Confessional - Londyn

Emotional, Londyn blubbered her words out. "Last night, Fish and I had sex for the first time. Did I like it? No! No, it was terrible! I don't think he looked me in the eyes once! I guess it was kinda hot doing it in front of Cody, but Fish constantly did what he wanted to do, and in one heated little moment, I told him I loved him. I mean, I doubt that I really meant it, but it's easy to get emotional in moments like those, right? But all he said was, and I remember this clear as day, 'Whatever, ho'. Like, what? Literally how could he say that to me?"

End of confessional

Walking through the halls of the academy side by side, Holden and Queen headed for the exit to gather for the challenge.

"Hey," Holden urged.

"Hmm?"

"We're back to hating each other now, right? No more alliance shit?"

"Back to hating each other?" Queen echoed. "Please. Consider our alliance severed-up until it serves a purpose again."

"Works for me."

"Well, of course; Oompa Loompas can't be choosers," Queen jeered.

A little bit later, Mercutio, Tracy, and the fifteen contestants gathered out in the front of campus where Damien had previously been strutting. Sun basked them as Mercutio began his announcement.

"Greetings, final fifteen."

"Isn't that sort of a strange amount of us to refer to us as 'final'?" Queen asked.

"Wasn't that a word salad?" Holden jibed.

"Wouldn't you do us all a favor and gnaw on a grenade?"

"Wouldn't you both do me a favor and shut your traps, please?" Mercutio requested. "Thank you ever so."

Confessional - Queen

"I'll never forgive myself for being talked into painting Holden when that sexy, sexy slab of meat Caleb was on our team. How I miss Caleb. I cast my vote for bitch-thena that night."

End of confessional

"Today's major is geology! The study of rocks and minerals, or more technically described, the earth's physical structure and substance, as well as the history attached to it. You may not guess it based on today's first challenge, however, as it does not pertain to geology. See, in the first challenge I have for you, the teams will temporarily be dissolved. Whether you choose to remain in them is up to yourselves. You will be competing against your fourteen fellow students in the hopes of reaching the top of the academy before anyone else. The catch is that you're not allowed to enter the academy and ascend its stairs."

"How the fuck you expect us to make that shit happen?" Jayshawn complained.

"You are the contestants on the reality television series interested in the million dollar grand prize, yes? You will find a way, I'm sure. As stated previously, whoever wins this challenge will ascertain a reward: absence from today's 'field trip', or, in other words, the second challenge! That's right. Reach a rooftop first, and you're allowed a chance at staying here at the academy all by yourself, as Tracy will be joining us on the 'field trip'."

Cody's blue eyes widened, his mind beginning to brim.

"Ready yourselves, students. Three... two... one! Ascend!"

Jayshawn, Damien, Holden, and Matcha all raced for the front of the building. Holden budged Damien along the way, causing him to feebly smack back at him.

Zee jumped on a tree, wrapping his arms and legs around it. "Think like a squirrel, move like a squirrel," he said with a glazed smile as he rustled his way up at a slug's pace.

Bowie took a step, on his way towards getting going on an idea, only for Cody to stop him by tugging his purple vest.

"Bowie," he urged.

"Hmm?"

"Please, please, help me win this challenge."

Bowie chuckled. "What would you do with the academy to yourself? Masturbate?"

"No, no, no- I had another-" Tension and fear on his face with his posture crouched and his teeth gritted, Cody cut himself off. He spoke quietly. "I need the academy to myself for the investigation. Please, Bowie, help me out."

"You're really asking a lot out of me, Codester. Didn't I already help you once?"

"I know, I know, but I'm begging you." He balled his hands up. "This could be my moment. Like, my moment of all moments. I don't know when I'll get anoth-"

"You can't use my hair as a battering ram!" Queen snarled offscreen, startling Cody for a moment.

"I don't know when I'll get another opportunity like this. If you help me, I'll vote with you for the rest of the season."

Bowie grinned. "Well, why'd you leave that out of your initial pitch? Let's get you to that rooftop."

The surface of the academy was laid with bricks. There were only slight crags and crevices for contestants to put their hands on, and scaling it would take Ezio Auditore da Firenze levels of mastery to achieve. Damien desperately tried to climb, reaching onto the bottom part of a protruding window canopy, only to cry out and fall backward, a fall of less than three feet. Cody and Bowie approached him, with Bowie holding out a hand for him.

