Stepping onto the dock was Chris, for like… the ninth time. At this point you should just expect the episodes to start like this.

"Last time, on Total Drama Island! After a very unfortunate mistake on Chef's part." He lied. "The campers and I were forced to evacuate the island to have the challenge happen somewhere else. There was no better place to have it happen besides Boney Island. Here the campers were instructed to cross the island to the other side. An easy challenge, however a wild animal native only to this island made it quite difficult when it split up everyone from both teams, splitting them perfectly in groups of two." Nothing weird here.

"Without any way to know where they were going, the campers ventured further into the island. Some campers had an easy time finding their way." It cut to Bella and Enima making it back in under a day.

"While others struggled horrifically." It cut to Arianna and Marisa going the wrong way over and over again.

"In the end, the winner was the Killer Bass when both Catrina and Mindy arrived at the same time, leaving Jack as the only person to not return."

"When it came time to vote, everyone seemed to want Xi gone, however he was saved by the fact that Jack was missing. For that reason, I've decided to auto eliminate him. Will we ever find him? Did the wolf problem ever get solved? And will Xi survive another elimination via luck? Find out the answer to maybe one of those questions today, on Total! Drama! ISLAND!"

Dock

It was early morning, and for some reason, Arianna found herself standing by the end of the dock, looking out into the sea.

Why had she come here? Well, part of her felt a bit angry over how things had gone. Had Jack not gone missing, Xi would have been eliminated…

But now, she was stuck with him until the next time they lost.

Taking a deep breath, Arianna almost wanted to scream, but that would attract too much attention, and she had a facade to continue.

"Jack…" There was bitterness in her voice as the name left her mouth. However, a tinge of her emotion showed a bit of concern.

Odd.

"What has you up so early?" A familiar voice called out to her.

When Arianna turned around, she could confirm that it was Xi standing by her. "What does it matter to you?"

Letting out a low chuckle, Xi shook his head. "Don't tell me that you're sad that he's gone?"

"Why the hell would I-" Arianna began to bark out, before holding her tongue.

She couldn't just start yelling at Xi. "Well, he was a potential ally."

Tilting his head to the side, Xi raised an eyebrow. "A potential ally to us? Or solely to you?"

Despite it being early in the morning, it seemed like they were getting ready to go at it. "Oh?" Arianna's face turned to a scowl rather quickly. "Is it not natural to have other allies?

"I suppose so… I do have Jared and Eleanor, so there's that." Xi crossed his arms, not backing down. "I'm sure they could become your allies too if you just gave them a chance."

From the way Xi was talking, it was obvious to Arianna that it just wouldn't work. "Please, talking to them would be wasting my time." They were already under Xi's thumb.

However, there was one person that he didn't bring up.

Confessional: Arianna

On her face was a devious smile, as she began figuring out a plan. "From the looks of it, he completely left out one person. He mentioned Eleanor and Jared, so I would have assumed he'd mention Talia. However, she's oddly missing." Which could only mean one thing… "Talia isn't falling for his tricks, and she's the only way I have to get him out."

Shaking his head slowly, Xi spoke back up. "Already prepared yourself for a losing battle, I see? Besides, why are you complaining? Didn't you pick up the remnants of Cameron's alliance? You have Marisa and Robin."

Like hell Robin was actually worth anything. He wasn't even taking any of this game seriously. "We'll just have to see about all of this." Arianna wasn't about to let Xi pull one up on her.

She was going to see him go home soon. She swore on it.

Killer Bass (Guys)

Another new day, meant another day that David had to get to the bottom of one of his problems. Bouncing out of bed, he began to make his way towards the door.

That was, until he was stopped by someone. "What are you doing?" Jeremy had moved out of his own bed.

"Oh!" Well, telling him the truth wasn't something he could do, so he did the next thing.

Lie.

"Going to meet up with a cute girl." Give out better lies.

Tapping his chin, Jeremy tried to think of who a cute girl was. "Marisa?"

"What? No?" David didn't really need to meet Marisa right now. "Also, don't you two hate each other?"

"Our hate is purely theatrics." Jeremy didn't sound convincing. "But I was just trying to assume who you found cute."

Opening the door, David began to step out. "Mindy. Mindy is who I find cute." Hopefully that would get him off his back.

Taking a few seconds to process that information, Jeremy eventually nodded his head along. "Yeah, I can see it. Good luck out there!" And he was back to his bed.

Letting out a sigh of relief, David quickly left the room.

Confessional: David

Now, he didn't seem too happy. "Someone stole something from me during the yacht portion of the challenge, and I intend on getting to the bottom of it. But because of the whole yacht switch, it's almost impossible to tell who could have even done it." Biting his thumb lightly, David began to contemplate.

Killer Bass (Girls)

Stepping into the room, David looked around, wary. "Not here, huh?"

He knew that Nila would have been gone by now, but he was a bit worried about the others. Who knows when they'd turn up, so he had to make this quick.

Confessional: David

"Look! Look! I know that it isn't exactly moral to look through people's stuff, especially if it's girls' stuff, but I'm doing it for a good cause!" Long pause. "Any cause that benefits me is a good cause." David…

Of course, he wasn't interested in whatever dumb clothes they wore. Instead, he had one goal in mind…

Sorting through all of the suitcases, he filtered through the five suitcases, but to no avail. "Really? None of them?"

Did that mean it was another team? It had to be so…

"Dammit…" David didn't really care much for the other team, so he never actually bothered to learn their schedule. But none of them should be in their cabins at this time, right?

He was ready to leave, until something caught his attention.

"Hmm?" David was staring at one last suitcase he had yet to search.

Unlike how slow some other people were last time, it didn't take long for David to know exactly who this belonged to. "Jenna…" Despite it having been almost three weeks, it was still fresh in his mind.

David unlocked the suitcase. "Heh, if I were to hide something I just stole, I'd hide it in a suitcase nobody would think to look through-"

Nope, nothing. Just regular clothes and a chemistry set. "Bruh." What the fuck? This dumb yacht portion of the game ruined his entire game plan. "Alright, alright. It's fine…" He was about to get up, before his eyes landed on the chemistry set. "Hmm…"

Confessional: David

Now, he had a piece of wood in his hand, and his knife in the other. Slowly by slowly, he whittled bits of wood away. "Now, to say I had a bad idea just then was an understatement. Heh…"

Given that nobody else was around, David quickly removed the chemistry set from the suitcase. "I could have some use for this…"

Oh a terrible idea indeed…

Forest Entrance

After his talk with Arianna, Xi had set off to the forest entrance to meet up with Eleanor for their daily berry excursion.

Well… Daily if you ignore the fact that they were incapable of doing it yesterday morning due to the yacht.

However, when Xi finally arrived, he would notice that Eleanor hadn't gone into the forest yet. "What's wrong?"

Quickly turning towards him, a little spooked, Eleanor spoke up. "O-oh! Well… There are signs around the edge of the forest entrance…"

Taking a better look, there seemed to be several warning signs. Crossing his arms, and gripping onto his shirt, Xi frowned. "Why would there be…?" However, it didn't take long for Xi to remember what Chris said. 'It's likely because of the incident with the wolves he mentioned. And here I thought Chris would have fixed the problem by now."

Turning her head back towards the forest, Eleanor frowned. "I haven't seen any wolves since I've been here." So it must have meant they were all contained within the forest at the very least.

Looking out into the woods, Xi shook his head. "Then, it seems we won't be able to do any berry collecting."

Despite how disappointed she was, Eleanor still put on a smile. "It's alright! We can always try tomorrow morning."

"..." Xi didn't say anything, only crossing his arms.

Confessional: Xi

"For something so trivial, I feel kind of disappointed that we won't be able to do anything." Maybe he had grown to enjoy this morning ritual.

Cafeteria

Most of everyone else had gathered to eat, given there wasn't much else to really do.

"A shame, really." Catrina let out a heavy sigh, letting her annoyance be apparent. "Thought we finally had a win under our belts."

She was talking to Marisa, but Robin was the one to respond instead. "What are you talking about? We definitely lost that challenge."

Raising an eyebrow, Catrina gave him a weird look. "I meant about the vote." Although, losing Jack didn't really bug her that much, considering she didn't really care for the guy.

Not wanting the mood to get gloomy, Marisa turned to look at her. "Hey, it's fine. That just means we'll have to do it next time."

Looking at the two, Robin frowned slightly.

Confessional: Robin

"You know, I've found it strange for a while…" He hummed out in thought. "Those two have been getting along for a while, despite how obvious it is that Catrina voted off Cameron. Personally, if I knew someone voted off Cameron, I wouldn't trust them at all."

"I don't think we should be wishing for a loss." Robin shook his head. "It was unfortunate that we lost the last challenge, so we should try and keep our lead over the other team. We still have an extra member, after all."

Marisa hummed out for a bit. "I suppose you aren't wrong." But still, the faster they expedited their plans, the better.

She just wanted revenge, after all.

…

At the other table, the Killer Bass were able to celebrate another victory on their belts. They were few and far between, so it was a miracle that they could even do this.

And by them, I meant the girls. David was being a creep and looking through suitcases, and Jeremy was currently unaccounted for.
"Another win." Nila hummed out to herself. "I was somewhat worried, given our last challenge performance."

Ruffling Bella's hair, Enima let out a small laugh. "Well, it's all thanks to Bella over here. We managed to finish before nighttime even hit."

"Really?" Nila was surprised to hear that. "You were able to navigate the island perfectly?"

"Um… Well!" Bella's eyes quickly darted to the side. She wasn't used to this kind of attention, and she was having flashbacks of when she did the talent show. "Nature is my speciality, so."

"Survival is one of my strong suits as well." Nila tried to think of what went wrong. That is until her eyes darted over towards Historia. "Although, I have never had to worry about a partner before."

"Is this a subtle way to blame me?" Not that Historia really minded, given that it was the truth. Still, it was another hit at her confidence.

Quickly, Nila shook her head. "N-No! Not at all! I am just saying that you are inexperienced in this sort of field."

"..." Enima slowly turned her eyes towards the trainee. "Sounds to me like you are trying to blame her."

Ah… Maybe she was. Nila felt her expression sour slightly with a frown. "Perhaps… But we still won the challenge after all, and that is all that matters!"

"Speaking of challenges…" Bella hummed out, recalling what Chris said two days ago. "Weren't we supposed to have a challenge surrounding the wolves?"

"Probably." Enima rolled her eyes, bored of this conversation already. "But it's not like he can make us do anything about it."

While she didn't seem to care, Bella on the other hand had a different thought in mind. "I went to take a swing by the forest this morning, and it was blocked off by danger signs."

Historia narrowed her eyes with a frown. "Are you saying that there's still wolves in the forest?"

"That would make the most sense." Which is something Bella didn't really want to think about. "He should do something before the ecosystem of this island is completely ruined."

Confessional: Bella

"Having so many wolves on an island where there shouldn't be any wolves would devastate the prey animal at an alarming rate. Soon enough, all the predators won't have any food to eat, and then they'd be wiped out, leaving-" Static.

