Total Drama Stormbound Chapter 5: Float Your Boat, a total drama series fanfic

Well, I've been staring at it for way too long, but I've finally made it through this monster of a 21k word chapter, and I still have no idea how I did it. But I had fun, so I hope you enjoy!

"Previously on Stormbound!" Nimbus' voice rang out as the camera panned through camp, coming to rest at the wooden stage behind the campfire, which was burnt and broken after the previous challenge. "These campers braved the rain to put together some musical performances to make this rock star proud! We had them start by collecting their props and supplies, which were guarded by Javi's newest invention…" A clip played of Martin and Ollie facing off against the Refrigerator as it shot snowballs at them. "And build their set!" Another clip showed Kit building a giant spotlight out of random scraps as Iggy watched in astonishment. "And these performances ranged from awkward…" A clip showed Tanja holding up Paradise as they finished their song, while Maggie was yelling hysterically in the background. "To downright disastrous." A clip showed Celia fainting onstage. "In the end, Ollie's acrobatics and Kit's special effects weren't enough to keep the Dragons' performance from crashing…" A clip showed Kit's spotlight falling over. "...and burning." Another clip showed the Dragons' entire set catching on fire. "And it was Celia who couldn't handle the pressure, maybe from one person in particular." A final clip showed Lio talking to Celia backstage, before the scene switched back to Nimbus. "But that's not the worst thing that happened last time. I still can't find my sunglasses!" Nimbus whined. "But the show must go on!" He threw double devil horns with his hands. "This is, Total! Drama! Stormbound!"

Theme Song: "Stormbound" by Nimbus Cloudbreak

"Do you think that's enough rain?" Javi asked Nimbus. The two of them and Naila were all gathered inside Javi's trailer as the rain beat down on the roof. Naila was standing on top of a precarious stack of a table and chairs, applying some duct tape to a leak in the roof, while Javi was trying to fix the Refrigerator, after it had gotten rained on and broken in the previous challenge.

Nimbus looked at a monitor in the corner of the room, where footage from the Pájarobotico's camera was being displayed as the little bird drone surveyed the woods outside Camp Ventallan. There was a rushing river flowing by Lake Naila, nearly overflowing at the banks. The rock star gaped at the scene. "Whoa, I think I'm getting ideas for an album cover."

Javi just rolled his eyes. "Ay, I guess I'll take that as a yes. I've done my part, so you got everything ready for the next challenge?"

"Boy, do I! This next show will blow your mind!" Nimbus clapped his hands together excitedly, but Javi didn't look convinced.

The scene switched to the mess hall, where Sophie was watching over the campers as they ate breakfast. "Make sure you hold onto your umbrellas and come back here to warm up when you can," she called out. "We don't need you catching a cold."

Confessional: Sophie

"I don't know what Nimbus and Javi are up to now, but I hope they keep the campers safe. This weather keeps on getting worse and worse, but a hot meal is the most I can offer them."

Confessional: Nimbus

He looked a little guilty. "Yeah, there was no way we could've told Sophie about the weather machine, she might have a heart attack! We'll have to tell her eventually or I'm sure she'll find out… well, she definitely will when this goes live." He chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of his head. "This looks really bad, I know." His expression turned more pensive and he glanced away. "But this is my one last shot to make it big. This whole storm generating thing is crazy, but I knew I had to trust Javi with this project of his, 'cuz of all he's done to help me with my ideas. Sure, it's still a prototype, but someone as smart as he is can't mess things up, right?"

The source of Sophie's worries was clear, as the rain was continuing to pour down. Selene stared out the window in awe. "That puddle looks like a puppy," she announced loudly and tugged Lio's arm.

"Yeah?" Lio's thoughts seemed elsewhere.

"Celia liked my puppies," Selene stated simply.

"And I'm not Celia… thank goodness!" Lio forced a laugh, but he seemed a little guilty.

"I miss her."

"Hey, we still have each other, right?"

Selene nodded. "We'll always be together. No matter what Mom or anyone at school says about you."

"Do you trust me, Selene?" Lio asked suddenly.

"Of course!" Selene yelled immediately, pounding her fist on the table with such force that it caused Lio's glass of water to spill.

Confessional: Lio

"I thought that with Celia out of the way, our team would be working like a well-oiled machine, and it's the leader's responsibility to make the tough decisions about what's best for the entire group. Of course, I had foreseen how Selene would get after Celia's elimination. I know her better than anyone, and she's been like this before. I just hate to see anyone take advantage of her like Celia did. Who knows what she would do without me?" He then paused for a moment and grimaced at his poor choice of words. "Actually, I do know. I've seen it, and it wasn't pretty for both of us."

He took a deep breath. "Selene will get over it. This is for the best. I know it is."

Confessional: Selene

"Lio told me that I needed to get over Celia." She gave a heavy sigh. "I really wasn't expecting her to get scared onstage and get eliminated like that."

"But I guess I have to move on." She looked down at the ground. "I don't want to let Lio down."

At a nearby table, Ollie was playing around with his spoon, his bowl of porridge untouched next to him. He waved to Martin when he saw him, but the fencer flinched and quickly averted his eyes, instead going to sit with the Gryphons.

To Ollie's surprise, Iggy headed over to sit next to him, but not before the track star sent a dirty look at the retreating Martin.

Iggy noticed Ollie's quizzical expression. "What, you don't want me sitting here?" he arched an eyebrow.

"Oh, no, of course it's fine!" Ollie responded immediately, shaking his head vigorously, but Iggy didn't seem like he was planning on moving either way.

"What were you doing with him?" Iggy gestured in Martin's direction.

Ollie shrugged. "Just being friendly! I'm excited for challenge day."

"Well, I don't want there to be anything that distracts us, especially not Mr. Picket over there," Iggy snapped. "We're going to need every advantage we can get so we can overtake the enemy out there today." He pounded his fist into his palm.

Ollie nodded, not sure how to respond. To him, distractions could lead to fantastic new performances and opportunities, and it was tiresome to focus on one thing for so long. "Why are you upset?" he asked instead.

"I'm not upset," he grunted. "I'm just getting my head in the game. We can't lose again."

However, at the mention of the team's loss, Ollie remembered Celia and frowned. "I think everyone was a little bummed out after the last challenge. We're going to miss Celia."

Iggy was going to say something snarky about his rival's elimination, but he had second thoughts after seeing Ollie's downcast expression. "Heh, things are a lot quieter without her around," he finally conceded.

"Mostly because you guys were arguing a lot," Ollie said matter-of-factly.

"Hmph, she was asking for it," Iggy responded. "All that big talk, and she could barely back it up."

Confessional: Iggy

"Celia? Yeah, she was annoying, I kind of respected her though," he admitted. "Even though she wasn't good for all that unity stuff Lio was talking about." He paused for a moment, then glared at the camera. "I don't need him, obviously. But this is a team game, and he agrees with me about one thing: the weakest people need to go."

"Well, for the Deluge Dragons to make a marvelous comeback, there's only one thing left to do," Ollie said.

Iggy nodded in agreement.

"Cheer our friends up again!" Ollie declared.

"Destroy the competition!" Iggy shouted at the same time, as the two boys high fived, then looked at each other in confusion.

The scene then switched to Kit, the only Dragon that was in somewhat high spirits, as they whistled to themself while fiddling with parts of Earl's old anemometer. They twirled the cups of the instrument around and the display lit up again, causing them to silently pump their fist in the air.

In her aimless wandering, Selene walked over to them. She accidentally bumped the table Kit was working at and one of the cups of the anemometer fell off the main axle.

"Oh no, I'm so sorry-" Selene started to say.

But Kit just snapped their fingers, as if Selene had given them an idea. "So that's where I need to fix." They pulled a roll of duct tape out of their pocket. "I just need to wrap some more of the sticky straps around the arms of the spinny thing for, uh… reinforcements!" It took them a moment to find the words, but they clearly knew what they were doing as they worked, their hands moving nearly too fast for Selene to see.

"Kit, are you… scared of me?" Selene asked suddenly.

Kit shrugged. "I'm just kind of scared all the time in general."

"I'm not trying to hurt anyone. Or break anything," Selene continued, but it was unclear how much Kit was actually listening to them, as the engineer ripped off a strip of duct tape with their teeth and was using it to put the arm of the anemometer back in place.

Kit just nodded and fidgeted with their roll of tape.

"I just want to help people. And protect them." Selene was beginning to tear up, and Kit wasn't completely sure what to do with themself.

Kit tapped their chin. "I guess that's why I'm doing this little thingamabob here, actually," they realized.

Selene cocked her head. "To… help?"

"I break whatever I touch. I dunno, it just happens. Like I just have to see what's inside, hehe," Kit explained. "People tell me to stop, or to put it back. But I wanna figure out how to put things back together, and I have to do it in my own way."

"What does that even do?" Selene asked, and pointed at the anemometer.

Kit gave an exaggerated shrug. "I dunno, this was Earl's. That's why I'm fixing it for him."

Long after the rest of the campers had gotten their food, Maggie was standing on her tiptoes, leaning over the countertop, as she interrogated Sophie about the contents of her breakfast.

"Gluten?"

"No."

"Peanuts?"

"No."

"Soy?"

"No."

"Shellfish?"

"Why?"

"Bees?"

"Oh dear, why would I put bees into my food?"

Maggie scowled. "Timmy did that to me once. Everyone thought it was funny how scared I got, as if they didn't understand that I could've died from it! But I showed him! All I had to do was have a small word with his girlfriend…"

"That's… nice, dearie?" Sophie was more than a little bit concerned, but Maggie looked quite proud of herself. The gossip was finally satisfied that her breakfast wasn't going to kill her, and she headed over to her team, carrying her allergen (and bee) -free plate of plain apple slices.

The Gryphons weren't in much of a better mood than the Dragons, but at least they were sitting together. Martin was deep in thought per usual, while Paradise and Tanja were sitting across from each other but avoiding eye contact.

Paradise finally cleared her throat. "Sooo, are we going to pretend we, like, never made up, or what?"

"You guys made up?" Maggie demanded immediately. She sat down next to Martin but ignored the fencer completely, as she glanced from Paradise to Tanja gleefully.

"We, like, worked together in the performance last challenge," Paradise said with a shrug. "You would've noticed, if you were, like, actually trying to do the challenge."

"I was having an allergy attack!" Maggie shot back, appalled.

"Like anyone is buying that," Paradise muttered to herself.

"The reconciliation was quite beneficial to our team's performance," Martin cut in. "I'm just relieved that our team is finally collaborating, so we can perform optimally, instead of getting distracted by irrational grudges," he remarked, whilst giving Tanja a side eye that the activist pretended to ignore.

Confessional: Martin

"I have been contemplating what Maggie and I discussed previously. Perhaps it is true that I cannot rely on Tanja, especially now that there appears to be less ambivalence between her and Paradise. Her emotions prevent her from making the optimal choices."

"I believe that we can remain united as a team," Tanja responded. "We are behind in numbers, and the toughest battles are still ahead of us, but I believe we are making strides in the right direction, and if we work together, we'll be stronger than ever."

"It's the perfect story! The world was out to get us from the very start, but we won against all odds!" Maggie said dramatically, putting a hand to her forehead. "We'll have our revenge!"

At this point, the campers were finishing their breakfast, and some of them were starting to get restless. "Ugh, it's been raining for the past three days," Iggy grumbled. He was doing his usual warm-up stretches, as he put one of his legs up on the table. Lio looked at him disapprovingly, but he ignored the leader.

"Maybe that's the challenge, to keep us inside until we go crazy," Selene remarked. "I get sad when I can't go outside."

"Oh, come on, I'm sure it will stop soon," Lio tried to console her. "And there are plenty of fun things we can do indoors. Like, I don't know…" He seemed out of ideas, and he scanned the room, until he suddenly noticed something that caused his eyes to widen. "Kit, what is that?"

"Sophie let me use her blender," the engineer responded, as if this explained everything, as they sifted through a pile of tiny electronic parts, practically a powder, on the table in front of them. It was barely recognizable as belonging to a blender. Ollie was looking over their shoulder, juggling Kit's screwdriver, wrench, and pliers as he watched them work.

"You're… going to put it back together after, right?"

"Probably?" They shrugged at Lio. "Or maybe I can make it better."

"Kit's just trying to help!" Selene blurted out, and patted the tinkerer's shoulder, accidentally knocking them over and causing the blender to fall apart again.

Just then, Nimbus strode into the mess hall, with Naila close behind. "Good morning campers!~" he sang out cheerfully.

"I'm predicting that the challenge will be held indoors today?" Martin commented, looking out the window at the torrential rain.

"C'mon, a little rain never hurt anyone!" Nimbus tried to deflect Martin's comment. "Oh, trust me, we'd have to do so much paperwork if it did."

"Ahahaha you're all doomed! We've angered the gods and the rain will wash away us all!" Naila hopped onto the end of the Dragons' table, nearly stomping on Kit's hand, and pointed at the campers dramatically.

"Well, the show must go on, so you're going to have to deal!" Nimbus continued, but just as he spoke, the rain began to die down again, and he frowned. Iggy and Ollie exchanged excited grins, and Paradise narrowed her eyes.

"Even without the rain, much of the camp is still flooded," Martin said skeptically.

"Well, it doesn't matter much, 'cause today's challenge is at the lake. So I'd recommend you all get into your swimsuits, and we'll be regrouping by the campfire in five!"

"We're going to get wet?" Paradise asked.

"Well… only if things don't go well," Nimbus said with a chuckle.