"Damien, help us out and I'll help you out in the second challenge."

"I mean, whatever, man," Damien took his hand. "Three heads are better than one."

Holden grunted and strained himself, climbing a lamppost, only to find himself sliding down it, cursing to himself as he slid.

Mercutio budged Tracy's side and chuckled, "Hey- hey, Tracy, Holden's over here like, 'First day as a firefighter?' Because he is sliding down the pole, but the joke is that he is incompetent at his profession."

Tracy patted his shoulder. "We'll make a comic out of you yet, Mercut."

Brook eyed her surroundings, unsure how to go about the challenge. She saw Kobe managing to climb up bricks that hadn't been laid properly, sticking out of the walls ever so slightly. Athletic and spry as he was, he made quick work of the task. Yet, even more athletic Jayshawn snarled with frustration as he couldn't attain the same kind of precision as him. Brook glanced aside to see Londyn badgering Fish as he stared up at the eight story building ahead of him.

"Fish? Fish, we really ought to talk about last night."

"Not now, baby, daddy's busy."

She stifled a frown, gently pressing, "But I really want to explain how I'm feeling about it."

"Right, 'cause you're a girl, but I'm in the middle of something."

"Please?"

"Londyn, chill the fuck out, all right? I'm doing the challenge."

Brook turned her gaze away from them and over to Iko and Stephen. Stephen wasn't even attempting the challenge, instead sitting up against a tree, while Iko merely paced around, kicking up dirt. The silver-haired girl stepped over to greet him.

"Hey."

He looked up to see her, then back down. "Hey, Brook."

Twiddling her overly long-sleeved hands, she murmured, "You're not doing the challenge."

"Oh, yeah. I guess I just don't see the point to it. I can't win it, so, kinda just feeling like Stephen right about now."

She hesitated, fidgeting a bit more. "Well... well, you got in the air yesterday when no one thought you could. A-and in fact- in fact, you helped me get in the air, too. In fact... Well, I actually kinda enjoyed it when we did that challenge."

Jayshawn grunted and groaned in the background as Iko looked up at her again. "Did you?"

Brook nodded, not looking him in the eyes as she stammered, "Yeah."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Ah."

"And, I..." Brook murmured. "I think that it's only fair if you helped me... maybe it'd make sense if I could help you... somehow. I-I don't know how to get up there, but... I'd like to maybe see if I can help? If that's okay. It's okay if not."

Mulling it over in his mind, Iko eventually struggled his way up to his feet to offer a fist for her to bump. As awkwardly as every other movement she made, she accepted, bumping a trembly, sleeve-cloaked fist against his.

"Okay, let's give this a shot."

"Yay," she murmured, soft enough it was almost a whisper, her eyes away from his. Though her willingness to help him seemed genuine, the level of nervousness always pervading Brook kept her distant.

Matcha reached for a windowsill, watching Jayshawn manage to scramble his way higher. He grunted and she let her thoughts drift for a moment. Still on level ground, she hesitated, then dismounted and let go of the wall. Athena appeared beside her, then Matcha set a hand in front of her.

"Hang on. Let him go."

"Why ever for?" Athena squeaked.

"If one of them wins this challenge, they have one less member to compete in the second one. We need that kind of shift to our odds, so let him go."

Athena let out a chirpy laugh. "Oh, Matcha! I'm afraid that you're not the boss of me! Besides, Kobe's nearly won the challenge already! What does it matter what we do?"

Matcha set a scowl on the orangey-blonde, with Jayshawn scaling higher up the building, on his way to the third floor.

"Not if I have anything to say about it," he grunted.

Meanwhile, Brook scaled her way up a tree on campus, heaving as she pulled herself to sit up on one of the sturdier branches. This tree was massive, with branches flowing out at all angles. The leaves they contained blocked off the sky around them, making them seem like they were traversing up a Lord of the Rings tree-giant's skeletal system.

"You okay up there?" Iko asked from below.

"Yeah," she tried to shout back, but her voice was too soft to consider it as such. "I hope we can find a way out of the tree and onto the roof, somehow."

"Yeah, well," Iko rasped, pulling himself up a few branches down the tree. "Even if not, I'm just having fun climbing in this tree."

"Oh, uh, me too," she replied, fidgeting with her sleeves and looking out into space.