As the campers were enjoying their meal-

OK, enjoying their meal as much as one could viably enjoy Chef's cooking.

As they were eating their meal, they would be interrupted by an announcement playing on the loudspeakers.

"Campers! It's time for your next challenge!" It was Chris, of course.

Letting out a sigh, Marisa stood up. "Didn't we just finish a challenge yesterday? Why one so soon again?"

Given that she was speaking loud enough, it offered Enima the chance to respond. "If I had to take any sort of guess, it's because of the wolves."

"God… I do not want to have to deal with wolves." Historia mumbled out, standing up. Honestly, after the last set of challenges, she was hoping for literally anything else at this point. She'd even do an old challenge if she had to.

Campfire

It was finally challenge time, but there seemed to be more pressing matters at hand.

"Chris." Eleanor spoke up softly, a small frown on her face. "I wanted to collect berries today, but the entire forest was cut off."

Oh right! That! Good guy Chris completely forgot to tell the truth to the campers last ceremony. "You remember when I said that I accidentally caused a wolf takeover of the island?"

"Mhm!" Eleanor hummed out, nodding her head.

"And you then remember how I said I solved that problem?" Chris continued on.

This one took a bit longer for Eleanor to give a response given she didn't actually remember him saying that. However, given that he's saying it now, it must be true, so she hummed the same exact way.

"Well, I lied about the second part." Chris didn't seem to feel bad about it, though.

"W-what?" Bella took a step back, realising that there was still a massive amount of wolves around the entire island. "And you didn't think to warn us?"

Shrugging, Chris smiled at them. "It must have slipped my mind."

"Don't tell me the challenge has to do with the wolves…" Enima was less than ecstatic to have her idea become a reality.

Clapping his hands, Chris didn't seem to lose the smile on his face. "Exactly. Originally, the challenge was to have you go out and try and retrieve a totem that was around the neck of one of the many wolves."

After a long silence, Marisa decided to speak up. "And… what exactly went wrong?" She already knew, she just wanted Chris to continue his story.

"Due to no fault of my own, someone made a mistake while making the request, and suddenly we have an overabundance of wolves!" Yeah, alright Chris.

Frowning slightly, Bella shook her head. "That's… Not really how this works. I don't think you can just order animals like that."

Moving away from that logical point, Chris continued on with the challenge. "The challenge remains the same, except with ten times the amount of wolves. Still only one totem per team, though."

"Oh?" David raised an eyebrow. "We're each going after one?"

"Yes!" Now Chris seemed eager to talk about this next part. "Normally, you'd fight for immunity as a team. However, today is going to be much different. You will briefly no longer function as a team, but you will still vote as one."

Thinking for just a moment, Robin understood what he meant. "Are you saying that both teams are fighting themselves for individual immunity?"

"Exactly!" Chris grinned at the quick understanding. It meant he didn't have to go into details, and hopefully didn't have to answer any unwanted questions. "You will be fighting for individual immunities. However, when it comes time to vote, you will only be able to vote for those on your team."

"..." Xi frowned at this, knowing damn well what it meant. "Are you implying that today is a double elimination?"

"Yes. Yes it is." Now the real fun could begin.

Obviously, most people didn't take it too kindly. "So only two people can be safe?" David had played the game rather safe up to this point- Wait no he hasn't.

Confessional: David

"Not that I'm worried or anything." He was definitely worried. "But I have to rely on someone like Historia if I can't manage to get immunity. I know I at least have two votes on me, and I'm not sure where Mindy and Nila lie, so they're wild cards." It meant he had to win this…

Confessional: Xi

"This isn't ideal…" He had his arms crossed, a deep frown on his face. "I was almost voted off last time, had it not been for me abandoning Jack, and for a guardian angel to step up to save me." He still wasn't sure who went out of their way to keep him around, but he should find them soon. "If I don't win this challenge, I can see myself going home soon, especially with Arianna itching to get me out." Xi let out a low chuckle. "But… She's going to have to try harder than that."

"Each totem is clearly marked, with one being red for the Killer Bass, and one being green for the Screaming Gophers." Chris continued explaining.

Raising his hand, Robin had a simple question. "Is there a benefit for beating the other team?"

Frowning slightly, Chris shook his head. "Not really. You both still have to vote someone out. The only thing that would change is that you would vote after the losing team."

Nodding his head along, Robin stroked his chin. "Higher overall placement."

"Do we get… like any hints?" Historia raised an eyebrow. She didn't just want to run into the forest and pray.

"Yes!" Chris was eager that someone asked. Pointing to the forest, he gave his answer. "They are in there."

Slowly turning to look at the forest, Historia had a deadpanned look. "Thanks."

"I've told you all the information you need to know." Chris pulled out an airhorn. "Three, two, one, go!" He blew the airhorn, signifying the start of the challenge.

All fifteen campers quickly ran into the forest, most people staying in groups of people.

"Robin." Marisa called out, staying near him as they ran. "We should try and work together, shouldn't we?"

"Hmm?" Robin glanced over at her. "Why do you suppose that? Only one of us can win immunity, so is there really any benefit?"

For a brief moment, Marisa had a look of disbelief on her face, but it was quickly replaced with a smile. "Huh… Yes! We can make it so Xi doesn't win immunity."

"I guess… We did try to vote him off last time." Robin nodded his head.

"Didn't you vote Catrina?" Marisa raised an eyebrow.

"... I plead the seventeenth." Robin didn't even look at her while he said that.

Historia, who was beside them when the comment was said, only shook her head. "Nope. Not commenting on this one." He was as dumb as Christopher.

Soon, Robin stopped running, stopping just at the edge of the forest.

Following his lead, Marisa slowed down. "What's wrong?"

For a few seconds, Robin was too deep in thought to say anything, before he turned to look at Marisa. "I'm going to go ask Chris something. Continue on without me." He turned around, heading back.

For a moment, Marisa was going to stop him, but decided against it. "Well, it's his loss." Any lost time could mean losing immunity in the end.

Of course, none of this mattered if the person Robin wanted to find wasn't there, so he had to pray.

Ah, Chris was still here. This was perfect. Robin had a question to ask him. "Chris." He stepped out of the portion of the woods.

Not really expecting anyone to approach him, Chris raised an eyebrow. "Can I help you?"

Stroking his chin, Robin nodded. "Yes. I wanted to ask you some questions."

"If it's about the challenge, I've already told you everything I needed to tell you."

"No…" Robin glanced away. "It's not about the challenge. It's about the game as a whole."

Now that caught Chris' attention. "Oh?"

A faint smile appeared on Robin's face. "In the event of a tied vote, what exactly happens?"

Seems that the gear in the tacticians head was spinning, and who was Chris to stop that from happening. "In the event of a tie, there would be a revote, unless only two people got votes. In which case we'd skip that phase and move right onto a tiebreaker challenge."

"Fascinating…" Robin nodded his head along, his faint smile slowly growing. "And what sort of challenge would that be?"

"Normally just a smaller version of what the challenge for the episode was. I don't want to have to think of extra challenges."

That's all the information Robin needed to know. "Thanks." Turning back, he made his way further into the woods- wait no he missed the woods entirely. Robin! Where are you going?

Which left Chris all alone with his thoughts. "It seems like he might have a plan cooking." Whatever that might be, he was interested in seeing it flourish.

Forest (East)

Given she was the fastest, Nila was the first person to reach the one of the deeper parts of the forest, stopping momentarily to take a break. "Odd. I have not seen a single wolf since I got here."

Though, she figured it was natural, given how large this forest was.

A few seconds after she stopped, Nila heard running behind her, and quickly looked over at who it was.

"You… Run really fast…" Mindy was out of breath, and she was forced to lean on a tree. "You just kind of ran in… Didn't you?"

Tilting her head to the side, Nila was a bit confused. "Of course I ran in alone. This is not a team based challenge, and I would rather win immunity."

"Haha…" Mindy shook her head, before standing up straight. "Shouldn't immunity go to someone who's at risk of elimination?"

Confessional: Mindy

"Look, Nila is the only person on our team to have never received a vote. Ever." Mindy was almost impressed with the feat. "Sure, it makes sense, given she's helped with every challenge. All I'm saying is that her not winning immunity here wouldn't hinder her. I doubt any of the rest of the team would even consider voting her off."

Nila tapped her chin a few times, humming to herself. "That is true. I have not been at risk of elimination, even when I very much should have been." But, the competitive spirit inside her didn't feel great about giving the win to someone else. "Who would be someone at risk of elimination?"

Flashing a smile, Mindy slowly pointed to her-

"You just want it for yourself, do you not?" Nila closed her eyes, letting out a sigh. "I thought you were trying to be noble for once."

Right, Nila wasn't there for the conversation with Catrina. Frowning slightly, Mindy looked away. "I had a talk with Catrina while we were on Boney Island. We got separated from everyone else, so we worked together to try and find our way back."

Hearing that, Nila beamed slightly. "You did? That is wonderful!"

Confessional: Nila

Nila was humming to herself. "Finally, some real progress with this team." She clapped her hands together. "We are one step closer to having a nicer team." Just one last problem!

"And how did that make you feel?" Nila took a step closer to her.

Looking slightly annoyed, Mindy looked the other way. "Alright, you don't need to turn this into some kind of lesson." This was getting a little too annoying for her. "I apologised, and that's all that matters. Besides, we have the challenge to worry about."

True, true! But Nila felt like rewarding good behaviour would benefit Mindy. "Well, if we find the totem, I'll let you win immunity."

Alright, now she was talking. "You'd do that for me? I would appreciate that."

Confessional: Mindy

"Not sure why she's doing that." She had her arms crossed. "I guess she might be trying to get me to do more good, but I don't think it will work out the way she wants it to." There was a small frown on her face. "Either way, I'm not one to let opportunity slip away."

"Then…" Mindy trailed off, trying to think of something. "How do we want to handle this? Are we working together?"

Swaying her head from side to side as she let an idea appear in her head, Nila eventually spoke up. "I am rather confident in my ability to take on a wolf."

"What…?"

"So, I think maybe we split up, to cover more ground." Nila was going to be a one woman army, it seemed. "If I find the totem, I could give it to you."

Confessional: Mindy

"Does… Does Nila just like taking on random animals?" At first it was the bear, now wolves. "I think she might have a problem."

Giving her a shaky thumbs up, Mindy had to muster strength as to not explain why this was a horrible idea. "Y-yeah. Sounds like a plan to me." Nila might be fine, but Mindy was definitely going to be mauled by wolves.

However, almost as if something clicked, an actual mischievous smile appeared on Mindy's face. "Actually, I think splitting up would be for the best. I tend to work better on my own anyways. I'm more the silent type."

"Oh! Perfect! I will not hinder your hunting at all." Nila was more than happy to learn this. "I wish you luck in this challenge."

Nodding her head along, Mindy disappeared behind some trees.

