Total Drama: Across the Multiverse

by StaticShock01

Chris returns for yet another season in what may be the most insane one yet. 69 contestants! 9 winners from the previous seasons! 28 network picks! 28 audience picks! Which contestant will come out of this madness!(62/98 initial contestants remaining, 129/165 overall) UPDATE: The teams return to the Boiling Isles for Grudgby!

65. In Interspace We Brawl

A/N: Next stop: Bayview! Get ready to brawl!

Also, quick note, but a change to the roster has been made. Alex(Totally Spies) will be competing by herself. Why? For two reasons. One, she is the only member of the main three to have never competed on their own. Two, I found a different way Sam and Clover can contribute to the story. This was something that I decided for a while. I just forgot to actually mention this and make sure it gets changed.

---

Teams:

Radical Rats:

Bennett, Emma, X, Zero & Axl, Albedo, Rick & Morty, Sendo, Akko, Sucy, Lotte & Diana, Blaze, Puss, Rally, May & Becky F., Becky B., Yulaw, Kurt, Tangle, Lanolin & Whisper, Adrien, Hiruma, Sena/Eyeshield, Kurita, Monta & Mamori, Natsu, Lucy & Happy, Kagami, Kise, Zee, Murasakibara

Storm Kings:

Jotaro, Todd and Riley, Paul, Sophie, Bren, Courtney, Rex and Bobo, Reimu, Razer, Din Djarin, Team RWBY and Penny, Ben and Rook, Octavia, Eliza, Huey D., Dewey and Louie, Aomine, Akashi, Sebastian, Isagi and Bachira, Sly, Mayuzumi, Maki

Wave Breakers:

Mr. Wolf, Dwayne, Urien, Ayame and Ryoma(Power Stone), Toxsa, Reagan, Jenny, Julie, Launch, Randy, Molly, Scratch and Libby, Team JET: Kaz, Fiona, Diego, Myron and Shiro, Hailey and Scott,Zak M, Hanamiya, Hinata, Kageyama and Tsukishma, Eijun, Miyuki and Furuya, Kunigami, Bakura, Bass, Asta and Noelle

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Eliminated:

165th- Dragonfly Jones(Radical Rats)-Martin Sitcom

164th- Richie and Virgil(Wave Breakers)- Static Shock

163rd- Cameron(Storm Kings)- Total Drama

162nd- Duncan(Wave Breakers)- Total Drama

161st- Chris P.(Wave Breakers)- Dan VS

160th- Mona(Storm Kings)- Mona the Vampire

159th- Owen(Radical Rats)-Total Drama

158th- Zoey(Wave Breakers)-Total Drama

157th - Tetsuya Kuroko(Radical Rats)- Kuroko's Basketball(Quit)

156th-Shintaro Midorima(Storm Kings)-Kuroko's Basketball

155th-MacArthur and Sanders(Radical Rats)- Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race

154th-Luz Noceda(Storm Kings)-The Owl House

153rd-Priya(Radical Rats)-Total Drama

152nd- Shogo Haizaki(Wave Breakers)-Kuroko's Basketball

151st- Edward Falcon(Radical Rats)-Power Stone

150th- Shawn and Jasmine(Wave Breakers)-Total Drama

149th- Zak Saturday(Storm Kings)- Secret Saturdays

148th - Nimona(Wave Breakers)- Nimona

147th-Rocky Rickaby(Radical Rats)-Lackadaisy

146th-Huey Freeman(Storm Kings)-Boondocks

145th-Cicini(Radical Rats)- Rabi-Ribi

144th- Blaineley(Wave Breakers)-Total Drama

143rd- Heather and Alejandro(Storm Kings)-Total Drama

142nd-Karin Kanzuki(Wave Breakers)-Street Fighter

141st-Ruby G.(Wave Breakers)-Ruby Gillman Teenage Kraken

140th-Noah(Radical Rats)-Total Drama

139th-Marinette Dupain-Cheng(Storm Kings)-Miraculous Ladybug

138th-Dawn(Radical Rats)-Total Drama

137th- Dan Mandel(Wave Breakers)- Dan VS

136th- Ryoma Echizen(Storm Kings)- The Prince of Tennis

135th-Rei Hino(Radical Rats)-Sailor Moon

134th- Johnny Bravo(Wave Breakers)-Johnny Bravo

133rd-Skipper(Storm Kings)-Madagascar Movies/Penguins of Madagascar

---

Chris was seen standing in front of the remaining contestants' new home, as they were bringing in/unpacking the things they brought from their homes.

"Last Time on Total Drama Across the Multiverse! The teams got to take a trip to The Park! No seriously, that's the name of where they went. And the place where previous contestants, Mordecai and Rigby work."

Footage of the contestants first entering The Park was shown.

"Their challenge? Compete in games that the employees of The Park chose for them to do. And in this case, it was butterfly catching from Pops, bowling from Benson, punchies from Rigby, playing the Broken Bonez arcade game from Mordecai, pinata, correction, human pinata from Muscle Man, pin the tail on the donkey, er, contestant from Hi-Five Ghost and finally, building a house from Skips."

Footage of the teams competing in these games was shown.

"Okay, so those first few games sound normal. What about that last one? Building a house? Yeah, that actually wasn't a game. That was just something I came up with to get the contestants to build the next place they were going to stay no questions asked. Hence why they got those strange items like making a table, winning a bed, getting a TV, etcetera, from previous challenges. Though that wouldn't mean anything anyway as I got Doyle to burn all of that to a crisp. And boy were they mad about it."

Footage of Chris explaining the purpose of the last game and revealing that the house they built would be the next place they would be staying in on the island along with Doyle burning the items they got for the house was shown.

"After getting through a plethora of complaints, and murmurs of upset people, we could get to the elimination. And as I said before, the revolving door went back to the Kings. And who would they eliminate this time? Skipper. Looks like that lack of height and his militaristic attitude caught up with him. He says he'll be back, but he won't. No clue what he thinks is going to happen but I was serious when I said they weren't coming back once they're gone."

Footage of Skipper's elimination was shown.

"So, who's going to get the boot next? Perhaps literally like Skipper did? Find out on the next exciting episode of Total….. Drama…. Across the Multiverse!"

*TD: ATM Intro II Plays*

---

Today's Challenge Inspirations:

Idea for the Bakugan to be randomized: Neon-Trainer03 on FF dot net(This was an idea presented in the challenge section of the TD X-over Discord. Unfortunately, when the channel got cleared, his and some other ideas were lost but I was still able to remember that it was him that suggested it)

Special Guests For Today's Episode:

Dan Kuso(Bakugan Battle Brawlers)

Runo Misaki(VA, Marucho(VA: (Bakugan Battle Brawlers)

Also, this takes place after the end of New Vestroia and before Gundalian Invaders, which was where I stopped my full rewatch of the show so far. I did watch a bit of Mechtanium Surge and most of GI when I was younger, but I don't remember much from those seasons. Don't think I ever clarified that with Julie, moreso implied it, but this sets it in stone.

However, like in Season 2, a few Season 3 Bakugan may make an appearance here. Also, some Season 1 Bakugan and cards will also be seen as well, with me updating some of them for how I think they'd work in the life force system compared to the original 3 Bakugan system. I'll try not to do this with too many cards, but for some, this is probably the only way to make sure they're not either completely useless or insanely broken.

That's all I have to say. On to the episode!

With the teams pretty much done bringing what they wanted from home over to the island, they were now deciding who would sleep where.

"So I guess we're sleeping without beds this time." Ruby commented.

"Total upgrade I'd say." Yang added.

"Wouldn't that be considered a downgrade? Or is that sarcasm?" Penny said.

"Yeah, I was being sarcastic."

"It really sucks that we get to have this nice house built and we don't even get to enjoy it with anything inside." Ruby said, taking out a throw.

"This is only temporary anyways. Once we go to the island, it'll be back in the cabins." Blake said, closing her rolling case after making sure everything was there.

"I guess that's one way to look at it." Ruby then noticed that she didn't look as if she had any intention on staying in this room, unlike Yang. "Wait, you're not staying with us?"

"No. I'm going to another room."

"I think I already know where." Yang said.

"It's with Octavia isn't it?" Penny inferred.

"Yeah. Since there's only four rooms per team for girls, we decided to just stay in one of the rooms together. Eliza already decided she'll be the odd one out and just sleep by herself in the extra room." Blake answered. "Besides, I think Weiss already made her decision too."

"Oh? Who's she going to sleep with?" Yang asked.

"Take a wild guess."

They all peeked and saw Weiss talking with her soon to be roommates, Sophie, Riley and Coutney.

"Did you talk to them about it?" Courtney asked her.

"Not yet. I just needed to make sure I had all my things first so I wouldn't need to suddenly have to go back. If it wasn't for that I'd tell them right away. I don't want to make it seem like I'm keeping them in-" She answered before having that feeling that they were being watched. And she was right. The four couldn't get away in time before got to the door and caught them.

"Okay look, I know-"

"You're good. You don't need to apologize. We heard a good bit of it." Yang said to her.

"Although, it is going to suck that we all can't be in the same room." Ruby said.

"If the rooms were going to be groups of four, one of us would have had to be the odd one out and sleep somewhere else regardless." Penny reasoned.

"That is true. And while it still stinks, look at it this way, at least you guys will have time to get to know your roommates better."

"'You guys'? Wait, you mean you're all going to be in different rooms? I thought Eliza was-" Weiss started.

"Going to sleep by herself? Yeah that's not changing. She was pretty adamant about that. Which I guess makes sense. Would kinda be weird for a fully fledged adult like her to be sleeping with teens or young adults. Or at least that's what I think she was thinking, I don't know. I'm talking about Blake. She's not staying either." Yang said.

"Oh. Let me guess… you're staying with…. Octavia, right?"

"Yep." Blake answered.

"So if Blake's not going to be there, who's going to be you guys' fourth?"

"Hmm….. didn't plan that far ahead so I don't know." Ruby said.

"Hey!" Maki called out, bags in hand, causing them to turn. "Got room for one more?"

"Yes! You can stay with us!" Ruby excitedly exclaimed before quickly moving her bags to the room, causing Maki's eyes to widen in surprise.

"She does realize I could have did that myself, right?"

"Maybe, maybe not. Just let her have it, she's really excited." Weiss said.

"*Confessional*

Ruby(Storm Kings):

"Well, why am I so excited to share a room with Maki? She seems like a pretty cool person and this is a chance to get to know her a little better. I wonder what interests she has outside of what she does at her school and fighting curses."

"Also, her relationship with her sister's one that's really sad. I couldn't imagine a scenario where Yang and I ever got like that. Sure, we've had our disagreements from time to time but it's never been out of anger or hate. I can tell that Mai genuinely feels resentment towards Maki. And it's not even her fault. I'm not saying she's perfect, but I don't think Maki's the type of person that would just want to hurt people in that way."

*End Confessional*

Moving on to the boys on the same team, thjngs were going rather smoothly for them as well.

"Home sweet home. I guess." Isagi said, doing some stretches.

"Anyone want to explain to me why Chris decided to just give us no beds?" Rex commented.

"With the bad beds that we had before, they might as well have been no beds. You get two people to sit on one and I bet it breaks." Ben said.

"The floor is not the same thing as a bed, bad or not." Bachira replied.

0"And besides, no one even did that for them to break in the first place. At least as far as I know." Rex added.

"You know, it's funny we're just moving from one temporary home to the next. At least in my case." Isagi commented, finishing his stretching.

"I think that's for everyone."

"Technically he's not wrong. We did get to go back home for a bit." Ben said. "Was that not the case for you Isagi?"

"Nope. In my case, and in Bachira's case, we both went back to Blue Lock. Because of how the program works, we only go back home on special occasions. Or when we earn enough points to redeem the choice to be able to do so. At least for a few hours if the latter's the case." Isagi explained.

"Redeem points? I know we've been there, but when you just hear how it's described, it makes it seem like it's worse than what it actually is." Ben said.

"It's not. It's actually pretty fun." Bachira said.

"You'd say anything's fun. Only person that I think beats you on that around here is Zee."

"Well, watching paint dry is no fun. Unless you do something while watching it. Like walking around on your hands."

"I…. guess?"

"EVERYONE! DROP WHAT YOU'RE DOING AND COME OUTSIDE, NOW!" Chris called out via megaphone.

"Challenge time already?"

"I hope not. I'm nowhere near ready for it. But if so, I got no choice but to make myself ready." Isagi said.

*Confessional*

Ben(Storm Kings):

"If it wasn't for the fact that guys that Rook would be sharing a room with included some were some good guys, in more ways than one, I'd kinda feel bad for not being there with him. But, I think he'll be alright. Besides, it's not like we're going to be there all day. Since it doesn't really rain here, we spend most of our free time outside."

"As for why we chose Isagi and Bachira. Well, they seem like some really cool guys. I know Ego kinda only focused on what they've said in games, but I think they're time here showed that they and the rest of the guys at Blue Lock are more than just that. And besides, it looked like they weren't exactly sure on who they wanted to share a room with anyway."

"Oh and one more thing, because I've been here for a little too long. What I meant by that good guys thing in more ways than one was the fact that they're great at challenges too. Who am I talking about? Din, Razer and Jotaro. Chris pulled people away in one of the challenges in the last season I was in. And did it again for Halloweentown. And something tells me I don't think he's done doing that in some other way, shape or form. Of course, we're probably not going to know that in the beginning."

*End Confessional*

Everyone, at Chris' request, was now outside.

"Alright, before we start, first question. How's everything going with picking rooms, etcetera?" Chris asked.

"Pretty good, all things considered." Huey said.

"I mean, three out of four of your roommates are already decided for you. You don't really count. No offense." Bennett said.

"None taken. And actually, we're not all sleeping in the same room."

"Wait, really? That's a surprise. Why?"

"It was Dewey's idea." Louie quickly said.

"One that you definitely didn't mind going along with." Dewey countered.

"To be fair, Dewey was the one that said something first. But Louie, let's not pretend you tried to protest against it. You were pretty ready to leave too." Huey said.

"That's only because he was already leaving!" Louie insisted.

"Come on man, why you throwin' me under the bus? You didn't have to leave because I did." Dewey said to him.

"Hey! Hey! Come on you two!" Huey quickly interjected, getting in between the two.

"Dude, you're acting like we were punching each other or something. Chill." Louie said to him.

"Well, I'd rather be preventative."

"Okay, considering how you guys are acting, maybe it was a good idea for you to be in separate rooms." Emma said.

"Which rooms did you all decide to go to?" Isagi asked the three.

"You can tell each other that later. Right now, I've got an important announcement to make." Chris said.

"Funny how you waited until after the arguing was done to want to butt in. But sure, go ahead."

"Thanks. Alright, first thing. We've got a few things on their way here to make your stay here a little more enjoyable. Especially during the time where there's no challenges. You'll see what they are after the challenge is over. Which was the second thing. We're about to head out for the next challenge. To the planes!" Chris announced.

"What? That again? I thought we were done with that." Natsu said, not the least bit excited, for obvious reasons.

"Relax. You've got the medicine. Shouldn't be much of an issue." Rick said to him.

"That's easy for you to say buddy."

"By the way, where are the planes? I don't see them." Happy said.

"Oh right. Hold on a sec." Chris said before the buses came through portals seconds later. Three to be exact. "Okay, there they are."

"Now, for real this time, to the planes!" Chris said as Chef, Doyle and Heloise pressed buttons to change the buses to planes.

"All aboard!" Doyle called out.

"No one uses that for planes. At least I don't think." Chef said.

"They don't. And also, where's Launchpad? And that other guy? Well, just Launchpad, actually." Louie asked.

"He said he'll be back next episode Scrooge had. As for Mr. Bixby, he's on another job at the moment. Doubtful he comes back by the time this season's over." Chris said.

"How about neither of them come back?" Tsukishima suggested.

"Launchpad's being paid for the entire time we're on this island until we move to Wawanakwa. I'm gonna get every single penny's worth out of him. Now, stop whining and get on a plane. Now."

"Does it matter which one?" Bren asked.

"In this case? No. Just get on one so we can leave."

"What about us eating?"

"If we're getting on the planes, it's obvious we're gonna be eating on there. Now get on the plane man." Aomine said, pushing him forward a bit.

"No need to push."

After everyone boarded a plane, they took off into the air.

"Absolute heresy!" Puss exclaimed on the plane, upset.

"What?" Isagi asked.

"Do you mock me? You all eliminated Skipper!"

"I'm sure there was a reason for it." Myron said, in another seat.

"Though to be fair, I can see why he'd be upset." Hailey said.

"Yeah. I think I know that feeling all too well." Ryoma said, sitting next to Puss before the cat started to break out laughing.

"And now he's going insane. Man, poor guy." Scott said.

"Insane? No, no, no, no, no! I am not loco mi amigo! I wasn't really upset. A little disappointed yes, but not angry. It was fun going up against him. And while I would have loved to have a rematch against him in one final showdown for everything, I must move forward. As he would. Like a 'soldier', as he would say. Falcon did the same in the season he was on. And so did you, Ryoma. All I can do now is be grateful of the moments that we did have against each other. And make more moments with those that are here."

"That is a wise perspective to have. I like it!" Ryoma said.

"And I hope you will like the taste of defeat just as much."

"You can forget about that ever happening!"

"We shall see, samurai. We shall see."

"I already know the answer but, any clues on where we're headed?" Reagan asked Doyle, standing in the pilot room with him.

"If you know the answer, why even ask?" He replied.