Just then, Javi ran into the mess hall. Surprisingly, he was completely dry, but his clothes had some new stains that looked like oil or engine grease. "Ay, what did I miss?" he grumbled.

"Nothing much, we're on our way to Lake Naila!" Nimbus cheered.

Javi facepalmed. "I forgot we let Gremlin name it that."

Confessional: Paradise

"Was Javi, like, waiting until the rain stopped to walk over here?" she wondered. "Because I would totally have done the same thing… but only if I had, like, known the rain was going to stop soon." She looked a little confused.

After the show's signature lightning bolt transition animation, the scene switched to the campers gathering at the edge of camp, all in their swimsuits, when they heard a revving noise. Javi and Nimbus drove by in a familiar looking ATV.

Confessional: Kit

"That looks a lot like the skiddy-ice-car, uh, snowmobile! Like, the one from the icebreaker challenges! I dunno how Javi put the wheels on. Maybe I could try to take it apart and see…" They tapped their chin with the handle of the screwdriver they were fidgeting with. "No nonono I can't, I have to stay focused now. Maybe I'll deal with that doohickey after the challenge?"

Javi opened up a plastic bin that had been precariously balancing on the back of the ATV and carelessly dumped its contents onto the ground, which turned out to be a pile of orange life vests. "You might wanna wear these for legal reasons or something."

Iggy pushed to the front to grab a life vest first, with the rest of the campers following suit. The track star was wearing black swim trunks decorated with, bizarrely, a flame pattern.

"This color is… ugh," Paradise complained as she put on her life vest. "Orange and pink, who am I, Dora the Explorer?" True to her word, she was wearing a bright pink bikini underneath.

"Bright, unnatural colors make us easier to spot in the event of an emergency," Tanja offered, pointing to the yellow reflective stripes on her own blue swim top, with black board shorts.

"Like, duh, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be happy about it."

"Besides, they can prevent wild animals from mistaking us for prey. Bright colors like that can signify creatures or plants that are poisonous."

"You're calling me toxic?" Paradise teased, but the humor was lost on Tanja.

Confessional: Tanja

She groaned and facepalmed. "Stupid! That was not the thing to say."

"…why do I even care?"

Confessional: Maggie

"I've been watching those two. They just keep ignoring me now! I have to split them apart! And I know exactly how…"

After the campers had gotten their life jackets, Javi and Nimbus got back on the ATV and started to drive off, pitifully, slowly enough for the campers to follow them. Ollie bounded up to Lio and Selene. "Oh, you two are matching!" he pointed out. "You're just like the Wonder Twins, the magicians in my troupe!" While Ollie was wearing white and gold swim trunks, the two looked more like twins than ever in navy blue full-body wetsuits.

Kit slipped past Selene and tapped Lio's arm. The tinkerer was wearing a bright green swim shirt with blue and white board shorts, and a black tankini top was barely visible under their shirt. "Can I talk to you?" they asked, as they twirled around a screwdriver in their hands.

Confessional: Kit

"Last time, I almost got voted out. I want to stay… there's still so much I need to figure out!" They were fiddling with their page of Earl's notes as they spoke. "And that means helping out, like I told Selene."

"I'm nervous about the challenge," Kit confided. "I mean, uh, more nervous than usual," they quickly amended. "Because if it's something athletic, I… well…" They looked down at their skinny arms and trailed off.

"Well, the thing about being on a team is that everybody has different skills. We don't all have to be strong or fast." Lio frowned at that, likely thinking of one person in particular. "In fact, that would be a recipe for disaster if it was the only thing we could do."

"Yeah, but-"

"I have great faith that our team will succeed, and you can trust me when I say that your role on this team is invaluable," Lio continued. "I'll be sure to find a place for you. Besides, we don't even know what Nimbus and Javi might have planned. I believe you can still play to your strengths."

Kit looked slightly impatient at Lio's speech. "I don't think I don't have a role. I just think not everyone can see it."

While Kit was talking to Lio, Ollie had gotten distracted by watching a bird and was starting to trail behind the group, until he found himself next to Martin.

"Oliver?" Martin greeted, with slightly more enthusiasm than he had during their previous interactions.

Ollie beamed when he saw Martin. "Hey Marty? Whatcha think we're doing today?"

"If I had any theories, then why would I share and thus forfeit an advantage our team may have?"

"You know, Iggy was saying something like that," Ollie commented thoughtfully. "Something about taking every advantage and not getting distracted. He doesn't even want me talking with people on the other team, and that's just silly, right? Right, because you're still talking to me."

"I, uh, well-" Martin adjusted his glasses and tried to protest, but he couldn't come up with anything. "I suppose that I am." He cleared his throat.

"I like talking to you." Ollie gave a simple shrug.

Martin was confused by his silence for a moment, before he realized that Ollie was not-too-subtly checking him out. The fencer was wearing only light blue swim trunks and he was a lot more toned than his slender build would suggest.

Confessional: Martin

"Of course I saw. I wouldn't even need my glasses to tell he seemed… interested, at least superficially. How do I even feel about this?" For once, he seemed stumped. "Perhaps I need some more time to evaluate. Or not, a competition is hardly the time. If I begin to make exceptions to my strategy, I might as well just forfeit the victory now."

"You don't like your team? You don't seem like the type to dislike, well, anyone," Martin observed.

"My team is really fun, but they've kinda been getting pretty angry at each other lately. Being on the Gryphons seems… peaceful."

"Oh, it's not," Martin said bluntly. "We may not be as objectively loud, but similarly to your team, some of us can be difficult and act quite irrationally. And Naila isn't doing us any favors, of course," he added, causing both of them to laugh. Up ahead, the prankster was telling a scary story to Maggie and Paradise, the latter hiding behind an annoyed Tanja.

"I know Celia didn't like Tanja and Maggie," Ollie recalled. "But, well, she's…"

"Enjoying her time aboard a cruise ship?" Martin finished.

"Oh, that's true." Ollie gave a small smile. "And even if I get eliminated, I'll still get to look forward to exploring the ship and reuniting with my friends!"

"Dude, what are you doing back there?" Iggy called out to Ollie.

"Huh? Oh… hi Iggy."

Confessional: Ollie

He put his hands up to his cheeks, trying to hide his growing blush. "Everyone is hot! What do I do?"

Meanwhile, Tanja noticed Maggie approaching her. The gossip was wearing a white one-piece with pink frills.

"What do you want?" Tanja asked bluntly.

"What makes you think I want something?" Maggie shot back.

"Everybody always wants something. Humans as a people can all be quite self-absorbed," Tanja deadpanned.

"Geez, okay, I didn't need a philosophy lesson, or whatever propaganda that was. I just wanted to talk about the game, unless you're still caring more about your silly feelings than the competition of course."

Tanja glared at her. "You really think saying things like that is going to make me trust you?"

"You don't have to trust me fully, who does that anyways? You just have to trust me more than the others." Maggie jerked a thumb at herself. "And I know you think you're safe with Martin as an ally and … whatever's going on with Paradise, but are you really?"

"You know we're voting you off if we lose," was all Tanja said in response.

"Just you wait, I'll show you! I'll be the reason we win the challenge today!" Maggie declared, but Tanja didn't seem convinced.

After a brief but damp and muddy trek, the campers made it to Lake Naila. There was a river flowing out of the lake that looked like it was headed towards the beach. But most importantly, there were now two longboats, resembling Chinese dragon boats, moored to a shrub near the bank.

"The lake looks, like, bigger than before," Paradise noted.

Martin nodded thoughtfully. "The unexpected rain has increased the water level. Perhaps it will affect the challenge."

Nimbus hopped over a puddle and onto a small boulder. "Alright, campers, are you ready to rock?" he shouted, while Javi started untying the boats. "Your challenge today is a dragon boat race," he explained.

The Gryphons looked a little confused at this. "That's not fair, what about us?" Tanja demanded.

"Well, dragon and gryphon boat race," Nimbus added sheepishly, and as he shrugged, the camera zoomed in on the boats.

The two boats were painted blue and yellow respectively. They were long and narrow, with spots for four campers to row, as well as one backwards-facing seat. The blue one had an intricate figurehead of a dragon, while the yellow one looked like it once had a dragon head as well, but it had been broken off, possibly by Naila and her sledgehammer. In its place was a makeshift figurehead that looked much more crude, resembling an eagle with a lion's mane that looked suspiciously like an old mop, and it had been entirely covered in glitter glue.

Confessional: Naila

She was cackling to herself as she brandished a tube of gold glitter glue, until she squirted some at the camera lens, causing the feed to cut off in static.

"Alright, gather 'round, campers, it's story time!" Nimbus declared.

Ollie excitedly bounced up and down, while Martin adjusted his glasses and prepared to listen attentively.

"I like story time!" Selene shouted, and promptly sat down cross-legged in front of Nimbus.

"Today, your teams are going on a grand journey of mythical proportions!" Nimbus shouted.

"Ooh, like the voyage of Odysseus to Ithaca?" Lio guessed.

Nimbus shook his head. "Wrong pantheon. Besides, those more nautical tales are Ada's specialty. No, today you will be playing the roles of two of the great Celestial Beasts, representing ancient elements, cardinal directions, and a whole lot of other things I ran out of time to research!" Nimbus strummed an air guitar and a dramatic riff played in the background. The camera briefly panned to Javi holding up a portable speaker, before it focused back on the rock star. "A loooong time ago, the Azure Dragon and the Golden Qilin-"

"How about the gryphon?" Tanja interrupted.

"The Golden Gryphon," Nimbus quickly corrected himself. "So, they were separated from their friends, the other Celestial Beasts, in a massive storm. And they set off on a quest to find them!"

Iggy was stretching instead of paying attention, while Kit was fiddling with the hem of their swim shirt, as if they weren't sure what to do without their pockets full of tools.

"After searching through the highest mountains and braving the fiercest winds," Nimbus continued. "The dragon and the qilin-"

"Gryphon," Tanja cut in again.

"The dragon and the gryphon tracked their companions to the Cloudbreak River, and they knew that if they could follow the trail of celestial dust, the Great Beasts could be reunited once more…" Nimbus snapped his fingers. "Wow, this could be the inspiration for a new song! From the four corners of the world, the Celestial Beasts are getting the band back together, yeah!" the rock star cheered, to the amusement of absolutely no one.

"Ugh, how much flavor text did you prepare?" Paradise groaned.

Martin put up a hand to stop her. "This narrative could contain clues that can aid us in the challenge to come." Paradise just rolled her eyes in response. "…though it does seem unlikely that Javier and Nimbus would be capable of organizing such an elaborate challenge," the fencer admitted. "Especially since gryphons don't even exist in Eastern mythology."

Confessional: Nimbus

He was shuffling through some cue cards that had the challenge's "story" scrawled on them. "I still don't know what a qilin is, and at this point I'm afraid to ask," he admitted. "Wait, hey, what's this?" While looking at his notes, he found a charcoal sketch of a scaly horse-like creature with a long flowing mane and a single antler on its forehead: a qilin, but this one had a certain familiar nightmarish flair in its design. He shuddered.

The camera panned across the riverbank where the contestants were standing, and Nimbus finally gave up on sticking to the challenge's story. "In today's challenge, you're going to be rowing down the Cloudbreak River, which leads aaaall the way down to the beach!"

"This shouldn't be a problem," Iggy said confidently, before Nimbus could continue. He looked from Selene to Ollie and smirked.

Confessional: Paradise

"Iggy's an athlete, Ollie's an acrobat, and Selene could probably crush my skull. And we have… Martin? Like, I guess?"

Confessional: Iggy

"Hah, there's no way we're losing this one! The only real threat on the Gryphons is Martin, and c'mon, fencing is, like, the nerdiest sport there is!"

"It would be unwise to count us out just yet," Martin responded to Iggy as he adjusted his glasses. However, the rest of his team looked a lot less confident, as they knew they were facing off against the much more athletic Dragons.

"I wasn't done yet!" Nimbus protested indignantly. "But things aren't gonna all be gentle-like down this stream!"

"We need to, like, find the other Celestial Beasts?" Paradise guessed.

"You got it!" Nimbus cheered. Next to him, Javi held out two carved wooden statues, each small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. One was a blue dragon with a long coiled body and its maw open in a fearsome roar, and the other was an equally ornate galloping yellow qilin that had a construction paper beak and eagle wings shoddily taped to it. Tanja looked unamused and muttered something about 'gryphonbaiting.'

All of a sudden, Naila popped out of the bushes. Her pupils dilated and she made grabby hands for the "gryphon" statue.

Javi quickly snatched it away from her. "Gremlin! I told you to stay back at camp and help Sophie wash the dishes!"

"But I don't wanna!" Naila pouted and stuck out her tongue at him in response. Javi gave a weary shake of his head.

Selene raised her hand, but interrupted without waiting for someone to call on her. "What happens next in the story?" she blurted out. She was still sitting in front of the group of campers, seemingly completely enraptured in Nimbus' story.

Nimbus turned his attention back to the contestants while Naila was annoying Javi. "On your way to the beach, your mission is to collect three statues from different stations along the way: the Black Tortoise, the Vermillion Bird, and the White Tiger," he explained. "And boy, am I pumped to show you what rockin' challenges we have in store for you!"

As he narrated, an animated map of the route appeared onscreen, with the three mentioned animals marked at different points along the river. The tortoise was on a rocky shore, the bird was in a grove of tall trees, and the tiger was near a wooden pier. The finish line was also marked on the map, on the beach where the river fed into the ocean.

"The first team to unite the Celestial Beasts and row all the way down the Cloudbreak River to the beach will win the challenge!" Nimbus concluded.

