A Little Less Sixteen Teams, a Lot More "Paint Me"

**Reality TV Host Don is back for another season of The Ridonculous Race! The theme of this season and our thirty two competitors, including two returning vets from Total Drama Tumblr, arrive at the first location and are informed what this season holds in store for them. Although the teams end up tricked by the host, our teams put up a good fight, finding themselves solving a puzzle to reveal the next location. In the end, one team finds themselves snagging first place.**

1b: November 12th, 2015
 Location
 Challenge

## Prologue

**“TOTAL DRAMA PRESENTS:**

**THE RIDONCULOUS RACE: NORTH AMERICAN TOUR!”**

The words flashed brightly across the screen, surrounded by a colorfully lit up logo before fading out instantly afterward to show a beautiful city now. The sky was clear and the buildings almost sparkled in the sunlight. Tall buildings, short buildings, a circular structure—which was obviously a spectacular sight when the sun set in the distance—and the horizon all were panned over as the camera rolled along. Lowering from the beautiful sky to the lower portions where the people freely roamed, the sight of a lovely coastline danced along the bottom of the camera where people could be seen casually walking along the sidewalks, unaware of the camera filming them. In the distance a horn from a ship echoed through the air before the serenity was interrupted by the introduction the audience had long anticipated.

“This is Vancouver, the city ranked third for the best city to live in, yet the actual person the city was named after, Captain Vancouver, hated its guts the moment he set eyes on it.” A familiar disembodied voice began to speak, obviously not sparing this wonderful city a great roast. “Where you’ll hear people call it the Hollywood North and the air is so clean that even it can sparkle in the sunlight.”

“Last time on The Ridonculous Race, eighteen teams raced around the world, competing for one million dollars. Only the bravest, most dedicated, and most fierce,” as Don spoke the camera flashed to images of MacArthur and Sanders rushing across the screen. Sanders arm, broken and bent out of proportion in one scene and fixed up the next, “Could lose to the most bromantic duo ever to hit the television screen.” Don’s voice mockingly deceived the audience watching for the first time. The camera flashed to a large suitcase, containing the same indefinitely craved amount of money as last season just to emphasize his next segment of speech. “This time, sixteen teams will be racing all around North America for the chance at winning one million dollars!” As he spoke, the camera showed the globe, though stay put on the aforementioned continent. The golden lines swirled around the globe, hitting in precise locations to give foreshadowing to where exactly they were going to be headed this season.

The camera flashed to reveal the host of the Ridonculous Race, Don, who was standing with his back to a crystal clear sky. Turning away from the sky, the sight of a building that might as well be 100% windows became visible. “Behind me the teams will be arriving at the eye-catching Empire Landmark Hotel to start their race for one million dollars.”

The camera zoomed out, showing a full body shot of the not-so new host, “I’m your host, Don,” he started, hands going up in the air as the camera zoomed in, “and you’re in for another exciting season of…The Ridonculous Race!” He finished before the camera zoomed all the way into his face, where he flashed a camera-ready grin, complete with a comedic twinkle-like sound effect added post processing, leading right into the theme song with a fade.

## Part 1

The camera faded back in from the official intro of the series to a scene of the famous Empire Landmark Hotel. The tall structure appeared to glisten brightly in the sunlight, windows making up a large portion of the building, accompanied by balconies at each window. Although the building was tall and skinny, it rested on top of a parking garage, the entrance obscured by the location Don was standing, which was for the best, seeing as it probably had cars entering it at every opportunity.

Don could just barely be seen standing in front of the building’s entrance, and both people and vehicles zipped by the structure. Even though it looked like the streets were buzzing with traffic and pedestrians crowding in areas, only the sound of distinct background music could be heard. That was, until Don began his true episode introduction. “Welcome back for another season of The Ridonculous Race!” The show host cheered in a genuinely enthusiastic tone. As per usual, his face was spread into an excited smile and his makeup, which probably had taken hours to perfect, was on point.

The camera, in a flash of white, suddenly focused on him as he began walking down the street in front of the hotel. “As we speak, sixteen teams from all across the globe are readying themselves to embark on a race around the continent of North America!” Don threw his arms up into the air in excitement as he explained the predicament these teams were preparing themselves for. Suddenly, the sharp noise of microphone feedback rang throughout the vicinity closest to Don; his face scrunched up in mixture of pain and annoyance. Placing his finger up to his ear, the loud clammering of who sounded like the director of the show barked orders toward Don. Lowering his hand, he turned his attention back to the camera. “Yes! Just like last season, this is ***NOT*** a race to the death!” He reiterated for the audiences at home, smile returning back to his face. “Now that that’s out of the way, let’s meet our teams,” he continued, stopping right before the camera flashed away from him to reveal the newest arrivals for this season’s race for one million dollars.

The camera switched over to a plane flying in the air. It didn’t look any different from normal commercial airlines and had no logo on it; however, inside its structure awaited two contestants, who looked more like they were ready to take their school finals than compete in a race around the world.

One of them was busy scribbling notes down furiously as his glasses-clad eyes were focused in on a tv provided on the plane. On the screen appeared to be the last season of the Ridonculous Race, showing Tom and Jen arriving on the yacht in the Mediterranean episode. Although he looked rather scrawny compared to the seats, his fair skin stood out from the dark blue of the chairs, and he appeared completely driven by his mad dash to collect the notes on the screen. He was clothed in a plaid sweater vest hued with varying shades of green, and both tanned khakis and a pair of white sneakers clung to him like a magnet. His chestnut colored hair furiously bounced as he began to read over all of his findings from the show on the screen.

He turned his attention to the girl sitting next to him, attempting to communicate his findings with her, but she brushed him off as she continued to apply her makeup. Her tanned skin and on-point makeup made her seem like she didn’t need anymore, but she continued to apply it anyhow, wanting to obviously step off this plane ready to impress. She wore a blue plaid jacket with a white undershirt, baring her midriff, along with a pair of jean shorts and brown uggs. Her beach blonde hair was perfectly pushed back for her to continue her makeup; however, the plane suddenly bounced over turbulence and caused her hand to move, lipstick forcefully trailing up her face and into her hair, causing the poor girl to let out a shriek of agony.

“Our first team is Lyndon and Pembroke, the classmates who didn’t even become friends, until Lyndon pointed out that they’d been neighbors for twelve years! Someone call a tutor for Pembroke, because that is pretty…bad.” Don’s disembodied voice laughed upon acknowledging this.

The camera, in a flash of light, changed scenes, allowing the first introduced duo to speak to the audience. The both were in a location similar to where the duos from last season spoke—Lyndon standing, Pembroke sitting. Behind them stood a map of North America, and across the bottom of the screen the words, “Neighbors: Lyndon and Pembroke” appeared in a green bar before slowly fading out as they began to speak.

“Hi guys~!” Pembroke’s makeup appeared to have been repaired as she eagerly waved to the camera, face twinkling slightly from her concealer. “My na—!”

“Who are you talking to..? That’s just the cam—!” Lyndon cut in, face completely covered in confusion, turning to face Pembroke only to have her slide her hand up to his lips, covering them effectively, silencing the younger male.

“Shhhhhh.” She chided him. Returning her attention to the camera, she waited for him to stop and a sufficient amount of time to pass before she began to speak once more. “My name is Pembroke Garcia, and this is my partner, Lyndon Price. We’ve been friends for a few years now, and we’re such a dynamic duo that I *KNOW* we can win this!”

Completing her segment of the interview, she turned her eyes toward a clearly mesmerized Lyndon, his eyes having been star-struck since the moment she placed her dainty finger to his lips.

“Do you want to say *anything*?” She asked, clearly thinking his silence was due to respect rather than a sudden daze.

Snapping back to reality, Lyndon cleared his throat and—with a lovely voice crack—attempted to mend the situation. “What? Oh, um.. I think you covered it…” Before the camera cut away, he placed his hand to his head and stared forward in complete dismay while Pembroke merely removed her compact case from her pocket to check her facial contouring.

The camera quickly switched away from the distraught girl on the plane to a pair of near identical looking young adults sitting first-class in the airplane. The female twin slept soundly, a brightly colored leopard print nightmask resting above her face. Even while asleep, her facial features were obviously excited. Her dark, tanned skin stood out from the blue plane seat, and her long, charcoal colored hair didn’t even appear to have a strand out of place as she snoozed. A magenta hair bow sat daintily in her hair, complimenting her aqua green t-shirt accented with a white flower pattern, four pink leaves radiating out from its center, and a multitude of black stripes lined across the edges of the shirt. A ruffled magenta skirt laid from her waist to just below her knees, a studded belt loosely wrapped around it, and a pair of magenta sandals were worn around her feet. She was also adorned with rather costly looking jewelry; a choker around her neck, pearls around her left wrist, and four multi-colored bracelets—one for each color she was wearing—around the other.

The male—obviously her brother—was far less relaxed in his expression. Instead of spending the time sleeping, he read a book whose title could not be discerned from where the camera was located. He was far more plainly dressed than his sister, wearing an aqua green unbuttoned, collared jacket with magenta accents and shiny white buttons over a grayish-white shirt with both the same flower pattern his sister’s shirt had and black edges. The sleeves of the aforementioned jacket were also rolled up past elbows. He wore a pair of black jeans, which covered most of his white sneakers.

“Our next duo are these twin idols, Rosamie and Ronnel.” Our megalomaniac for a host continued off from the previous team. “You know, for a pair of so called ‘idols’, you would have *thought* I’d have heard of them. In fact, I had to check the internet of all places to prove the legitimacy of their claims!” Don’s voice soon tapered out, revealing our new duo having taken their place in the interview room. The green ticker bar soon appeared, followed by the words “Twin Idols: Rosamie and Ronnel.”

Ronnel and Rosamie appeared on the screen, Ronnel standing while Rosamie rested on stool, and both flashed a movie ready smile toward the camera. Rosamie’s eyes were glinting with an unprecedented amount of excitement as her brother began to speak, his voice matter-of-fact. “Rosamie and me have been involved in the superstar lifestyle for quite sometime now.” He told the camera in front of him. Lifting up his hands, he began to point at his fingers with everything he said next, emphasizing his point. “You know: tours, concerts, guest appearances, countless conventions with fans–!”

“And now we’re super excited to be a part of the Ridonculous Race!” Rosamie interrupted, evidently her excitement getting the better of her. Ronnel glanced at her but didn’t dare try to cut her off to finish in this case. Instead, he simply shrugged his shoulders and allowed her to continue, though a hint of annoyance played in his features. “I mean, a tour around North America, seeing its sites and people? How cool is that?!” Rosamie continued, hands balling up into little fists. Squeezing them tightly, she raised them to chest level and bounced in her seat.

Striking a triumphant and flawless pose, Rosamie sent the camera a peace sign and sang out, “Wish us luck Blooming fans! Woo!”

Her brother, still slightly annoyed, only mumbled a less than enthused, “Yeah, it’s gonna be quite a trip for us,” before the camera faded out.

Switching screens again, and playing an altered version—for copyright reasons—of Ghostbusters, the camera showed the interior of another plane but this time it switched to what appeared to be a handheld camera’s screen–the rec icon and battery icon flashing on screen–showing the dark tanned face of a bi-toned teal haired boy, his pink eyes scrunched up in concentration as he turned the camera this way and that. His hair was styled with the darker teal pulled back and pinned up out of his face, keeping his entire face clear of anything but baby hairs. As if his hair was in necessity of needing to be held back, a golden cross pin was clipped into it. The camera lowered down as if nearly on cue to reveal his plain and dull outfit of a simple black hoodie, lock necklace that dangled loosely and dangerously around his neck, and black skinny jeans.

Before turning the camera to his bored looking companion, he flashed a large smile of excitement and winked. The camera, going out of focus for mere seconds, captured the exact moment his partner yawned. As the camera faded back in, it revealed a rather attractive looking person with dark brown skin and chocolate colored eyes that shined rather purposely through their yawn-induced tears. Their outfit was more interesting than their companions, yet it still had a semblance of boring to it. They wore a black jacket that was aligned with horizontal red and black stripes, adorned by two pockets on the chest, and a pair of black pants. Atop their red hair was a black newspaper boy hat that slightly covered one of their eyes and around their neck was a choker that had a lock dangling from it just like their partner.

“Who you gonna call?” Don started, voice mockingly singing the only part of the song he couldn’t get in trouble for. “Certainly not these two, because they won’t solve your problem but prove you have it! Meet Eli and Kennedy, the Paranormal Specialists!”

The camera flashed to the interview room, showing the same two sitting in front of the North American map. At the bottom of the screen, the faded green box slowly sprang forward, showcasing, “Paranormal Specialists: Kennedy and Eli.”

“Sweet babies!” Eli started, eyes sparkling with excitement while his hands firmly grasped the camera in his lap for support. He sat beside his partner in investigation, who decided that standing better suited them for this interview. “We’ve known each other for *ages*! Honestly, we’ve never actually been outside of Europe much before…so this is definitely going to be a change for us!”

Shifting from one foot to the other, Kennedy smiled at the camera, face showing a hint of excitement to it. They adjusted their hat and decided to speak now that Eli seemed finished for the time being. “Though, we are certain we’ll see something to investigate on.” Kennedy glanced over at their excitable friend and then back to the camera. “It’s going to be an adventure for sure. I’ve heard a great number of stories about the United States and its hauntings. For instance, the city of Savannah is said to be the ‘most haunted city in all of America,’ but for certain, I cannot be. While I’ve been doing my research, Eli has been packing the necessities for our trip, which I am hoping includes a necessary amount of batteries…”

Hearing Kennedy mention batteries, Eli’s eyes immediately widened. From the audience’s point-of-view, it was rather easy to tell that he’d forgotten the batteries. Clearing his throat, he threw the subject aside and continued on, “Do you think we’ll find some more evidence to support our ideas about the existence of paranormal anomalies?!” Eli asked, voice pumped up now. “If we get to see Savannah, we’re gonna totally have *this* baby,” he tapped the camera in his lap as if it were a dog, “On the entire visit!”

“I’m sure this trip will most definitely serve us well,” Kennedy mumbled. “As long as you don’t drop the camera again.”

“That *one* time was an accident!” Eli yelled, lifting his hands up into the air; ironically, the camera tumbled out of his lap and went crashing to the floor. “*…**That***was also an accident!” Before the camera switched to another team, Kennedy’s hand flew up and smacked them in the face.

The camera, now like the one used for the first two teams, panned to two more girls sitting on the same plane Eli and Kennedy were riding. One of the girls appeared to be blogging on her laptop, gushing over things the camera was unable to pick up from where it was stationed. Blonde hair spiraled down from her head to her mid back, and her bright blue eyes appeared to be focused more on the device at hand rather than the competition. To contrast her near ivory colored skin, a dainty red bow laid atop her hair, and she swayed her legs to and fro, showing off a pair of bright red high heels that matched her lipstick to an almost exact shade. On top of that, she pulled off her pastel pink and purple dress tastefully.

In contrast, the girl sitting next to her had a slightly darker appearance in terms of what she wore, and was engorged in a hardcover novella of an indistinct title. Her multi-colored hair, pulled into two ponytails, was pink dyed pink on the right half and black on the other, making even Melanie Martinez proud. Her burgundy colored eyes focused intently on the pages within the novel, and her pink lips curled with enjoyment. The features on her face were sharp, appearing to match this girl’s wit. She wore a black dress accented with white stripes and tassels, as well as a pair of black boots with light pink socks going up most of her calf. Arguably, the most notable thing was how pale her skin was; the contrast amped up by the mostly black outfit the girl donned.

In a moment of sheer, bubbly excitement, the blonde haired girl got her friend’s attention, tugging on her shoulder for the other to take a gander at what she had found in her adventures on the internet. The bi-colored hair girl simply glanced at the screen, then down to the dress she was wearing, before simply shaking her head no. Upon the apparent rejection, the ray of sunshine simply shrugged and went back to looking up whatever she happened to be looking up.

“If Yin and Yang had human personas, it would be in the form of these two odd girls!” Don’s voice faded in to say. “Meet our next team, Mia and Midori!”

A change of scene to the interview room showcased this duo of rather odd-looking girls once more. The two adorably dressed girls both smiled ecstatically toward the camera, until Mia began to eagerly chatter away. As she did so, the words “Odd girls: Mia and Midori.” Slowly faded off of the screen. “I’m so excited to be on the show with my best friend in the universe!” Her red lips pulled back into a bright smile as her eyes darted toward the girl next to her. The bi-color haired girl returned the smile and turned her attention to the viewing audience.

“Yeah, the two of us make the **best** team.” She elaborated, hands going up to continue on, patiently awaiting Mia to include her next bit; it was almost as if she could sense the girl’s next move without even trying; however, this didn’t hinder a slightly annoyed expression about the situation, regardless.

Mia, as if on cue, began to chatter away once more. “We work together perfectly; it’s like we’re the same person!” She exclaimed, hands flying up into the air.

Midori, noticing her chance, continued on with her tidbit, eyes flying back to Mia to make sure of her opportunity. When she was certain Mia was done, she opened her mouth. “With *her* ambition and *my* intelligence, the money is *guaranteed* to be ours!” She grinned, eyes dancing with a proud lightning.

It didn’t last long because her express became rather irritated when her teammate lowered her arms and glanced over toward her. “…Wait, *how* much money is it again?” She asked, finger going to her chin in thought, eyebrows scrunching together.

“…I literally told you *before* this interview started, one million dollars.” Midori reiterated, eyes staring at her teammate.

Mia’s expression immediately changed from confused to elated, a bright smile returning to her cheeks. “Oh, yeah!”

Midori could only turn her head and stare into the camera at this point, glad the interview was almost over. “…at least I hope we can win this” she mumbled, a sheepish smile gracing her face before the camera blacked out to another team.

The camera cut in from the setting of the plane to the sea directly below it, revealing two extremely attractive looking males. They appeared to be coming in from the ocean on a ferry boat together, both allowing the wind to whip at their bouncy hair. The taller of the two wrapped their arm around the shorter and sent him a collected smile, only to receive a less excited glance from the other.

The two boys were leaning on the railing of the ferry as it continued to approach the docks, giving the audience a clear view of their hairstyles and clothing choices—completely and utterly opposite in terms of relaxed and casual. The taller of the two had short dark brown hair that stopped along the back of his neck and hung over his ocean blue eyes. His skin was a porcelain pale color that accented his eyes perfectly. He wore a button up blue shirt and a pair of cerulean skinny jeans along with black converse and a black beanie to flawlessly finish off the outfit.

The shorter one of the two had shaggy bleach blonde surfer hair that contrasted his tan skin, perfected by the mole that rested beside his mouth. On top of his head, he wore a beanie, which was probably lent from his brother, that kept his hair from slapping his face from the fierce winds. His eyes were as brown as milk chocolate and seemed to be studying the ocean more than the one next to him now. He wore a baggy black tanktop and a pair of khaki cargo shorts. His feet might as well have been bare from the chacos he wore to complete his relaxed style. The most noticeable part of his outfit, however, was the Lokai bracelet around his wrist, giving the outfit more than the plain colors of black and beige.

As if to upset the bonding moment between the two boys a wave came crashing from the ocean beneath them and soaked them both. The shorter one laughed and seemed calm about the unfortunate series of events; however, the taller of the two began to swipe fiercely at his hair, face riddled with horror at it being wet. “**SPEAKING** of Yin and Yang having human personalities, let’s go to the literal duo of polar opposites themselves, Grayson and Nolan–brothers not from the womb but ones who will go to the tomb.”  Our host announced the duo of boys as the camera faded out into the oh-too familiar interview room, the shorter of the two boys sitting while the other stood. The words “Yin and Yang: Nolan and Grayson.” scrolled across the screen, vanishing a few moments after they appeared.

The one who was taller than the other by about a foot had a big smile on his face, while the other had a neutral expression. The one with the smile was the first to speak.

“Hi there! Nolan here, and this is my brother, Grayson. But we call him Gray. Even our mother does. We’re brothers. My family adopted this little guy when he was 5.” The tall boy said and reached over to pat Grayson’s head in a demeaning way.

Grayson didn’t say anything but his eyes were full of annoyance. When Nolan saw he wasn’t going to reply, he spoke again.

“I can ***NOT*** believe that this is happening! We’re here, at the Ridonculous Race! **THIS IS *SO* EXCITING**! I can’t wait to meet Don, and get started! Isn’t that right, Gray??”

Grayson looked at Nolan for a moment and flashed a hint of smile before speaking.

“Sure, brother. It’ll be a radical ride. “ He said calmly.

“Ignore him. He’s excited on the inside.” Nolan said, directing the attention back to him.

“I just can’t wait to travel to so many places! The farthest *I’ve* been from home is California for a show choir competition. This is gonna be such an adventure!” He continued in the same tone.

“Sure is. We’ll have an awesome story to tell in the future.” Grayson said with a nod.

“**ESPECIALLY IF WE WIN**!” Nolan cried with a huge, crooked grin.

Grayson side eyed his brother with a look of annoyance again, but didn’t say a word.

“… You’re no fun. Don’t you have anything to say about this?” Nolan pestered.

Grayson shrugged.

“I guess I just have to say that I’m stoked. This is gonna be such a great experience. I can’t wait to explore all the different places and try some new things. I think it’ll be pretty tubular. And I—“

“I can’t WAIT to meet all the beautiful babes!” Nolan interrupted with a sly look. He was obviously bored with Grayson’s answer.

“Nevermind.” Grayson said calmly.

After yet another change in scene, the camera focused in on a duo of two females sitting side by side on a train. If this competition was one to see who could wear the most outlandish outfit, those two would have taken it hands down. They longingly glanced out the window, practically bouncing in their seats with excitement at the adventure they soon would embark on. The pale one was lanky, her radiant green eyes caked with copious amounts of mascara and two silver snake bite piercings glimmered in the light of the train. Her hair was blonde and spiky, two bangs dyed black and blonde in a striped pattern. She wore a hot pink tank top with a black zebra print pattern emblazoned upon it, and grayish black tights. What appeared to be a handmade silver necklace jingled along her neck in timing with the movements of the train, and two blocky bracelets in the same coloring as her tank top hung from her thin wrists, and she also wore a pair of white tennis shoes.

The one with a far darker complexion appeared to be quite a fair bit chubbier, yet she looked absolutely flawless. Like her friend, she wore layers of mascara around her bubbly hazel eyes, and both a lip and eyebrow piercing stood out against her blemish-less face. Her hair was dyed a dark yet vibrant hot pink, and a red ribbon was clipped into her hair. She wore a necklace with what appeared to be a small dog-like creature around her neck, and her attire consisted of a white and black striped outfit, dark blue jeans, and a pair of black sneakers.

“Yeesh, who invited the *circus* to town.” Don gagged, evidently finding their outfits hideous. As rude as he was being, the two girls thankfully weren’t able to hear his voice over—not yet, at least. He paused for a moment, realizing what would happen if the internet fans these two girls possessed were to get ahold of him for his remark.. “… That was a joke by the way, don’t get the-” he spat out rapidly, trying his best to cover up his passive aggressiveness. ”- ***A***-***ANYWAYS***! Meet Lexi and Natalia, a pair of Scene Queens who hope to use their internet fame to s*omehow* win the race!”

The camera cut out relatively quickly, revealing our two Scene Queens seated plainly in the interview room. “Scene Queens: Lexi and Natalia” ticked across the bottom of the screen in the traditional green scrolling box.

The two girls both had a cheerful demeanor to them as they sat there in the room. “O-M-G, Natalia and I are like, *sooooo* ready for this competition!” The blonde haired girl clad in pink squealed excitedly, practically bouncing up and down in her seat. She glanced over at her friend, Natalia, who gave a simple nod of her head in agreement.

“I-K-R! This race will, like, help us become even more fantastically fab!” The pink-haired girl eagerly replied. With a slight smile, the Lexi began speaking again, sticking her arm into the air as if to explain something.

“Like, L-O-L, we have been so close since like, the fifth grade! So, of course we wanted to compete on this race together!” The blonde haired girl continued on, Natalia tilting her head with a smile. “Yeah! This race will be the sex! We’ll get to use the money for like, so many things!”

Lexi took over from there, interrupting her friend with what she had to say. “Like my fashion line!” As soon as she finished, her friend continued on. “And my college tuition!” After a slight pause, the girls began to laugh.

