How did I get to this point?
Here I was, heart thudding so hard I felt like a taser blast wouldn't have even done anything to me, lurking behind a receptionist table inside a highly secure prison with my girlfriend, Zoey, and two complete strangers as our de-facto leader had been tased into unconsciousness right before our eyes. We realized just how alone we were without him at this moment. The fear reflected in everyone's eyes, even Wayne and Raj's, suggested it took "losing" Chef to realize just how crazy this was for all of us.
So, how did I get here? Maybe I have a savior complex. Maybe I really do want to help people. Regardless, I thought about the fear in my heart, and the fear I'd experienced competing in Chris' twisted challenges. To think of a man even more dangerous, so horrific that even Chris is appalled by his actions, left in charge of the next generation of Total Drama contestants... I knew the fear in their hearts would have made mine look like nothing. Besides, fear in my heart was nothing new.
I knew I didn't want to let them down, or-if what Chris said about Mercutio being worse than Axel and Mal-let them die. That's about the only thing that returned my consciousness to the present moment.
"Step away from the table with your hands up! Now!" ordered one of the guards.
"Wha- what do we-" Kali fretted.
"What are we gonna do?" Zoey rasped.
The poor girl looked completely out of her element, the rifle in her hands, and even Wayne and Raj appeared pretty scared, silent for a change.
"We're... we're not gonna give up," I decided.
"How are we supposed to do this without Chef?" Kali urged.
"The same way we got through everything else in life up to this point: by ourselves. Wayne, Raj, you're athletic guys, right?"
"Totally," Raj murmured, his voice taut with fear.
"I said, right now! Or else we'll be forced to come over there and apprehend each of you."
My chest thudded even harder, and I swallowed, attempting to swallow down fear as I did so.
For the good of the cast. To be the heroes.
"Zoey, let me see your rifle," I whispered.
Soon enough, one of the guards appeared by the table, peering over to see us in our hiding spots. I sat with the rifle pointed. They readied their taser but I was faster, bolting a tranq dart into their chest in an instant.
"Wayne, Raj, grab him!"
The two guys acted, grabbing the guard and pulling him over the table.
"Someone take his taser! Cover me!"
"I've got it!" Kali grabbed it.
Taking back her gun, Zoey fired tranq shots at the guards while Kali, now armed with a taser, tased one of them, causing the guard to throttle around and collapse. With this distraction, I reached out from around the desk to grab Chef's fallen tranq gun, joining Zoey in the fight, shooting tranqs at the remaining guards. I let out a yell of pure unbridled energy that I had no choice but to let loose as the guards went down. We all ducked behind the desk once more, catching our breath.
"Jesus, that was insane!" Kali blurted.
"You're telling me," I gasped.
"And thrilling! Insane, but thrilling!"
"Now what, eh?" Wayne wondered.
"Chef's not waking up," Zoey murmured.
"Okay, uhm," I stammered, "uh, all right, okay- here's the plan: we've gotta keep going down the halls to get to cellblock G-6, right? Zoey, you and I will lead the way and shoot people with these tranq darts, okay?"
She nodded. "Okay."
"Kali can back us up. We're gonna need to carry Chef out of here somehow."
"That's not happening," Kali replied, unhappy to be letting me down. "None of us can do that."
"We can!" Wayne burst. "We're strong enough, eh. We can carry your crotchety cook friend!"
"That's how we can be useful!" Raj exclaimed, then high-fived his friend. "Hoot hoot!"
"Let's just be quick about this," I urged.
We traversed the halls of the prison, and somehow, police didn't apprehend us immediately. Chef had saved up enough tranq darts to give me and Zoey the capacity to shoot anyone who came near us. Our pure adrenaline gave us the edge, and perhaps that was the only way Wayne and Raj were able to carry Chef through the prison together. Using up a taser with each person she struck, Kali kept grabbing new ones and using each new one to help me and Zoey hold off attackers.
"Just like a video game!" she yelled.
"We've gotta be close, right?" Zoey questioned.
I looked up at the ceiling to see "CELL BLOCK G-2." "Yes, we're almost there! G-6, right? Just keep moving!"