Forest (North Side)

Given that there weren't immediately any wolves near the entrance, Bella was led to believe that the wolves had moved up to the Northern parts of the island.

With her was Enima. "Are you sure about this?"

"Wolves like to occupy a certain area. And given that Chris ordered a large amount of wolves, it's likely they got territorial, and separated into groups." Finally, Bella could use all her animal expertise now. "I've done research on wolves before, so I'm semi qualified."

Well, whatever Bella was thinking was likely better than anything Enima came up with, so she almost had no choice but to go along with it.

Suddenly, as the two of them were walking, they both could hear the shuffling of grass.

"Shh!" Bella called out instinctively.

Enima wanted to comment how she wasn't saying anything, but then she'd be contradicting herself, so she heeded the advice. In fact, she stopped walking completely.

Through the trees, a large group of wolves could be seen in a line.

The entire time, Bella tried to see if she could spot a totem on one of them. And she did!

The only problem was… "What…?" She whispered, seeing that the colour was green.

Confessional: Bella

"Just my luck that we've found the other team's totem." She let out an annoyed sigh. "I thought for once I was going to get an easy challenge, but it seems far from it."

It took a bit for Enima to notice the same thing, but she had a rather similar reaction to it. "Really…?"

Slowly standing up, Bella took a few steps away from the tree. "If this was a normal challenge, this would have been better."

Ah! She's thinking the exact same thing Enima was. "Yeah, I would have just taken it anyway, and hidden it away."

"Oh! Well… I wasn't thinking of it like that." Of course she wasn't. Humming in thought, Bella continued. "I meant more so we could just distract the other team so they don't come this way, or try and scare away the wolf."

Enima's facial expression was hard to read, but it expressed how boring she found that idea. "Whatever." Lost cause. "Do you think our totem would be nearby?"

"Hmm…" Bella had to think a moment before shaking her head. "No… I doubt it. Chris would probably want to keep them apart."

"... Does that mean we're on the wrong side of the forest?" Enima let out a sigh, moving away from their hiding spot.

Bella let those words sink in for a bit before leaning her head on the tree. "Likely, yes." That meant they would need to travel to a different part of the island.

But a bright idea appeared in her head. "While they are probably from two different packs of wolves, there's a chance that we might encounter the wolf we need on the way to the West side of the island."

Still, to Enima this felt like such a hassle, given the forest would be infested with wolves, and one wrong move could spell their end. "Do what you think you have to do…"

Forest Entrance

Now, while everyone else had actually entered into the forest, there was one person who hadn't.

Historia.

Why?

Because she's not stupid enough to do a challenge she knows she can't win.

"Are you not going in?" Chef was the one who actually approached her to see what was going on.

"Um… No. I'm not about to get mauled by wolves for immunity, when I'm not even at risk of elimination." Historia didn't mean to sound bitchy here, but she really did.

Honestly, something has been on Chef's mind for a while now. "How are you even on this team still, girl? You don't bring anything to the game."

Normally that would have hurt Historia, but she had already come to terms with it. "Because people see me as an extra vote."

Confessional: Historia

"I know that's exactly what David wants out of me." She crossed her arms. "I've been thinking about this deal for a while, and he likely only wants to boost his numbers. Either that, or he plans to take me to the end for an easy victory. I'm not going to let that happen…"

Frowning slightly. "Why don't you do something about it?"

"Why would I do something about it?" Historia raised an eyebrow. "I mean, I am since Nila is letting me train a bit." That way she wouldn't completely be useless. "But I'm in a good position. I've never really been a target."

Thinking for a few seconds, Chef nodded his head. "You know what, how are you still here? They should have gotten rid of you ages ago."

At one point, Historia had been asking herself the same question.

Her conclusion was that she didn't really care as long as she was still in the game. And with Nila helping her out, there would be a moment where maybe she could pull out an unexpected win sometime in the merge.

The others wouldn't know what to do at that point.

"Because of all of this, I've elected to ignore the immunity challenge today. We're going to vote someone off anyways, so me not contributing doesn't mean anything anyways." With that, Historia walked away from Chef, leaving him alone.

Grunting slightly, he shook his head. "I should just go back-" However, he got this weird feeling.

This weird feeling like someone had just entered his kitchen…

He should do something about that.

Forest (West)

Since Robin had decided to wander off, it left the trio of Arianna, Catrina, and Marisa in the woods.

Sure, they had a challenge to do right now, but Arianna wasn't going to miss this chance to complain. "I can't believe he's still here."

Letting out a heavy sigh, Catrina followed suit. "Yeah, it's bullshit. I thought we finally had him, but someone just had to step in at the last moment to save him."

Marisa too, had some complaints, but she wanted to value the challenge right now. "Try to be quiet, we don't want to attract any attention."

However, she was completely ignored by both girls. "Like, seriously." A scowl slowly appeared on Catrina's face. "Who in their right mind would suggest that to Chris?"

"An idiot, that's who." At this moment, Arianna didn't seem to care too much about letting her facade lower, given that Catrina was onboard with how she was acting. "Or, maybe someone thought of a plan."

"I bet you it was Talia, just to annoy me." Cartina pouted slightly. "Always getting in my way."

Arianna shook her head. "I highly doubt it. Last I checked, her and Xi aren't teamed up together."

"Both of you, quiet." Marisa had been far too distracted to even hear what they were talking about, but she had heard some movement in the forest, so she wanted to get a better look.

Almost as if they remembered what the challenge was, they both got quiet.

And just as they did, the sound of twigs crunching could be heard.

Wolves.

Marisa narrowed her eyes, trying her best to spot where the totem might be, but she wasn't having much luck. "I… I don't think any of them have it."

"Then it's a waste of time." Arianna let out a sad sigh. Of course they wouldn't get lucky in the first half hour.

"Should we follow them?" Catrina scratched the back of her head. "Maybe the wolves will lead us to the one with the totem."

For a moment, the two other girls remained silent.

Confessional: Marisa

"You know what, that's not a bad idea. I'm not a wolf expert, but I doubt all the wolves are in separate groups. There's a chance that the wolf with the totem is with a larger group. I think my brains are rubbing off on Catrina now."

Nodding her head along, Marisa offered her friend a smile. "Yes, I say we do that. If we can manage to trail the group from behind, we might get lucky."

Arianna didn't seem to have any objections, however she stayed behind the two of them. "You two seem to know what you're doing more than I do." None of the three knew what they were doing, but that was alright.

They were going to win this for sure!

Probably.

Kitchen

Given that he had split off from the rest of his team, that gave Robin the perfect opportunity to work on a much easier plan.

Moving over towards the fridge, he opened up, looking through the contents.

Confessional: Robin

"Wolves are quite similar to dogs. I'm sure I could easily attract one to me with some food. Then, after that, all it would take is to take the totem off of it while it's eating."

However, as he was looking through the things in the kitchen, he heard noises behind him. Letting out a sigh, he stood up straight. "Don't worry Chef, I'll be out of here shortly."

"I want you out of here now." He narrowed his eyes, crossing his arms. His voice indicated to Robin that he wasn't kidding.

That wasn't good… He still needed to find- "Ah." Pulling out the piece of meat, Robin turned towards Chef. "Sorry to say, but I need this for the challenge."

Confessional: Chef

"I was already made a fool of by that army girl. No way was I going to let myself be shown up by the boy who reads all the time."

However, before Chef could do anything to him, Robin raised his hands in the air. "I already know how this ends." He gripped onto his own cloak, and chucked himself out the still closed window, shattering it on impact.

"What the hell-" Boy was fucking insane.

Forest (South)

While most people went pretty far into the woods, there was a group that didn't really travel much into the forest. Namely the trio of Eleanor, Jared, and Talia.
And for good reasons.

"Honestly, I don't feel like being chased by wolves. I ran from enough animals from the last challenge." Talia let out an annoyed sigh as she trudged slowly through the woods.

"S-same…" Eleanor had nightmares about the animals that attacked Robin and her. "I don't know what I would have done without Robin…"

Tipping his hat down, Jared couldn't help but frown. "I'm sorry we couldn't help you. Next time, we should make sure that we aren't split up at the start."

"Oh!" Eleanor raised her hands slightly. "No! Don't blame yourself for this. There was no way to predict how that encounter would have gone. I'm unharmed. The only injury I would have received would have been when Robin dropped me from a tree."

Silence.

"He… What?" Talia raised an eyebrow. "Why would he do that?"

Confessional: Eleanor

"Oh- I think that came out wrong. I wasn't trying to get him in trouble or anything! He did save me in the end, so…"

"No no! Not like that!" Eleanor quickly shook his head. "It was the only way to get down from the tree without the large bird getting in the way."

"Large bird…?" Jared mumbled out, humming in thought. "The only thing we really had to deal with was a bear."

Honestly, with the hell they went through, a bear probably would have been preferable. "Did it ever reach you?" Eleanor mumbled out.

Jared shook his head, crossing his arms. "No. Luckily we managed to evade it without any concern."

The only thing that was running through Eleanor's mind at the moment was when she was picked up by the bird. "How… How lucky!"

Well, Talia wouldn't describe it as lucky, given the real lucky thing would have been to not even run into a bear at all. Of course, she wasn't going to voice those thoughts. "After this, I'm hoping for a challenge that gives us a break."

"Same." As much as Jared mostly liked the challenges, they were starting to become a real strain on the team. Especially since they lost the last two challenges, and they'll need to vote someone off anyways, no matter what placement they get in.

Sticking out her tongue slightly, Talia shook her head. "You're just saying that to agree with me."

"H-Hey!" Jared narrowed his eyes, not liking the accusation one bit. "No! We can share an opinion on something."

For a split second, Talia had a faint smile, before it went back to her rather neutral expression. "Are you sure you aren't just trying to impress me?"

"Absolutely not!" Now Jared was getting pretty serious about thi-

"U-Um!" Eleanor's trembling voice called out. "G-Guys… Um!"

The slight urgency in her voice caused both of them to stop their bickering to look over at her.

And that's when they saw it…

They had been far too caught up in their talk, that they didn't even notice that they had run into a part of the forest that housed a ton of wolves.

Instinctively, Jared stepped in front of everyone, aiming to protect them. "Stay back." However, his eyes began to shake a bit as panic set in.

Yeah he wasn't beating a wolf anytime soon.

"Just run." Talia called out, grabbing Eleanor's arm as the two of them sprinted off.

Confessional: Jared

"No arguing against that." He tipped his hat down.

Quickly, Jared managed to catch up with the two girls. "I guess we used up all of our luck last challenge."

"Ugh…" Talia just wanted a break from all of this.

Forest (East Side)

After searching far and wide… David and Jeremy came to the conclusion that… Yeah they didn't know what the fuck they were doing.

"Who knew tracking wolves was so difficult…" David decided to lean against a tree to get some rest.

"Oh." Jeremy hummed out, looking around. "Is that what we were doing? I thought we were just wandering around aimlessly."

