Review time!
EndeavorT: Not initially, but anyone who decides to investigate further might come across the truth. And Alejandro here is the kind of guy who'd investigate even the slightest threat against him.
Knight: The break from the norm is deliberate, because Chris is about to get dangerous.
Gucci Mane LaFlare: Thanks! Yep, it's completely authentic, much moreso than it was in the canon!
Joel Connell: Thanks!
Derick Lindsey: Thanks for catching that! It's fixed now.
Great Idea Alert: Thanks! Yeah, Sierra's not gonna fall for Alejandro's shenanigans. Next chapter will be an original challenge, ditto Valentine's'. I'm gonna incorporate a gameshow into an upcoming challenge, and I've watched Adult Arthur...I didn't find it very funny.
Important s: Good eye! Noah found those on one of the days between Challenges 2-9 and 2-10. Those intermediate days matter!
Bonus game: can you name all 50 media I stole the designs from?
Thursday, December 21, 2017
"Last time on Total Drama – we faced the cold-hard truth! [Scarlett talking to Miles about veganism] Three back-to-back challenges about Iceland faced our lucky campers. First, they ran across some geysers while trying to remember an Icelandic phrase! [Amy flubbing, Jen succeeding] Next, we scoured for fossils in a cold, dark forest! [Sasquatchanakwa stealing Mal's fossil] And lastly, we ate some really gross Icelandic food! [Crimson and Ennui finishing first] Jay messed up with Alejandro's help [Jay pulling off the tablecloth as he fell] and got eliminated. [Jay's elimination] But Noah wised Emma up to Alejandro's Final Ten deal with the Ice Dancers and they're okay now. [Noah kissing Emma on the cheek] Bleck."
Chris walked over to the VR machine. "Today we'll be having our thirty-fifth challenge, and you know what that means. That's right, it's another trip into the Total Drama Virtual Reality Generator." He strapped one of the VR helmets on.
A flash of light, and the scene shifted to a bustling city. Chris now had on a skintight blue suit and a red cape, a bright red CMcL emblazoned on his chest. He stood on top of a skyscraper. "It's time to save the day today! Fifty contestants remain. Who'll be the best superhero and who'll be sidekicked to the curb? Find out here on
"Total.
"Drama!"
"COPYRIGHT!" A man dressed in a suit labeled DISNEY ran over and began beating up Chris.
"You can't own a word, man!"
"Oh yes we can!"
"SECURITY!" I called. Five anthropomorphic brown Kritosaurus, four anthropomorphic purplish-gray Wannanosaurus, six anthropomorphic ruby red Ankylosaurus, Tiago the anthropomorphic purple Oxalaia, and Canth arrived to subdue the Disney lawyer, and did so. Bloodily.
"Ow..." Chris, reduced to a crumpled piece of Toon Energy, groaned on the floor.
Theme song
*Instrumental*
A camera appeared from inside a trash can, scaring off a pigeon. Another came from a sewer, startling a rat. The third popped out of the lens of a larger camera. The cameras looked at each other and shrieked, while Scarlett, dressed as a reporter, facepalmed.
Dear Mom and Dad, I'm doing fine
You guys are on my mind
Sky, true to her name, flew through the air with her newfound power. However, because she didn't have a helmet on, she got smacked in the face with numerous bugs.
You asked me what I wanted to be
And now I think it's plain to see
Duncan snooped around. Harold, having turned invisible, tried not to make a sound. Then Duncan spray-painted the wall with blue spraypaint, exposing Harold's arm. The Dweeb gulped.
I wanna be famous
Heather, Josee, and Taylor battled it out in the middle of the street. They didn't notice the oncoming bus.
*Instrumental*
Noah and Emma juggled a bunch of trees for no apparent reason. Said reason became apparent when it turned out Jacques and Alejandro were in one of them, hanging on for dear life.
I want to live close to the sun
Well, pack your bags cause I've already won.
Geoff flew to the sun and dug out a piece of it, before eating it. His GI tract began to glow before he spontaneously exploded, then reformed.
Everything to prove nothing in my way
I'll get there one day
A bunch of criminals looted a store in the middle of the night. Suddenly, they were ambushed by Crimson and Ennui, their eyes and makeup glowing an eerie red. The criminals gulped.
'Cuz I wanna be famous
Topher hogged the spotlight.
Na na nana na na nana nana na na na na na naaaaah
B exchanged blows with Jo, the former not even trying.
I wanna be, I wanna be, I wanna be famous
Ryan flew up to an incoming truck-sized meteor and punched it, shattering it into a pile of black sand.
I wanna be, I wanna be, I wanna be famous.
Alejandro was awarded the key to the city. He seemed to be confused as to what it was for.
*Whistling*
At the campfire, Owen and Izzy moved in for a kiss...and then Chris remembered that Izzy had been eliminated, so he dragged her away. Owen sighed in exasperation and shook his head at the camera.
Laundry Room
Alejandro whistled to himself as he removed his clothes from the dryer. "Hey Al!" Sugar said as she raced into the laundry room.
Alejandro growled. "Do NOT call me that name!" he spat.
"Yeah yeah, shut up. Lissen, I've been tryna' catch you all week so I can tell you somethin'. Yer alliance is gonna turn on you."
"Impossible. They are loyal."
"Then don't mess that up." She left.
"...Could they?" he asked himself. He shook his head. "No, I do not think so. Devin is not very bright and Ryan, from what I understand, does not betray people. I will be fine."
Confessional – Sugar.
"It IS true, but hey, it's gonna mess with his head and he'll be eliminated BEFORE I am." She cackled madly.
Some time later
"Hello everybody!" Chris greeted the contestants. "Happy winter solstice! To celebrate the first day of winter, I've got an extra-special challenge for you. Please check for your teams!"
Owen, Noah, Emma, Sam, Lindsay, Devin, Mal, Harold, Cameron, Zoey, DJ, Carrie, Leshawna, Shawn, Jasmine, Cody, Sammy, Tyler, Sadie, Brick, Jen, Ella, Justin, Geoff, and Bridgette's paper circles were yellow and had a hamster with a halo on it.
And Taylor, Scarlett, Sierra, Amy, Duncan, Heather, Alejandro, Jacques, Josee, Jo, Ennui, Eva, Topher, MacArthur, Beardo, Laurie, Sky, Miles, B, Crimson, Stephanie, Ryan, Sanders, Sugar, and Lightning's were puce and had a leering vulture on it.
