Relay Season 1 Episode 1

Summary:

Rather than dying in episode 18, Airy lived long enough to host a season 4 of ONE. Stealing away completely new contestants, he doesn’t count on them being the key to his extensive past finally catching up to him.

…

The 6 contestants started spawning into the plane one by one, none of them with any awareness of what was going on.

A computer display with a cable tail appeared first. They seemed to have been looking at something, and were caught off-guard by the new location. “Huh? Wh- Where am I??”

The monitor was cut off by someone else appearing.

Feather hadn’t really been up to much; they were sitting in their tree as usual. The sudden location switch was jarring, and they looked around frantically, confused, were they dreaming? Why wasn't the sun hurting them? Where were they?

Display noticed the new object, but didn't know how to approach them. Nonetheless, they decided to speak to them anyway. “-how.. Hey, you!” Display called out. “Where are we??”

Feather started at Display for a minute. Unsure of how to answer, they just shrugged. Display, unamused by the lack of response, quietly scoffed before the two of them had their attention suddenly averted to a new contestant spawning.

A juicebox appeared, sitting perfectly still on the grass. A few seconds passed and they lowered their arms, confused by the feeling of smooth grass and a change in the air. Their eyebrows furrowed as they started to speak."You've got to be kidding me."

In turn, this only served to confuse Display more. “Are we being teleported in at random??? Why???? How???”

Paying them no mind, Juicebox looked to their left, where another person appeared on the grasslands, eyes closed. Hearing the sudden change of environment, Lavadrop slowly opened their eyes, and glanced around at the unfamiliar landscape. He averted his eyes to the ground, suddenly uncomfortable.

Ella had had her at least 5th shot at the bar, and was well drunk. She closed her eyes and reopened them, noticing her environment had changed. Being well under the influence of alcohol, she didn't really know how to respond, so she just sort of chuckled and laid on the floor. Sometimes she hallucinated while under the major influence of alcohol anyways, this probably wasn't all too different. Nothing was wrong, and maybe she'd just wake up in her bed, being dragged home by her cousin like she always was. It was 2:37 AM when she spawned in the plane.

Ella stared at the individual who looked like they'd seen a ghost and couldn't help but let out a little laugh. It had yet to dawn on her where she was and the current situation.

She would realize in a few hours.

Feather turned around at the noise of drunken giggling and the sight of perplexed strangers. Who the hell even were these people? They were certain they were dreaming, but everything still felt real- They scratched their arm, just to be sure.

Then, another person spawned in, seemingly in the middle of a sentence. “No, I am NOT going to…”

“What in the…” the blue hexagon said as he realized where he was. “Okay, you better not be messing around here! Explain this!”

“Where am I??” Ella asked with an extremely wary, hungover, and drained voice. Looking around, she noticed she was no longer in the bar. How long did this field stretch? It reminded her of her old home in Ohio.

Then, suddenly, an ear-piercing voice startled everyone in the area. “hello contestants, my name is-”

Display had been looking at everything in silence, caught very off-guard by the random loud voice.

More quietly, the voice continued, “You're on the plane, here to compete in my competition, called one…”

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Alarmed, Feather jerked up towards the sun, their hand over their eyes. Display then started to speak, “Competition?? What, like a reality show?-”

Juicebox then interrupted Display with their own response. “...Your competition...? What?...”

Feather added on, agitated, “What the hell is that supposed to mean!?”

“It means you're in my competition,    called one,” Airy responded, albeit not caring much for the complaining.

Hexagon stepped forward. “Why are you choosing us?!” he directed towards the sky. “I got things to attend to!”

“Who the hell even are you? Where is your voice coming from???” Juicebox asked as they then waved their arms in the air. “SHOW YOURSELF, COWARD!”

Airy continued with his speech, completely ignoring the yelling of the contestants before him. “I chose you six, to compete in my competition, called… one.”

“One? Is that an acronym or something?” Display asked. Airy promptly answered “Yeah, it stands for-”

Hexagon cut off Airy, raising his voice due to the lack of recognition from the intangible figure. “I said why US?! Out of over 7 billion people?!”

Airy finally responded ‘properly’ to Hexagon, albeit still just as vague. “You six are here specifically, to compete in my competition. Called one.”

Hexagon gave up. He facepalmed, impatiently tapping his foot on the grass.