"Not gonna lie, broseph, this sleepy old man kinda gettin' heavy, eh," Wayne croaked.
"He probably eats like a pig," Raj added.
"Just keep holding him a little longer," I urged.
"Come on, Rajie, don't let him go. We've gotta prove our value to the team!"
"Right, Wayner... the team..." Raj groaned. "I can do this..."
"Team's countin' on us, Rajie, don't you let that peanut-headed man go!"
"I'm praying for you, Chef," Kali murmured.
Omniscient POV
The brawl within the G-6 cell block kept on banging. Mike and Duncan fought off inmates, struggling to make their way across the huge, clustered room to reach Chris. The former host, now having noticed Mike, crouched to the floor the moment his guards were distracted by inmates attacking him. Chris put his hands over his head and cowered low, snaking his way away on the ground. He yelped, nearly being stomped on numerous occasions.
Duncan struggled more noticeably to hold the inmates off, while Mike was able to handle them much more proficiently. Mirroring Mal's fighting style, Mike slung his leg around to hook his foot against an inmate's neck, grunting as he thrust them face first to the ground. He booted his other foot into another's chest, knocking them into several inmates. Mike rolled aside as one of the men tried to grab him, and he nabbed a guard's nightstick mid-roll. Swinging it around, he thwacked multiple of the prisoners trying to get at him.
"Yo, Mike!" Duncan shouted.
An inmate grabbed Mike from behind, lifting him with ease and running forward. He was trapped, writhing to get free, but he couldn't. The nightstick dropped, and the inmate rushed him through the crowd, headed straight for a concrete wall. Mike clenched his teeth and fought even harder to escape. No avail, as the inmate that had him in his grasp was huge, muscled, and at least six foot seven. Mike threw out his legs to push himself off the wall, knocking the inmate backward. As the inmate toppled, Mike pounded his foot into the man's mouth.
Meanwhile, Duncan wrestled with a guard that went for a tase, only for Mike to run in and dropkick the guard in time.
"You okay?" Mike asked through a deep breath.
He nodded. "Chris was over there, but I don't see him anymore."
"Let's go."
Mike and Duncan fought their way through the crowd, with the numbers slimming as they went. More guards came flooding through to subdue the prisoners, with less and less inmates managing to either stand up from the tasing, or to continue fighting.
Finally, Chris managed to slither his way up to his feet at the same moment of Duncan getting to his, sending fists down at an inmate.
"Duncan, what the hell is going on right now?"
"We're getting out," he replied after a pause, catching his breath, blood staining one of his lips, dripping down the side of his chin.
"D-Did you see Chef?"
"No, should I have?" Without getting an answer, he turned to shout, "Mike, I found-"
Mike wailed, his brain getting absolutely jolted as a taser jabbed him in the sides. Down to the ground he crashed, jolting around from the electrical current. He gasped uncontrollably, wheezing and falling into disassociation before going unconscious. Looming over him were three security guards.
"Uh oh," Duncan murmured, Chris standing right beside him with terror in his eyes.
One of the guards reached into their security belt to pull out a walkie of their own. "We need more men in G-6. Now!" Another of the guards grabbed unconscious Mike by his underarms, holding him up. The third stepped towards Duncan and Chris, with fists pounding faces echoing around the room in the background.
"Stay away from us," Duncan snapped.
"Son, don't make me hurt you again."
"I'm over this shit! I'm not going back."
"Duncan, it doesn't work that way." The guard stepped a little closer, with Duncan and Chris each backstepping for each inch the guard neared. "You can't just escape prison. This isn't a movie. If you did manage to get out of here, we'd find you eventually."
"No, no, you wouldn't."
"Let us help you. Come back to your cell."
"That's a bigger load of bullshit-"
He cut off at the sound of a low-pitched growl emerging from Mike, who had returned to consciousness. He smashed his leg backward into one of the guard's shins, nearly breaking it from the force he expelled. The guard cried out and collapsed, then Mike grabbed the next guard by the neck in a chokehold, flinging them around to knock their legs into the third guard. He nabbed the guard's taser and used it on another guard closing in on them.
"Go!" he growled, his voice low and gruff. "Go, go, now! Let's fucking go!"