"And the losing team will, of course, be sending someone home tonight," Javi added. He was holding the dragon and "gryphon" statues high out of Naila's reach while she struggled to grab them. "Any questions?" Tanja immediately raised her hand, but Javi ignored her. "No? Good."

"The other team has one more rower," Tanja interrupted.

"And so?" Javi asked boredly.

"How is that fair?" Tanja sputtered.

Before Javi could respond, Paradise lazily put up a hand. "If the outcome of the challenge is obvious, isn't that, like, not good entertainment?" the heiress commented, giving an aloof shrug before she returned to filing her nails.

Nimbus thought about this for a moment and exchanged glances with Javi.

"This is quite a well thought-out challenge, I see," Martin remarked sarcastically as he watched the two hosts frantically whispering to each other.

"Alright!" Nimbus finally made a decision. "I guess… maybe you Gryphons can borrow Naila for the challenge."

Javi threw the dragon statue to Lio and reluctantly handed the gryphon over to Naila.

"Ahahaha, prepare to meet your doom!" The prankster bounded over to the Gryphons. She took off her signature purple jacket and threw it behind her, where it hit Javi in the face. Underneath, she was wearing a dark blue one-piece swimsuit with purple stripes.

"Gremlin, was this your plan all along?" Javi asked, bewildered.

Paradise recoiled in disgust. "I don't even know if she's, like, an advantage or a handicap."

"I'm allergic to doom!" Maggie shrieked, but this only caused Naila to give her a menacing grin and rub her hands together.

Confessional: Nimbus

"Aaaand… boom, entertainment value!" He strummed air guitar. "Nailed it."

Nimbus then pointed to a nearby rack that was holding sets of oars. "And of course, you guys are going to need something to row with."

"Why are there only four sets for each team?" Lio asked.

"And what's this thingamajig for?" Kit added. While Nimbus and Javi had been explaining the challenge, they had snuck over to the Dragons' boat. They were sitting in the backwards facing seat, pointing at what looked like a drum installed in front of it.

"I knew I was forgetting something." Nimbus snapped his fingers and Javi facepalmed. "In a dragon boat race, it's important to coordinate and maintain a steady pace, so you will be designating one person to be the drummer," the rock star explained. "The drummer will sit in the front and keep the beat so everyone rows together. Simple enough, right?"

Selene clapped her hands together gleefully, and Iggy cracked his knuckles. "Yeah, this should be easy," the track star declared confidently.

"Y'know, this drum thing is kind of boring," Nimbus said to Javi. "I thought we could've added a high hat, maybe a kick drum."

Javi rolled his eyes. "Were you planning on installing all that yourself? You would've had time if you hadn't been writing that silly fairy tale."

Nimbus chuckled sheepishly and shook his head.

"Alright Dragons, so we have to all row at the same time if we want to succeed. I'll be the drummer," Lio concluded. "This looks like it's not so much about speed and strength, as it is about coordination," he explained.

"That's ridiculous." Iggy flipped his ponytail. "Everything's about speed and strength. Besides, this is going to be an easy win, have you even seen the Gryphons? And we have Selene."

Selene beamed and tried to high five Iggy, but he darted to the side before the follower could inevitably knock him over.

Lio narrowed his eyes. "There's no reason for us not to be prepared, even if victory is certain."

"And there's no reason for you to keep bossing us around and acting like you're better than us."

"Lio's doing his best!" Selene yelled at Iggy, and the track star quickly darted to hide behind Ollie when he saw the follower's suddenly angry expression. "I've seen him and he, uh, he knows what he's doing!"

However, Ollie's thoughts seemed to be elsewhere, as he had been uncharacteristically quiet for most of this exchange.

Confessional: Ollie

"This doesn't really seem like a good way for everyone to have fun."

Confessional: Lio

"As long as everyone has faith in me, I will lead them to victory! I'll have to get them to listen to me. I always do."

"What are you thinking, Kit?" Lio asked, noticing that the engineer was hanging off to the side while the others were getting pumped for the challenge.

"Oars…" Kit tapped their chin. "We need to put the long bit at the right angle so paddling is easier. We don't wanna splash or go too deep."

Lio nodded in approval. "I'll put you in the back, and you can steer. How does that sound?"

"I can do that." Kit still looked a little nervous, but they appeared to be thinking. They tried to shove their screwdriver into their pocket, before realizing they didn't have pockets. "…where do I even put this?"

Confessional: Kit

"Being without all my tools and gizmos makes me feel… naked. I even sleep with them hehe."

Confessional: Lio

"Kit is a good person and a valuable member of my team. I just have to let them know that, and following me is a no-brainer," he said confidently.

The scene then cut to the Gryphons. "I believe I could keep the optimal rhythm as a drummer," Martin declared.

Tanja shook her head. "Martin, we need you rowing. I hate to say it, but you at least have testosterone on your side."

Martin looked a little miffed at this. "I may not quite have the physique that shows it, but I am an athlete."

"You're like, pretty strong too," Paradise said to Tanja. "You carried me during the last challenge."

Tanja gave a humble shrug. "When people are in danger, I will do all I can to stand up for them." She gave Paradise a small smile, then quickly glanced away, causing the heiress to quirk an eyebrow at her.

"I wanna try the drum!" Naila stomped her foot, reminding all the Gryphons that they were stuck with her for the challenge.

"No," all the Gryphons said immediately.

"There's no way I'm sitting in the front of the boat," Maggie chimed in. "Who knows what kinds of plants and creepy crawlies are out there, not to mention how sensitive I would be to the noise, and I think the drumming would cause my palms to bruise and cut off circulation to my fingers and they might fall off and-"

"I'll do it if it makes her shut up," Paradise blurted out.

Maggie was completely appalled, while Tanja looked surprised for a moment. "You're just trying to get out of rowing," she accused.

"Yeah, why would you ever do something horrific like that," Maggie chimed in, but they both ignored her.

"So what if I am! I know you and Martin are stronger than me, it's, like, so obvious that I should drum instead of row." Paradise examined her nails. "But also I don't trust any of you guys, you'd probably mess it all up." She turned up her nose.

Confessional: Paradise

"Ugh, of course I would've preferred not doing anything at all. Things on this stupid island keep getting worse and worse, and our team sucks. But whatever. Being here is… better than the alternative."

After both teams had decided on their lineup, they pushed their boats into shallow water and got ready to row. The Dragons had Lio holding his drum and sitting in the front of the boat, while facing backwards towards the rest of the rowers. Then they had Iggy, Selene, and Ollie, and Kit was the furthest in the back, ready to steer. On the Gryphon boat, Paradise was in the same position as Lio, with Tanja, then Maggie, then Naila, and Martin steering. Save for the drummers, all the contestants (plus Naila) were ready with their paddles.

Javi sounded his airhorn. "Go!"

Something snapped in Iggy once he heard the starting signal, and he immediately started rowing as fast as he could, splashing everyone else in the boat in the process, while Selene was the only one actually following Lio's drumming.

Paradise looked a little less confident on the Gryphons, but they were trying their best. "Stroke! Stroke! Stroke!" she called out as she beat the drum and the rest of her team rowed, though Martin and Tanja were the only ones whose rowing seemed to have an actual effect, as Maggie was busy trying to lean as far back away from the water as possible and Naila was somehow using her sledgehammer to row.

"Ooh, I think I'm getting seasick," Maggie groaned.

"We've hardly left the bank," Martin snapped.

"Hey! I think I might be getting the hang of this!" Paradise said, seeming pleasantly surprised.

"Well, we would appreciate it if you could get the hang of this a little faster…" Tanja retorted, but when Paradise met her eyes, the activist was smiling.

Confessional: Paradise

"My hands are, like, kind of sore now." She rubbed her palms. "This better not leave a bruise."

"But it was worth it," she admitted. "It felt, like, pretty cool to be working with everybody." She glared at the camera. "But don't tell anyone that."

The scene cut to the Dragons, who were mostly haphazardly splashing and flailing about, but they were somehow still ahead of the Gryphons, mostly because of Selene.

"C'mon, they're catching up!" Iggy yelled as he continued to row in his own frenetic rhythm.

"That's because you're not rowing with us!" Lio shot back. Kit wiped the water out of their eyes, only to immediately get splashed again by Ollie, who was fiddling around with his oars and trying to twirl one of them like a baton.

"STOP FIGHTING!" Selene yelled suddenly. The boat rocked violently, and Kit jolted with surprise and fumbled with their oar, until it slipped out of their fingers and they dropped it into the water.

For a moment, the Dragons just watched helplessly as Kit's oar floated away.

"Come on!" Iggy yelled at Kit.

"Stop rocking the boat!" Lio scolded Selene at the same time, and Lio, Selene, and Iggy all began to yell over each other, while Kit tried to curl up into a ball and hide their face in their hands.

"Hey guys, it's not the time! We're the Azure Dragon, on our way to… the first act of the Cirque Deluge!" Ollie called out in his best ringmaster impression.

Ollie's team all looked at him, having gone silent in sheer confusion. "Uhhhh… haha, I was just asking if anybody wanted to see a cool trick?" The acrobat gave a nervous laugh and started to balance one of his oars on his nose. Selene clapped gleefully, but the others seemed not as amused by the interruption.

Then, Ollie nearly lost his balance when the boat ran aground on the bank without anyone to steer it. His oar fell and hit Iggy in the head.

And amidst the chaos, a yellow boat came around the bend. As if to add insult to injury, the crash was the exact moment that the Gryphons had caught up to them. "Ahahaha what a tragedy!" Naila stood up to point and laugh at the Dragons, rocking the boat, to the dismay of her teammates.

Tanja saw the Dragons' boat crash and gasped. "Is everyone okay?"

"They're, like, the other team, it doesn't matter," Paradise snapped at her, continuing to beat her drum as they rowed by.

Confessional: Ollie

He was juggling his balls inside the confessional. "That was just one of the many tricks I've got!" he announced cheerfully, but then his expression turned a little more fretful. "I just don't know what else to do when everyone is getting mad at each other. I wanna make them all feel better!"

Confessional: Iggy

He winced as he held an ice pack up to his forehead, and then glared at the camera.

"This is actually kind of fun," Paradise remarked as she started to beat a faster rhythm on her drum, trying to increase her team's lead while the Dragons were getting back on course.

"Speak for yourself," Tanja panted as she rowed. Martin was in the back, completely concentrated as he was both rowing and making minute adjustments to steer the boat, but in the middle was where things got a little weird. Naila was swinging her sledgehammer around and laughing maniacally, and Maggie was in the fetal position with her oars forgotten, rocking back and forth and looking a little bit green.

"Could you be a little more gentle?" Maggie whined. "This ride is just dreadful!"

"You're the one who's choosing to keep turning around, that cannot be helpful for nausea," Martin pointed out.

"If you would help us, that might make the ride a little more smooth," Tanja grumbled.

"I'm helping!" Maggie protested. "I've got my own ideas." She leaned over the side of the boat again and squinted. Naila looked very tempted to push her into the water, until Tanja glared at the prankster and made an "I'm watching you" gesture..

"This is the first we are hearing of this." Martin narrowed his eyes.

"Hmph, you guys wouldn't even listen to me if I had told you."

"I wonder why," Paradise grumbled.

"So, anyways," Maggie explained. "I want to see what the Dragons are doing. Maybe we can throw them off their game." She giggled.

The scene cut to the other team a little ways back, where Lio and Selene were working together to push their boat back into deeper water. "Dragons, we can't be giving up just yet!" Lio announced, and his team stopped to listen to him, Ollie especially looking grateful.

"I'll go back and find Kit's oar," Iggy said, and he was about to jump off the boat and try to run back along the bank, but Lio stopped him. "Do you think I'm not strong enough?" He glared at the diplomat.

"No, I only think you'll be wasting your energy," Lio countered. "And we need to stay together as a team."

"I guess Kit's super weak anyways, their rowing won't make much of a difference." Iggy gave a shrug, and the tinkerer didn't seem too affected by this insult, but Lio frowned.

"I think you can be strong," Selene added, and patted Kit's arm, causing them to yelp in pain.

Confessional: Lio

"This entire team is a hindrance to my focus and a threat to Selene, and I'm used to having people depend on me, but never in a situation like this, especially with my sister coming along too. I am not doubtful of my abilities, but how can my leadership succeed if they won't even listen to me. But I can't get rid of them all," he lamented, rubbing his temples.

He tapped his chin. "...can I?"

"Kit?" Lio asked, as he finally remembered he had forgotten something important in the heat of the argument. After all, him losing his cool was something that rarely happened.

"Huh?"

"Has anyone asked you what you need?"

The tinkerer thought for a moment. They made a couple of sharp but nonsensical hand gestures as they sized up the boat and their oar, and made a few quick mental notes. "Maybe…" Kit held their single remaining paddle out behind the boat like a rudder and lowered it into the water. The boat began to turn in its slow downstream drift. They seemed to still be able to steer fine with one oar.

"Yay Kit! …sorry." Selene whooped excitedly but stopped when she realized she had startled Kit again.

The scene switched to the Gryphons, who were rowing down the river at a steady pace. Tanja and Martin looked tired, as much like the prop collecting in the previous challenge, they were the only ones that seemed to be putting in actual work.

"Hi Javi!" Naila suddenly shouted. She leapt to her feet in the boat, causing it to lurch and Maggie to shriek.

The camera panned down the river to show Nimbus and Javi standing on the bank just ahead. "Ay, mija." Javi muttered and rubbed his temples.

Martin steered their boat to the riverbank and hopped off to tie it to a nearby shrub.

"Welcome, Golden Qilins," Javi began to address the campers on the yellow boat.