"If you got the hamster, you're the Heroic Hamsters! If you got the vulture, you're the Villainous Vultures!" Chris smiled at them. "Do you like superhero comics?"
"Not really, they don't tend to be very well-written," Noah remarked.
"Well too bad! Because we're going to do what they do! The setting is the awesome city of South Chrisopolis! A bunch of bad guys want this city destroyed to make room for their factory of evil machines. The heroes, obviously, don't want that to happen. This will be a last-man-standing challenge, so whichever team loses all its members first wins, and all collateral damage will be completely ignored!"
"There go my hopes for realism," Sanders remarked.
"Good luck!" An intern pressed a button once everyone had their helmets strapped on, and footage of a city appeared on the canvas screen...
Heroic Hamsters: Owen, Noah, Emma, Sam, Lindsay, Devin, Mike, Harold, Cameron, Zoey, DJ, Carrie, Leshawna, Shawn, Jasmine, Cody, Sammy, Tyler, Sadie, Brick, Jen, Ella, Justin, Geoff, and Bridgette.
Villainous Vultures: Taylor, Scarlett, Sierra, Amy, Duncan, Heather, Alejandro, Jacques, Josee, Jo, Ennui, Eva, Topher, MacArthur, Beardo, Laurie, Sky, Miles, B, Crimson, Stephanie, Ryan, Sanders, Sugar, and Lightning.
Heroic Hamsters
Noah, Emma, and Owen spawned first. All three of them looked very different now. Noah's skin was now his favorite shade of dark red, and his skull was abnormally large and bald. He had a thin goatee and wore an imposing-looking suit.
Owen was covered in bright orange armor save for his palms and his elbows. A white toque was painted on his breastplate. Instead of a sword, he had a massive pair of salad tongs roughly three feet long and two feet in gape hanging from his belt.
Emma, buck-naked, appeared to be made of wood now, with numerous thin, tapered green leaves with lighter green stripes taking the place of all of her hair down to her eyelashes. There was a red lotus-looking flower on her crotch for censorship reasons (unfortunately, flowers corresponded to the exact same body part that was trying to be covered up, so it didn't really work).
"Wow, what even are we?" Owen said in awe.
"We're heroes, of course," Noah replied. "Wow, my voice is...bizarre. I believe there should be a card on our persons explaining our powers." He found his in the collar of his cape:
BIG BRAIN
Alien with an incredibly powerful intellect, so much so they can disable the powers of the villains just by refusing to acknowledge their existence.
Strengths: IQ of 360, alien DNA means invisibility to bioscanners, can change skin color.
Weaknesses: Built like a stick, has an accent, afraid of spiders.
"Oh, I see what you mean!" Owen rummaged around in his armor before finally finding it under his kneepad:
THE CATERER
Fires beams from their hands that summon an endless torrent of food of their choosing, and beams from their elbows that turn any object of their choosing into food.
Strengths: Infinite stomach capacity, total immunity to all poisons and diseases, indestructible mouth.
Weaknesses: Slow-moving, poor agility, rest of their body is not indestructible.
"Then I guess I'm the only one left." Emma removed hers from her hair:
VERACI-TREE
Grows leaves that contain a chemical that forces anyone who eats them to tell the truth (and nothing but the truth until the leaf's digested).
Strengths: Only needs to eat sunlight and mineral water, superhuman durability, healing factor.
Weaknesses: Leaves take a while to grow back, opponents must be restrained for the leaves to be fed, poor resistance to fire.
"Weird," she commented. "I wonder how everyone else fared."
Villainous Vultures
"What the heck?" Taylor asked somewhere in a warehouse. She was a tangerine with her face on it. She brought up her card (which, due to her lack of hands, was floating in midair) and studied it:
TEMPER-TEST TANGERINE
Annoying laugh that can rupture eardrums, ability to injure opponents by saying "Hey, hey [name]? [Insert weapon here]!"
Strengths: Endless patience, endless puns, no need for food or drink.
Weaknesses: You're a tangerine, your weaknesses should be fairly obvious.
Scarlett was the same as before, except now she was wearing a white labcoat over a black shirt, army green pants, and black dress shoes, plus her nose was a lot longer than it was normally. Her card was in her breast pocket:
DOCTOR MITTELSHIRTZ
Can build any raygun for any possible purpose.
Strengths: Endless money, enormous imagination, comes from a country in Europe that doesn't actually exist (i.e. the CIA can't find you, which is how you've gotten away with all this crap when you should've been arrested years ago).
Weaknesses: Doesn't always think things through, poor physical strength, tends to explain the joke.
Sierra was dressed in a stereotypical blue-and-white sailor fuku. A knife hung from a holster on her skirt. Her card was in another bag on the holster:
LOVESICK GIRL
An emotionally unstable wreck trying to get her slightly-older crush to notice her by killing her foes.
Strengths: Incapable of feeling remorse, knows how to use any weapon in the world, limited shapeshifting abilities.
Weaknesses: Cannot fight adults, becomes less effective the more people she kills as murder destroys her sanity, parent game is trapped in Development [H word].
Amy's hair was now ragged and spiky, standing up on its own. She wore a ripped black tank top, black pants and boots with orange accents, and each hand was covered by a large grenade-shaped gauntlet. Fittingly for the Malevolent Twin, her irises now glowed red instead of their usual teal. She found her card inside the back of her right gauntlet:
LADY EXPLODOKILLS
Sweats nitroglycerin from palms that can be auto-ignited.
Strengths: Size of explosion only limited by amount of sweat, immune to going deaf, very strong control over power.
Weaknesses: Ill-tempered, irrational, egocentric.
"Where the heck is everyone else?" Amy asked.
"I don't know," Scarlett replied. "But I believe that I might be able to find out. Sierra, I need you to help me collect the material I need for a communications device."
"Okay!" Sierra changed her hair into a blue bob, made her skin a much lighter shade of brown, shortened her height, and turned her eyes red. She raced off.
Confessional – Sierra.
"Now they won't suspect a thing!" The confessionals were held in an interrogation room.
Heroic Hamsters
"Oooh!" Sam exclaimed. He was now dressed in a cherry red Kevlar bodysuit with black markings. "I thought I was the only person who remembered this show!" He retrieved his card out from inside a fancy-looking cannon strapped to his back:
GAGOTANIST
Secret agent themed on toilet humor.
Strengths: Knows every fighting style that's ever existed, abnormally high tolerance of gross things, tons of gadgets.
Weaknesses: No actual superpowers, reckless, doesn't have many friends.