"Yes or no smart guy."

"I think we already established I'm pretty smart. But, yes, I do have a clue."

She facepalmed. "I hate you."

"You don't mean that."

"Yeah, you're right. But seriously, are you really not going to tell me?"

"If it makes you feel better, I'm 99 percent certain this one won't be dangerous."

"And what makes you not say 100 percent?"

"Because there's always the chance something weird happens. I don't think I need to recap what's happened so far."

"Okay. Well, that makes me feel 50 percent better."

"Well, mission accomplished. Just wish I could make it a hundred percent but hey, it's something."

Meanwhile, the other contestants were finding their own ways to pass the time until they got to their destination.

"Alright genius, you said we'd have food on the plane. It's been….. Actually I have no clue how long we've been here, but it's long enough! Where's the food?" Bren said to Aomine, sitting a couple of seats away from him, earbuds in his ears, not hearing a single word he was saying as he was knocked out sleep.

"He can't hear you, but you do have a good point. One that's gonna fall on deaf ears I bet." Sly said.

"It already has though. You just told me."

"Not him. I mean Chris. I'm sure he knows already. If he hasn't gotten Chef to give us anything by now, then I don't think it's coming."

"Man…. first he tricks us into building another place for us to stay and come back on the island. Then he asks us to come tomorrow. Now he does this."

"Don't forget burning the things that we got to make it enjoyable right in our faces."

"That too. Burning perfectly good TVs, consoles and beds. Absolutely disgusting!"

"I wouldn't say disgusting, but yeah, pretty wasteful."

"So how much do you want to bet the 'items' he has are some cheap aftermarket items?"

"Uh….. not sure honestly. But, I think if he does give us some good stuff, it'll come with some type of caveat, sooner or later."

"My thoughts exactly. Unfortunately." Becky F. chimed in, behind the two, next to Rally.

"Huh. Surprised you and Reimu aren't sitting together." Sly said to her, turning around.

"She's on another plane I think."

"Don't worry, you'll be with your bestie soon enough." Rally said in a playful manner.

"One, playful or not, you saying 'bestie' is weird. And two, I wouldn't consider her that."

"Would you at least consider her a friend?"

"Sure, I guess."

"Sharing a drink at a party as well as drinking tea together sounds like more than 'I guess'. But, whatever."

"You're the last person to be talking miss-" She came to a realization before making as face at her, smiling.

"No, I'm not jealous."

"I didn't even say anything! I think it's pretty odd of you to assume that of all things." Becky replied, hands in the air as if she was innocent.

"You didn't have to."

"Wow Rally. I never took you for the jealous type."

"Look, I'm not jealous, alright?" She replied, a little annoyed that she was being put under a false assumption.

"Honestly, you constantly saying it sounds like you are." Bren said.

"Look, I'm not, alright? Jeez."

"Hey, if you're gonna dish it, then you gotta take it too." Becky said to her, pointing a finger at her as she did.

"Don't mention anything about-" Her stomach growled, causing the bounty hunter to sigh and slump forward in her seat.

"Oops. Too late. Sorry."

"I really hope this isn't going to be a recurring trend for as long as we're going to be here."

"Doubt it. I'm sure Chris will do a lot of things for the sake of being funny, but that's not one of them." Sly said.

"Also, no contestants equals no one to play his challenges to do the stuff he actually finds funny." Becky F. pointed out.

"Exactly."

"If this is some sort of weird way to manifest food… please let it work!" Bren said.

Meanwhile, on another plane, Penny was asking Jenny several questions about herself and her adventures. As of right now, the latter was explaining to the former what "bullies" were.

"Well, bullies are people that pick on others. Particularly ones that aren't capable or keen on retaliating." Jenny explained to her.

"I see. I wonder if Ruby's school has bullies."

"Probably. Unfortunately, I've learned they're in a lot of places. And I don't just mean school."

"Would any of us here be considered 'bullies'? We have chosen to go against weaker opponents that can't defend themselves very well."

"No! Absolutely not Penny!" Jenny assured. "That isn't the same thing. When we do it, it's for strategy. In most cases anyway, no one here takes pleasure in doing that. And in most cases, there's a reason as to why. Bullies do."

"Hmm…. so a 'bully' is someone that takes pleasure in fighting someone that is incapable of defending themselves. I suppose there isn't anyone like that here."

"Well, bullying can be more than just physical. There's also verbal, psychological, etcetera."

"How do these types of bullying work exactly?"

"Well, for starters, many of them go hand in hand. Like making fun of someone, or using your bigger size to intimidate someone into doing something for them. There's also the whole thing of stuffing someone into a locker but, I think that's a bit overexaggerated. Most of the time, no one does that."

"How would someone even fit into a locker anyway?"

"I guess that's where the 'stuffing' part comes in. But again, no one really does that."

"I can't seem to recall a time that I was 'bullied'. Has that ever happened to you?"

"Well, I wouldn't say bullied. More so teased."

"Are you sure? Teasing and 'verbal bullying' seem very similar to one another."

"Okay, maybe it would count as that."

"Whoever did this must be very strong then."

"Actually, no."

"Well, if you could fight back, why not defend yourself?"

"Because Penny, you can't just go around just attacking people or beating them up. As cliche as it is to say, violence isn't always the answer. If I did that to them, they could turn it around and make it seem like I was bullying them while they were just trying to tell 'harmless jokes'. There's more than one way to make sure a bully gets what they deserve, without laying a single finger on them."

"I see. Noted."

Jenny had a confused look on her face after hearing this. "'Noted'?"

"Do not worry! It is nothing for you to worry about!" Penny assured, giving her a thumbs up.

*Confessional*

Jenny(Wave Breakers):

"Yeah, I don't believe that. Now I'm kinda scared I told her too much."

*End Confessional*

*Confessional*

Penny(Storm Kings):

"I should ask my friends if they were ever bullied. And give them the advice that Jenny gave me when it came to dealing with bullies. Of course, if that doesn't help, I have no issue in taking matters into my own hands." She said before putting her fists together, something that she saw Yang do often.

*End Confessional*

"I have one more question for you." Penny said to Jenny.

Against her better judgment, Jenny decided to bite. "Okay. What's up?"

"Do you have any experience in…. *whispers* romance?"

This was a question that caught her off guard way more than almost anything she would have expected the android to say.

"I…. huh?"

"It is completely okay if you don't. I just wanted your opinion on something. Since you are the only girl here that is the most similar to me. Of course, there is also Bass, Axl, Zero and X, but, I don't exactly feel comfortable talking to them about this as I do you. Especially the first."

"Okay, okay timeout. Why exactly are you asking me this?"

"It's because…. *whispers* I have reason to believe that friend Weiss and teammate Aomine may be in some sort of romantic relationship. I say this because their interactions with one another are very similar to that of Rat Kagami and Rei."

"Well, to answer your question, yes! I do. I've gone on multiple dates actually. And if you want my opinion on Weiss and Aomine, I don't really have a problem with it. Weiss seems very supportive of him with their training. And he seems very thankful for it. I know that doesn't represent everything between the two but as long as their relationship is a positive one, I'm more than okay with it."

"Yeah well, thank goodness they're not on this plane. Because you're just casually saying this in your normal voice for the whole damn world to hear." Sendo said, behind them. With him was Kurt on the seat left of him.

"Oh! Whoops."

"So you were aware too?" Penny asked Sendo.

"Not really. I knew they were close but that was it. I couldn't really care less."

"Don't worry, your secret's safe with me." Kurt joked.

Jenny could only roll her eyes at Kurt's 'joke' and brought her attention back to Penny. "Anyways…." She lowered her voice afterwards. " I'm not sure if you knew this already but, it's best if you let things happen naturally. Try not to help out for the sake of 'speeding things along'. Like I said, it looks healthy enough to bloom and work on its own."

"Noted. I appreciate your opinion!" Penny replied.

"You're welcome!"

*Confessional*

Jenny(Wave Breakers):

"I had to make sure I told her that. If I didn't, I'd have a feeling she'd try to do something to 'help'. Of course, it'll be completely innocent, but that still doesn't change the damage it could cause. I didn't tell her this, but I know from experience how one thing can make a relationship go wayside."

*End Confessional*

*Confessional*

Penny(Storm Kings):

"I think that all but confirms my suspicions! I suspected this for a while, but I haven't been able to get an opportunity to speak to Jenny about it until now. Yes, I am aware that she is a robot and I am an android, but, I still believe we share enough of similarities! Including the fact that both of us are combat ready!"

*End Confessional*

Not long after, the plane was approaching their destination.

"All right, looks like we're almost there!" Kagami exclaimed.

"About time. That felt like it took forever." Murasakibara said, stretching and yawning in the seat that he was in.

"Compared to how instant a portal was before, of course it did." Sucy remarked.

"Huh. Tastes like a mix of, that food that goat served, and… I don't know. Something sweet?" Zee remarked after drinking a potion from her.

"Zee, you actually drank that stuff? Why?" Kagami asked in disbelief.

"Hey, I didn't mind helping out. And besides, it's magic. Who doesn't love magic?"

"Let's just hope that won't be your last words."

"All right, we're about to land! So get ready to get off. That means, wake anybody up that's sleep!" Chris called out, getting Doyle and Chef, who were on the other two planes, to repeat this message.

"So our challenge is going to be in that skyscraper? What is this, another Blue Lock situation?" Axl said.

"Not even close Axl! This is Marucho's house!" Julie exclaimed, after seeing the building.

"So this next one's going to be at your place huh? Let's see what Chris has got in store this time."

"I think I have a pretty good idea….."

Once everyone got off the planes, they were greeted by three figures. The first was one that was familiar to some of the previous Total Drama vets.

"What's going on guys!" The first, who was a boy with pale skin and brown hair, wore a long-sleeved red overcoat with gold trim over a blue sleeveless shirt. He also wore white pants with gray pinstriped patches on his hips outlined in blue along with black boots, a white and blue belt and suspender like straps on his waist. Along with this, his accessories were black fingerless gloves and blue hexagonal shaped goggles.

"Really glad you could make it!" The second figure was a girl with apricot skin, waist-length light-blue hair tied into high pigtails and green eyes. She wore a yellow shirt and a white dress with pink designs.

"Likewise. Welcome everyone!" The third figure, who was clearly the shortest, and youngest, out of the trio, had short blonde hair, wore red glasses, along with blue and white shoes, white shorts with the same pinstriped patches on them as Dan's pants and a dark blue vest over a blue t-shirt. He also wore matching light blue gloves with white cuffs. "My name is Marucho! And these are my friends Runo and some of you remaining veterans may recognize him already, Dan!"

"Sup Julie?" Dan said before giving her a high five.

"You think these guys can handle brawling?" Julie asked him.

"Dunno. That's what we're gonna find out!"

"Exactly! Follow me inside guys!" Marucho said, gesturing for the cast to follow.

They entered the building. And some of them were in awe of the interior.

"You call this a house? Major understatement if you ask me." Kise said.

"Major, major, major understatement." May added.

"Yeah. Now that I think of it, this place is so big, we could have multiple challenges here. Heck, this could be the site of a home for a Total Drama season!" Julie said.

"This place? Are you crazy? Way too fancy for Chris' tastes." Dan said.

"Actually, this does look pretty nice. I'd use it." Chris said before adding, "As a place Chef and I, along with any other big crew names I get to stay in."

"Not a surprising answer honestly." Dan said, exasperated.

"You have a very nice place Marucho. Although, forgive me for not joining in on the fanfare with you all." Diana said.

"Yeah, of course you'd say that. And plus, now that I think of it, this place is nowhere near as huge as her castle." Akko said, her surprise now wearing off.

"I have to agree with Diana. Honestly, if many of you are this surprised at this one building, you'll be more than impressed with my estate." Noelle said.

"And my manor." Weiss added.

"We get it, you guys are rich, so you wouldn't be impressed." Todd said.

"You're annoyed. How else are we supposed to feel? If we were surprised as you all are, that

would be dishonest."

"Maybe not rub it in our faces for one?"

"Stating known facts is not 'rubbing it in'. Please don't be so dramatic." Diana said.

"Well considering how you guys sound, how are we supposed to know?"

"What do you mean by how we sound? I don't sound like I'm stuck up all the time!" Weiss said.

"Come on guys, would you quit fighting? We're staying in an awesome place like this and that's what you want to do? You don't see Sebastian or Sophie doing this." Asta said.

"Admittedly, that entrance wasn't anything I haven't seen before in the Phantomhive estate." Sebastian commented.

"Oh that wasn't an entrance. That was a closet." Marucho corrected.

Sebastian raised an eyebrow, caught off guard by the boy's declaration. "Excuse me?"

"Yep. He's not lyin'. That was a closet." Dan confirmed. Several people, including Diana, Noelle and Weiss were in disbelief.

"I…. see….."

"I just have to know. Who even needs this much space? This bedroom is the size of the cabin we had on the island." Rally commented, stopping and looking at one of the rooms that they passed by.

"That's not a bedroom. That's a bathroom." Runo corrected.

"Huh!?" She got in the room to look around and confirm and saw a toilet.

"HUHHHHH!? THIS IS EVEN WORSE! WHO EVEN NEEDS THIS MUCH SPACE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM!?"

"You know, if this is a bathroom, I think Captain Yami would love it here." Asta commented, picturing Yami's face after seeing this.

"This isn't the first time that's happened. I was just as shocked as you." Dan said.

"Same here. Who knew going to the bathroom could be so….. Exquisite." Julie added.

"Okay, I'm glad I can comfortably take a dump but…. you don't happen to have someone that can hook us up with some food real quick do you? Heck, I'll take a vending machine." Aomine said to Marucho.

"Actually, yes. The chefs should be just about finished preparing the meals. I didn't know what you guys liked so I just got them to make some of everything." Marucho answered.

"Then what the heck are we waiting for? Let's get through these endless hallways and find the kitchen!" He started to run but was grabbed by Maki by the back of his shirt.

"Slow down you idiot. You don't even know where to go. You'd end up getting yourself lost. Then what?" Maki said to him.

"Man….. how much longer we got?" He asked Marucho, getting up after Maki let him go.

"Not much longer. We're almost there, I promise!" Marucho said.

"Hey, I know the feeling. I'm starvin' too." Dan said to him.

"You're starving when you haven't even done anything." Runo remarked.

"Haven't done anything? Runo, I've done a ton before getting here. You don't know what you're talkin' about. Anyways, while we're exploring, how 'bout I tell you newbies my experience on the show? I got to the merge too, so, maybe if you pay attention, you'll hear a few pointers secretly littered in here and there."

"Make sure you include how you got eliminated." Reimu remarked.

"Okay, I can tell by her tone you didn't exactly leave on the high note you were probably about to sell us on." Mr. Wolf said. "And Reimu doesn't seem like the type of person that would lie just because. So, go ahead and give us the rundown Mr. Hotshot."

"Yes Dan. Make sure you tell them everything." Helix Dragonoid, Dan's partner Bakugan, flew out from his pocket to say.

"I'm not gonna sit here and act like everything was perfect. 'Cause if it was, or close to it, I'd be the one swimmin' in dough, not Luz. But anyways, let's get to the juicy stuff. Alright, so you already know from Julie that we can't use our Bakugan like some of you guys can just use your powers whenever you want to. So, we've gotta hold it down with nothin' but our wits, and of course….." He puts in an ability card in his gauntlet, as he was notably the only one out of the three wearing one. A red energy blade appeared from the top of the gauntlet. "These bad boys. It's just too bad I didn't really get an opportunity to really use mine. But at least Julie got some time to use it, so I'm happy for her."

"If only you would have brought your gauntlet instead of leaving it." Runo said.

"I didn't think I'd actually need it. Like I already said, it's not like I could have just used Drago whenever I wanted."

"He has a point. Knowing that, bringing it along would seem very pointless." Marucho said.

"Until it wasn't. Just imagine what could have happened if he would have been able to use him throughout the show." Rally said.

"Oh yeah. Say, no hard feelings about what happened last season, right?" Dan said to her, recalling the Crucible challenge that would decide who out of the 8 participants would make it to the merge.

"None at all."

"Cool. Now, back to what I was sayin' earlier…." As Dan began to talk about his experience last season, they passed by several animals including fish, pandas, and giraffes.

"All these animals belong to you Marucho?" Diego asked.

"I wouldn't say 'belong'. My mom likes to collect endangered species, of course, not everything that you've seen counts as endangered. But there's animals here that better qualify for that classification that we haven't passed by." Marucho explained.

"And to think, Marucho at one point had basic cable." Runo said.

"That must have been before he got all of this." Doyle said. "Talk about a come up."

"Actually, it was while I was here. Of course, I didn't stay here my whole life. But during my time here, I still only had basic cable."

"So how many channels you got now? Must be a bajillion of em." Randy said.

"Just the tier above basic actually. More channels, but most of the premium movie channels, you know, the ones that only show movies and things like that, I still don't have."

"What? Wow. Talk about some cheapskates."

"I mean, to be fair, let's be real, who's gonna watch all of those channels anyway. At the risk of sounding like an 'old hag', I have to say them not going crazy like that with money on TV is pretty smart of them." Rally said.

"I wouldn't call you an 'old hag'. If anything, I'd say you're missing the big picture. You mean they can afford to have their closet look like an entrance in most mansions, but they can't afford better TV?" Fiona said.

"They probably could. But, I'd say you're missing the big picture too. All of that money adds up."

"That may add up for us. But not for people as rich as them."