The camera panned out from the Scene Queens to zoom right back in to reveal two rather odd-looking–which is a lot considering–contestants sitting right behind them. One rested her head against the train’s built-in pillow, clearly taking advantage of the time she was spending on the train for the time being. Her eyes were shut and her body posture completely relaxed, as if she were headed for a vacation and catching up on her beauty sleep rather than heading for a race around North America. Her companion next to her appeared to just be relaxing with his sandal-clad feet on the footrest below the seat in front of him. His gaze was primarily situated on the scenery passing by the train, though his eyes showed a less awe-worthy reaction than Lexi and Natalia. Both these figures appeared to contrast the bubbly girls seated directly in front of them.

However, their appearance wasn’t nearly as relaxed as they were—well, not both of them.

The one seated with his feet propped up on the metal footrest wore a red mask across his face which accented the view of his sharply focused hazel eyes—as if he was preserving his secret identity for the viewing audience. His shoulder-length coffee colored hair rested behind an outfit not too dissimilar to one a luchadore might wear–being red in color and accented with gold. A blue feathery dreamcatcher necklace attached to a golden lace was wound around his neck, gently sitting above the man’s bare chest. His black, opened finger gloves suited the outfit as well as his blue jeans, which were, like his shirt, accented with gold. And finally, his feet were adorned with a rather simple pair of brown sandals.

His teammate, although her outfit wasn’t as eye catching as his, was dressed extravagantly. The wrinkles in her face hinted that she’s had a rather tough life. Her blonde hair flowed beautifully down to the tips of her chin, and a bright crimson lipstick accentuated a rather quaint pucker to her face. Her black and violet blouse provided an interesting contrast to the superhero-like outfit her partner donned, and a violet ruffled skirt rested comfortably onto her legs, which complimented the flip flops she wore being—yes, violet. As if she couldn’t appear to dress more extravagant for an event such as this, two pearl earrings bobbed against her hair as the train chugged along.

As the train chugged along, a woman began to walk down the aisle–probably toward the bathroom–and inevitably tripped when the train surged forward. In a flash, the one adorned in superhero garb jumped up and managed to stop the woman from tumbling to the dirtied floor of the train and managed to pull her back up to stand once more with relative ease.

“It’s a bird; it’s a plane! No! **WAIT!** It’s two superheroes on a train!” Don’s voice shouted out, mostly filled with fake enthusiasm about the people he was introducing. “Masquerade and Encore, two superheroes from Sin City ready to compete to either save the day or die trying! But, hey, they took Edna Mode’s advice, so there’s no way they’ll go down *that* easily!” As he finished his friendly jab about the two, the camera cut out to reveal the two aforementioned superheroes seated in front of the North American illustrated map. Across the bottom of the screen rolled out the usual faded green box which displayed, “Superheroes: Masquerade and Encore” inside it.

“The Ridonculous Race,” Masquerade mused, as he sat in the interview room with his arms crossed, “This will either make us big name superheroes or cause us to become international jokes. Whoopee.” He spun a finger around unenthusiastically.

“If I end up famous and they make a movie about us, do you think they’ll cast Johnny Depp as me, hun?” Encore asked, turning towards the other superhero who she looked at as a son.

“Friendly reminder, old lady,” he smirked and gave in retort, “You’re a too hot to trot drag queen. Not Edward Scissorhands.”

She tapped her lip for a second before smiling, “Yeeeeeah, true.”

The camera switched from The Superheroes to the screen of a phone, revealing a lengthy text message being typed up at the speed of lightning. The message, by now, was so long that the other person’s conversation piece, granted they even had texted, was completely gone from the screen. For the sake of *some* privacy of the contestants and their family, the name at the top of the screen and anywhere in the message was completely blurred out, leaving only the imagination to think up what poor soul this person was typing to.

Instead of remaining focused on the image, the camera zoomed out to reveal whose body was attached to the hands. To anyone familiar with Total Drama Tumblr, they would instantly recognize the cheeky face of Cleo—the shipping queen of the century, though she probably didn’t stack up to Doll, who most certainly took the spot of the shipping deity– Ashby-Putaho from Total Drama City. Her eyes were furiously scanning across the screen, which the camera could see through the reflection in her extremely dark brown eyes. As to why she was here, the audience could only assume she’d sunken her teeth back into Total Drama for another shot at a million dollars.

Her appearance, though, had changed since the last time the familiar audience had seen her, but her hardcore blogs probably had not. Her long, curly red hair had changed into a dark brown fading into a light brown. On her body, she wore a black cropped sweater, that was more fitted than baggy, a pair of high-waisted shorts, and black platform shoes on her feet. Around her neck clung a cheap-looking plastic necklace that you would commonly find hipsters wearing like they were a fashion trend. Yet of course, her skin tone remained the ever-so beautiful ebony tone it was.

The most surprising part of this wasn’t Cleo, however; it was the near identical person seated next to her, blue colored eyes glancing at the screen, perplexed by the rapid finger fire. The boy adorned an unbuttoned denim vest hoodie with gray hood that could cover his moussed twisted haircut, gray sleeves to cover his arms, a white T-shirt, and black jeans. On his feet, he wore a pair of gray sneakers. As the camera continued to zoom out, he reached over and shut off the screen to her phone; however, any conversation they were about to have was covered by Don’s voice.

“Now, here we have the wonders from down under; Jason and his twin sister—and self proclaimed ‘shipping goddess,’ Cleo!” Don’s voice exclaimed aloud, even himself finding the words he was speaking hard to believe. “Quite frankly, I know next to nothing about these two other than what I’ve just stated,” The host shrugged, not finding it too alarming he barely knew these two contestants. “But Cleo’s full name, when you take the first letter of each word, spells C-R-A-P,” He counted each letter on his finger, before continuing with what he had to say, “And *that* is comedic gold.”

The camera switched to the already quite acquainted interview where the green bar, fading out as the two began to speak, revealed the duo’s label, “Aussie twins: Cleo and Jason.”

“My last experience with being on reality television was… less than impressive,” Cleo began, her voice coming out a little more Australian than she intended as she habitually chewed on her lip. “But experience never hurts, I guess.”

Shooting a sideways glance at his sister, Jason clarified, “Experience with challenges and stuff, or trying to out an *actual murderer*?”

“Whatever. There’s no way I’m going to let some poorly placed words and a tranquilizer dart discourage me, though. I’m still hooked on the reality bug, and when I saw an opportunity to get back on the show I love with the producers I love to hate, I took it.”

“*And…*”

“And I brought company, clearly,” she noted with an eye roll and a laugh. “Enter twin brother, Jason.”

“Cleo and I are kind of inseparable,” Jason beamed, straightening his glasses, “and she’s *going* to need me with her if she wants to win, which I’m guessing she does as she couldn’t physically shut up about it on the flight over.”

“We *will* be leaving this season victorious. The other contestants had better watch their backs, ‘cause the Aussie dream team–”

“The True Blue Crew–” Jason joked.

“The *Thunder from Down Under*… is taking home the million.”

The camera switched over to two teens walking down the sidewalk, one placing a mask over their face while the other simply pulled her hands from her jacket pockets, ready for something. The one placing the mask over their face had shoulder length black hair that flipped out into green dyed tips and slightly tanned skin. They wore two shirts on them—one a teal tanktop with a star printed in the center of it, surrounded by diamonds, and a cream colored undershirt that stopped at their elbows. The one who removed her hands from her pockets wore a pink floral hoodie with blue flowers patterned all around it and a white undershirt.

As Don’s voice started to drift in to introduce the pairing, it became evident they weren’t exactly heading straight for the meeting area for the beginning of the race just yet. Their path embarked on a beeline toward a small child holding a bag of lollipops.

“The weird doesn’t stop there; meet GG and Muff, two kids who couldn’t enjoy life without a little pranking to fill their town with fear,” as Don finished his explanation, GG tapped a small child on his shoulder on the side Muff, who had firmly placed a freaky clown mask over their head, was walking. When the child turned his head to face the direction of Muff, he shrieked in horror and ended up bolting down the sidewalk, tears streaming down his face and bag of sugary goods left behind.

Muff stripped off the mask and swiped the bag of lollipops from the ground. Both of them continued down the street with a joyful set of giggles.

“They prank me and I *may* penalize them,” Don’s disembodied voice pointedly mumbled before the camera switched to the two pranksters seated in front of the North American map. Of course, as they sat there, the words “Pranksters: Muff and GG” appeared.

“Okay, so G an’ I ‘ave been close since, well–I can’t even remember!” Muff shrugged and flashed a gap-toothed grin as they spoke, glancing at GG. The latter of the duo was texting and paying no mind to the camera, sticking her upper lip out a bit as she focused on hitting the keys on the pad. “Yo, G.” Muff held out their arm and poked the brunette’s shoulder. GG’s gaze tiredly shifted to Muff before her lip retreated back to its normal position as she opened her mouth to speak.

“Yeah, I remember when we met.” She lazily murmured, slipping her phone into her floral hoodie. “We were in what, 5th grade? Muffy offered me this muffin they said had chocolate chips in it. I ate it and they were actually raisins, so I punched them in the face and it f\*\*\*\*d up their teeth.” Of course, the word was censored, but it was clear what GG had said. Muff grinned wider to show off said teeth, which were crooked and chipped. “Of course, I only contributed to that a little. Blame the rest on our other escapades, right?” The duo laughed a bit and Muff crossed their arms before explaining.

“We prank people. It’s what we do!” GG pulled out her phone and began texting once more as she let the other speak. “Everybody loves a good ol’ scare now an’ then, right? Our motto is ‘You can never have too much fake blood’!” The dark-skinned demigirl glanced at Muff in confusion.

“I thought our motto was ‘F\*\*k the rules; we have money,’” She mumbled.

“Well, I recently found out that only applies to people who ain’t broke.” Muff and GG exchanged awkward glances before GG began sniggering.

“You d\*\*\*\*\*t.”

“Hey, shut up!” The gap-toothed prankster lightly punched their partner, who in return punched them back. One could easily tell the punch GG had swung was considerably harder than the one her friend had given her.

“Oh, eat a d\*\*k!” Muff laughed as they rubbed their arm and winced. GG smirked in victory and went back to texting as a thoughtful look of vengeful plotting crossed the other’s face. The interview ended with Muff pulling a fake spider out of their pocket and holding it over their hoodie-clad friend’s bent neck.

As the screen flashed back to Muff and GG walking down the sidewalk, now enjoying their confiscated treats, a blur passed by the two of them leaving behind a cloud of fumes that caused them to break down into a karma-worthy coughing fit. It wasn’t a bird, plane, or anything the Ozone Layer would approve of; no, it was two greasy looking contestants, riding in a 1955 Buick, the engine spewing enough fumes to choke anyone who walked within ten feet of it.

The one driving the car was resting his arm against the downed window, currently wearing a pair of sunglasses, had blue and black slicked back hair that was primped up and blowing in the wind. He wore a typical black leather jacket and a grey undershirt, and had the traditional golden skin tone all bad boys must have had. The radio was blasting Inner Circle’s Bad Boys to fit the fact they were probably going thirty over the speed limit here.

The one next to him had a more unique style than most would associate with Greasers. Her head was covered by a black cat shaped hat with goggles pushed up on it and her hair was light blue and pink, yanked up into pigtails that flapped behind her furiously in the wind. Her wardrobe consisted of a black leather jacket and a bead-covered bra, leaving her stomach exposed with abs strong enough to break John Cena’s hand.

“Now bringing up the rear, we have Babe and Hoss, two siblings with enough Grease to give America a reason to run for hills.” Before Don could even finish, the car came rushing by him, causing the same reaction in him as it did for GG and Muff. “AND enough fumes to rip our Ozone Layer clean apart!”

The camera flashed to the two in their interview, Hoss slicking back his hair with a rather old-looking comb while Babe was busy cheering, her hands thrown into the air. Across the bottom left of the screen, the faded green box slid out with the words, “Greasers: Hoss and Babe” written inside it. It slowly began to fade out as the two started their interview.

“YEAH-HA!” Babe lowered her arms and turned to the screen, obviously satisfied with ruining the ozone layer with their car’s fumes. Her pigtails glistened in the lighting of the room and showed off the pink and blue colors more prominently. Her jacket hung loosely off her as if it were given to her as a hand me down instead of bought from a store.

Shooting the camera a killer smile, she propped one leg over the over and leaned forward excitedly. “Finally, we’ve made it to tha big daddy of ALL Fat Cities!” She bragged, punching a fist into the air. “Can ya believe it?! Two small town greasers, makin’ it to tha boss leagues!? I’m so cranked!!”

“We’s here to go ape on this here show!” Hoss added, hands moving to his jacket to sift through his pockets. His demeanor was just as confident as his sister’s, eyes shimmering with enough of an ego to battle Zeus himself. Rerunning his comb through his har, he swiped it through it like a credit card and let his hair bounce back up into the exact same position it was before.

“Ain’t any way these squares are gonna beat us to tha million washingtons!” Babe stuck her hand up, thumb pointed as if she were hitch-hiking on a trail, before throwing it back like an umpire at a baseball game. “Get bent, losers; you’re gonna need a time machine ta beat us!”

“’Course, we’s ain’t gonna be tha type ta give anyone tha royal shaft, but don’t go testin’ us! Tha last thing ya wanna do is go cruisin’ for a bruisin’! We’s good at two things: fixing up hot rods and givin’ out free sandwiches—*knuckle* sandwiches!” With a raised fist, Hoss made it clear to the camera he wasn’t afraid of picking a fight, but what exactly constituted why he’d pick a fight in the first place was unclear.

With another change of scene, the camera went from focusing on the pair of greasers to a Taxi Cab. The vehicle pulled away just as quickly as it had arrived, revealing our next duo who were—without a doubt—prepared for the grueling race ahead. The girl had to have been at least six foot two, standing tall and proud as she strutted down the street with a confident swagger that could rival even the most outspoken of politicians. The posture of her body and how she presented herself just radiated all that needed to be said of her personality; she was as cool as a cucumber and certainly self assured. Her ebony skin glimmered in the sunlight as her curly black afro bounced with each step. She wore a green headband to hold up the massive locks of hair, and two large, hooped earrings swayed to and fro from the lobes of her ears. A silver peace sign necklace dangled freely from her neck, and a dark green jacket with silver highlights accented her yellow t-shirt, dark blue jeans, and silver go-go boots quite well. Anyone who was knowledgeable in the Total Drama Tumblr series would recognize this girl as the disco diva from Total Drama High School herself, Starr Bellerose.

The male who was far, far shorter than the girl beside him appeared to be in either his forties or fifties, and, unlike the girl, appeared to be bored out of his mind. His skin was the same tone as the girl’s, and he sported—rather similar—curly black hair, although his was far shorter. He also had a bushy black mustache right above his lips. For his choice of clothing, his green sweater matched his white dress shirt and yellow tie—as well as the girl’s outfit—rather well. However, he still had some semblance of individuality; he had tan khakis and black loafers in comparison to the other’s more modern appearance. As the duo trudged along, the girl had to practically nudge him along to keep him from stopping dead in his tracks and returning home. It appeared she was unfortunately related to this man.

“And now for a—thankfully—more normal team or once– “ Our host began, a slight sigh of relief escaping his lips “– we have Gary and Starr Bellerose, a father and daughter team who are certain they will absolutely crush the competition like a classroom full of college students on finals day!”

As our host introduced the two, they managed to walk right on up to Don. With an - overly loud - clearing of the throat, Gary attempted to get his attention, resulting in a confused look from the taller male. Shaking his finger, Gary simply pointed to a name tag he had on his person, which, in bold black letters, read *“Mr. Bellerose.”* The camera then changed to show the duo in the interview room, Starr with her legs crossed and Mr. Bellerose simply glancing into the camera. The green bar scrolled across the bottom of the screen, soon followed by “Father and Daughter: Gary and Starr.”

“After Total Drama High School ended…” The afro-haired girl began to state, her tone smug, “… I became a changed girl. Nuh-uh, no more of that witchy Starr Bellerose honey.” She bragged, her arrogance appearing to *not* be what she changed for those that knew her.

Her dad didn’t have much to say, simply nodding along with what the girl spoke. “So when I found out I had the chance to compete in ***ANOTHER*** reality show? Hon, I took up that offer quicker than you can say ‘Starr Bellerose’!” She flashed a prideful smirk into the camera, placing her hands onto her hips. Her dad, glancing over at the girl, finally began to speak.

“Of course… my daughter needed someone to compete with. And, of course she would ask me. I *did* have to take off work, but she is my pride and joy. I could not just say no to her, especially when she seemed so enthusiastic about this race.” The older man stated aloud, his dull tone droning on and on in a soothing lullaby. Starr appeared unfazed by the relative faint way her father spoke, and just continued from where he left off.

“And my dad is like, my hero. If *I* was him, sugar, Id’ve been *insulted* if she asked someone else to compete!” As Starr talked about her dad, a slight smile worked it’s way onto the man’s face. It appeared he did, in fact, have human emotions. “Oh, and another thing! Phoenix honey, I hope you’re able to watch me in action, ‘cuz when we win, you’ll have a surprise waitin’ for ‘ya!”

Another taxi soon pulled up**,** taking far longer than the previous one to pull away. The unmistakeable sound of grumbling could be heard as the vehicle pulled away. A petite, older looking woman smiled pleasantly to an even older looking man carrying several bags. The woman had bodacious dark red hair styled into a long bob. Her skin was tanned to an extent, and lipstick a shade of red that matched her hair almost perfectly complimented her two big, bright brown eyes. She was dressed rather plainly, wearing a white button-down blouse covered by an orange cardigan, brown slacks, and a pair of sharp brown heels. The wrinkles on her face twisted with her genial smile as she turned to face the man.

The man next to he appeared to be even older than her. His hair, while short, was salt and pepper styled in color, being mostly black yet accented with numerous graying spots. His icy blue eyes pierced past the tan and wrinkles on his face, and a scowl furrowed its way onto his face. He dressed in similar colors to the other, wearing an orange golf tee, a pair of vibrantly blue jeans, and a casual pair of white tennis shoes.

As the two began to walk, the woman smiled warmly at the male, resulting in the frown etched onto his face to slowly work itself into a smile as well. Wrapping her hand around the other’s arm, the woman held onto the man as if they were on a first date all over again. Before the two could continue their peaceful stroll, Don’s voice faded back in once again.

“You know, I do feel bad for that poor guy. I’d *hate* to be dragged around to places I had no intentions of going to!” The host mocked the man, noticing the expression on his face having shouted ‘I don’t want to be here.’ at first. “Just kidding, of course! Also competing, Husband and Wife; Frank and Helen Davidson!”

The Camera, in an abrupt cut, focused on the interview room, where husband and wife sat side by side in front of the North American map. Across the bottom of the screen, the words “Husband & Wife: Frank and Helen” scrolled right on by.

“Hello there!” The energetic woman exclaimed, a New Jersey accent prominent in her speech. “My name is Helen, and this is my wonderful husband, Frank! Introduce yourself, dear!”

The older man grunted in response.

“He’s not very happy to be here,” Helen confessed, “He’s a bit camera shy.”

“**AM NOT**!” Frank screamed, glaring at his wife. “I’m *missing* valuable work time, which means we are **LOSING** ***MONEY***!”

“All of it will be worth it *when* we receive one million dollars!” She assured her angry husband. “*Besides*, you needed to get out of that stuffy building and be outside for a change.”

“This better be worth it…” Frank muttered.

“Anyway, we want to say ‘hi’ to our two wonderful children, Jane and Isaac! We love you two!” Helen cheerfully said. “They are staying at my sister Denise’s house for the time being.”

“I hope you kids brought Goldie.” Frank said, his face softening at the thought of his children.

“***GOLDIE?!*** **OH MY GOSH**!” The woman exclaimed.

“Forgive her,” said her husband, “in light of her excitement, she has forgotten that we bought a goldfish for our children.”

“Well, I’m sure they brought him!” said Helen. “We must be going, wish us luck!”

“Oh *joy*.” sarcastically whispered Frank.

“What was that?” questioned Helen.

“Nothing, honey!” Frank said quickly.

As the camera flashed back into the scenery of the city, shifting to yet another taxi pulling up. Stepping out of it was a slightly older couple than the two before; however, this one appeared *far* more lovey dovey than Helen and Frank did. As the woman’s feet touched the ground, her hands went straight back into the taxi where she pulled her husband out after her. He laughed and blushed a dark hue of red when she brushed a soft kiss against his forehead.

The woman’s husband had a rather portly figure to him. His skin had a light tan the contrasted both his bright green eyes and short blonde hair. His round nose and smile gave off a pleasant—if not slightly charming—vibe. He wore a poofy blue hat decorated with a white letter ‘M’. It was… certainly unique. He wore a dark blue suit accented by a black collar and two silver buttons, along with an unbuttoned white button-up shirt right underneath it. The man also had a pair of black slacks, white socks and blue moccasins.

The wife of the group had a sickeningly sweet demeanor to her. Like her husband, she had a rotund appearance. Her red hair was styled primped and properly at first, however, the wind quickly gave it a more rugged and wild appearance that the woman, as well as her husband, failed to notice. Her round lips curled into a smile, and a brown masquerade-mask sat over her nose, highlighting a pair of blue eyes with false pink eyelashes. She wore a simple pink shirt with white accents, and a pair of dull blue jeans that went down to cover the tops of her white and pink sneakers. Finally, she wore a golden locket around her neck, which jingled loosely as she walked.

A laugh bristled from the couple and they turned to head down the street. As they walked, the older gentleman reached into his pocket and removed his wallet where he opened it, letting an accordion of photos fall out in a single, absurdly long line. The two leaned against one another, his arm wrapping around her shoulders, as they marveled at the sight of the photos. Whatever was on the albums couldn’t be caught by the camera, but it made the couple appear even happier than before, if that was humanly possible.

“Now introducing another Husband and Wife duo: Alan and Candi, Two Peas in a Pod!” Don introduced, voice filled with his usual dose of makeshift enthusiasm. “Hopefully these two won’t make me stare at pictures of their kids…” He mumbled before the camera switched over to the interview room. The green bar faded into the room with the words, “Alan and Candi: Two Peas in a Pod” sprawled across it. The line faded out almost as quickly as it came in.

As the camera switched, it revealed the two lovebirds snuggling with each other lovingly. Their eyes were locked onto each other like heat seeking missiles, until Alan noticed the camera rolling. He quickly nudged his wife; however, she ignored him and ended up going in for a kiss. The duo rapidly began to passionately kiss each other, which, unsurprisingly enough, managed to remind everyone of a duo from last season who shall not be named. The kissing continued for a while, until the awkward cough of the camera man broke them up. Alan, taken by surprise, ended up blushing, while Candi began to speak for the interview.

She smiled widely and clapped her hands enthusiastically. “Ah, honey~  I am so happy that we made it to the show.” She began, turning her head to glance at her still furiously blushing husband. “Aren’t you glad that we made it here too?” She asked before blowing him a kiss. This only caused his blush to grow much more red as he began to speak.

“Y-y-yes sw-sweetie. I-I a-a-m *sooooo* h-happy tha-a-a-at w-we m-m-made it-t to t-t-the sh-show.” He stuttered out, attempting to blow her a kiss just as full of love as she did to him.

Candi ended up giggling like a schoolgirl and turned her head to wink at the camera
as she said, “Yeah, the way I like it~.”

Alan took off his hat and slicked his fuzzy hair back, giving the ol’ razzle dazzle to the cameraman, who was off screen; however, it didn’t seem to have any real effect, just receiving a small cough.

Candi’s cheeks spread into a smile once more, deciding it was time to actually get started. “Aha, now come on honey. We gotta explain on how we feel about making it in and how awesome it is that we will take it all and spend the money partially on us and most of the money to Ed’s college funds, right?”

“Yes sweetie, indeed.” Alan replied, placing his hat back on to his head to focus more on the interview. Reaching over, he pulled her into an embrace. “Yes, sweetie indeed. Indeed. We want to make sure that our little Ed makes it far and we want to show how much he love him.”

“Right~ Right~ I mean look at my little boy~!” She cooed, retrieving a photo from her pocket of a tiny baby boy who was covered in chocolate pudding and smiling with a toothless grin. “I cannot believe that he has grown so much since then right?” She asked, placing the photo back into her pocket as she began to shuffle around for another item while Alan replaced her in the conversation, producing a snicker and rubbing at his eyes to rid himself of a few tears of pride.

“Yeah, that is true too.”

“Our young boy is growing so fast.” Candi added back in, a tissue now in her hands so she could blow into it. “We are so hyped to enter here for the experience and to make sure,” she paused to blow her nose once more into the tissue. “That our little Ed gets the money he needs. A gift from us….”

While Candi sniffled and waved toward the camera, Alan finished up the interview with a loving memento as the camera began to fade back into another team. “Your loving parents, Candi and I… We love you, son.”