"Trees from the inside look so much like- like the systems in our body. You know? Like the nervous system. I don't mean, like, literally inside the tree, but just in all the branches and under the leaves and stuff."

"Yeah, I could kinda see that."

Iko made his way to the branch below Brook's. "Could you give me a hand?"

"Okay," she murmured, then she held out a hand, cloaked of course.

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your sleeve," Iko joked.

Brook gritted her teeth, having quite the trouble pulling Iko up. Finally, with Iko's legs kicking around, he climbed the rest of the way up onto the branch beside her.

"What?" Brook wondered.

"Huh?"

"Oh, sorry- I meant that thing you just said."

Iko stared blankly for a moment. "With the- Rapunzel?"

Brook nodded, her eyes filled with a strange dread.

Puzzled, he responded, "It was just a joke, like with Rapunzel and her hair? You kinda resembled her, but your cardigan sleeves are so long that it was like Rapunzel letting down her hair."

"Oh... Oh, right, okay... just a joke..."

Iko kept a perplexed look on her. "You don't need to seem so... flipped out? I'm not gonna judge you for anything, if that's what you thought, or if you thought you did something wrong maybe-you didn't. I just wanted to joke arou-"

Brook started to chuckle. It was soft and somewhat "hee hee hee"-esque, with the girl smiling and rubbing her sleeves against her chin as she faced somewhere else. "Rapunzel. From the story. I get it."

Iko chuckled too, then he stared down the tree, shouting, "Hey, Zee! Are you doing okay down there?"

Somehow, Zee had managed to position himself against the center of the tree to be upside down with his arms and legs wrapped around it.

"Squirrel a like move, squirrel a like think."

The camera centered on Kobe scaling the academy's walls in a Spider-Man sort of way. He managed to find crevices and crags to grab onto with relative ease, hoisting himself up without too much trouble.

"This shit kinda fun," he mentioned. "So long as I don't look down. Ay, wait, Mercutio! How are we supposed to get down?" he yelled out.

"Hey, mothafucka!" Jayshawn shouted. "Here I come!"

"Aight, I'll see you up here then."

"Stop bein' so chill! Compete with me!"

"Pardon?"

"Ow, ow, ow, ow," Bowie grunted from further away. Scaling the academy along with Kobe and Jayshawn were him and Damien, each using their shoulders as pads for Cody to climb higher. Bowie grunted with pain as Cody had set his sneaker against his shoulder.

"Shit, sorry, sorry about that, Bowie."

Damien let out a croaking noise as Cody pressed his foot down harder on his face.

"Sorry about that too!" he squeaked.

"How exactly has Cody earned this kind of treatment?" Damien grunted.

"It's a weird story," Bowie responded, "one I'm not in the mood to get into."

"Wait, Bowie!" Cody interjected. "Further to your left! Kobe's almost all the way up!"

He took a look, and Cody was right. The chillaxed soccer player only had a few more feet to go until he could ascend one of the rooftop parapets.

Confessional - Bowie

He sighed, slinging one leg over the other. "Are you kidding me? It had to go like this? Why couldn't throwing my shoe at Fish's head have been what Cody needed to win?"

End of confessional

"Wassup, y'all?" Kobe greeted them.

Cody strained himself, clenching his teeth as he fought even harder to make it to the top.

"Easy, bro, you're gonna hurt yourself. Pull your shoulder or some shit."

"I have to win!" Cody croaked.

Kobe couldn't help but chuckle. "Dawg, you look funny as hell right now, I can't lie."

Bowie blushed, watching him with eyes that lingered for longer than he meant. Then, he realized that despite Kobe's attractiveness, he needed the extra vote to depend on each ceremony. He reached over and grabbed Kobe's wrist. Instead of lashing out or anything of the sort, Kobe eyed him with confusion.

"Uh, hi?"

"Hey," Bowie replied.

"You gonna let go of me so I can get to the rooftop?"

"Uh, how could I do that when I've got this perfect opportunity to ask you about your fro. How do you maintain it?"

Words came gushing out of him. "Bro, I am so glad you asked. I'd been using dove with this comb my great-aunt Shalissa gave me, but found the follicles responded better to-"

"Damien, no!" Cody cried.

Cody and Damien struggled to make their way up the parapet first. Then, heaving his way up, Jayshawn interfered and grabbed Damien by the ankle, causing him to scream out with terror of falling.