He, Duncan, and Chris raced their way through the crowd, running full speed ahead for the exit doorway. Into the hall they emerged, until...
Rome's POV
Alarms blared throughout the prison, which gave me the idea that, just maybe, Mike had been spotted. Zoey, Kali, and I ran as fast as we could without losing Wayne and Raj in the process, our pack mules carrying our criminal mastermind leader. Finally, we came to an intersection that would lead us in one of the entrances to the cell block we needed. "G-6" it read, and we raced for it, only for Mike to smash into me facefirst as we made our way through. It didn't stop there, as Duncan smushed into Zoey and Chris into Kali.
"Watch where you're-" Kali started, then gasped. "Holy shit, it's Chris!"
"Hey, long time no see," he gasped.
"Duncan," Zoey murmured.
"Good to see you," he muttered, rubbing his forehead.
"You all right, Mike?" I asked, feeling a familiar pain to Duncan's.
"Oh, Mike!" Zoey rushed over to embrace him, only for him to push her away without hesitation.
"Stay away from me," he urged, his voice hauntingly low, yet without any malice. More so, with hints of... shame?
Zoey's brown eyes glimmered with hurt and confusion. That's when Mike gasped for breath, then snapped to, hugging Zoey in a flash. "Zoey. Zoey, you're okay! Oh, god!"
Uncomfortably, for the rest of our viewing pleasure, she didn't hug back.
Then Wayne and Raj collectively let out groans, finally collapsing under the weight of Chef. He crunched the two of them like Bubble Bass sitting on Plankton. [1]
"We tried, coach..." Raj moaned.
"We really did," Wayne murmured.
"Chef?" Chris burst. "Why is Chef passed out? At a time like this?"
"Jesus," Duncan shook his head. "You guys really did assemble yourselves a little ragtag crime squad. How's it feel to join the club, kids?"
Kali faced me. "We got Chris, now it's time to go."
"But how are we supposed to carry the big man?" Wayne whimpered. "Our arms gave out, coach."
"I've got a solution for that," Chris assured us, then he crouched down beside his old friend. He proceeded to smack his face multiple times, saying, "Hey, Chef! Up! Up! Get up! Stop sleeping, you big, lazy Snorlax! Get up! Up, up, up!"
Chef grumbled incomprehensibly, staggering up to his feet without a single word possibly made out. "Chris, man?"
"Hey, dude. GCO, huh?"
A smile spread across his face, Chef gave him a hug, and Chris hugged back. "Yeah, man. GCO."
"You're a real friend, big guy."
"Missed you, man."
"Is something wrong, Zoey?" Mike wondered.
"I think the big cook broke my wrist," Raj murmured.
"Try biting it, that might wake it up," Wayne suggested.
"How you been, Rome?" Duncan asked.
"Eh, I mean, I've been-"
"Can we just get the fuck out of here already?" Kali snapped, which jerked us all into motion, responding in agreement and getting on our way.
Our nine-person team rushed through the prison halls. Running lower on tranq darts now, and with Kali taking over for now-and-horribly-timed-shaken Zoey, Chef and Duncan were able to help out by barging against guards that tried to stop us. At some point, the police did finally arrive at the prison, and the moment we made it back outside the way we'd come in was our moment of realization.
The moment we emerged back from the way we'd come, a big spotlight shone on us from a helicopter. Sirens blared in the horizon as police cars were on their way. I was incredibly appreciative to realize that they hadn't quite arrived yet; perhaps there was still a chance for us.
"Ow," Raj complained, the light blinding him, as well as the rest of us.
I took a look at our huge group. Me, Kali, Chef, Chris, Mike, Zoey, Wayne, Raj, and Duncan.
"Now what?" Kali urged.
"We could break off," I suggested in a flash. "Split up. Someone might take the heat, but we wouldn't all go down at least."
"Good luck ever getting that person out of prison," Chef retorted.
"Not the greatest plan I've ever heard, camper," Chris added.
"No," Zoey interjected. "We stay together, no matter what."
"Well," Duncan cleared his throat. "You guys are clearly the bigger targets, so imma take my leave. Thanks for the spring and so long!"