After that heart felt moment, the scene soon switched over to the Vancouver streets, revealing a  bus pulling up to the curb of the hotel, quickly speeding away as another pair of contestants stepped off the bus, dozens of bags at the ready. The duo were grabbing each other’s shoulders, jumping around, giddy with glee. It was evident the two of them were ecstatic they were here. The male had dark skin, his hair was black and short, looking like it had a fuzzy texture to it at the same time. His dark brown eyes squinted with a friendly form of joy as he jumped around with his friend. Upon his body, he wore a pair of black jeans, a long sleeve black and white flannel shirt, and a set of white sneakers. The most notable feature about this competitor, though, was his makeup; it was a perfect display of spot-on–although subtle in sight–mascara and winged eyeliner. It was fit enough to make even the most professional artists feel insecure about their skills.

His friend had a gorgeous toned tanned skin that glimmered in the sunlight. Her curly locks were styled into an afro updo—half of it being cut into an undercut—that was dyed golden blonde. Her golden curls bounced along with the woman, and her pink tanktop and green capris stood out against the relative monotony her friend’s outfit possessed. Her blue nails and yellow socks matched well with the rest of the colors, and she used white sneakers to pull off the rest of her outfit flawlessly.

As they began to walk, they soon found themselves passing by a beauty boutique of an undisclosed name. Although they paid little attention to it at first, they quickly backed themselves up, pressing into the window. Even though you couldn’t see their faces, it was evident they were fawning over the sheer amount of fabulousness going inside the boutique.

“And to introduce a duo of make-up effect artists that would be more at home competing on *Face Off* rather than The Ridonculous Race, Erin and Irene!” Don announced the two who’d much rather obsess over a beauty parlor than make their way over to where they were supposed to.

The camera soon faded into a scene of the duo in the interview room. The words “Stylists: Erin and Irene” scrolled across the green bar we’ve so become used to.

“Irene and I are really looking forward to showing our skills on TDRR!” Erin bubbled, leaning forward excitedly.“We’ve been best friends for forever.” Erin looked towards Irene, and the pair shared a grin.

“I think it was, what, sixth grade when we met?” Irene questioned. “So it’s been like ten years, and we know pretty much everything there is to know about each other.”

“It’s been our dream for a long time to open up a business together, so we’re hoping to use the money after we win to get that started once we get out of college!”

“We’ll be able to handle anything they throw at us!” Irene said enthusiastically. The pair high-fived before the camera cut back to the action.

Walking towards the hotel on foot, another team could easily be spotted. The slightly taller female had beautiful, bronze colored skin. Her face was round in shape, and her dark brown eyes burned with a fiery passion. She had a wide nose, large lips, and, although a scar ran down her left eyebrow, her impression was quite stunning. She had two boxer braids that flowed down the back of her head and ended around her elbows. The woman wore a black tank top that ended above her navel, sitting well atop her muscular frame and showing off a set of washboard abs. She also wore a pair of green cargo jeans and white tennis shoes.

Walking beside the woman—arms interlinked with her— was a slightly shorter young woman. Her skin was far paler than the girl beside her’s, being a meer light tan. She had shoulder length teal hair, a flat fringe shooting all the way across her forehead. Although her face was as round as her friend’s, her features were far pointier and slightly smaller in size. Her electric blue eyes complimented the color of her hair perfectly, allowing her to stand out in a crowd. She wore a black pair of gages in the lobes of her ears, as well as a piercing in left eyebrow. On her stout body, she wore a black t-shirt and dark blue jean shorts. She also wore a pair of black tennis shoes.

The fairer—complexion wise—of the two girls, unhooked her arm with the other and went off course. Her goal was unclear until she plucked a rose from a sale’s woman’s hands, replacing it with an unspecified amount of money. As she returned to her partner’s side, she re-linked her arm with hers and gently offered her one of the roses. The other smiled gratefully, a blush gracing her bronze cheeks, and accepted the offer, raising the flower to her nose to smell.

“Aw,” the camera panned from the duo to show Don as they approached the hotel. “Next up are this lovely duo of kiwis all the way from New Zealand, Eva and Korā! ” The host introduced the two women, a charismatic smirk on his face as he did so. “Let’s just hope they’re not as flightless as the namesake of their team.” Don chuckled, his joke obviously funnier to him than to anyone who might have overheard it.

The camera switched to the interview room, where the two women sat excitedly in front of the North American Map. A green bar with the words “Kiwis: Eva and Korā.” scrolled right on by as they began to speak.

“Oh gosh, I can’t believe we’re here!” Korā said excitedly, a noticeable New Zealand accent to her voice.

“Yeah everything’s so different, you know the call the footpath a sidewalk? What’s with that?” Eva commented in a similar sounding accent.

“We’re in the big leagues now Eva!”

“Sure we are,” Eva said with a smile towards Korā.

Panning over from the adorable love-invested duo, the camera stopped on the doors to a nearby entranceway. Although at first it was as silent as a mouse, the distinct sound of screaming and barking was soon heard approaching the doors. As if running from a horde of zombies from a video game, the doors swung open comically to have two people come rushing through like holiday shoppers on Black Friday. Behind them came a rather angry looking dog and a young man who was desperately trying to grab the leash.

The one obviously leading the pack stood at a mere 5’3”. Her curly, dark purple hair stood out against her dark skin. The only shape her body could be described as having would be that it contained a very impressive amount of muscle for her size. In her nose was a gold colored septum piercing, and for her wardrobe she wore a pink T-shirt with the phrase ‘**Men Are Pigs**’ plastered onto it in black bold text. She wore a pair of black leggings, and a rather heavy set of combat boots adorned her feet.

The same could not be said for her teammate, however. He was already winded from the frantic exercise and out of breath. Just by glancing at him, he appeared to be severely overweight. As well as that, his skin was so pale, you could mistake him for a vampire! His chin and neck was covered in a gross looking brown stubble, and a pair of black rimmed glasses covered his eyes. He had the Guy Fieri look in terms of his shirt; wearing a  black button up with—thankfully fake—flames burning along the bottom. He also wore a pair of black cargo shorts, and his feet were adorned with both socks and sandals. And to top it all off, atop his brown mop of hair that was pulled into ponytail laid, most disturbingly, a black fedora.

“They should be glad that this isn’t Grand Theft Autobahn, because their fingers would be so sore from pressing ‘X’ to run,” Don joked from the safety of being far away from the duo. As they raced down the street, the young man was able to grab the leash of the dog and tug it back, only for him to be yanked along with the dog. The bigger of the two suddenly threw his packet of beef jerky he’d been holding in his hand to the ground, which caught the dog’s attention and seemed to stop it in its tracks, saving them both from being eaten alive by the angry animal’s bared teeth.

“Last but not least, we have Uylssa and Dylan, two Internet Junkies, who probably shouldn’t check Tumblr after they compete in this race.” Don continued the introduction, before the camera switched over.

The camera switched to the interview room where the two from before were eagerly awaiting to be interviewed for the show. Across the bottom of the screen rolled out the green box with the text, “Internet Junkies: Ulyssa and Dylan” written in it until it faded out.

Ulyssa, seated on the complimentary stool began to speak first, moving her hand up to point at her teammate. “At first Dylan didn’t want to do this ‘cause he didn’t want to leave Wart and he thinks we’ll have to exercise, but I made a deal that he’ll be the brains and I’ll be the brawn, so here we are!” She bragged, hands going to her hips confidently.

Dylan, deciding to stand this time around, crossed his arms and smirked at the camera, neckbeard shimmering in the light. “Yeah, Don should just hand the million to us right now, we got this in the bag.”

As if remembering something, Ulyssa’s mouth twitched and she threw her hands up to speak. “Oh yeah, and we’ll start blogging about our experiences here from my totally unbiased point of view, the URL is–!”

“-We agreed we would write about this on Reddit!” Dylan interrupted her, receiving a glare in return.

“Um, first of all, Reddit’s for gross sexist neckbeard trash, and second of all…” Ulyssa began to speak, however, the camera quickly began to speed up, skipping over her rant until the editors decided it was time to just move on to another team.

“Welcome to the Ridonculous Race,” Don began, eyes glancing over each and every face, mentally reciting a roll call before continuing; there was no point in starting a race if something *had* to be changed! He already booked every single hotel, after all. “This time around, we’ve decided to give you a new perspective on travelling by taking you on a tour all across *North America!*”

Several eyes fluttered this way and that while some murmurs could be heard throughout the contestants. Everybody was aware of this when they signed up, but they didn’t appear ready for the information, even still.

When the voices depleted to nothingness, Don cleared his throat to continue. “This is the starting line for your twenty-two part trek across this very continent!” The camera, although at first zooming out to try and catch the full grandeur of the hotel, soon changed to a scene of a snowy wonderland. The camera itself panned to the side, slowly revealing a yellow carpet oh-so carefully placed right before the front steps of rather quaint looking brick building. The host soon hinted at what this place actually is, stating, “As always, each part ends at a Chill Zone, where the last team to arrive and stand on the Carpet of Completion…” The host tapered off, attempting to build some semblance of suspense. “*MAY* be cut from the race.” A couple of the teams, despite already knowing this before hand, simply gasped at this revelation as if it was the first time hearing the news in person.

With a slight pause, Don continued. “Sixteen teams will be competing, but only one team will reign supreme to win the grand prize of…One. Million. Dollars,” at the mention of the money, the screen flashed to the ceremonial— and quite overused—briefcase so full of money, there was no plausible way it could actually be shut. When the screen was tired of showcasing the money, it flashed back to the eager faces of the contestants, eyes widened and mouths stretched to form smiles from the ones viewed on screen—as it panned, it captured Ulyssa and Dylan smirking in confidence, Eva and Korā gripping each other’s arms, Erin and Irene giggling, and Nolan adjusting his beanie.

Clarification and mischief played in Don’s eyes when the camera switched back to him. He knew what lay ahead for this naïve group in front of him, all challenges surely waiting to ruin their hair, makeup, and possible their lives. “This race is a test of your strength,” as he spoke the camera began to show flashbacks from the last season. A scene flashed by that depicted Emma tugging at the crank to lower Kitty into the pit in Russia; “Determination,” the camera rolled footage of Sanders’s arm bending at awkward angles when she retrieved the ticket from the sewer; “And willingness to sacrifice your pride and dignity in order to win it!” The camera then revealed the disturbing image of the bullet ant over mitt, protruding the bone that then smacked Mickey in the head. Behind Don the eyes of some contestants glanced around in a sudden nervous realization of what that meant.

Don, losing their interest for a few mere moments managed to leave their surrounding company to be a few feet away from them. “Look over here!” He suggested, voice back to cheerful business. When the camera panned from the confused contestants to Don, he gave his signature smile, lovingly accompanied by the twinkle. “This is the official Ridonculous Tip Box—otherwise, known as the Don Box.” Sliding his hand up the Don Box, he stopped it on the giant red protruding button at the top and continued, “Press this button and you’ll receive your tip to help guide you through the entirety of the race!” As the host spoke, the screen flashed to show A map of the North American Continent, yellow dots rather rapidly highlighting the different locations the contestants will be visiting over the course of the race.

Moving away from the Don box, he silently stood still, allowing the contestants to glance around each other in confusion and anticipation. The soft padding of some anxious footsteps could be heard throughout the crowd.

Don’s hands slowly raised up, drawing the attention of every single contestant, expecting him to drop down and greet them with the start of the race. “Who’s ready… FOR A RACE AROUND NORTH AMERICA!?” He cheered, voice raising in response. Almost immediately the sounds of a majority of the contestants began to cheer—the Greasers probably taking up most of the noise—and some even raised their arms—sans Frank who simply golf clapped with his two index fingers and Gary who turned to stare into the camera like he was on the office.

“THEN ON YOUR MARKS…!” He started, camera zooming in on his hand.

“GET SET!” The cheering suddenly died down as the anticipation began to take place. All of the formalities had led up to this moment; all the people here were about to enter into a race around a continent–the likes of which some had never seen–for one million dollars; everyone here was out for themselves at this very moment.

The camera suddenly blacked out only to be refilled by splitting the screen into four segments. The soundtrack shifted from a light-hearted beat to a suddenly bass drum special, rhythmic beats filling the air to add to the tension. The top left came first, revealing the Superheroes. Masquerade’s eyes narrowing in concentration and body leaning forward in anticipation for Don to finish his sentence. If he could escape his crowd as soon as possible, it may give them a distinct advantage. His hands clenched into fists as he closely watched the raised hand of Don ahead of them; however, Encore’s rested eyes gleamed in the lights as she readied herself by leaning forward and slightly gripping the side of Masquerade for support in case of a rampant crowd attempting to separate them. Her eyes were on the prize at this point, and she hoped they could easily snag the ticket first and rapidly jump off. The parkour would come easiest for them if it was a race to the top of a building like the last season had given heed to. Slightly behind the tall figures of the Superheroes, the face of Pembroke could be spotted, her eyes invested in the compact mirror in her hand, inspecting the makeup she’d fixed in the interview room. Confident in her abilities, she snapped the compact case shut and readied herself by raising her arms up in a running stance, one arm holding the wrist of her teammate, Lyndon, tightly, though the rest of him was out of sight, due to Masquerade and Encore blocking him.

Next the top right of the camera came into focus, the faces of the Stylists taking over the screen. Erin’s face was nervous yet his eyes had a spark of excitement to them. The world—or rather North America–was his pearl and he couldn’t wait to explore it; there was nobody who’d judge him for his talents or skills now! He was going to show the world how his interests were acceptable *and* how he rocked at them! A smile slowly formed on his face and a newfound confidence rose in his chest.

Irene, on the other hand, had her body completely ready for Don to drop his arm to take off in the direction of the Don Box. Her eyes glanced over toward her partner’s and they both ended up with large smiles falling on their faces, then her eyes hovered back toward the red button, practically gazing a hole through it. As she began to lean forward, her hair bobbed slightly in the breeze, golden curls swiftly moving like waves in the ocean.

The bottom left appeared soon after that, revealing the two Scene Queens readying themselves for the journey up ahead. Lexi had a determined look upon her face. Her green eyes glimmered as they focused on the Don Box up ahead. She was without a doubt excited to be here, especially with someone as close to her as Natalia. The girl was determined to win this race– the fate of the rest of her life was possibly hanging in the balance here!

Natalia had a similar look of excitement to her. Her lips curled into an eager smile; her brow furrowed into a scowl that just oozed a purposeful vibe. Winning this race meant so much to her. If she won the money? Why, she could live her dreams; she could afford to go to college and live her dream job! Her pink hair softly waved in the wind as she waited for Don to signal the start of the race. To her, it felt like the wait lasted an eternity.

The bottom right came zooming in almost quicker than the rest with the Twin Idols preparing to race. They interlocked their arms and almost took a step forward in anticipation. Ronnel glanced around the contestants wearily. He knew they’d be pressing their luck here and it might help their fame in the long run; he just didn’t know if he was actually ready to take this dive, but he knew this meant more to his sister than anything. Taking a deep breath, he focused his eyes back to the front and furrowed his brow to focus on the Don Box.

Rosamie could barely contain the excitement inside her. This was their big shot back to the top of the charts, *and* she’d be fulfilling a dream to travel without having to dance around on a stage! This was similar to it, but she’d have more free range to see the world in its rawest delights! With her brother to keep her levelheaded and to make the big calls, she felt energy dance within her spirits. With one small giggle, she let her hair wave in the wind, expectantly watching Don’s hand.

Slightly to the right, the small frame of Mia could be seen bouncing in excitement; however, Midori, next to her, grabbed her arm and sent a watchful glance, extinguishing the bouncy fire in its place.

The four screens suddenly emptied out of the frame to have the singular appearance of Don, hand still raised as the drums increased in volume and speed. One more second passed and his arm shot down. “**RACE!**”

The next instant Don was greeted by the thundering and speedy footsteps of the elated cast, sending him into a stampede worthy of killing the King of Pride Rock. The only trace of Don that the audience viewing the screen could manage to make out was his strangled yelps and screams to “watch the hair!” as the herd trampled over him for the Don Box.

The first to, *somehow*, reach the Don Box were the Scene Queens, their mascara-covered eyes fluttering with extreme excitement. Natalia quickly procured the tip as soon as the large grin of the box produced it. “Like, *O-M-G*, take a bus to the Vancouver Art Gallery and find your next tip!” She breathlessly read out loud, handing the tip to Lexi who read it over as well. Behind them the Father and Daughter duo came speeding up to claim their next tip, followed closely by the Superheroes and Husband and Wife.

Helen went to press the button only to have Starr’s hand quickly slap the red device before her. “Oh! Sorry, deary!” Helen quickly apologized, sending Starr a sweet smile that led the younger girl to feel cavities in her teeth and guilt pounding in her chest for being so pushy.

Next up came Babe and Hoss who quickly claimed their tip and didn’t bother to discuss tactics. The only real glimpse the onlookers could catch was Babe’s pigtails slapping Dylan’s fedora right off his head.

“Gosh, M’lady!” Dylan spat out, not even bothering with the tip anymore. His mindset went straight to retrieving his fedora right off the ground—as his teammate, Ulyssa, snagged the tip and grabbed his arm to yank him into action.

“Get moving!” She demanded, nearly pulling him away from his socially unacceptable hat.

Before he could grab his hat from the ground, it was taken and placed back on his head without a single beat missed. The surprising part was that it wasn’t him who did it, but the mask-wearing hero, Masquerade, who tipped a fake hat at the other mockingly. “M’Pony,” he joked before vanishing into the crowd by jumping off the Don Box and over the crowd. Behind him came the–ever so–fabulous Encore, carrying the tip in her hand and effectively swooping into the crowd without even bumping a single pedestrian.

Following behind them came Alan and Candi who were trying their best to showcase Alan’s wallet-filled photo album to Kennedy. They almost were successful to distract them, until Eli snatched the tip and Kennedy’s arm to avoid further complications.

“Okay~!” Candi cheerily called after them, waving her hand in joy. “We’ll definitely catch you later on!!” Her voice carried quite well across the way; however, she wasn’t able to grab her next tip because Mia and—primarily—Midori shoved past her to slap the Don Box.

“Get moving, Mia! We’re falling behind!” She called back to her bubbly companion.

“Coming, Midori~!” Her friend called, sending a friendly princess wave to the happily married couple who were now shoving their pictures back into the wallet. “I love your album! Oh, my gosh! Your son is *sooo* cute!” Was all she could call back before disappearing into the city’s crowd to catch the bus.

The poor couple was still struggling to close up the wallet when the next team came rushing by. Cleo and Jason were hastily trying to push through the crowded sidewalk while at the same time trying to keep each other calm; crowds were never their cup of tea, even if Jason was a social person. Without meaning to, Cleo accidentally knocked the wallet out of the poor man’s hands.

“Oops! Sorry!” She called to him, hand slapping the red button right after. She turned her head and went to snatch the tip up when Pembroke’s perfectly manicured hand snagged it before her. Before Cleo could open her mouth to probably send her Doge worthy means of offense, Jason had already slapped the button and grabbed them another tip.

“Don’t do it!” He chastised her. “It’s too early for you to make us an enemy!” He grabbed her hand and went racing down the sidewalk, having to hear her complain about how rare it would be that they make an enemy this fast; in fact, she compared it to the rarity of Pepe.

Alan finally managed to scoop up their wallet and shove it back into his pants. Rushing toward the Don Box, Candi snatched both a sneak kiss and a tip from the mouth of the faker-than-the-real-thing Don Box. “Finally! We should probably start doing that when we’re *stationary*!” She laughed, reading the tip calmly—as if this were for a Sunday stroll rather than a race.

“OH, WOW!” The ecstatic voice of Irene could be heard nearby. The camera came swooping back to reveal her marveling at the appearance of Grayson’s hair. “I **so** love the look of Surfer he’s pulling off! They said it was dead in the nineties, but he’s defs bringing it back!”

“Maybe with a bit of makeup…” Erin tried to add before Nolan came rushing by, effectively pulling Grayson away from the two siren Stylists, conversing among themselves, even though Grayson was considering himself a part of this conversation; he honestly didn’t mind their banter among each other, seeing as it shouldn’t bother them if he just listened to them compliment him a little.

“Get fashion advice later, bro!” Nolan laughed, actually looking like he enjoyed this more than he should. Grayson lazily sent a smile his way and nodded in agreement, only really glad that they’d noticed him before Nolan in this case. It was just relieving to have people compliment him over his brother–just filled him with a sense of pride.

Irene noticed the sight of the surfer vanishing from her line of sight and shook her head in dismay. How in the world did she get so distracted? Then again, the crowd around the Don Box had increased when she’d spotted him, so a little dabbling in conversation before jumping head first into this wasn’t too far off of an idea.

“We’ll definitely do something with him later,” Erin urged her, receiving a determined smile back from his partner.

“I’ve got *ideas*!” Irene giggled.

Even though both teams arrived at the Don Box fairly at the same time, they didn’t bother conversing there and headed for the buses right after.

Bringing up the rear came Korā and Eva, both looking rather calm despite the situation.

Rosamie and Ronnel, despite having been determined before the initial start, had been swamped by a couple of fans who—in turn—had blocked off two other teams from racing ahead of them. “That was lucky!” Rosamie called to her brother, face filled with relief that they’d managed to avoid being stuck in last; however, Ronnel didn’t look nearly as pleased. He continued forward without a word and slammed his fist on to the Don Box; there HAD to be order for them in this race, or it’d be a waste of time completely.

Korā and Eva came up behind them and went to snag their tip, but Eva’s hand ended up touching something rather squishy and gross. She screamed and jumped back, eyes widened with terror, causing the Twin Idols to stop in their tracks momentarily.

Korā’s eyes lowered to see what had caused her girlfriend strife and glared down at the disgusting fake worm that lay on the Don Box.

“He aha te…?!” (Subtitles: What the…?!”) She tried to form a cogitative thought to showcase her reaction, but it ended up flying out in Māori. She clenched her jaw and sent a glare around to find the perpetrators.

The strangled and excited howls of GG and Muff could be heard up ahead; the tip Eva had attempted to bring up long gone by this point. “GOOD ONE, MUFF!” GG happily cackled, completely oblivious to the damage. With a quick raise of the hand, the Pranksters exchanged an overly loud high five that probably could wake the dead.

“B\*\*\*\*es ain’t s\*\*\* but scares and tips!” Muff’s voice echoed back, quoting a song for the sheer fun of it.

Korā groaned, grabbing her girlfriend’s hand to console her before hitting the button for another tip. When she snatched another tip, she mumbled threateningly and rushed after the other contestants to join them on the bus.

The camera flashed into the interview room to show Eva and Korā sitting next to each other.

Eva sat with her arms crossed tightly across her chest. Glaring away from the camera.

“Soooo, Eva here didn’t take that scare so well,” Korā rolled her eyes and laughed a little, “it wasn’t that bad.”

“It was!“

"As long as you’re fine now~” Korā leaned into Eva, “you are fine now, right love?”

Eva groaned and tried to keep a smile off her face.

The camera, with a flash of white and a ‘whooshing’ sound effect, flashed back to our host Don. Although he looked beaten and battered—his skin bruised, his outfit tattered—his hair game remained on point. Dusting himself off, a slightly mischievous grin worked it’s way onto his face.

“Now, you see, we figured just a bus ride to the art gallery would have been far too easy for our contestants. So, we concocted a little plan with a handful of these city busses, including the one all of our contestants happened to board.” The host pointed towards the bus to demonstrate his next point.

“The ride normally would have taken them about… oh, five minutes.” As he said this, the bus started to pull away from its destination. “But what they ***DON’T*** know is that we planned to have the bus take them the opposite direction of the art gallery! They’ll have to run like the wind if they wish to avoid coming in last place!”

The Camera changed position slightly to focus in on Don. However, the bus the contestants were on soon drove right past him, going the opposite direction as he told.

“Will our teams be able to find their way–or rather be able to run all the way–to their next tip; or will they be in too much *pain-t* to complete their next challenge!? Find out when we return to…. **The Ridonculous Race**.” As the camera faded out to black for a commercial break, the groaning and griping of the contestants could be heard, some of them slowly realizing they had just been tricked.

## Part 2

The scene faded back into the bus stopping at a bus stop a  further distance away than was really necessary, leaving the contestants to find their own way to the Vancouver Art Gallery. The Bus door slowly slid open and out from the inside came the Greasers, bursting through the doors without even glancing back.

“Get ya heels on fire, Babe!” Hoss yelled back over his shoulder to his sister, who was keeping up with him perfectly. “We’s got a long way ta go!”