"You ain't goin' nowhere, mothafucka!"

"Yes!" Cody gasped, pulling himself up and over the parapet.

From below, Mercutio shouted into a megaphone, "Cody wins! Challenge number one concluded!"

Confessional - Damien

"Didn't take me long to decide I had no real reason to try and help Cody. It's a damn shame; I came this close to a vacation. Really could've used that break."

Confessional - Kobe

"That kinda sucks, bro. I almost won it, and I barely even broke a sweat!" He shrugged. "Oh, well."

Confessional - Jayshawn

"I should've bit that bitchass Damien's ankle! Wouldn't won me the challenge, but fuck people who perform better than I do!"

Fish shouted from across the library, "Kinda like how your mom performs better than your sister? I would know since I banged them both."

Jayshawn barged his way over the table, growling, "You motha-"

Confessional - Cody

"This is it, the break I needed, the time with everyone else away that I need. Everyone except-" Izzy stuck her head out from a bundle of books on a shelf further back from the confessional table, alerting Cody. "Izzy."

"Cody, you'd never believe it! Mmhmm, yeah-when I hit a book with my face, it falls on the floor!"

"Ow! Hey! That hurts! That hurts!" Fish cried from afar.

End of confessionals

A bit later, the cast assembled out in front of the just-arrived Bus of Shame. It let out its hiss noise as the door opened and it lowered enough for the group to enter. Mercutio raised an arm towards the doorway.

"All right, the fourteen of you that are not Cody, follow Tracy into the Bus of Shame. For all your sakes, let's hope this is never a place you find yourself riding solo, yes?"

In the contestants went, one after the other until it was just Mercutio and Cody standing outside. The less people that were left, the more unsafe Cody felt. Mercutio approached him, but the geek kept it together. Mercutio, standing taller, eyed him down for what felt like a long time, then crossed his arms and exhaled, shaking his head.

"I don't like you very much, Cody. Were you aware of this? You are a pitiful little man."

"Y-y-you wouldn't do anything while everyone's watching."

He nodded, then stepped closer to whisper in a gruff, husky voice, "Keep to your usual haunts. I shouldn't have to tell you I forbid your little hunt."

"I thought you told me to have it my way. Were you ever gonna tell me what you were talking about? About how ignorance is bliss?"

"I suppose you'll find out for yourself." Mercutio stared him down for a few moments, the geek awkwardly meeting his eyes with a hunched frame. "Get back to the academy," he muttered.

Cody obliged, turning and heading back as the host watched him go, iciness in his distrusting, green eyes. Tracy stepped into the bus doorway, asking him, "We about ready to hit the open road, Mercut?"

"Pump the brakes, Tracy; there is someone I must call first."

Hours later, the Bus of Shame had brought the gang across a region in Canada not immediately recognizable by many of the cast. Eventually, riding along a narrow highway road, some of the contestants could look out their windows and see a city in the distance, across fields of green.

"Hey, where is that, Mercutio?" asked Zee.

"We're closing in on the outskirts of the Canadian city Edmonton: the site of today's challenge."

Bowie stared at the window with suspicion brewing in him at the sight of something peculiar. "What's with all the firetrucks?"

"Firetrucks?" Matcha echoed.

Multiple contestants stared out the window, including Tracy, who, judging from the look on his face, appeared just as confused as the rest of them.

"Not sure I understand the plan, Mercut," Tracy mentioned.

A rumbling in the ground underneath them set most everyone's nerves off. Zee smiled as he bumped around in his seat, letting out an "ahhhhh" noise that made a silly warble from the rumbling and vibrating.

"Today's major is geology, isn't it?" Mercutio announced, standing in the aisle near the front of the bus. "I stated this already. Where we're headed will provide a geology-related challenge as intended."

Moments later, the bus driver took them off the highway, leading them down an exit that headed onto a more residential road. As they went down it, they drove closer to where the firetrucks were headed, alarms blaring. Among these vehicles were emergency medical vans. Another rippling rumble, and some of the contestants realized what was happening.

"Ooh!" Zee exclaimed. "We're going to a rock wall! I love rock climbing! Except for this one time that I got my leg stuck in the wall, so I had to-"

"That's not what's happening, you moron!" Damien cried. "We're headed for an earthquake!"