"Jeremy…" David let out a sigh. "You are less than worthless."

"Finally, my dreams are achieved." Jeremy had a bright smile on his face, but it quickly faded away to get a bit more serious. "Besides, we don't even really need to win. We just have to make sure that Enima loses, right?"

"Something like that." David ran a hand through his hair. "Honestly, it would be best if neither of them won immunity. You know, to keep our options open."

Confessional: David

"I don't need someone like Historia deciding at the last minute that she doesn't want to help me. I know she's probably figured out by now that she's just an extra vote to me, so." He shook his head with a sigh. "Personally, I'd want to win immunity just so Bella and Enima can't gang up on me." However, some compromises could be made.

Since that was the only thing they needed to do, Jeremy had an idea. "Then, wouldn't it be easier to just make sure those two don't win immunity, and have someone else like Nila get it? It's not like we're planning to get her out anytime soon."

For a moment, David remained silent. Not because he was contemplating the idea or anything, but because he was astonished that Jeremy was able to think of ideas. "You know, you need to use that brain of yours more often."

"Last time I did, you were annoyed I insulted you." Jeremy shrugged.

Letting out a sigh, David shook his head. "You need to use your ideas for more than just insulting me. You seem like someone who's good with coming up with plans."

Confessional: David

"Not to mention his challenge performance is pretty good, now that I think about it. He's been successful in almost anything he's done." Then ideas began to dawn on him. "Am… Am I being outclassed by Jeremy of all people?" Dark times were ahead for David.

"Right, so we're going to force a Nila win, aren't we?" Or even a Mindy win.

Historia wasn't a factor because there's no way she was going to win.

Jeremy nodded his head along. "This just involves us preventing those two from ever winning, so."

Now that they had a plan in mind, it was time to get into action.

However, before David and Jeremy could set their plan in motion, something caught the former's attention.

"What the hell!?" His voice was filled with anger.

His anger pointed at the person who just jumped passed them through the trees.

A figure with a cloak and a mask.

Looking up at the person, Jeremy let out a small laugh. "Oh right, you weren't there for the talent show. Yeah, that person just kind of showed up and started harassing Marisa." How… How did he know this?

Confessional: Jeremy

"Haha, I just made up whatever because I thought it would be funny. Would be even funnier if it were true." Jeremy shrugged with a smile.

David gave him a look of disappointment. "First of all, stalking a girl is creepy. Second of all." He approached the tree, before pulling out a knife. "I'm going after them."

Watching him climb up, Jeremy made no attempt to stop him. "What about the plan?"

"Fuck the plan, just make sure that immunity isn't won by someone we want to vote off." David climbed up the tree, using his knife to gain more speed.

Watching him go mental on the tree, Jeremy shrugged. "Sure thing, boss."

Now that David was alone with his thoughts, he could focus more on the task at hand. "Where are you, you little bitch."

Confessional: David

He was leaning back in the confessional, a smug look on his face. "I kind of have a grudge to pick with this person, so I'll be focusing all my attention on them for the challenge. I'm sure Jeremy has the immunity portion handled."

Confessional: Jeremy

"Yeah, I don't remember what the plan was." Thank you Jeremy, very cool.

As soon as David spotted them, he took off in the trees, landing from tree to tree. "Hey! Get back here!"

The masked figure turned to look back at him, before attempting to pick up the pace.

"Fuck…" David couldn't lose them now. Landing on the next branch thick enough to hold his weight, he changed the grip on his knife.

With one deep breath, he threw the knife towards the figure.

While he didn't hit them head on to kill them, he did manage to cut part of their costume, and cause them to briefly lose their footing.

"There we go, bitch." David moved closer, allowing himself to fall down a few branches.

However, the masked figure wasn't going to be that easily stopped. As soon as they fell down a few branches, they managed to pull themselves back up. "Not today."

Their voice was obscured, making it so David couldn't quite figure out who it was. However, he could make some estimates based on how tall they were.

However, the one thing that threw him off was just how agile they were. More so than even he was. "What the hell…"

David was able to keep up, but the masked figure managed to do some flips whenever it was convenient for them to do so. "Who the hell even are you?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" It was said in a teasing way, as they let themselves drop down a few branches to a lower level.

"Fuck…"

Confessional: David

"Most of my anger has subsided." A small grin was on his face, but it quickly faded away as a more serious expression replaced it. "But I'm going to need to catch them anyway. No matter how much better than me they are at manoeuvering around."

Forest (North)

Being the absolute girl boss she was, Bella had not only managed to find the totem for the Screaming Gophers, but now she was staring directly at the one for the Killer Bass now.

They had found a pact of wolves that seemed to have gotten themselves rather comfortable, and most were dozing off.

Keyword… Most.

Still, they managed to complete the first step, which was finding the totem in the first place.

"You are… really good at this." Enima couldn't help but complement the girl on her skills. "Seriously, if we were against each other, I'd be terrified of being your opponent."

"Well, the merge is soon." Bella didn't seem to care that she was painting herself in a bad light. Especially not with the pact of wolves she was staring down. "How are we handling immunity?"

Confessional: Enima

"The idea of taking immunity from Bella did pop up in my head, however…" She trailed off. "Going against her right now wouldn't do me any good, so I've decided it's probably best if I let her have it."

Forcing a smile, Enima jabbed her lightly in the stomach. "Come on, you did all the work, so don't you think you deserve the immunity?"

"R-Really?" Bella was ready to offer it to Enima, but if she was just being given it, she wasn't going to say no. "Alright, I got this." Besides, she already knew how she wanted to get it off the wolf anyways. "We should approach from above."

"Above?" Enima glanced up the trees. She wasn't a stranger to climbing trees, but it seemed to be an odd approach when it came to wolves. "If you say so, kid."

Given that both girls were pretty well adept in nature, climbing the trees was no issue. They didn't even need tools like the loser known as David.

"Alright, now what?" Enima turned to look at her nature friend.

However, instead of answering, Bella manoeuvred herself closer to the wolves.

Confessional: Enima

"At that point, I think I was starting to get worried. She's good with animals, but at one point, when do you become too confident with your abilities? To the point it becomes a detriment to your own safety?"

As Bella landed on the ground, she quickly looked around, trying to spot the wolf that had the totem.

All while Enima remained in the trees. "Are you sure you're safe down there, kid?" Not that she would jump down to help. She valued her own life.

Slowly standing up, Bella nodded her head, trying to be quiet.

There were some wolves that were awake, but they hadn't spotted her yet. Or maybe they did, but they simply didn't care.

Confessional: Bella

"I've always had an affinity when it came to animals. They seem to be more trusting of me in general. But that doesn't mean I'm not in danger when around them. It's still a wild animal, and if I seem like food to them, they'll tear into me if they think they need to…" Her words became more quiet as she finished her sentence. "I hope they've had food recently…"

As Bella slowly moved through the wolf territory, her heart began beating faster and louder with each passing second.

All of the wolves were sleeping.

All…

But one, which make its presence known.

Freezing her lower body, Bella slowly turned her head to come face to face with the wolf, standing only fifteen feet away from her. "U-Um…"

Confessional: Bella

"I love animals with all my heart." She had a bright smile on her face, but it slowly turned to a more terrified expression. "That doesn't mean I can't be scared of them…"

However, instead of mauling her, the wolf just stood by, entirely driven by curiosity, but still on guard.

Not wanting to make any big moves, Bella took a few slow steps away, making her way closer to the wolf that had the totem. "I'm just here to take something back-"

As she approached one of the wolves, the wolf took a few steps towards her.

"Please… I just want…" God, this was much more difficult than what she thought. Normally Bella would just witness them from a distance. It's the first time she's ever had to get so close to them before.

And her inexperience was becoming apparent.

Apparent enough for Enima to notice that she couldn't just sit around on the sidelines. "Alright…" She adjusted herself, making her way closer to where the wolf pack was.

Another step for Bella, and another growl. Almost as if to protect the rest of the wolves.

Almost there… and yet, every step felt further than the last. "I just want…" Her eyes briefly darted over towards the totem, before looking back at the main wolf.

However, before Bella could actually do anything, Enima spoke up, catching the attention of the wolf. "Look, I might not have dealt with wolves before, but you can't possibly be anything."

"W-what are you?" Bella wanted to question it, until she realised exactly what she was doing.

A distraction.

Reaching over towards the sleeping wolf, Bella took off the totem. "Got it!"

But now wasn't the time to celebrate, given that a few more wolves were slowly stirring awake, most likely to get defensive about their territories.

"Just run, will you?" Enima had retreated back up a tree, trying to avoid the wolf who was trying to bring her down.

Understanding the task at hand, Bella clutched onto the totem, before running away from the clearing and back into the forest.

She'd win the challenge for sure…

Forest (South)

While they had found wolves, none of them had any totems around them, which meant that it was time to panic.

"I would love to stop being chased by animals." Eleanor called out, running as fast as she could, which was admittedly slower than both Talia and Jared.

Concerned, the latter began to slow down. "Come on, if you need to, run ahead of me."

Of course, Eleanor wasn't going to take him up on that offer. "Don't slow down to match my speed. I don't want you getting hurt because of me!"

Even after saying that, Talia herself slowed down as well, grabbing onto Eleanor's arm. "I thought you were used to working out."

"I lift a lot! I don't do much cardio…!" In fact, this was using way more energy than she would have wanted. The work back on the farm was much slower than this.

Fair, Talia wasn't really in the know about what muscles do what. She mostly just did cardio. "Then I'll just hold onto you as we run."

"Wait!" Jared called out, seeing something up ahead. "There!" He pointed towards where they were running.

All three of them were able to notice the unmistakable green around one of the wolves necks. "We found it!"

"That's good and all." Talia didn't seem too pleased by all this. "But I don't think more wolves really helps us."

"Ngg-" She had a point, so Jared couldn't deny it.

"Um… Well, maybe these wolves don't get along?" Eleanor was choosing to look on the positive side of things. "That could always happen."

…

…

…

Now being chased by two gangs of wolves, Jared couldn't help but let out a sigh. "What can we even do now? We're just being chased further into the forest…"

Not to mention everyone was running out of energy.

That was, until…

"Holy shit!" Catrina called out, seeing the three of them running up.

Marisa moved to be behind a tree. "How did you all manage that?"

"Oh, we're just very naturally skilled." Talia narrowed her eyes. "Oh, don't mind just standing there, we don't need help or anything."

"The fuck do you want us to do that about that?" Catrina didn't feel inclined to help Talia anyways.

The more perceptive of the three noticed something, however. "Wait! That's one of the wolves we need!" She pointed at the one that had the totem.

"And you didn't bother getting it?" Arianna raised an eyebrow.

Without changing her annoyed facial expression, Talia made a big motion with her hands to show off the rest of the wolves. "I couldn't possibly begin to understand why."

Picking up a rock from the ground, Catrina tossed it a few times in the air to test its weight. "Well, let me help out then." She had been pretty good when it came to throwing things. She apparently clocked a bear one time.