"Gryphons," Tanja grumbled.

"Are you explaining this challenge or am I?" Javi snapped at her.

"Hey, who's the one with the script here?" Nimbus interrupted, pushing in front of Javi and shuffling through his cue cards. "In your journey, you Celestial Beasts have finally made it to the next step of your journey, the Onyx Trial! You have a lead on one of your friends: the Black Tortoise is hidden deep in the Garden of a Thousand Stones," he narrated.

"Ugh, just tell us the challenge, don't let us lose our lead!" Paradise snapped.

As if on cue, the sound of oars splashing in the water grew louder and louder. "Wait for us!" Selene bellowed, as the Dragons' boat was rapidly approaching. With Selene and Iggy's frantic rowing, the Dragon boat careened down the river and ran aground right next to the Gryphons. Kit looked a little woozy, and Ollie was whooping before a glare from Javi told him to quiet down and listen to Nimbus.

"Before you can continue on your quest, you each must choose two players from your team to search for a tortoise statue hidden amongst these rocks on the riverbank," Nimbus continued, and made a dramatic gesture to a pile of black rocks in the shallow water. For a moment, Paradise thought she saw something moving in the water, and took a step back from the bank, but she didn't say anything. It wasn't her problem.

Iggy immediately pointed at Lio. "Alright, you and I are the strongest players, so let's do this."

"It's important to lead by example." He gave a determined nod, and the two of them stepped out onto the beach.

"I believe my skill of perception can be of use here." Martin stepped forwards. But before any of his teammates could volunteer, Naila jumped out of the boat.

"That's, like, not going to go well," Paradise groaned.

"Are you volunteering?" Maggie asked her.

"Of course not!" Paradise exclaimed. "Do you know how many fish have probably pooped in that river?"

But before the Gryphons could argue, Javi waggled his finger at them. "Espera (wait), Gremlin got there first."

"Martin can look after himself," Tanja assured her team, but she didn't seem too confident. "I just hope they don't get injured or damage anything…"

As Martin and Naila began their search, the Dragons were already surveying the area. Iggy grabbed the first rock he could see and inspected it. "Hey, maybe it's this one, it looks kind of like a turtle- augh!" A freakishly long neck suddenly shot out of the "rock," revealing it to be a live turtle that menacingly snapped at him. He screamed and punted the turtle away… right at Martin, but the fencer casually raised his own turtle to deflect it, without even looking up from his own search.

"Snapping turtles are in no way native to this region, and their presence here could ruin the entire ecosystem, displacing indigenous, even endemic species!" Tanja ranted. "Don't tell me you brought them here just for the challenge."

"Alright, we won't tell you." Javi made a gesture of zipping his lips.

As if on cue, Nimbus strode up to Javi. "Geez, what's with those necks? You didn't tell me we imported the Alolan variety of turtles!" Tanja just glared at the two hosts in disapproval.

The scene switched back to the bank, where the Dragon and Gryphon boats were docked next to each other, so both teams could watch their teammates struggle. Kit was leaning over the side of the boat for a better view, trying to spot the turtle statue or anything else that would help Iggy and Lio.

"Chique! No helping them!" Javi hollered at the engineer. However, this just startled them, and they toppled forward and fell facefirst into the water. Ollie quickly pulled them back into the boat.

Meanwhile, Maggie saw Selene just staring off into space, and a look of interest appeared on her face. "What's wrong with you?"

"I miss Celia," the follower stated.

"Celia? Why would you miss her, she was so dreadfully loud and rude and-"

Selene gave Maggie such a fierce glare that the gossip trailed off and scooted backwards.

"I mean, sorry that she's gone and all," Maggie added quickly. "You know, I wasn't sure she was going to be the one to go."

"You know, do you think your brother voted for her?"

"Well… I didn't vote for Celia. And Celia didn't vote for Celia." She counted on her fingers, and then suddenly gasped. "You're right!"

"Geez, no need to burst an eardrum. Mine are very sensitive, you know."

Confessional: Maggie

"Since my team won't cooperate, I need to know more about the things I can stir up on the Dragons. Lio seems like the only one who knows what he's doing," she concluded. "So everyone else is fair game~"

As Maggie headed back to her boat, looking rather smug, Paradise suddenly looked up from examining her nails boredly. "I know what you're trying to do," she said to Maggie.

"I'm trying to help us win!" Maggie said indignantly. "Or rather, I'm trying to make them lose." She giggled.

"Like, duh, because you know that we're voting you out if you lose."

"Then we're not going to lose." Maggie looked around for something to change the subject. "Hey Tanja, stop playing in the mud! If you come back with any leaves on you, you might trigger my allergies!"

Tanja was sitting on the bank a little ways from the Gryphons' boat, digging an old plastic bottle out of the dirt.

"Eww, why would you touch that?" Paradise gaped at her.

"If I don't clean up after our mess, then nobody will." Tanja shrugged. "Besides, it's just mud. It's far cleaner than the toxins emitted by the factories where plastic is made."

"And don't get me started on the crayfish!" Maggie yelled at Tanja, even though she and Paradise both seemed to be ignoring her. "They give me hives!"

"I guess, mud is used for, like, face masks at the spa and stuff," Paradise pondered. "Though obviously you don't know anything about a skin care routine." Tanja didn't respond to the offhanded insult, until Paradise suddenly grabbed the activist's hand to inspect it. "Like, what's gotten you so dry and cracked?"

"Gardening. Carpentry. Lots of things," Tanja muttered.

Maggie cleared her throat dramatically. "I have something important that you should know," she blurted out.

"What, you're allergic to this whole entire island?" Paradise scoffed, and let go of Tanja's hand. The activist also looked irritated at Maggie, but was at least willing to hear the gossip out, and gestured for her to go on.

"You girls won't believe this. Martin has a fling with someone on the other team!" Maggie announced.

"Please don't tell me it's Iggy," Tanja muttered.

Confessional: Earl

Off the coast of Ventallan, the scientist was sitting in the confessional booth aboard the Loser Cruiser. He took a sip of tea from his beaker, before smiling knowingly at the camera.

Maggie shook her head. "Of course it's not Iggy! All they've ever done is fight."

Tanja and Paradise briefly made eye contact at that, and Maggie pretended not to notice.

"The night after the last elimination ceremony," the gossip continued, and made a point of dramatically pausing until she was sure the other girls were listening to her again. "I saw Martin by the docks with Ollie!"

"The clown?" Paradise raised an eyebrow.

"I'm pretty sure that referring to everyone involved with the circus as a clown is some form of cultural appropriation," Tanja mused.

Paradise rolled her eyes. "That's, like, completely irrelevant."

"Don't you guys feel betrayed that Martin is spending time with the enemy?" Maggie cut in. "He deserves to be punished!"

"It hasn't seemed to, like, affect him in challenges at all," Paradise countered.

"Didn't Ollie even help him in the last challenge?" Tanja recalled.

"Well, uh, you guys are going to regret overlooking this, just you wait!" Maggie declared.

Back in Nimbus' Garden of a Thousand Stones, Lio, Iggy, Martin, and Naila were still searching for a statue, to no avail.

"You're disturbing the waters," Martin snapped at Naila, as the prankster was running around the area that the fencer was trying to search in.

"So are the snapping turtles!" Naila shot back. "To find one, I have to think like them ahahaha!"

They were interrupted by Lio's voice. "Found it!" the diplomat shouted as he seized a small black turtle statue that blended in with the rocks.

"Yes!" Iggy cheered. He started to run back towards the Dragons' boat, but tripped over a snapping turtle, which promptly pounced on him and bit him in the butt.

As Iggy was running around screaming in the background, Martin glanced at the carved turtle in Lio's hand and narrowed his eyes. "The statue clearly resembles a sea turtle, despite the fact that the turtles in the challenge dwell in freshwater," the fencer called out to Nimbus and Javi. "Not to mention that in mythology, it's not a turtle but a tortoise, which is in a different clade altogether."

Javi just looked at the camera in exasperation, while behind him, Naila was having the time of her life trying to fend off the snapping turtles with her sledgehammer.

"But more importantly than adherence to the lore, or lack thereof…" Martin realized something. "The black tortoise is wooden. And wood floats." He stopped his meticulous searching and instead grabbed a fallen tree branch. He expertly twirled it around like it was a rapier, then reached out towards the stream and used the branch to sweep the rocks into deeper water.

When Naila saw Martin with the stick, she bounded over to him. She held out her sledgehammer and began to copy the fencer's methods, even though she had no idea what he was doing.

After finishing the first challenge, the Dragons set off again, and as they proceeded down the river, the current began to flow more swiftly. While Selene was placidly rowing along to the rhythm, seemingly enjoying herself, and Kit and Ollie were goofing off in the back, Iggy went back to ignoring the drum and rowing as fast as he could,

"I don't understand why you're refusing to actually work with the team," Lio remarked.

"I don't understand why you're doing all this stupid stuff that's just going to slow us down!"

Lio raised an eyebrow. "Are you recalling who actually found the statue in that last part of the challenge?"

"Pfft, that was all luck. I still covered more ground than you."

With Iggy and Lio glaring at each other, and Selene in the zone placidly rowing, Ollie seemed a little bit lost.

"HEY, THAT'S RUDE!" All of a sudden, Selene grabbed one of Iggy's oars. "You need to listen to Lio, or we're going to lose!"

Iggy glared and tried to pull his oar back, intimidated but not backing down.

Confessional: Iggy

He shuddered. "Geez, what's her deal? I can't help it if her brother keeps insisting on doing things his way." All of a sudden, there was a loud banging outside the confessional and the ground began to shake, and he screamed and curled up into a ball.

"Hey Kit?" Ollie asked, trying to ignore the others arguing. "What do you think they're going to do with the snapping turtles after the challenge?"

"Huh, I dunno." Kit cocked their head. The tinkerer was still using their remaining oar like a rudder to steer the boat. "I know Javi said they put them there. But it seems harder to put them back afterwards. Animals don't work like machines do."

"What if they got loose on the island, and kept growing, and all of a sudden we had all these huge turtles! Like that one story about how the entire world is on the back of a turtle!" Ollie spread his arms wide. "What do you think?"

Kit was about to respond, but Ollie had been distracting them from steering, and when they finally looked up, they saw that they were about to go around a bend in the river. "Um, I think things are about to get very very verybad."

Back in the front of the boat, Selene was still trying to take Iggy's oar. The track star held on to it stubbornly and tried to pull it back, but the follower wasn't letting go. All of a sudden, Selene shoved the oar back at Iggy, sending him toppling over him into Lio.

"Selene don't-" Lio shouted, but it was too late. The boat rocked and bounced, just as they were turning, despite Kit's best efforts to maintain a steady course. After a moment of tense teetering, the boat flipped over and dumped all the Dragons into the river. Water splashed on the camera before the video cut off.

Back at the riverbank, Martin and Naila were still completing the first trial. Martin continued to poke at the rocks with his stick, and most of them sank in the water, but after a moment, the wood tortoise figurine came floating to the top.

The fencer started to reach for the statue, but a snapping turtle clamped its jaw onto the end of his stick and yanked it away from him, and he was forced to let go so he wouldn't fall in the water. "Now, I just need to reach it." He thought for a moment, calculating a path to retrieve the statue without being attacked by the snapping turtles.

"Chaaaarge!" Naila shouted, interrupting Martin's thoughts. She was using the turtles as stepping stones as she ran out into the river, jumping from shell to shell, and hit the statue with her sledgehammer, sending it flying onto the bank, where she retrieved it. "Ahahaha it's all mine!"

Confessional: Martin

"Obviously she lacks any semblance of technique." He cleaned his glasses as he shook his head in bewilderment. "But there are some people that simply cannot be anticipated, which… can be a strength in its own way."

Naila ran around the bank with the tortoise statue, and before Martin could intercept her, she dashed off, splashing through the shallow water. Tanja managed to grab her as she ran by, and hoisted the prankster back into the Gryphons' boat.

"You're no fun," Naila grumbled.

"You're not being safe," Tanja shot back, before turning to Martin. "Good work, let's keep moving." She beckoned the team back to the boat. Paradise looked annoyed to have to be drumming again, but she didn't complain, and the Gryphons finally set off down the river.

Further downstream, all the Dragons were crawling onto the riverbank, wet and muddy.

"I'll go find the other oars before they float away!" Ollie said quickly, and ran off before anyone could protest.

Selene hung her head and seemed like she was about to say something, but she was silenced by Lio's glare.

Confessional: Selene

"I was only trying to help…"

Selene waded towards the boat and started to try to flip it over, but Lio shook his head. "Stay back, you need to be more careful. Iggy, come help me!"

"Whoa, look at me, I'm Plotentia, the living mermaid!" Ollie was splashing around in the water. Kit giggled but the rest of Ollie's team seemed less amused.

Lio and Iggy flipped the boat back over, and once the now wet Dragons had retrieved all their oars, they got back into the boat. Ollie was the one to finally break the tense silence that had formed. "Whoa, look at that!" The acrobat pointed up ahead, where there were two trees on either side of the riverbank. Hanging on the highest branches were two small wooden bird statues painted red. "The statues are like that one fire-bird!"

"So there's a tortoise, and now a phoenix," Lio mused.

"I like birdies," Selene chimed in.

"They're faster than turtles, that's for sure," Iggy said.

"Do you know the legend of the firebird?" Lio asked him. "In ancient Greek mythology, the phoenix was a bird that, at the end of its life, would go up in flames…"

"And then he would be reborn from the ashes!" Iggy finished with a grin.

"How do you know about that?" Lio looked at him in surprise.