"I guess we'll have to agree to disagree."

About a minute later, they got to the dining room.

"Helloo." Rex said, after seeing the plethora of food waiting for them.

"Man, they really went all out on the food." Toxsa said.

"Well, how else are all of you supposed to be able to eat?" Marucho said. "Almost every one of you should be able to have enough here."

"Almost is not all."

"I was referring to those that don't have the ability to eat. Like Jenny, X or Sebastian."

"Ah. Now that makes sense."

"You must have done your research on us prior. Or Chris told you." Lanolin said.

"Neither actually. I've been following the show." Marucho replied.

"You have to remember Julie's competing. So of course he's going to watch and root for her friend." Tangle said.

"Well that too. But, I'm also watching to see if my hypothesized elimination order is correct. So far, I've gotten 30 percent of my eliminations correct. A lower percentage than I would like, but, considering how unpredictable this show has been at times, it's actually a respectable percentage. And don't worry, for any of you nervous about my predictions, I don't have a winner yet. I'm taking this segment by segment. I'll have all of that sorted out when everyone has appeared in at least one episode."

"Even with you saying that, there's still the predictions for now. Like who you've got leaving in this episode." Becky B. said.

"Very true. But, I'm going to keep that one close to my chest."

"That's cool and all. But, can we eat now?" Aomine asked.

"Sure! Help yourselves! You didn't have to wait."

Several people began to take their seats after hearing Marucho give the okay.

"When you think about it, living in a place like this isn't exactly all benefits." Kise said before trying some of the onion soup that was offered.

"What? You're absolutely crazy man." Bren said, preparing to chow down on the multiple meats and other foods that he got.

"Let him explain first. Maybe he has a reason for saying it." Sena said.

"I mean, it's not as big as what Rally said. She's talking about investments and things like that. All I was going to say is that when you're in a place like this, and you just want something quick to drink or eat, it seems like a bit of a chore to get to the fridge depending on where you are. Was more of a joke, really." Kise explained.

"Yeah, nobody's buying that. That didn't seem like a joke. You just don't wanna admit you had an awful take." Louie said.

"I mean, he kinda does have a point. You can say goodbye to midnight snacks." Akko said.

"Or sneaking up to get a cookie. But hey, maybe they won't catch you with how big it is around here." Zee said.

"Yeah, they'll be 1 AM snacks instead." Hinata joked.

"Wow. That was….. Really bad. Even for some of you guys." Zak said.

"Come on it wasn't that bad!"

"To be fair, I can kinda see what Kise's getting at. This place is great, but sometimes it is pretty tenuous to get something as simple as water." Marucho said.

"When even the guy that stays here agrees, you have to take some stock into that." Akko said.

"I still think you guys are crazy for even thinking about passing up living in a place like this over minor little things like that. Like if it's that much of an issue, just get a hoverboard or something." Bren said. "And speaking of tech, don't let me forget to give you another binocucom Reimu. Since, you know, the last one got trashed."

"A hoverboard sounds sick not gonna lie. How come you never thought of that Marucho?" Dan asked him, in between mouthfuls of food.

"And how come you never once thought about developing your table manners?" Runo remarked.

"Look, we're among friends. It's not like I'm around some big wigs in suits or someone's parents. I'd get ya if I was doing something like putting my feet up on the table."

"To be fair, you're with people that are old enough to be someone's parents." Sly said.

"Don't worry. None of us have kids." Doyle said.

Rick cleared his throat.

"Oh yeah. My bad."

"You know, it's kinda crazy nobody's mom or dad has ever came here and competed. I can see someone coming here to win the money just to try to help their family out. Simple reasoning, but pretty wholesome." Reagan said.

"Actually, there was Gary. I remember him saying he had a daughter like multiple times." Dan said.

"Oh. Who's that?"

"Stormtrooper. Was a pretty nice guy. Wonder what he's up to now?"

"Wait, wait, hold on a sec. A stormtrooper competed here? You mean the guys that have terrible aim?"

"I don't think their aim is that bad. I feel like the movies kind of made that the stereotypical joke and people ran with it. That, and of course, plot armor." Scott said.

"Ah yes. The strongest type of armor you could have." Hailey said.

"Yeah. Stormtroopers wish they had armor as strong as that." Rick said.

"I think everyone can agree that the clones were better. In multiple ways including armor. And a whole lot cooler."

"You can thank Dave Filoni for that." Heloise said.

"You guys joke about Stormtroopers. Gary actually did well. Don't forget he was one of the people that got to the Blue Lock segment we were in." Rally said.

"You're not slick Rally." May said, giving her a look, smiling a bit.

"What?"

"You're only bringing that up because you taught him how to aim better."

"What? That's ridiculous. Me doing that wasn't entirely the reason why he got there."

"Also, I think you mistakenly included yourself in that 'we'." Adrien joked.

"Well yeah, I know that. I meant as a whole."

"You could have reworded that better to be honest." Becky F. said.

"Blue Lock segment? So that's why it was a double elimination." Natsu said.

"That's not why. Ego just made it that way. The Blue Lock segment was completely different. And pretty merciless when it came to eliminations I might add." Adrien replied.

"'Pretty merciless'? Eliminating multiple groups of four at one time like that isn't something I'd call 'pretty'." Isagi said.

"And to think, we wouldn't have been one of those groups gone if Dan would have gotten across." Reimu remarked.

"Look, I already apologized and said I wasn't perfect. What the heck else do you want me to do? Bow down and give you all my money?" Dan said.

"Dan, I think that was a great example of overdoing it." Drago said.

"Are you only going to show up to try to roast me?"

"No. I think you're doing a good enough job of that yourself."

"Ouch." Ben commented, with several people including Runo, Julie and Lucy holding in their laughs.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up all you want guys. Go ahead! I can take it!" Dan said.

"Doesn't seem like it." Tigrerra said, who was on the table next to Drago, Preyas and Gorem.

"Even with all of that, who's the number one brawler in the world? Certainly not you guys."

"Because that definitely helped you win first place in Total Drama too." Tsukishima said sarcastically.

"So what if it didn't? That still took a heck of a lot of hard work to get to. And besides, doing this all by my lonesome for most of the show is still pretty awesome on my part."

"And Luz winning a season having the same handicaps as you is even more impressive is it not?" Tigrerra said.

"You might as well pack it in buddy. Anything you throw out is gonna get taken and thrown back at you harder." Preyas said to Dan.

"Whatever man. You guys got jokes…I hope you can brawl as good as you laugh." Dan said before relaxing himself and getting back to eating.

"If our skills are as good as your coping, we'll be in great shape." Miyuki remarked.

"I'll be making sure to keep a good eye on you especially buddy. And that wasn't cope!"

"Sure it wasn't." Aomine casually said.

"IT WASN'T!"

Once everyone finished eating, Marucho led them to where their challenge would take place.

"Welcome everyone! To Bakugan Interspace!" Marucho exclaimed.

"Wait, we're going virtual for this?" Kaz asked.

"That's correct!"

"I bet Toxsa's at a loss for words." Fiona joked.

"Nah. Gotta see how the game plays first before I give my review." Toxsa replied.

"Well, you won't have to wait long. Let's get right into it shall we?" Marucho said before he and the others stepped into the center circle. Seconds later, they were digitized and teleported out. When they reappeared, they were in an area where there was no sky, but instead, multiple green lines. Multiple buildings were seen.

"This is interspace? Just looks like a digitized warehouse." Emma said.

"That's because this is the starting area. Once you actually start brawling, different arenas can be used. But, I'm getting too ahead of myself. Before you even do all that, you have to learn how to brawl! Dan?"

Dan nodded, already knowing what to do, picking up Drago and putting him in his hand."Right! Ready to do more than just yap Drago?"

"Actually I'm still going to be 'yapping'. But yes, I am ready." Drago said.

"And for today, Runo will be Dan's opponent." Marucho added.

"Don't think I'll hold back, even for this." Runo said.

"Wouldn't have it any other way." Dan said.

"Now remember guys, this is just a demonstration brawl." Marucho reminded the two.

"We know, we know. Still not gonna stop me from trash talking her when I clobber her like I always do."

Runo stomped a foot. "Don't think because you're the number one brawler you can just act like you run the place. If I would have really tried I'd be number one. Then again, having a paying job is worth a lot more than being first on a game that you're not even making money off of playing."

"Money isn't everything you know. But now that I think about it, it actually is kinda weird that Shun and I made the rules and stuff for the game and never made a dime. Marucho, maybe you should look into that. Especially with you running the whole thing with interspace."

"You bring up an interesting point Dan. But let's actually make sure Interspace is in a usable state first. We're still in the final testing phases before it's released to the general public for use. And you guys are a part of the final testing!" Marucho said, the last part referring to the contestants.

"This isn't going to bug out on us is it?" Toxsa asked.

"Hopefully not. I think you of all people should be familiar with how software testing works."

"True."

"Wait, go back. You mean to tell me Dan actually made this game?" Courtney asked, genuinely surprised.

"Well, I and Shun did it. Unfortunately though, he couldn't make it. He didn't think something like this was worth his time or whatever. It's cool though. Runo's got it covered." Dan said.

"Tigrerra, are you ready?" Drago asked the Haos Bakugan that was Runo's partner.

"Of course old friend! All I'm waiting for is to hear them say the words!" Tigrerra answered.

"Well you won't have to wait much longer. Because the battle is about to start now!" Marucho exclaimed. "In most cases, to start a brawl, it has to be declared first via gauntlets. Like the ones Dan, Runo and Julie have. Previously, Field Open Cards would do this, but with the Vestals creating gauntlets to make brawling easier, these are no longer needed."

"Still though, it's nice that we have ours to show our vet status whenever some young bloods come around. Think of them like scars of war!" Preyas declared.

"I wouldn't exactly describe them as that, but yes, I actually do still have my field open card, even if I have no use for it anymore. Same with Julie, Shun, Runo, Dan and several others."

"I think Alice would like to have a word with you on not using them anymore." Dan joked. "But anyways, let's get this party started!" He and Runo held up their gauntlets.

"Gauntlet Power Strike!" Both declared.

"Arena creation in progress! Just be patient guys!" Marucho called out as the field began to change. This one recreated the park in Bayview.

"Oh would you look at this!" Runo said, noticing the familiar surroundings.

"Yeah I know. Choosing a park for a brawling arena's kinda lame. Not the arena I would have chosen but whatever." Dan said.

"Lame? What do you mean? This is pretty nostalgic."

"It's a park. Brawls need to have some sort of atmosphere to match you know? Like a coliseum, or a stadium. Not a park. I really don't get how this is nostalgic when we go there pretty often."

"One, brawls can happen anywhere. Two, don't you remember? This is where we went after we beat Naga. When Drago and the others went back to Vestroia. And when we went on our first date. Is it coming back to you now?"

"Ohhh. Yeah. Was pretty surreal seeing them leave. Never would have thought that day would come. But I'm glad they're back now. And that they've got New Vestroia."

…..

….

There was silence until Runo broke it.

"Hellooo? What about our date?"

"Oh that? I mean it was pretty cool. I don't really have much else to say. And also, our date was at the movies. Not the park. All these years and you still are the same scatterbrain. Guess that's what made you forget we had the elements to protect when you went running off looking to battle the Vexos."

"That wasn't the reason you dummy! And talking about someone rushing in is pretty rich coming from you."

Drago and Tigrerra cleared their throats.

"What?" Both Runo and Dan said simultaneously.

"Forgive us for rudely interrupting, but we are in the middle of a brawl, remember?" Tigrerra reminded them.

"Rude? You've got that wrong Tigrerra. That was needed. What's rude is wasting the others' time with pointless quarreling." Drago said to her.

"Oh crap! My bad." Dan said.

"Yeah. Sorry. For that, I'll make sure to knock Dan on his head for you, maybe that'll give his brain the rewiring it's been sorely needing." Runo said.

"Funny, because that sounds like you're talking about yourself! Gate card set!"

"Nope. I was talking about you. Gate Card Set!"

Both threw cards to the others' side.

"What you just saw get thrown were Gate Cards. These cards are what your Bakugan need to be thrown on to be brought onto the field. But that's not their only function. You'll see later." Marucho explained.

"Bakugan Brawl!" Both Runo and Dan declared. "Bakugan stand!"

Both Drago and Tigrerra were summoned on the same gate card that Runo threw, revealing their true forms.

Blade Tigrerra, the evolved form of the Bakugan, had the appearance of a white tiger with black stripes that wore yellow armor plating with black accents around each piece. She also had two sharp front teeth that resembled that of a saber tooth tiger.

"Thanks for being a gentleman Dan! Ability activate! Metal Fang!" Runo declared.

"I'll try not to hurt you. Too much!" Blade Tigrerra said to Drago as the spikes on the shoulder pads of her armor along with claws growing from the metal cuffs on her arms. She immediately used them to slash at Drago, with him blocking the attack to reduce the damage.

"Tigrerra power level increase by 400 Gs" The Gauntlet voice announced on both Dan and Runo's gauntlets.

"Now just hold on a second! I never said you could attack first!" Dan said.

"You can't just take an easy compliment can you? Jeez."

"What you just saw Runo activate was an ability card. These have different effects that will help your Bakugan, harm other Bakugan, or other effects. The ability cards that your Bakugan has all depends on the one that you use. So while some are the same, some aren't. And don't worry, what the cards do will be included as text on the card." Marucho explained.

"Sounds like my cue. Alright Runo, I let you have your fun. But you're gonna get it now! Ability activate! Galactic Dragon!"

"I'm sure you already know that this is going to hurt!" Helix Dragonoid said to Tigrerra as he began to gather up heat in front of him before channeling it into a fireball that he sent from his mouth at Tigrerra.

"Gate Card Open! Haos reactor!" Runo declared before the fireball hit, allowing Tigrerra extra strength in Gs to block the hit, increasing the level to 1400.

"You'll have to do better than that Drago!" Tigrerra said to him.

"Remember guys, sometimes, you don't need fancy evolutions to win. You can just have good ol' strategy too." Runo said to the contestants.

"That was a gate card! Or in this case, Runo's gate card. These cards can provide additional power to your Bakugan or other benefits or effects to them, or even opposing Bakugan. Though compared to ability cards, these can't be used to attack in most cases. Along with that, many of them are elemental based, so you can be a lot more flexible on what card you choose to play. The same applies to command cards as there's a decent bit of them that have no elemental affinity." Maurcho explained.

"Elemental infinity?" Kageyama asked, confused.

"Affinity, not infinity. Affinity, in this case means, a likeness based on relationship or casual connection. For example, Drago has an affinity with the fire element." Becky B. explained.

"I see. Thanks."

"You're welcome!"

"You and me both know full well that I'm not even close to being finished yet!" Drago said.

"Nah, I think this battle's pretty much over, cause we're gonna wrap this up in one fell swoop! Double Ability activate! Strike Tornado plus Dragon Hummer!" Dan declared.

Drago glowed red before spinning into a tornado, flying right into Tigrerra, who couldn't block the attack before being knocked down to the ground and returning back to ball form.

"Runo Life Force, zero."

The arena began to return to normal.

"And that's the end of the match!" Marucho declared.

"That's it? That's the game?" Aomine said.

"Yep! The brawl is finished!"

"I know. You're in shock at how fast I beat Runo. Gotta admit, thought she'd put up more of a fight." Dan said.

"That's because it was a demonstration battle you dummy! Tigrerra and I let you win!" Runo yelled out.

"I know! I was joking! Can't even try to be funny with you."

"Not true. You can be funny with me. As long as your jokes are good. Which most of the time, they aren't."

"Well your jokes aren't exactly that funny either. And neither are your so called 'roasts'."

"Says you. My roasts are the truth."

"Well if they're the truth, I'd love to hear what you have to say about your brawling skills. But anyways, what you guys just saw me do was a double ability! You can choose to add a little bit more punch to your attacks by using up to three ability cards at once! Keep in mind though, it's not always a good idea to do that. Because there's cards that can shut all of that down at once. And you only have a limited number of cards per round, so once you use them all, there's a chance you might be a sitting duck."

"Dan is a hundred percent correct. But don't think you can just change subjects like that!"

"Change subjects? I did it because we were done, duh."

"No we weren't! You just decided that!"

"If you wanna protest about your brawling skills, we can do it another time. But right now, let's finish off these explanations alright? Just a couple more things and we're done guys."

"Alright. Fair enough." Runo said before explaining life force. "Your life force. That's the amount of life points you have left in the game. A full bar is equal to 500 Gs. When a Bakugan gets knocked out of battle, the difference in Gs is subtracted from your life force. In the case of Drago against Tigrerra, the difference was over 500, so that's why the battle ended in one round. In team battles, that damage is split and shared between team members. So in the case of a 2 on 2, a 500 G difference take away 250 points from each member."

"And don't worry, you won't have to try to remember that yourselves and brawl. That's what the gauntlets are for. All that cool info's on them."

"So how is a Bakugan knocked out? It looks as if their Gs aren't considered their life like Monsuno. And one hit doesn't seem to do you in as they can be blocked. So how exactly does it work?" Bakura asked.

"Unlike Monsuno that can only take a limited amount of damage before they return to their cores, and Duel Monster cards that are bound by attack and defense points, we fight a little differently." Drago started.

"We battle until we absolutely cannot stand any more." Gorem said.

"So similar to Pokemon then. Though in this case, G points enhance a Bakugan's power." Paul inferred.

"I guess that's one way to put it." Dan said.

"And that's pretty much it. Dan and Runo covered everything else." Marucho said.