"See you on the other side, Duncan," Chris waved to him. Thinking on it, though Chris previously hated him for destroying his mansion, perhaps a year together in prison could do something to alter their dynamic. While I doubt they'd become best friends, trauma bonding is a real thing.
"We have to do something!" Kali exclaimed.
"Make a run for the car!" I shouted. "It's the only shot we have!"
"Let's move then! Go, go, go!" Chef ordered, and we were off.
With Duncan splitting off, the eight of us charged back for the fence we'd climbed under. Slipping our way back through it, taking the time we didn't have for Chef, we sprinted like hell for the spot where Shay and Masi would be waiting for us in the hummer.
Only to find something unnerving...
"Where's the car?" Mike wondered.
"What... the fuck you mean... where's the car?" Chef rasped.
Sure enough, as we neared the place where it had been parked, the vacant lot we'd discussed plans at, it was gone. My heart sank, and the expressions of everyone else around me suggested hope was receding for them.
"Well, prison might be kinda fun, right, Rajie?" Wayne asked.
"Oh, no. Look," Zoey pointed to the distance where a road leading further north had a line of police cars coming towards us, sirens blaring. That is, until one of the police cars smashed into another one. We peered closer to see Duncan cackling and flipping the police off. Shockingly, the delinquent managed to buy us some time.
"Come on! Come get me, fuckers! Come get me!" he snapped.
The attempt had been a success, as the police followed him as he drove off-road, skirting through the grass around the prison with the cars in pursuit. The helicopter beam even set its sights on him.
"Thank god for that," Zoey let out a breath of relief. "I knew Duncan had a heart buried in there."
"Watch out!" I yelled, as a black limousine came flying towards us.
As we ducked for cover, the vehicle pulled up in the lot and came to a skidding halt. The windows lowered to reveal Masi in the driver's seat and Shay up front with him.
"Masi?"
"This should fit the whole group, right?"
"Get in!" Shay squeaked.
"Hey, now we've got both ski champions!" Raj exclaimed.
"Things are looking up!" Wayne added.
All eight of us piled inside, and Masi skirted the vehicle as he looped it through the lot and out into the distance.
While Duncan had taken most of the heat off of us, we still had to deal with some other police cars from the patrol coming after us. Fortunately, Masi seemed to have mapped out a portion of the town for us to hide in prior to our escape from the prison.
We went flying off road, all of us screaming and clutching each other for dear life as we descended, zipping through underground tunnel entrances. It went from pitch black to lit by city lights back and forth in a flash as each tunnel briefly went out into the open night before taking us through another.
"Through here, baby!" Shay urged.
"Hang on!" Masi yelled.
Masi veered left, and we crashed through a construction site down into the sewers. As we charged even further underground, with dirt and earth around us, Masi finally stopped the vehicle as we got as deep in as we could go, down to a place where there was an untouched construction site enclosed by earth and some steel foundation.
We waited down there for quite some time. After about twenty minutes of nothingness, we determined we'd actually survived our adventure.
"Oh, thank god for you guys!" Chris exclaimed, finally relaxing. "Oh! Oh, man! One more second in that prison was gonna drive me crazy! God, I'm so happy to see every last one of you! Rome! Chef! Thank you all so much!"
"Are you even happy to see me?" Wayne wondered.
"Sure, random kid, I'm even happy to see you. Beats an inmate or a security orderly. I can't believe we just got away with that!"
"Masi, dude, that was seriously clutch," I mentioned.
"Waiting around forever felt wrong, so Shay suggested we find something that could fit all of us. What would happen if we had to race off in the hummer but there wasn't room?"
"And, considering Wayne and Raj are with you guys, for some reason..." Shay murmured, "looks like we made the right call."
"How did you guys even get a hold of this thing?" Kali questioned.
"A test drive that turned into more than a test drive."
"Nicely done, Shay," Masi hugged her.
"Well, now that you're out, Chris, man," Chef grumbled, "it's about time we do what has to be done, yeah?"