"It's the ultimate comeback story, after all," Iggy said with a shrug. "Who doesn't want a second chance? Also it's a flaming bird, what's not to like?"

"It's amazing how the myth of the phoenix is present in so many different cultures," Lio mused. "Unlike gryphons, which have no place in Chinese mythology."

Confessional: Martin

"I can't have been the only one to notice that inconsistency!"

"You seem to know a lot about stories like that." Iggy commented.

"Well," Lio started. "I don't think I've shared the story of Selene and my namesakes…"

All of a sudden, there was a loud revving of an engine, and Nimbus and Javi came driving out of the trees on their ATV. Nimbus looked like he was having the time of his life as his rat tail braid whipped behind him, while Javi seemed even grumpier than usual, and he had lost his hat and had leaves in his hair.

Confessional: Selene

"Lio wasn't always Lio. He used to be-" She suddenly clasped her hand over her mouth. "I shouldn't say that. He didn't like that name." She hung her head. "Even though our parents liked that name. I really shouldn't have told them his new name."

"But he's Helios now, and when I went with him so he could change his name, I just changed mine too, so we could be matching. We were always the sun and the moon. And I'll keep protecting him! Though, sometimes I worry that he doesn't like it."

"Welcome to the Vermillion Trial!" Nimbus shouted as he hopped off the vehicle and stood in front of the campers on the bank. He pulled out an index card and took a dramatic breath, preparing to read the next part of his story, but he was interrupted by Javi.

"Here's the second part of the challenge. One of you climbs the tree. Someone else holds the rope so the first person doesn't go splat," Javi stated bluntly, ticking off the facts on his fingers. "When you make it to the top, you get the little vermin statue or whatever."

"The Vermillion Bird of the South," Nimbus put in and made jazz hands, but Javi ignored him, and the campers seemed equally unamused.

"Oh, and, one more actually important thing." Javi held up a finger. "Here on Stormbound, we care about equal opportunities and all those things PR told us to say, so those of you that did the last challenge—Iggy, Lio, Martin… and Gremlin I guess—cannot participate in this one."

This twist elicited more of a reaction from the teens. Martin grimaced slightly as he turned to the rest of his team, not seeming too optimistic about his teammates' ability to perform. Meanwhile, Iggy breathed a small sigh of relief.

Confessional: Iggy

"As much as Nimbus is getting… weirdly into this whole fantastical creatures symbolism thing, I'm no phoenix. If I fall, I'm dead, and if I die, I'm not gonna be reborn." He crossed his arms. "Not that I wouldn't have been able to do that challenge, of course!" He gave the camera a determined glare, trying to hide his embarrassment. "But I'm glad I went first. I knew these weaklings would need as much of a lead as I could give them."

"Lio, I wanna climb! Can I? Can I?" Ollie jumped up and down. "It'll be just like swinging from the trapeze!"

Iggy nodded in approval. "The dude basically ran straight up a tree when we were doing the scavenger hunt challenge together. And Kit weighs, like, nothing." He scoffed at the scrawniest member of the team, who giggled sheepishly and twiddled their thumbs. "So, Selene, could you-"

Lio looked annoyed as Iggy was trying to take charge of the team, but as soon as the track star mentioned Selene, he cut in immediately. "No. It's too risky, Selene could hurt him."

Throughout this entire exchange, Selene remained silent, listening attentively as if waiting for someone to tell her what to do.

"It's fine!" Ollie blurted out suddenly. He gave a nervous laugh when his entire team turned their attention on him. "Kit and I can work together! Don't worry about me!"

Kit gulped. "I don't know if I'm strong enough. But…"

"It's okay, I'll take care of it," Ollie assured them. "I'm going to be doing the climbing anyway, and I know I won't fall. I do things like this every day at the circus!"

Ollie didn't notice, but Kit seemed a little miffed when he had interrupted them. "I might have a plan," they finished with a vigorous nod.

Confessional: Ollie

"Okay, I don't think Kit could catch me the way my friend Rufus the strongman can, but if Iggy and Lio weren't able to agree about Selene, I had to do something."

Ollie and Kit were standing at the base of the tree, with Ollie strapping himself into the climbing harness. Even though they were going to be staying on the ground, Kit seemed more intimidated by the height than he did.

"Don't worry," Ollie pleaded. "I'll be really fast and you won't have to do anything." He seemed to be regretting his impulsive decision. "Are you going to be okay?"

But Kit only looked determined. "I got this." They seized the climbing rope and ran off, quickly threading it through a fork in a nearby tree and twisting the end into numerous complex knots, rigging up something that resembled a makeshift pulley system.

Ollie watched in amazement, but Kit looked about as surprised as he did.

Confessional: Kit

"Did I just do that? Yes. Could I do it again? I don't think so. Sometimes it just happens, hehe. But it makes sense. If you do the thingy where you tieloop the rope around…" They thought for a moment, searching for the right words, and then snapped their fingers. "The friction should stop the rope from slipping when he falls, so I don't have to pull it as hard."

Back with the Gryphons, Tanja was tying Paradise into the climbing harness. The heiress looked across the riverbank and saw Ollie nimbly scrambling up the Dragons' tree with ease, to the point where Kit was struggling to gather up the slack on their end of the rope fast enough. The rest of the Dragons were cheering their teammates on.

"You still think we're going to keep our lead?" Paradise snarked.

"Oh, don't be like that." Tanja just rolled her eyes. "Do not worry about the other team. We must stay focused. Besides, you're going up there, regardless of what the Dragons are doing."

"Yeah." Paradise looked up the tree, not saying anything further.

"If you would prefer, I can do the climbing," Tanja offered, suddenly feeling a little bad.

Paradise shook her head. "I can't belay, You're too heavy-" Tanja frowned at that. "I mean-"

"Okay then, have fun climbing." Tanja just responded by shoving Paradise towards the tree.

Paradise nodded back at her and forced a laugh. "It's easy, right?" Tanja checked one last time to make sure the knots were secure, then Paradise made her way up to the tree. She tentatively grabbed the first branch, looking the long distance all the way up the tree trunk, before a wave of nausea overcame her and she gripped the branch more tightly to avoid toppling backwards in shock. "...That's a long way to fall."

"You won't fall," Tanja said firmly. "I'll catch you. Again."

"I swear, if you mess up my hair I will-" Paradise began to threaten, but then the fear hit her again. "You just better catch me," she said in a much weaker tone.

The camera panned to the other campers waiting onshore. Martin was standing a little ways from the others, deep in thought.

"Heeey Martin, what's been going on with Paradise and Tanja?" Maggie sidled right up to him.

Martin looked at Maggie and adjusted his glasses. "You'll need to be far more specific than that."

"I mean, what do you think they're talking about?"

"I would just hope that it is relevant to the challenge at hand," the fencer muttered.

"Of course, it would be just dreadful if they let their whole rivalry get in the way and they made us lose the challenge."

Martin narrowed his eyes. "Improbable. Besides, I believe they have already reconciled."

Maggie giggled. "What if they were lying so we wouldn't vote them out for fighting?"

Martin just chose to ignore Maggie's new theory. "Why do you find so much amusement in such accusations?"

"Oh, it's just that people always did the same to me, and I couldn't let them get away with it!" She shook her fist dramatically with even more spite than she usually had. It seems like the world's always been out to get me, so of course I had to find some way to fight back!

Confessional: Martin

"As blatantly illogical as Maggie's claims may be, perhaps her suspicions about Tanja are not completely unfounded. I do not know what the situation is between Paradise and Tanja, but the last thing I need is for Tanja to become even more distracted from our game and our alliance."

Meanwhile, the twins and Iggy were waiting for Ollie and Kit while sitting in their docked dragon boat.

"Lio?" Selene asked all of a sudden, and before her brother could respond, she grabbed his arm with enough force to make him wince, even if this wasn't something he was unused to.

"Yes, Selene?"

"Why did you vote for Celia?" she blurted out.

"What makes you think I-" Lio started to say, but then he grew defensive. "Yeah, I voted for Celia. She wasn't collaborating with the team, so it was the right decision."

"I could have talked to her. You didn't tell me."

"Because she dragged you off to who knows where before the campfire ceremony!" Lio shot back. "I was worried about you!"

"I know, and I'm sorry, but we were having a lot of fun and nobody was getting hurt. I thought Celia was a good teammate.."

"Sure, besides being a pain in the-" Iggy cut in, but quickly trailed off when Selene glared at him. "I mean, geez, she lost for our team so she deserved to go, it's not like you can argue with that." He scooted away from Selene and turned to Lio. "But weren't you the one who made her go onstage?"

"I wasn't expecting her to literally pass out on us," Lio protested.

Ollie was watching the tense conversation from his vantage on top of the tree, and he suddenly interrupted his teammates with an excited shout. "Haha, look at me!" He had grabbed the bird statue and was balancing it on the tip of his nose as he stood on a high branch.

"No don't-" Kit yelped.

"Stay focused, Ollie!" Lio shouted, but just a moment too late, as the acrobat's foot slipped. As if in slow motion, the statue slipped out of his hands, and he began to tumble down through the branches. His teammates watched in horror as his belay rope was pulled taut, and as he plummeted, Kit was dragged up into the air.

But all of a sudden, Ollie stopped falling as he was caught by the harness. Kit was putting practically their entire body weight on the rope, but they wouldn't budge, and their complex pulley system was making up for their lack of upper body strength. Their knot shenanigans had worked. Ollie dangled in the air for a moment, and then he stopped flailing around and started to laugh. "Yeah, I'm flying!"

From the Dragons' boat, Iggy let out a triumphant whoop, before Selene grabbed him and Lio in a hug, nearly crushing them both.

Confessional: Iggy

"Okay, maybe it's possible that I underestimated Kit just a little."

Confessional: Lio

"Even Ollie seems more distracted than usual today. Have I been worrying too much about other things? No, Selene and I are the highest priorities, we always were."

"Um, maybe try and hurry up," Kit called out to Ollie, and even as they spoke they were continuing to tie new knots. "I dunno how long all the twisties will last."

"Haha, right, sorry!" Ollie grabbed the nearest branch to stabilize himself and found a foothold, quickly scrambling into a more secure position so he could begin his descent.

While Ollie was climbing back down, Paradise was still slowly and cautiously making her way up the tree, standing on a branch just above Tanja's head. The activist watched her, gripping her end of the rope tightly. "Careful," she murmured.

"You're not helping!" Paradise yelled down at her as she clung to the trunk. She tentatively reached for the next branch as Tanja watched anxiously.

The scene switched back to the Dragons' tree as Ollie finally stepped back on the ground. He tried to give a theatrical bow, but forgot he was still connected to the rope and almost tripped himself. "Uh, Kit, what did you do?" He tried to untie himself from the belay harness, but he was struggling to make sense of the tinkerer's system of intricate knots.

Confessional: Ollie

"Oh wow, I don't think even the master magician Jerrie would be able to escape from that harness!"

"Well, it's pretty simple, I think, hehe. I just have to loop this guy over and thread this one through…" Kit murmured, and they quickly managed to untie all of their knots, to Ollie's amazement. They then held up the phoenix statue. "And I picked up this little thingamajig too when you dropped it."

"You're the best!" Ollie cheered and hugged Kit, causing them to nearly drop the statue again.

"C'mon, get back in the boat!" Iggy shouted at them.

Just as the Dragons started to row again, a piercing scream sounded as Paradise hugged the tree trunk for dear life. She had finally made it to the top of the tree and the branches were swaying in the wind.

"You're almost there!" Tanja encouraged her. She held her breath as the heiress found a stable footing and reached for the hanging bird statue.

She finally worked up the courage to seize it, and Tanja cheered. "Perfect, now stay calm and-"

"Tanja! Get me down!" Paradise screamed at her.

Tanja looked exasperated, but she remained focused. "Alright, just lean back and put your feet against the trunk, and I'll lower you."

The activist yelled out instructions and lowered Paradise.

"Ooh, I can't watch," Maggie moaned from the bank. "Just looking up that high is making me motion sick."

After a few minutes, the heiress finally made it back on the ground. "I… did it." She sank to her knees and caught her breath. "Yes, I did it!" She held up the red bird statue triumphantly.

While Paradise's team couldn't match the enthusiasm of the Dragons (or the sheer volume of Selene alone), Maggie still cheered. "I'm so glad that wasn't me!"

"Phooey, that was no fun, it went too well." Naila pouted.

Martin gave a small smile and an approving nod. "Well done, Paradise and Tanja."

Tanja was untying the rope. "You're welcome," she grumbled, rubbing her sore arms.

Paradise looked at her for a moment, confused. "T-thank you," she finally said softly, as if the act of expressing gratitude was unfamiliar to her, yet her words seemed genuine.

However, before Tanja could respond, Paradise checked her reflection in the water. "Ugh, I got leaves in my hair," she suddenly shrieked. Tanja rolled her eyes and grabbed her arm, dragging her back towards their boat.

Once Paradise got back in their boat, Tanja was about to say something to her, but Maggie leaned over to get between them and talk to the heiress. "Yeah, your hair totally got messed up." This caused Paradise to get even more hysterical.

"I'll fix it for you," Naila offered, taking her sledgehammer out of the water and pointing it at Paradise.

"No!" Paradise yelled and scooted away from Naila, causing the boat to rock slightly.

"Don't do that!" Maggie shrieked, gripping the edges of the boat to steady herself.

Martin cleared his throat. "Are you all quite done yet?"