Lindsay's color palette was completely light green, and she was dressed for combat. A heptagonal-faceted round gemstone was located between her mighty cleavage. She pulled her card out of her gem:
DIOPSIDE
An 8901-year-old alien that takes the form of a jewel. Rebelled against her all-female species to live a peaceful life on Earth.
Strengths: Endurance is so high sleep is unnecessary, can summon weapons from gemstone, able to meld bodies with others of their species.
Weaknesses: Holographic body will retreat into gemstone if hurt too much, gemstone cannot regenerate if damaged, series creator hates the color green for no apparent reason.
Devin was dressed in yellow flowing robes with his team's symbol on a wooden pendant. Gray arrow-shaped tattoos covered his body, the arrowheads coming out on his wrists and forehead. His card came from inside a wooden staff that doubled as a glider:
ELEMENT BOY
Can bend the classical elements (water, earth, fire, and air, sometimes life energy too but that's a bit trickier).
Strengths: Wisdom and strength of hundreds of past lives, literally knows kung fu, can talk to ghosts.
Weaknesses: Can only speak Chinese, can't bend the chemical elements, can't use any technology invented after 1927.
Devin took offense to part of that last bit. "Wǒ bùshì zhōngguó rén! Wǒ shì hánguó rén!"
"What?" Sam asked. "Sorry dude, I can't understand you."
"I can," Lindsay said, "which makes no sense because I should be speaking alien talk and not people talk. He's mad that he can only speak Chinese because he's actually Korean."
"Well, that would do it," Sam nodded thoughtfully. "We should probably read each other's cards so we can work around our weaknesses."
Devin nodded. "Shì de, hǎo zhǔyì." He handed his card over.
Villainous Vultures
Duncan grinned. "This looks really freaking sick!" He was a luminescent blue monster the length of a tree, resembling a Chinese dragon but with too many centipede-like legs. His card materialized in front of him:
LUNAR EMPEROR
God of the Moon who severed his connection to the satellite to pursue a career in evil.
Strengths: Can wipe opponents' memories if their eyes are gouged out, flight, can perform magic.
Weaknesses: Gets distracted by small children who look like his grandson, can't heal injuries, susceptible to string instruments.
Heather frowned. "I know how I dress is impractical, but come on!" She was wearing a skimpy vinyl bodysuit that left a lot of her body exposed. She was also blue-skinned. Her card came in the holographic display of her arachnoid-like goggles:
BLUEBERRY SPIDERWITCH
Ballet dancer brainwashed into the world's greatest sniper.
Strengths: Never misses a shot, grappling hook, can tolerate unnaturally low temperatures.
Weaknesses: Flirts with enemies too often, slow metabolism means low speed, is a meme.
Alejandro was a red square pyramid the size of a toaster, with four skinny black limbs and a top hat. He only had one green eye with elongated eyelashes and no visible mouth. His card appeared inside a blue flame he summoned from his hand:
PYRAMID SCHEME
Thing from another universe that wants to make this one 400000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000x weirder than it usually is.
Strengths: Nigh-invulnerability, pyrokinesis, mind screwing.
Weaknesses: Eye takes longest to regenerate, memory-destroying weaponry, being told he isn't real and that the writers are using the word "dimension" wrong again.
Jacques was now a short, anthropomorphic pink-furred moose calf wearing a red-and-blue striped sweater. Despite not wearing any pants he still somehow found his card in his pants pocket:
IMAGINATION MOOSE
Juvenile alcid that can conjure anything into existence just by imagining it.
Strengths: Unlimited imagination, master of disguise, can breathe in space.
Weaknesses: Not mature mentally, doesn't completely understand science, susceptible to mind-based attacks.
"Yes, Heather, I believe I would've been more suited for your form, and not...whatever this thing is," Josee commented. She'd been turned into a long, rainbow-colored unicorn-snake-thing with sharp teeth. Her card was inside her mane:
UNICORN OF DIOMEDES
Human-eating equid from a magical future.
Strengths: Understands all East Asian languages, eats people, can survive lethal levels of radiation.
Weaknesses: No fingers, ages rapidly, falls in love with slacker dogs.
"Well, eating people's good for eliminating the other team," Duncan said.
"The keyword here being 'people'," Alejandro pointed out. His voice was autotuned and nasal. "Josee could not eat me, nor could she eat Jacques or you. Nor an alien, or a monster, or a penguin."
Heather snorted. "Alejandro, I love you, but seriously, a penguin?! Who'd have the bad luck to get turned into one of those?"
Heroic Hamsters
Mal looked himself over. He was an Adelie penguin with a cowlick of feathers shaped like Mike's hair. He pulled out his card from nowhere:
COMMANDO PENGUIN
Cute and cuddly boi who can take down animals hundreds of times larger than themself.
Strengths: Can talk to humans and animals, knows all martial arts, can regurgitate tools far bigger than self.
Weaknesses: Not very smart because they're a penguin, irrational, weakness for fish churros.
"Odd," he mused.
"Yeah, I thought you'd get my guy," Harold remarked. He was now dressed in a white t-shirt with black lines and baggy green cargo pants. A fancy-looking watch was attached to his left wrist. He found his card in the watch's holographic display:
ALIEN WATCH MAN
An alien device did what it did, and now shapeshifting into sapient extraterrestrials is possible.
Strengths: Can turn into things with much hardier biologies, healing factors, and more weird stuff that makes evolutionary biologists cry at night.
Weaknesses: Watch times out after ten minutes, watch is removable if a specific set of numbers is typed into it, writers don't know what they're doing at ALL.
Cameron was inside a metal exosuit that made him appear a lot taller than he was. His card also appeared through a digital interface:
CHROME CARAPACE
External covering protects body from harm.
Strengths: Flight, enhanced strength, laser eyes.
Weaknesses: Not too durable, engine unstable, robot girls fail to recognize that the suit's builder is the same person as the machine.
"I loved this webcomic!" Zoey exclaimed. She was a gray-skinned humanoid, her hair now black and a pair of orange striped horns shaped like spoons coming out of her temples. She was clad in a black shirt with a funny-looking maroon symbol on it along with her default pants and wedge sandals. Her fingernails and toenails were claws painted the same maroon as her symbol, and her irises were also that color. She found her card inside her pants pocket:
ZOEYLA GRANGE
Telekinetic troll with enhanced fighting skills.
Strengths: Telekinesis, powerful headbutts, can make sense of weird time travel shenanigans.