Taking aim, Catrina closed one of her eyes, before letting the rock leave her hand.

It flew into the air, only to miss the wolf she was aiming for by a few inches.

"Ah-" She was going to complain, until the wolf took it's next step, tripping over the rock, seemingly spraying it's ankle.

With a whimper, the wolf ran away from the packs, making its way further into the woods.

"Dibs." Catrina seemed pretty content with herself. "I did all the work. You three continue to let the wolves chase you." That immunity should be hers! You know, if she was confident in taking down a wolf, that was.

"H-hey!" Eleanor called out, beginning to run out of energy with every further step..

Jared shared a similar sentiment. "How is this fair?" But it's not like he could stop running any time soon.

Offering a smug wave, Arianna followed the other two girls.

Forest (East)

The gap was beginning to close little by little as David found himself above the masked figure. "This game of ours is quite interesting, but you've distracted me from the challenge long enough."

Looking up, the masked figure's facial expressions were unknown given… the mask. However the tone of their voice seemed to have a hint of excitement. "Is that so? Why are you so intent on catching me? Is there something you want that I have?"

"Don't play dumb with me." The more this went on, the more aggravated David found himself to be. "Especially when what you stole from me is so blatant." Letting himself drop down, his target was the masked figure.

Seeing him falling, the masked figure was able to act in accordance, moving over to the side.

However, that didn't come without a counterplan from David, because just as the masked figure thought they were safe, they felt a hand on their leg, dragging them off the tree. "Shi-" They began to swear as the two tumbled to the ground.

The first person to get up was David, who marched his way to the masked figure. "Listen you…"

The masked figure tried to move away, but realised pretty quickly that they had the disadvantage here. So instead, they only raised their hands in defense.

Of course, David could attack them and get it over with, he didn't want to be an animal. "Just return to me what you stole, and this can all be over with."

"Why should I do that?" The masked figure almost teased him.

Frowning slightly, David shrugged. "I don't know, but we are in the woods alone, so it's likely you won't be found for a while."

Alright! Threatening violence and murder, not up their alley at all. "Alright! Alright! I'll return it after the challenge is over…"

Still, David didn't want to leave things up to chance. So instead, he managed to swipe the mask off of them.

To say he was shocked would be a lie. Letting out a sigh, he shook his head. "Figured as much."

Letting the mask clutter to the ground, David turned around, beginning to walk away. "I'll come see you later, so you better be ready to give me what's mine."

Quickly, the masked figure put the mask back on, getting up. "..."

Cave

Stepping into the entrance, Arianna, Catrina, and Marisa had finally cornered the wolf.

However, Marisa seemed to be a bit nervous. "Are you sure we should be cornering it? Isn't it dangerous?"

"Probably." At this point, Catrina didn't really seem to care that much. "One of us has to win, so we should just go inside now."

For a second, Arianna went to step in, but she quickly moved away.

Confessional: Arianna

"As much as I want immunity, none of it is really worth getting mauled by a cornered wolf. I'll let Catrina take the hit. She seems to be Marisa's ally, so I can afford to lose her."

However, none of the three girls really had to do anything, because out of nowhere, a new person walked up.

That person being Robin. "Evening, ladies."

"It's not even four yet." Marisa didn't have a way to confirm the time, but she had a feeling.

"Oh, hey Robin." Catrina wasn't too happy to see him, given that he blatantly voted for him last time. "What are you doing here?"

"I followed the trail all the way here, ready to win immunity." He hummed as he took a look deeper into the cave. "It seems you managed to corner it."

"Yeah, but not much else besides that." Arianna crossed her arms with a frown. "We were just debating what the best way to do this was."

"Personally, I think one of us just runs in and gets it." Catrina placed her hands on her hips. "That seems to be our best chance."

Arianna shook her head. "But do we all have to go in?"

"Likely, no. It would probably be better if only one of us went in." Robin eyed the green totem around the wolf's neck. "I'll be the one to do it."

"What?" Arianna narrowed her eyes. "You just want to get immunity."

Stepping out of the way, Robin motioned for her to enter the cave. "Then be my guest."

Looking at the wolf for but a second, Arianna took a step back, offering him a smile. "Actually, you've got this." It wasn't worth it.

Besides, as long as Robin won it, then that means Xi would be up for elimination.

"Where do you want us to go?" Marisa didn't want to just leave him alone there.

Waving her off, Robin shook his head. "It's probably for the best if you head back to camp. Might save you the horrific sight of me getting mauled, if things go wrong."

The cave was overtaken by a morbid silence, before Robin let out a little laugh. "Kidding. I wouldn't do something if I wasn't confident." He turned his attention back towards the wolf.

Not wanting to risk the chance of being scarred for life, Arianna turned back. "We'll see you back at camp."

Marisa was about to leave too, but Robin stopped her. "Before you go, take this." He pulled out a piece of the meat that he had stolen from Chef.

"Um… Why are you giving me this?" Marisa raised an eyebrow.

Shrugging, Robin didn't offer an explanation. "It would probably be for the best. In case I fail to appease the wolf, you could try it again if it manages to escape." Oh wait, he did give an explanation.

Smiling slightly, Marisa nodded her head. "Well, if somehow you fail, I'll be the one to win immunity." Of course, she didn't want to stick around for too long, given she'd probably ruin Robin's plan, so she moved away, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

Robin had stopped walking, almost as if to wait for them to leave. Once he was sure they were gone, he moved back to approaching the wolf.

As soon as he stepped close enough, a snarling noise could be heard, causing Robin to stop momentarily. "Hurt, aren't you?"

He knew the wolf wouldn't lunge at him, but he couldn't risk getting too close, or else he'd get bitten.

Reaching into his cloak, Robin pulled out some of the food he stole from the kitchen. Namely some raw meat. "I brought you this." He chucked it on the ground, without much a care in the world.

Still, the wolf didn't stop snarling at him.

That was fine.

Robin could wait. The wolf would get hungry eventually. Sitting on the ground, Robin sat a few feet away from where he placed the meat.

After a while, the wolf limped over towards the meat, taking some bites out of it.

"There we go…" Robin approached slowly.

At first, the wolf was a bit defensive, but the food had priority right now.

As Robin reached over for the totem around the content wolf, he heard the sounds of someone stepping into the cave. "Oh, you."

Campfire

For some reason, Bella felt the need to rush her way back to the finishing line. Not because this was a race or anything, but because she was paranoid at the very thought of someone taking away the immunity they had worked for. Namely, someone like David.

The plan was to vote him off, and if not him, Jeremy. The two boys have been a real problem for Bella, so getting rid of them as quickly as possible would be beneficial.

Soon, she saw the campfire in the distance, which caused a smile to appear on her face. "F…Finally…" Wow, she didn't realise how close she was to being out of breath; even talking was growing difficult.

However, her journey was far from over, as out of a random bush, was Jeremy.

"I'm sorry." He placed his hands in his hoodie pockets, a small smile on his face. "I can't let you venture forward."

Unfortunately for him, he was actually standing ten feet to the left, so he didn't really end up doing much as Bella ran past him.

"... Hmm…" Maybe Jeremy should have thought about this more.

Now Bella really had nothing standing in her way as she reached the campfire. "Back…" But she was out of breath, and collapsed on the ground, still holding onto the totem tightly.

Chris was standing beside her, looking down at her. "... We have a winner!" He offered her no help.

He did take the totem, however.

Walking over to her was Jeremy. "You could have at least pretended that I stopped you…" Now he was disappointed.

Slowly getting back to her feet, Bella frowned slightly. "Why would I humour you? Didn't you vote off Christopher."

Tapping his chin, Jeremy had to think really long about whether he did. "I might have, but I don't quite remember."

The face he was making only made Bella a little more spiteful. "Well, I won immunity, so you can't vote me off."

"Bummer…" Jeremy let out a rather sad sigh. "But that's fine, I suppose. Why would I vote out someone who is really good for the team?"

"H-huh?" Well, that's the first time that she was hearing of this. A small sparkle appeared in Bella's eyes. "You think I'm good for the team?"

"Absolutely." Jeremy nodded his head.

Confessional: Jeremy

"Which is why she'll be taken out during the merge." He was so casual when he said this.

Still, Bella wasn't sure she wanted to let her guard down. "Then… Thank you."

Besides, her attention was stolen away when she saw some members of the Screaming Gophers returning from the forest.

Namely, it was Arianna, Catrina, and Marisa.

"You know, I'm a bit disappointed that we didn't get the totem." Marisa let out a small sigh. Winning individual immunity would have been nice, but Robin was probably the best person to leave to deal with the wolf. Besides, he had a plan in mind anyways.

"It's fine, Robin is going to win." Arianna seemed pretty cocky when she said that. "Last I saw him, he was in the cave, and he cornered the wolf."

"Then we just vote Xi off." Catrina hummed out, rather contently.

Nodding her head along, Marisa turned towards the forest. "He should be coming back with the totem any time soon."

However, when Robin walked out of the woods, he very much didn't have the totem.

"Robin, you can stop hiding it." Marisa knew how he was, so she expected him to pull something like that-

Quickly, Robin turned all his pockets inside out, dropping at least two books when he did it. Then, he bit his thumb. "Change of plans, guys. Xi managed to get the upper hand on me, and now he has the totem."

"What!?" Arianna almost lost her cool completely, but she still had to remain in character. "How did you let that happen?"

Before Robin could answer, stepping out into the campfire area was Xi, a totem clutched in his hands.

"What…?" Marisa blinked a few times. They had left him to collect the totem on his own, how did this happen?

"I'd like to give this to you, Chris, for immunity."Xi said, with a rather haunting smile on his face. Turning towards Arianna, who was looking at him, he shook his head. "Please, you didn't expect me to go down that easily, did you?" He took a step forward.

Wanting to bite back with bitterness, Arianna was forced to hold her tongue, or else her facade would be revealed. "I don't know what you're talking about."

She still wants to play that game? Who was Xi to ruin it? "Very well…"

…

…

…

Now that most people had gathered for the end of the challenge, Chris looked over at both teams. "Bella and Xi are both safe from elimination tonight. However, both teams will be voting someone off. The Screaming Gophers will be going first, so you all better be ready for tonight."

Arianna was mumbling some things under her breath, knowing her plan was once again foiled, but she'd get over it, probably.

"You're free to go, now." Chris walked away from the campfire, letting the teams do their own things now.

As everyone left, Eleanor continued to hum to herself. It was nice that Xi was safe. From the looks of it, a few people wanted to vote him off.

This was definitely the best outcome.

However, as she began to leave, a voice called out to her.

"May I have a word with you?" A voice called out to Eleanor.

"Oh?" Turning to look at who it was, a smile appeared on her face.

Cafeteria

There was just one thought on Marisa's mind as she approached Robin. "What happened?"

He expected this to pop up, so Robin had no choice but to give his explanation. "Ah… I'm not sure how to best explain this." Long pause. "He killed me."