"Marucho! You forgot about attributes!" Preyas said.

"Oh right! How could I forget that! There are six different attributes. Pyrus, the element of fire. Aquos, the element of water. Haos, the element of light. Subterra, the element of earth. Darkus, the element of darkness. And finally Ventus, the element of wind. While there may not be clear-cut advantages of one attribute over the other that can be exploited, that doesn't mean they don't play a role in the game. Just remember that!"

Dan gave them a thumbs up. "And that's it! You're all set! But, you're not ready to brawl juuust yet! You're going to need some Bakugan of your own for that. And gauntlets!"

"Each participating player will receive a gauntlet to use for battle. Along with being able to choose their Bakugan to use for the battles as well. To be considered the winner for today, all you'll need to do is win both a 1-on-1 battle and a 2-on-2 tag battle first. Any questions so far?"

"I'm assuming this'll be random picks like before, right?" Myron asked.

"Actually, no! You'll have full control over who you want to battle, and by extension, who you want to practice and get familiar with the game. At least initially. I won't disclose any more after that until we get there."

"Initially huh? Wonder what Marucho's got up his sleeve?" Julie commented.

"Alright. Go ahead and pick six from your team to play!" Marucho instructed.

"And hurry it up. You've still got to practice, so don't take 100 years." Chris added.

"Don't worry, we'll be done in a flash." Isagi said to him.

"Bren and Paul should be gimmes. Let's figure out the other four." Huey said.

"Hold on a second, how are you guys gonna just automatically throw me in there?" Bren asked.

"Because this is similar to Monsuno. And from how you guys were talking with Julie and Dan, you guys seem to have some sort of experience in seeing the game in action. This is no time to be cowering away." Courtney said to him.

"I wasn't cowering away. I was just asking a question. Never said I was opposed to it. I actually want to learn how to play."

"Oh. Well, great! And for the record, I want to play too."

"So do I. With Bren's experience, Paul's uh….. Experience? Sorry I couldn't come up with anything else. And Courtney's smarts, we should dominate this game easy!" Ruby declared.

"I would actually like to learn this game myself." Akashi said.

"Oh. Okay. Well, you've got…. Game prowess? Well, card game prowess. Since, you know, you don't play video games. You don't play video games do you?"

"No."

"You should sometime. They're fun. Anyways…."

"Count me in to-." Aomine, Rex and Ben all said simultaneously.

"Dibs on sixth!" Yang yelled out, being louder than all three.

"What? No! I wanted to play!" All three boys whined.

"Sorry, you snooze you lose."

"No wait! Yang, let me get the sixth spot!" Weiss declared. "Please?"

"Let me think about it… nope."

"Pleeease?"

"No."

"Come on, I'll pay for your next meal."

"Tempting, but still, nope."

"I'll….. I'll do something for you! Do you have homework you need help with? I can do that for you!"

"We literally share the same room at Beacon."

"S-so? Maybe there's something you're secretly struggling with!"

"Okay, this is just sad." Louie said.

"Seriously. I'm bummed out too, but I'm not that desperate to play." Aomine added.

"Okay, I'll let you play. On one condition." Yang said to her.

"Okay. That depends. What do you want me to do?" Weiss asked.

"You have to….."

She trailed off for a few seconds.

"You do realize we don't have all day right?" Mayuzumi said to her.

"Alright, alright, fine. Party pooper. Weiss, you've got to tell me exactly why you're so intent on playing this. And be honest. If I think you're lying, I'm not giving you my spot."

"Okay, fine! I'll tell you! I….. I think the game looks cool, okay?" Weiss admitted.

"That….. that's it?" Isagi asked in disbelief.

"Yes. What were you expecting?"

"I don't know. Just not….. that."

"And?" Yang said.

"And what?" Weiss asked.

"What else? Why do you think the game looks cool?"

Weiss grabbed onto her, catching Yang off guard. "I told you why I wanted to play! That should be enough! Now let me play the game!" She said, shaking Yang while she did it.

"Okay! Okay! Sheesh! I'll let you play! No more questions. Got it."

"Good. Thank you."

"It'll be something if you do all this, and get your a[censored] beat." Aomine said to her.

"Quiet! I'll be fine, thank you very much. And by the way, you should be the last person talking about beatings. Defeat me in sparring more than 1 out of 10 matches and then you can talk."

"That's not even the same thing!"

"Of course it's not the same thing! But, since you want a better comparison, I challenge you to a game!"

"...Okay, what game?"

"I haven't thought of that yet. Just know that whatever it is, I'll be sure to embarrass you in it."

"Whatever. Just make sure you're actually here for the game."

"I know you guys are joking around, but seriously, you can't act like that and go down thirty seconds in." Maki said to Weiss.

"Trust me, I wouldn't volunteer for this if I wasn't confident I could deliver." She said confidently.

"Good to hear."

With the Kings finished, it was now on the other two teams to do the same.

"Okay, so for the team battle, we need a pair that works well together for something like this. The last thing we need is for things to end up being a mess when a lot of strategy is needed to play this game." Myron said to his team.

"We get the strategy part. You didn't have to explain that to us again." Zak said.

"Let's not start with the fighting not even ten seconds in. Myron is right though. We shouldn't just picking people just to pick them." Hailey said.

"But at the same time, we're going to get the opportunity to learn the game, right? I don't think anyone is expected to be a pro one game in." Hinata reasoned.

"Which would be okay if every game, this one included, didn't have the consequences of possibly being eliminated if you lose." Kageyama said.

"Well, we already have one person that knows how to play. So why not just get the ball rolling and make sure Julie is one of our six picks?" Scott reasoned.

"Good idea. So, is anyone else confident enough to play?" Ryoma asked.

"Why don't you offer yourself instead of subtly trying to exclude yourself from the picks?" Noelle asked.

"Are you kidding!? I can't play a game like this!"

"That's why the demonstration was done. Along with giving us practice. So we can learn how to. But, if you're not brave enough to want to play, I won't judge you. With that being said, I'll volunteer."

"I'd actually like to give this game a try mys-" Bakura started before Ryoma moved in front of him, almost pushing him out of the way.

"Not brave enough!? Are you calling me a coward!? Fine then! I'll try my best to learn this game!" Ryoma declared.

"Actually, having Bakura in's a great idea. I know Yugioh and Bakugan aren't exactly the same, but they're close enough, right?" Miyuki said. "I don't know myself. Just a guess."

"But-" Before Ryoma could even protest any further, he was stopped.

"Bakura's got the experience so he's playing. End of story." Reagan declared, in a tone that indicated she wasn't about to be argued with.

Ryoma sighed. "Okay. Good luck Bakura."

"Thanks. I'm sure you'll get another opportunity in another challenge." Bakura said to him.

"You're right. So, that's three. Who else wants to play?"

"Make it four for me too!" Molly exclaimed before nudging Libby. "Libby, wanna make it five?"

Libby was unsure if she wanted to play in this particular game. "Um…."

"Hey, if you play, I'll play too. I got your back." Diego declared, giving her a thumbs up.

"Actually, Diego, or Ryoma, if you don't mind, I think I'll give it a go." Hanamiya spoke up.

"So you finally decided to play huh?" Zak said to him.

"What do you mean by 'finally'? I've asked to play a couple of times."

"Not really. I shouldn't have trouble remembering when you did. Other than the Chima game."

"Then it's a good thing you're not the only one on this team."

"At this rate, I just might be." Zak thought.

Ryoma was torn between staying in or giving his spot up to someone that wanted to play. But, he wouldn't have to worry about it as Molly was the one that gave up her spot to him.

"Thanks. I'll be sure to not waste it." Hanamiya said to her.

"No problem! And good luck!" Molly said to him.

*Confessional*

Hanamiya(Wave Breakers):

"I do like a good game of strategy. But that's not the only reason why I asked to play. It looks like Bren and Paul are going to be in this challenge too. If we can get one of them eliminated, that'll severely hurt their team, way more than losing Skipper. All I need is one game to understand how Bakugan works. And after that, even pros like them will look like novices against me."

*End Confessional*

*Confessional*

Julie(Wave Breakers):

"I don't know why so many are on edge about playing. I get it no one's heard of or played the game but Hinata's right. No one expects you to be some battle brawling genius one or two games in, even with practice. At least I don't. Just do your best, have fun, learn from your mistakes, and you'll be fine. And besides, I think people are forgetting about what Marucho said. So all of this planning and whatnot might not even matter anywhere."

*End Confessional*

*Confessional*

Ryoma(Wave Breakers):

"When I really think about it, I think Bakura inadvertently saved me from myself. My experiences with card games haven't exactly been…..great."

*End Confessional*

*Confessional*

Weiss(Storm Kings):

"Just imagine, my very own Aquos warrior, standing tall as I command it with different ability cards, crushing the competition with not just power, but strategy! Without the constraints of time limits like Monsuno too? This is like a tabletop game, but the imagery is real! And without experienced friends to ruin a newbie's first time experience. But I digress…."

"Okay, maybe it's not the same as a tabletop game, but it's close enough right? It's got the cards and creatures. And yes, I already picked my element. But I can go with others too. Maybe Pyrus. And Haos. And Ventus. And maybe Subterra. Just to be adaptive, you know?"

A few seconds of silence passed and oddly, the confessional never cut.

"Don't look at me like that! Am I not supposed to show emotion in things I'm interested in? I'm not…. Diana. Or Noelle. One tries way too hard to be serious and the other does a horrible job in acting like they're above things like games, when they secretly love them. And that last part applies to more than just games. If you know, you know."

*End Confessional*

The Rats were the last team to finish their picks.

"Okay, we're finished." Emma said to Chris.

"Cool." Chris said, giving a thumbs up.

The six for the Rats were Emma, Lucy, Hiruma, Diana, Murasakibara, and Zee.

"Alright, so let's get you guys some gauntlets and Bakugan so you can get started!" Marucho said.

*Confessional*

Murasakibara(Radical Rats):

"Honestly? The game looks alright. I just played to make up for the fact that I excluded myself from last game. That's about it."

*End Confessional*

*Confessional*

Mamori(Radical Rats):

"Originally, I was going to try my hand at playing but, Murasakibara insisted on playing, so I gave my spot to him. I hope he does well."

*End Confessional*

*Confessional*

Lucy(Radical Rats):

"Natsu was really bummed he couldn't play. And I really hated adding on the consensus of him not playing. It's just…. This is a game of strategy and well….. I'm not sure if he'd do well in this sort of game. You just have to see his face to know why I hated saying no to him in this case!"

*End Confessional*

*Confessional*

Natsu(Radical Rats):

"Hey, it sucks I couldn't play. It looks like a really cool game. But, I'm not gonna sit here and sulk over it. Why sulk when I can be supportive? Lucy would be supportive of me if I was playing, so why wouldn't I do the same for her and the rest of the team?"

*End Confessional*

The teams picked their Bakugan elements and began to practice and learn how to use their gauntlets.

"I'm surprised you didn't want to play." Octavia said to Blake as they watched the system randomly generate Bakugan of the elements that the 18 wanted.

"Yeah, the last time we did a tabletop game, I was pretty much out of it. This type of stuff is not for me. Not surprised Weiss likes it though. She won't admit it outright, but she was really into the game when they explained to her how it worked. Even though she lost instantly. Or something like that. I don't know for sure. I just know she was sad. Like I said, I wasn't paying attention for the most part." Blake said. "But I will say, Maki's right about one thing: She's got to do well. Can't just be that dramatic and play bad. That's not a good look."

"And in this case, if she goes, you go."

"Not just me, Yang, Ruby, Penny. I know it doesn't seem like it, but I'd rather not be an early exit."

"Ability activate! Tsunami Wave!" Weiss declared to Siege, a knight in blue armor with a lance that also wore a cape. Though it didn't do anything.

"Nice going genius." Aomine said, suddenly beside her and scaring her, as seen from the jump she did.

"That was intentional. I wanted to see if the conditions of this card actually work. Now, if you would please stand aside. I'm trying to focus."

"Yeah, I see that. Look, I gotta tell you something. Or, well…. Ask you something."

"Can it wait until I'm finished? I'm really trying to learn this game."

"No, it can't." That tone told her that he wasn't joking.

"Okay. Shoot."

He began whispering in her ear. "I know I already said something about Hanamiya, but you have to win. Not just because of him. But because of Akashi too. Let's be real, he hasn't been playing well. At least as well as he would usually play, even outside of basketball. I'm not saying he has to be the MVP, but he needs that morale booster, you know? Make him feel like he's on the right track."

"One, that wasn't a question. And two….okay. I'll try."

Aomine put her arms on her shoulders. "Weiss, I'm serious. You need to do more than just try."

She opened her mouth a bit before finally saying and grabbing onto his shoulders, "I got it. I promise."

"Thanks."

It looked as if both were standing there for forever until Aomine broke the silence. "Good luck. Beat their a[censored]es so I can beat yours."

"Like I said, I got it. Now, was that it?"

"Yeah."

Both realized that they were still holding on to each other's shoulders and quickly let go with Aomine returning back to his team.

*Confessional*

Aomine(Storm Kings):

"I cannot believe I just said that." Aomine said before putting his face in his hands.

*End Confessional*

"Jeez. Look at those two. They need to get a room already." Bren commented. When he turned back around, his Ventus El Condor was knocked to the ground by energy blasts from the Haos Hammersaur that Paul used. El Condor was eliminated seconds later, returning to ball form.

"And you need to start paying attention." Paul said to him. "If you're not going to take this seriously, you can practice by yourself."

"No, wait! Chill man! It was just one turn!"

"One turn is all someone needs to turn a match around. I would have thought you of all people would have understood that."

"Look man, I may not play Pokemon, but I know what all of that means. You don't have to treat me like I'm brand new to the game."

"Actually, all of us are."

"Not what I meant, smarty." Bren replied, the last part being in a sarcastic low voice.

Meanwhile, Gorem was able to make quick work of both of Bakura and Hanamiya's Bakugan at once.

"No!" Bakura said as they fell, returning in ball form.

"Not bad. But you played it a little too safe. You probably should have used a stronger ability card. Or your attribute relationships. Look, I'll show you!" Julie said before showing them what she was talking about with the attribute relationships on their gauntlets. "Since Hanamiya's using Ventus and you're using Darkus, you can use a….. Oh. Whoops. Forgot about Subterra. And I also thought they were on the sides of each other too. Sorry."

"Well, A for effort I guess." Hanamiya said.

"Agreed. Can you explain what other relationships there are between attributes? At least from what you can remember?" Bakura asked.

"Sure! It's all coming back to me now. So, first…." Julie began to explain the attribute relationships that they could use.

Zee had just recently beaten Murasakibara and Lucy had just beaten Hiruma. Emma had beaten Diana.

"Would have never thought I'd be able to beat you of all people. No hard feelings, right?" Lucy said to Hiruma.

"We're all learning. Of course there isn't!" Hiruma replied. "Just make sure you do this where it matters too, got it?"

"True. Want to go again?"

"HAAA! Bakugan Brawl!" Hiruma declared, throwing out his Pyrus bakugan.

"Guess that's a yes. Bakugan Brawl!"

After about five more minutes of practice, Marucho had called time.

"Alright, that's it for practice everyone! Now it's time to do it for real!" Marucho announced. "Again, this'll be 1-on-1 and 2-on-2 battles only. Which means, two teams will play each other per game. All you need to do is be the first team to win one of each and you'll win the challenge! So, let's get the first two teams here. And those teams will be, the Kings versus the Rats in the first brawl! Zee versus Akashi!"

"So I'm up first huh? Nice." Zee said.

"Let's have a good match." Akashi said to him.

"Likewise man. What elements did you pick?"

"Ventus, Aquos and Pyrus."

"One of each huh? Honestly, I just picked all Ventus. Who wouldn't want to control wind?"

"An interesting pick. Let's see how well one constant style fares against a small variation."

"Arena set."

The arena was a stadium.

"All right guys! You're good to go!" Marucho called out.

"Gauntlet Power Strike!" Both Akashi and Zee simultaneously called out, holding up their gauntlets as they did. "Gate Card Set!"

Both picked a Bakugan from what they were given to practice with before throwing one out. "Bakugan Brawl! Bakugan Stand!"

Both of their Bakugan stood on Akashi's Gate Card. And both rose to be Strikefliers, a Ventus Bakugan with wings and green armor.

"Strikeflier Power Levels 900 Gs."

"That's crazy. So the first battle starts off as a mirror match." Dan commented.

"This'll be an interesting challenge for both. I know they're just learning, but I'm sure they have some sort of semblance of a brawling style. I think that'll decide it." Marucho said.

"But I'm sure seeing their first game ever be a mirror is an eye-opener. Are they gonna stick with it, or are they going to switch things up?" Runo said to him.

"So, who goes first?" Zee asked.

"That's actually a good question." Akashi replied.

"Hey Marucho! How do we figure out who goes first?" Zee called out.

"Zee, you're first!" Marucho replied, his voice extending throughout the arena via the microphone he was speaking in.

"Got it! Ability activate! Burst Mistral!"

Zee's Strikeflier began to spin around, creating wind before sending it Akashi and his Strikeflier's way, creating a blizzard-like Ventus wind storm.

Akashi's Strikeflier, despite trying to dodge it, was being sent back by the storm before beginning to descend.

"Wait, is he freezing? I thought he's supposed to be Ventus?" Kageyama asked.

"Yes, but a blizzard storm still uses wind. It looks like one of his abilities takes advantage of that fact." Shiro explained.