Don’s disembodied voice suddenly voiced over the scene as more teams busted from the bus like school children after the final bell rings. Some used the sidewalks, like the Greasers, to rush in the direction the bus came from. Others—actually, just Midori and an unwilling Mia—pushed a couple of kids off their bikes to use it to gain an advantage. The Superheroes ended up using the available apartment fire escape to climb to the roofs for a shortcut, while of the more logical teams grabbed taxi cabs.

“As the teams exit the bus, they find themselves needing to use their surroundings to find their ways to the second Don Box.”

The camera flashed white to reveal the Vancouver Art Gallery, where the first to arrive was Midori and Mia. “W…We made it!” Mia sang out, placing her hands on her knees in an attempt to catch her breath, and eventually pushing the the bike against the wall next to her. Scanning her surroundings, she almost immediately found both a piece of paper on the road and a pen from the ground. Daintily grabbing the two items, she quickly began to write an apology letter. “I’m…so….sor….ry…” She wrote out, not noticing the way that Midori was impatiently tapping her foot.

“We need to *hurry,* Mia!” She chastised her, pushing her own bike up against the wall. “Do you *want* to lose the lead??”

“No, but I think it’s important that we don’t get charged with stealing~!” Mia cheerfully replied. She placed the note atop the bikes and then rushed to join her teammate next to the Don Box. Pressing hard on the top of the machine, she happily watched the ticket be snagged by her pink and black haired friend.

The gloomier girl glanced at the travel tip, her eyebrows scrunching as to say ‘is this thing serious?’ Turning to her friend, Midori exclaimed, “It’s an Either/Or!” Midori paused for a moment, letting her teammate read over the ticket as well. “Puzzle or Portrait: teams must either solve a puzzle…” The bi-haired girl began to explain.

“…Or paint a portrait of a certain famous celebrity in order to earn their next travel tip.” Mia continued from where Midori left off.

The camera, with a quick transition to white, changed to a scene of Don standing in a room with high, vaulted ceilings supported by black metallic beams with lights hanging from them, pristine white walls, and a beige carpet. Across the floor stood different exhibits of modern art, and on the walls, multiple portraits of varying sizes, colors, and styles were hung.

“An Either/Or–” Our host began to introduce the challenge as, walking down the hallway of the building. “–like last season, gives our teams a choice between two different challenges. They can either–” The camera flashed out again, revealing a large open atrium room with life-sized sliding puzzles covering the floor. “–Solve one of these sliding puzzles in order to reveal the location they’re going to visit next.”

The camera, with a fade to white, changed the scene once again, this time revealing Don standing in a room of the building where many easels covered in canvases stood, all of which were longing for an artist. Most notably, however, was that on the wall the canvases were looking away from, stood a banner with a photograph of Don charming the camera, all the while standing tall and proud. “Or portrait, where they will paint an elegant and extravagant painting of - *yours truly* - to receive their next travel tip.” As he stated this, he began to walk out of the room, revealing two curators of this museum—a young woman with stern features about her face, and an elderly gentleman with a pleasant smile.

“Teams must complete either of these tasks and report back to one of our two travel tip givers to actually receive their needed tips.”

The camera soon returned to The Odd Girls, where Midori scrunched up her nose at the tip and then turned to Mia. “Hm… I don’t know, what do *you* think we should do?” She asked as Masquerade came hopping down behind her to claim the tip next.

As soon as Masquerade picked up the tip, Encore descended down next to him with just as much grace. “Phew! I never thought we’d reach this point,” she smiled, placing her hands on her hips confidently. “But you had me to guide you through the city, so it’s not like we’d ever get lost!” She brought one hand up and gently slid it through her perfectly set hair, allowing the sun to shimmer off the strands.

“Yeah, yeah, you could say something like that, ya old bat,” Masquerade joked, shoving the tip into his jean’s pocket. “It’s an either or,” he went on to explain, trying his best to focus on the challenge at hand instead of his surroundings. This was off from an average day in the life of these two, and he couldn’t help but stay vigilant despite it all. “Gotta paint something or solve a puzzle.”

“Easy! We’ll go ahead and paint! If it’s *anything* to do with fashion, I could whip us up something *am-az-ing~*!” Encore all but boasted.

Masquerade, not exactly keen on either option, shrugged with indifference. Even if he *had* wanted to dispute it with her, nothing could change her mind once it was set on something; he wasn’t going to shoot it down. Why would he bother when it went against their morals?

“Well, since they’re doing the portrait, why don’t we?” Mia asked, smiling toward her other competitors, a small wave flittering off her fingers. In return, Masquerade and Encore sent a wave back before hustling inside the building.

“**No**, that’s too risky.” Midori stated, crossing her arms. “If we don’t get whatever it is ***exactly*** right, we’ll end up losing too much time.”

“Yeah, but what if the puzzle’s really hard??”

Midori rolled her eyes. “That’s not an issue! With my brain, that thing will be like snatching candy from a baby!”

“….You *promise* not to actually do that again, right?” Mia suddenly asked, receiving an another eyeroll from her friend. That happened years ago, and she didn’t necessarily care much to admit how much joy she’d gotten from it. Instead of giving an answer, she grabbed her teammate by the wrist and rushed inside.

Don’s voice suddenly came on once more to narrate the events happening now on screen–the camera flashed to show a line of taxis rolling up outside of the museum. The first few teams out of the taxis were: The Paranormal Specials, Husband and Wife, Internet Junkies and Father and Daughter. “As the first few teams race to keep their lead, more teams arrive on the scene, clearly determined not to fall behind.”

Eli and Kennedy rushed forward and both ended up slapping the Don box at the same time. Even though Eli jumped back and howled in pain, Kennedy merely grabbed the tip and began to read it in silence. “SWEET TAMALES! THAT HURT!” He yelled, blowing a steady stream of air on his hand.

“Puzzle or Portrait…” Kennedy read aloud. They glanced over at their hopping teammate and shook their head, stepping aside after to allow the Husband and Wife to find the tip. “Let’s go do puzzle, because I have a feeling whoever we’re painting will be a critic.”

“Oh, then we’ll join you!” Helen offered merrily. Frank simply grunted in response, as he detested the idea wholeheartedly. “We can work together to find out how to solve it, *and* I’m sure we can tell each other stories!” She offered to the Paranormal crew with a slight gasp.

Eli, whose face had less enthusiasm  about the idea than even *FRANK*, slowly nodded his head despite not wishing to go through with the idea. “Yeah, I don’t see why we can’t go helpin’ each other.”

“Then it’s a deal~!” Helen happily concluded, rushing inside with a sing-songy, “Come along, Frank!” being the last trace of her.

“Coming, Helen.” Frank called after his wife calmly. Sure, Helen’s friendly nature could land them in a bad spot with these two fellows, but who was he to deny her the idea that people weren’t all they seemed now? Later, he’d discuss how to keep her from falling into the wrong hands to avoid saying, “I told you so, Helen…”  Through Eli’s handheld camera, Frank turned his head to send a distrustful glance—much creepier through the night vision effect the editors thought necessary—at the two of them before following his wife.

The camera switched back to normal with the two Paranormal Specialists casting wary glances at eachother before, albeit slowly, following the happily married couple.

As the two went inside, the camera panned over to the Don Box, where Starr was seen rushing ahead of her father, who came trailing behind her a few seconds later. “See daddy, I told you a taxi would be *way* faster than running!” She conversed with her dad, pressing the button atop the device. Her dad simply grabbed the ticket and slowly looked over it, pausing a moment before glancing up at her.

“It’s an Either/Or; we can either solve a puzzle or paint a portrait… ” He spoke in a tone as dull as a butter knife. She simply shrugged at the revelation of this as Dylan and Ulyssa pulled up beside them, Ulyssa slamming down on the button of the Don Box.

“I think we’d have a funkier time just doin’ the puzzle; we might have to redo the painting if we get it wrong the first time.” The teenagerl uttered aloud, her father nodding his head in agreement. The two of them quickly rushed into the Art Gallery as Dylan and Ulyssa finished reading their travel tip.

Glancing over towards Starr, Dylan tipped his socially deplorable hat and started to follow her. “I’ll be doing whatever you do, m’lady!” He should be very, very thankful neither she or Gary had heard him; chances are, he would have gotten a go-go boot where the sun don’t shine if they had. Instead, Ulyssa—rather violently—grabbed his arm, yanking him back. “Uh, I don’t think so! That was so f\*\*\*\*\*g gross Dylan, I can’t even believe you said that *AGAIN*!”

Dylan groaned as he was scolded by his friend, obviously not wanting to put up with that. “Ughhh, but *Ulyssaaaaaaaaa*a–” He whined before the other girl tightened her grip on his arm. Obviously, friend or not, she was ***NOT*** going to put up with that sort of behavior.

“You are *going* to apologize to both her and the other person who you dare insult by calling them *m’lady–*” She gagged with disgust as she muttered that phrase. Evidently, she hated saying it. “–Dylan, or so help me I will write an angry vent post on *m*y blog and tag you in it for all your friends and ***my*** millions of fans to see!”

“Gosh Ulyssa, *fine*, I’ll say I’m sorry to them later! Can we just get started on the challenge already!?” The neckbeard groaned again before the other let her grip go. “Good, now we’re going to do the puzzle challenge, it’ll be quick, easy, and we’ll get out of there first!” The young woman bragged, walking ahead of Dylan and leading him like he was a little kid.

The camera panned over to another pair of taxis pulling up on the scene, Erin and Irene jumping into action, giddily rushing to the Don Box. “Can you believe we’re going to an *art museum*?” Erin asked, arm looping with Irene’s.

“*Right*? They have some of the **best** displays of how hair and makeup changed over the years!” Irene added. Her eyes sparkled like firecrackers at the idea of actually going through a history of hair. “I *bet* we’ll learn something great for the next time our theater does a production of Hamlet!”

“Oh, you’re *so* right! I can’t wait for that! Hamlet is a time for Ophelia’s hair to go from fab to drab! You think they’ll have a stop on how the Aristocrats did their makeup in Medieval Denmark!?”

“Oh, I sure hope so!”

As the two conversed onward like the birds from Finding Nemo, the other taxi revealed the other married couple this season, Alan and Candi, hurriedly folding up their wallet full of their son’s pictures. “If I had a dime for every time you *had* to pull that out…” Candi began, hopping on to the sidewalk.

“Yes, dear, you’d have enough to pay for Eddy’s college funds already,” Alan begrudgingly recited word-for-word. It was times like these that Candi could wear him down to the bone, but they had to focus on the challenge at hand, rather than their slight marital disputes; their son *had* to go to college, and it wasn’t like they were *made* of money to send him there!

“—the best part of history is how **big** hair used to be!” Irene’s voice carried over, distracting the two from their slight annoyances. “I mean, today it’s like ‘small and thin is the way to win,’ but I don’t like that logic! I think big and tall is…” Irene paused, trying to find the right words to rhyme.

“The way to go to the ball!” Candi suddenly cut in, her goofy grin escaping her.

Irene paused and nodded in agreement as her hand slapped the big red button for her tip. “I like how you think!”

“Thank you, sweetie!” Candi smiled, letting Alan go past her to grab a tip. When he successfully grabbed his tip, she kissed his cheek and caused a slight blush to go on his face.

“Aww, you two are a cute couple!” Erin happily told them, smile growing wide.

Alan’s blush only grew at this and he could only say the first thing that sprung forth in his head, “Thanks! You two do, too!” However he was completely unaware of how wrong this assumption was to the two people they’d just gotten on the right foot with.

As Erin and Irene exchanged complete flabbergasted expressions with each other, Candi and Alan rushed inside to attempt the portrait side of the challenge. “Well, we’ll see you inside!” Their voices simultaneously called back to them, blissfully unaware of how the Stylists actually felt.

The camera soon faded out, revealing that, in the interview room, Erin and Irene were laughing so hard their sides hurt, and Erin even swiped a tear off his face.

“I swear, people always assume we’re dating!” Irene choked out. “Literally everyone!” “But they don’t know-”“No one ever assumes-”“We-” The two started saying, motioning to each other, then dissolved into laughter again. The camera cut away before they could finish their sentence.

The scene shifted to the large open atrium of sliding puzzles that were just waiting to frustrate the competitors to no end. The stern looking woman from before simply wandered around the room, awaiting whoever dared to attempt the puzzle. At the entrance, the camera could see Mia and Midori walking into the room, eyes widening in realization of the struggle they *just* decided to go through.

“Are you ***sure*** we shouldn’t just go try the portrait?” Mia asked, hands placed delicately on her hips. As much as she trusted her friend on ideas, she just didn’t know if they could pull this one off.

“Of course!” Midori shot back. Rushing to the nearest puzzle, she placed her hand on the first block and examined the large structure. Out of nine slots there only appeared to be only eight blocks that needed to be arranged into a picture. The image appeared to have orange and black hues dancing across it in a Picasso type format. On some of the blocks there appeared to be words attempting to be formed through it. “This…shouldn’t be *too* hard,” Midori mumbled, pushing the first block into position with relative ease.

“Oh! You’re right! With the pieces being lighter than they look, we’ll get this done in **no** time~!” Mia agreed, rushing over to help her friend; however, Midori’s second block, which she pulled now, felt like Thor’s hammer slammed into her body causing the poor girl to be flung backwards after having to let go in distress. When she slammed to the floor, she let out a loud gasp, worrying Mia to the core that her friend had hurt herself severely. Only to heave a sigh of relief when Midori moved once more.

“WHY IS *THAT ONE* SO HEAVY!?” She screamed, hands flying up into the air from where she lie.

The scene shifted to Don, who was sitting calmly in another part of the museum. “*Some* of those pieces may be made from…marble and concrete instead of plastic.” He paused for a moment, before simply smirking into the camera. “Hey, some people have to draw *me,* which will be hard enough since there’s so much handsomeness they have to capture; these teams will have to make due with struggling to pull some of those blocks.” He smiled mischievously toward the camera before it switched back to the The Odd Girls, now pulling the block together in strained unison.

As they struggled, the second team to choose this challenge came bursting in in a hurry, that team being the Paranormal Specialists. The camera switched to Eli’s handheld device and showed a shot of the floor and Eli’s legs as he came rushing in toward the challenge area. “Oh, gosh!” He yelled, stopping to catch his breath. “I-It’s so hard…not being in Germany!” He gasped between his words, the camera suddenly going back to its original view.

Kennedy stopped next to him and patted his back before continuing his examination of the next part of the challenge. “This is…going to be complicated.” They murmured, hand going up to scratch the back of their head, hat wiggling as they did so. “If this was a challenge with wooden figure whittling, we’d be done by now, but…”

“W-Well… ” he gasped out, grunting as he finally caught his breath. “… Standing here won’t solve it, now will it? Oh, I so hope the next place is Savannah… I really could use a haunted city or something! I hope Don doesn’t just take us to these boring places!”

Kennedy’s only response was to shrug, not seeing Don actually caring much about a ghost tour.

“Well, we’ll just go around the towns we stop in and make our own little ghost hunt, huh??” He nudged his teammate in the ribs, a sly smile slowly creeping onto his face. “Then we’ll get some excitement out of this! Now get pushing!” He ordered, throwing his hand out to point at the blocks.

“***Ja ja***.” Kennedy mumbled, elongating the tone of their voice. Even though they appeared calm on the outside, a wave of annoyance filled them with his fiery nature sending him into leader mode; a mode that got them into so much trouble with authorities everywhere.

Eli gasped and crossed his arms. “I WILL NOT!”

“Well, then, don’t boss me around.” Kennedy calmly warned him, turning to the first block. “These look heavy, so we’ll need to push them together…”

Before the camera switched back to the atrium doors—where Helen and Frank came strolling in—Eli and Kennedy began to push the blocks together.

As the husband and wife duo sauntered into the room, Helen giggled softly and pointed toward the puzzles lying about them. “What do *you* think the image will be??” She asked cheerily, sending a wave to the two she’d conversed with outside. She received no wave back—as they were invested in pulling a marble block across the floor, Eli looking like he was the one struggling with it while Kennedy simply didn’t care.”

Frank grunted in reply but smiled nonetheless at his wife’s enthusiasm. This challenge may prove difficult, but at least he’d be able to do it with her after all. “I guess we’ll see if we can actually *solve* it” The man finally answered, taking her hand and leading her to the puzzle. The large blocks appeared more scrambled on their piece than the others, appearing to serve as an advantage to some teams more than others. In a similar light, a few of these puzzles could be near completion but have one piece on the other side of the board, much like the one the two Christmas hair colored teammates were working on.

“Oh, I *love* puzzles! Isaac has me help him when he has them on his homework *all* the time!” Helen laughed cheerfully, placing her hand on top of the block. “I bet this one will be just like that!” But as she tried to push on it, the block gave only a smidge of give before she slid down on to the floor, hands still firmly holding the block.

“Or…maybe this one will be like moving a couch!” She laughed, attempting to pull herself back up. When she was unable to, Frank rushed to her aid and attempted to stand her upright once again.

“We…may have chosen the wrong one…” Frank muttered pessimistically, eyes rolling up to the ceiling in disbelief.

Helen dusted herself off and glanced over at the two Specialists. Turning her head to look at Frank, she smiled. “Well, I’m sure we’ll finish this in no time! You’re a smart man, and I’m a go-getter, so this challenge won’t stand a chance, even if my shoes slide across the floor!”

“Well, this place looks clean enough…so maybe you can take off your shoes if you need it?” Frank suggested, placing his hands on the heavier block, moving it easier than Helen did. “No, wait, don’t bother, dear; I got it! You just tell me where to move these darn things…” He grunted as he pushed the block she’d tried to before. He was still uncertain if they’d chosen the right challenge, but he wasn’t going to sit here and cause the both of them to lose with his gripeing.

“Will do!” She cheerfully sang out, climbing up on top of the blocks to examine them in more detail. In a change of subject, the older woman made small talk with her husband. “Say, dear, do you think any of these kids are young enough to be adopted? I saw this *adorable* set of twins….”

“Which ones?” Frank asked, wiping his hands free of sweet and dust on his pants after successfully moving a few of the blocks.

“Oh, there’s more than one? Well, there was a girl and a boy–”

“Still not specific enough.” The man stated.

“They had dark hair.”

“Nope.” He shook his head no.

“Oh, my goodness!” Helen laughed. What could one quality be to set them apart?! “WELL, one had glasses!”

“Oh, I saw them. I *think* they’re young enough, but they’re probably seventeen.”

“Oh…that’s still tempting! Imagine paying for them to go to college!” Helen laughed pleasantly as she stated this, the idea of actually going through with adopting them floating about in her head.

“I’d…rather not… ” Frank admitted, shaking his head at the very thought of college. Not even their *own* kids were there yet.

In a different wing of the art gallery, the scene shifted to the atrium filled with easels. A white canvas sat upon each easel, and dozens upon dozens of other canvases lined the walls in an oddly shaped ring. In the center of the room—behind all the easels—sat a large container felt with what seemed like an endless supply of tubes of paint. On the wall all the canvases were turned away from, a giant banner with Don giving his trademark grin in front of a purple background stood ceiling to floor. Finally, the old man from before sat on a chair near the entrance, reading a book on modern art.

At the entrance of this room, Encore and Masquerade could be seen rushing through, the camera following the duo. Pausing for a moment, Encore stopped in place, glancing up at the purple banner with a scowl of disbelief furrowing onto her face. “Wait, we have to paint *him*?” With a shake of the head, she quietly tsked to herself as Masquerade went back to gather his partner. “Oh well, I’m *sure* I can make him look fabulous.” She chided herself with, following Masquerade to an easel nearest them. As Encore glanced between the banner hung upon the wall and the blank canvas in front of her, Masquerade gathered a whole assortment of tubes of paint, laying them before the drag queen.

“I’ll let you lead the way here, Picasso.” The young man shifted about on his feet as he handed a tube of a near electric purple coloring to the other.

“Hm… You know, I think I’m more of an Andy Warhol kinda gal.” She teased in good spirit, applying the bright colored paint to the canvas. Wanting to make sure she perfected it, the superheroine took her time in making each stroke was perfect.

“Only *you* know who that would be, old lady.” Masquerade joked, snickering slightly. All this did was result in a friendly eye roll from the other half of the duo.

With a quick transition, the camera focused back on the entrance of the room, where Candi and Alan jogged in—their hands interlocked between the other’s. The two were synced rather perfectly as they glanced up at the banner, realizing what exactly they have to do. Speedily, they stepped in front of an easel opposite where the superheroes were standing so they could still be close to paint container.

Taking charge, Candi stood at her husband’s side as she discussed her plan with him. “Alright sweetie, I’ll get you the colors, you paint the picture, kay~?” Her tone was honest and genuine, although a slightly overbearing sweetness was present to it. Before Alan could get a chance to speak, she rushed off.

“Yeah, sure thing sweetcheeks! He stated, glancing over the brushes. He might not have been the best artist around, but there was one thing about him that stood out from the crowd; his memory. Even without Michelangelo-like skills, he felt he would be able to complete the challenge rather easily if he just put his mind to it.

As soon as Candi raced from the container to her husband, the camera panned back to the entrance of the room, where The Stylists came rushing in. They appeared to have gotten over the apparent shock at Alan and Candi thinking they were a couple, although Erin did cast them a side glance of *‘please don’t think we’re a couple again’* as the duo reached the easel of their choice.

“Oh my gosh, Irene!” The male stylist gasped as he glanced up at the purple poster. However, rather than be in shock, he squeed like a teenage school girl at a One Direction concert. That is to say, he was excited for some reason. “We get to give Don a makeover!” The young man paused for a moment, before adding on, “Well, it’s going to be on canvas, but I know we’ll make him look **absolutely** superb!”

Irene, chiming in, quickly going to work on everything she wanted to do. “Oh, I *sooo* want to paint his hair! Say, Erin, do you think he would look good with his hair dyed lavender?” The bold young woman asked. The young man smiled back at her as he started to get underway with actually painting the host’s head.

“Oh my gosh, yes! Match the lavender hair with a black and blue suit, and wham, you’ve got one stunning host!” He cheered aloud, resulting in the two of them giggling like two little kids at a bad joke. Candi and Alan glanced their way and still found the two of them absolutely adorable together, completely unaware that Erin and Irene were both super gay.

The camera flashed back to the puzzle room where both the struggling groans of competitors and the scraping of the blocks against the ground almost made the room unbearable. The doors swung open regardless of the noise, and both Father and Daughter and The Internet Junkies casually advanced into the room, some noticing the horrors that awaited them, while others were cautiously optimistic about the whole ordeal.

Starr and her dad were barely leading ahead of Ulyssa and Dylan as they stepped into the room. “Oh, this doesn’t look like it’ll be that bad!” She gave a sigh of relief, having thought that there was something far, far worse waiting for the two of them. The two of them ran over towards the nearest unused puzzle, where her dad simply looked around at everything around them

“Some of the blocks are made of a heavy material; others are a lightweight plastic.” Starr glanced at her dad as he waivered on about his observation. Looking up at his daughter, he continued. “As you can see Starr, some of the blocks even the *stronger* looking contestants are having a harder time pushing, while others appear to be as light as a feather. On top of that, the heavy blocks appear to be making that awful scraping sound as they’re slid across the floor.”

“Well…  I would have loved if Don would be nice and give us one with a lot of lightweight blocks…” The disco diva muttered as she and her dad got to pushing and pulling on the blocks. Gary tended to look back at the big picture due to not being the strongest person around in order to try and get a good view of the picture they were trying to form. Starr, however, struggled as she found out that most of the blocks she were given were literal bricks. “Don, *what the hell*, this is somethin’ Chris would pull!” The girl complained, managing to move a heavy block just one space.

The disembodied voice of Don chuckled upon hearing that statement. “Hey, I had to up the difficulty here! And besides, a little menial labor isn’t going to *kill* her!”

As the host’s voice died out,  the camera panned from Starr to Dylan, who after just touching a block, fell over as if he just died. “U-ugh… t-too…. *heavy*… “ He whined, rolling around the floor like a toddler. “My… arms… are gonna… fall off… “ As he complained about the pain in his arms, Ulyssa marched over to the block, and with just a couple of fingers, managed to push the block with ease. Upon doing that, she walked on over to her teammate and—rather forcefully—kicked him in the thigh.

“Dylan, get your *weak ass up*! That block is made of plastic!” She chastised the neckbeard with a growl, obviously wanting him to pull his weight when the physical aspect of the challenge… really wasn’t all that physical.

“But Ulyssaaaaaaaaaaa–” He slowly sat up, dusting his fedora off just in case any specks of dirt happened to have landed on it. “– You said ***YOU*** would do the physical labor!” He grumbled, resulting in a slight scowl from the short girl.

