect Paradise and Maggie.

"Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!" Naila chanted. "Shakespeare did it right!" As the others were running around in panic, she just cackled all the while.

But amidst all the chaos and wreckage, one figure stood triumphantly. Ollie grabbed on to one of the lights hanging over the stage and swung on it like it was a trapeze. The wires were sparking but he ignored the shock, and kept a bright smile on his face as he took a bow from atop the heap of junk from the destroyed stage. The music continued to play in the background, though it sounded slightly distorted as the speaker was damaged.

"And now that our challenge is done, it's back to the cabins we run?" As the last notes of the song faded away, Ollie took a bow, then collapsed to his knees in exhaustion.

Confessional: Kit

They looked even more anxious than usual. "I… I don't understand what happened. I pulled the thingy and turned the doohickey, and all of a sudden…" They mimed an explosion. "No more doohickey."

Confessional: Selene

She was biting her nails and shaking, appearing clearly very agitated. "Is Celia okay? Did I hurt her? Of course it was me, it's all my fault, I always mess up and hurt people!"

Confessional: Lio

"I made the right decision," he insisted. "Celia is a bad influence on Selene, so even if things turned out differently than I thought they would, I had good intentions."

Behind Ollie, the other Dragons were all in a heap in the wreckage of the stage. Selene was shielding Celia with her body, while Iggy was trying to crawl out from underneath the wooden cutout of the boy with the tie dye shirt. Everything on the set was completely destroyed, electronics included.

Until all of a sudden, the sky rumbled, and it started to rain again, swiftly putting out the remaining small fires on the stage.

Martin squinted at the sky. "That was… rather convenient."

"I didn't know that rain could do that." Kit looked confused. "…I wonder if I could take apart a cloud." They contemplated this for a moment, before they pulled a butterfly net out of their pocket and extended it towards the sky.

Lio grabbed the top of their net and gently lowered it. "Let's not get distracted."

They frowned slightly, but nodded.

"C'mon, just… give us the win already!" Iggy shouted at Nimbus, though he was clearly pretty bruised and battered, and ignoring his other teammates that were recovering from the stage collapsing.

Nimbus breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks, Javi… Javi?" He looked next to him, to see that Javi had disappeared.

Confessional: Celia

"Dude." She just hid her face in her hands for a while. "That was wild, one second I'm passing out onstage and the next everything is on fire? I'm screwed. Fuck you, Lio."

The scene abruptly switched to inside Javi's trailer, where he was working on something with a wrench. "What's that?" Naila asked.

"Mija, where did you come from?"

"I followed you ahahaha! I'm always sneaking off so it wasn't that hard to tell when you were doing the same. Now, what was it that you wanted to tell me?"

Javi looked at Naila, then down at his project, then back at Naila. The complex looking machine had many large pipes extending from like smokestacks. On the front of the machine was a small LCD screen with a symbol of a cloud and rain droplets.

Naila suddenly reached out towards the machine. "Ooh, what happens if I-"

"Don't!" Javi interrupted. But it was too late, and Naila pulled the lever. The machine whirred and more rain droplets appeared on the display screen.

"Ay mija, look what you did!" Javi scowled and pointed out the window. The pipes began to spew out vapor, which rose into the sky and became rain clouds, causing the rain to come down even harder.

Confessional: Javi

He smugly twirled his wrench around. "Heh, now that Earl's gone, science no longer applies to me and my inventions."

"Ugh, not again! I don't want my hypothermia to come back!" Maggie whined as she ran for cover.

This time, Sophie opened the door to the mess hall and beckoned for the campers to get out of the rain. "Come in before you get wet!" she called out. "It's dangerous out there!"

"I'm beginning to think that danger is the point," Martin murmured to himself. As he dried off his glasses, Iggy pushed past him to get into the mess hall, leading the stampede of campers.

Tanja opened up her umbrella again and Paradise huddled underneath it, uninvited. However, the strong winds threatened to blow away the umbrella and caused Tanja to stumble into Paradise.

"Oh, so now I'm not even worthy of sharing with you," Paradise snapped.

"You're just trying to start a fight at this point," Tanja grumbled.

"And you aren't?" Paradise shot back.