"Ahahaha never!" Naila cackled, but the others seemed to get the cue and returned to the challenge at hand. Martin and Tanja rowed while Paradise started to beat the drum again, and the Gryphons fell back into their rhythm rowing down the river, as the just prankster pouted to herself. Along this stretch of the river, the trees were beginning to thin out as the teams made it past the deepest parts of the woods and continued towards the beach.

With the Dragons, Kit noticed that Ollie was unusually silent. "Are you okay, Ollie?" they asked. "Did I hurt you with the rope?"

"Oh? Me, no, nothing's wrong, haha! Hey, what kind of fish do you think are in the river?"

"Hopefully not sharks," Kit murmured. "That would not be good."

"That would be so cool!" Ollie insisted. "My friend Plotentia swims with sharks all the time!"

All of a sudden, as the Dragons continued down the river, a metal cable shot out from somewhere in the bushes, wrapping around the neck of the blue figurehead on their boat and reeling it in.

"Whoa!" Iggy yelled, and Selene's head whipped angrily in the direction of the cable.

"Stay calm!" Lio shouted, as the team's panicking was causing the boat to rock even more. The Dragons all clung to each other as a wave slammed over the side of the boat and drenched them all. The cable dragged the boat through some low-growing foliage, and Iggy was hit in the face with a tree branch.

"Is it over?" Kit asked, peeking out from between their fingers, only to see that their boat had been tied to the side of the bank by Javi, who was standing over them with a smug expression. Next to him was the ATV, which had a winch mounted on the back that he had used to capture the Gryphons.

"Was that really necessary?" Javi asked.

"Of course it was!" Nimbus shouted as he popped out of a bush, and took care to brush all of the leaves from his hair and outfit. "The White Tiger represents the West and the element of metal, and this is the Diamond Trial!" Ahead of them was a makeshift wooden pier, a long, narrow, raised wooden platform over the water, with a few loose boards and bent nails sticking out.

All of a sudden, Nimbus was interrupted by some loud screaming from Paradise and Maggie, accompanied by Naila's cackling, as Javi reeled the Gryphons' boat in, and the prow ran aground, causing Paradise to fall into Tanja.

"Well, whaddaya know, it looks like everyone's here," the mechanic remarked. "So you can cut it out with the lore."

"Yeah, just tell us what we have to do so we can win this!" Iggy shouted, annoyed that Nimbus' stalling had let the Gryphons catch up.

Nimbus thought about it for a moment. "Well, there's just a tiiiiny little problem. We were originally going to have Naila guarding the statue for you guys to fight…"

Nimbus was interrupted when Naila's hand shot up in the air. "I wanna fight myself ahahaha!"

"Thank you for sharing, Gremlin," Javi said sarcastically, and she just stuck her tongue out at him.

"As, erm, entertaining as that could possibly be, that's not quite what we had in mind. Now, I guess you'll just have to fight each other for the statue!" Nimbus announced. "The winner will get to immediately continue on to the final stretch of the race, and the loser… well, let's just say you've got an even harder fight ahead of you."

Javi stepped forwards holding two dueling sticks: metal poles with a large foam cushion on both ends. One was yellow and had a feather pattern, and the other was blue and had a scale pattern. "And I'm sure you guys know what comes next. After all, it wouldn't be fair if not everyone had a chance to pull their weight…"

Javi let that sink in for a moment, and both teams started to turn to their one member that hadn't participated in one of the mini challenges yet. Ollie and Iggy grinned at Selene, and Maggie was hyperventilating.

"To win, all you have to do is make it past your opponent and to the opposite side of the pier. Have at it, kiddos." Javi held out the dueling sticks.

Confessional: Tanja

"Well… it is entirely possible that we could still have a chance?"

Confessional: Paradise

She was filing her nails. "Yeah, we're, like, so dead."

Confessional: Martin

He adjusted his glasses. "Completely and utterly deceased."

Confessional: Maggie

"B-b-but… I'm allergic to dying!"

Maggie felt all the eyes of the Gryphons on her, and for once, she wasn't reveling in the attention. "I can't go out there." She shook her head violently, even forgetting to pretend that the action made her dizzy.

Tanja and Paradise both looked pretty worried, but Martin's expression remained neutral.

"I may have foreseen this outcome." Martin gave a small shrug. "But we have all already done our parts. Even Naila. So it's up to you to find your way out of this."

"So all you care about is preserving yourself?" Maggie challenged, looking at Paradise and Tanja with an expression that said 'can you believe this guy?'

Paradise narrowed her eyes. "You clearly had, like some sort of plan."

Maggie groaned and finally stepped out onto the pier. She was struggling to even hold her dueling stick, staggering under the weight of it. Selene had already positioned herself at the far end of the wooden pier.

Iggy looked smugly at the Gryphons. "You might as well just give up now."

Confessional: Iggy

He was bent over in the confessional booth, laughing hysterically. "I know I said I wouldn't underestimate people, but come on!"

"Oh, this is just tragic, I'm getting a rash from this dueling stick already," Maggie lamented. "Just knock me into the water already, there's a chance it will have one of the only three varieties of algae I'm not allergic to." She dropped her dueling stick and spread her arms wide.

But Selene just shook her head. "I won't do it," she declared simply.

Confessional: Selene

"Maybe she's right." She looked down at the floor, dejected. "I want to help. But all I can do is hurt people. Even Lio. How could I choose what to do?"

However, the one thing that Maggie hadn't considered was how narrow the path was, and even though the follower refused to make a move, she was still blocking Maggie's way.

"Come on, are you just some kind of mindless brute?" Maggie mocked. "You're not going to play this barbaric and cruel game against poor defenseless me, are you?"

Selene sat down on the pier with her dueling stick held vertically in front of her. There was a dejected look on her face as she just stared into space.

Maggie finally managed to lift up her dueling stick, and started to swing wildly at Selene with it, but the follower didn't make any attempt to block or retaliate. The two seemed to be at an impasse: Selene seemed barely affected by Maggie's weak strikes, and though the follower easily blocked Maggie's way, she made no effort to fight back.

Confessional: Paradise

"It was, like, the dumbest thing I've ever seen, and I've seen people so dumb that you would never believe it." She facepalmed. "Like, stoppable force meets movable object."

While Selene and Maggie's completely fruitless fight went on, a lot of the contestants back on the riverbank were growing more and more bored. Kit and Ollie were building a small structure out of twigs, while Tanja was observing a trail of marching ants on the ground.

"It's amazing how they all work together." Tanja pointed at a group of ants that were carrying a leaf that was many times larger than their bodies. "Everyone has a role to play."

"Perhaps even… her." Martin squinted at Maggie, who was trying and failing to get past Selene, who was holding the gossip back with one outstretched arm.

"Come on, Selene!" Lio yelled.

"Don't worry, it's just part of the challenge!" Ollie added.

Selene finally stood back up and raised her dueling stick. She gave a half-hearted and very slow swing towards the gossip, but before she even made contact, the gossip fell over on the ground and began to violently writhe around at Selene's feet like a severed lizard tail. Her dueling stick rolled to the side.

"Oh, how could you do this to me?" Maggie lamented, coughing a few times. Her expression then turned more malicious. "Can you not even control yourself, hurting someone so innocent and weak like me?"

Selene's eyes widened and she took a step back, but she seemed more confused than anything . "Wait… I didn't even touch you!"

"It's no wonder your brother is always so worried about you," Maggie retorted. "All you do is make more problems for him."

Something in Selene snapped. She growled and lunged at Maggie, but the gossip rolled to the side. Selene's eyes widened and she flailed her arms, trying to stop before she fell into the water, but then she tripped over Maggie's dueling stick, which was still lying on the pier, and toppled over the edge of the platform and into the water.

Maggie retrieved her dueling stick and dragged it behind her because it was too heavy for her to lift, as she made her way across the pier platform unopposed.

The Dragons were silent in pure shock, as Javi chuckled and handed Maggie the white tiger. "Nice one, mija. The Gryphons are the first team to get the final statue!" Maggie grabbed the statue and strutted back to her team.

"What did you do?" Paradise asked in bewilderment, for once, actually seeming impressed by the gossip.

"Oh, me?" Maggie asked innocently as she held the white tiger statue up to the light. "I didn't do a thing."

"That was hilarious!" Naila laughed hysterically and offered Maggie a high-five, but the gossip recoiled in disgust.

Confessional: Maggie

"You know, in any other circumstance, this would be enough for me. I took down the biggest, scariest, member of the other team and all of my posse… uh, teammates knew to respect me for it. That's more than Delilah and Vera ever did! But this is Stormbound, so I'm not stopping here!"

As the Gryphons rowed away, with Naila blowing a raspberry at the other team, Selene swam back to shore. Lio immediately rushed over to her.

"Selene!"

"The reason I lost… it's because of you!"

"Oh, that makes no sense!"

Selene abruptly turned away from him and ran off, down to the far end of the pier.

"Selene!" Lio called out again, but his sister ignored him, still sitting on the pier with her legs tucked into her chest.

Ollie looked worried. "You know her, Lio, what can we do to help her? Tell some jokes?"

"No, I'll fix this, looking after Selene is my responsibility," Lio insisted. He started to step onto the pier after her, but Iggy shook his head.

"You can't do that, dumbass, you're clearly making things worse."

Lio was going to protest, but then he thought for a moment. "We need to resolve things, but for now, we have a challenge to complete." He still looked annoyed at Iggy. "Do you have any better ideas?"

Iggy gulped. "I can't talk to her! She'll flatten me!"

"You're really scared of her?" Lio asked.

"Pffft, of course not," Iggy shot back immediately and glared at Lio. The leader raised an eyebrow. "Oh, just watch." He ran out onto the pier and over to Selene, but Lio still stood at the edge of the pier to monitor them.

"Stop, I don't want to talk," Selene sobbed, before turning and realizing it wasn't her brother that had come to talk to her. "What do I do?" she asked quietly.

"Um, win the challenge, obviously! That should've been easy for you. If I could've gone again for this challenge, it would be over in seconds." Iggy then flinched as he realized his outburst would provoke Selene.

But the follower didn't get angry at all. "If I did the challenge… Lio wouldn't want me to hurt people. And if I didn't do it… Lio wouldn't want me to lose. I don't want to disappoint him. Again."

Iggy sat down next to Selene. "You know what? I have people back home that I really don't want to disappoint again. And for that, you're gonna need to go back out there." He was trying to hear the follower out, but still seemed impatient.

Selene sniffled. "But all I do is hurt people."

"Well, those are Maggie's words. She's just trying to mess with you. And I don't blame her, she's trying to win, same as us."

"And she did win."

"But you have a second chance, and where I'm from, giving up isn't an option. For your brother and your team, but also for you." Iggy pounded his fist in his palm. "I know you can take whatever Nimbus and Javi have planned. Maggie called you weak, aren't you going to do something about it?"

Selene said nothing, but after a moment, she went in to try and hug Iggy, practically tackling him. "Gah, don't do that!" the track star shouted in panic.

Suddenly, there was a gruesome sounding crack. "Oh my gosh I killed him!" Selene screamed and let go of the track star, shoving him to the ground, only to realize that the sound had just come from a twig she had stepped on.

Iggy just gave her a weak thumbs up.

Back on the riverbank, the other Dragons weren't completely sure what was going on. "Sooo, what do we even have to do for the challenge?" Kit asked Javi, as he shooed them away from his ATV.

"I was hoping it wouldn't come to this, but…"

"Yes!" Nimbus interrupted Javi and pumped his fist. "I was hoping we would get to do this!" He pulled out his cue cards. "You found your old friend, the White Tiger, but it turns out that they have become possessed by an evil spirit!"

"Whatever, let's just get along with this, ¡ándale!" Javi opened a compartment on the vehicle to reveal a control panel.

"Wait, Selene isn't ready!" Lio protested, but Javi had already pulled a lever.

The mechanic took a step back, and a moment later, the ATV began to whir. Intense rock music (likely one of Nimbus' old hits) inexplicably started to play as its frame folded outwards, legs extended from its body, and its front and handlebars formed a head with glowing headlights for eyes. It had transformed into a mechanical tiger, complete with jagged lightning bolt stripes.

Kit squealed and started to practically vibrate with excitement as the robot tiger stepped forward.

"Don't even think about it, mije." Javi gave the engineer a warning look, and they hung their head.

The robot tiger's eyes flashed. It bared its teeth and got into a hunting crouch, and the Dragons all gasped, while Nimbus was jumping up and down like a little kid.

"Gee, I wish I had asked for some tips from our lion tamer, Elena, before I had to say goodbye to my circus friends," Ollie said, furrowing his brow. "She ends up in situations like this all the time."

"I think you need a red cape?" Kit suggested, then shook their head. "…no nonono that's for bulls."

"Alright, have fun, Dragons." Javi patted the robot's side, and it made a massive leap from the bank onto the pier and picked up Maggie's dueling stick in its mouth.

Selene had just helped Iggy back to his feet, when the two of them turned around to see a robotic tiger charging at them. Selene fumbled to grab her own dueling stick while Iggy screamed and tried to run away, but the robot raised a metal paw and knocked him into the water with one swipe.

"How is this even legal?" Lio demanded of Javi.

"If you know the answer to that question, we definitely could use the help," he responded ominously, and Lio glared at him.

The tiger raised its head and swung the dueling stick in its mouth at Selene, and she barely blocked it in time, skidding backwards with the force of it.

On the riverbank, Ollie was having to hold Kit back by the back of their coat, as they were trying to get a closer look at the robot. "I need to know how he did it! I have so many questions! I… I don't even have my tools on me," they realized as they felt for where their pockets would be. They sighed and stopped struggling. "I feel like I have a phantom pocket for my phantom screwdriver…"

Lio just watched anxiously. He looked like he wanted to call out instructions, but he remained silent.