"Robin." Marisa wasn't having any of this. "This was our one chance to vote him off."

"No it wasn't…" Robin shook his head. "More chances will pop up in the future. As for what actually happened, he snuck into the cave after you left. And he got the jump on me. There wasn't much I could have done."

Marisa gave him a blank stare before shaking her head. "He doesn't seem particularly strong. Are you sure you couldn't have beaten him?"

Robin's facial expression didn't change, still staring a hole in the ground. "I'm more of a book smart kind of guy. I've never actually hit the gym once in my life." But enough about that. "There's not much use for strength when it comes to an ambush. I still had the wolf to deal with."

Marisa wanted to keep doubting his story, but that would get her nowhere, especially if he was telling the truth. "Then what do we do now?"

As if he was waiting for that exact question, Robin looked over at her. "Well, whenever something doesn't quite go to plan, it's always nice to have a backup plan, don't you think?"

"So.. You do have a backup plan, right?" Hopefully, he wasn't just spewing nonsense.

Closing the book he had been holding, Robin nodded his head. "In case something went wrong, I've already lined up another target."

Alright, at the very least Robin was still thinking. "And who exactly do you have in mind?"

Slowly, a grin appeared on Robin's face as he revealed the target.

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As more people began to leave the cafeteria, that left only two people behind. Well, at least two people from the bass…

David and Mindy.

Now that they were alone, it was time for him to make a move.

As Mindy was getting ready to leave, he quickly approached her, standing only a few inches away from her. "You…"

Looking down at him, Mindy attempted to feign innocence. "Yes? What can I help you with?"

"You know damn well what I mean." David narrowed his eyes. He wasn't about to be led around in circles by this girl.

Looking at him for a few seconds, a mischievous smile appeared on her face. "Is this an attempt at flirting?"

"What?" David was dumbfounded. "No. Why the hell would it be?"

"Oh." Her tone was dripping with disappointment, as was her facial expression. Quickly, it was replaced by her natural mischievous smile. "Then you'll need to spell it out for me."

No, David wasn't stupid enough to do that. Sure, he didn't see anyone around that really mattered, he still didn't want to say anything out loud. "The thing you stole from me."

"Aww… You're no fun." Mindy pouted a little bit. "If you really want it back, I'll return it to you."

Oh, that was pretty easy, all things consider-

"On one condition." Of course, there was a catch.

Groaning, David leaned his head back. "And what would that condition be?"

Flashing a grin at him, Mindy hummed a tune before speaking up. "I want to form an alliance, just us two."

Now, David had been imagining a large variety of different conditions.

Then… To hear one he hadn't even been considering, and one that benefited him as well. Well, let's just say he was ecstatic. "Oh? Is that really all you want?"

"My only other ally is Nila at this point, and for now, she's fine. But she's going to get obliterated at the merge, so I need someone a bit more reliable."

Confessional: David

"You know, this would have been great had Bella not won immunity. I could have skipped Enima and gotten her out with ease. But alas…" Still, there was no way to tell if Mindy was even trustworthy at the moment.

And yet… David couldn't find a reason to decline the deal. "Fine." He extended his arm out, making sure to take a foot back, so he wasn't almost right in her face.

"Aww… Don't get too far." Mindy reached out, shaking his hand as well. "Pleasure doing business with you." She held her hands behind her back, leaning forward slightly.

Narrowing his eyes slightly, someone clicked for David. "Wait! Are you flirting with me?"

"Nope." Mindy said in a teasing voice as she moved away. "You wish."

"..."

Confessional: David

"Girls are confusing…" He crossed his arms, a small frown on his face.

Campfire Ceremony

For the first time ever, both teams were in attendance today. Both about to lose a player.

However, despite both teams going to elimination, one team would have to go before the other.

And that's why at the moment, the Screaming Gophers were all sitting on the stumps, while the Killer Bass got to watch.

Chris stood away from the fire, looking at the eight campers. "For the first time, I'm seeing you twice in a row." Not like it was something that could have been avoided unless the Killer Bass lost the challenge before and after this one.

"Hey!" Catrina pointed at him. "This doesn't count. We were going to be here anyway." She crossed her arms in defiance.

"True, but it's still nice to see." Chris flashed a grin.

Humming to himself. Robin spoke out his thoughts. "When you think about it, the fact that it took until now, and only because of a rule like this really proves how good we are as a team."

Alright, now they were being too positive, so Chris had to shut that down. "You might be a good team, but that doesn't mean anything when you have to vote someone off."

Looking at this plate of marshmallows, he only had seven. "One of you is going home tonight. First, I'll give the marshmallow to the only immune person tonight… Xi."

Without opening his eyes, he caught the marshmallow, before sending a look towards Arianna, who had to hide her anger.

Confessional: Arianna

"This was the perfect time to get him out, and of course the asshole fucking wins immunity." She seemed furious. However, letting out a sigh allowed herself to calm down. "Thankfully Robin had a backup plan in case anything happened. He's proving more useful than I originally thought."

Now, anyone could be going home. Picking up the next marshmallow, Chris looked at the entire group. "The next marshmallow goes to… Robin."

With a small smile on his face, he caught that one.

"Arianna."

Good. She was safe. That meant that Xi didn't try and pull one on her, or anything.

"Talia, Jared."

The two of them caught it in unison, with Jared quickly looking over at her. However, Talia didn't return the favour, and simply ate the marshmallow.

That left only two marshmallows on the plate, and three people left.

"Catrina, Eleanor, Marisa, you three have yet to receive a marshmallow."

"Ah fuck, the guy streak is over…" Catrina let out a sigh.

No really, how did I fuck up the elimination order that bad that six guys went home in a row?

What the fuck.

"Catrina, you were once on the cups of elimination, but were saved by forces outside your means. Eleanor, you haven't really done much of anything to warrant being eliminated, but then again, you haven't really done much to begin with."

"H-hey!" Eleanor took a bit of offence to that. "I've done plenty!"

"And Marisa." Chris turned to look at her. "You might be playing a game that's far too active. However, your challenge performance might be a little lacking, given you didn't even try to win this challenge."

Well duh, she was too busy trying to figure out what was going on with the masked figure. "Well, I knew I had no hope of winning this, so I figured why bother?" Marisa wrote in her notebook.

Looking at the people still there, Chris picked up the second to last marshmallow. "Having said everything I did… The next marshmallow goes to… Catrina."

At first, she was happy to still be in… However, something began to set in. "Wait."

Marisa stopped writing for a moment, narrowing her eyes slightly. "Why am I…?"

Confessional: Marisa

"Why would I…?" She hadn't exactly done anything worthwhile to put a target on her back, and yet… Here she was, part of the bottom two. "I don't think I've done anything that would warrant putting a target on my back…"

Unless…

"Am I being targeted because of the investigation I'm doing?" Marisa could have sworn she was being a bit more subtle with it…

But that only meant one thing… She was getting close to the truth.

As for Eleanor, for once, she seemed a bit worried. "Um…" She hadn't been in the bottom two before, mostly because she didn't really have a reason to be.

Raising up the last marshmallow from the plate, Chris began his speech. "One of you will be going home tonight." He waved it around a bit. "And then after that, we will move onto the Killer Bass, and eliminate someone from them."

Speaking of which, they had been watching the entire time.

"Honestly, I'm fine with either going home." David had no stakes in this, so he just wanted to see what the other team did with it.

"W-well I'm not!" Marisa narrowed her eyes. The fact that she didn't consider this outcome might be her downfall.

"I would like to not go home too…" Eleanor mumbled out.

"The last marshmallow goes to…" Chris began to say.

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"Has yet to be decided."

"W-what?" Marisa blinked a few times. "What do you mean?

Lowering the marshmallow back onto the plate, Chris grinned. "Because the results are a tie. You both received four votes tonight."

Confessional: Marisa

Now, she was frantically scribbling notes down in her notebook. "How did I receive four votes? What is going on…?"

"Oh?" Robin hummed out, stroking his chin. "What do we do in these types of situations?"

"Whenever there is a tied vote like this, we'll either allow a revote, or start a tie breaking challenge. Given that everyone voted for either Marisa or Eleanor, we will skip this portion and go directly to the tie breaking challenge." Chris put the plate of marshmallows down. "Whenever we have a tie breaker challenge, it will be a reprise of the challenge that just happened."

"So the two of them will chase after wolves…?" Xi crossed his arms, gripping the sleeve of his suit in the process.

Confessional: Xi

"I was able to help out and make the votes a tie, but everything else is completely out of my hands at this point. I know damn well Arianna voted her off. Because there's no way Jared and Talia would vote off Eleanor." Gripping his sleeve again, a deep frown appeared on Xi's face. "I will remember this, Arianna."

Hearing this, Marisa couldn't help but frown. "But-" She didn't really know much about Eleanor, admittedly, but she also struck her as the nature type of person, which meant she was already completely outclassed.

Meanwhile…

Eleanor stood up, a bit of panic visible in her eyes.

Confessional: Eleanor

"Of all things… I'm sick and tired of having to deal with wild animals…" Poor Eleanor.

"Both of you…" Chris gave each of them a momentary glance. "Please gather by the forest entrance in five minutes. There, I will release a wolf which will have one final totem around them. The first person to acquire the totem from the wolf wins. You do not have to bring it back here."

"Alright…" Marisa let out a sigh.

Confessional: Marisa

"Where did I go wrong? I thought the game I played was pretty good. I don't believe I've done something to put a target on my back… Except for my investigation, but nobody really knows about that!"

Forest

The two girls stood by the entrance of the forest, both holding their own nervous expression.

"Do we really have to do something like this?" Marisa turned to look at Chris.

Shrugging, the host didn't really seem to care about what they thought. "If you didn't want this to happen, you shouldn't have tied the vote."

"But then I would have gotten voted out." Marisa pointed out, a small frown on her face.

"And then this wouldn't have been an issue." Chris couldn't really see the problem here. His logic made sense!

Next to him stood Chef, standing nearby a cage. "When Chris gives the signal, I will be releasing this wolf into the forest. It will be up to you to collect the totem from around its neck."

"Question!" It was from David, who wasn't even participating in this challenge. "What if the wolf attacks us?"

Bella hummed out in thought. "We outnumber it, so it's unlikely to attack, and more likely to return to safety."

Lame.

"We will have cameras watching your performance. As soon as one of you collects the totem, the challenge will be called." Chris turned to look over at Chef, nodding his head along. "Three… Two… One… GO!"

As soon as the signal was given, Chef opened the cage, allowing the wolf to run further into the forest.

The two girls began to run into the forest, but it was obvious that someone was running faster.

That person being Eleanor. Even after running all of today, she still had some energy left.

With that, Marisa was trailing behind, but she didn't seem bothered by it at the moment.

Confessional: Marisa

"Now, I know what you might be saying! I should be running like my life depended on it." She was writing some things in her notebook. "The only difference is that I still have a lot of energy left. From what I gathered earlier, Eleanor was full sprinting just to avoid some wolves. She might tire herself out before. I still have tons of energy left."