"Kids!" Sophie hollered. Paradise and Tanja looked at each other and realized that they were the only two campers left outside, and they quickly made it back into the mess hall for the second rainstorm of the day.

Nimbus was looking pretty flustered as he gathered up all the campers. "Those were some… ah, creative performances from you all," he started, with a goofy grin on his face. "The expert judges are having, uh, some technical difficulties."

That was when Javi stormed back into the mess hall. He looked angry and was dragging Naila along with him by the hood of her jacket. Both of them were soaking wet, and Sophie looked horrified. "I'll get you some towels right away!"

"I think we have a challenge to finish?" Javi prompted.

The campers exchanged confused glances, but Javi and Nimbus just pretended like everything was normal. "Dragons! Your performance will be judged by us, the panel of expert judges." Nimbus pointed at Naila. "So, Naila, what score do you give the Dragons?"

Naila jumped up onto a table and shook herself like a dog, splashing Nimbus and Javi. "That was a hilarious performance to make Macbeth proud!" she declared. "I'd give you a thirteen out of five if I could, but I'll have to settle for a five because these guys are no fun." She pouted and crossed her arms.

"Well, I can't really give you guys anything other than a one for the music," Nimbus said sheepishly. "That was a great song but you didn't really, y'know, sing for most of it."

"So it all comes down to the props and set," Javi added, now wrapped in a towel that Sophie had handed him. "The props weren't that well made, like the stain on the backdrop, and the blond dude's shirt was really ugly, but those mechanisms… I don't know how you did it, chique, and in such a short time, but that was impressive." Javi gave Kit a nod of respect, and they grinned widely and clapped their hands. "But also, that was a huge safety hazard and broke just about every protocol and design convention of mechanics in the book, and it did… kind of blow up in the end, and it blew up slightly more than the Gryphons' stuff did. If I hadn't- uh, I mean, if the rain hadn't come, we would've been in big trouble."

Kit gulped and fidgeted with a small piece of electrical wiring, while Iggy glared at Javi.

"But that was the best part," Naila whined, but Javi just rolled his eyes.

"The good bits were clever and the bad bits made me think we were very close to having to do a lot of paperwork, so overall, I'm going to have to give you guys a three for prop design," Javi said finally.

Nimbus started to count on his fingers, but while the rock star was still doing mental math, Javi spoke up again. "That gives you Dragons a total score of nine, while the Gryphons got ten points. And that means…"

Nimbus suddenly cut him off. "The hardest rockers of today's challenge were… the Gale Gryphons! Seems like you four are on your way to turning things around."

"Ooh, you just jinxed it!" Naila crowed and pointed at Nimbus.

"What?" Iggy burst out angrily, and Selene hung her head. Celia looked embarrassed.

"This was far from the ideal outcome," Martin mused, still seeming rather unhappy with their performance. Then Tanja nudged him, and he managed to give her a curt nod of acknowledgement. "... though it is still a victory."

Tanja responded with a small, weary smile. "We will be grateful for our win." She turned to Paradise, but the heiress avoided eye contact, something that Maggie noted.

"And you know what that means, Dragons!" Nimbus turned his attention to the other team. "You'll be meeting us back at the campfire in a bit, hopefully when this rain clears up, and this time it won't be to sing songs."

Ollie looked towards his team. "We're going to have to say goodbye to somebody?"

Confessional: Ollie

"The best part about the circus is that there's always another performance! But not here. I hate it when people are sad, and I'm worried that people will start fighting again."

Javi and Naila disappeared soon after, while Sophie was scolding Nimbus for bringing the kids out during the storm.

Iggy was about to leave the mess hall when Lio waved him over. "Where are you headed?"

"Running."

"In the rain?"

"Doesn't bother me."

"We have an elimination ceremony soon."

"Need to clear my head."

Lio sighed, as he didn't seem to be getting through to Iggy. "I wanted to talk to you about voting," he said bluntly.

"I think it's pretty obvious who I want to vote for." Iggy flipped his ponytail.

Lio looked a little conflicted for a moment, before he thought of Selene and nodded firmly. "And I think I can vote with you."

The scene switched to the Gryphons in the girls' cabin. "I'm going to take a shower," Maggie announced loudly. "I just know I'll get an infection or catch a cold or something dreadful." She hefted her huge bag of shower supplies and various medications and exited the cabin, leaving Paradise and Tanja on their own beds, and the silence was deafening.