Confessional: Lio

"I guess things are up to Selene now. As a good leader, it's my job to understand when people's individual skills will shine and allow them to take the reins for the good of the entire team!" He hesitated for a moment. "Who am I kidding? I should have more faith in her."

The robotic tiger moved blindingly fast, attacking Selene with its dueling stick and front paws, and she couldn't do much more than just block the onslaught. "Bad kitty!" she yelled.

Suddenly, Selene had an idea. She used her dueling stick to vault over the tiger's claws and jump onto its back. She was about to jump off and run to the other side of the pier, but the robot bucked her off and she hit the ground hard. It pounced on her and pinned her down, knocking the wind out of her.

Lio gasped. "You need to turn that thing off now!" he demanded.

"It'll be fine," Javi dismissed, with a shrug that didn't seem too reassuring.

"That wouldn't be too good for the show, would it?"

As the group continued to watch from the riverbank, Selene grabbed the ends of the robot's dueling stick and pushed it off of her. She grit her teeth and smashed the robot headfirst into the pier, causing the wood to crack. It stopped moving.

The follower just stood there, breathing heavily, and after a moment, the Dragons all cheered, and Ollie and Kit both ran at her. Ollie went to hug her, while Kit ran right past to look at the robot.

"Selene… I was worried about you." Lio ushered Selene back onto the riverbank, making sure she hadn't gotten hurt.

"You made me worried too," Selene responded. "But I talked to Iggy and everything was okay."

"Wait, where is Iggy?" Kit asked. Just then, the track star practically flopped onto the riverbank, wet and bruised, and spit water out of his mouth.

While the Dragons finally set off down the river, Javi was inspecting the damage on the robot. He found the lever to transform it back into a car, but when he pulled it, it didn't move, save for its eyes flickering weakly.

"Aw man, do we really have to walk the rest of the way now?" Nimbus whined.

Javi shrugged. "You'll live."

The scene switched to the Gryphons, who had just rowed around a bend.

"I think I see the Dragons!" Maggie shouted.

Sure enough, the other team was rowing with renewed vigor, and the blue boat was gaining steadily on them.

"I refuse!" Maggie whined. "I did not go through all of that for nothing!"

Martin was watching the Dragons as he rowed from the back of the boat, and then he had an idea. "I would advise you to keep your voice down," he said to Maggie. "You could alert… the bees~"

Confessional: Naila

"Ohhh, bother!"

The effect was exactly as intended. Maggie screeched and started to thrash her oars around frantically, giving the boat an impressive amount of propulsion, to everyone's surprise.

"Bees! Bees! Bees!" Naila cheered, while Tanja gave Martin a look of bewilderment.

The fencer simply shrugged. "Perhaps an unconventional tactic, but I had anticipated that the outcome would bene- whoa!" The boat suddenly hit a spot of rapids, and Martin had to frantically paddle to prevent the entire boat from spinning around. "The current appears to be intensifying."

Paradise stopped drumming and held up a hand. "Hey, what's that noise?" she wondered.

Martin adjusted his glasses as he looked ahead. "It sounds like… oh no."

Around them, the river continued to flow even more swiftly. The Gryphons had come to their final obstacle, a waterfall.

"Turn around, we're going to fall!" Paradise screamed. "How do you turn her off?" She pointed at Maggie, who was still screaming and rowing erratically.

Naila made a gesture of hitting Maggie over the head with her sledgehammer, but Tanja furiously shook her head. "Don't you dare."

"It's too late to stop, we have to hold steady!" Martin called out, as he struggled to stay in control of the boat.

They screamed as their boat went over the edge and fell down the waterfall. Below them was a cove, and a few floating buoys were supporting a banner with a design of tortoise, phoenix, and tiger constellations: the finish line. They had paddled all the way to the ocean.

Just before the Gryphons landed, the scene briefly cut to the Dragons. "Did you hear that?" Lio asked, as he heard the other team screaming up ahead. "We might still have a chance!"

"Yeah! Follow those screams!" Iggy cheered, and Lio started to beat the drum faster as they tried to catch up.

Confessional: Kit

"Y'know, whenever I hear people screaming, I normally think to go the other way. But I'm still kinda curious hehe."

"Is everyone alright?" Martin called out to his team. He was treading water and trying to use one hand to dry his glasses from the huge splash the Gryphons' boat had made.

The Gryphons' boat was floating upside-down nearby, and Maggie was clinging to it and shivering violently.

Naila popped up next to Martin, somehow still holding her sledgehammer, and laughed like a maniac, while Maggie promptly vomited over the side of the boat.

"You're going to get us both killed!" a voice yelled.

"Tanja?" Martin turned to see the activist struggling to swim towards the boat with Paradise clinging to her neck. Martin sighed softly to himself, and turned to Naila and Maggie. "There's no time to waste. We need to flip the boat back over, unless you wish to swim all the way to shore?" He noticed Naila's mischievous expression. "Actually, don't answer that question."

Martin helped Paradise and Tanja get back into the boat, where they collapsed.

"We're safe now…" Tanja awkwardly cleared her throat. "So there's, uh, no need to keep holding on." She looked down at Paradise, who was clinging to her, but before the heiress could react, they were interrupted by a loud splash.

"Look out!" Selene's voice suddenly shouted, and the Dragons' boat flew over the edge of the waterfall and crashed down into the water of the cove. The boat cartoonishly bounced on the surface of the water as the Dragons all held on for dear life.

"Whee!" Ollie cheered.

"We can still make it!" Martin shouted to his team, and the Gryphons fumbled to get back on course. Tanja, Martin, and even Maggie were all working hard to row, while Paradise drummed.

"Everyone lean back! Keep the boat flat!" Kit yelled, before Selene repeated their instructions at a much more aggressive volume.

Confessional: Kit

"I thought what the boat did would be like skipping stones. Y'know, the flat spinny ones bounce more, so we needed a big surface area to hit the water. I tried to test it once, but Mom just told me to stop throwing rocks into the sink, hehe."

On the beach, Javi and Nimbus were waiting for the contestants. "After facing many trials, the Azure Dragon and the Golden Qil- uh, Gryphon raced on through the stars," Nimbus started to read off of his cue cards, before Javi snatched the cards from him, crumpled them up, and threw them into the ocean. "Hey!" the rock star protested, but he quickly cheered up again when he saw the two boats approaching the finish line rapidly. "Whoa, it looks like a close race!"

The Gryphons were all rowing together, while the Dragons' boat seemed completely out of control, but in the end, it was the blue boat that crossed the finish line first. Selene held the team's three statues aloft with a massive grin on her face.

"And the Deluge Dragons reunite the Celestial Beasts and win the challenge!" Nimbus announced. He dropped to his knees and strummed air guitar, as both teams arrived at the beach and got off the boats. "And Gryphons, you guys know the drill at this point, we'll see you tonight at the campfire."

"So that's how the skippy-stones work," Kit murmured to a confused Ollie.

"Yes!" Iggy cheered.

Martin looked shocked. "That was quite unexpected."

"That's so unfair!" Maggie pouted. "I barely made it out of the challenge alive, but you guys couldn't keep the lead I gave you."

"Maybe if you had been rowing with us instead of, like, pretending to barf, we would've been ahead from the start," Paradise commented.

"That vomit was real!" Maggie insisted.

"Gremlin! Say goodbye to the Gryphons and help me out here!" Javi called out.

"I won't be the last teammate you lose tonight ahahaha!" Naila mocked, before she grabbed her sledgehammer and headed over to help Javi moor the boats.

Even with her other teammates surrounding her, Selene looked at Lio, as if expecting validation. "That was a fortunate victory," was all he said. But before the twins could have a discussion that they clearly needed, Ollie went up to them and stood on his tiptoes to sling his arms around their shoulders.

"Hey, we all did great! Wasn't that so much fun?"

"C'mon, let's just head back to camp!" Nimbus declared. "I need a hot shower."

After they made it back, the campers all changed, dried off, and dispersed. Paradise was alone in the campgrounds, when she saw an opportunity that she had been waiting for. Ollie had set up a makeshift pull-up bar by some trees and was doing some of his acrobatic stunts, and surprisingly, one of the most outgoing people on the island was alone.

When Paradise approached Ollie, he swung on top of his bar and hung by his legs, grinning at the heiress as he looked at her while upside down. "Hi, what are you doing out here?"

Paradise just shrugged.

"Sorry about your team, by the way," Ollie said suddenly.

Paradise looked at him in confusion. "Is that supposed to be, like, trash talk?"

"Of course not, silly, trash can't talk!" Ollie giggled and waved his hand dismissively, as Paradise looked unamused. "Though my friend Dennis sometimes would hide in the trash so he could steal from tourists."

"That's disgusting."

"I know, he's great!" Ollie flipped himself around and landed back on the ground in front of Paradise. "But anyways, I just wanted to say I feel sorry for you guys, because I'm sure you're missing Drake and Earl being on your team. I used to bunk with Drake."

"I mean, like, obviously, we had a numbers disadvantage, and Miss Sledgehammer sure didn't help." Paradise paused for a moment, but realized this might not be what he was asking about. "I got along with Earl. You'd think that not being completely intolerable wouldn't be too much to ask for, like, any of these people, but apparently not." She flipped her hair.

"Aw, come on, your team seems fun too. Marty's great! He's really funny!"

"Marty?" Paradise repeated, baffled.

"Y'know, really tall, quiet but kind of judgy, blue hair, dresses like a dad…"

"I know who Martin is," Paradise interrupted.

"We were talking the other day," Ollie continued. "I wish I got to talk to him more." He didn't even seem to mind sharing the information.

Confessional: Paradise

"Obviously I didn't trust Maggie, so I wanted to see what the whole deal was with Martin and Ollie myself," Paradise explained, seeming proud of herself. "He's, like, completely harmless. Weird but harmless. I know exactly what a fake person looks like, I live with two of them after all," she scoffed. "And he's not that for sure."

The scene switched to the "not-men's" cabin, where Kit was elated to be reunited with their coat and tools. They were digging through their pockets for one specific item, and when they finally found it, they went over to Selene, who was sitting on her bed.

Selene turned to look at them, confused. Wordlessly, the tinkerer held up the can of spray paint that Celia had left behind, and the follower's face immediately lit up. "Let's draw some puppies."

As the duo wandered around camp, Selene stopped to jump in every puddle she saw, getting her shoes completely covered in mud. "Where do I draw?" she asked as she looked around, seeming lost.

"I dunno. I played with the color-spray thingy and it sticks to a lotta different surfaces."

"Uh, well… you can choose!" Selene blurted out suddenly, but at this point Kit had gotten pretty used to her outbursts.

"Ooh, I wonder what this will do." Kit knelt down on the ground and tried to spray paint a beetle that was crawling in the dirt. It flipped over onto its back and writhed around as if in pain, and Kit flinched. "Well, that doesn't look very good."

"Do you think Lio is mad at me?" Selene asked when Kit handed her the spray can.

Kit clearly respected Lio's opinions a lot more than Celia had, and they stopped to think about this for a moment. But then they just cocked their head at Selene. "Why?"

"I didn't listen to him when I did that challenge."

"Why?" Kit repeated.

"He's really smart, and he knows things better than I do. And he doesn't like it when I break things."

"Why?" Kit asked again.

At this point, Selene seemed stumped, and for once, she fell silent.

"Did you see those claws, and how it picked up the whacking doohickey in its mouth? I have no idea what's going on inside it, but whatever thingy you did with the tiger worked."

Selene nodded.

"See? You can fix things by breaking them."

The duo hadn't realized how far out they were, and soon they came across the river made by the rainstorm, which was already starting to dry out.

Confessional: Kit

"It makes no sense how the dry ground would make a water-path in just a few days. The water has to be coming from somewhere. I'll have to take a look-see, and maybe this little thingamajig can help- eek!" They held up Earl's umbrella with its newly rebuilt anemometer, but accidentally opened the umbrella inside the confessional, bumping into the camera and blocking the view of the entire screen.

Confessional: Javi

The confessional camera was now at a skewed angle and had a few scrapes on the lens, as Javi was trying to fix it. "Ay, mije." He shook his head.

The scene switched to Maggie, who was sitting in the girls' cabin, furtively watching Kit and Selene through the window. She saw them disappear into the woods, and once she was satisfied that nobody was going to disrupt her, she made a beeline for Paradise's bed, which was above hers. It took her a couple of tries to climb up onto the top bunk.

Confessional: Maggie

"Of course I would never take a top bunk willingly. I didn't want to get a nosebleed from the change in air pressure, like that last time in the elevator, it was just dreadful."

Maggie began to dig through Paradise's bag. She quickly tossed aside a clipboard full of Earl's nearly illegible lab notes. She finally found a file folder filled with some papers, and a smirk grew on her face.

All of a sudden, the door to the girls' cabin opened. "Just what do you think you're doing?" Tanja demanded.

"Oh, you have to see this." Maggie gleefully held up her papers.

"Summer finishing school?" Tanja read. "For the young housewife? I did not know such archaic notions still existed."

But as Maggie flipped through the packet, it became clear that it was the paperwork for Total Drama that they all had signed.

"It seems like one Diana Savea thought she was signing up Paradise for something very different from Stormbound."

"She tricked her very own mother," Tanja murmured.

"I know, how could she do something so positively atrocious? And you know what that means? Who knows what she could do to us!" Maggie lamented.

"There is no 'us,'" Tanja responded bluntly.

"Hmph, even after I still won my part of the challenge and helped our team?"