Which eventually proved itself to be true, as Eleanor slowed down a bit, stopping at a nearby tree to get some rest. "I…" Her breathing had increased, as the fatigue caught up with her.

"Sorry, Eleanor." Marisa passed by her. Mostly because Eleanor wasn't even in target in general. She wanted Xi out, but things just had to be like this.

Still, passing Eleanor didn't make the challenge any easier. The wolf had long since run out of her sight, which left Marisa with not many options with how to proceed. "Dammit…"

Ugh, it took an entire day just to find the one with the totem, now it was nighttime, and things really weren't in her favour.

"What am I even supposed to do?" Marisa let out a sigh, until she heard a noise coming from behind her.

"H-hey!" It was Eleanor calling out. "Get off me!"

Sensing that she was in danger, Marisa quickly began to run back to where she last saw her.

Only to have her suspicions confirmed when she saw Eleanor on the ground, trying to get the wolf off her. "H-hey!" All while trying to get the totem off from around its neck.

Confessional: Chris

"Did I ever mention that we starved the wolf? Well. We did." He let out a small laugh, while keeping the same smile the entire time.

Being in a bit of panic, Marisa wasn't exactly sure how to handle this situation. She wanted to save Eleanor, but there wasn't much she could do to save her at the moment. Especially with a wolf that looked this hungry.

That is… Until she remembered something from earlier…

Marisa was about to leave too, but Robin stopped her. "Before you go, take this." He pulled out a piece of the meat that he had stolen from Chef.

"Um… Why are you giving me this?" Marisa raised an eyebrow.

Shrugging, Robin didn't offer an explanation. "It would probably be for the best. In case I fail to appease the wolf, you could try it again if it manages to escape."

Smiling slightly, Marisa nodded her head. "Well, if somehow you fail, I'll be the one to win immunity." Of course, she didn't want to stick around for too long, given she'd probably ruin Robin's plan, so she moved away, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

And she hadn't exactly returned the meat she was given, which meant… She still had a way to save Eleanor.

"Hey!" Marisa called out, removing the meat from… Wherever… (Her bag will forever be ruined now)

For a moment, that seemed to distract the wolf. Enough that Eleanor could take the totem away from the wolf-

Well, anyone else might have, but Eleanor still felt like should try and fight the wolf back.

And also because she hadn't noticed what Marisa was even doing.

Now that the wolf was distracted, it jumped off of Eleanor, making a beeline for Marisa.

"O-Oh!"

Confessional: Marisa

"I'll be honest." She hummed out, writing something in her notebook. "I wasn't expecting it to lunge at me so quickly." Long pause. "Also I think I need a new bag." This was said with a rather sad sigh.

Using her bag to try and make a shield for the wolf, Marisa was knocked to the ground, but mostly unharmed. "Stay… Still!" She slowly manoeuvred the meat towards the wolf.

Grabbing onto it, the wolf tried to escape, but then that would mean this would have all been for nothing, so instead, Marisa continued to hold onto it, attempting to grab the totem from off of it.
Fearing for its own life, the wolf lashed back, almost cutting Marisa's arm, but she managed to hide behind her own bag, causing a tear in it.

"Stay… Still… Will you." Finally grabbing onto the portion that was around its neck, Marisa attempted to pull it off, but to no avail.

At first.

The more she struggled, the more it began to slip off.

However, she might have lost track of what she was even doing, because now Eleanor was back on her feet, and her eyes slowly trailed over to the totem that Marisa was fighting for…

Confessional: Eleanor

"I know I shouldn't have… She saved my life, after all. But…" Her expression changed to one of guilt. "Seeing the totem still hadn't been claimed…"

Instead of moving over to save Marisa like she had for Eleanor, she instead tried to take the totem off the wolf. Although, it seemed to be tightly fitted around its neck.

"H-hey!" Marisa called out, struggling to fight both of them off now. "I just…" Ah, it didn't matter. She knew she would have done the same thing had the roles been reversed…

This only filled her with more determination to get the totem off the wolf.

As the two struggled and fought…

Soon, the totem removed itself from the neck of the wolf, clutched in one person's hands…

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Marisa…

Eleanor COULD have been petty that she lost, but she wasn't someone like that. Instead, she managed to shove the wolf off.

Instead of retaliating, the wolf took the meat and ran off, scarfing it down with every step it took.

Letting out a small sigh, Eleanor reached down, helping Marisa back on her first. "Thank you… For earlier." Now she was just a bit embarrassed that nothing came of her attempt to win.

Once Marisa had enough time to catch her breath, she shook her head. "It was nothing… Let's get back…"

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As the two girls returned to the entrance of the forest, it was very apparent that Marisa had won the tie breaker, given that she was holding the totem.

"And the winner is Marisa!" Chris announced gleefully.

Seeing this, Jared tipped his hat down with a frown. "I'm sorry…"

Xi crossed his arms, frowning slightly.

Talia, on the other hand, walked over to Eleanor, hugging her. "I wish things turned out differently." However, she sent a death glare towards Marisa.

"What did I-" Today was a confusing day. Instead, she shook her head and joined up with the part of the team that at least supported her victory.

"Yes! Let's go!" Catrina seemed to be in a rather happy mood.

Arianna was relieved, because she didn't want another one of her allies going home. "If you would have lost." Well, she would have probably begun to actually swear. But that's besides the point.

Marisa was going to say something, but she felt something bounce off the side of her head.

A marshmallow.

"With Marisa being the winner of the tiebreaker challenge, that officially makes Eleanor the one voted off tonight. However, that's far from it for the rest of the night. We still have an elimination to go for with the Killer Bass."

Right… That was still happening.

"Screaming Gophers, you are free to join me as we watch one of the Killer Bass going home." Chris said as he walked away, back towards the campfire.

Elimination Ceremony

Now that the Killer Bass had replaced the Screaming Gophers, Chris had a new plate of marshmallows at the ready. "For once since the game started, you and the Screaming Gophers had the same amount of members. A feat that will only last a maximum of five minutes, as one of you is going home right now."

Letting out a sigh, Nila shook her head. "Why did this have to be a double elimination?"

"Yeah!" Jeremy was in agreement. "If it wasn't, we would have won the challenge, since Bella returned first with the totem."

Bella seemed a bit disappointed by this. "I feel like you did this on purpose."

"With the merge approaching, it's important to start making choices that would affect the game going forward." Chris began to explain, looking over at each camper. "Let's see if you made that choice today. I only have six marshmallows on my plate today, which means one of you is going home.

Lifting up one of the marshmallows off the plate, Chris threw it to the only person confirmed to be safe. "Bella."

Catching it, she smiled slightly.

Confessional: Bella

"Ever since Christopher got voted off, I think I've been putting my all in the challenges. I guess I'm sort of fighting for him too." Bella still seemed to be saddened that he had gone up. "I'll win for the both of us."

Now, there were already only five marshmallows on the plate left. With each passing episode, this process became shorter.

"The next marshmallow goes to…" Chris picked it up from the plate. "... Nila."

Catching it effortlessly, Nila glanced over at the people who were still left in the game.

"Historia."

Catching it with a frown, Historia did the exact opposite of what Nila did, and didn't bother to look at anyone.

"Mindy."

"Oh, good." She grinned as she caught her marshmallow.

Now, only two marshmallows remain, but still three campers left.

"David, Enima, and Jeremy." Chris began, looking at each of them one by one. "There are only two marshmallows left, and yet three of you. One of you is going home tonight."

Turning to the first name mentioned, Chris spoke again. "David, you've been a target a few times since you've gotten here. Anything to say about that?"

Shrugging, it was clear that he didn't seem to care. "Why would I be worried about something like that? People can keep trying to get me out, I won't mind."

Next, Chris turned to look at Enima. "As for you, you've been helpful to your team before, but you've rarely ever helped them win anything. You always seem to fall just a bit short."

Raising an eyebrow, Enima frowned. "Why do you point out a fact for him, and then decide to bash me?" Not that she minded, she just wanted to point it out.

"And Jeremy." Chris looked over at him, raising the marshmallow off the plate.

"Yeah?"

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"Here." Chris threw him the marshmallow.

You see, Jeremy could never do any wrong.

Which only left one marshmallow left… With two campers.

"David, Enima… One of you is going home tonight." Chris picked up the last marshmallow of the night.

For a split second, Enima did have a worried expression on her face. However, it quickly faded away as she realised the numbers were in her favour.

David on the other hand, was just humming to himself. "You know, this is starting to sound pretty familiar to the time I was down here with Josef." He turned to look at Enima. "The other person is so confident that they'll stay in, only to have reality come crashing down."

"The final marshmallow of the night…" Chris continued his dramatic speech as the two of them had a conversation.

"Oh?" Enima raised an eyebrow playfully. "Is that so? Well, it would be boring for the results to be the same, so how about we throw variety in here."

"GOES TO…"

David shook his head. "I'm more of a rinse and repeat kind of guy. Why fix what's not broken?" He shrugged.

Letting out a little laugh, Enima shook her head. "You say some funny things, unfortunate that you'll be the one going home."

Now that the talk was out of the way, it was time to focus on the final marshmallow…

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"David!"

The smug expression that was on Enima's face quickly faded away upon hearing this. Quickly, she stood up, a bit taken aback. "What?"

Letting out a small laugh, David shook his head. "I already told you, didn't I? People can try, but I think I'm fine with staying right where I am."

Given that the plan failed, Bella had a panicked expression on her face. "W-What did you do this time?"

Sliding over to Historia, David patted her head. "I had a bit of help."

"H-hey!" She immediately tried to distance herself. "Don't put the blame on me."

Now, Enima's eyes were locked with Historia. "You…" She trailed off.

It's fine.

Whatever.

Stretching her arms out, Enima's expression changed away from annoyance. "Well, maybe you were hoping for me to get even more mad than this, David." She tilted her head in his direction.

"I don't really care how you react, just knowing I'm safe is fine." David's eyes slowly turned to look at Bella. "Oh, by the way, you better hope we don't lose, because you're next."

Frowning slightly, Bella pointed at him. "You…" Although, she wasn't really the confrontational type. Every attempt she made to get him out had failed to this point. She had lost Christopher, and now her newest Enima was going home too.

"Don't let him get to you, kid." Enima shrugged a bit, moving past the fire. "I should have known he would be able to pull some things off." Or at least, she thought she had a better grasp of what the alliances were. Clearly she was wrong, and that was fine.

"Have a good one." Enima gave a wave without looking back as she walked away.

One short trip later, and she found herself at the dock of shame.

"Hey kid." Enima got on the boat with Eleanor, who quickly took a step away from her. "What's your problem?"

"Last time we spoke, you tried to stab me." Eleanor might have remembered the sequence of events differently.

Well, Enima wasn't going to be one to correct her. "Better watch out, I might lash out again."

Now, Eleanor was on the complete other side of the boat. "I'll stay right here."