“Um, no, I said I would be the brawn; this is not a physical labor, this is solving a puzzle Dylan, **A**. ***PUZZLE***! I can not believe you are going to tell me, ***ME OF ALL PEOPLE***, that pushing around plastic blocks is too hard for you!”

“You need to get a brain if you can’t believe this stuff–” Dylan mumbled under his breath. This made the other internet junkie absolutely *livid*! Her tone picking up in annoyance, she furiously went off on her team mate.

“Did you just call me stupid? Um, I am ***NOT*** stupid! My IQ is one of the highest - and you know it! How would you like it if I posted online that you just called *me* stupid!”

Dylan simply rolled his eyes, used to Ulyssa overreacting to literally everything he had to say.  “Fine, fine, I’m *sorry* Ulyssa.” He strained himself to say.

Ulyssa, closing her eyes, gave a smug smirk. “*Normally*… sorry just won’t cut it… *buuut* I’ll accept your apology this time.” With another eye roll from Dylan, the two of them quickly got to work on trying to complete the puzzle, even if Dylan could barely move the lightest of block an inch.

With another flash to white, the camera was now in the Portrait Room, where Natalia and Lexi were seen running, holding hands and jumping up and down at the sheer excitement of getting a chance to paint something.

Even at the revelation that it was Don they were painting, the girls couldn’t wait to get their hands dirty when it came to actually designing upon the canvas. With a gentle step, they dug into the box of paints, pulling out a wacky assortments of blacks and pinks and even blues from the container. It took them a moment, but they gathered their haul and rushed on over to the easel, where Lexi was the one to speak first. “Ooooooh~! Like, *O-M-G*, how do you think Don would look with like, a mohawk!?” Natalia, gasping, turned to face her teammate.

“That’s *so* hardcore Lexi; I was thinking the same thing!” Lexi, laughing, went on to start the duo’s portrait.

“Awesome!” Lexi interrupted. Grabbing a brush herself, she got to work on Don’s face, thinking that would be easier to work on. “Oh, you know what would be the sex? If we gave him, like, an MCR t-shirt!”

Natalia  snickered as her friend said this, getting to work on painting other areas of their portrait. “Like L-O-L, That is, like, *sooo* rad!”

As they worked, The Greasers entered in after them. Babe and Hoss paused when they realized who they painting, causing both to scowl in minor annoyance. “Seriously, we’s being forced to paint that schmuck?!” Hoss asked in complete disbelief.

“Ay, it sure beats doin’ that puzzle!” Babe shot back, grabbing her brother’s shoulder to propel him forward. “We got a royal shaft, ya, but we’re up against a bunch of Clydes here—well, okay, not him…” She gestured toward Masquerade, who probably wouldn’t have found it insulting had he heard it, considering it was Greaser slang that barely *anyone* here could understand.

Hoss stumbled slightly and straightened out his spine to nod back to her. “You’s got a point, but…He’s, like, tha ultimate Clyde!”

“Then I’ll handle tha front burner while you get me tha colors!” Babe ordered. With that Hoss was off, pushing through anyone that happened to stand in his way—mostly an unfortunate Candi who was in the wrong place at the wrong time—while he collected the paint supplies, Babe went to the easel and mentally battled back and forth between how to draw Don here. He was such a narcissist that he’d probably want them to paint him looking all hot, so an idea popped into her head at what he’d enjoy. Taking a step back, she raised up her arms toward the easel and shot it the double guns. “Ayyyy, you’re gonna make Don cast an eyeball at’cha when I’m through!” She bragged, extending her hand out once Hoss made it back with the paints.

“What we’s doin’?” He asked, curiosity plaguing his features.

“Don’s gonna wish he owned a Flip-Top *and* he’s gonna *think* he’s as handsome as I’m gonna draw ‘im!”

“Wait, we gonna make him have smog in tha noggin?”

“You know it!” Babe laughed, lifting her hand up to receive a painfully loud slap for a high five. “Okay, I’m gonna make tha ginchiest piece’a art this museum is eva gonna see! You go on and cut out, ‘till I need ya!”

“Roga!” Hoss saluted his younger sister, taking a few step away. “Ay, why don’t I give ya a pose you can use?”

“AYYYY, NOT A BAD IDEA!” Babe said behind the easel. She leaned out only to burst into laughter as Hoss posed like Rose from the Titanic.

“Why ya laughin’?? Paint me like ona Don’s French girls!” Hoss shot back, obviously joking.

The laughter from Babe drove some people’s attention away from their work only to have a few people snickering as well clearly not that annoyed with Hoss distracting them: Masquerade, not really doing anything since Encore had completely taken over the challenge, glanced over and snorted at the sight on the floor; Alan, who’d been tirelessly constructing his portrait shook his head in slight disbelief; Erin and Irene giggled enthusiastically, memories flooding to the dramatic move of the Titanic since their community theater had performed it; the Scene Queens simply giggled like school girls at the sight lying about them, finding it hilarious and fabulous at the same time; the mood of the portrait room was most definitely more cheerful than the atrium with the struggling contestants.

It took what felt like only a few moments before The Kiwis finally entered the room. They held their hands in order to form a link between the as they ran into the atrium, glancing up at the poster of Don presented in front of them. Was the host really *that* conceited?

The bus ride had been a bit more annoying to them than they’d like to admit, even though it’d given Korā a chance to get some information on other teams to at least get to know more competitors. It was actually really intriguing to meet some Australians, the closest competitors they could relate to in geography terms. She smiled over at Eva and pulled her closer to her, glad they could actually have some semblance of home while being around all these other hemisphere people.

Eva, on the other hand, was just glad that they were finally out doing something. The run here had been horrible, but watching Korā going at it with her physique had been worth it. Hey, she’d even been given a piggyback ride when her legs started to give out!

“We gotta paint *him*?” Eva stated aloud, a new zealand accent making itself evident in her voice. “I mean, I got no qualms with painting Don, but I figured we’d be painting Lorde or Lucy Lawless or someone a bit less–”

“I get what’cha mean love; but still, it’ll probably be much easier than solving a puzzle; just throw some paint on a canvas and bam! Modern art.” Korā replied to her girlfriend, gently pulling her a bit close to nuzzle right up against her. Eva gave a friendly giggle in response, looking up and giving Korā a small peck right on the nose.

“C’mon, I reckon we can get a pretty mean painting done in no time!” The shorter girl spoke enthusiastically, heading over towards the containers of paint, while the Maori woman stood in front of the easels.

“Should I get a blue?” Eva called back to Korā, turning her head to glance over her shoulder. “I think blue would really accentuate him well!”

“It certainly does wonders for you,” Korā mumbled softly, smiling to herself and how Eva’s gorgeous blue hair seemed to shimmer in this lighting beautifully; she could feel herself getting lost in those angelic strands; however, she’d been distracted so long by her that she almost missed Eva asking a second time for her opinion.

“So, no?”

“B-Blue sounds great!” Korā stuttered out, embarrassment slightly etched into her features. Eva returned her embarrassment with a sympathetic smile and began to dig further into the box filled with paints to find the perfect tube of blue to use on Don’s conceited portrait. “Korā better not be staring at my butt,” she softly whispered to herself as the camera began to blur her image out to focus in on the two rushing in behind them.

Finally, The Aussie Twins brought up the rear, entering the atrium after a good chunk of the contestants were almost done with their portraits. Glancing around, Cleo bent over and held her knees, wheezing from the sheer amount of running the duo just had to do. “Why… did we not… just take… a taxicab… “She managed to gasp out, still wheezing and trying her hardest to have working lungs once more.

“… Because those things are bloody expensive?” Jason played off of what she said, heading over towards the container of mutli-colored tubes of paint. “Besides, you saw that guy with the neckbeard get in the last one there; I hate to say it, but we really didn’t have the time to waste sitting around trying to get another one.”

Still gasping for breath, the female twin walked up towards her brother, glancing over at him. “… True, very true… “ She stated, before glancing at the paint in his hands. “… And besides, this is going to be a pretty easy challenge; just paint the bloke and make our way to wherever he wants us to go next.”

Jason, smiling, handed her the paint he had already gathered and quickly adjusted his glasses. “If anyone can paint him, I know *you* can do it!” Reaching back into the container, he grabbed a few more of the tubes. “Just lemme know if you need anything more!”

Snickering, Cleo lead him to an easel of their choice. Behind them, the camera could pick up both The Superheroes and The Stylists furiously working away on their paintings of choice, although it was hard to tell what was being painted. “You got it Jason! If this takes more than half an hour, blame Don.”

At a different entrance, the reddened faces of several more competitors could just barely be seen in the Puzzle Room, hands on their stomachs, walls, and other parts of their bodies to catch their breaths. A few were even sitting on the floor at this point, while their teammates tried to pull them into the room. One of whoe was Pembroke, who was simply dragging Lyndon behind her.

As much as she’d wanted to try her skills at painting, she knew that Lyndon was the mastermind of puzzles; he could solve any Rubix cube she gave him and that must count for something in this case. “Come on, Lyn!” She urged, dropping him when they’d gained a spot at the puzzle.

“You do…your puzzle magic while I…fix my hair…!” She panted. As her teammate slowly sat himself up, she pulled her compact mirror from her pocket and began to furiously comb her fingers through her hair. Lyndon would call her when he needed her, right?

However, Lyndon, after catching his breath, went straight to work without missing a beat. He could already tell what needed to happen.

Pembroke’s hair and makeup were a necessity to her, but she felt a wee bit of concern when Lyndon’s immediate reaction to her asking him to start on this without her was to… start it without her. “Aw, Lyndon~!” She cooed, moving over to stand next to her teammate as he tried to push the heavy blocks by himself. “You’re such a sweetie~!”

“Thanks, Pem…broke…” He panted out, sliding downward because of the floor’s traction not responding well to his shoes. If there was one thing Lyndon knew, it was the complete obvious choice he had to make for this to work in their favor. Reaching down, he removed his shoes and glanced over at Pembroke. “You should remove yours as well! The floors here are great and clean!”

Pembroke, on the other hand, stared at him in horror at the very idea, resulting in him dropping it immediately with a mumbling of, “Never mind…”

Ronnel and Rosamie looked exhausted from their run to the Art Gallery, but they somehow made it in one piece even if Vancouver seemed to have an abundance of their fans. Somehow, their arrival must have been hinted at by a mixture of stalkers and phone calls to their agents. Maybe even *Sierra* from the original Total Drama series had spread some of the word; who even knew? Well, Don could, but he wasn’t going to spill that tidbit of information to them.

“Goll-*LEE*,” Rosamie exclaimed, wiping her brow in frustration. “I really do love our fans, but that was just overkill when we’re trying to reclaim fame through *the television*, not through *the streets*!” She giggled nonetheless, happy they’d actually been given a lift to arrive here quicker than they would have with their constant stopping. It still stunk to her that they’d been flash mobbed again by their fans, but so long as Ronnel wasn’t mad at her about it, she could handle it. Rosamie just wished he’d relax sometimes about this! There was no way they’d be kicked off first over a few fans! Plus, once they left this place, maybe they’d be in a place where people didn’t have TVs! Ronnel would probably be more relaxed there, but she couldn’t be sure.

Reaching into her skirt, Rosamie produced a bag of skittles and quickly began to down them. “Mm… I *do* love them, though! They gave us *candy*!”

Ronnel, clearly less enthusiastic about the happening, grabbed his sister’s arm and rushed towards a puzzle, having made the choice to do this challenge while she stared at him in expectation at the Don Box. “We’re going to fall even further behind if we don’t *hurry*.” He told her, trying to reclaim order in this situation. Fans were great for helping them climb charts, but they were **awful** for helping them complete challenges!

Cutting the conversation short, he started to examine the puzzle while Rosamie chowed down on her sugary snacks.

Even though they were behind, it seemed like not many teams were actually progressing with their puzzles, which was both a good and bad situation for them; on one hand, they weren’t too far behind, but on the other, this puzzle might be overly complicated.

“No time like the present!” Rosamie sang out, grabbing on to the first box. “Come on, Ronnel! Help me push!” She pleaded, now noticing how heavy it was when she pressed her weight against it. Ronnel sighed, taking a glance around while he helped his sister, hoping they could finish this puzzle without having much difficulty.

The camera panned to another part of the room where GG and Muff were just winging it at this point. Their hands were always moving, pushing and pulling on the blocks in front of them. Sometimes, Muff would slip and fall to the floor where several jiggly prank memorabilia would go bouncing away. At one point, a ball went flying from their pockets and struck Eli in the side of the head; luckily for them, he’d just shouted about a ghost hitting him and how they should investigate, much to Kennedy’s annoyance.

“Come on, *Muff*!” GG urged, her hands reddened from pushing the heavier bits. “If you’re tired, then go take a break and… well, scare someone!”

Muff, suddenly sprang up, even though they’d acted like they’d been dead tired a few moments ago. “I THOUGHT YA’D *NEVER* SAY THAT!” They shouted, bolting off and leaving poor GG to continue the puzzle on her own.

Groaning loudly, she rolled her eyes and mumbled about how she’d make them pee their pants when they fall asleep. How could they be so insensitive toward *her*–their teammate of all people!?

The camera, still catching Muff rushing around in the background doing little jumps until they were out of the screen, rested on the Neighbors, who were now both working on pushing the blocks around. It almost looked like Lyndon had figured this puzzle out piece-for-piece. “There!” He panted, wiping away at his brow with a wide grin falling on his face. “That’s another heavy one moved…”

“Great!” Pembroke stated, one hand going to her hips while the other hand went above her brow, gazing around the room. “Say, how much longer do you think we’ll be doing this puzzle thingy for?” Her attention suddenly focused on a reflective surface, making her eyes widen and hands go searching through her pockets.

“For about…another ten to fifteen minutes,” Lyndon guessed, judging from how long it’d taken them to get this far. “The mechanisms of it are actually really easy, but the sheer force it takes to push these blocks will be the reason we don’t get done before–!”

“Can we take a break, Lyyynnnnn?” Pembroke suddenly whined, staring into her compact mirror now. She knew that a small break couldn’t hurt them when they were this far along; she just had to fix her face up! It was still all sweaty and gross from running all the way here; she concluded that they’d take a taxi from now on, even though it was her fault they’d run here in the first place.

“W-Well, I mean…the puzzle still needs to get…” Lyndon stuttered. Sure, he and Pembroke had a great chance at completing this challenge with exceptional time, but he couldn’t just stop now, could he? “What… what if we…” He tried to say, eyes widening when Pembroke batted her doe-eyes at him. “*F-Fine*, but….only for a little bit, okay?”

Pembroke squealed in delight. She KNEW Lyndon couldn’t say no to her!

“YOU’RE THE BEST!” She happily cheered, hugging her companion in an embrace worthy of a bush to him. When she let go, her attention went straight to her mirror. This challenge could wait since they were probably way ahead of the others here anyway. She could judge how easily this would go if she could just fix her eyeliner here…

Lyndon, though happy about the hug, still sighed and stared at the puzzle in distress. Maybe he could push the blocks by himself? Maybe they’d be lighter than the rest?

As soon as his hands touched the puzzle, he ended up groaning loudly and struggled to move it; regardless, he went on to attempt the puzzle by himself while Pembroke fixed her hair and makeup. Though…the realization that Lyndon was now struggling to complete the puzzle on his own caused the girl to suddenly begin to double time her hair and makeup so she could go back to helping him out, guilt-riddling her features at the idea of letting the one who was actually able to solve this work on this alone.

On the other side of the room where Eli and Kennedy were tirelessly shoving the marble blocks around. “Sweet nectar from the gods!” Eli gasped, hands starting to turn red from the sheer force of which he was pushing these blocks. “Don is such an arschloch to make us do this!”

Kennedy, grunting as they shoved another block into place, nodded in agreement. “I suppose, he just wants this challenge to feel harder than the other to tempt us to switch…”

“Ugh! That jerk! Drawing is *way* harder than doing this! I mean, sure, we’re gonna—**sweet Polish sausage!**—break our backs doing this, but we’d fail hardcore at drawing…!” Eli gasped out, mostly from the ear-piercing noises caused by the blocks scraping on the flooring. If they were in London right now, he could see this being a torture device used in the Tower of London.

“Unless…” Kennedy mumbled, grabbing hold of the one Eli had started to push. “You could whittle the paper into the realistic features of whoever we would’ve had to draw.” As of now, Kennedy had removed their jacket and was only wearing their white tank top, having sweat too much from the exertion on this huge blocks.

“I doubt it!” Eli grunted, pressing his shoes further into the ground to hold his position. “Paper like that is probably too brittle!”

“Ja, es sei denn, es ist die Art der Leinwand Künstler verwenden.” (subtitles: Yes, unless it’s the kind of canvas artists use.)

“Nah, I doubt that’d be the case.” Eli shook his head and moved back to try to examine the pieces of the puzzle. The blocks still looked scrambled, but two pieces had been pushed together to form the word “to.”

“UGHHHH!” Eli screamed, throwing his hands into the air. Despite his frustration, he didn’t decide to punch anything and ended up moving back into place, his teal colored hair sticking to his sweat-covered forehead. “EVEN *THE BRITISH* WOULDN’T HAVE USED THIS AS A TORTURE DEVICE IN MEDIEVAL TIMES!”

Kennedy, slightly amused by this, snorted and shook their head. “I doubt they’d do this…but the Spanish might have. They had really uncreative means of torture, you know? They literally put people in dark places and had them in devices to create an even scarier simulation of torture. Lahm,” (subtitles: lame) they concluded.

“Oh, yeah… That makes so much sense. Stupid Spanish people and their love of the dark! Remember when we went to Spain and ate those pig ears!?”

“I’d…I would rather you never bring that up again…but, ja.” Kennedy replied before the camera switched back over to the runaway prankster.

As Muff went racing to find their first victim, the sight of Mia and Midori could be seen nearby with Midori standing on top of the puzzle, viciously pointing in a direction and shouting an order that the camera couldn’t pick up and the sight of Helen and Frank sitting down on top of the blocks to take a small break together. They both had a couple of sandwiches in their hands and were enjoying themselves, even though there was no telling where in the world they’d found those sandwiches in the first place.

Muff paused when they noticed the extremely laid back adopt-a-brothers working tirelessly at the puzzle. A sly grin etched itself on their face as they realized they’d found their target. Now… how would they attempt to make them need a new pair of pants?

It’d taken the Yin and Yang longer to finally get to the art gallery since Grayson couldn’t run as fast, but once they found the Don Box and gained their tip, they immediately went to work on the puzzle, not wishing to waste any more time. Nolan’s eyes scanned over the puzzle, trying to figure out how to solve it while Grayson simply surveyed his surroundings to see if anyone had come even remotely close to solving the entire thing to give him an idea of what they were trying to form.

When Nolan figured out a way to formulate his puzzle-solving strategy, he went to work on pushing the blocks, glad he’d been in sports to gain his muscle mass.

Grayson turned back to his brother, failing to find a single one close enough to completion to give him a bit of a hint. “Did you figure something out?” He asked, walking back to his brother’s side.

“No, but…we can’t just stand around and do nothing,” Nolan responded, glancing up at his brother.

“True…” Grayson mumbled, silently wishing this had been a music challenge for them, but he figured it wouldn’t take long with two heads being better than one, even if he felt like he’d just slow them down somehow; his brother was probably way better at solving puzzles than him… at least, he thought that way. Instead of moping around about his insecurities, he went straight to work to help his brother push the heavier slabs around, surprised that theirs seemed to have blocks that were heavier than in the puzzles around them.

The stern woman, knowing exactly how each of these were put together, shook her head in pity at their struggle but said nothing to them. She wasn’t going to address the pity she felt for their unlucky choice.

Muff, having been stalking close by, reached into their pockets and began to shuffle around in an attempt to find a fun little device to toy with those two with; they looked like they were always in a good mood anyway, Muff could easily scare them and not receive much repercussion afterward! GG might get a good laugh while they were out pranking! She did enjoyed that prank on the two girls earlier! After a successful bout of picking and choosing, they finally settled on one mode of pranking that was sure to give them a heart attack!

Slinking toward the unsuspecting duo, they gently plucked an air horn from their pocket and began to raise it up. Seeing as they’d watched Total Drama Colors, they thought the prankster on there had the right idea, but their idea was better–*way* better! This place had *amazing* acoustics, sooo…when they squeezed the trigger…

The entire area suddenly became filled with an ear-piercing, window shattering, noise that caused everyone in the vicinity—even Gary—to jump in surprise. The two brothers, nearest to the noise, jumped while Nolan shrieked in shock, eyes widened in horror as Muff exploded into a fit of laughter, dropping the air horn on the floor and holding their stomach as they howled.

The camera flashed to the interview room where Nolan and Grayson were both seated, ready to explain how that scene felt to them. Nolan, with his arms crossed—slightly shaking still— tried to send the camera a smile. “Well, obviously *we* didn’t expect that.” he stated, nudging his
brother in the side happily.

Grayson, not looking too badly shaken, shook his head and shot his brother a glance. “I think you mean *you* didn’t expect that.” His calm and slow voice responded. Moving his hand up, he ran it through his hair and added, “They really got you, bud.”

The taller male’s eyes bulged out at the accusation. He turned toward Grayson and shook his head so aggressively, his beanie almost flew off his scalp. “Um, what about you?? You were scared too!” Although his head aggressively shook, his tone was still playful, though a bit offended that Grayson didn’t want to give him a break there.

Grayson snickered nonetheless. “Yes, but *you* were the one screaming like a girl in a horror movie.”

The analogy gave Nolan an exasperated expression, and he quickly tried to shove all the blame onto Grayson to keep his masculinity in check. “What? No way dude, that was all you!”

Before Nolan could be given any peace, Grayson turned his head in the direction of the camera, which went back and replayed the events that just transpired. In the flashback, it showed more clearly the face of Nolan screaming in terror then flashed over to Grayson’s face, eyes widened but mouth clamped shut. When the camera flashed back to the interview room, Grayson’s face remained the same but Nolan’s had an air of confidence to it, suggesting he was unaware of the fact proof had been delivered to the audience.

The camera then switched to a scene of Gary and Starr sitting in the interview room, Starr looking visibly annoyed while her father was back to having the normal ‘bored out of his mind’ expression he tended to have. “What the actual ***hell*** is wrong with that person!?” She blurted out, obviously angered at the stupidity of the pranks they pulled. “Like, did their parents drop kick ‘em over a fence and into a rocky field filled with damn boulders or something!?” With a growl, she crossed her arms and glared into the camera. “I swear, I was gonna shove this go-go boot right up where the sun don’t shine if they kept doing that crap!”

Her father, glancing over at his pride and joy, merely nodded. “I have never been more terrified in my life…” he droned on, his tone unwavering from the sheer monotony we’ve been accustomed to hearing. “In fact, I think my heart has stopped; I can’t feel it.”

Starr paused for a moment shooting her dad a rather concerned look before realizing he didn’t mean it literally. “…Daddy, you tell me you normally can’t feel that anyway. ”

Over in the portrait room, the teams were quickly getting to work on attempting to finish up their masterpieces. Some—such as the Superheroes and Two Peas in a Pod—were almost complete, merely finishing up the finer details to their portraits. Others—such as The Scene Queens—were still having a harder time making the portraits look the way they wished.

“Say, Lexi, should I use Bubblegum Pink or Bloodstain Red for Don’s fab Mohawk?” The pink-haired girl asked curiously, holding the two tubes up indecisively. She glanced over at her friend, who was working on giving Don a striped black and grey hoodie.

“O-M-G, Natalia, I think Bloodstain Red is a good color– “ Lexi reached over to right beside where her easel was standing, picking both a tube of an electric blue and jet black paint off the floor. Gently, she handed them to her fellow scene queen, smiling at her. “– but I think lighting strike blue and inner sorrow black would look *WAY* better for Don’s hair!”

Glancing at the two tubes, the other girl gasped out of excitement, quickly getting two new brushes from one of the many unused easels. “O-M-F-G, You are, like, *so* right!” The girl spat out in bliss. Rather quickly, she got to work on painting her end of the masterpiece, adding blue highlights to the blackened hair.

The camera panned over to show both the Kiwis and Aussie Twins painting away within the vicinity of each other. In regards to the Kiwis, the both of them split up their half of the work evenly, one girl painting one part of Don, the other girl painting the other half.

Taking a step back from the easel, Eva glanced at her portion of the drawing. It… looked sort of like Don; that much she could fully admit. Whether or not it would let them pass, that was up for the old man to decide. “How do you think this looks so far?” The teal haired woman turned towards her girlfriend, tilting her head in curiosity.