Weaknesses: Susceptible to mind-bending powers, maximum life expectancy is only thirty, never expects the pumpkins.
DJ gulped. "I don't like this one's source, though. Too violent." He was dressed in a dark green suit with a matching mask covering his face sans his eyes and mouth. His card was inside a white case inside his lapel:
I SPY
Cynical espionage agent on a quest to protect a vein of Kangaroo Gold.
Strengths: Fluent in French, can turn invisible & disguise as other people, snorts bend reality.
Weaknesses: Lungs destroyed by smoking, can't use any technology invented after 1972, not trustworthy.
Carrie was a humanoid wolf made completely out of black ink save for her face and overalls, which were made of yellowed paper. She found her card in her overalls' pocket:
PEN WOLF
Ink-based canid with superhuman regenerability.
Strengths: Healing factor, can make weapons out of own flesh, can bring drawings to life.
Weaknesses: Colorblind, prioritizes food, cowardly.
"Okay, Carrie's definitely gonna be overpowered," Harold commented. "Me as well."
"I'm just glad I have some power," Cameron said. "Perhaps the strength of a million and seventy men, even." A pause. "Does this suit have a bathroom in it?"
Harold turned himself into a little gray frog-like thing and climbed onto it to inspect it. "Yes, it does."
"Oh, thank goodness!"
Confessional – Harold (as Neural Network).
"I don't want to think about the possibility of Cameron peeing himself in the real world," Harold winced.
Confessional – Sylvester.
"Me either," Sylvester said in the real world, grimacing. "Because guess who's gonna have to clean it up?"
Villainous Vultures
Jo sighed. "Seriously, Chris?" She was a green blob with two stalked eyes residing inside a hovering egg-shaped robot with four-fingered arms. Her card appeared in her hand:
YOLKA JOKE
Egg-like alien who wants revenge for being defeated by a literal fourth grader.
Strengths: High intelligence, suit's mouth can incinerate all organic material for the body to use for energy, can summon a chicken monster.
Weaknesses: Easily stunned, suit is extremely fragile, makes no biological sense.
"Yes, it appears that he's running out of ideas," Ennui drolled. His hair was silver, his skin deathly white, his eyes red, and he was dressed in a black costume with white markings. His card materialized out of a white flame:
GARY GHOSTLY
Half-man, half-ghost, all unstoppable.
Strengths: Intangibility, invisibility, technically already dead.
Weaknesses: Egocentric, human side is very physically weak, brown eyes don't seem to exist in parent universe.
Eva had been turned into a gray cyclopic humanoid with many parts of her body covered in TV static and glitching out. A remote control was in her hand. She pressed the power button and her card appeared on a nearby window:
GLITCHMEISTER
Experiences from outside the universe created a powerful time bender.
Strengths: Can stop time, mess around with time, erasure of memories.
Weaknesses: Remote can work on them, remote can be destroyed, susceptible to magnets.
"When I said I wanted to be popular, this is not what I meant." Topher was an overweight orange tabby cat. He found his card glued to the bottom of a nearby food bowl:
FAT CAT
Cynical felid with low-level reality-warping powers.
Strengths: Hard to severely injure, can summon items from nowhere for its own amusement, can manipulate objects with fingers.
Weaknesses: Extremely poor stamina, falls asleep a lot, source comic stopped being consistently funny in the 1990s.
"I'm sure you can find a work-around," Eva shrugged. "Anyway, who should we attack first?"
"Dunno. Maybe you should stop time so you can look everyone over."
"Good call." Eva pressed the stop button on her remote at the sky and the world froze, then pointed fast-forward at herself. Not long after blurring around the city, she restarted the universe. "Okay, so Noah's super intelligent and can erase us from the game by saying we aren't real. I say we take him out first."
"Really? Huh, I thought Chris didn't like him enough to give him something so gamebreaking," Jo remarked.
"He doesn't like him," Topher replied. "See how twitchy he gets when Noah wins at something? But yeah, we should..." And then Topher fell asleep.
"His cat is more active than that." Jo sighed. "C'mon Ennui, let's go."
"I concur." The demighost floated after her.
Heroic Hamsters
Leshawna looked at herself. She was dressed in a black tuxedo, gray pants, a light yellow undershirt, spats, and a black top hat. "What in the world?" she asked herself, finding her card inside her hat.
THE CONTROLLER
Comic businessperson who can summon trains to run down opponents.
Strengths: Can summon any rolling stock from any railway that ever existed regardless of whether all examples of that class were scrapped, impeccable timing, doesn't age.
Weaknesses: No one will take them seriously, poor aim, cream buns.
"..."
Villainous Vultures
Inside of an aquarium on the edge of town, MacArthur was a small green octopus with a tiny volcano strapped to her head. "Unusual combo, but still awesome!" She spewed a jet of lava out, and it quickly crystallized into black shards that formed her card on the tank's wall:
THE VOLCANO
So named for their fiery temper and not for their supposed high tolerance of spicy foods.
Strengths: Can survive temperatures beyond the boiling point of tungsten (10,030°F), can manipulate paper underwater, ink bombs.
Weaknesses: Can't breathe air, can't survive in freshwater, mediocre clarinet player.
Beardo was now a gorilla the size of a large truck, his beard and afro extending to cover his entire body. His card was on a nearby billboard:
MEGA GORILLA
Giant gorilla.
Strengths: High speed, sharp teeth, eats dinosaurs.
Weaknesses: Poor mobility, cute women, endothermic metabolism will eventually cook it alive from the inside out.
He winced. "Oh, that's gonna suck."
Laurie was now a green furry creature with a pink nose and pronounced lips. She wore a knight's helmet with a white plume and a purplish-pink cape with a shamrock on its back, her card stitched into it like a tag:
SUPER CLOVER
Energetic phytokinetic monster kid.
Strengths: Flight, nigh-invulnerability, can control plants.
Weaknesses: Clueless, reckless, can only control plants without brains.
Sky was light green-skinned and was dressed in a neon green and black jumpsuit. Her card was inside her pocket:
IGO
Touched a magical comet and can now fire plasma out of their palms.
Strengths: Durable, immune to own plasma, expert fighter.
Weaknesses: Won't show up on a greenscreen, incompetent boss, parent series is severely overrated.
Miles was a bubblegum pink monster with fangs, three yellow eyes, lavender tendrils for hair, and a long, whiplike tail. Her card was tattooed into her right palm:
FRIGHT MUNCHER
A monster that grows larger when more people are afraid of it.
Strengths: High jumps, sharp teeth, barfs fast-drying glue.