"I want to go back ho... me..." Ella passed out for a few seconds, immediately waking up after. The effects were starting to kick in, and based on where she was, that would not be good.

Juicebox glances towards Ella, and then diverts their attention back to the sky. "Okay, yeah, I'm not doing this. Take me back."

Airy, although just lying in order to preserve the stability of the competition, responds promptly. "I'm afraid, I can't… do that."

Juicebox sees through Airy’s lie, and pressures him further. “WHY NOT. You took us here, take us back! It's not like any of us want to be here anyways, you prick.”

Hexagon adds on, making Juicebox’s point more clear. "Exactly. If you somehow teleported us all into another plane of existence, you can most certainly take us out!”

Airy didn't respond, and just continued to ignore everyone else. "Okay, I'm gonna give you your new names now.." he said, as he dropped several name tags from the sky.

Display ran over to catch the gently falling name tags out of curiosity. "..Which one is whose??"

"Oh, uhhh I didnt think of that.. uhrm,,,, just choose one you like, I guess." Airy said in response.

Hexagon then looked at the name tags, confused. He then curiously took one of the name tags and looked at them. “Hexagon...? Okay, sure. Yeah. Real clever.”

Display followed, picking up a nametag of their own. "Display? I mean…. Sure?"

Ella picked up their own name tag, and like everyone else, wasn't satisfied. "Wh... Shuttle... Cock? What.. kind of joke is this to you? It’s Ella."

Feather didn't say anything. Being in the plane was different and alarming, they weren't even sure if it was even real, but it beats being back home- if you could even call it that. There wasn't much waiting for them when they returned. They grabbed one of the nametags, it read "Feather". "That's stupid,” they whispered to themself.

Juicebox then walked towards a nametag and picked it up, squinting their eyes. “Juicebox…? My name is Fractal.”

Airy leaned forward in interest. "How do you like your new name, Juicebox?"

“I doN'T. What's this competition about anyways? Are we competing for who has the worst name or something?” Fractal said. Or, Juicebox, according to Airy.

"I hope none of my friends or family know about this. they don't need to be concerned..." Display mumbled something quietly to themselves as the unusual nature of the competition started to get to them.

Ella still thought she was dreaming. Then again, she wasn't thinking anything right now. Feather snickered at the sight of that.

Lavadrop fell asleep. The name tag landed next to them, and nobody read it at the moment.

"Anyways, now that you all have your new names, we can start the competition…" Airy said.

"...This better be quick." Hexagon responds, in a deep and monotone voice.

To Hexagon’s shock, 6 poles suddenly dropped from the sky, piercing the ground albeit slightly unstable. Hexagon just stared at them with a surprised and slightly scared look, and didn't say anything.

Ella held up a fist. "I swear, you better not call me... Shutt... Listen, there's different names you could’ve thought of but that, y'know that Air man?"

Feather simply smiled at them, finding their frustration slightly amusing.

Airy proceeded to state the rules of the challenge. "Okay so, your goal is to stay on top of the poles,, the last two to fall off their poles win…immunity. Okay… 3, 2, 1…"

"But we're not even on top of th-" Hexagon said in the midst of Airy’s countdown before getting cut off.

“...Go.” Airy said, as the contestants were suddenly teleported to the top of the poles. Ella, or, Shuttlecock now, tried to keep her balance as straight as possible. But balance is hard when you're hungover, and after only a few seconds of wobbling, she fell down, clinging onto Feather's pole.

Feather looked down to meet their gaze, the challenge would've been easy for them since they could easily climb the pole should they ever fall off and float to the ground, given there wasn't any wind, but if Ella was able to climb up successfully they would surely push them off.

Shuttlecock was essentially half asleep at this point. Yet, she was still holding that grudge against Feather, putting up one fist in the air towards Feather. Yet, this only made Shuttlecock move down the pole even more.

What was she even fighting for? Shuttlecock didn't care to answer that question, Shuttlecock didn't care about the competition anymore. Shuttlecock was the kind of person to take revenge, no matter the reason. She didn't really take into account that Feather was, well, a feather, when she started climbing up the pole.

Hexagon maintained his balance for the time being, as he then looked at Shuttlecock and Feather's predicament. He silently smirked to himself a little, knowing he might be able to last longer than he thinks he could've. But on second thought, does he even want to be here? What is he even fighting for? He thought to himself about whether he should just jump down himself or not.