Shaking her head, Enima looked over at the dock, where one person was watching the send off.

Robin was standing at the end of the dock, reading a book. When his eyes locked with Enima's he offered her a wave.

Letting out a small chuckle, Enima sent one back, before turning her eyes away from the dock.

As Robin was about to leave the dock, Chris walked up, ready to give his outro. "And that concludes another episode of Total Drama Island! With both teams losing a member, things are sure to shake up for both teams."

"Not really." Robin didn't bother looking up from his book.

"We started with twenty two campers, but we're now down to thirteen, meaning we're two eliminations away from the halfway point. Who's going to be going home next?"

"Probably someone from the Killer Bass." Thank you Robin.

"And will Robin ever shut up?" Chris turned to look at him.

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"Listen, you approached me, so in all honesty-"

"Find out next time! On Total! Drama! ISLAND!" With that, the camera cut off.

Votes

Eleanor: 4

Marisa: 4

Enima: 4

David: 3

Voting Confessionals

Screaming Gophers

Arianna

"Well, if Xi isn't in the running to get voted out, then that just means I have to vote off the next best person." She crossed her arms, a confident look on her face. "His plus one. I know Eleanor just votes for whoever he tells her to, so I'm going to take her out now and cripple him."

Catrina

"Hate to do this, but from the looks of it, we're going to have to vote off Eleanor. I wish there was another way, given how nice she normally is, but if I want to get back at Xi, I have to get through his shield." She had a rather determined face.

Eleanor

"Well… I was told by an anonymous source that I might be going home today. I… I don't really believe it, but I mentioned it to Talia, and she told me we should vote for the person who set this all in motion. And I was told that person was Marisa…" She held her arm, a bit saddened. "I'm not sure what I did to make her want to target me… But I won't let her win out in the end."

Jared

"I heard from Talia who I should vote for. She says that Marisa is planning to eliminate Eleanor. She was also one of the people who was allied with Cameron. It likely means that she has Robin as an ally, and I've seen her and Catrina talking a few times. It's evident that they are working together. If something doesn't happen, they'll overwhelm us with the size of their alliance. My vote is for Marisa."

Marisa

"A bit of a last second plan, but I think going with this idea is the best." She was writing something down in her notebook. "Eleanor didn't really do anything wrong, but we can't allow her to keep helping Xi, and I doubt reasoning with her would work against her. After that, I'm one step closer to figuring out what happened with Cameron. Though, I'm sure the evidence is already conclusive that Xi is the reason he went home."

Robin

Reading his book, he didn't seem to care much about this elimination ceremony. "I told Marisa we should vote for Eleanor, given that it would give us a good chance against Xi, so that's who I'm voting for. Eleanor was nice to talk to during the island challenge, but she's not particularly good at anything except strength." He closed his book, tossing it to the side.

Talia

She didn't seem too happy at the moment. "Honestly, the news I heard from Eleanor wasn't the greatest. And while I don't have any way to verify it, she never mentioned the name of the person who told her this information. But I'm not going to risk anything. If she's going home, I'm going to make sure someone else goes home. It doesn't matter who was the cause of this, I'll be voting for Marisa."

Xi

For once, he didn't seem too content with himself.

He had won immunity, but had received some bad news. "While I would have loved to have voted off Arianna today, it seems that it will have to wait." He opened his eyes, staring directly into the camera. "Eleanor will not be going home tonight… I'll make sure of it. Instead, I'll aim my focus on Marisa. She's not going to last any longer here."

Killer Bass

Bella

"I think we finally have our chances." Bella seemed pretty happy about this. "I won immunity, so I don't have to worry about David targeting me, which means he might not have another target in mind. At least not someone he can get others to agree with." Things were looking good for her. "That's why I'm going to cast my vote for David today."

David

Whittling away at a wood stump, David didn't seem too worried. "Bella might think that winning immunity was the best thing she could have done, but honestly." He shrugged, grinning a bit. "It doesn't really matter, since she's not my target yet. As per my deal with Historia, I'll be voting off the person she chooses. And she chose Enima. She's fun to have around, but I'd much rather be one step closer to winning the prize money, so…"

Enima

"Well, Bella and I have an agreement. We're both going to vote out David. I think he's overstayed his welcome a little too much. Honestly, he should have gone home instead of Josef, but he was just as annoying." Enima rolled her eyes playfully. "Either way, I'll be glad to see him go home."

Historia

She had her arms crossed, an annoyed look on her face. "I'm probably getting my hopes up for nothing, but if both David and Jeremy hold up their end of the bargain, then I have no choice but to take the deal. And hey, I don't really have to follow through with voting off who they want to vote off." Historia glanced the other way. "It's a win win for me. I'm voting off Enima."

Jeremy

"Well, I'm pretty sure I'm safe for now, so it doesn't really matter where this vote ends up. I don't really have a reason to throw David under the bus yet, so I'll vote Enima off with him. Although, I don't think he'll have enough votes to keep himself from going home. Especially if the other four decided to vote together." Jeremy crossed his arms, a small smile on his face, as if to show he didn't really care about the outcome.

Mindy

Letting out a small sigh, Mindy shook her head. "Nila is going to hate me for this, but I would like to keep David around just a bit longer." A mischievous look appeared on her face. "I think there's some extra fun we could have with him. So I'm going to go against her wishes and vote for Enima instead. Sorry, not sorry." She really wasn't sorry.

Nila

"I think it is finally time to vote off David. I wanted him gone during the cooking challenge, but everyone else thought that he should stay instead of Josef. And now, compared to last time when Christopher went home, I believe that most of us are in unison. I know Bella and Enima want to vote him off, and Mindy agreed to vote him off as well. I apologise in advance."

Campers Remaining: 13

Screaming Gophers:

.

Arianna Rodriguez: The Popular Girl

Catrina Rwuicks: The Outgoing DJ

Jared Caertas: The Law Abiding Cadet

Marisa Campbell: The Excited Journalist

Robin Fuego: The Snarky Tactician

Talia Wayward: The Rude Waitress

Xi Loung: The Manipulative Psychologist

.

Killer Bass

.

Bella Fiore: The Quiet Nature Lover

David Talon: The Shady Guy

Historia Lenz: The Unbearable Scholar

Jeremy Cloud: The Fearless Surfer

Mindy Misuto: The Mischievous Artist

Nila Darabond: The Soft Military Trainee

Eliminated: Jenna, Matthew, Ashton, Josef, Cameron, Christopher, Jack, Eleanor, Enima

Marisa

It had been a few days since the last time she had received tapes from the masked figure. Normally she'd get one after a challenge, but oddly enough they were absent after the Boney Island challenge.

Still, with these two tapes, she only had two left after that.

However, this was the first time Marisa had been worried about finding out the truth. For the first time ever, she had received votes, and almost went home.

Had she not won the challenge thanks to Robin, then her ass would have been on that boat instead of Eleanor.

"Here we are…" Entering through the same window as before, Marisa slipped into the building.

Quickly, she realised she wasn't alone. "Already here?"

The masked figure had been staring at the screen for a bit, before finally turning to look at Marisa. "Ah, you've made it."

"Why didn't you give me tapes last challenge." Marisa walked over towards the tape player. In the end, she didn't really care about the answer, but it was still fun to know.

For a few seconds, the masked figure didn't answer, only looking back at the monitor. "Let's just say I ran into a problem the last few days which made it impossible to do my job. However, I'm back in full force."

Ominous, but that was a mystery for another time. First, Marisa had to get to the bottom of these tapes. "We're running out of tapes, and I still feel like I haven't really discovered anything, except for the alliances that have formed, and how Arianna truly is."

Tilting their head to the side, the masked figure shook their head. "You will receive all the answers you need in due time. Play the tapes for now."

Right… She hadn't even bothered to look at who the tapes belonged to. She had already gone through six of them, so there weren't many options left. Just Jack, Jared, Robin, and Talia.

And for today, it seemed like Jack and Jared were lined up.

Not like Marisa didn't already know the answers to these.

First of all, she placed Jack's tape into the player.

Jack

"As if there'd be anyone else to vote for." He had his arms crossed, a stern look on his face. "The only person who should be getting any votes is Catrina. We would have won the challenge had she just focused on the game. She's also the only person to have lost two challenges today. Heh." Jack was pretty confident with his choice.

Yeah, that sounded just like him. Hopefully Chris' team was able to find Jack to bring him back home. If not… Well…

Enough about that. Reaching over for the next tape, Marisa placed Jared's tape into the machine.

Jared

Clenching his fist, he seemed a bit ticked off. "I know what Catrina did was a bit unsportsmanlike… And normally I would vote for someone like that. However, it would feel weird to vote off the person I saved. Not to mention we have a different issue to worry about. If we vote off Catrina, there would be a large alliance of four people swimming around. Xi has brought it to my attention that it's best to cut that one loose. That person is Cameron." He didn't seem to be enjoying saying this.

Now the total votes were five for Cameron, and three for Catrina.

At least now, this was confirmation that Jared was also working with Xi. This alliance really was larger than she could have ever imagined.

"Thank you, once again for doing this." It really opened up Marisa's eyes to how passive she had been playing.

However, for once, she wanted to ask something else. "Do you know why I received votes today?"

The masked figure remained silent for a few seconds, before letting out a sigh. "I sure do… I found it odd, so I did a bit of research. And this is what I found…"

Confessional: Talia

She had her arms crossed, and a rather irritated expression on her face. "If Marisa thinks she can just go ahead and do that, then she better think twice. I'll simply get Jared and Eleanor to vote her off."

For a second, Marisa stood frozen, unable to believe what she just saw. "What…? What did I do to anger her?"

The masked figure shrugged, glancing the other way. "I was hoping you'd be able to tell me. Either way, it seems that she has put a target on your back. "I… I don't know what to do about this…"

Confessional: Marisa

"So, Talia was the reason I got any votes… For it to be a tie, I would have needed to have gotten four votes. That means Xi also had to vote me off in order to reach that number." With the other four voting off Eleanor. "If I hadn't won that tie breaker, I would have been a goner."

Then, an idea formed in her head. "Maybe I've been chasing the wrong person the entire time. If Talia is going to be dead set on voting me off, I think I should focus on getting her out instead…"

Moving away from her, the masked figure stood by the window. "Remember, you'll need to survive another potential elimination ceremony if you lose the next challenge, and you won't get the tapes if you get sent home."

Now a lot was really lying on Marisa, here, wasn't it? "Don't worry, I should still have the numbers advantage, so I shouldn't be going home…"

Still, being so close to elimination definitely put her in a state of panic… She'd have to be more careful going forward.

Not only did she have the mystery of Cameron's elimination…

Not only did she have the mystery of who this masked figure was…

Not only did she need to figure out where the immunity idol was…

She also had to get to the bottom of this entire Talia situation…

Letting out a heavy sigh, Marisa shook her head. "Sometimes, I feel like I'm being asked to do too much…" She should probably return to bed before someone notices she's missing…