"That's exactly right." Chris leaned in to address all of us. "Dudes, now that we're all together, it's time we deal with the single worst scourge of a man I've ever encountered. It's time we put our heads together to deal with my old friend, Vsevolod Salkov, or as he's taken to calling himself: Mercutio Merle."
Viewer's POV
- Episode 11: Labyrinth -
Not exactly bursting into frame with as much vigor as usual, Jayshawn walked into the front line of the camera, sighing before delivering the usual episode recap. Little did he realize that Tracy was creeping up on him, hard baton in hand.
"Previously on Total Drama Mill-" Before Jayshawn could grumble his way through the recap, Tracy whacked him in the back of the head. With a clank, down the aspiring reporter went, tumbling into the grass, instantly out colder than a yeti.
"Now, why'd you make me do that?" Tracy complained, with the camera panning to see Mercutio stepping to join him.
"I hope that isn't resistance I hear in your tone."
"What? Me? Resist hitting a teenager in the back of the skull with a blunt instrument? Why would I ever do that?"
Mercutio forced a chuckle. "That cute little comment of yours just dropped your pay."
"I'm not really concerned with that at the moment. Yesterday was seriously messed up, Mercutio, even by the standards of hosting a show like Total Drama. This wasn't the pitch I received when I saw this job listing."
"If you have issues with the way I run my show, you can keep them to yourself," he growled, causing Tracy to take steps backward, nearly tripping over Jayshawn's body. "What's wrong, tovarisch? Frightened?"
"A... a little bit. You're- you're starting to scare me, man. People could have died yesterday. Like, actually, really died. Those were noxious fumes they were breathing. What will happen to their lungs into their middle and older adulthood thanks to that challenge? Why was I never shown that abandoned hospital? And why would an abandoned hospital be a mile underneath an academy building? There's a lot I don't understand."
"You feel left out." Mercutio nodded. "Understand that this is a logical feeling, but you're not going to be handed information in the same manner that a child is handed a cookie. Perhaps start by eating your brussel sprouts, tovarisch."
"You mean- you mean to say I have to earn the reasoning behind why you're endangering the contestants' lives? After you've claimed that you'll take a more gentle approach than-" Tracy cut himself off, immediately looking down at the grass.
Mercutio stomped into his grill. "Who? Who, Tracy? Hmm? Who?"
The chef didn't answer, instead stifling a gulp.
"You're meek, Tracy. Cowardly. You remind me of a little girl that I might find playing outside in the motherland. There's no place for a little girl in the ring of those I trust with the sort of knowledge you're prodding for."
"I just... Going forward, I just wanna make sure we're all gonna be safe. Can I... can I trust that?"
With Mercutio standing so close that Tracy could feel his breath, the host replied, "Sure, Tracy. Do your job, and you're going to be just fine."
Hesitant, he whispered, "I-If I don't?"
Mercutio let a frown spread. "Do your job, and you're going to be just fine." The words came out colder this time. Harsher. The statement alone alluded to what the opposite entailed, and the Russian's refusal to elaborate left Tracy's imagination wandering. "Now," Mercutio grabbed Tracy's wrist and held up his baton-gripping hand. "You've got more work to do."
"I-I get paid to cook," he choked out.
"Do you really wish to fuck with me, Tracy?"
"No, no, sir."
"I'm in need of my daily dose of exercise, should I get it by thrashing you?"
"No, no, no, sir, I'll behave."
The sight of Tracy growing more and more perturbed, likely remembering the devastated state Fish was left in, left Mercutio shaking his head and flaring his upper lip, disgusted. "Pathetic. Your submission is an embarrassment. You would not have lasted a mere hour in the home I grew up in. Do what I tell you; that's what you get paid to do."
That same morning, with everyone else absent from their sleeping quarters, Matcha and Athena sat across from each other in the losing team garage. There was a healthy dose of tension between both girls, and neither of them spoke for a while, until Athena broke the silence.
"All right, if neither of us is gonna go ahead and say anything," she started in her natural, somewhat deeper tone, "you should know that I did what I did to survive. That's a pretty fuckin' big deal, wouldn't you agree?"
"So, that's the kind of person you'd be in an apocalypse. Noted."
"Yeah, and you'd be the chick who'd lose her mind and probably shoot herself before a zombie could eat her because you don't have fucking paperwork to sort."