Putting her brush down for just a second, Korā glanced over at what Eva had painted so far. She was further along than the other; but that didn’t matter to the young Maori woman. She was simply glad that she was here, actually doing something with the person she absolutely adored. “It looks fine, love!”

“Oh, you’re just saying that.” Eva smiled at the other, finding that her part of the portrait looked spectacular.

“Nonsense; yours looks almost like the real thing!”

Giggling, Eva pulled Korā closer towards her body, wrapping her arms around the other. “You’re as sweet as honey, you know that right?”

“And you’re as cute as a button~.” Korā told the teal haired woman. Slowly, she leaned down, locking her lips with the other for a brief—yet passionate—kiss.

“*Awwwwwww~!*” Both the Scene Queens and Stylists could be heard uttering at once, finding the whole scene to be as heartwarming as a puppy.

However, Cleo and Jason were having a far more interesting time with their portrait. Cleo had commandeered the painting aspect of the challenge, knowing exactly what to paint. Jason, on the other hand, just stood there, shifting his weight between his feet in an attempt to pass the boredom of waiting for his sister to finish her portrait. Thankfully, she was able to get what she wanted in about twenty minutes.

Suddenly, the brown haired girl turned her canvas around towards her brother, showing off her beautiful work. “And the dankest of portraits is complete!” She smiled proudly. Of course, she wanted to hear what her brother had to say about the picture before they turned it in. “I call it, “*That Face when No Internet Popularity*.”

Jason was speechless at what he had to witness. He couldn’t believe what was sitting before him on the easel.

Cleo had painted Don to look like Pepe the frog.

“Well, what do you say?” The girl asked, somewhat curious as to what her brother’s silence was all about. She crossed her arms, waiting a bit impatiently for his answer.

The awkwardly silent pause continued on for another moment. Jason, for once, didn’t know what to tell his sister. He thought it looked great, yes, yet at the same time, he doubted it would get them through the challenge. “I uh… well…–” He racked his brain for an answer, managing to maintain his rather chill composure as he scanned the inner workings of his mind.

“It… It’s certainly rare! And it does look excellent!”

Cleo smiled at her brother’s answer. She wanted to turn this in now; the sooner they get done with this part of the challenge, the better! “See, now let’s go–”

Before she could continue to try and get their travel tip, Jason had to interject. “–But–”

“But what?” Cleo’s eyebrow raised onto her face, her expression nothing but confused as to why her brother was stopping her.

“It’s just… I don’t think Don would like this.” The boy rubbed the back of his head awkwardly, attempting to stay rational with his sister. He honestly did feel that Don wouldn’t accept this painting, even if it was amazing as is.

“How could Don ***NOT*** like this!?” The aussie girl was astonished! Everyone loves Pepe!

“I don’t think Don’s a fan of internet memes…”

Cleo rolled her eyes; no matter how much she loved her brother, she found the idea that someone couldn’t love internet memes ridiculous. “I’m sure it’ll be *fine* Jason!” The girl tried to explain to her brother. He wasn’t having it, simply shaking his head.

“Cleo…. “He mumbled under his voice. The girl hesitated for a moment, before finally replying.

“You know, you’re just as stubborn as me. It doesn’t hurt to take a risk every now and then, Jason.”

“I know, but still; it might be better if we get our first challenge right, you know?” Jason did feel bad for trying to get Cleo to redo the portrait, but he knew her skills. He knew that if anyone could whip up a portrait of Don in a jiffy, it would definitely be her.

Shrugging, Cleo spoke once more. “Alright, alright, I’ll repaint Don.” Sauntering over to the wall lined with spare canvases, she stopped in place for a moment, pointing at the Pepefied Don. “But I’m keeping that.” She teased her brother, a dorky laugh escaping her lips.

The camera then panned over to Alan and Candi. Similar to Cleo and Jason, only one person was actually working on the portrait – in this case, Alan. Yet unlike with Aussie twins, Candi actually had a say in the portrait. Most of it was in regards to the colors, yes, but she was trying her best to help. “How’s it coming along sweetie?” Candi gently asked, looking over her husband’s shoulder. She was curious as to the portrait’s progress.

“I say it’s coming along.” Alan stated, turning to face his wife. Charmingly, he smiled up at her. However, she was focused on the painting. Upon examining it, she smiled, tilting her head to her husband’s.

“Oh, it’s beautiful!”

Her husband, still working his charms, glanced up at his wife. “Not a beautiful as you, sweetie.”

The woman’s cheeks became flushed with a rosy pink tone. Okay, that was smooth. Genuinely smooth.

“Oh, you know how to sweet-talk me~!” She giggled. Rapidly, she leaned down towards her husband, who gracefully placed a peck upon her lips – which quickly turned into a rather short-lived makeout session.

“Oh my gosh, all the couples on this show are *sooo* cute!” Erin could be heard stating proudly, his face beaming with happiness. The camera decided to focus in on him and Irene as the duo talked about how cute they found everyone to be acting. His smile turned towards the golden-haired girl, who simply smiled back at him.

“I know, right! It’s just… they make me feel so warm and fuzzy myself! It’s great!”

With a change of scene, we found ourselves back in the puzzle atrium. Ronnel sighed loudly and slid to the floor, wiping his forehead in annoyance. No matter which way he pushed the puzzle pieces, they wouldn’t match up to the picture he knew would form! If only they could skip this part of the challenge, then they could go for a penalty—even if it would be twenty minutes; he was willing to risk it at this point; however, he knew the stern woman wouldn’t just hand the twin idols a tip, no matter if she was a fan or not.

“Shoot…” He muttered, slapping the floor with his hand.

“Aw, come on, bro bro!” Rosamie called to her brother, waving her hands around to reduce the painful swelling from the heavy blocks. “Heeeyy, I know what’ll cheer you up~!” She sang out, sliding to sit down next to her brother.

“I really *don’t* want any skittles…” He mumbled to her, though he did appreciate the sentiment.

“I wasn’t going to offer you *skittles*!” She lied, slipping the bag back into the snug elastic band of her skirt. “I was going to suggest…we…uhm…talk about the names you want to give your turtle!” She suddenly sprang up the topic out of thin air. It wasn’t so much that she’d just thought it up, but she knew that Ronnel’s secret passion was to have a pet turtle!

“Now?”

“Yeah! We need a break, don’t we??” Rosamie interjected, hands going to her hips where her skittles ended up falling out of the bottom of her skirt and on to the floor, much to her dismay. “Look, winning a challenge is great and all, but I think it’d be *way* better if we had a small break and thought some things through! I can’t do this alone, you know?? Besides, if you get stressed out again, you’ll be like, ‘*ugh, Rosamie…we should have taken a break!*’ when we leave here!”

“Well… You have a point, Rosamie,” Ronnel admitted, smiling at his sister appreciatively. “Okay, what kind of name would you pick?”

“Katniss!” She laughed, bringing her arms back to mimic shooting an arrow. “I’d teach the turtle to shoot bows and arrows!”

“Okay,” Ronnel started, leaving out how unlikely that could happen with the nub feet of turtles. “But…what if it’s a guy turtle?”

“*Sir* Katniss!” She said before the camera shot over to another team to avoid anymore turtle talk.

Muff, after successfully pulling several pranks–including but not limited to: giving Mia an oreo with toothpaste instead of cream, throwing skittles on Eli and claiming they were ants, and screaming “*FIRE*!” only to be chased halfway around the room by an angry disco dancer–came rushing back to GG, who had her hands on her hips, a pout on her lips and fury in her eyes. The annoyance was over several things: Muff leaving to try to prank the ones doing the puzzles, leaving her to push these heavy blocks alone, AND leaving her alone for an extended period of time to work on this. Her eyes narrowed at them and her foot began to rhythmically tap on the floor, much to Muff’s confusion.

“Really? You just up and ditched me when I said you could relax if you were *tired*?!” She vividly asked, floral hoodie scrunched up from how hard she was gripping it.

“*What*?! You said if I was tired, then I *should* take a break!” Muff shot back, sending her a goofy smile. In an attempt to make her feel less angry, they let their tongue shoot out the gap in their teeth, only to see that was a failure.

“Muff, I’ve been doing this puzzle for nearly ***thirty***, ***minutes*** now!” She protested. “You’ve just been running around and throwing fake ***BUGS*** on people!”

“Nuh uh! I’ve been gone for like s\*\*\*\*ing five minutes!”

GG, being a tech person, immediately withdrew her phone from her pocket and shoved it in their face, showing a ticking clock that had been going ever since they’d left her on her own, revealing it’s been way more than five minutes. “*OH*, ***REALLY***?!”

“Okay, you need to *calm* down!”

“Don’t tell *me* to calm down! You ditched me for pranks and now we’re probably going to lose since we were the only team that had one person working on the puzzle!”

“What?? It’s not like anyone is–!”

“**FINISHED**!” Came a confident shout from across the room, tearing Muff’s eyes away from the annoyed her. The shout came from the youngest person present in the room, Lyndon. Beside him, Pembroke was cheering, her makeup and hair game on point once more. The camera, tilting slightly, glanced over at the puzzle the duo had assembled. Upon the tops of the blocks, the words “Welcome to Denver” boldly stood against a dark city background with it’s bright orange print. Without further celebration, the duo received the tip from the stern woman, who bowed her head with a slight smile at how quickly they’d finished the challenge.

The two Neighbors cheered in delight, Pembroke’s happy and shrill cheering disrupting the gallery even more than the scraping of the blocks. While she collected the tip, Lyndon sat down on the floor and began to pull his shoes on. Noticing his teammate reaching for her pocket as he went to pull on his second shoe, he internally sighed and asked, “What’s the tip say, Pembroke??” As she glanced down at the tip, Lyndon stood up and dusted himself off to listen to what she had to say.

Pembroke, manicured hand daintily holding the tip by the corner, glanced down at the instructions and took Lyndon’s hand. The younger of the two’s eyes widening in an awestruck manner. “The tip says, ‘Go to Vancouver International Airport, because we’re heading to….*COLORADO*!” She squealed, stopping when she realized something.

“Wait…that’s not exciting… Like, I’ve been there a million times… UGH!” She threw the tip over her shoulder in annoyance and rushed out of the museum with Lyndon in tow. Thankfully, Lyndon managed to pick their tip right back off the ground before he was ushered out of the art gallery like a little kid.

Back to Muff, their eyes went straight to GG with a pained grin now on their face.

“You were saying…?” GG asked, annoyance pricking her voice heavily.

Meanwhile, back in the portrait room, many of the teams were busy scribbling away. It was the Superheroes who had finished first. As Encore stepped away, she blew a slight kiss towards her literal work of art. The Camera focused in on the portrait; upon it, a rather bold, exaggerated Don stood with his limbs sprawled about, leaning back in an overly dramatic manner. The most notable thing about it, however, was the choice of colors; all of them were bright and energetic, which arguably made Don look more like a space alien than a human being.

The duo, careful to avoid getting the pigments on the canvas everywhere and ruining the painting, rushed towards the elderly tip giver. However, rather than receive the response they were looking for, he simply shook his head no.

“…*What?*” Encore uttered, a scowl working it’s way onto her eyebrows. Masquerade, with a concerned look plastered onto his face, turned his head to face his teammate.

“I’m sorry miss, I can’t accept this; Don told me that he wanted a more realistic portrait that captured his ‘strikingly rugged and manly features while still having that air of charm’. But this… This is just *pop art*.” If the man knew the reaction he would have gotten from Encore, he likely would have shut his mouth and just given the tip far, far sooner. He was honest in his reasoning, but Encore wasn’t having it.

“This is a *piece* of *art*! And this is an *art* gallery!” The middle aged superheroine yelled, resulting in concerned looks from almost everyone else in the room. She was obviously livid at the fact her art wasn’t considered ‘good enough’. Bah, what does he know! “I worked *hard* to paint this, and it looks better than half of what’s being showcased in this place anyways!” Masquerade simply nodded his head in agreement with the other, rather honestly not wanting to redo the challenge again.

“Miss, I’m sorry, but if you want the tip you’re going to have to redo the–” The older gentleman restated, resulting in Encore groaning aloud.

“Fine, I’ll redo the painting, but let it be known you are one of the *worst* art critics I have ever met in my life! Hmph!” With a huff, she walked off, her blood boiling from the tantrum she just through. Now, she was ticked at both the fact she is going to have to redo the painting AND that this elderly man thought her art wasn’t good enough! The younger man simply followed her, attempting to calm her down so they could get to work again.

The Camera changed from the portrait room to the interview room, where the Superheroes were sitting. Encore had her hands on her hips and was glaring at the camera, asking, “Not good enough? Not good *enough?!* It was absolutely, positively, as a matter of fact a wondrous piece of art, thank you very much! I’d like to see *ANYONE* do better! You just have no taste when it comes to the art forms–”

As Encore continued to rant to the camera, Masquerade just gave her an amused glance before giving the camera the same amused glance.

Flashing back to the portrait room, Alan and Candi gossiped among themselves, talking about the fit the superheroine just threw, and how ridiculous the two of them felt that whole tantrum was. It was Candi doing most of the talking; Alan was still trying his hardest to finish up their portrait.

“How old is that woman, five?” Candi whispered towards her husband, not wanting to have the older tantrum thrower freak out on the two of them.. “She wasted so much time arguing with that old man; they could have spent it just finishing up their–”

Before Candi could continue on with her gossip, Alan exclaimed “Finished!” Moving away from the portrait to let his wife see.

“Oh sweetheart, that looks excellent!” Leaning over, she gave Alan a slight peck on the cheek, causing her blonde-haired husband to blush in surprise. Once she pulled back, the camera focused in on the painting for a moment; Although it wasn’t painted the best, it did bear a rather striking resemblance to Don.

Picking the canvas up, the Two Peas in a Pod rushed over to the old man—careful to avoid ruining their canvas. Rather than react negatively to it, the elderly tip giver simply smiled and gave a thumbs up, handing the two of them their travel tip. While Alan set the portrait down, Candi took the tip and read it aloud. “Go to Vancouver International Airport and board the plane…. to Denver!”

“Oh Denver! That sound so exciting; I wonder what we’re going to do there!” Alan chimed in, taking his wife by the hand as the two of them began their trek to the airport

With a change of scene, the camera then glanced upon the Vancouver Skyline as Don’s disembodied voice began his announcements. “Oh, you two will be in for *quite a surprise* there.” He stated, a slight laugh following his statement. After a slight pause, the host continued his narration. “With two teams now having completed the challenge, the race for who’ll be on the first plane continues. The Ridonculous Race will return after these messages.”

## Part 3: (It's Called "Pain-ting" For a Reason)

The camera switched back on to reveal the portrait room where only one easel was empty. Several canvases were splattered with colors far more than necessary for the project and thrown haphazardly onto the floor, coating some of the, once clean, floor in the hard to clean product. Around each canvas varied in amount of canvases with Masquerade and Encore having the most surrounding them.

The Superheroes’ easel was currently emptied of a canvas as they were talking with the older gentleman, who by now was just shaking his head at Encore—as she threw her hands and the canvas into the air to yell at the poor man. Her teammate, Masquerade, left to watch the display.

The camera then went into several flashbacks, showcasing Lexi and Natalia being rejected for their first piece with the older gentleman’s horrified screaming, Eva and Korā tripping and ruining their first project, Pepe!Don lying on the floor next to Cleo and Jason’s easel, Babe and Hoss’s canvas containing only a few lines done on it as they both cracked jokes with each other, and Candi and Alan’s easel resting peacefully next to the older gentleman. “As the competition heats up, some teams seem to be feeling the *pain-*t of the situation!” Don’s disembodied voice cackled, obviously finding their pain more amusing than he should. “The first two teams have finished the challenge, who will be next to take a spot on the first flight out of Vancouver and land in paradise?”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT’S NOT GOOD ENOUGH?!” Encore shrieked, resulting in Masquerade to place his head into his hand and the older man to sigh in annoyance.

Moving on from the distressed and angry drag queen, the scene stopped on the *Meme Team,* or The Aussie Twins for the record books. Jason was sitting behind the easel with his phone out, trying to pass the time as his sister worked on the piece behind him. If Cleo messed up this time, he’d throw out there that he was fairly great at puzzles and that they’d fair *way* better in there than here, even if they didn’t know how the puzzle was set up. “Are you almost done…?” He asked, glancing up and over his shoulder to stare at Cleo, his expression slightly worried.

“Noooot yet!” Was her response, voice resonating with confidence, even if that still didn’t make Jason feel better. How would Don feel if they revealed *another* camera-caught meme? How would *Tumblr* feel about seeing that? First, Pepe!Don; now what? Cleo’s mind was a meme vault, and it could make *anything* out of it. Maybe…just maybe it wasn’t something *too* bad, like maybe she made him have a Forever Alone face? That couldn’t get them in too much trouble, right?

“Annnnd done! Much done! Such art! WOOOOOW!” She laughed, grabbing on to the sides of the canvas gently.

“Okay, I’m *trusting* you here…” The idea made Jason’s stomach turn over in his body at what could possibly be on the other side of that easel. Standing up and dusting himself off, he walked around the side of the canvas to view Cleo’s creation, expecting something horrible.

“What’cha think, Jason??” Cleo asked, placing her paint-stained fingers on her hips, regretting that decision for later.

“It’s…Don…” Jason replied, taking a deep breath and smiling at his sister. “Dancing like Rick Astley.”

“…Do…you like it? I think Don will appreciate it, because he’s….”

“No, Cleo! I know what you’re going to do, and I don’t approve!”

“Neeeever…!”

His arms extended in an attempt to cover her mouth with his hands, missing when she backed away with a single hop backwards. “NO, CLEO!” Jason’s voice became more exasperated at what he knew was coming. This was going to either annoy everyone in here or give him a reason to hate his frontal lobe.

“GONNA GIVE YOU UP! NEVER GONNA LET YOU–!” Before she could continue to sing the song, Jason grabbed on to her arm and ushered her toward the older man, interrupting her only momentarily as he rushed over to the older gentleman, only to realize they’d left their finished project behind in Jason’s attempt to silent the memer.

“—LET YOU DOWN! NEVER GONNA TURN AROUND AND–!” Cleo continued, swinging her arms as Jason went back to grab their finished picture of Don Astley to show the tip bearer. When Jason came back, she grinned at him and hummed the lyrics.

Jason shook his head but still showed her a smile, actually kind of enjoying it even if he’d have it stuck in his head for two weeks to come. Lifting up the project, he showed the man and hoped for the best, only to feel his heart sink into his stomach when he could hear the man laughing. Did they really fail again…? Peeking around the canvas, the glasses-clad boy stared at the older man who was laughing like he’d just discovered the holy grail of all jokes.

“Haha! I love it!” The man gasped out, hand going to his stomach to try to stop the laughter from continuing. “You…You definitely deserve this tip!” He told them, handing them the tip with a widened smile and tear-stained cheeks.

“HA!” Cleo cheered, taking the tip and rushing over to grab her Pepe!Don for the road. “Soooo, Jason, are you….Never gonna…..?” She asked, leaning over and wiggling her eyebrows at him.

At first, Jason just snorted and shook his head, but after a moment’s worth of thought, he decided to give in and join Cleo in singing and dancing in front of the man who just burst into more laughter.

The camera flashed over to the puzzle room, filling the screen with the familiar and horrific noises of contestants attempting to finish up their puzzles. After hearing Lyndon’s cheerful victory “finished!” and Pembroke’s cheering, it filled them to the brim with desire to not fall behind. If that lanky little stick could complete this puzzle, then there was no way they’d let it defeat them; that’d just be embarrassing. The one feeling the worst burn out of everyone in the room was Midori, though; her face reddened with anger and annoyance at how they’d just probably been pushed to the second plane of this challenge, shoving them further behind the other teams.

“This is all…all… Don’s fault!” She mumbled, hands red and crossed over her chest. At any point she’d need to shove something or eat something, because she couldn’t think straight. How long had it been since she’d eaten a meal? “He should have let us eat something before this stupid challenge!”

All she received from Mia, though, was a sympathetic blink. She couldn’t just say that it was Midori’s idea to do this part of the challenge when they could have painted a picture. What could she say when she was like this? It was best to let her bestie get all her frustration out than to jump in and possibly make her angrier.

“I can’t believe this… We’re probably so far behind now!” Midori continued, fists balling up and slamming to her sides. If she could just find a way to cheat at this puzzle, then that’d put them ahead, but how could she even accomplish something like that?

“Come on, Midori,” Mia finally cut in, noticing her eyes darting around the room. “We’re almost done with the puzzle! Lookie!” Moving back a bit, she gently took her teammates arm and pointed at the pieces. “We just have to move that piece there and that piece over there, then we can move that one up, *annnnddddd* voila~!”

Midori, in her fit of almost rage, paused and turned her attention back to the puzzle, taking full notice of what Mia was pointing out. She was…right… The puzzle was almost completed, *and* they could get their tip; it still didn’t make her feel better that they were possibly on the second or third—or however many—flight out of this place, though.

“Midoriiiii~! You should help me move this block so we can get our tip, then you can…rest on the plane!” Mia wanted to comment on how many times Midori had stopped while they were working on this puzzle and just yelled out ten ways she wanted the blocks to move, but she refrained… It would just lead her down the road of feeling bad that she’d forgotten which way Midori had told her to move the blocks because of how many cute people were in here…

The stern woman walking around the room, holding tips in her hand like they were single dollar bills, caught Midori’s eye, causing her to move back into action. She wanted to sit down and just tell Mia to push the blocks herself, but that wouldn’t help them get out of here faster… “Hai,” she obliged, rushing over to Mia’s side.

Together, they both pressed their weight against the block and managed to push it forward, grunting in exertion. If this wasn’t a race to a million dollars, she would have quit by now and gone back home to skate but…there was too much at stake for that now. “PUSH!” She ordered, voice raised up higher than she’d intended, causing it to echo across the room.

“I am!!” Mia shouted back, face scrunched up in pain from how heavy this one was. Finally, she felt the edge of the block nudge against the surface of another and fell down, laughing loudly at how tough that had been. “Oh, my gosh! That was so hard! Do you think we’re, like, going to have muscles by the time this race is over??”

“I hope my dresses still fit… I really like this one you got me,” Midori nodded, pulling her friend off the ground. “Come on!” She ordered, moving on to the next block, remembering the pattern Mia had told her and not wanting to ask for a second opinion here; it was quite evident Mia had probably forgotten the order she’d told her.

After a few more shoves, thankfully with these blocks being lighter than that last one, Mia and her flustered teammate managed to shove all the boxes into place, creating the wonderful “Welcome to Denver!” logo and the city’s skyline creation they’d been forced to work for. Mia, feeling exhausted fell to the floor and laughed once again, hands going into the air to cheer. Midori rolled her eyes and rushed over to the tip woman.

“We solved your dumb puzzle! Now give us the tip!” She ordered, hands placed on her hips; however, the woman went over to the puzzle, face retaining its usual glare before she even thought about handing over the tip. When she noticed the puzzle completed, she turned around to see Midori’s palm extended to her.

Instead of handing the tip to Midori, she placed it on top of Mia’s chest and left without another word, resulting in Midori gasping and glaring after her in a mixture of anger and disbelief.

“Woohoo!” Her teammate cheered, hopping up and grabbing her friend’s hand. “We’re going to Denver! I’ve always wondered if the snow is powdered like sugar or something else!” She laughed, not noticing Midori’s angered expression as she rushed out of the room with her.

With Midori and Mia’s success resonating throughout the room, the eyes of several contestants widened in slight fear. How many contestants had already finished the challenge in the other part of the either/or and would they all be sentenced to the second plane? The eyes of several contestants shifted around and gave their teammates worried glances, filling the room with a momentary eerie silence.

However, the first duo to decide to take charge of the situation were the remaining twins in the competition, Ronnel and Rosamie. Their equally colorful outfits were drenched in sweat and determination to finish the challenge. If they didn’t hurry up and get out of here fast, then they’d be even further behind than before; and they couldn’t blame the crowd this time since it’d be their fault if it happened. Ronnel’s hands gripped the nearest block and he shoved it forward in frustration. “We’re…not going to lose here,” he muttered.

“Of course not!” Rosamie agreed, still slightly disgruntled about her skittles falling to the floor from earlier. They’d been the main reason she wasn’t too nervous about talking with her brother about the break since that was a larger decision on her part. “We can’t get that turtle if we lose, right?”

“Uh,” Ronnel paused, eyes going to his sister. “Yes, we can?”