"Gate Card Open! Peacemaker! With this command card, both of our Bakugan are returned. And, no damage is taken on either side." Akashi said.

"A Command Card like that, this early in the game?" Ruby commented.

"I'm guessing he thought things would only end in a stalemate, so he wanted to just start over." Weiss said.

"Wait! Wait! I got just the card! Got it!" Zee said before loading the card in to his gauntlet. "Ability activate! Burst Dive! This should stop that gate card from activating."

Several people, including Akashi himself were surprised at Zee's move. Zee's Strikeflier's wings glowed orange before sending hot wind downwards on the card, causing it to disappear.

Neither Strikefliers were returned to their owners. But ultimately, Akashi's Strikeflier would lose 200 Gs from the burn damage and from falling to the ground after being immobilized by Zee's first ability card.

"Akashi Strikeflier power reduced to 700 Gs."

"Why would he use a card like that when they could have just started over?" Lucy said.

"Right. It's a good counter card but, just because you have it, doesn't mean you have to use it right away. Or at all." Lanolin agreed.

"Did you ever think about, I don't know, maybe he's doin' it to try to win?" Murasakibara said to the two.

"Well, that's the point of playing this game. But again, like I said-"

"No you idiot. I mean he's doin' it to try to beat Akachin. Take his Strikeflier out of the game with some life force added on."

"In other words, he might be taking the aggressive approach." Kurt said.

"And calling Lanolin an idiot was a bit much. Maybe she didn't think of the same approach you were." Emma said to Murasakibara.

"Yeah well, she was about to try to repeat that same point again like I didn't have any clue what I was talkin' about. So I had to make sure I got it through her." Murasakibara said.

"Except, I had no intention on being condescending towards you about it." Lanolin replied.

"You do realize there's more than one way to call somebody stupid right? And I don't mean just different words."

"Okay, how about instead of doing this with each other, we focus our attention back on Zee and Akashi? I think Akashi's about to try something." Tangle said.

"Double Ability activate!" Akashi said before loading them into his gauntlet. "Sky Hanging plus Down Clash!"

After extending his arms, Akashi's Strikeflier holds on to Zee's before creating green electricity from the top of it's mask, shocking Zee's.

"Recalculating Levels."

Zee's Strikeflier Gs was gradually decreasing before being thrown to the ground.

"Zee Strikeflier level decrease to 600 Gs."

But it wasn't down yet. It was able to stand back up.

"Gate Card Open! Trade Off!" Zee called out.

"Ability Activate! Burst Dive!" Akashi countered.

"Ability Activate! Stun Out!" Zee countered.

Zee's Strikeflier's wings glowed green before a bright green light was seen.

"Ability Activate! Stun Out!" Akashi said, trying to shield his eyes as he did, nullifying Zee's Stun Out and starting things back to Akashi nullifying Zee's Gate Card.

"Ability Activate! Skill Capture! Stun Out!"

"Ability Activate! Skill Capture! Stun Out!"

"Triple Ability Activate! Diamond Trick plus Multi-Camo Effect plus Tidal Foehn!"

Although the Gate Card was ultimately removed, Akashi continued to match Zee's moves.

"Recalculating. Zee Strikeflier decrease to 100 Gs. Akashi Strikeflier decrease to 200 Gs."

Both Strikefliers to be removed from vision and creating wind gusts at one another.

"That's not good. Better-" Zee started, but it was too late. Akashi's overpowered Zee's and sent his into a wall, knocking it out as it reappeared before returning to ball form. He now had 400 points worth of life force remaining.

"Aw man." Zee said, picking up the ball from off the ground. Akashi's returned to him for him to catch, which he did.

"Good s[censored] Akashi!" Aomine cheered.

"And you were worried about him." Weiss said to him.

"Eh, we're not done yet. But it's a good start."

"That was quite the first battle. Very impressive and smart play from you Zee." Akashi said.

"Thanks. You know, that mirror match was actually pretty fun. Sucks that I lost but still, pretty fun."

"Alright! Akashi! I need you to choose and throw out your Bakugan first!" Marucho called out.

"I wish I could share your excitement. It was interesting, but it's not something I would do again." Akashi said to Zee, smiling before choosing another Bakugan. This time picking Aquos. "Gate Card Set! Bakugan Brawl! Bakugan Stand! Falconeer, give me a hand!" A blue humanoid-like falcon appeared.

"For real? Doppelganger stuff is cool. I mean just look at Ben and Albedo. But whatever." Zee said. But the next thing he knew, he was off the field. Hanamiya appeared next along with Noelle and Bren.

"Wha- what's going on?" Noelle said in surprise, suddenly on the field.

"I'm guessing winner stays on." Hanamiya said. "But then again, the battle wasn't finished. Zee only lost 100 points worth of life."

"Wasn't just him. His whole team did." Marucho said, surprising pretty much everyone in the arena.

"Okay, now's the part where you explain to us what you mean by that." Emma said.

"It'll be my pleasure! Sorry, but I had to keep this under wraps until a battle concluded. So, for this challenge, all of you share one single life force bar. So, in this case, your objective to win is to actually be the last team standing."

"Please tell me we get more life force points." Noelle said.

"Nope! You're still with 500. So you better use your abilities wisely! One mistake could get your team eliminated in one hit. Every game will switch between team and one-on-one battles with the winning team staying on. The winning team members will throw out a Bakugan and Gate Card for your teammates to use in their next battle. But, to stick with team rules, any battle damage during team battles is halved. So for example, 300 Gs worth of damage in one-on-ones now becomes 150 Gs instead in team battles."

"Are you serious? Why would you withhold this information from us until now!?"

The Bakugan field info on the Gauntlets and on the overhead screen for spectators to see was changing.

All 18 of the life force bars combined into three, one for each team. The portraits now had their team logos on them instead, with the Rats now having one section of their life force bar removed like Zee's to reflect his and Akashi's battle.

"I waited until after the first battle so that you guys would feel more confident in your brawling abilities going forward, win or lose."

"Well, I don't think it worked." Libby said to him. "At least not for me."

"Sorry. But I also wasn't expecting the first game to be a mirror match either. I think if it wasn't and you saw a variety of Bakugan things would be a little better. But don't worry, even if it's not a Bakugan you're familiar with, your Gauntlet will be able to tell you the information you need about its abilities. That, or of course, you could read the yourselves. Since this is Interspace, the cards are instantly passed off to the next person."

"Hey, mirror or not, you saw how those two played. It was pretty close. And it could have gone either way. We'll all be fine. Remember, we're still beginners at this. Obviously I'm not saying you should, but one mistake isn't gonna be the end of the world. Not just me. All five of us have got your back, alright?" Diego said to Libby.

Libby held a tighter grip on the Bakugan she had. "Okay."

"Okay you guys, I think it's about time you stopped watching and started brawling." Runo said to the four participants, getting the mic from Marucho.

"Oh, you're right!" Bren said before choosing his Bakugan. "This one should do just fine!" He thought before preparing to throw it out. "Gate Card Set! Bakugan Brawl! Bakugan stand!Let's Go Bee Striker!"

"You didn't want to stand on your gate card?" Akashi asked, seeing Bren throw his Bakugan on his gate card and choose not to throw out his own.

"Nah. If it gets shut down on the first turn it'll be a waste.." Bren explained.

"I see. Well then, let's see what we can do."

"What gate card are you using?" Hanamiya asked Noelle.

"I can't tell you that out loud, they'll hear it!" Noelle replied. "I know when I'll need to use it. You'll just have to trust me."

"Alright. In that case….." He pulled out his own Gate Card. "Gate Card Set!"

Both picked out their Bakugan before throwing them out onto the field.

"Bakugan Brawl!" Both said simultaneously.

"Fear Ripper!" Noelle declared.

"Atmos!" Hanamiya declared.

"Stand!" Both said.

Both Bakugan rose and appeared onto the field.

Fear Ripper was a blue humanoid Bakugan with large claws while Atmos was a falcon-like compared to Falconeer, Atmos didn't have a humanoid-like appearance.

Both rose on Noelle's Gate Card.

"Calculating Power Levels."

Falconeer: 340 Gs

Bee Striker: 400 Gs

Fear Ripper: 350 Gs

Atmos: 350 Gs

"Heh. Maybe you should have went back with Strikeflier." Bren joked with Akashi.

"Maybe. Power may not be everything, but it isn't worthless." Akashi replied.

"You won the last one. You do the honors."

"Right. Ability activate! Frame fire!" Fire began to surround Falconeer before the flames became infused into one of its fists. Its power level also increased by 100 Gs.

"Gate card open!" Noelle declared. The card was revealed to have had the image of Fear Ripper on it.

Fear Ripper's G power spiked to 700 Gs, making it the strongest Bakugan on the field.

"700!?" Bren said in disbelief at the sudden spike after reading it on his gauntlet.

"Using a Gate Card this early? Why not an ability card?" Fiona said.

"Other than Darkus, Fear Ripper doesn't have any ability cards to use. So any power boosts it gets would need to be from other sources." Marucho explained as Fear Ripper began to move in to attack Bee Striker.

"Gate Card Open! Element Merge!" Akashi declared. Energy began to transfer from both Fear Ripper and Atmos to both Bee Striker and Falconeer.

"W-what's happening?" Noelle said as Bee Striker was able to completely tank the attack before retaliating with its huge stinger, causing the Bakugan much pain.

Falconeer: 880 Gs

Bee Striker: 800 Gs

Fear Ripper: 300 Gs

Atmos: 0 Gs

"I'm not going to let you off that easy! Gate Card Open! Trade Off!" Hanamiya declared. He then began to laugh. "Because both of you foolishly pumped yourselves up to over 400 Gs, you lose your bakugan and take damage equal to the Gs of Bakugan defeated and the highest G Bakugan on our team. Even with the damage halved, that's still over 500 Gs worth of damage! It's over!"

"Not happening! Ability Activate! Scarlet Twister!" Bren declared. Bee striker began to create a massive tornado.

Hanamiya and Noelle were forced to have to shield themselves from the strong gust of wind.

"With this ability, any Bakugan I declare returns to their owner safely without taking any damage. But since I chose Falconeer, who would have been defeated thanks to your Gate Card, Bee Striker himself has to be removed from play and I have to take damage equal to half its G power. But before I do that, Gate Card Open! Ventus Spotting Out! With this command card, all Ventus Bakugan have their Gs reduced by 500, including my own. So yeah, we'll still take damage, but it for sure isn't going to be close to anything you had in mind."

While Akashi's safely returned for him to catch, Bren's harmlessly rolled to the ground. Fear Ripper and Atmos also returned to their respective owners, with no more Gate Cards on the field.

"You thought you had it all figured out didn't you? How's that for a master plan? And I'm talking to you too Paul!" Bren said.

"If you were smart, you would have used Devour instead. So instead of taking 75 Gs of damage, you would have taken zero." Paul said to him as his voice bellowed in the arena, mic in hand after getting it from the three brawlers.

"You could have just given me credit for making sure we didn't lose the whole match. But noooooo, you had to be a negative Nancy." Bren said as this 75 G damage was reflected on their gauntlets and the Kings' life force bar, slightly going down a bit.

"Bren eliminated."

"Wait, I'm out!?" Bren said in disbelief.

"Yep. You get one chance per battle. If your Bakugan is defeated, you're out. At least for the current battle. If you're picked, you'll still get a chance to try again later if your team's still in the mix." Marucho answered.

"So we still lose anyway. Way to rain on my parade."

"Actually, you're still in the game. Akashi's Bakugan returned to him thanks to your Bee Striker's ability, remember?"

"Oh. Well, that's great! Come on Akashi, finish the job buddy!"

"Right." Akashi said before looking at the Bakugan he had. He then decided to throw out Strikeflier again along with a Gate Card.

"Big Mistake Akashi. One that I'll make you pay for." Hanamiya thought.

"Noelle. Don't throw out your Bakugan just yet." He said to her.

"What for?" She asked.

Strikeflier: 900 Gs

"Gate Card Set!" Both Hanamiya and Noelle declared before throwing out more Bakugan.

"Juggernoid!" Hanamiya declared.

"Tayghen!" Noelle declared.

"Stand!" Both said simultaneously.

Tayhen: 450 Gs

Juggernoid: 330 Gs

Juggernoid was an Aquos Bakugan that resembled a turtle. Tayghen, interestingly enough, was a two-element hybrid of both Ventus and Aquos, as confirmed on the gauntlets. The upper half resembled a human girl with yellow-greenish skin, short hair and orange eyes wearing a long white dress while the lower half was a giant sea monster.

"It's both Ventus and Aquos?" Bren said. "Seems like cheating to me. But then again, Drago and Helios had those crazy forms. And then there's Preyas and Elfin with the elemental changing….."

"How is it cheating, when it was randomly given to me?" Noelle said to him.

"Wait a second. It's one thing to change elements. It's another to be like that start to finish! At least the others I mentioned you need to do something to trigger those element changes. So yes, it's still cheating. Still though, Akashi can still take both of you!"

"We'll see about that. Akashi, it's your move."

"Ability activate! Tidal Foehn!" Akashi declared.

"Ability activate! Dive Mirage!" Hanamiya declared. It completely went into the ground before reappearing on Akashi's gate card seconds later.

"That's it? No G increases?" Noelle said to him.

Strikeflier knocked down Juggernoid. "There must be a reason he chose to only move and not attack. Should I nullify it? But then there's Noelle. And I only have one Stun Out card." Akashi thought. A couple of seconds later, he made his decision.

"Ability activate! Stun out!" Juggernoid's ability was nullified.

"It's too early." Blake said to herself, getting the attention of some of her teammates around them.

"Double ability activate! Aquos Cyclone plus blow away!" Tayghen began to inhale air into her mouth. Well, the sea monster part anyway. Seconds later, it blasted large amounts of water at Strikeflier that also was somehow able to create a strong gust of wind. While Strikeflier was able to block it, the wind was still strong enough to force it to another Gate Card. Specifically Noelle's. "Because of Blow Away, your Strikeflier is forced to move to another Gate Card. Which means, depending on what it is, you can forget about using it! Not to mention that you'll still lose G points for being hit.

Strikeflier was reduced to 700 Gs.

"Even so, that doesn't mean I'm finished. Burst Mistral ability, activate!" Akashi declared.

Strikeflier flew in after immobilizing the two Bakugan to attack them.

"Even if they're stronger team wise, they can't use that immobilized. Nice one!" Isagi said.

"I've got no choice. Ability Card Activate! Co-side!" Noelle declared.

"Ooh, now that's one I haven't heard in a minute." Dan said.

"Co-side? What the heck is that?" Kaz asked.

"It's an attribute relationship card." Marucho answered.

"She's taking advantage of the fact she's using a hybrid Bakugan with this card! Brilliant!" Myron exclaimed.

"Not just that. Remember, Strikeflier's Ventus too." Shiro added.

"Oh no!" Ruby said, realizing what this would mean for Akashi.

"With this card, not only does Tayghen get stronger from using that relationship herself, but any opponent cards that matched the declared attribute relationship also makes the card owner's Bakugan stronger." Noelle explained.

"Tayghen power increase to 850 Gs."

"Impressive human. Now, to finish this weakling!" Tayghen said, speaking for the first time and preparing to seek her teeth into Strikeflier.

"Not yet! Double ability activate! Diamond Trick plus Skill Capture! Co-side!" Akashi declared. But for whatever reason, the cards weren't activating when he loaded them.

"No, your gauntlet isn't faulty." Hanamiya said to him, causing a confused Akashi to look up at him. "But considering you can't activate any abilities right now I'd see why you'd think that. And that's thanks to Aqua Refrain." Hanamiya said with a grin as the ability card was in the ground, creating a ripple of blue energy.

"It's over!" Tayghen said, sending a tsunami of water, drowning Strikeflier, before it returned back to Akashi.

With this loss, 240 Gs worth of life was taken from the battle.

Kings Life Force Remaining: 185 points

"All right. Took us a bit, but we were able to get it done regardless. Nicely done Noelle." Hanamiya said to her after they caught their Bakugan.

"Thanks. Now, I think it's about time I chose a Bakugan for our next teammate." Noelle said before choosing Tayghen again, but choosing not set a Gate Card.

All four players disappeared. They were replaced with Zee and Libby.

"Hey, don't worry about it. Long as we're not at zero, we still got a chance." Bren said to Akashi. "You see how many times I didn't exactly make the best decisions but I'm still here. Although in this case, it wasn't your fault. They just outplayed you. And there's the fact that you were also outnumbered, so there's that."

"Whether it was my fault or not doesn't matter. Especially considering none of that is reflected on the field." Akashi said bluntly, referring to what was seen on the gauntlets.

"Yeah, I guess that's true."

"Look at it this way, you won one." Huey said to him.

"And lost the other." Akashi replied.

"Look, let's just focus on the next game, alright? Say what you want about Akashi or Bren, but I think it's pretty clear that Noelle and Hanamiya know what they're doing." Courtney said. "Hence why I think Blake was saying 'too early' earlier. He tried to force Akashi to exhaust his stronger ability cards early to open him up for Noelle. Which again, is a smart move."

"Let's focus on the next game but let's still talk about the last game. Got it." Louie said.

"I wasn't going to talk about it any more after that, genius."

"You know, I was kinda looking forward to using my own Bakugan for this." Libby said. "But, considering this one helped us win, I shouldn't complain much."

"Let's hope you're just as good as my previous owner." Tayghen said.