"What?" Athena gasped.

Iko and Brook exchanged frightened glances.

"Bloody hell," Queen muttered.

"That's what I'm talking about!" Jayshawn cheered.

"It is true," Mercutio responded, nodding.

"But- but this can't be safe," Tracy retorted. "Is there some kind of contingency in place if someone- if someone gets hurt?"

"Tracy, you're merely the chef. Do you catch my drift? There's no need for you to concern yourself with matters such as these; that is the host's job."

"I..."

"We're headed for a real earthquake?" Athena burst, then the ground rumbled again. Damien yelped as the rumble pushed him out of his seat and onto the floor.

"Could be fun," Holden mentioned.

"Right up here," Mercutio prompted the driver.

The bus took them over to a suburb, a place filled with urban sprawl, nearby gas stations and other small buildings. There were reporters on the scene, as well as emergency service workers going to work rescuing civilians. The ground ripped and ruptured with grand power, and buildings around them toppled from the magnitude. Contestants stared out the window with horror as people screamed for help in the midst of the quake.

"This is good," Mercutio patted the driver's shoulder.

"Oh, my god..." Athena whimpered.

The host stood and faced everyone again. "Everyone, out of the bus. I will explain the challenge outside."

"We can't go out there!" Damien cried again. "We could die out there!"

Mercutio frowned. His voice became rigid and imposing. "Everyone. Get off the bus."

The cast hesitated at first. Even Jayshawn and Holden, not frightened like the rest, found themselves puzzled by Mercutio's aggressive switch up in behavior.

"Get... off," he growled, his voice like claws shredding. Once more, they didn't listen. "Get off!" he snarled.

One by one, contestants made their way off, falling into single file, uncomfortably having to pass Mercutio on their way off. The suited Russian watched them each like a hawk. Brook let out horrified, shuddery breaths as she walked. Iko kept his arms frozen to his sides and didn't look Mercutio in the eyes. Holden stared at the host with confusion, but listened nonetheless. Londyn's eyes gave way to deep fear, but she paced her way off regardless. Fish appeared thoroughly stunned.

Thirteen of the fourteen contestants stepped off the bus. Some of them tensed at the sound of Damien wailing from inside, begging Mercutio not to make him get off. Soon enough, the host shoved him out of the bus, forced into joining the others. Through the chaos, Londyn looked at Stephen, who had little to no difference to his usual mood.

"How can you be so calm at a time like this?"

The sounds of emergency vehicles, toppling infrastructure, and screaming pedestrians battled with Mercutio's words.

"In today's challenge, you will be navigating this earthquake. In order to win this challenge, you must get all six of your teammates back to the bus before the other team can accomplish this feat."

"This is-"

"Don't you interrupt me, Damien. Try to get back on this bus before it moves and you're going to wish you didn't."

Absolute horror permeated him, and he looked down at the rumbling ground, overwhelmed with his fear. "I was this close..." he rasped.

"Tracy and I will be waiting in the Bus of Shame about a mile west, which is where the earthquake split leads. Find the bus and return with all your teammates to win the challenge. That is all. Best of luck to you, contestants."

"Wait, wait, no, please don't go!" Londyn begged, but he'd already moved away from the doorway, the folding doors closing.

They were all alone, left as bystanders in the middle of unrelenting chaos. Fire waged far in the distance, and the ground beneath their feet trembled as people's sons and daughters wailed with horror, begging for their lives. Seconds later, the bus was driving away, leaving the contestants behind for their most dangerous challenge yet.

Dropouts: Athena, Holden, Iko, Kobe, Matcha, Queen, Brook

Grads: Cody, Bowie, Zee, Fish, Jayshawn, Londyn, Stephen, Damien

Some quick OC descriptions:

Athena: orangey-blonde, orange contacts, black and white dress

Holden: long, scraggly hair, heavyset, short, leather jacket

Iko: slim-fat, short, stylish overcoat and vest

Kobe: tall, big afro

Matcha: brunette, business casual

Queen: purple hair

Fish: typical influencer look

Jayshawn: fit, muscular, dreads, gym tank/shorts

Londyn: brunette, face tattoos, gorgeous features

Stephen: early 2000s emo look

Mercutio: chiseled face, suit, wide-framed

Tracy: slim, suspenders/bowler hat

Brook: silver hair, oversized cardigan