“Oh, right…BUT, you’ll have it out of moral obligation rather than, like, because you won something! It’ll be less of a happy moment, don’t you think?”

“I suppose…but less talk and more pushing, Rosamie! We were far behind because of that crowd, but we’re going to be *way* further behind if we keep stopping to chat.”

Rosamie, though she agreed with him, pouted slightly and went to help her fussy brother. How many times was he going to shove that fan-based hindrance out there? It wasn’t like they *intentionally* surrounded them for pictures and autographs! Maybe they wouldn’t have spent so much time trying to push through them if Rosamie hadn’t stopped to pose every time someone lifted a camera up, but who could blame her? Nobody wanted to have a bad picture posted on the internet! The last time that happened to her and she saw it, she wouldn’t stop wearing a bag over her head and stayed in her room for a week! Okay, maybe not a week, but it felt like it—and maybe not a bag, but she definitely wore a hat! “Can we stop in the airport and get more snacks??” She piped up, eyes darting to her brother.

“IF we get out of here and don’t get stuck on the second flight.”

“BUT, RONNNEEEEEL! If we’re stuck on the second plane, then that means we’ll have more time to shop for snacks!”

“Take it as you want, but I wouldn’t buy myself snacks in defeat if you say that I can’t buy my turtle in the same fashion.”

He had a point about that; she did just tell him that he couldn’t buy a turtle if he lost the race, but it wasn’t meant to sound like that! It just wouldn’t be interesting to say, “I lost a race, so I bought this turtle!” as much as it would be to say, “I won a race for a million dollars and the first thing on my mind was a turtle!” The paparazzi would eat it up when they went back into the spotlight after travelling all over! She still didn’t like to admit it, though.

As they heaved their heavy blocks this way and that, enduring both the weight and the scrapping, the other teams began to take notice of their determination and hop back on that horrifyingly painful sounding train.

The camera switched to the interview room where the camera focused on the two Pranksters. “…….There’s absolutely no reason for blocks to be so heavy.” GG mumbled, rubbing her hands together. Muff let out a loud laugh and shifted their eyes a bit uncomfortably.
“Yeah! Although it’ll be easy with us workin’ together, right? Winkwink nudgenudge knowwhati’msayin’?” They winkwinked and nudgenudged GG on with their elbow, casting a large grin across their face. GG only rolled her eyes.

“Sure, NOW you’re helping.” The demigirl mumbled grumpily, refusing to take her eyes off of her phone. “Woulda been better if you did before, though! You know, during that 30 minutes??”

“Hey, I said sorry!”

“Yeah, but you don’t mean it! You just left me there!”

“G, I didn’t know it was that long!”

“Like Hell you didn’t know!”

The two sat there in silence, GG grimacing and Muff scowling.

“Well, we can make up fo’ the lost time with teamwork.” Muff concluded.

“You think we’re going to be working together??” GG growled, shooting a menacing glare in their partner’s direction. “F\*\*\*uck that. You’re doing the rest on your own.”

“What?!” Muff cried, standing. “That’s balls! You an’ me are a team!”

“You shoulda thought of that before you all up and left me!” The hoodie-clad techie stood with Muff, although she had to look up to meet their gaze due to the height difference between them. “I got a good chunk of it done, anyways! You should consider yourself lucky I didn’t skip out on YOU and just leave everything while you ran and pranked everyone!”

“You \*\*\*hole!” Muff poked GG’s chest. “That’s not how this stuff works! The whole point of this gig is for us to work together!”

“Hypocrite!”

“Butthead!”

The two glared at each other, GG’s grip on her phone tightening. Muff eventually huffed nd slumped their shoulders in defeat.

“Alright, but after this we gotta work together. 100 percent.”

“Sure, fine!”

“Fine!”

And with that, Muff stormed off-camera, causing GG’s own shoulders to slump as she sighed and checked her phone for any responses to her texts.

As time began to pass by, the twins were starting to push themselves to the limit. Rosamie wanted to just finish this puzzle and move on; however, she hadn’t look up in a while, causing Ronnel’s question to take her by shock. “How…much more do we have left?”

“Wh–?”

“You…You weren’t paying attention to it?!”

“I thought you were!”

“Rosamie–!” Ronnel started, feeling like he should comment on this reckless mindset, but he couldn’t speak up since he’d not paid attention either. “Well…how does it look anyway?”

“Ummm…. It says… ‘Welcome to Denver’ but the skyline is all funky looking!” Rosamie shouted a little too loudly, causing the Disco Diva, Starr, to look up from where she was upon hearing the word ‘funky.’ “OH! OH! But if we switch those three pieces around, then we’ll have a less weird skyline showing up!!”

“You’re sure?”

“I-I think…” She mumbled now, not entirely confident in it. If she was wrong, then the puzzle would be messed up and they’d have to keep moving it around again and fall further behind, but if she was right on this one…

“Heck, it’s our only option right now, so let’s do it!” Ronnel confirmed, grabbing the first block in need of moving.

Rosamie, relieved by her brother acting on her advice for her, skipped to his side and helped him move the blocks in rapid success. When the pieces were placed in order, the twins both moved back and gasped loudly, noticing how the entire picture came together perfectly now. In a moment of habit from game shows, they both began to suddenly break into a rhythmic dance routine, swinging their arms and hips in unison only to realize that no music was playing and everyone in the room had suddenly started to stare at them in confusion and concern, except for Starr, who simply clapped and shouted “You go team!”

“Ahem,” they both heard behind them, causing them to jump in surprise. When they turned around, the stern-looking woman was behind them, eyes showing slight confusion as to what they were just doing but hand holding out the tip. “Do you want your tip, or do you want to keep dancing?

“I—Uh… N-No, w-we’d like the tip… ” Ronnel replied, voice cutting out in embarrassment and with his natural inability to one-on-one with most people.

“We’re sorry~! But, can you blame us for being excited?! We just totally blew that puzzle away!” Rosamie chatted away, grabbing the tip from the woman and gave it a once over. “We’re going on a plannneee~!” She cheered, taking her brother by the arm to skip out of the room, dragging him behind her with him protesting about her skipping while holding him.

Switching over to another team, the scene showed a rather peculiar sight with the Pranksters. It appeared to be GG and Muff solving the puzzle but only Muff doing any of the puzzle. GG, holding her phone, snickered softly at whatever was displayed on the screen while the strained and otherwise horribly exhausted grunts of her teammate could be heard. Her eyes never moved from the screen as she called a curt, “You’re doing great, Muff! Keep at it!” Which was responded with a pained scream from them.

“Why do I have to work on this!?” Muff asked, face red from exhaustion. “You’re the one who knew what you were doin’ before!”

“Because you left me to f\*\*\*ing work on it by myself!” Was her answer.

“THAT AIN’T FAIR! You said I could do it!”

“**IF** you were actually tired, you dirty liar!”

With another pained grunt, Muff managed to press the block they were working with against the side of the puzzle. They leaned over and pressed their hands against their knees to pant in pain. This was so uncalled for to them! Their prank was a masterpiece and had scared everyone in the entire room, so it wasn’t like Muff had done *too* much wrong to have done it! GG was just being unreasonable in their eyes. Lifting their head up, they stopped and cheered breathlessly.

In front of them was the puzzle, completed and shining brightly in the lighting of the museum. If they didn’t know any better, they’d assume some kind of angel had taken pity on their soul. “G! **G!**” They called back to their teammate, who glanced up from her phone calmly.

“I did it! I f\*\*\*in’ did it…!” They cheered, hands raising up in victory, though that only caused some of their pockets to empty out on to the floor. That usual stunt of clumsiness would have made GG laugh and join in on the shenanigans of cheering and possibly blowing an airhorn but she simply stared at them with a bored expression present on her face.

“Well, good for you! Go get the tip and let’s get out of here.” GG responded, voice not even raising any kind of interest in Muff’s success; she wouldn’t be over this for another…three hours since Muff hadn’t really done but fifteen minutes to her thirty.

Gritting their teeth in annoyance, they did as they were told, even if it annoyed them to no end. When the stern woman reached out with the tip, Muff all but snatched it out of her hand and ran back to GG. “Let’s go! I hope they got some kinda taco stand in Denver, because I am *starvin’*!” They joked, still receiving barely even a nod from GG, much to their dismay.

As they went rushing past, the camera blurred them out to focus on the background where it was clearly showing Eli and Kennedy snagging their tip from the woman as well. With one whoop of happiness, Eli raced back to their puzzle spot and grabbed: Kennedy’s jacket, Kennedy’s hat, and the camera.

“I thought we’d never finish that thing!” He panted, handing the jacket to their calm teammate first.

Kennedy slowly slipped their arm through the sleeve and returned Eli’s statement with a nod. That had certainly been a shock to them when they’d completed it. Their conversation had gone from discussions of executions to what Denver could possibly have that was haunted. Maybe they could complete the challenge fast enough and explore a bit before Don took them to the hotel. They slipped their other arm through their sleeve and grabbed for the hat, glad to have it placed back on top of their scarlet locks. “Let’s get going before the plane leaves without us!” They urged, turning around to rush away.

“Let’s find the ausgang first!” Eli shouted after them, strapping the camera back to their palm and going to catch up with their teammate, small feet slapping against the floor; however, Kennedy suddenly glanced back over their shoulder toward Husband and Wife, still working on their puzzle. They had wanted to help them, but the challenge was too hard for even one person to complete on their own.

The interview room appeared on screen with Kennedy and Eli seated next to each other. “I did want to help them…” Kennedy sheepishly admitted, removing their hat to wring in their hands. “But…the challenge was way too complex for even us to complete within a reasonable time. Moving on to help them would have cost us too much time and we’d possibly be…”

“Stuck on the last plane, and we’re most certainly NOT going home first!” Their shorter teammate spat out, crossing his arms. “Sweet beans, don’t feel so guilty! If push came to shove, Mister Glares-R-Us would have done the same!”

“Yeah…but…” Kennedy mumbled, guilt-riddle features pushing over their naturally calm expression. Even if Helen forgave them, they wouldn’t forgive themself. What a moral dilemma. “Let’s just hope they never die and haunt us…”

The idea of those two haunting them seemed unlikely, but with Frank being the one haunting them, it’d be pretty horrendous. But, Eli’s face didn’t falter and he smacked his teammate’s back happily. “That’s the spirit! He…eheheh…. *spirit…*”

As the interview ended, the eyes of the taller one could be seen wavering in both sadness and guilt over ditching Helen and Frank.

Nolan became much, much more anxious as the teams slowly but surely began completing their challenges. At this point, he didn’t know which flight they would be on; yet one thing was for certain. If he and Grayson were on the last plane, that would severely put a damper on their plans. It wouldn’t do them any good to be, what, an hour or two late for the challenge. It just put them that much closer to possibly being eliminated!

Grayson, on the other hand, appeared to be far calmer. No matter what plane they would get on, at least he could say he was a part of this wicked experience. And even if they were eliminated in the very next episode, the fact he got to participate in this race was enough of a reward itself. That didn’t just mean the two boys were going to give up, no. They just pushed on harder!

Wiping the sweat from his brow, Nolan stepped away from the puzzle just to take a glance at it. It was far less scrambled than it appeared to have been when they first started. However, they encountered a small problem. The blocks skyline of the puzzle were on the complete opposite side, and it was the one piece they needed to finish the puzzle! Groaning, the young man simply stretched his hands behind his back. Evidently, he never wanted to work on another puzzle again.

Grayson, noticing his brother having stopped, let go of the current block he was pulling. Thankfully, it was one made of plastic; so it was easy to just let go of it. Tilting his head, he simply asked his brother, “Need a break?”

The other, snapping his head, quickly denied this. “What, no!” He shouted loudly, somewhat offended at the accusation he needed to simply take a break. Truth be told, he was more or less nervous about the results of this challenge; what if they weren’t able to complete the puzzle? What if they were in last place! Oh, the nervous thoughts plagued Nolan’s mind like the common cold.

“Dude, if you want to take a break, you can take a break.” The blonde haired boy stated plainly, turning to push against the blocks once again.

Rushing over to Grayson’s side, Nolan quickly shook his head no. “Nope, nuh uh, I don’t need a break!” He kept insisting, resulting in a meer eye roll from the other male.

“Whatever you say, brother…”

Back in action, Nolan worked his hardest to try and push and pull these blocks. His arms were already on fire; but it wasn’t anything the young man couldn’t handle. He was the sporty type, after all!

Grayson’s arms stung with the fury of a thousand angry fire ants all biting him at once as he pushed alongside his brother. Yet he just sucked up the pain. He might not be the strongest person around, but they *had* to get this done; had to. Time seemed to speed up around them as they exerted their muscles—or what could be considered muscles—on the blocks. Slowly, but surely, they got their task done. One by one, the blocks worked in their favor, and, after pushing the final one into place, the words “Welcome to Denver” radiated like a fire in the night sky.

“I… I think we finished!” Nolan was out of breath as he cheered, panting and huffing while shaking his hands in the open air to try and shake the stinging pain out of them.

As Nolan did this, Grayson calmly walked over to the Stern woman, pointing over towards the puzzle they had just completed. Her expression unwavering, she simply extended her hand—and travel tip, by extension—to the surfer dude, who slowly accepted it.

Heading over to his brother, he failed to notice him extending his hand up in order to give the other a high five. He was too focused on reading what was just given to him. Walking by the other, he read aloud the contents of the tip. “The tip says… to head to Vancouver International and board the flight to Denver.” He paused for a moment, before quickly rushing towards the entrance of the room. “C’mon dude, I hope we can get a taxi this time around; I am *not* walking to the airport!” He just simply assumed Nolan would follow him out the door so the two of them could be on their merry way.

As his brother ran, the young man felt a twinge of hurt. He knew Grayson didn’t mean to ignore him; but it pained him more than he would like to admit. “H-hey Gray, wait up!” He shouted after his brother, chasing after him.

As the teams furiously worked on attempting to not come in to find out they’d made it on the second flight, the camera went to the airport where the view of several teams could be shown as Don’s disembodied voice announced, “As our teams finish their Either/Or challenge, the race for which flight they’ll be boarding continues on.” Among the teams currently in the airport, Alan and Candi could be seen holding each other’s hands and happily staring into each other’s eyes. “You think we’ll always have this kind of luck??” Candi asked, giggling and giving Alan a few eskimo kisses.

Alan, with a deep red blush spread across his face responded, “I’ll make sure of it, my adorable candy apple.” He gave her  a few eskimo kisses of his own, closing his eyes to enjoy the moment. “Even if we have to give a little….push…to keep it that way!”

“Awwww… I love it when you talk like that!” Candi laughed. “We’ll give this competition a good ol’ fashion push~!”

As the camera flashed to the interview room, the duo are seen jumping in joy. They couldn’t believe it; they actually made it in 2nd place; it was something out of this world for them.

Candi was shaking uncontrollably and giddy all over the place. “Alan~ I cannot believe that you actually grabbed us into second place. I am so proud of you~ Your memory is so strong till this day forward, how are you able to do such a thing?“

”I know!“ Alan chuckled to himself. ”I just have a natural thing for remembering this til this day an-“

"Who would had known that my great memory would snatch up a place higher than we thought.” Candi interrupted him and smiled to him.

He frowned for the moment before grabbing his hat and putting it on his wife’s head. "Of course, I should had known that we would be this high like the love for my Candi~“ He winked at her.

Candi giggled and accepted the hat. Normally, she would tell him to put it back but she was too excited to say that. ”Oooh~ My sexy man. I will give you a reward tonight the moment we enter into the hotel, if you know what I mean~!“ She giggled a bit as she winked to the camera.

"Ooh, Candi, now, don’t say that. You know, there are kiddies that are watching this right? Save it for the hotel, don’t say it in front of the cameras~!” He winked toward the cameras and goes closer to her. He tickled her stomach.

“Alan stop~!” She chuckled with him, knowing what he was doing and pushed him off.

He went behind her and Candi became confused for a moment and went to ask him what was he doing but was too slow to respond. Candi gave a little squeal as Alan carried Candi on his back; however, once he did that, his back started to give out and dropped her almost immediately. Candi almost fell to the ground but luckily she landed on her feet, giving her some pain but nothing to worry about.

Candi saw Alan and became confused. “Hey, Alan sweety? Are you alright?” Alan gave a nod but was lying; his back was hurting him and he needed to rest after doing that “little” mistake.

Candi went to her hubby and rubbed his back. Not knowing what to do at all, she went to her hubby and helped him up. Alan obeyed her and they both slowly get out of the interview room. Maybe the plans for the night will have to go later than he thought.

Moving away from the lovey dovey duo, Lyndon and Pembroke were holding their tickets and happily waiting on the flight to Denver, even though Pembroke only appeared invested in a textbook now.

The scene of the interview room sprouted up, revealing the background everyone had grown familiar with. Pembroke and Lyndon were both seated in the room, obviously filled with so much joy and excitement about leaving to head for Denver, Colorado!

Pembroke huffed, examining her nails to make sure they hadn’t been damaged at all during the challenge - they hadn’t, to her satisfaction. “Back to Denver? Pretty sure we left Colorado, like, five minutes ago.” She rolled her eyes as she spoke.

“A bit more than five minutes..” Lyndon chimed in with a shy smile, “but come on, Pem. We’re in the lead! Isn’t that exciting?!” The boy’s enthusiasm caused a smile to spread across Pembroke’s face, but also had a smug look about her.

“And to think, *you* said you didn’t want to be here.”

“I didn’t!” Lyndon started defensively, before backing off in an attempt to sound cooler about the situation. “I didn’t. But if things keep going this well? I’m sure I could handle a season here.” He smiled genuinely up at his dream girl, and she tittered.

“If things keep going this well, we’ll win for sure!” Pembroke cried out happily, embracing Lyndon tightly, causing the his pale cheeks to warm up. He let out a happy sigh.

“I really hope this haps keepening..” Lyndon mumbled blissfully, before realizing his mistake. “-I mean, keeps happening.”

“What?” Pembroke asked, not having heard him until he corrected himself.

“Nothing!’

The camera switched back to the airport still where Lyndon and Pembroke were seated. Pembroke turned her head to look at her teammate and asked, “Do you think I should try out for Gretel?” She asked Lyndon–as teams came rushing behind her. Cleo and Jason were the first to reach the ticket counter with Grayson and Nolan at the back of the line, worriedly hopping from one foot to the other—or, well, Nolan was stuck in that loop while Grayson simply gave the room a run around with his eyes.

“Please, please, please don’t tell me we’re on the second flight!” Nolan begged, turning to look at Grayson who looked calmer than the wind on a spring day. “How can you be so calm here?! We could be the ones who get on the second flight first!”

“Well, if we are, then we are…”

“Gahhhh, you’re not helpful here!” Nolan complained. He turned around and noticed that through all his worrying, the line had decreased with the Pranksters taking their ticket and heading to their seats, neither speaking to each other. GG had her phone out and was typing on it like she was more bored than interested in the competition while Muff grumbled in annoyance. “It…was an…being sensitive…” They mumbled in fluctuations of audible and silent.

The Paranormal Specialists soon grabbed their ticket to go take their seats, Eli hopping in added excitement to their success on the first challenge. “Sweet molasses babies! We made it to flight number one! How f\*\*\*ing lucky?!” The cheers of the shortest person on the show didn’t help Nolan’s worried stomach from doing a flip. If they were the eighth team, then that would mean Nolan and Grayson were ninth.

The two boys approached the counter now for their tickets, Nolan’s head hung in shame while Grayson placed a hand on his shoulder. “Give us the bad news…” The tall male mumbled, barely even glancing up to grab their ticket, which Grayson immediately glanced at upon receiving.

“Bro, it says we’re leaving on the same flight as the others here.” Grayson informed his crestfallen teammate, who immediately lifted his head up to stare at the ticket as well.

“WOAH, REALLY!?” He yelled, eyes widening with excitement.

“Aw! I’m so happy for you guys!” Mia happily sang out, sending a tentative way toward Nolan and Grayson, a smile stretching her cheeks. She turned around and walked after Midori to claim a seat to await the plane’s arrival. She’d been here for a while now, but the bathroom and cheesecake from a stand had been calling her name. What luck that she had some extra cash on her hands!

“Yo, bro, you wanna…?” Grayson asked, eyes gesturing toward the Odd Girls.

“Heck yeah!” Nolan agreed, grabbing his brother’s arm to go sit by the two, whispering, “Hot Babes…hot babes~! So excited to meet the hot babes!” His chanting softly under his breath would probably have sent a certain purple-haired girl over the garden wall while Grayson simply resisted the urge to send a jab to his ribs.

As the competition began to heat up with more and more teams finishing their challenges, some teams were most certainly starting to feel the heat. Yet in the portrait room, the only team that appeared to not feel any of the stress were Erin and Irene; they worked diligently to make sure their portrait was as perfect as possible. After all, this was something they were good at! All their working life, they had been invested into make up effects and hair styling; and now? They have a chance to express themselves the way they wanted to! How lucky could the duo get! To the annoyance of some of the other teams in the room, the stylists simply giggled and snickered as they talked amongst themselves, slowly getting the picture of Don done.

“Oh, I hope Don loves this portrait!” Erin enthusiastically spoke as he highlighted detail around Portrait Don’s eyes.

“I’m sure he will Erin! How could he not love this!”

Smiling, the male went over to get a new paintbrush for a darker color to line Don’s suit with.

“Yeah, I’m sure he will love it! Ooooh, do you think he’ll love it so much he’d want to hang it up in his mansion!?”

“Don owns a mansion?” Irene couldn’t help but ask.

Erin simply shrugged in response, outlining Don’s suit with a dark green color. “I assume he would; he is pretty rich, after all.”

“Then of course! Ooooh, I hope he loves it so much that he lets me style his hair! That would be such a dream come true!”

“Oh my gosh, it would be such a privilege to see you do something spectacular with that man’s hair!” The male stylists cheered aloud, adding a bit of a highlight to the portrait’s eye. Quickly, he gasped as a realization hit him.

Irene, in response simply titled her head in curiosity, looking at her friend while finishing up the portrait’s hairdo.

“What if… Don made you his hair stylist and me his make-up artist!”

Laughing, the blonde-haired woman smiled over at Erin. “That would be the best thing to have been invented since the hair straightener.

“You know, I kind of want to grow out my hair and see if those things would actually turn me straight.” Erin snorted a bit at his own joke, resulting in his friend laughing along with him.

“Trust me Erin; those things work about as well as half the hair care products advertised on the television do.” The young woman paused for a moment, before continuing on with her train of thought. “That is to say, they don’t work at all!”

Grabbing the canvas by the edges, the stylists carefully made their trek across the room to receive their tip. Oh, how much they would hate it if their portrait just splattered across the floor like a zombie getting hit with a mallet. A cautious worry to their step, they crossed the room and over towards the elderly gentleman, who, with a smile on his face, gladly accepted the portrait presented before them.

“Marvelous, just marvelous!” He spoke aloud, a tear nearly forming in his eye from how beautiful he thought their painting was.

Taking the portrait as carefully as they had, the older man set it gently onto the wall of the atrium. Handing Irene the tip, she daintily accepted it, holding it over towards Erin so he would get an opportunity to read it as well.

A large grin overtook both their faces as they glanced over at each other, quickly squeeing like school children as they exclaimed, at the same time, “We’re going to Denver!”

With delight in their step, the duo of Stylists quickly gave each other an embracing hug, before rushing out of the room and heading towards the airport.

The sight of Erin and Irene leaving the room left some contestants feeling like they’d just had their egos jabbed into–at least that was how Encore was handling it. After her portrait had been rejected for being nothing but “pop art” far too many times, she was certainly about to rip her extensions from her head and use them to strangle the older gentleman. At this point, a few tears had stained her confident cheeks out of frustration; she needed to take a break.

“I-I can’t even get the hands right!” She screamed, grabbing on to the easel with both her hands to imitate her desire for strangulation. Behind her, Masquerade nearly threw his head back in frustration since he’d offered to help out several times, only to have her bat his hand away.

“Ay, you strugglin’?” Babe asked, hands clutching her finished canvas calmly, face covered in specks of paint and hair dripping a few bits of color on to the clean floor. “I ain’t no art expert here, but I recommend just leaving it plain. Don ain’t a rainbow.” With Encore’s attention on the grossly colorful greaser chick, she didn’t seem to notice Hoss taking the paintbrush from the easel and painting up a pair of hands and feet.

“I recommend leavin’ it all black an’ white; he ain’t worth losin’ a million Washingtons ova!” With a wave, she turned and began to rush over to the elder man, presenting her piece of Don leaning against a car without a hood on it. Although, she hadn’t meant to, her pigtails had ended up slapping Encore in the face, spreading a fine layer of white paint across her features.