"Well, I mean technically, we're all beginners, so…."

"Beginner or not, you're still expected to win."

"Man, having a Bakugan with both Aquos and Ventus is pretty crazy. That's a free co-side card every time. I wonder if I have one of those…." Zee said before deciding to pick another Bakugan instead of Strikeflier just to check. "Gate Card Set!"

"Wired, stand!" Zee declared as a bird-like Mechanical Bakugan rose.

"You added Mechanical Bakugan to this too? Man, you really pulled out all the stops for this one." Dan said to Marucho.

"All known Bakugan, with some exceptions of course, were logged into the database and used in the pool for random generation for the players. Those exceptions being our Guardian Bakugan, the Legendary Soldiers, and any other high-profile Guardian Bakugan currently known such as Helios or Percival." Marucho explained.

"Makes sense why you'd take those out. Then it wouldn't be fair." Runo said. "Which is probably why Gorem's going to be sidelined too."

"Yep! Marucho explained to me why already." Julie said.

"Even if I can't fight, that doesn't mean I can't support you." Gorem said to her.

"Of course!"

"Even so, experience is gonna take her far I think." Dan said.

"Let's brawl!" Zee and Libby said simultaneously, having already activated ability cards.

Wired shot at Tayghen with its cannons while the latter attempted to navigate through the cannon shots and counterattack.

Libby looked at two of the cards that she had. "Okay, these should turn the tide. Triple Ability Activate! Water refrain plus Aquos Bow Jet plus Blow Away!"

Tayghen rained down multiple shots of Aquos energy at Wired along with sending wind its way to force it to move to Libby's Gate Card.

"Nice play. Buuut….. I don't think that Blow Away's gonna do anything actually." Zee said.

"Uh oh. Why not?" Libby asked, already having a feeling where this was going.

"Gate Card Open! Enemy Down!This one just takes 300 Gs from each enemy Bakugan. Doesn't do much, but yeah. Didn't wanna have a bunch of cards doin' the same thing so I just picked that. But, I think that should be enough to beat Tayghen, right?"

"Wrong actually. Man it's a good thing I had that Gate Card. Gate Card Open! Land Pressure! This should take those Gs back and stop you from moving."

"Power levels recalculated."

Tayghen Power: 350 Gs

Wired Power: 300 Gs

Although Wired was able to be defeated, the damage was only a 50 G difference.

"Man. Again?" Zee sad as Wired rolled to the ground.

"Hey, if at first you don't succeed…." Libby started.

"Try, try again. Don't worry, I still got one more left to use."

Rats Remaining Life Force Points: 350

The next tag battle pair was Weiss and Ruby against Hanamiya and Libby.

"Oh. Well, I guess I get my wish after all." Libby said.

"Alright, this is where your win streak ends." Weiss declared to the opposing pair.

"You might be good, but we're just as good as you two!" Ruby added. "Time to show off my 15-minute brawling skills!"

"Our 15-minute brawling skills."

"I beg to differ. Let's go Libby." Hanamiya countered.

"Right!" Libby said, looking a lot more focused compared to her first battle a minute ago.

"Bakugan Brawl!" All four said simultaneously after Gate Cards were set. Each Bakugan were on the owners' respective Gate Cards. But in Ruby's case, she stepped back before trying to throw hers in a flashy way. "Bakugan Stand!"

All four Bakugan rose. Weiss' was a Clawcer, a crab-like Aquos Bakugan it's right singular claw being larger than normal.. Ruby's was a Pyrus Ravenoid, a bird-like Bakugan with plated armor. Libby's was a Subterra Wormquake. Hanamiya used a Darkus Fangoid, which had a dinosaur-like appearance.

"Calculating Power Levels. Resume Brawl."

Clawcer: 400 Gs

Ravenoid: 390 Gs

Wormquake: 400 Gs

Fangoid: 600 Gs

"Yeah, there was no reason for you to do that." Weiss said to Ruby.

"Well, I mean Julie does it almost all the time." Ruby replied.

"She doesn't do it that much."

"She actually does do it that much."

"Ability activate! Desert Hole!" Libby declared, forcing both huntresses in training to focus back on the battle. Wormquake burrows itself into the ground. But both Weiss and Ruby weren't even going to allow it to do anything else before they acted.

"Ability activate!" Both declared.

"Fire Tornado!" Ruby Declared.

"Power Merge!" Weiss added.

"Wait a sec, you can do that?" Libby said, surprised.

"As long as the cards are activated at around the same time, yes you can! In the case of tag battles, this would be considered a multi-ability card activation, hence why it's allowed." Marucho immediately answered.

Ravenoid: Increased to 640 Gs

Clawcer: Increased to 700 Gs

Wormquake: Decrease to 100 Gs

Fangoid: Decrease to 300 Gs

The tornado began to drive out Wormquake from under Ruby's Gate Card as Clawcer began to siphon energy from both it and Fangoid.

"Not so fast. Gate Card Open! Flat Power!" Libby declared.

This ability reset everyone's G levels to when the brawl first started.

"Not bad. But it'll take more than-" Weiss started before Ruby cut her off.

"I got this one! Gate Card….. Open! Warp Gate!"

Ruby teleported both Wormquake and Ravenoid to Weiss' Gate Card.

"Ruby, what are you doing!?" Weiss said, caught off guard by her choosing to do that.

"Uh, helping you?" Ruby replied.

"You think I'm a fool? I don't think so! Gate Card Open! Gate Close! With this card, every Gate Card and Bakugan left on the field goes right back to their owners." Hanamiya said. And just like that, no more Bakugan were on the field. Weiss' Gate Card was also returned.

"Phew. You're a lifesaver." Libby said to Hanamiya.

"You're welcome. But next time, try not rush in like that. I think you and me both know that that's not you." Hanamiya said to her.

"Yeah, you're right. Just got a little excited after the first game. Won't happen again. Promise."

"Thank goodness that wasn't a card that could counter, or we would have been in trouble. Why would you move them to my card?" Weiss asked Ruby, trying not to get too upset, but wanted to make sure her teammate knew that she wasn't going to just be lax about it either.

"Sorry. Like I said, I thought it would have been better if we were all on that card." Ruby replied.

"I appreciate it, but just be more mindful of your decisions."

"I know, I know. Next brawl, we got it, I know it."

"Damn kid. I wasn't even supposed to use that card that early. I'm not gonna let her or anyone else blow this." Hanamiya thought as he was trying to figure out which Gate Card he wanted to use. The others had already chosen their Bakugan and Gate Cards while he was thinking.

"Gate Card Set!" Hanamiya called out after finally choosing one. He then threw out a Bakugan next. This time, throwing it on Weiss' Gate Card, where her Aquos Phosphos stood. Phosphos was a humanoid Hydra-like Bakugan. Ruby was using a Darkus Reaper. Libby was using a Subterra Avior, a wyvern-like Bakugan.

Atmos rose once again for battle for Hanamiya.

Atmos: 350 Gs

Reaper: 370 Gs

Phosphos: 900 Gs

Avior: 900 Gs

"Hmm….. why would he throw Atmos on my Gate Card?" Weiss thought.

"Since Hanamiya was the last person to use a card, Ruby and Weiss will be the ones to start the battle off." Marucho announced.

"Perfect!" Ruby thought before holding up a card.

"I got it! Double Ability Activate! Spiced Slayor plus Spiced Assault!"

Though Weiss wasn't content with letting her operate alone. "Ability Activate! Spit Poison!"

Phosphos shot poison-infused aquos energy from his mouth at Atmos while Reaper also began to attack it with his scythe.

"I don't know what your plan was but it won't come to fruition!" Weiss said to Hanamiya.

Atmos attempted to dodge all of the attacks and fight back but was hit by a bit of the poison, and started to feel the weakening effects of it.

"Reaper Power Level Increase to 570 Gs. Avior Power Decrease to 700 Gs. Atmos Power Decrease to 0 Gs. Phosphos, no change detected."

"Don't worry! Help is on the way! Ability Activate! Battle Howling!" Libby declared.

The shockwaves sent from the blast from said Subterra Bakugan's mouth disoriented both Reaper and Phosphos. The G levels were also notably restored back to their base levels.

"Next, Gate Card Open! Subterra Reactor!" This basic Gate Card from Libby allowed her Avior to increase its level by only 100 Gs. But it was enough to put their Bakugan over the top over their opponents'.

"Gate Card Open!" Both Weiss and Ruby declared simultaneously.

"Aquos reactor!" Weiss declared.

"Joker's Wild!" Ruby declared.

Not only was Phosphos able to get stronger thanks to Aquos reactor, but Joker's Wild was the finishing touch to the battle, allowing Reaper to slice through both Avior and Atmos' bodies.

Hanamiya was in disbelief that they lost the battle as their Bakugan rolled back to them.

Ruby made a devious laugh. "Shocker, I know. With Joker's Wild, Bakugan opponents are automatically defeated equal to the number of Darkus Bakugan I have on the field. And, you take damage equal to have of the G power of the Bakugan I chose, and in that case, I chose Avior. "Since I used it on an opponent other than who's on my Gate Card, I can't use it again. But, I think you should do the math on how much damage that is."

"That should only be 260 points of damage to their life force, actually." Weiss said to her.

"Wait…." Ruby thought for a second before facepalming. "I totally forgot it gets halved again because it's a team battle!"

The 260 point subtraction was then reflected on the Breakers' life force bar.

Wave Breakers Remaining Life Force: 240

"Still though, nice work! Despite the recklessness you showed." Weiss said as they high-fived each other.

"Actually….. *whispers in her ear* that was intentional to throw them off."

"Not sure how that would have worked but, good job, I guess?"

"I stand corrected. Not too bad." Aomine said to Weiss.

"I can't believe you doubted me."

"Can't believe I did either." He said, smiling at her. "Thanks."

"As I've said before, you're very welcome." Weiss said, smiling back.

"Thank goodness too. If it wasn't, it would have been over." Diego commented, with his comment breaking the two's seemingly endless gaze at one another. "Or close to it. Right?"

"Well, how many points are you adding up in your head?" Myron asked.

"510 Gs. I didn't halve the Joker's Wild Effect though."

"Yeah, that would have definitely been enough to end it."

"Well, you win some, you lose some." Libby said, as both she and Hanamiya returned.

"Even so, let's try to get back to winning, alright?" Hanamiya said.

"Now, everyone's lost at least one game. And a good chunk of Life Points too. Life Force, excuse me." Bakura said, thinking of Yugioh.

"Looks like everyone's come ready to play. I don't know about you guys, but I love it!" Dan said. "A perfect game would have been cool and all, but pretty boring ya know?"

The next battle was between Paul and Lucy, with Phosphos being left behind for Paul to use along with a gate card. Lucy used a Haos centipoid, a centipede-like Bakugan.

"Tri-Viper!" Paul declared as it shot poisonous blasts from all three heads, weakening Centipoid.

Although this was able to suppress it's abilities, Lucy attempted to counter with a Gate Card.

"Good luck attacking now. Because Phosphos is over 400 Gs, it can't move or activate any abilities." Lucy said to him confidently. "Looks like we're in a stalemate."

And unfortunately for Paul, she was right. The gate card he had was useless now. But for Centipoid, it had no attacks it could use to lower Phosphos' Gs. He closed his eyes and simply allowed Phosphos to be removed from the field. The same thing happened with Centipoid, ending the match in a draw.

"Looks like she took her time figuring out which Gate Card to use just to stop Phosphos. Well played." Marucho commented.

But, the two weren't done yet. Because it was a tie, two players would be randomly chosen from the same teams again. And they were the ones chosen again.

"Robotallion, stand by for battle!"

"Hammersaur, stand!"

Each Bakugan was Aquos and Haos respectively. Robotallion was a robot-like bakugan while Hammersaur was a bipedal crocodile-like Bakugan.

"Double Ability Activate! Water Refrain plus Dive Mirage!" Paul declared, loading each into his Gauntlet. "And, I'll activate my Gate Card! Freeze Enemy!"

200 Gs were subtracted from Hammersaur, bringing it down to 200, 190 less than Robotallion, who was at 390.

Robotallion appeared from below Lucy's own Gate Card to uppercut Hammersaur, sending it out of the game.

"Doesn't seem like a stalemate to me." Paul said after he caught Robotallion.

"Of course you'd wait now to make that remark." Lucy said to him.

"Come on, don't be a spoilsport. You know you'd do the same thing." Kise said as they returned. The next four were Bakura and Noelle and Bren and Akashi again.

"Except I don't have his attitude consistently."

Rats Life Force Remaining: 160

"Let's Brawl!" All four declared. Noelle was using Siege. Bren was using El Condor. Akashi was also using a Pyrus Siege. Bakura was using Haos Aranaut. Aranaut was knight/ninja-like Bakugan with a red visor.

Aranaut: 900 Gs

El Condor: 350 Gs

Siege: 400 Gs

"Ability Activate! Co-Side!" Akashi declared.

"And…. how about these two? Even better! Blow away plus Triple Node!" Bren said, before showing two cards and loading them in his gauntlet.

"Woah, that's a crazy combo! Co-Side and Triple Node?" Dan said.

"Yeah, Noelle and Bakura have to counter this or it's over." Runo said.

"Not so fast! Ability Activate! Mirage Fists! This should put a stop to it!" Bakura said.

"And their gate cards too. Double ability activate! Water refrain plus Dive Mirage!" Noelle said. She chose to disable Bren's Gate Card.

Both El Condor and Siege lost 100 points each while Aranaut gained 200. Any other G changes were nullified.

Tonfas appeared in Aranaut's hands before using them to punch El Condor and Siege.

"Please tell me you have something! Please!" Bren pleaded to Akashi.

"Gate Card…. Open! Ansamon Judgement!" Akashi declared. Every Bakugan, with the exception of Akashi's began to have its power drained. "With this card, every single Bakugan on the field other than ones that match my element have their G points reduced to zero!"

"What!?" Noelle and Bakura said simultaneously.

"Now, finish them!" Akashi declared. Siege spun its javelin before attacking both Aranaut and its Aquos counterpart with it. Aranaut attempted to punch it but Pyrus Siege, with its stronger G power, was able to dodge the attack and knock it down. Both Aquos Siege and Aranaut were defeated, only closing his eyes as their Bakugan returned to them.

"Phew, that was almost a disaster. Nice one!" Bren said to Akashi, hand up for a high five. One that he didn't return. "Right. No high fives. Noted."

Wave Breakers' Remaining Life Force Points: 90

When they returned, Noelle threw Siege at a wall hard, but it only bounced back and hit her in the face. "Talk about frustration." Dan commented.

"I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE WITH A GATE CARD YOU KNOW!" Noelle yelled at Bakura.

"I'm sorry! Because he reduced Aranaut to zero points, activating it would have been meaningless." Bakura explained.

"Then choose a Gate Card that can get around it!"

"You're lashing out at people when you could have done the same thing." Tsukishima said to her.

"He's got a point." Asta said.

"Which is why I-" Noelle sighs. "We're at 90 points. If we lose again, it's probably over."

"Why didn't I choose to disable Akashi's card instead!?" She grumbled to herself as the next battle began to start between Courtney and Zee.

"Hey, you're not the only one that wants to win. To be honest, I don't really understand this game at all. But I do know that I want to win, and so do the others. So don't give up and stay calm, alright?" Asta said, putting an arm around her shoulder.

She nodded. "Okay. And…."

"Yeah? What is it?"

"Nothing."

"Gate Card Open! Pyrus Battle Audience! Okay, so with-" Zee started to explain the card but was immediately cut off by Courtney as Ventus Garganoid began to change to Haos. Garganoid was a Bakugan with a gargoyle-like appearance.

"Look, no offense, but I don't care about why you like the card so much. Just explain what it does so I can see if I can counter it." Courtney said.

"I was just gonna say I like it because I can change elements with it."

"And it also lowers G power and nullifies abilities. You forgot to add that too." Courtney said, reading her gauntlet as Contestir, a Haos knight-like Bakugan, had just lost 500 points, lowering it to 400. It was also able to reverse the effects of the Bleach Out ability that Courtney used earlier, which disabled all of Garganoid's ability cards. "Still though, it's not gonna be enough. And I'm going to make sure it's not going to be enough. Abil-"

"Wait! Wait!"

Courtney sighed, starting to get annoyed. "What now?"

Zee had already loaded cards into his gauntlet. "If the elements changed and Contestir's ability to stop my ability was stopped, then I should be able to use my own ability cards again."

"Well, it's too late for that! You should have did it earlier!"

"Actually, he already loaded the cards in prior to you starting to declare your activation. You just weren't paying attention." Marucho said, causing her to facepalm.

The Ability Cards that he used were Rapid Haos and Lightning Tornado.

Thanks to the first, Strikeflier was brought onto the field due to there being two Haos Bakugan on the field while the second allowed for Garganoid to gain 100 Gs while taking 100 from Contestir.

"

StrikeflierGarganoid Power Levels: 1350 Gs

Contestir: 300 Gs

"Holy s[censored]. That is a crazy power move!" Kagami commented.

"NO! I refuse to lose to….. Zee of all people! TRIPLE ABILITY ACTIVAATE! Shiny Monk plus Hyper Sky Bolt plus Advance Rapier!"

Contestir: Increased to 700 Gs

StrikeflierGarganoid: Decreased to 650 Gs

After firing blasts from its shoulders, Contestir grabbed onto to Strikeflier from behind before releasing a large amount of energy, taking out both enemy Bakugan while Contestir returned to Courtney normally.