Display simply sat on their flat pole. Being a computer monitor, they could easily maintain stability.

Feather leaned closer to Shuttle, conflicted. A fall from that height for a weighted object like Shuttlecock would definitely pose some sort of injury, but... If they climbed up, who's to say they wouldn't topple down again? They would bring them both down.

Not to mention, even if they had no idea what they were competing for, they still wanted to win the challenge, just to be better at it than anyone else. Wasn't it better that one of them won instead of neither?

But still- they'd feel bad letting them fall, and whatever would happen should Ella succeed climbing would be far more interesting. They made up their mind, as they slowly reached their small hand outward towards them.

Lavadrop, now awoken from the sudden teleportation, started to think about the voice controlling the world around them. “Hey, uh… You. The voice in the sky. Who even… are you anyway?”

“Oh, uh… I’m… Your host. Airy.” he said in response.

“..Host? Doesn’t that mean… This is all just a game show or something? What’s the purpose of this?” Lavadrop asked.

"Because, you could… win a wish. For anything you want." Airy said. This caught the attention of everyone in the plane.

“Wait- anything??” Lavadrop asked, in shock. He didn’t expect that kind of response, but this caused him to be more determined. “Well, damn. I guess I'm gonna need to try now.”

Hexagon looked towards the ground down below, and put his hands closer to his chest. He thinks for a moment, as now he knows what he's here for. He has a chance to do anything. Would he risk staying here longer for that prize alone?

"...Anything?" Feather said, now realizing what that meant. They were now hesitant about helping Shuttlecock, but out of kindness, they still held their hand out for her.

Several minutes passed, and Lavadrop started getting bored. Thus, they started asking Airy questions. “So, uh… How long are we gonna be stuck up here? Days? Weeks?”

"I, uh, don’t know." Airy responded. He recalled his previous season, which turned out to be the only fully successful one. Thinking about it was the only way he could get a complete answer on how long the contestants would be there, but he still didn’t have the effort to calculate the answer to Lavadrop’s question.

“Mm… can I get a rock?” Lavadrop asked.

"...No."

“Can I get... a stone?”

"Still a no.."

“How about a pebble?”

"Why do you…want a rock?"

“To throw at someone to make this challenge go faster!”

"That's… not really allowed."

“Oh, alright I guess.”

Lavadrop then glanced towards Feather, and attempted to get their attention. “Hey.. feather! Guy?”

Feather didn't think Lavadrop noticed them, and simply tilted their head in response.

“Yo! Feather guy! I'll give you 2 bucks if you jump off right now.” Lavadrop said, attempting to fool Feather into getting themselves out.

Feather, however, isn’t easily swayed by Lavadrop’s attempted bribery. "I live in America! 2 bucks can't get you shit! Also, I'm not a guy."

“Well. I tried." Lavadrop said to himself, now running out of ways to try to outsmart his way to victory.

Shuttlecock continued to climb up the pole as Feather put out their hand for her. Shuttlecock didn't know if she should trust Feather or not. What reason did Feather have to help her, anyway? Shuttle didn't care about winning, she didn't care about the competition right now, she was hungover and extremely tunnel-visioned. And on the other end of that tunnel was beating Feather. But, Feather was helping her. Shuttlecock looked down, and then back at Feather, and down, and back at Feather.

She took Feather's hand, and reluctantly grabbed onto it. She didn't know what to do, but it's not like she was going to hold on much longer. With her other hand, she flipped Feather off as she slipped closer towards passing out.

Feather, now startled, looked back at Shuttlecock and tightened their grip even harder, grabbing on with their other hand, disregarding how she flipped them the bird a second ago, they tried to pull up, but they were starting to lose their grip as Shuttle started to fall out of consciousness. Their claws now digging into her arm.

Juicebox was overwhelmed by all of the things going around them. They didn’t know what to think, as they could barely comprehend the chaos that was going on around them. In turn, they start to lose balance, and fall off of their pole.

They didn’t realize just how high the poles actually were, and once they did realize, they were only a few feet away from the ground. They braced themselves for impact, but to no avail, as they splattered on the ground, dying.

Everyone else could only watch in horror.

.

.

.

