Do I need a break day? No, not this time. Thanks for reviewing, OmniIBIBUltraInstinctGodzilla and iwashere01.

We didn't get a break between challenges the next day. Still, I tried my best to keep my social interactions up. I talked to Damien in the morning before breakfast, just briefly, to ask him about his plans for the rest of the game, now that he wanted to leave and didn't have the cash to do it on his own.

"I'm going to try to get myself voted off," he said straight out. "But what did you mean, what I was doing yesterday wasn't a good thing?"

"Because it was clearly not your fault they were losing," I told him. "If it was anyone's fault, it was Ripper's for letting Raj get a huge lead on him and MK was on the course long before he finished. Our third player was just behind your second because of our lead. Your team was just lucky that Nichelle was so…well, I don't want to say hopeless, but I can't think of a better word…and Lauren was so good."

"True," Damien agreed. He gave a sigh. "But how else can I convince my team to vote me off?"

"As long as you don't throw challenges, there's two things you can do," I suggested. "Either deliberately do poorly in challenges, although not to the point of making it seem like you're trying to. Just hang back a bit, maybe. Or the better option is to just ask your teammates to do you a favour. Losing you means they're one step closer to the money. Some of them seem decent enough to do it. Do they like you?"

Damien brightened a bit. "Yeah, maybe. I don't think anyone outright hates me. Even Scary Girl acts as if she's trying to freak me out because she likes me. I might need to flatter Priya and Millie a bit. Those two are tight, but they get on okay with most of the team, so they'll probably happily get rid of me. And I'm pretty sure Zee will be on board. He's nice, chill. He seems happy to do anything to help one of us. He's easy to hang out with, agreeable."

"You're lucky to have him," I said, a little enviously. "I'd swap him for MK. She's exactly the opposite." I'd barely spoken to Zee, but I knew enough to know he was a sweet guy. A little spacey, but he'd never said a mean word, and once, when he caught me glancing at him, he'd smiled at me.

As it was, Damien seemed to be right about Millie and Priya getting closer. They were together at breakfast again, although at least Priya was sitting down while eating this time. They were looking around at their teammates, talking quietly.

I had my own little drama before that, though. I was sitting opposite Emz and Bowie as usual when Chase came up to our table. "Hey, Emma," he said, with a smile that I think was meant to be charming, but came off as really, really awkward.

Emz sighed dramatically, but answered "Hey."

I almost asked if she wanted me to help get rid of him, but before I decided, Bowie spoke up to the ex-couple. "We'll give you two some privacy to talk." Well, I had to go along with it. I literally got up to move, but Bowie just moved literally a metre, clearly wanting to listen in, so I stopped and sat back down further away.

"Go ahead," Bowie prompted them. "We're not even here."

I consciously decided to pretend I wasn't listening, but in reality, I think we both were, while Chase was basically twisting everything Emz said as a way to make out that she was still into him. Like when she said she went for him in the pirate ship challenge, he said that meant she was thinking about him.

"That's sweet, babe!" he laughed, patting his ex's cheek. "Catch you later!" As soon as he was gone, I zoomed back to my original place.

"What a creep yandere," I said in almost a whisper. "He really can't process that you don't want him, can he? Doesn't he think maybe he should act more like his livestream nice-guy self when he's literally on TV? He is so losing subscribers. At least Julia acts like her social media personality is who she is."

Still, Emz probably did need to start ignoring Chase to stop him trying to feed his ego about her. She promised she would, but who knew if it would work?

"Yandere?" Emz repeated, looking confused.

"Sorry, it's an anime expression I picked up online," I explained. "It means someone who's crazy for their object of affection and thinks they're super sweet. Chase isn't sweet, but…"

As we continued talking, I saw Priya go over to Lauren, talking rapidly. I couldn't hear what she was saying, but Lauren kept looking at her strangely, narrowing her eyes and smiling widely, like an insane slasher villain. Or maybe Harley Quinn on drugs. I couldn't help wondering what Priya was saying to her. Hopefully Lauren would calm down and not try to hurt her own teammate. I didn't see the outcome, though, because I ran out to visit the confessional.
The thing was, I had a lot to talk about with my allies. 'So, um, okay. I love Emz, but I wish she'd just take our advice and ignore Chase. Well, I've been letting her vent, but Bowie's started telling her to ignore him and…well…he's right. Totally. Chase is never going to move on unless he thinks she has. She's still too angry to move on. I know Damien wants to go home next, and I'd support him if we were on the same team, but…well…I hope they'll get rid of Chase soon. Then he and Emz will be separated again, and if they have space apart, that might help."