All she could do was breathe a sigh of relief.

Rats' Life Force Remaining: 110

"Okay, can we please stop putting Zee in? He hasn't won a single match." Axl said as Bren and Ruby battled against Julie and Noelle.

"It's not even us doing it. It's random, remember?" Adrien reminded him.

"Well can the randomizer stop picking him?"

"Even if he's losing, he's pushing everyone he goes against. At least give him that much." Kurt said.

"And that helps us how?" Lucy asked.

"Think about it, we haven't won a single game, yet we're still over a hundred points left, sitting in second." Blaze said.

"Even so, that's not sustainable." Lanolin said.

"Never said it was. But the game isn't over either."

Lucy looked up at the life force bars, and was actually surprised. "Huh…." She said, putting a hand under her chin.

The former pair were using Contestir and Pyrus Reaper respectively. The latter two were using Subterra Lumagrowl and Aquos Lythirus respectively. Lumagrowl was a wolf/fox-like Bakugan with six tails while Jetro was an alien/insect-like Bakugan. With how the battle seemed to have been going so far, the Kings may have had the edge with Bren using Evil Copy to copy Taygen and co-side with Ruby using Backfire and a character gate card, with Backfire nullifying the gate card that Noelle used.

"Uh oh." Noelle said as the opposing team prepared to attack.

"You know, I almost decided to copy Gorem. But I remembered the last time I was on this show, during the VR challenge. When I used Backslash and Driftblade against Dax. Really powerful Monsuno belonging to the leaders of the big bads S.T.O.R.M. and Eklipse. I lost because I didn't know what I was doing with them. But the difference between then and now: I wasn't playing with the fate of whether or not my team wins in the balance. Someone could get kicked out and lose out on winning that money because of my mistakes. Not this time! I'm using something I know I'm familiar with!" Bren said.

"Not good." Julie said as the Power level calculations finished.

"GOOOOO!" Bren and Ruby shouted out simultaneously as their bakugan went in to attack.

Noelle closed her eyes and braced for what would be the final to eliminate them from the game.

Until seconds passed and nothing happened. Noelle looked up and saw something that she didn't expect. It wasn't a shield that stopped them from being hit, a Bakugan or a gate card. Time was….. Reversing?

"What the-!?" Dan said, surprised. And he wasn't the only one.

An ability card glowed on Julie's gauntlet as Lumagrowl slammed Contestir onto the ground before slashing Reaper as well, taking them both out and leaving Ruby, Bren and even Paul absolutely stunned.

"Life Force, zero. Kings eliminated."

"Julie, you gotta explain what you just did!" Dan said.

"Agreed! I am absolutely intrigued and perplexed!" Marucho said.

"It looks like she reversed the attacks. That's the easiest thing to say. But, the Gate Cards were nullified too. Reversing all of those effects shouldn't even be possible." Runo said.

"Not attacks…. Time." Jotaro said to himself.

"But it is! With, this little card right here! Time Warp!" Julie exclaimed, pulling out the card from the gauntlet after the battle ended.

"With Time Warp, this card nullifies the attacks, battles, gate cards, ability cards and battle gear of all Bakugan on the field other than Lumagrowl that occurred after the period of time that I chose to go back to. And I chose….. The beginning of the battle! Of course, doing that doesn't bring back any of the cards I used. But, once I use it once, it can't be used again in a battle. And it also can affect any friendly Bakugan too, so while it is a great card to use in a pinch, it's still pretty risky if you blow it too early. Or if your opponent has the right cards left to cancel it out or counter it." She explained.

"So why would you wait until now to use it? That would have been useful a turn or two ago." Noelle said to her.

"Like I said, it's a high-risk, high-reward card. When I read it, I knew that that the only way I'd even consider using this card is if I absolutely needed it. And this was one of those times." Julie said, thinking back to when she chose to use a Haos Bakugan for fun and was assigned this particular one and came across the Time Warp card while reading through its abilities.

"Man, you sure made one heck of an impression for your first brawl that's for sure." Dan said.

"I guess so."

"And it also shows that it's not the Bakugan that wins all the time, it's the Brawler that uses them. Prior to this, Julie has never once touched a Haos Bakugan." Marucho said.

"Okay, we get it, she's a good brawler. Can we get to the next game? No offense." Yulaw said.

"None taken!" Julie replied.

Bren hit his fist against a wall in frustration as Diego and Emma played what could potentially be the last game of the day.

"Hey, it's-" Sly started before Bren brushed him off.

"I know what you're gonna say. But it doesn't take away from how frustrated I am. That was supposed to be it! Ruby and I pull of an incredible comeback and send them down to last place. Look, I'm not gonna take anything away from Julie. Say what you want about how broken that card is, but it can still be countered if you don't use it right. People talk about Zee when I haven't won a game myself."

"Except Zee was in one on ones. These were team games you were in. And one of those, you did win." Ruby said.

"The first game I eliminated myself. And the second, Akashi had to bail us out."

"If you're thinking this lowly of yourself then why don't you just leave?" Paul said to him bluntly.

"Paul!" Weiss said in a scolding manner.

"How many times has Akashi not done so well? Probably more times than you. But you don't see him trying to subtly make people feel sorry for him."

"Yeah, well news flash genius, I'm not trying to make people feel sorry for me. It's called venting!" Bren said to him.

"Whatever you want to believe…"

"Hey, where'd Akashi go anyway? He's actually not even here." Yang said, looking around.

"More than likely, outside of interspace." Rook guessed.

"I'll go and find out for sure." Aomine said.

"I'll come with you." Kise said.

"Don't see why. The guy's not a baby." Murasakibara said as he watched Pyrus centipoid and Subterra Saurus continued to battle.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means he don't need a buncha people checkin' up on him like he is one."

"Checking up on a friend doesn't mean you're treating them like a baby." Tangle said.

"Context. Look it up."

"CHARGE!" Diego yelled out to Saurus before he landed the final blow on Centipoid, causing it to return back to Emma.

"Phew. Close one, but a good one." Diego said as he caught Saurus.

"I'm just glad that we're in second. Somehow." Emma said to him.

"Persistence?"

"Don't know if I'd use that, but I guess some of it is that? Again, it's hard to describe almost winning a game without winning a single game. And still getting second."

"And not having half your team play, which is also pretty crazy too."

"Now that I think of it, you're right about that too."

Interspace began to return to normal. "And that's the end everyone! The Rats take second place! While the Breakers get first!" Marucho announced. "But that's not all. For getting first, they've earned a prize!"

"Is it food?" Kaz asked.

"No. Chris already intended on bringing all of you back immediately after this challenge ended. Besides, considering you've earned that prize numerous times, I think you're due for a change, right?"

"Okay. What have you got in mind?" Diego asked.

"You already have them! Well, six of you do anyway."

"Wait….. It's our gauntlets?" Libby asked before gasping. "Does that mean….."

"Yep! The Gauntlets and Bakugan are yours!"

"But wait a sec, some of these guys already kicked the bucket for good. And some of them were a part of the Phantom Data too. So how is that gonna work?" Dan asked.

"Dan does have a point about that. Hence why all of the Bakugan used here were simulated versions of them. Which means unfortunately, they can't be brought to the real world. But, I know you guys missed out on keeping Monsuno, so I didn't want to leave you guys hanging again on these types of challenges. So as a workaround, I've uploaded your brawling data to your gauntlets. Well, all of them except for Julie's that is, since she already has her own. This brawling data contains the three Bakugan you've used today along with their cards. So whenever you go virtual, your Bakugan will be available to use! Just make sure you have your gauntlets though. They're the key of using them!"

"So the gauntlets are real then." Hanamiya concluded.

Marucho nodded. "Yes. You'll be able to take and use the gauntlets in the real world. Although without the Bakugan, there really isn't that much of a use for them other than maybe a keepsake."

"Not much use? What are ya talkin' about man? They get to use these remember?" Dan said before loading in a blade card and using the energy blade.

"Oh, right!"

"Just have to use your imagination, I guess." Diego said before laughing a little.

"Anyways, that's about it. Good luck to all of you in the rest of the season!" Marucho said to the contestants.

"And with that being the end, now is the time where we all go back to the island. And where the Kings prepare for their elimination ceremony." Chris said. "Doyle, do me a solid and go get Aomine and Akashi."

"I got it." Weiss volunteered.

"If one of you are gonna go get them, it needs to be someone fast. Meaning, not you."

A flash of green light was seen. "This fast enough for ya?" Ben, as XLR8 asked Chris.

"Yeah, Ruby already left."

"What?" He immediately reverted back. "Perks of already having super speed without having to transform."

"Everyone else can go back to the island."

Everyone did just that and went in the portal that opened.

*Confessional*

Murasakibara(Radical Rats):

"It's Akachin we're talkin' about. I'm not worried about him. So I don't know why everyone else is. He'll be fine. Well, not everyone but, you get my point. Also, we got second. Without half the people out of the 6 we chose playing. Myself included. Somehow. Whatever. Long as I don't have to sit through an elimination I don't really care. But, not gonna lie, it's gonna get real interestin' tonight. Glad I don't have to worry about that though."

*End Confessional*

*Confessional*

Lanolin(Radical Rats):

"I said that constantly losing wasn't sustainable. I stand corrected. I know he lost all of his matches…. Well, we all did but, Zee did decent all things considered. The battle damage being so low every game was what really helped us outlast the Kings in my opinion."

*End Confessional*

*Confessional*

Libby(Wave Breakers):

"Wow! I still can't believe I get to keep this gauntlet and the Bakugan! Also, getting a Juggernoid and keeping it wasn't a coincidence. It's like….. It was calling out to me. And we were destined to Bakugan and Brawler! Although, admittedly, I'd love more if it were Pokemon instead. No offense to the Bakugan though. I'll be forever grateful for those. It's just…. Imagine if I had a Torterra like Paul's!"

*End Confessional*

*Confessional*

Hanamiya(Wave Breakers):

"That was way too close. How in the world do we almost lose out to a team that didn't win a single match? Still though, an ugly win is still a win so I'll take it. Now, let's see who the Kings kick out next. I told you this next elimination's gonna really hurt the losing team. So let's see who they choose to part with next."

*End Confessional*

*Confessional*

Yami Bakura(Wave Breakers):

"Hmm…. I wonder…. How would Bakugan interact with the power of the millennium items? I suppose we'll find out eventually."

*End Confessional*

"Got em." Ruby said to Chris, both Akashi and Aomine behind her, on the ground.

"Thanks. Now get in so we can get this elimination started." Chris said to her.

*Confessional*

Aomine(Storm Kings):

"Well, I know for sure Akashi said he's a little frustrated. He told me that himself. Regardless though, he did pretty good. And I made sure to tell him that. Hope he understands that and doesn't get too down on himself. As for the elimination tonight, that's gonna be tough. Don't know who's gonna go. But I do know one thing though…"

*End Confessional*

"All right guys. I know I said I was gonna get to the announcement after the challenge. But, we need to get the elimination over with first. So this one's gonna be in the daytime instead of tonight like I'm sure you guys expected." Chris said.

"Why? Can't you just do it now?" Riley asked.

"Because I said so that's why." Chris replied as Todd texted Louie a message that said "vote bten"(Yes, it's intentionally misspelled. He was trying to type it fast)

"Not a good enough answer. But, considering you're the host, there's not exactly much I can really do unfortunately."

"Exactly. Now, get your butts in the confessional and vote! Now!"

*Confessional*

Bren(Storm Kings):

*Votes Courtney*

"Gotta be honest, she's the only one I could vote for. What? You thought I was gonna vote for Paul? Look, he might be a jerk at times with what he says, but that's not enough of a reason for me to just vote for him. There's a right time to think emotionally, and a right time to think logically. This is when you think logically. Besides, he's a 'sometimes jerk'. Not a bad person."

*End Confessional*

*Confessional*

Paul(Storm Kings):

*Votes Bren*

"If he didn't make as many mistakes as he did, throughout the season, I wouldn't have voted for him. But, we've lost two games in a row. We don't need pity parties. We need wins. Now."

*End Confessional*

*Confessional*

Aomine(Storm Kings):

*Stamps Courtney*

"Sorry Court. But somebody's gotta go. That somebody's you unfortunately. I understand you wanna win, but so does everyone else. Myself included. Getting rid of you puts me in the best position to do that."

*End Confessional*

*Confessional*

Todd(Storm Kings):

*Stamps Bren*

"Hey, I got a Monsuno now. So who the heck needs Bren? You want someone smart, you got Huey and a bunch of other guys. Why haven't I told Louie and the others that? I want it to be a surprise. Of course, that's just gonna lead to nagging from my sister, so I'm definitely not ready for that."

*End Confessional*

*Confessional*

Louie(Storm Kings):

*Looks at his phone and replies with 'y' to Todd. He replied with 'jus trust me'.*

After taking a few seconds to think he finally makes his decision to vote Bren instead of Courtney.

He sighs. "I reaally hope this come back and bite me in the you know what."

*End Confessional*

*Confessional*

Eliza(Storm Kings):

*Stamps Bren*

"To be honest, Bren and Courtney are both expendable for their own reasons. But, Bren has made far too many mistakes to my liking as Paul has rightfully pointed out. At the very least, Courtney has shown she can be efficient. Bren escaped the racing challenge. He won't get lucky again."

*End Confessional*

*Confessional*

Sebastian(Storm Kings):

*Stamps Bren*

"This is a tough one. While I understand Courtney is the easiest vote, Bren is also expendable and partially liable for some of our defeats today. Unfortunately for the young Monsuno user and genius, you can easily be replaced. And, I'm not exactly too fond of your constant mistakes. Or losing two challenges in a row…." He said, the last part in a completely different tone compared to the beginning, one that showed he was deadly serious.

*End Confessional*

*Confessional*

Huey(Storm Kings):

*Stamps Courtney*

"This is a tough one. We could not have picked a worse time to lose two in a row. But I know how it feels Bren. Persistence is key!"

*End Confessional*

*Confessional*

Sly(Storm Kings):

*Stamps Courtney*

"I think Bren's being too hard on himself here. Julie just made one heck of a smart play to save that for the end. And that's really how they won more than anything else. But, I think compared to during the Monsuno challenge, he's fine. Just needed to vent for a bit and he'll be back."

*End Confessional*

*Confessional*

Akashi(Storm Kings):

*Votes Bren*

Unlike before in almost all of his confessionals, Akashi was not smiling. Not even in the slightest. "Unlike Courtney, Bren has had a history of a myriad of mistakes. Mistakes that have costed or almost costed us games. Even if he isn't fully responsible, he is at least partially. Not to mention, he is easily the most expendable out of the choices today. His knowledge and use of creatures to assist him can easily be replaced. So he must be removed from the team. Today." His voice was in the same tone as Sebastian's at the end of his confessional.

*End Confessional*

"Alright. Thank you for being the first team to be part of the elimination ceremony since returning to the island full-time." Chris said.

"You say that as if we wanted to be here." Bren said in a deadpan tone.

"Well, I mean you didn't exactly make the decisions in the game to not be, sooooo…."

"Just get to the voting so we can get this over with." Reimu said.

"Alright, alright. Sheesh. If you're safe, you get marshmallows. If you're not, well….. I'm sure you know what that means. Chef, let's go."

"Ruby and Weiss! You're both safe!" Chef called out, tossing them marshmallows.

"Yes!" Both said simultaneously.

"All thanks to our great play." Weiss said.

"Yep!" Ruby said.

"Or the fact that your team doesn't want to boot you….. Yet." Chris said before Weiss only frowned at him.

"You know you didn't have to put it that way." Ruby said to him.

"He's only saying that just to troll." Toxsa said from a distance, under a tree.

"Toxsa! Get outta here and go back inside! No eavesdropping!" Chris called out.

"Alright, alright. Your fault for making this that early. Can't stop people from wanting to be outside. Heck, most parents want their kids outside…." He said before going back in the mansion.

"Yeah well I can and I just did. And I'm also not your parent." He then focused back towards the contestants.

"That brings the question, would you sign your kids up for this show?" Dewey asked Chris.

"Hmm….. that's actually a good question. I'd be able to answer it….. If I had kids."

"Okay, let me rephrase that. Would you let your kids sign up for this show? Like if they wanted to compete?"

"Again, I'd be able to answer it if I had kids. Which I don't. Although, I'm pretty sure there's some version of me somewhere that does."

"Yeah, I can't imagine that honestly." Isagi said.

"I can." Bachira said. "Anyone can find love. Even someone like Chris."

"Well, you heard it here first everyone. Thanks for the indirect motivation dude." Bren said.

"Honestly, I don't see that working. And that's only because the other contestants could potentially see you being biased because it's your kid." Courtney said.

"Not really. Wouldn't do that. Because I don't show favorites."

Everyone just silently looked at him.

"What? I don't. Name one time. And don't say Courtney. Because that wasn't me. "

"Paul, you're safe!" Chef said.

"Chef, come on man. I really wanted to hear this."

"Look man, I'm tryin' to help you. Let's just move on and get this over with."

"Okay, so what if I do? In most cases, it's probably against the person. I'll give you Blaineley in World Tour because she annoyed me. But, she also cheated and got into an illegal alliance with someone here, so I think that was valid. But, I gave her a chance this season, no bias and she still got booted, as much as she still annoyed me." Chris said, looking at Chef after saying 'someone here'. "But, I wouldn't do it in that case. They wanna win, they're gonna have to earn it. Through all of the challenges and suffering. Hence why I kept Doyle even though we saw his nephew was competing. Because I knew he wouldn't show favorites either."