What was around Juicebox was just nothing. Nothing except pale orange all around them. A reflection under their feet. They took a step, and colorful lines flew away from the impression.

They didn't know what had happened.. The last thing they remembered was screaming in fear as they hurtled toward the ground. But that now seemed far away from their ethereal surroundings. It was just them, and what looked like two armchairs in the distance.

What were those...?

Suddenly, Juicebox reappeared on the plane, revived. Just like that, the old scenery popped back into existence. They glanced over their shoulder, a look of shock and horror on their face.

"Okay um.. since Juicebox fell off their pole, they're up for elimination. The next person to fall off their pole will also be… up for elimination." Airy said, showing no care for what just happened to Juicebox other than the fact that they fell. Lavadrop looked further down out of curiosity until he suddenly slipped off the pole, grabbing the side for support.

Juicebox suddenly realized their predicament, and in desperation, with tears forming at the corners of their eyes, they started running as fast and as far as they could - hoping no one would stop them, until they were silently teleported back near the poles.

"NO!!!" Juicebox yelled out as they fell to their knees. They don't know how, but what they saw wasn't like anywhere else. It was peaceful, and nothing like the hellscape of what the voice called the "plane" was. "PLEASE TAKE ME BACK! TELL ME WHAT I HAVE TO DO!"

"You… have to be eliminated." Airy responded. Juicebox questioned further. "How do I get eliminated? Come on. Tell me." Determined, they pointed their finger at the air.

"Well, you're… already up for elimination. You just have to… get voted out. By the.. Viewers." Airy said, although seemingly not caring much about the conversation, like always.

Feather eavesdropped on the situation at hand and now realized that objects can somehow… come back to life? They then figured it was easier to just let go of Shuttlecock and let Airy recover them. It was a selfish decision, and they knew that, but they didn't know about the person clinging onto their hand, did they? They wanted to leave, right?

Feather whispered, "I’m sorry.." before letting Shuttlecock fall to the ground.

"And Shuttlecock is… up for elimination." Airy announced, solidifying the challenge’s conclusion. “Just…give me a second to revive them."

"...Huh? What... oh. I fell asleep, I guess..." Display said. They seemed to be surprised that they managed to survive the whole way through without doing anything.

“How many more of you guys am I gonna have to fight for my survival with… I don't hate you, I just… I wanna live, okay?” Juicebox said, expressing their emotions. They then proceeded to try to convince the ‘viewers’ to get them out. “…Viewers, if you're watching this, and you hate me, just vote me out and I'll be gone from this hell forever.”

.

.

.

All Ella saw was a farm against a field. It was her old home, well, farm, that she had spent most her life in.

After she was 18, she was kicked out of the house for not doing much. Ella moved to Iowa, but it wasn't easy and made her financially unstable. Ella also started having signs of mental instability, and didn't really have a purpose for herself right now.

Maybe.. maybe this competition could help her. Maybe this could bring her back. She just wanted to reverse time and make better decisions.

She remembered how her friend Thames watched as she disappeared from view. The two were watching TV together, and she just... disappeared.

Thames wasn't really what you would call a friend though. He hung out with her sometimes but he didn't have all too much emotional care for Ella.

Ella wanted to stay now, but in just two seconds, Ella was teleported to and back from her family's farm to the Plane.

She wanted to go back.

Hexagon slowly slid down to the ground and dusted himself off, as Lavadrop jumped off and face planted onto the floor.

Display had been standing on their pole, having no idea what to do. “How do I even get down…” they asked themselves, trying to come up with a way to get down safely. The pole was very uncomfortable anyway.

"...Seriously, how do I get down?” Display declared, fully aware that their durability wouldn’t be able to withstand any method that the others seem to be doing. “I'm not gonna break my leg or shatter my screen…"

Juicebox recognized Display’s predicament, and yelled out towards Airy. "Hey, air person!!! Get Display down!"

Display and any contestants still on their poles were promptly teleported to the ground.

Shuttlecock just sat there, in much worse condition than everyone else. She tried to get up, but fell down immediately due to her main skirt being partially torn from the fall. It was permanent now.

Shuttlecock turned around and looked at Feather, without any emotion. A moment later, she just passed out.

Airy was gone then, messing around in his dimension as his contestants remained stationary after the challenge, waiting for something to happen.