Weaknesses: Confidence, bravery, everyone else being an idiot.
Can someone help me? B asked. He was a Japanese-style vending machine with a symbol stamped onto his sides. His telepathy watch was integrated into his keypad.
"Oh, sure thing." Sky picked up a nearby 100 yen coin and put it in, receiving a packet of apple seeds and B's card:
ANOMALY 261
Vending machine that deposits weird things when paid.
Strengths: Unaffected by own wares, not limited to conventional physics, can work without electricity.
Weaknesses: Only takes yen, depositions are random, immobile.
Crimson was a hulking, skeletal black...thing, with a bulbous head and no eyes. She found her card, written in Braille, on a nearby wall, though she had difficulty walking over to it:
STRANGE FORM
Metallic killer from another planet. Weirdest known life cycle.
Strengths: Sharp teeth, acidic blood, can breathe any atmosphere.
Weaknesses: Blind and therefore relies on echolocation, brittle arms, not adapted to Earth's higher gravity.
Heroic Hamsters
Shawn was in a suit and found his card inside his lapel:
SCAT MAN
Disorients enemies with fast-paced gibberish.
Strengths: Unassuming, immune to mind-based powers, can speak any language.
Weaknesses: Sometimes scats while delivering instructions, somewhat annoying, subject to too many puns.
"Rada...rada, rada?" Jasmine was now a creature resembling a gerbil's head on a llama's neck on a bipedal elephant's body. Made of granite. She found her card inside the pocket of her apron:
RADA RADA
Rock monster with impeccable culinary skills.
Strengths: Speaks in a language only fellow heroes can understand, tough skin, can eat anything without getting sick.
Weaknesses: Ill-tempered, brittle, can't poop.
Cody was a black-furred creature with a white face and a bright red nose, wearing only his iconic yellow shirt. He pulled out a stick of baloney from behind his back with his card stamped into it:
CRACKO
Rabbit/cat natural-born prankster out to annoy the world.
Strengths: Nigh-invulnerable, access to hammerspace for any conceivable object, can enter TVs to obtain even more weapons.
Weaknesses: Not actually funny, relies too much on pop culture no one who lives in the 21st century understands, doesn't know geography.
Sammy was a 300-foot-tall bipedal black lizard, her back covered in massive plates. She found her card etched into one of the plates on her tail:
GODLIZARD
Marine iguana mutated into a radioactive skyscraper-sized behemoth.
Strengths: Radioactive burps, bulletproof, can eat rocks.
Weaknesses: Top-heavy, poor mobility, square/cube law.
Tyler's skin had turned into a thick red material and he now sported antennae, along with an extra pair of arms and an extra pair of legs. He found his card tied around the handle of a spoon that was in his supernumerary left hand:
THE HARVEST MITE
Strength of a crowded bus stop of men.
Strengths: Incredibly strong, impressive tunneling skills, can shrink to the size of a pinhead.
Weaknesses: Absolutely loony, poor grasp on reality, might be naked.
Sadie was a black machine resembling a bulldozer and a dump truck's hybrid offspring, her eyes inside her headlights, which were mounted in such a way that she looked like a slug, and her mouth was a grill. Her card was inside her glove compartment:
MUD
Experimental snow plow proven to be the ultimate tractor.
Strengths: Small turn radius, doesn't need gasoline or any type of fuel, 280° vision.
Weaknesses: Afraid of the dark, hates soap, mechanical issues in bed hydraulics.
"Just...how many children's shows are we going to make fun of today?" Sadie asked.
"I dunno, but we're gonna ruin some bad guys' lives today," Cody said. "Now let's see..."
Villainous Vultures
Stephanie was dressed in an elegant red-purple trench coat with matching fedora and heels. Her card was inside her pocket:
ANGRY ARCHAEOLOGIST
Where on Earth is she?
Strengths: Can hide anywhere, incredible intelligence, teleportation.
Weaknesses: Can't use any technology invented after 1985, can't run because of her shoes, not bulletproof.
Ryan was a big, hulking pot-bellied gray-skinned alien with four eyes, a bulbous head with small antennae, six noodly legs ending in three-toed feet, and dressed in a labcoat. His card was inside his pocket:
QUASAKAR
Alien who ate a piece of a meteorite laced with Element 126 and became all-powerful as a result.
Strengths: Sizeshifting, cloning, can drink through their ears.
Weaknesses: Fragile, egocentric, will eventually succumb to radiation poisoning.
Sanders was a blue creature ten feet tall, with mitten-shaped hands, flat feet, a baby-like face, a hook-shaped growth coming out of her forehead, and a TV in her stomach, where her card appeared:
WAKA-TOOKA
Giant who can see into other worlds.
Strengths: Biological television equals perfect surveillance, can read minds, incredible strength.
Weaknesses: Freaks out fellow villains, clumsy, vacuum cleaners.
Sugar was now a gelatinous pink blob with a face. Her card was projected in front of her holographically from a button embedded in the ground:
SLIME BALL
Multicellular alien protist out to eat the planet.
Strengths: Can consume any organic matter without getting sick, can grow stronger after eating another slime's poop, own poop can be used to make gadgets.
Weaknesses: Eating the poop of two slimes will turn them into a water-soluble homicidal maniac, extremely dumb, starves easily.
Lightning was buff and dressed in the colors of the Canadian flag, with a maple leaf on a circular shield. His card was in his hand:
CAPTAIN MASCULINE
Perfectly pure paragon.
Strengths: Incredibly strong, stands for freedom, hates Nazis.
Weaknesses: Why should there be?
"Sha-BAM!"
Heroic Hamsters
Brick was a cyanotic corpse of an eight-year-old with x'ed-out eyes. His card was found inside a nearby wooden chest:
DEAD BOI
Body of a child who committed suicide by suffocation, soul of a demon, heart of a hero.
Strengths: Bullet tears, craps money, can summon an army of exploding flies.
Weaknesses: Slow, poor eyesight, smells awful.
Jen was a tall periwinkle wyvern with a large nose horn, several cranial horns, and her tail was covered in spines. Her card was on the back of a nearby rune:
VAINDRAGON
Incredibly narcissistic dragon that rebelled against their queen to become a hero.
Strengths: Flight, blinding magnesium flame, can fire tail quills.
Weaknesses: Quills take a while to regrow, large nose horn means big blind spot, chicken.
Ella was a pink notebook with arms and a face. She found her card written on one of her pages:
ARTBOOK
Able to twist the fabric of reality by singing.