"It's true. We talked off-set about it." Doyle confirmed.

"And one more thing about what Toxsa said. Am I wrong? Is that not what at least some of these eliminations are? But anyways….. Chef, keep going." Chris said to the contestants.

"Akashi, you're also safe." Chef said before tossing him a marshmallow.

He silently caught it without even a thank you like he almost always says.

"Bren and Courtney! You're on the choppin' block! For similar reasons actually."

"Similar? What exactly are the reasons?" Bren asked.

"Yeah, I'd like to hear this myself."

"Some of your teammates see you as expendable. Courtney because you're powerless. But then there's others that are just as powerless you or just about. But I digress. Bren, what you bring to the table, some of your teammates think it's great, but not great enough to save you from them voting for you."

"I know Chef just inputted his two cents in on that logic, but he's got a point. You guys will go after me, but you won't go after Todd and Riley, no offense. Or even Huey, Louie and Dewey, also no offense, for literally the same reasons why you'll want to boot me or other vets." Courtney said.

"Huh….. uh….. I guess some of it is because….. You're one person compared to their two and three?" Aomine reasoned.

"You don't even sound sure of that! You came up with that just now!"

"I mean, you're not wrong." He admitted, almost laughing a little.

"Okay, to be fair, I understand the reasoning. But, I still don't think it's gonna happen." Bren said.

"You getting voted off, or me?" Courtney asked him.

"Me getting voted off, duh."

"Strength in numbers Court. Strength in numbers." Louie said.

"Okay, you sound a lot more sure of that so, fair."

"Funny he says that, when he didn't even vote for you." Chris said. "Whoops."

"You shouldn't have even included that 'whoops'. That was clearly on purpose." Louie said.

"So, who did he vote for?" Ruby asked.

"Not gonna disclose that. Chef? Finish this off." Chris said.

"The final marshmallow goes to…."

….

….

….

….

….

….

….

….

"Courtney!"

Bren's eyes were widened. "Are you serious!?"

"Yep. Deadly." Chef said to him.

Bren could only sigh and slap a hand on his forehead. "Man…."

"Hey, don't be too hard on yourself. You did great for a first run." Sly said to him.

"What are you talkin' about man? I just made that reaction because I'm surprised. I'm not even that upset to be honest."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I'm just gonna have to compare my ranking to Jinja and Beyal's. If I'm higher than them, I'll definitely be happy. I know for sure I didn't place better than Dax." He said, beginning to check on his tablet.

"That's cool. Now do it at home. You gotta go dude." Chris said.

"Chris, come on! Please, just let me check this one- THIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!"

He was suddenly grabbed in a large glove via Heloise before being thrown as if he was a human Bakugan far off the island before a portal opened and he flew in it. He landed in the grass. The first thing he checked on was his tablet. When it was somehow fine, he breathed a sigh of relief. Until he saw the crack on the screen the second he turned it off. He yelled in agony, scaring multiple birds in the process.

"Aw, I actually wanted to hear how far he got compared to those two." Ruby said.

"Too bad. And no, that's not gonna be the only way you get booted by the way. But anyways, that announcement." Chris said before remembering something and pulled out a microphone. "EVERYONE! YOU CAN COME OUTSIDE NOW! ELIMINATION IS DONE! I'VE GOT AN ANNOUNCEMENT!"

Once everyone came outside, Chris began to speak. "Alright. So you know all that stuff I, well, Doyle, burned in front of your faces yesterday?"

"Yes. What about it?" Becky F. asked, anger rising by the second after being reminded of it.

"Well, that stuff has been replaced by even better stuff! Check it out!"

"Are you tryin' to mess with us Chris? There's nothin' there." Kagami said.

"I told you to have the stuff ready!" Chris said to Heloise.

"Well I did. You didn't make it clear that you wanted it here." She replied.

"Oh yeah. That's actually true. That one's on me then. Go ahead and bring the stuff in."

Several boxes of items were brought in. This included TVs, game consoles, table sets and more.

"Wait, wait. Please tell me you're not trolling us again." Toxsa said.

"No. This is all yours to keep! Well, some of it is."Chris said as the boxes were opened to have been revealed to be three flat-screen TVs, old worn-down consoles and more.

"Really Chris? You give us the TVs but not the consoles?"

"What do you mean? They work."

"And they also look like they could fall apart at any second." Young Bennett said.

Boxes for beds, tables and chairs were also brought in, with some of them looking worse off than others.

"Why do some of these beds look worse than the others?" Yang asked.

"Better question, why do they look the same as the beds that were in before the original 'mansion' was destroyed?" Octavia asked.

"They don't. Don't know what your eyes are seeing." Chris said.

"My eyes are telling me that they look the same. And my ears are telling me that you're blatantly lying to our faces about it."

"Look, you can see for yourselves tonight. But uh, you're gonna have to bring all of that stuff in. I'm not doing it. Or getting Chef, Doyle and Heloise to do it either. I already did you guys a favor by letting you have this stuff."

The teams began to bring the items in begrudgingly, for some of them.

"And with that, Bren is gone! Too bad too. He probably would have loved this stuff. Oh well. Who's gonna be booted next? Find out next time on Total…. Drama…. Across the Multiverse!" Chris announced.

After the show

"Favor my a*s... He's gonna let us have this stuff and then trash it when this segment's over." Rally said as she helped carry some of the furniture.

(A/N: Don't think I've mentioned this but I still have to do this with some of the swearing to avoid the Quotev filters from marking this as M)

"Yep." Courtney agreed.

"Alright, guess I'm gonna have to get the cable up since Chris decided to half-a[censored] the 'entertainment'." Rick said.

"You know, I'd really appreciate it if you did. Would make staying here a lot more tolerable." Reagan said to him.

"Make sure it catches Captain Unicorn." Young Bennett said.

"And Pretty Princess!" Becky B. added as she flew back and forth and carried boxes with ease due to her Lexiconian powers.

"You're gonna fix up the games, right?" Randy asked him.

"Sure. Shouldn't be much of an issue." Bennett said.

"Sometimes I forget some of you guys are still kids. Why in the world are kids allowed on this show!?" Old Bennett said.

"You're just asking that now?" Young Bennett asked.

"Strangely, yes."

Aomine tapped on one of Weiss' shoulders as he was carrying a console box. "Hey, wanna talk for a bit after this?"

"Sure." She replied.

After taking all of the boxes in, Weiss and Aomine were sitting down under a tree.

"So, what did you want to talk about? What game I'm going to embarrass you in? Don't think I forgot."

"Nah. It's…. Something else." He said, grabbing the back of his neck with his left hand.

"Okay. Can I take a guess?"

"You probably wouldn't get it."

"Try me."

"Three tries, that's it."

"Your training."

"Nope."

"Akashi?"

"Nope. One more."

"You've come to tell me you've thrown out those magazines."

"Funny, but still, no."

"Disappointing, but fine. What is it?"

"I…." His cheeks started to get warm. "Dude, you can't back out now. It's open! Take the shot dumba*s!" He thought to himself.

"Weiss, you're an amazing person. Didn't think anyone could compete with Satsuki in the nice and caring department, at least when it came to girls being so nice and understanding but, here we are. I…. don't know when but, I started to actually fall in love with you. It's crazy. I would have never thought I'd actually say that. Not just to you…"

She put a finger to his lips. "Let me stop you right there. You, are the definition of a dolt. Do you know that?"

He wasn't sure how to respond to that. "But, you're not just that. You're also, caring, a stand-up guy, passionate, sometimes unintentionally funny, and occasionally lazy. Now, we can always fix that last one. But the rest? They're perfect. And that, Aomine Daiki, is why I love you too." The next part was something that Aomine never practiced, or trained for. She leaned forward and kissed him.

He felt as if he didn't know what to do for what felt like forever. Before he got ahold of himself, saw, no, felt, what Weiss was doing and kissed her back. At least the best he could anyway.

After a few more seconds of them mutually kissing, they pulled away.

"One question." Weiss said.

Aomine felt as if he was in a dreamy daze before realized that the same girl that kissed him, for the first time ever, was talking to him. "Huh? Oh, uh….. What's up?"

"What happened to liking girls with…." She then put her hands in front of her chest, not touching them, but far out enough to give him the hint.

"What the hell? You just kissed me and that's the first thing you ask?" He calmed down and leaned back on the tree, looking up at the clouds. "But like I said before, in all seriousness, it's more than just that. I've always seen Satsuki as a friend. Well, most of the time anyway. When I wasn't acting like a jerk."

"Well, we don't have to worry about that anymore now, do we? For the most part anyway."

"Only time I act like that is when it's rightfully deserved. And I wouldn't call that being a jerk."

"Suuuuure."

"Agree to disagree. But, serious question. When did you….start having those feelings?"

"I, can't recall the exact time. But, I can say that they started to grow. But, I just couldn't get the courage to tell you. I didn't think you'd feel the same way."

"Boy were you wrong."

"Now then, before I embarrass you in a game, answer me one more question."

"Shoot."

"Akashi. Is there something going on with him?"

"Not anymore. Even though we didn't win, you did your best. I can't ask you to do more than that."

"Good to know. Now, let's see if any of those boxes included any board or card games." Weiss said before standing up.

"You want Chris to give us board games? You realize what they're probably gonna look like, right?" He replied, also standing up to follow her.

"On second thought, you do have a point."

When they went inside, Yang could only give them a devious grin.

"You….." Weiss said, noticing it.

"You nosy a*s blonde! You were watching us weren't you!?" Aomine yelled out.

"Wasn't just me. It was Penny too. And Blake. And Ruby. And Octavia."

"She's lying! Specifically on that second part!" Blake called out from another room.

"So you're just going to leave me out? Tch. A*shole." Octavia said jokingly to Blake, not even hiding the fact that she was slightly smiling

"This is what I have to deal with…. Moreso with Ruby and Yang. Less with Blake." Weiss said to him as they continued to go find games.

*Confessional*

Weiss(Storm Kings):

"I feel like he might have been lying about Akashi. But, I didn't want to push him into telling me when he's not ready to. I hope I made the right decision in not pressing him on it."

*End Confessional*

*Confessional*

Aomine(Storm Kings):

"Wow. I…. can't believe I just did that." He was at a loss for words for several seconds. "Look, I'll tell Weiss about what's going on with Akashi later. I didn't want to ruin the moment, you know? Besides, he did pretty well today. So I think he's slowly starting to really find his footing here. Which is great for me, as a friend. But bad for me, as a competitor. If he really does start being the Akashi that he was, and, still is at school, if he gets to the merge, it's not gonna be easy to take him out. I'd say he's the least of my worries but then again, with everything else that's happened so far….. Who knows?"

*End Confessional*

Back in the studio of Total Drama….

"Annnnd cut!" Chris said just as the camera cut to Diana and Kageyama talking to one another about something.

"You wanted all of that on footage when the episode was over. When….. You just could have extended the episode?" One of the editors asked.

"Because I wanted it to seem like I wasn't paying attention to them. Duh."

"So what are you even gonna do with this footage? Make it a director's cut?" Chef asked.

"Not a bad idea. I could charge for that too, but no. I'm gonna use it for something else. Or, potentially anyway. If I don't use it for anything, I'm sure Bridgette and Geoff would love to use it. They eat this kind of stuff up. Don't send it to em. Not telling you to do that. They can get it themselves."

"Even after they let you do challenges there, you still hate their show? Why?"

"Hate is a strong word Chef. Just not a fan of it. Particularly the parts that involve the wholesome stuff. Everything else, like the questions, are pretty cool. And that's just because people reveal stuff about themselves that I might be able to use later on. And it can start unexpected arguments."

"Figures….." Chef said. "MK?"

"Like the game or the person?"

"The game. As in Annihilation. The movie."

Chris almost wanted to throw up. "That's it. I'm outta here. Just for you offering to watch that."

"What? I never seen it."

"And I'm not gonna be there to watch it with you. You do that by yourself."

"Now I'm really worried. I remember some of those kids saying it sucked too." Chef said before leaving the studio as well.

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A/N: And with that, Bren is gone. He was definitely hard to let go as he was a fun character to write, brimming with potential(even though I've said something like that before with a good bit of the cast lol). But, I had to pull the trigger and eliminate someone for things to move forward.

Also, I decided to scrap using Two Worlds Collide this chapter. Just couldn't find a way it could fit and flow in this chapter well enough.

To be honest, this was supposed to be out yesterday. But, some things happened yesterday that killed my mood to finish writing(or really do anything else). But I'm all good now.

Next challenge is a user-requested one in the world of Chowder! Absolutely one of my favorite shows growing up during the CN Noods Era on the Har-Har Tharsdays block. Same with Total Drama. Even though it still didn't beat out the Toonami and You Are Here action blocks for me lol. All the action blocks were absolute peak CN imo.

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Episode 34: Compete in Field-Tournament-Style-Style-Up-And-Down-On-The-Ground-Manja-Flanja-Blanja-Banja-Ishka-Bibble-Babble-Flabble-Doma-Roma-Floma-Boma-Jingle-Jangle-Every-Angle-Bricka-Bracka-Flacka-Stacka-Two-Ton Rerun-Free-for-all-Big-Ball(Big Ball for short, but it's bad luck to not say the whole name)(Chowder, An Idea from 1_true_believer_3000 on AO3)

Episode 35: Grudge-by Match: Compete in Grudgby Matches in the Boiling Isles(The Owl House)

Episode 36: TDKO: 2nd Impact: Battle in Kungfubots with abilities based on each character(Cartoon Network TKO(Titanic Kungfubot Offensive) Online Video Game) (Double Elimination)

Episode 37: Holding Serve: Compete in Volleyball Matches(Haikyuu!)

Episode 38: Project: TD: Battle in Exonaut Suits with special abilities based on each character in simulated battleground-modified locations Across the Multiverse(Cartoon Network's Project Exonaut Online Game)

Episode 39: Here we go A-Gen: Compete in trials cultivated by Gen, Mr. White and the rest of the Tenkai Knights(Tenkai Knights)

Episode 40: Total Drama: Cul-de-sac Ed-ition: Help the Eds in making the best scam(Ed Edd n Eddy, an idea from G-Man 2.0 on FF Dot Net)

Episode 41:In a Galaxy Far, Far Away: Battle in Simulated Star Wars Battles(Star Wars Battlefront Games)(An idea inspired by a challenge idea from Ginrai12 in another season)

Episode 42: Hold the Fort!: Compete in a Fortnite Squad Battle(Fortnite)

Episode 43: TOTAL KOMBAT II: Test your might and mind in the Test Your Might and Chess Kombat mini-games(Mortal Kombat, with the second game being based off a game mode in Mortal Kombat Deception)(Double Elimination) A/N: Elements from other fighting games will be seen.

Episode 44: You're History!: Help Supreme Kai of Time/Chronoa, Trunks, and the rest of the Time Patrol stop a crisis and save history Across the Multiverse!(Dragon Ball Xenoverse)

(More than likely, the time placement will be post-Xenoverse 1 so only aspects of that game will be used. I finished the base content of the first game along with the first DLC, but I'm still working through the second, and eventually the final DLC before I get to playing Xenoverse 2 and the manga)

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Placements:

165th- Dragonfly Jones(Radical Rats)-Martin Sitcom

164th- Richie and Virgil(Wave Breakers)- Static Shock

163rd- Cameron(Storm Kings)- Total Drama

162nd- Duncan(Wave Breakers)- Total Drama

161st- Chris P.(Wave Breakers)- Dan VS

160th- Mona(Storm Kings)- Mona the Vampire

159th- Owen(Radical Rats)-Total Drama

158th- Zoey(Wave Breakers)-Total Drama

157th - Tetsuya Kuroko(Radical Rats)- Kuroko's Basketball(Quit)

156th-Shintaro Midorima(Storm Kings)-Kuroko's Basketball

155th-MacArthur and Sanders(Radical Rats)- Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race

154th-Luz Noceda(Storm Kings)-The Owl House

153rd-Priya(Radical Rats)-Total Drama

152nd- Shogo Haizaki(Wave Breakers)-Kuroko's Basketball

151st- Edward Falcon(Radical Rats)-Power Stone

150th- Shawn and Jasmine(Wave Breakers)-Total Drama

149th- Zak Saturday(Storm Kings)- Secret Saturdays

148th - Nimona(Wave Breakers)- Nimona

147th-Rocky Rickaby(Radical Rats)-Lackadaisy

146th-Huey Freeman(Storm Kings)-Boondocks

145th-Cicini(Radical Rats)- Rabi-Ribi

144th- Blaineley(Wave Breakers)-Total Drama

143rd- Heather and Alejandro(Storm Kings)-Total Drama

142nd-Karin Kanzunki(Wave Breakers)-Street Fighter

141st-Ruby G.(Wave Breaker)-Ruby Gillman Teenage Kraken

140th-Noah(Radical Rats)-Total Drama

139th-Marinette Dupain-Cheng(Storm Kings)-Miraculous Ladybug

138th-Dawn(Radical Rats)-Total Drama

137th- Dan Mandel(Wave Breakers)- Dan VS

136th- Ryoma Echizen(Storm Kings)- The Prince of Tennis

135th-Rei Hino(Radical Rats)-Sailor Moon

134th- Johnny Bravo(Wave Breakers)-Johnny Bravo

133rd- Skipper(Storm Kings)-Madagascar Movies/Penguins of Madagascar

132nd- Bren(Storm Kings)-Monsuno