“No prob!” Hoss uttered, rushing past Encore without another word.

“Uh! Uh?!” Encore uttered in disbelief from the coat of white paint now smeared across her face, turning around expecting their easel to be ruined, only to see the hands that she’d nearly torn her extensions out over drawn in. She was nearly speechless, that’s for sure. “Masky…” She mumbled, turning her head toward him and taking a few steps back. “You take over,” she finally complied, receiving a nod from her masked teammate.

“You go sit down and get some water, ya old bat,” he ordered, taking a few tubes of paint and working out the piece on his own. As much as Masquerade trusted Encore’s expertise, he knew that once she’d made up her mind on something, there was no way he could convince her otherwise. That time had most certainly saved them from possible elimination by distracting her from another world class tantrum, but he wouldn’t trust them with a penny right now.

Masquerade shook his head and finally managed to finish up a rough concept of Don. Turning around, he saw Encore wiping her face with a red velvet display cover and smiled.

“Come on! We’re not losing today, Warhol.” He reached out and took hold of her arm, pulling her toward the older man, whose face was wearing a saddened expression, expecting them to present another colorful catastrophe.

Much to his surprise, however, they had a rather plain looking piece. With a delighted and relieved smile, he gave them a thumbs up and handed them the tip. “Maybe you’ll paint something that will end up here one day, Miss.”

“***NO WAY***!” Encore exploded; however, Masquerade hurriedly began to drag her away from the poor soul while she screamed, “I would *never* want a piece of *my* beautiful art ***anywhere*** near this ***DUMP* OF AN ART GALLERY**!”

While rushing out of the gallery, the two superheroes could hear the distinct sound of the first letter of the alphabet being cheered. With a glance back, they noticed the Greasers had weirdly enough waited on them to turn in their painting.

The interior of the interview room came into view as The Greasers high fived each other happily, before shooting each other the double guns. Hoss turned to face the camera first, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly. “Why’d we’s give ‘em a little help?” He asked as if it were just to reiterate the question at hand at this point. “That’s simple: why leave ‘em out ta dry? It just ain’t right! ‘Sides, they’s was nice to us on tha rod on tha way ‘ere.”

“Hoss an’ I ain’t about ta give someone tha royal shaft on tha first day! Especially if they ain’t unpleasant ‘bout our lifestyle.” Babe added in. She lifted up her arms and placed them behind her head happily. “Plus, we ain’t heartless! We’re well aware about bein’ freams, an’ it looked like that antsville were gonna eitha give ‘em a hard time if she kept freakin’ out.”

“Mm-hmmm…” Hoss droned on, arms resting behind his head now. “I’m sure they’s not too frosted ‘bout ya hair in her face.”

“Comes off in tha wash!”

The camera switched over to the flightless love birds still working on their portrait—eyes narrowed in concentration. It’d put a slight, silent damper on their spirits when their first canvas went splattering across the floor, and it was even more of a damper when the gentleman waiting for them to finish gave them… the look. They weren’t going to blame each other for that mishap, but it still didn’t surprise anyone that a bit of negativity went surging through their veins. Maybe it was the floor that had tripped them, maybe it was Eva, or maybe it was Korā…? They both really couldn’t decide, so they kept their jaws clamped shut about it.

“Do you think Don will get mad when he finds out that his face is splattered all over the floor?” Eva asked, a giggle escaping her throat despite the situation.

“Hm… Probably,” Korā replied curtly. It still steamed her that it’d happened, but she wasn’t going to hold it over Eva’s head; she cared entirely too much about her other half to do that to her. “He’s probably in the midst of throwing a mini-tantrum about us!” A laugh finally emerged from her lips, causing her to shake her head in thought.

“I hope he tries to kick something and falls on his butt!”

They both paused from painting and glanced at each other for mere moments, before dissolving into a fit of laughter at the mental image. They could just see Don freaking out in his fancy room, kicking and yelling and freaking out about his gorgeous mug on the floor. His foot accidentally catches something that traps it for a brief moment, resulting in him going backward and landing on his rear with a hard thud, a simple, “***F\*\*\*ing Kiwis***” escaping his lips. The tense vibe that had once been cast over Eva and Korā suddenly faded out. It wasn’t like either of them could actually stay mad at each other for long!

“Anyway–” Korā continued, “–We should get this done… It’s not like we can gain his forgiveness if we don’t redo this *stupid* portrait.”

Eva snorted and glanced up at the giant banner that was now presenting a rather ominous glow to the room. They were lower on the list than they’d like to be since a few teams had already left this room, and more had likely left from the other room. She couldn’t help but feel  a slight twinge of pressure build up inside her mind, noticed by her teammate almost instantly.

They felt secondhand embarrassment to letting the Greasers get done before them! They should be fifty years ahead of those guys, shouldn’t they? They could understand the Stylists since they knew what they were doing and it was their forte, but the Superheroes and the Greasers of all people? That was just humiliating. “Let’s get moving, Korā~! Don’s gonna think he’s actually on your level of hotness!”

“Aue, mutu koutou e!” (Subtitles: Oh, you stop that!) Korā laughed, a slight blush appearing on her face. It was also vital to Korā right now to keep Eva calm here; if she started to feel any sort of pressure, it could lead to her panicking and trying to rush them. “I bet we’re *way* ahead of those puzzle go-ers!” She bragged with one glance over her shoulder to make sure no one from that challenge came rushing out at that given moment. When she saw no other team, she gave a content sigh and turned to her girlfriend. “I bet we’re scheduled on the first chance to get there!”

Eva’s once worried expression changed to a more confident one. “Yeah!”

The interview room appeared on the screen to show The Kiwis standing next to each other, Eva looked a bit dreary.

Eva let out a loud sigh, “Well I guess I almost lost my cool there.”

Korā fiddled with her fingers in her lap, “But we can’t always be cool, calm and collected.”

“Yeah!” Eva agreed, “I almost let things get the better of me there, but thanks to this one,” she smiled cheekily at Korā, “I got to keep the chill.”

As the camera flashed back to the portrait room, Eva and Korā smiled at one another, happily pulling their canvas off the stand and carefully making their way to the gentleman. He glanced at the portrait and held out a tip to them, snatching it back at the last second. “You make sure to not make a mess on your way out of here, you got it?” Both girls glanced at each other, embarrassment falling over their features as Korā gently took the tip and gave a curt nod.

The camera then flashed again to them running down the hallway where it showed Eva knocking over a bucket of dirty, grimey water, resulting in Korā yelling, “**RUN**!” and grabbing her girlfriend’s arm to sprint out of there as quickly as they could manage.

The camera, focusing back on the puzzle room, showed that Ulyssa and Dylan were faring far worse than they’d actually like to admit. Dylan by now was sweating in drastic measures with his hands having to swipe at his forehead every single moment he moved. His armpits felt like sandpaper against his cotton-based shirt. If he had known the first challenge would be so physical, he would have begged Ulyssa harder to try out the portraits or never agreed to this race in the first place. “D\*\*\* it, Ulyssa! This is too *hard*.” he whined, swiping at his forehead, hair sticking to it. “Why the *hell* would we agree to this willingly?!”

“Because it’s way easier than drawing whatever thing *they* wanted us to draw! I mean, I bet it was that egotistical Don we would have to draw, that pig! I will *not* be forced to *succumb* to his ways!”

“Ulyssa, who cares if it’s Don?!” Dylan shot back in protest.

“I do; the female population does; everyone will! He’s so…ugh! I can’t stand his type!”

“You say that about *every* guy you meet!”

“*And*?”

“Ugh…nevermind…” He sighed, defeated by his own teammates stubborn actions. “Can we, like, change the subject to video games or something…?”

“Fine, but don’t you dare talk about the outfits that female characters wear!” The short girl replied, grunting as she shoved another block away from her. Her form was way better than Dylan’s—with only minor amounts of sweat dripping down her forehead and her breath barely even hitched. For some unholy reason they happened to chose the **worst** set of puzzle blocks; most of them were heavier than a car, in her opinion. “Hate Don…Hate him…Hate, hate, hate, hate….that pig…” She muttered bitterly, ignoring Dylan as he started to talk about video games, until she noticed him changing the subject to players in the game—primarily the female ones, or the ones he assumed female.

“And, like, I know I *shouldn’t* be interested in the nerdy camera girls, but I think Eli is super hot.”

“Eli…?”

“Yeah! She’s really pretty and has like this great a\*\*…!” Ulyssa wanted to ask him how he gained the knowledge of the names of the other contestants, but she knew mobile data was so useful when you’re stuck on a bus and can literally Google every last contestant’s name on the website. “I’m pretty sure I have a fair shot; I mean, she’s probably one of those *fake* gamer girls, and, like, doesn’t even know the difference between Deadpool and Spiderman; but I think I can–”

“Dylan, you *problematic*, piece of *s\*\*\**…. Do you even *know* if Eli is *female*?”

“Uhhhh, yeah?”

“Are you *positive?!* You know, it’s *sooo* f\*\*\*ing wrong that you’d just assume that Eli goes by she pronouns when–” She paused, yanking her phone from her pocket, finger raised to make Dylan wait a moment as she looked up something on her phone. “–they could be anything else! I mean, you’re such a pig to just assume that! You just go around and spout out, ‘***M’lady***’ to every *single* feminine person on this show, and it’s bad enough that you say it to girls, but you’re even worse to assume that everyone you say it to *is* a girl!”

“I can think what I want!”

“I don’t have enough money to bribe every last person on this show to forgive your stupid, problematic a\*\*!” Ulyssa’s arms crossed over her chest, her eyes narrowing in annoyance. “Why do you think Eli is a girl anyway?”

“Because she has *pink* eyes!”

“DYLAN, ***SERIOUSLY***!? COLOR HAS NO *F\*\*\*\*ING* GENDER! Y-YOU–!” She tried to continue, but her eyes started to S      well up with tears. “I can’t even *look* at you! You’re going to a-apologize to every last person on this show for assuming they’re all fine with *your* labels!”

“Oh, come *on*!! I already have to apologize to Disco Fever for what I said earlier!”

As he shouted this, Starr looked up from where she was at, shooting an icy glare that could rival the coldest of people at the fedora wearing loser.

“YOU’RE DOING IT OR *I’M* CUTTING YOUR *PAY*, LIKE THE WORLD DOES TO ALL WOMEN!” Ulyssa shrieked, voice echoing painfully around the room, surprising everyone in there. “You’re…doing…it…”

“Fine! Geez… I’ll just flirt with the hotter babes…” He muttered, receiving a deathly stare from his purple-haired teammate, sending chills down his spine. “I-If they say I can! GOSH! Now can we *do* this challenge already!?” The idea of continuing the challenge itself was stomach twisting to him, but he would rather push these heavy blocks than to hear Ulyssa lecture him about not knowing about something!

“Yeah…Let’s just *finish* this and get out of here.” She mumbled in reply, face tired and tears finally drying up. If Dylan offended anyone else, she’d burn his fedora while he slept—actually, she was probably going to do that anyways.

Switching back to the other challenge, the relative silence of the portrait room didn’t faze the two Scene Queens. Sure, they were the last ones in the room—sans the older gentleman—but that just means they had fewer distractions to worry about, especially since the older man so rudely hated their last picture. The two of them were so certain Don would *love* to have been a Scene Kid! With a huff, the two of them had to start from scratch once again—this time, they were painting something much more traditional.

“Like *W-T-F* is that old guy talking about?” Natalia whined to Lexi in a whisper, still upset at the events that had transpired earlier on. As she droned on, she painted Don’s hair his *actual* color and style, since it was evident scenifying him just wouldn’t work out in their favor.

“Oh, he just doesn’t know what’s fabby!” Lexi replied, working on giving the egocentric host a fancy, blue suit. At least they could probably score some brownie points for this.

“I-K-R!?” The pink haired girl squeed aloud, completely agreeing with the other scene queen.

The two of them frantically got to work, slathering paint on their canvas faster than a hummingbird’s wings flutter in the wind. The scene was certainly quite frantic for the two queens; their hands moved faster than they could ever assume possible. But soon, they had a rather lovely portrait of Don completed. The two girls smiled over at their hard work; both of them quickling signing their full names of “*Lexi Little*” and “*Natalia Reed*” over on the corners of the portrait. Wiping their brows, they quickly embraced each other in a hug; excited that this—hopefully—would get them their travel tip.

Gently carrying it by the top two corners, The Scene Queens carefully made their way up to the older man. Although at first he prepared himself to be terrified out of his mind once again, he was pleasantly surprised to find a much more regal looking view of Don. A small smile danced its way up onto his face as he took the picture and handed them their ticket, resulting in a sharp, excited noise from the girls as they abandoned the portrait room.

As the Scene Queens rushed past the puzzle room, where the blurred image of Ulyssa and Dylan could be seen receiving their tip. Dylan, naturally, tipped his hat to the woman, and then was slapped by both her and Ulyssa for something he said that the camera’s microphone couldn’t quite pick up.

However, with a stupid move on their part, the Scene Queens stopped in front of the museum exit for a quick interview. With a smile, the pink haired girl looked into the camera, travel tip in hand, and spoke aloud. “Like, O-M-G, I am *sooooo* glad we got done with that!”

Nodding in agreement, Lexi shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Yeah, That old man really needed to S-T-F-U with that screaming at our picture. Like, I’m so sure Don would have loved it!”

“Yeah! But L-O-L, it’s rad we are at least not in last–”

As the pink haired girl explained to the camera her thought process, the sight of Ulyssa barking orders at Dylan could be seen as she ran past the Scene Queens in the background of the interview, Dylan failing to keep up with her as he tried his hardest to make chase.

Turning her head to look at them, the girl with the skunk-striped hair gasped over dramatically, eyes wide with shock. “LIKE, *O-M-F-G*, YOU TWO NEEDTO ***STOP* THAT**! *WE* FINISHED ***FIRST***!”

“Huh–?” Natalia turned her head, confused as what was going on. As soon as she did that, Lexi run off, chastising the Internet Junkies for rushing ahead of them.

“O-M-G, LEXI, WAIT UP!” The scene queen shouted, chasing after her friend.

The sudden image of the airport came back into view as more teams began to enter into it. The Kiwis, with their tickets in hand, sat down next to the Paranormal Specialists to relax after running like chickens with their heads cut off to escape the gallery. It’d been an accident when Eva spilled that bucket but they didn’t want to get in trouble with that man again!

Sighing to herself, Eva placed a hand on her forehead and glanced over at the two next to her. They had…an interesting assortment of black clothing on and a camera with what looked like video footage of a room with orbs roaming around in it going. The one with teal hair had a bag of chips in his hands and was casually munching on them while studying the footage. “Definitely not dusts… It has to be paranormal, right?” He asked his teammate, who scrunched up their features to stare into the camera. They gave a curt nod and turned away to stare at the time above the entrance to the plane.

The teal haired demiboy’s eyes suddenly turned to stare at Eva, a look of confusion sprouting across his features. Glancing down at his bag of chips, he held it out to the blue-haired girl and asked, “You want some chips?” thinking she was actually just craving a snack.

The only thing that crossed Eva’s mind was a joke that she quickly spouted out, “You know I *can’t* grab your ghost chips!” The next thing the two knew, Eva and Korā began to break down into a fit of laughter that started off as small giggles but turned into an assortment of snorts and chortling, much to every last person’s confusion in the room–excluding Cleo who screamed out a loud, “**HA**!!!” to add into the confusion of the room, and Jason, who simply shook his head at his sister.

Deciding it best to switch away from the confusion, the camera showed the puzzle room with the final teams still in there. The room suddenly had become completely silent as the last two teams realized just how in bad shape they were. If they didn’t finish the challenge, they would possibly miss the plane, which wasn’t exactly something that had happened on this show before, but they had to play it safe on the first day; no point in losing even more time by testing their luck there. The attention went straight to the Husband and Wife, Frank and Helen, who were still weirdly enough chowing down on the mysterious sandwiches.

From the audience’s perspective, it appeared that they hadn’t even moved a muscle during the challenge from the time they sat down to the time of now; however, to those with better observation skills, it appeared their puzzle was mostly complete, with just a few more pieces needing to be moved into place.

Figuring now would be a decent time for it, the camera began to show flashbacks of Helen and Frank during the challenge. It at first showed them working together until Helen suddenly placed a hand on her hip, then it showed Helen sitting on the floor while Frank moved the blocks himself, then it showed Helen trying to get up to help and Frank ushering her to sit back down, and finally it showed Helen holding another set of sandwiches. Where did the snack food come from? Nobody knew.

“Oh…” Helen mumbled, glancing around the emptied room. “I suppose we’re the last team here!”

“Not quite.” Frank mumbled, pointing toward Starr and Gary, shoving the blocks in agony. “Do you think you can move?”

Helen paused, pulling herself upward and moving around a bit. Her face scrunching up slightly in pain. “I think that one block did a number on my lower back…” She admitted sheepishly. Even though she was constantly putting on strong front, she didn’t want to disappoint her husband.

Frank, not even for a moment thinking about that, nodded his head and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You sit down on the bottom right corner of the puzzle while I move the last two pieces.”

“…Is there a specific rea–”

He didn’t even let her finish before cutting her off with a simple, “Yes.” Mostly he was doing it to save time, not to push a rude tone on to her. If they chatted too much, then those other two would finish before them and they’d fall even more behind.

“Well, uh, okay!” She obliged.

Frank gratefully nodded to his wife, glad her instinct wasn’t to argue with him, even if she felt a little bit of unfairness in the situation. Her pain was the reason he wouldn’t let her move these blocks or stand; it wasn’t that she was old or fragile, but he didn’t want her to pull anything else on these blocks. She’d must have not pushed a  block hard enough and then immediately shoved against it when it proved heavier, which resulted in a pulled muscle in her back. For now, all he could consider was his wife resting up and letting that muscle heal. As he contemplated their next move, he shoved the last block into place and dusted off his hands, ready to go over to the tip woman.

“Oh, you finished! I’ll go get the tip!” Helen started, receiving a curt rejection from her husband almost immediately.

Frank moved past her and didn’t offer explanation until he took the tip from the stern woman, who looked more intimidated by him than anything by this point. She turned her back and immediately rushed over to stand by Starr and Gary, attempting to relax her shoulders from the resting glare of Frank’s cold stare.

When Frank returned to Helen’s side, he showed her the tip. “We’re flying to Denver, Colorado.”

“OH! That sounds like so much fun!” She gasped. Her hands began to clap eagerly as a thought circulated through her head. “Do you think we’ll get to ski?!”

A slight smile formed on Frank’s lips and he shook his head, hoping that wasn’t the case. “Who knows? Don is young and adventurous, so he may make it dangerous…”

“That makes it even more exciting to think about!”

As Helen began to chatter along about taking her kids there one day, Frank turned around and bent down for her. “Climb on. I can carry you there.”

“What?! But won’t that be a far distance?!”

“*Psh*… I’ve carried our kids on my back since the day they started grabbing everything, so I can surely carry my wife a few blocks to the airport…or to a taxi…not entirely sure yet… ” He used his hands to usher her to jump on to his back. She hesitated but submitted, in the end, laughing when he hopped back up and bounced her high up his back. “Just don’t do anything risky up there, okay?”

“Okay~!” She agreed, only to go waving to Starr and Gary as Frank went walking toward the exit. “Good luck! I hope to see you on the plane!”

“What did I just *say* about risky?” Frank groaned, trying to balance his wife on his back.

The room fell near silent as the camera panned to Gary and Starr. They had just *ONE* more block to push into place; and they’d be done. The two were exhausted from the strenuous activity—even if Gary didn’t necessarily look like he was. On top of that, the disco diva was without a doubt ticked that they now were likely in last place. How did she let them fall so far behind!? It seems like everywhere she goes, bad luck tended to befall her; whether it’s getting pasta noodles stuck in her afro or falling off the top of a cheerleading pyramid, reality shows just weren’t her forte.

Yet, the sad thing was; it wasn’t even her fault they weren’t finished yet. The two of them just simply were unable to move a fair few of the blocks as quickly as they wanted due to the sheer weight of them. Combine that with poor timing and the both of them not having the best upper body strength, and you get a really bad combination of sorts.

Wiping her brow, Starr took a step away from the block to stretch. “*Daddyyyyyy*, are we done yet?” She groaned, popping out her back due to the pain starting to stir in her spine. Her dad, climbing atop the block, scanned the picture with an eagle eye as the stern woman simply watched on.

“Almost, sweetheart… ” He droned on, walking around atop the puzzle pieces. Tapping one of the blocks with his foot, he went on to explain what the two of them had to do. “Pull this block to the right.” The man began his explanation, soon pointing to another of the blocks. “And then pull this one down. After that, push that one to the right–” He pointed at a third block. “–And then simply push this one back up.” Finally, he pointed back to the first block, slowly climbing off the top of the puzzle.

The duo quickly went to work on trying to finish it. Even if they were in last place, they were not going to give up this easily! This just gave them all the more reason to try harder on the next challenge. They couldn’t go home now; after all, they just started this competition!

For the next few minutes, all that could be heard was the sound of the cold stone blocks scraping against the equally cold stone floor. The noise became slightly more bearable as they were the only team left attempting to finish the puzzle. They grunted and groaned as they attempted to get this done so they could at least avoid missing their flight.

And through their hard work and sheer dedication, they managed to pull it off. Starr—avoiding collapsing to the ground from her weariness—stepped back from the puzzle, smiling as the phrase “*Welcome To Denver*” was finally as plain as a white t-shirt.

Gary, on the other hand, walked towards the stern woman, who’s lack of a glare allowed her a moment to relax. Handing him the travel tip, the woman pulled a walkie-talkie off of her person and contacted the older gentleman in the other atrium. The camera had a hard time picking up what was spoken into the device, and the woman simply sighed in response.

Panning over to the Father & Daughter, duo, Gary read the tip aloud, glancing up at his daughter as he did so. “It says to go to Vancouver International, and board the flight to Denver.”

“So we’re goin’ to Colorado? I hope we have better luck there… “The girl mumbled, as she stretched once again.

Before they could leave, the Stern Woman caught up to them again, tapping the older man on the shoulder. “Sorry to say that you two are the last team the leave this building.” She mentioned, adjusting the glasses that sat atop of face. “But I will offer you some advice to make up for it; the fastest route to Vancouver International is on the BC-99. It’ll save you some time, even if you both are still the last team to arrive.”

A slight smile crept it’s way onto Starr’s face upon hearing that they had a very *slight* chance of not being *THE* last team to arrive. “Thanks hon!” She replied, taking her father’s arm as the two of them raced out of the building.

The scene changed to the exterior of the airport, where, in the background, the last of the teams to have arrived could be seen racing towards the interior of the building. Amongst their rush, a taxi carrying Gary and Starr arrived right behind them. As the two struggled to keep up, it was sadly revealed that they were, in fact, the last team to have arrived into the airport.

As all of this occurred, Don’s voice suddenly faded in, stating. “Now that our teams have finally arrived, the flights to Denver can finish being booked.”

Suddenly, a map of the North American Continent appeared on the screen—the camera slowly panning over to where Vancouver was located, zooming in to reveal a heavily stylized version of the airport—as well as two planes hanging beside it, all of which were a dull green in color. With a slightly mechanical sound effect, one of the planes light up to a much brighter yellow color as Don’s disembodied voice began to speak once again. “Flight one will carry The Neighbors, Two Peas in a Pod, Aussie Twins, Odd Girls, Twin Idols, Pranksters, Paranormal Specialists, and Yin and Yang–”

As our host spoke, portraits of each of the teams flashed onto the screen. The pictures themselves were cut into circles and outlined with a green ring, and each of the duos were standing tall and proud in front of a colored background. They appeared in the order Don announced them, quickly vanishing as the second plane lit up to a bright yellow.

“–While flight two will carry The Stylists, Superheroes, Greasers, Kiwis, Internet Junkies, Scene Queens, Husband and Wife, and *finally*, Father and Daughter.”

Like before, their portraits appeared in the order he announced them as; all of which involved them standing in front of a colored background.

The map changed back to the airport’s exterior, where Don could be seen walking into the view of the camera. With a grin on his face, he began to speak, stating, “Who will win the first jaunt of our race around North America? Will The Neighbors keep having such great luck? Will our Father and Daughter Duo come in last and find themselves cut from the race? Will Dylan finally get something through his tiny brain? Find out all of this and more next time on–” Don paused for a moment; the camera slowly zooming in on his face. “–The Ridonculous Race!” With his sly, likely trademarked smirk, our host ended off the episode, and the screen faded to black.