When Chris called us to the challenge, he greeted us with a screen with a skull on it, saying our challenge was called Capture the Skull.

Guess who started jumping up and down and giggling.

"Settle down!" Chris said, frowning. "They're not real." Lauren's face fell immediately. She looked so disappointed it was almost funny. But at least it didn't make me giggle and jump up and down.

It was basically like any game of Capture the Flag, except we'd be able to hose our opponents down, there would be shields of iron popping up intermittently that the opponents could try to use, and whoever got the other team's skull to Chris first was the winner.

"Do we have to use the skulls you provided, or would you accept any skull?" Lauren asked, openly eyeing Damien. Wow, she really did want to scare the poor guy. Maybe if I'd had someone like her trying to scare me at every turn, I'd want to leave the show, too.

He looked terrified. "Why's she looking at my head? Tell her to stop looking at my head!"

Despite my fear, I spoke up. "Lauren, I think Chris will penalize you if you try to bring him a teammate's skull. Could you please give Damien a break?"

I swear, Lauren turned her head 180 degrees without moving her body to turn her terrifying slasher smile on me. I ducked my head. "Or not…" I murmured. "Sorry, um…Scary Girl." When I finally looked up, Lauren had stopped looking at me. This was mainly because Chris spoke to her.

"Scary Girl, it has to be the skull I provided," he said, holding up a stick to give her a push. "And you should always be this far away from me."

"I think that was a smart question," Priya told her, sounding awkward. "Not just smart for you – smart for anyone. Just plain smart. You're smart!"

Oh, that explained why she was talking to Lauren before. She'd been trying to get her teammate's favour. Either way, if Priya had looked at me, I would have given her a sympathetic look. I would have hated to have so few options for allies that I had to look to someone insane. I mean, she and Millie seemed close, but I wasn't sure if they were in an alliance or not. Maybe they wanted an all-girl alliance or something.

Chris went on telling us about the way we could defend our skulls from the other team. We'd have a powerful hose, stinkbombs, boulders and harpoon guns. I was hoping I got to go on defense. Offence would be super dangerous. To be fair, the harpoon guns fired toilet plungers, and Chef insisted on turning down the air pressure in them for safety reasons, and there were also shields, sheets of metal that would pop up and down at random to give the offense team a fighting chance.

Wayne and Raj started strategizing, and then Raj started giving us positions. But in hockey-speak, like Wayne had done on the ship. I think he meant to put me on defense with Emz and Julia. He and Wayne went on offense with Bowie and MK.

Before the latter two went off, I heard MK ask Bowie "Uh, did you understand any of that?"

"Not a word," Bowie admitted openly. "It was kind of cute. Let's go!" Okay, that was a weird reaction. After that comment from Raj yesterday, I had to wonder. Was there something there? I figured I'd leave it until I knew more. Maybe Bowie would tell Emz and I if there was anything going on.

Julia was tapping away on her phone, not paying attention to anything. Emz and I exchanged glances.

I pulled Emz a little way away and whispered, "If we lose this time and she doesn't look up soon, consider taking her out?" Emz nodded at me, and I raised my voice, so Julia could hear if she wanted. "We need a strategy to make sure the others don't get to the skull. How about Emz, you work the hose since you're good at aiming, Julia, you can work the plunger guns, and I'll work on the others." I had a feeling Julia was not going to cooperate if I asked her to throw stinkbombs in case they backfired. I'd rather win than vote anyone. We were currently on equal ground with the Trout and it would be good to get our numbers advantage back.

At that moment, we heard Chris' voice through a loudspeaker. "Everyone, Chef made a mistake, so obviously, the jackhammer is…now part of the game!"

"Did he just say the other team has a jackhammer?" I whispered to Emz. "Please don't tell me Ripper or Lauren got ahold of it." I didn't mention Chase, but I really hoped he wouldn't use it, either. Jackhammer pranks would be right up his street.

A minute later, Emma called "They're coming! Get ready!"

"Busy!" Julia sang out, tapping on her phone again.

I looked at the offense. No jackhammer, thankfully. It was Priya and Millie, with Chase trailing behind. Emz aimed – and knocked Millie down with the water straight away.

"And that's why I was hanging back," Chase announced as he caught up.

Priya, who'd been ahead, skidded to a stop. "Oh, no! Millie, are you okay?"

"She isn't," Chase stated, "And you won't be either."