Strengths: No morals, unassuming, anything drawn on the pages comes to life.
Weaknesses: The color green (since green is pink's anticolor), fire, growing up.
Justin was a gray retrofuturistic robot with a single antenna on his head, a holographic mouth grill, and a door on his chest. He opened said door and retrieved his card from within:
ANGLESMITH
Sociopathic robot who can bend any material.
Strengths: Incredible strength, organs are autonomous and replaceable, doesn't age.
Weaknesses: Drug addict, smells bad, horrible cook.
Geoff was a bug the height of a nickel, clad in a gray cloak. He only had four limbs though, and his body was completely composed of a viscous black material. A tiny sword was in a holster on his back. His head was stuffed inside a white shell shaped like his hat. He found his card inside a pocket universe within his own body:
EMPTY SOLDIER
Failed prototype of an evil goddess' mind prison made almost entirely out of dark matter or whatever it's called.
Strengths: Can beat up things much bigger than itself, doesn't need to eat or drink or sleep, can store stuff inside itself.
Weaknesses: Takes damage quickly, doesn't remember its own past, bugspray.
Bridgette was in a mobile aquarium tank, as she was a mermaid with a powder blue tail. She was wearing a seaweed-wrap tube top and had a cockle serving as a living hairpin. Her card was on the back of a common squid also floating in her tank:
BIG MERMAID
Like the redhaired one, but actually competent.
Strengths: Can talk to macroscopic sea life, can survive on plankton, magical singing.
Weaknesses: Will suffocate out of water, can't use fire, doesn't know what a fork is.
"Annnnnnnd we spent so much time showing all the designs we've gone right to break!" Chris announced. "So what's the big old fight gonna look like? Find out after these messages."
Do da do da doo. Commercial break!
"And we're back!" Chris said to the audience. "The teams have finally met up and are making their attack plans!"
"Let's just hope they don't destroy all the city," Chef, turned into a regular old cop, grumbled.
Villainous Vultures
"There is definitely something we should be doing," Scarlett said. "Sugar, B, you're with me. B, I will buy your wares and feed them to Sugar. Sugar, your resulting feces will be used to build rayguns to take out some of the more challenging heroes from the list Eva supplied me with. Stephanie, since your costume impairs your mobility and we can't seem to be capable of removing them, I want you to stay here and buy the food."
"Okay, that's fair, heels are dumb anyway."
"The rest of you should go out and take care of the weaker heroes."
"But how are we gonna pay for all that food?" Ryan asked.
"Leave that to me." Alejandro summoned an enormous pile of yen.
"Oh...right, I forgot you could do anything." Ryan inserted a 500 yen into B and he deposited an onion.
Sugar ate said onion. "Hey, it tastes like p'tato chips!" A pink tetragonal trapezohedron encased in a clear shell popped out of her head. Scarlett grabbed it with a pair of tongs and began hammering it flat on a nearby lab table. The rest of the team filed out.
"Keep the food comin'!" Stephanie inserted another 500 yen and B deposited a lumpy dark purple fruit, which Sugar ate. She crapped pink again, along with a swarm of what appeared to be red-and-orange-striped European wasps with the wings of a Puerto Rico harlequin butterfly. "Oh, guess that fruit was yer house. Well, anyway, yer mine now, so go sting the heroes!" The wasperflies complied and flew off.
Confessional – B.
I am a lot more dangerous than I first thought I was.
Heroic Hamsters
"Okay, so what should we do?" Emma asked Noah as the heroes marched together to the city's heart.
"Hm...I don't know. I think maybe fight them into submission and then I tell them they can't exist with the normal laws of physics. Poof, they're gone."
"I think maybe you should disable their powers before they kill us all?" Jen asked.
"I need a clear shot for that to work. Can't think straight if a flame's an inch from my face."
"Or if a bunch of wasps demons want after you!" Harold exclaimed, turning into a dromaeosaur-like blue thing holding wheels in its feet and running away. Everyone else turned around and gasped. The wasperfly swarm closed in...
And then suddenly turned into a bunch of Skittles, which rained harmlessly on the ground. "Owen, I'm not into you, but I love you so much right now!" Sadie exclaimed.
"Rada rada, rada rada!" Jasmine agreed. Owen smiled bashfully.
A blue flame torched the candy into oblivion. "Ah, but that is not the least of your troubles," Alejandro smirked as the villains made themselves known. "Beardo, get them!"
"Well, okay then." Beardo lunged off a nearby skyscraper, making a Tarzan yell...only for Sammy to effortlessly snipe him with a well-placed belch, a blue pulse filling the air. Beardo fell, landing painfully on his back, right on top of Laurie, Miles, and Eva, taking all of them out, dissolving into blue light.
"Huh. Welp, we don't have to fight Eva now," Cody said. "'Twas beauty that killed the beast. And by beauty, I mean my boo."
"Awww," Sammy cooed.
"ATTAAAACK!" Josee roared, immediately killing the mood.
So they did.
Confessional – Eva (real world).
"And so begins a fight I really wish I could've been in," Eva sighed. "On the bright side, watching it was extremely entertaining."
Josee, for her troubles, was beaten over the head by Carrie with a pipe she'd made from her tail, which was slowly growing back. "This – is – for – making – Devin – date – that – abusive – crabapple!" Devin noticed the fight and levitated over a massive boulder, which he dropped on Josee's head, killing her. "Thanks Devin!"
"Méi wèntí!"
Sierra summoned a pipe wrench and used it to shatter Lindsay's gem and Jasmine's body. Sierra in turn was strangled to death by Tyler, who then shrank himself down to the size of a real harvest mite. He bit Duncan on the nose, while Geoff stabbed Duncan's eyes out. The Delinquent howled in pain, allowing Harold to return, now morphed into a giant four-eyed and four-armed red-skinned humanoid. He smashed the distracted fish-bug into nothingness.
"Thanks guys!" Harold said once the Klutzy Jock returned to full size. He gave them a double fistbump, which sent them flying. "Oops. Guess I like, don't know the strength of my own mad skillz."
Confessional – Tyler and Geoff.
"I didn't die, but it still hurt like the Dickens."
"Shyeah dude, some things never change." A pause. "How am I speaking without a mouth?"
"Bug magic, maybe?"
"You have caused confusion and delay!" Leshawna smirked. "Now go back home and think about what you've done!" She summoned her train form from the last VR challenge and it ran over Jo and Topher, eliminating both, before dissolving.