"There's nothing I cannot tolerate more than people that take advantage of others' weaknesses," Tanja said disapprovingly.

Confessional: Maggie

"Technically, what I do is actually taking advantage of my own weaknesses." She giggled.

"The least you could do is thank me for finding this information!" Maggie huffed. "I ran the risk of getting a papercut from the forms and passing out from blood loss, or getting altitude sickness from climbing up onto the top bunk! But despite the horrendous conditions, I'll always share all the interesting tidbits that I uncover."

"I do appreciate it," Tanja conceded, though she still seemed skeptical. "Even if I disapprove of the means you used. It's quite disrespectful of others' space."

"So is lying and cheating your way onto the competition!" Maggie said dramatically, shaking her fist.

"At the very least, Martin will want to know about this, it seems only fair. We'll settle this at the campfire ceremony," Tanja said finally, looking a little apprehensive. With that, she exited the cabin, leaving Maggie unsure if her ploy had worked.

The scene switched to the campfire. Javi swore to himself as he was trying in vain to make a fire, but the ground was still too damp from all of the rain. "Just leave it be," Nimbus told him.

Javi growled in frustration and just tossed his lighter into the fire pit, creating a giant cloud of smoke and ash that left his entire face covered in soot.

Just then, the four less than enthusiastic Gryphons filed in and sat down around the campfire. Nimbus pretended not to see Javi as the mechanic stumbled away, and he held up his tray of three marshmallows. "Alright, Qilins!"

"Gryphons," Tanja corrected. "And we shouldn't be making a campfire anyways, think of the unnecessary carbon emissions."

Nimbus just gave a dismissive wave with his free hand. "Whatever you are, you guys just keep on losing. One of you will be going from one boat to another… the Loser Cruiser!"

"The first marshmallow goes to the only one that seems to be pulling their weight in the challenges, Martin." The fencer lunged forward and expertly caught his marshmallow in his mouth.

"And your de-facto leader and team mom, Tanja. Not to mention being the two campers that give Javi the biggest headaches," Nimbus snickered.

Martin adjusted his glasses. "You're the one giving me a headache by neglecting the consistency and organization of so many aspects of this competition."

Tanja looked at her marshmallow in disgust. "You really should not be enforcing the practices of distributing harmfully sourced gelatin products."

"Nimbus' point exactly." Javi rolled his eyes. "Does it look like I care?"

"Marshmallows contain ingredients that are made from animal tendons!" Tanja protested.

"Wait, really?" Paradise looked at the activist in shock. "Gross!"

"I'm allergic to tendons!" Maggie shrieked.

Nimbus cleared his throat, annoyed. "Since it seems like you both really don't want the very last marshmallow, I'm happy to kick both of you out."

"No!" Maggie and Paradise both yelled immediately.

Nimbus laughed at them. "That's more like it." He tossed the marshmallow from hand to hand, and all the Gryphons watched it intently. "Seems like one of you is gonna stay around after all, and that final immunity marshmallow goes to…

"Paradise."

The heiress didn't seem too surprised as she caught her marshmallow, but Maggie seemed absolutely livid. "Ooh, how dare you gang up against me! After how much I've helped you, too? I would've liked to see one of you guys try to fight Selene!"

"I woulda liked to see that too," Javi murmured, before Nimbus elbowed him.

Confessional: Tanja

"Martin and I realized we don't have to be on the same page about everything. He can have his strategy and I can have my intuition, and of course it's the unique and diverse skills that make a strong alliance. Despite our team's loss, I know I should be grateful for the position I am in. I am in good standing with both Paradise and Martin. And Maggie, well, I just hope the Loser Cruiser is less hazardous to her health…"

Confessional: Martin

"Tanja still baffles me sometimes. First she was adamant about eliminating Paradise, and now she wants to save her? But perhaps I should not just deduce that she is acting illogically. We needed to communicate."

But just as Javi, still covered in soot from the campfire, was preparing to escort Maggie to the dock, the gossip had one last card to play. "Wait!" She shoved a stack of papers into Nimbus' hand. "Before I'm cast out due to my teammates being just dreadful to me, I have some important information for you. You won't believe what I just found."

Nimbus looked at the papers and raised an eyebrow. "You're sending me to summer etiquette school?"

"Where did you get that?" Paradise demanded. "You were going through my stuff, weren't you!"

"Does it matter?" Maggie shot back. "Look here, Nimbus! Paradise took the paperwork for this other camp, and attached the signature page for Stormbound to the end." The rockstar was looking through the papers, confused. "She must've tricked her mom, she isn't even supposed to be on this island!"

"Ugh, that wouldn't change the fact that you went through my stuff like some sort of awful creep!"

Martin adjusted his glasses. "There are cameras everywhere. It would be trivial to find out what happened."

"And all they would find is that Tanja saw me, and didn't do anything about it!" Maggie declared triumphantly.

Paradise turned to Tanja, shocked. "You knew? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Hey! Kids!" Nimbus interrupted, and Javi helped him out by sounding his air horn to get everyone's attention. Martin covered his ears and glared at the mechanic.

Maggie gave Paradise a look of contempt. "Ooh, you're in trouble~"

"You can't send me back home!" Paradise begged.

But Nimbus just grinned and gave the heiress a thumbs up. "If what she says is true, hah, nice going!"

"Wait, what?" Maggie declared, and Paradise just looked confused.

"Ah, when I was your age, all I wanted was to be just like my parents and my sister," Nimbus said wistfully. "It took me this long to realize I wanted to get away and chase my dreams, and running away to a crazy competition on an uncharted island? That would've been the best summer of my life."

Javi cleared his throat. "And you clearly haven't grown out of that phase. But your papers look in order to me! Doesn't matter how you got that signature, and it means less work for me if we just pretend this never happened."

"But… that means…" Maggie stuttered.

"You really thought you could get away with such a messy and last-minute scheme?" Martin scoffed.

"Shut up, you're the one who spends all his time with the other team!" she snapped, and then pointed at Tanja. "When Martin betrays you for his boyfriend, it's so your fault for not trusting me. And Paradise-" In the middle of your tirade, she suddenly started coughing. "Too… much smoke," she gasped out, and pointed at the campfire. Javi just rolled his eyes and gestured for Maggie to come with him.

Throughout this entire conversation, Tanja had remained silent, and she avoided Paradise's gaze.

Confessional: Tanja

"Why did I do that?" she ranted, looking guilty. "I should've reported that to Nimbus immediately, I knew Maggie was trying to find some kind of leverage. Nobody deserves to have their possessions disrespected like that, and I should have trusted Paradise's reason for wanting to get away."

The scene switched to the dock, where Javi was waiting, with the eliminated camper being notably absent. "What's the holdup?" the mechanic barked. He had thought that Maggie had been following him the entire time. He turned around to see that the gossip was struggling to carry her bags.

"Oh, I'm going to collapse from exhaustion," Maggie lamented. "You're so cruel, I've already been betrayed by my peers and eliminated from the competition, and you're still being this inconsiderate?"

Javi sighed and made his way back to the cabins to pick up Maggie's bags. Maggie smirked to herself and finally began to cooperate, following him to the dock.

"Awk, another landlubber for the crew!" a voice squawked as the now familiar cargo ship pulled into the dock. Ada gave a jaunty tip of her tricorn hat from her position at the ship's prow.

As soon as Javi caught sight of the shipwright, he shoved Maggie onto the dock and threw her bags after her, nearly knocking her over. "Bon voyage, mija!" He turned to Ada. "This one is your problem now."

"Awk, your face is a problem now!" Kiwi squawked at Javi, but the mechanic looked far from emotionally destroyed by the insult, instead just ignoring it.

As Ada and Kiwi ushered Maggie aboard, behind them, the crowd upon the Loser Cruiser was growing. Celia was busy gluing Nimbus' stolen sunglasses onto Coconu'thulhu, covering two of its three eyes, while Drake was finishing a new sketch of the eldritch creature, and Earl was sitting by the ship's cabin drinking tea.

"Get that dreadful thing away from me!" Maggie shrieked as the Loser Cruiser sailed away. "I don't care if coconuts aren't real nuts, I'm still allergic to them!"

Meanwhile, Lio was sitting on the porch of the boys' cabin. "Where's Selene?" Iggy called out mockingly as he strode over. "Or have you finally realized that she might have a point in not listening to you?"

"Whose side are you even on?" Lio asked Iggy, exasperated.

"Mine," he responded smugly. "You know what? You're totally just jealous of your sister, aren't you?" Iggy exclaimed. "She won the challenge without you."

"That's ridiculous," Lio protested. "I would have no reason to be, when we're on the same side!"

"Well, you can't wrestle a robot tiger, or backflip up a tree, or rig up a pulley system in seconds," Iggy pointed out. "And I know I'm not afraid to eliminate the weakest link, so I'm sure the others would do the same."

"And I'm far from that. You said it yourself, and you're the one who chose to work with me. Besides, Selene is my responsibility." Lio frowned slightly. "It's always been my duty to take care of her, and make sure she stays out of trouble, and I know she'd do the same and stick up for me."

"I get you, I've got a baby brother, Caspian, back at home," Iggy explained. "I'm usually the one taking care of him, 'cuz my parents both work, and I was always whining to them about it. But I guess I stopped complaining once I understood how important it was. And what I could be for him."

"Exactly, being a brother should be one of your highest priorities."

Iggy glanced away, looking almost remorseful. "Well, when I started doing track, I got real focused on that. I stopped helping my family out as much as I should've. So Cas is the reason I came here to win. Are you here for Selene, or just 'cuz you like telling everyone what to do?"

Lio seemed appalled by the accusation, but he remained calm. "I've had to make difficult decisions for our team, like getting rid of Celia, and I have conviction that I can find something that's best for all of us. And we've been winning, since that seems to be what you care about."

"Well, I'm going to bed," Iggy declared, and flipped his ponytail. "You know I always get up early." With that, he simply flounced off before Lio could respond.

Later in the evening, Tanja came across Martin by the campfire. The fencer was still practicing some stances with the prop sword he had used during the music video challenge, despite the sun having already gone down.

"It's getting dark," the activist stated.

Martin looked up. "That's quite a trivial observation."

Tanja just rolled her eyes. "I meant, you're out late. You could catch a cold, or trip and hurt yourself without light."

"It's better than taking my chances in the cabin. I'm sure Iggy and Lio are bickering and Ollie is jumping on the bed."

Tanja's expression softened slightly, and she headed over to a nearby bench and gestured for Martin to sit down next to her. "What's been going on with you and Ollie anyways?" Tanja asked suddenly. The question actually seemed to throw Martin off, so she explained, "Maggie told me she saw you two, but it seemed most fair for me to hear it from you. Because, well, she's Maggie."

Martin chose his words carefully. "He seems insistent on being my friend."

"Do you want to be his friend?"

Martin was silent for a moment.

"I quite certainly want to connect with him in some way, but it is quite equally obvious that I won't make the most optimal decisions if I solely indulge in the things I want."

"Or even more than a friend?" Tanja continued.

"Things such as that were hardly ever on my radar," Martin admitted. "The truth is, I have only ever had feelings for one person in my life, and it was someone I had known for many years."

"Your best friend?" Tanja recalled, from the two truths and a lie icebreaker. "Cyrus?"

Martin nodded. "Regardless, it seems quite illogical to put so much thought into something so… uncertain."

"Whatever happens, I see no harm in continuing to talk with him." Tanja gave a small smile. "I would be a hypocrite if I didn't encourage you to follow your heart, yes?"

Martin immediately understood what Tanja was implying. "You like her, don't you?"

Tanja blushed and glanced away. "Paradise was a difficult one to figure out, but I have never met anyone quite like her."

The scene switched to Javi's trailer by the beach, where Nimbus was putting Paradise's etiquette school forms through a paper shredder. "Whew, we really dodged a bullet there!"

"Heheh, crazy kid, imagine wanting to stay on this island," Javi remarked. He was hunched over the weather machine, looking at the exposed circuitry underneath one of its side panels. "We'll make her regret it soon enough- wait, the camera's still rolling!" Javi pushed Nimbus in front of the camera. "Ah, Nimbus, say something!"

"Um, well…" Nimbus panicked for a moment and started to strum air guitar, as if in some sort of idle animation, before he finally managed to gather his wits. "It sure has been another episode full of drama with the hunt for the celestial beasts! What will the Gryphons do with half their original team gone already? Does Lio still have control of his team? And how much duct tape will Naila need to fix our snowmobile slash ATV slash dueling tiger? Find out next time, on Total Drama Stormbound!" He slid on his knees across the trailer floor, almost crashing into the wall.

"Ay, you're going to ruin the carpet!" Javi snapped at him.

Votes:

Maggie- Martin, Paradise, Tanja (3)

Paradise- Maggie (1)

Remaining Contestants:

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

Qilins Gryphons: Martin, Paradise, Tanja (3)

Elimination Order:

13. Naila (no team, disqualified/intern)

12. Drake (Gryphons)

11. Earl (Gryphons)

10. Celia (Dragons)

9. Maggie (Gryphons)

This elimination hurt a lot more than I thought I would. Maggie has always stood out in the cast to me as the least developed and the most negatively portrayed person in the cast, and I had a lot of fun with her, but she was never intended to be the main antagonist. I don't even know if a main antagonist is something I could classify in this cast.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this episode, even if it kept going in ways that I didn't expect, and it was probably my favorite challenge yet. Thanks for reading!

Feline's Forecast: What's this, could we be finally be getting a break from the weird weather? It's time for the campers to hit the beach, because who knows when the next sunny day will be.