Except Priya was lucky enough to get shielded when Emz went for her. I saw my friend looking at her ex, and then she looked at me. I could see she didn't want to give Chase the satisfaction of acknowledging him by attacking him, but letting him win was even worse. Yeah, I knew what she was asking me to do.

Julia had abandoned the harpoon plunger guns for the moment, so I picked up one and aimed it straight at Chase.

"Eat rubber, beach house boy!" I yelled, almost laughing with exhilaration. Competition was the only time I felt like I was allowed to be mean without feeling like a mean person, and I wasn't going to pass up this opportunity.

Okay, I didn't hit where I wanted to. I was going for the face, but it hit Chase's chest, and then a shield came up. But at least I had done it and Emz didn't have to do anything. She could just ignore him.

Wayne eventually came back to help us, so I took over the plungers on my own while he threw the stinkbombs. Julia still wasn't doing anything, but then the offense players actually all hid behind the same shield, so when it came down, I got Chase again, and this time, it was in the face. Julia finally looked up long enough to take a turn with the hose, knocking Priya and Millie off their feet again.

Raj and Bowie came back. Apparently Ripper had decided the stinkbombs wouldn't cut it and amplified one of his own. Ugh. They wanted to tag out, so Emz and I went in their place.

At first, we didn't get very far. We both got soaked by Zee. "Hey, that was a good try!" he called out, smiling sincerely. "You should both be proud of yourselves!" He sounded genuine. Wow, was he really just that nice?

Suddenly, a familiar voice came through an intercom, attached to a tree close by.. "Emma, Tansy, come closer to this tree!"

"What?" Emz asked, confused.

"Just do it!"

It was MK's voice, a little distorted, but still recognizable. Well, I wasn't going to give her any reason to dislike me by refusing to listen

"It's okay, Emz, I'll do it," I said, already moving. The second I did, a shield popped out from underneath and sent me flying. But it got me close enough to the skull to scoop it up before the hose pushed me back again. In fact, the hose's power just pushed me closer to Chris, so I didn't have as far to run. It didn't take long for me to hand over the Trouts' skull.

Chris held up his loudspeaker. "The Frogs of Death win!"

Emz and I thanked MK as soon as I got back to base. "Though how did you get on the intercom?" I asked curiously.

MK shrugged and wouldn't answer properly. Okay, so she helped us win, but I still didn't like her.

I later on found out that Lauren had been the reason the other team lost. Ripper had managed to get our skull by using Priya as a human shield, but he'd dropped it, and Lauren had picked it up, deciding to give it a makeover before she took it to Chris. And according to MK, she'd spent most of the time before that chasing people around with the jackhammer. MK knew because she'd been used as bait. Worse, once she'd gotten away, Lauren's next target had been Damien, even though they were on the same team. Her makeover madness had given us just enough time for me to deliver their skull first.

At elimination time, Emz and I sat on the steps as usual. "So who do you think it is this time?" I asked. "I mean, I know what you want, but I think Lauren's probably going. Her connections are the weakest and she lost it for the team. Unless Damien's convinced them to vote him off. I know he's voting for himself."

Emz nodded with me. "Yeah, I'm not kidding myself. Ripper might go, though. I think Priya was pretty mad at him for making her shield him."

I smiled. "Yeah, I hope he goes. But he did come closest to winning it, so that might give him an edge over Lauren. Depends on who she votes for, I guess." I changed the subject. "Hey, not to take the heat off the guessing game or anything, but have you noticed anything between Bowie and Raj?"

Emz grinned. "Actually, kind of. Raj made that comment yesterday about looking great, and then Bowie said something about the hockey guys being cute today…you think that's going to lead to anything?"

I shrugged. "If it does, we'll have to ask Bowie for any details he wants to give. I've seen bits of Total Drama before, and there have been a lot of showmances. Maybe this'll be one of them."

Before we could say any more, the 14th place loser appeared, a bounce in her step. Even from a distance, I could make out the pigtails.

I shrugged. "I guessed that. Also, I know it's mean, but I'm glad to see her go. She freaked me out."

Emz smiled at me. "It doesn't make you mean, Tansy. There's a reason we call her Scary Girl. I'm a bit scared of her too." Her face brightened up. "I'm glad it's another break tomorrow . I need a break after today's challenge."

I laughed as we went back to our cabin. "Yeah, me too."

Yes, Lauren originally placed 13th when Tansy wasn't around. I know it's been four canon eliminations in a row, but I promise that will change soon. Tansy's never had meaningful interactions with anyone who's left so far, but she can start to change things soon.