"I don't think everyone's here," Bridgette noted. "Where's Scarlett?"
"That's what everyone wants to know," "Geoff" said. He then entered her tank and killed her by slicing her into bits with his tiny sword. Jacques returned to his original form and laughed. "Ha ha ha HA!"
"That's impossible because it violates thermodynamics." Jacques exploded into blue and Noah smirked, then frowned. "Bridgette was right. Not everyone's here. Four Vultures are missing, and I bet they're building something that could let them win."
"Then I guess it's up to me to use my leaves to get the truth out," Emma sneered. "And I know just who to look for."
"There!" Sanders said triumphantly. "I've trapped you!" Cody was stuck inside her belly screen.
"But he is still in there," Alejandro noted. "I believe you might want to destroy him." He produced a bottle of acetone.
"Isn't that stuff poisonous?"
"Are you not an alien who might be able to metabolize this?"
"Fair enough." Sanders drank it. She quickly screamed in pain as the acetone raced through her body before she disappeared...
Leaving a completely uninjured, but soaked and a little smelly, Cody. "Little known fact, bub," the Slick Geek smirked. "Toons are made of light, not film as that one movie would lead you to believe. We're pretty much invulnerable. And if we are killed? We're brought back to life as soon as someone uses us in a story or an artwork."
"That's the First Law of Cartoon Physics," someone very important explained from offscreen.
"Alejandro, our universe doesn't allow people to shoot fire from their hands!" Alejandro's form fizzled, but he stood his ground. As a mind demon from an alternate reality, he was tougher than the other villains were.
"Where's his mouth?" Owen asked. He picked up Taylor, removed her peel (causing her to screech in pain) and tried to jam her into him.
"Hey!" Alejandro snapped.
"Probably his eye," Cody said. Owen forced Taylor into Alejandro's eyelids and she immediately disappeared. "See?"
Emma pulled out a leaf from her shoulder and shoved it into his mouth-eye. He spluttered, but his pupil shrank to nothing and his sclera turned purple. "Where's everyone else?"
"Scarlett, Sugar, B, and Stephanie are working on a weapon to destroy you all," Alejandro said monotonously.
"He sounds like me," Ennui said, bemused.
"How funny," Crimson agreed. "Just when I thought this day couldn't get any better."
"Do you have a final three deal with the Ice Dancers?" Emma continued. "And did you use it to try and destabilize me?"
"Yes and yes."
"Are you compensating for something?"
"Yes."
"I TOLD YOU SO!" Heather cackled. Owen shut her up by turning her into a blueberry muffin, which Brick ate to everyone's applause. He then suddenly crapped a 500 yen coin, to everyone's disgust.
Noah looked at the coin and got an idea. "Emma, Owen, stay here. Justin, Shawn, come with me. I think I know how to win this."
"Skebby-do-dap-DAH, I am IN!" Shawn agreed.
"I'll put on my tutu," Justin said ominously.
Noah turned to his archnemesis. "Oh, and Alejandro? 'Dimension' means direction of motion, NOT alternate universe." Alejandro dissolved in blue.
Confessional – Alejandro (real world).
Alejandro roared in anger.
"Lightning, we gotta go after them!" Amy exclaimed. "If we don't stop Noah and his story-breaker power we're all gonna lose! And we DO NOT WANT TO LOSE to SAMEY'S team!" A pause, after which she literally exploded. "ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME?!"
"I gotta beat this pathetic chump into the ground first!" Lightning retorted as he clambered up a building. Cameron had just taken out Miles by being brave, and by having a missile launcher in his butt. He screamed and jumped at Cameron.
Cameron gulped, but collected himself quickly, and flew away. Lightning barely managed to keep himself from hitting the ground by grabbing onto a streetlight.
"This door's locked!" Shawn exclaimed.
"I can bend it open!" Justin replied.
"But it's wooden," Noah pointed out.
"We know that, but this door looks pretty stupid." Justin bent the door in half; it didn't break. "C'mon!"
Confessional – Noah.
"I guess my power only works on villains. Huh."
Lightning and Cameron continued to fight. If I had the patience to write it, I would. But I don't. So make your own adventure.
"Skabadabadabadoobelidabbelydabbladabbladabblababbelibabbelibabbelibabbelabbelodoobelidoo!" Shawn said to Stephanie.
"...What?" And then Justin whacked her over the head with a frying pan, eliminating her.
"Hey, Sugar!" Justin said, pulling out two more slime poops. One was red and the other was light purple with a glowing yellow core. "These will make you stronger!"
"All right!" Sugar ate the red one. She very quickly tripled in diameter and her pink flesh became redder, magma-like cracks forming in her. Then she ate the purple one. A light hummed into being inside her core, and antennae and wings sprouted from her body. But her internal light consumed her, warping her into a lumpy, oily gray monster with hollow eyes, sharp "teeth", and a rainbow-colored light taking the place of her insides. Noah arrived with a hose and sprayed her with it, destroying her.
"Justin?" Noah asked.
Justin chuckled and took out the yen, revealing he'd drilled a hole into it and tied a string to it. He put it into B, then pulled it out. B deposited a live grenade and the heroes ran away.
"Curse you, Noah the Scheming Cynic," Scarlett sighed.
The building exploded.
B flew out of the burning building and landed hard. Sam pulled out his blaster and covered him in gelatinous green polymer, destroying his inner workings and eliminating him.
"Nice going, Lightning!" Sky groaned to the fight above. "If you'd gone after them we could've stood a chance at evening our odds!"
"Sha-what?" It was the opportunity Cameron needed to piledrive Lightning into the street, weakening him. "Mike" then coughed up a bazooka and shot Lightning with it, eliminating him.
Zoey witnessed this. Noah, are you okay? she asked telepathically.
From inside the safety of Justin's chest compartment, Noah groaned, rubbing his head. Yeah, I'm fine. Justin's chest breaks the universe. Shawn's also alive.
Well, in that case, can I ask you about Mike? He's acting abnormally violent and ill-tempered.
I noticed that too. You're a telepath, so maybe you can see into his mind. If you want more info, ask Cameron, since they're foster brothers.
Okay. Thank you.
Mike's Mind
"Why are we funny birds?" Svetlana asked as they reached another part of Mike's brain. All of them were Adelie penguins now.
"I guess today's challenge did that," Mike explained. "I really hate missing out on the VR ones, they're usually a lot more creative than the regular ones." They stopped at a podium in front of a large number of chairs and a massive set of gates.