"What the hell- what are you even talking about?"
"I know your type. You are so far from special, it's really pretty incredible," Athena insisted. "You're one of those nose-to-the-grindstone kind of bitches."
"Oh, my go-" she scoffed, but Athena kept going.
"See, I've met enough people like you to have this figured out. You do it because you've successfully convinced yourself that you enjoy what you do, but you don't. You don't, and one day you'll figure that out and you'll be a miserable sack of shit for the rest of your life. You might kill yourself, you might get addicted to those fascinating drugs you've always wondered about, or maybe you'll get hitched, marry someone who only exists in your life to distract you. From what? Only the searing pain of regret, silly!" she added in her pretend-Athena voice. "And it'll be all your fault. You did this to yourself."
"This isn't about me. And that's not even true anyway!"
She chuckled. "Is it not, babes?"
"Even if it were, I'm not absorbing a single breath's worth of input from the chick that tried to get us all killed! You betrayed us all!"
"Please. You act like I should care about any of you- like we're some kind of fucking family. Get that bullshit out of your head if you want to win the million dollars. Heather had it right."
"I know we're not family," Matcha argued, "but you have a moral obligation as a human being with a functioning brain and heart not to kill other people! No matter what! That is just! That is right!"
"Well, what the fuck was I supposed to do, bitch? Tell Mercutio no and get beaten like Fish right then and there?"
"You know what? Yeah. You were. You can say whatever, but I think you were the Jack to save your own ass."
"It's a pretty nice one, so, makes sense, does it not? I think Caleb would agree. He's probably wishing he could've fucked me, from whatever therapist's office he's in."
Matcha stammered, obviously uncomfortable. "Okay, uh-"
This made Athena burst into laughter.
"What? Why are you laughing?"
"You're such a little prude, aren't you? Oh, girlie. I mean, it's not like I was the town bicycle or anything, but you're- ooh, I bet you're a virgin! Right! That's why you buckle and start acting like an HR manager the moment anything sexual gets mentioned around you. You are repressed."
"Shut up!"
"If you were ever to actually give into your urges, you'd melt like putty," she scoffed.
"Shut up already!"
Athena let her voice get heavy and seductive, amping up Matcha's discomfort by eleven. "Haven't you ever thought about what it feels like to take every inch of a guy? To feel all filled up?"
"Ugh, enough! Stop trying to read me! How can you make a conversation about how you literally tried to kill people into what's wrong with me?"
"Because there's just so much wrong with you. It's sort of a mental eyesore, you know? You present yourself well enough, but reading you so easily and seeing what kind of baggage you're carrying, it's quite a headache. So, thanks for that... You have any ibuprofen?"
Speaking of headaches, at that moment, Tracy approached with the baton, his footsteps causing the girls to look over at him.
"Tracy?" Matcha murmured. "What've you got there?"
Breathing heavy, and likely mentally talking himself through it, Tracy slammed the baton upside Athena's head, and she went out cold just as quickly as Jayshawn.
"What the hell is wrong with you people?" Matcha blurted.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She was next.
Lights out.
Holden groaned, grunting as he shifted from lying on his back to sitting up. He shook his hair out of his face and rubbed his temple, feeling dried blood.
"Fuck... Ow..."
He took a look around him, and the place he was in was mysterious and mechanical. The four walls around him, the ceiling, and the floor looked identical, almost like the inside of a rubix cube with metallic piping, and shifting colors of the rainbow over time emanating off the strange room's surroundings. Holden stared around him with his eyes squinted at the changing light. As the colors shifted, they faded out in a manner similar to a centipede slithering around the mechanic walls around him, replaced with a different bright color.
"What in the LSD is this?"
Holden's eyes wandered, following a trail of yellow light over to where a phone was lying in the corner of the cube-like room. To make matters worse, he then realized he was alone, and there was no doorway out of this place.
"Well, fuck."
[1] - I can hear that Spongebob crunch sound effect clear as day in my head
Dropouts: Athena, Holden, Iko, Kobe, Matcha, Brook
Grads: Cody, Bowie, Zee, 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
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