"Look…" Tanja started.

Paradise didn't even look up, so the activist just cleared her throat and continued. "What I said earlier. About you having everything. It was insensitive," she said gruffly.

"You're, like, the one that keeps hating on me."

"I strive for equality, but even I have my own biases," Tanja admitted. "I don't think we would have won that challenge without you."

Paradise rolled her eyes. "Like, obviously."

"I hope we can at least work together to turn things around?"

"Sure, I accept your apology." Paradise gave an aloof shrug and turned away. "Or whatever." She pulled out a compact mirror to adjust her hair, but Tanja smiled to herself.

Confessional: Paradise

"I think I get it now. Tanja's stubborn but she's really just looking out for everyone. I'm used to people looking out for me, maybe even too much, but this is… different."

A little later, the rain had calmed down to a drizzle, and on the roof of their cabin, Selene and Celia were sitting together with their umbrellas.

"I think that puddle looks like a puppy." Selene vaguely pointed at a puddle in the dirt from their vantage overlooking the camp.

Celia squinted in the direction Selene was pointing. "I don't see it."

Selene sighed. "It's not the same as looking at clouds."

Celia put her hands behind her head. "Dude, why don't we just get rid of your brother."

Selene gasped. "No!"

"Geez, okay, it was worth a try. Then… Kit? It was all their weird machines that wrecked the stage in the end."

"I think they're just scared of me…" Selene said dejectedly.

"Well, you know what?" Celia arched her eyebrows. "They're missing out."

The scene switched to a shot of the clear night sky, before panning downwards to the campfire. The six Dragons and Nimbus were sitting around the fire pit, and Javi was trying in vain to get a fire started, but it was far too wet. The rock star held a tray of five marshmallows.

"Guess the Gryphons are finally catching up to you guys, huh." Nimbus smirked and pointed at the log that Celia was seated on, which had 'LOSER' spray painted on it. All the other stumps around the campfire were decorated with similar rude messages, also Celia's handiwork. "But no matter how much you wanna be famous, 'ollywood waits for no one, heh. And one of you guys isn't going to be coming back! It's time to cast your votes!"

One by one, Nimbus called the Dragons into the confessional booth to vote.

Confessional: Iggy

"For the record, I'm not doing this because I wanted to do it, not because Lio wanted me to. She's just annoying."

Confessional: Selene

"I… I can't do what Lio wants me to do."

Confessional: Ollie

He put his head in his hands. "What do I even do? I love my whole team, and our performance wouldn't be complete without any of them!"

After the Dragons had all voted, Javi counted the votes while Nimbus held out his marshmallows. "Safe today is…"

"Just give me my marshmallow already!" Iggy snapped, but as he was talking, Nimbus obliged by throwing it at him. The marshmallow bounced off of his forehead and fell into the fire pit.

"It's not like I was going to eat that unnecessary sugar anyways," he scoffed with a toss of his head.

"Lio." Nimbus tossed him a marshmallow, which he easily caught. "And Selene." Selene tried to catch the marshmallow in her mouth. She missed, leaned forward too far, and nearly face planted into the campfire, but Lio caught her and held her up by the back of her hoodie.

"Ollie." Ollie caught his marshmallow, but he seemed much more worried about his teammates.

"Celia, you knocked yourself out. And Kit, you almost knocked everyone else out. But the last marshmallow goes to…"

…

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"Kit."

The tinkerer snatched the marshmallow out of the air with their shaking hands and stuck it in their pocket.

"Celia, that means that you've won yourself a ticket aboard the Loser Cruiser!" Nimbus announced. "And please, take all of your silly paints with you."

"Bullshit!" the rebel snapped as she stood up from her 'LOSER' seat. "And you have no proof that it was me!"

"You really thought you could get away with that? We have cameras everywhere," Nimbus deadpanned. "You're just lucky that Javi thought it was funny."

"And Nimbus is just mad it wasn't his face sprayed on the cabin roof," Javi added smugly. "I gotta say, the horns are a flattering look for me."

Celia flipped her hair. "I know exactly which ones of you wanted me gone, and you're making a big mistake. Selene, I-"

She was interrupted when Ollie tackled her in a hug. "Gah, don't-" the rebel managed to get out, before she gave up, chuckling and hugging the acrobat back.