"This must represent Senator Tyra Erickson," Chester remarked. "Svet, can you read the instructions?"
"Da. Mike must give an epic speech about underwear to all of the people who hate him." Mike sighed and made an army of clones of his various enemies.
"Uh..."
Mike? Zoey's voice suddenly entered the room. Are you okay? I'm really worried about you. So are the Misfits. Cameron. The interns. You haven't been yourself lately. If...if the real you is somewhere in there, I hope you come back. Please.
Mike stood taller, smiling in relief. "There ARE people who like me!" So he began his speech. "First order of business. Without underwear, our pants would chafe our butts."
Confessional – Mal.
"I felt Zoey talking to me, but at the same time...not me. Does she know? Is she the one after me?" He stopped and then laughed heavily. "No, that's ridiculous! Zoey's a stupid moron who's got barely any personality. She probably just had bad aim is all."
Eventually, Ennui was defeated by Owen's pastrami attack, and the heroes finally won. Suddenly, they disappeared in a flash of blue light...
"And that wraps that up!" Chris said. "With Owen, Noah, Emma, Sam, Mike, Cameron, Zoey, Shawn, Cody, Sammy, Tyler, and Justin still standing, the Heroic Hamsters win!" They cheered. "Their prize? A free trip to an office supplies store to get paper, pencils, and coloring stuff to make their own comics should they so desire to!
"Now, Villainous Vultures. You had the bigger and meaner mascot, but you weren't as creative as the Hamsters were. Meet me at the campfire at eight, Villainous Vultures, you're getting arrested!"
Confessional – Topher.
"Lightning, you clod! You shouldn't have let what Cameron said about not liking you dictate what you did for the entire team!" He wrote LIGHTNING on a piece of paper.
Confessional – Duncan.
"I wish I got to do more. Anywho, Alejandro says this is a good chance to get Sugar kicked out." He wrote SUGAR on a piece of paper.
Confessional – Sugar.
"B shouldn't've dropped that grenade!" She wrote B on a piece of paper.
Confessional – Laurie.
"Amy dissed my dreads a while back, and I hold a grudge." She wrote AMY on a piece of paper.
"Here's how we do eliminations," Chris said. "We use the marshmallow system here. When I call your name, come get one." Close shot of twenty-five marshmallows, seven of them colored. "The marshmallows are color-coded to show how many votes you got because drama, unlike crime, always pays. White means no votes against you, and the recipients are Taylor, Scarlett, Sierra, Duncan, Heather, Jacques, Josee, Ennui, Topher, MacArthur, Beardo, Laurie, Sky, Miles, Crimson, Stephanie, Ryan, and Sanders." They all got their marshmallows.
Once again, Chris pointed to four blue marshmallows. "Blue means you received only one vote against you. Eva, Alejandro, B, and Jo, these are yours." Jo cocked an eyebrow at Lightning, who sniggered.
Next, Chris pointed to the green marshmallow. "Green means you got more than one vote, but are still safe. Amy has four."
"I guess this running gag DIDN'T die," Amy grumbled.
"And neither did our other one!" Two colored marshmallows were left. "Orange means you're on the chopping block, but are safe. Red means you've outlasted your welcome. Lightning. Sugar."
Both of them looked genuinely concerned.
"Lightning, you spent more time focused on fighting one person rather than being focused on fighting all of them. Sugar, you didn't do anything of use. And tonight we see that...
...
...
...
...
"I'm sorry Lightning, but you are gone with eleven votes against you."
Lightning paled. "Sha-WHAT?!"
"HA!" Jo howled in delight. "He's FINALLY gone!"
"You're welcome," Eva smirked. Jo laughed and fist-bumped the Iron Woman.
Confessional – Tyler.
"Aw yeah! Team E-Scope is back in business!" He did a victory dance which ended when his foot ended up in the toilet. "Ewwww!"
"This might become our highest-rated VR challenge yet!" Chris stood behind the communal washrooms. "Thirty-five down. Forty-nine remain. Who'll be super and who'll be duped? Find out on
"Total.
"Drama!"
He leaned back against the washroom, in so doing causing a tiny icicle to break off its roof and fall down his shirt. He shrieked and frantically jittered around trying to get it out.
Votes:
Taylor – Eva
Scarlett – Lightning
Sierra – Lightning
Amy – Lightning
Duncan – Sugar
Heather – Sugar
Alejandro – Sugar
Jacques – Sugar
Josee – Sugar
Jo – Lightning
Ennui – Amy
Eva – Lightning
Topher – Lightning
MacArthur – Lightning
Beardo – Lightning
Laurie – Amy
Sky – Lightning
Miles – Amy
B – Lightning
Crimson – Amy
Stephanie – Alejandro
Ryan – Sugar
Sanders – Lightning
Sugar – B
Lightning – Jo
Results: 11-6-4-1-1-1-1 Lightning-Sugar-Amy-Eva-Alejandro-B-Jo
Eliminated: Staci, Leonard, Tammy, Leshaniqua, Spud, Chet, Dakota (ii), Phil (r), Ellody, Rock, Rodney (t), Anne Maria, Mickey, Jazz (r), Max, Mary, Junior, Zeke (t), Beth, Brody, Scott, Lauren, Brady, Lorenzo (t), Katie, Trent, Kitty, Gwen, Dave, Courtney, Tom, Dawn (t), Izzy (r), Jay, Lightning
Known active immunity idols: Josee (Crimson), Owen, Carrie, Tyler, Sammy, Lindsay, Devin, Eva, MacArthur (Noah), Geoff (Geoff), Justin (Ella), Duncan (Alejandro)
Bonus clip:
Team E-Scope
"With Lightning out of the way, there's one less person who'll primarily vote for the underdogs," Noah addressed his friends in an unused cabin the following day. "Good work to all of you! And let's give Cameron a warm thank-you for giving us a reason to vote for him!"
"YEAH!"
"Hey, Christmas is in three days!" Owen realized as they filed out. "Oh man, I don't even know what to ask Santa for!"
"Wasn't what Izzy did to you before she left a present enough?" Beardo chuckled.
Owen blushed nervously. "...maybe. What are you looking for?"
"I dunno, maybe something I can record my sounds on. My family's not made of money, but I think I could help us out if I could publish my songs."
"That sounds wonderful!" Ella said. "I'm looking forward to a DVD copy of that new movie that came out last fall! I haven't gotten a chance to see it, but I've heard it's really good!"
As they chattered away, Mal sneered at them. "Pathetic. They're all so happy it sickens me." He slunk off.