"I'll miss you, and I'm so glad we got to be on a team together!" Ollie had tears in his eyes.

"You really did help me out, dude. But I just need to get back up, right?"

Selene was about to approach Celia when Lio grabbed her arm. "C'mon. We have a lot to talk about." Selene shot one last plaintive look at Celia, before Javi started to drag her away.

Confessional: Kit

"I guess my thing is collecting the things that people leave behind now hehe," Kit commented as they fidgeted with one of Celia's spray paints. "Never seen how one of these color spray doohickeys works before." They held the aerosol can right up to their face, inspecting it, before they accidentally activated it. "Eek!" The force of the pressurized paint caused their slender frame to be slammed against the back wall of the confessional as paint sprayed everywhere.

Confessional: Celia

"I knew giving Kit some of my supplies was a great idea." She looked around the confessional and admired the scene. "It's like… vandalism once removed." The walls were now covered in random streaks of spray paint, indicative of Kit's struggle with the can. "I don't have that long before Javi finds me, but I've got just one thing left to say." She pointed her own can right at the camera. "Fuck this shit, I'm outta here." She started to spray paint over the camera.

All of a sudden, she heard a violent banging on the confessional door, but she just rolled her eyes. "Geez, I get the idea, I'm coming!"

After the confessional camera was fully painted over, the scene switched to a camera just outside the outhouse. "Venga, chica." [come, kid] Javi grabbed the rebel, dragged her out of the confessional, and started to escort her towards the dock as she dragged her feet like a stubborn child.

However, Celia's stalling soon paid off, as just as they had made it to the dock, lumbering footsteps started to shake the ground. "Celia! Wait!" a very loud voice called out.

"Selene?"

Javi let go of Celia and jumped out of the way when he saw the follower barrelling towards them at full speed.

Selene's eyes were wide as she stared back at Celia, seeming as shocked as the rebel was. "Oh my gosh I know Lio told me to come to the team strategy meeting," she lamented, panicked. She took a deep breath, and her expression turned more resolute. "But I couldn't not say goodbye."

"You… you ditched them? Nice." A grin slowly spread across Celia's face. She held out her hand for a fist bump, but Selene just grabbed her in a hug and lifted her up in the air.

Celia leaned in and gave Selene a quick kiss on the cheek, and the follower was so startled that she dropped the rebel, and she fell on her butt in the dirt.

Selene was about to apologize when Celia just laughed and got back up. "Do me a favor and kick your brother's ass for me." She winked at the still stunned Selene, before flouncing down the dock to meet Ada and Kiwi on the Loser Cruiser.

As the ship sailed away, Earl could be seen in the background fiddling with Ada's sextant. And the Loser Cruiser appeared to have a brand new figurehead: a demonic looking coconut with green hair, three soulless eyes, and a mouth of jagged teeth.

Confessional: Drake

He was in the onboard confessional room on the Loser Cruiser, sitting on a crate and giving the camera his usual sleepy look. "This is Coconu'thulu, the elder god of Ventallan," he explained in a monotone, holding up his sketchbook and showing the camera a sketch of his coconut demon. "He came to me in a dream, and he wants you to know that there's a reason that coconuts cause more yearly deaths than sharks, yeah."

Still at the campfire, Lio was just finishing giving some kind of long-winded motivational speech to what remained of his team. "Alright, Dragons, that's it!" He clapped his hands. "We're still able to turn things around, as long as you just listen to me! I've gotten my past teams out of tougher situations! Any questions?"

Iggy had fallen asleep and was snoring obnoxiously, Kit was in the midst of disassembling a wind-up toy car, and Ollie was just staring off into space dejectedly as he tossed a single one of his juggling balls from hand to hand.

Lio sighed. "Maybe… we'll continue this tomorrow."

As the Dragons finally began to leave the campfire, Kit looked up at the sky. All the rain clouds had disappeared, revealing a clear, starry night.

Confessional: Kit

"Maybe the stories about the Bermuda Triangle really are true…" they murmured, before shaking their head. "No nonono it can't be, everything happens for a reason." They held up a handful of plastic parts from the toy car. "Like how the coily doohickey turns the toothy spinny thing, it all makes sense now." But as they went to put away the components, the page of Earl's notes that they had found fell out of their pocket, and they peered at it thoughtfully.

Martin was walking along the beach when he saw someone sitting on the dock. Ollie had his head in his hands and he was shaking slightly, and as Martin got closer, it was clear that he was crying.

Martin stopped for a moment, feeling conflicted as he thought about the best way to deal with the situation.

Confessional: Martin

His hands were clenched tightly on his lap, as he tried to disguise the fact that they were shaking. "I was worried." He knit his brow. "He was clearly in quite a vulnerable state, and I knew that if I said the wrong thing I could easily exacerbate the situation."

"But this is Oliver. He's not the type to judge people, and his kindness is unconditional… even being friends with me." He looked away from the camera, hiding a small smile. "I feel… safer around him."

Ollie wiped his eyes and turned his head when he heard Martin step on to the dock. He managed to muster a smile when he saw the fencer sit down next to him, but still said nothing.

Martin was silent for a moment, and when he finally spoke, it was very quiet and slow, deliberate yet hesitant. "Do you want to-"

Martin was cut off when Ollie suddenly threw his arms around him. The fencer's face looked like it was on fire and his whole body tensed. He awkwardly pat Ollie on the back as he continued to cry.

"Oliver? Was it the campfire ceremony?" Martin asked finally.

Ollie sniffled and nodded his head. "I'm stressed," he confessed. "Lots of people have been fighting. Lio is angry with Selene, Kit is… jumpier than usual, and I feel really bad for voting out Celia."

"It's part of the game," Martin dismissed, but this didn't seem to reassure Ollie much.

"Like I told Celia, I have to keep going. Get back up when I fall." Ollie looked up at the sky. "I love my team, but I guess it's nice to get away from them for a little. This competition is… more serious than I thought."

But as the two of them sat together on the dock, neither of them noticed a rustling in the nearby bushes.

Confessional: Maggie

"This should be good…"

The scene cut to inside Javi's trailer, where the mechanic was muttering grumpily to himself as he tinkered with the weather machine. Meanwhile, Nimbus was lounging in an armchair.

"Ah, it feels good to rock out, it brings back the memories of my old shows," he commented to the camera. "Today's performances were… nothing close to the shows I've played, but these guys have got the heart! And there's plenty of drama going on backstage, especially after a cutthroat move like that." As he spoke, the camera zoomed out from the trailer to a shot of the entire campground. "How will Lio and Selene fare after all that mess? How long will it be 'til one of the campers finds out about Javi's weather machine? And what is Maggie planning? Find out next time on… Total! Drama! Stormbound!"

The scene quickly cut back to the inside of the trailer. "By the way, any chance you could turn down the humidity next time?" Nimbus asked Javi, to which the mechanic only snorted. "This weather is awful for my hair!" The rock star reached up to run a hand through his hair, feeling for something that wasn't there, then his eyes widened. "Hey, where did my sunglasses go?"

The scene changed one last time, to a shot of the Loser Cruiser sailing off into the sunset. Celia was sitting next to Coconu'thulu at the prow of the ship, with her legs dangling out over the water and her hair blowing in the wind. She winked at the camera… and put on a pair of sunglasses.

Votes:

Celia- Iggy, Kit, Lio, Ollie (4)

Kit- Celia, Selene (2)

Remaining Contestants:

Dragons: Iggy, Kit, Lio, Ollie, Selene (5)

Gryphons: Maggie, Martin, Paradise, Tanja (4)

Elimination Order:

13. Naila (no team, disqualified/intern)

12. Drake (Gryphons)

11. Earl (Gryphons)

10. Celia (Dragons)

I don't think this elimination should be much of a surprise. Celia has been a blast to write from the beginning but I think I've been able to flesh her out and develop her voice during these last two episodes. Her interactions with Selene were actually mostly improvised, but they ended up being one of my favorite plotlines so far. Several draft outlines have had her going a lot further, but I ultimately decided that the other Dragons all had more going from them.

I'm juggling a lot of plots so I hope the flow of this episode was okay. Any thoughts and feedback would be appreciated, and thanks for reading!

Feline's Forecast: The rain isn't letting up and some parts of Ventallan have been flooded! How will these teams stay afloat now?