Chapter Text
The million was hers. Coming back for her third and hopefully final season, Heather sat in the bus with all of the other competitors. Before leaving she made an effort to not look like a bald rat on national television. Last season left her totally humiliated so she made sure to have a full mani-pedicure and add hair extensions to her only slightly grown back hair. There were only about five minutes until arriving and Heather was breathing in her last five minutes of slight civilisation before Chris would send them on a plane trip from hell.
In the bus, there were two benches facing each other, where everyone sat in their assigned seats. Most of this show wasn’t planned, so why assigned seating was important, Heather didn’t know. All she knew is that she was seated between Duncan and Gwen. She was surrounded by mostly familiar faces, although it was hard to miss the first new contestant, Sierra, who’s constant screaming made Heather want to reach down her throat and rip out her vocal cords. Everyone, including Heather, was getting seriously freaked out by her and her stalker-ish knowledge about each teammate. Unfortunately for Heather, Sierra's knowledge posed a threat, since Sierra knew so much about the game she might be able to win it. Although that may present issues, Sierra definitely didn’t have a killer instinct, at least not at this point. The other new contestant was definitely only here because of his looks. She knows he knew it too. Heather loved psychology enough to know that this guy was full of himself. If the red shirt was indication enough, intentional or not, he either loved himself, or wanted others to love him. And why does it have to be one or the other? Hopefully he’s like that other brainless hunk from the first two seasons. Although she disliked most people, there was something awfully irritating about this one. He hadn’t really spoken all that much, which was fair. He sat across from Lindsay Owen and Dj and next to Bridgette and that freakshow Sierra. Who were all too busy either comforting Owen, who she remembered had a fear of flying, making googly eyes at the new pretty chiseled brainlessness guy, or being absolutely crazy and telling everyone about how Owen’s fear of flying was caused by a light malfunction on his first ever plane flight.
The new guy was left to sit in silence and scan the bus. Heather's gut told her that he was a threat, and though she didn’t have time for any superstitious nonsense, she always trusted her instinct.
The new guy's eyes slid to hers, where he was met with a glare. Amusement lit his eyes and a half smile graced his face. Heather, though she had a bad feeling about him, could appreciate the eye candy he provided. She couldn’t wait until she sat with her million dollars.
_
The bus came to a stop and Chef walked over to where all the contestants were sitting.
“Alright,” he huffed, “we are going to pull up to Chris when he starts his line. After that, this row.” he said, pointing to the row where Courtney, Duncan, Heather, Gwen, Leshawna, Lindsay, Owen and Dj were sitting. “Chris will say your names and you guys will get off first in that order with your bags. And then you-” he said, flinging his finger to the other side of the bus where Harold, Noah, Cody, Zeke, Izzy, Tyler, Briggete, the new hunk dude and super freak Sierra,“ will follow after them. Is that clear?”
“Sir yes sir,” Sierra saluted, earning many strange looks from different contestants. She giggled from the back corner and Heather was already praying that she wouldn’t have to be on the same team as her.
On the outside, she heard Chris’ voice beginning the show, though she couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. As they got closer she began to hear what he was saying.
“… sadly, I’m forced to share with a three ring, traveling teen freak show.” Ugh, jerk. The door opened and everyone in Heather's row stood up to exit. “They’ll be competing around the globe for another million dollars. So let’s meet our players,” Everyone in her row walked out and Chris introduced them to the audience. “Courtney, Duncan, Heather, Gwen, Leshawna,” Heather came to a stop, making Gwen bump into her, she wasn’t above being petty. Gwen grunted,
“Are there any reserved seats? I.e can I have one not behind Heather's pony hair ponytail.”
“Um, my extensions are human hair.” She snapped back. Why did she have to go bald last season?
“You learn something new everyday, '' Duncan added, and Gwen laughed. Heather didn’t miss the look they gave each other, nor the look Courtney gave them. Interesting...
“Lindsay, Owen, Dj and Harold,” Chris went on, however only Lindsay came out.
“Guys?” Chris asked, wondering what was taking them so long. Until Dj emerged hauling a frightened Owen out of the bus.
“He's afraid of flying, remember?” Dj said pushing Owen out, then Harold walked out. “Aerophobia, from the Latin, as opposed to aeronausiphobia, fear of air sickness.” Then Noah walked out
“Keep up the fascinating facts and I’ll be aeronausius all over you,” Heather smirked at that. Chris continued,
“And returning favorites, Noah, Cody and-“
“Yo yo yo,” Zeke the freak started, “ this year's winner is in the house uh, bus- I mean runway! Where’s the plane eh?” Izzy appeared behind him
“I know right, let's fly!” and with that she jumped on Zeke like the psycho she was. She could have been wrong but she thought that Izzy was also scared of flying, she figured crazy can cure any fear. Ignoring them, Chris introduced Tyler and Bridgette who both also landed in the Izzy-Zeke heap. Then Chris began the intro for the new guys.
“Now to mix things up and keep it all fresh, we’re adding two new competitors. He’s an honor roll student with a diplomat for a dad and an amazing ability to charm the pants of most species, Alejandro.” Good to know all that information. She inferred she was right about him, a diplomat for a dad? Manipulation and corruption must run in his blood. She was further proven right when he offered a hand to the pile of people,
“Perhaps I could assist?” His voice was smooth, he had an intellectual use of vocabulary. Charismatic, intelligent, and a snake. Both Izzy and Bridgette were practically drooling over him, pathetic. “And amigos, allow me.” And he spoke Spanish. Well there’s another reason the girls at home would love him. Even the guys were charmed by him. Chris went on,
“And she’s a sugar addicted super fan with 16 Total Drama blogs, Sierra.” Sierra continued with what she had been doing the whole ride here
“Oh my gosh I love you guys and this is the greatest day of my life and-“ she proceeded to hyperventilate before running to Cody,
“Oh my gosh Cody! I dreamt of this moment, only you weren’t wearing a shirt.” Sierra wasn’t even talking to her but she still got chills, she even felt slightly bad for Cody. A squeaking sound approached then, and when Heather looked up she realized that it was the abomination of a plane that they would be flying in. Courtney piped up expressing exactly what Heather was thinking
“Excuse me, l would like to express some concern about the safety of our plane.”
“Relax, it's perfectly safe,” at that moment a part of the plane fell off. Owen started panicking even more,
“No, I can't ride in that! Call the United Nations! Call a cab! Call my mom! No I’m not doing this I’m out, this is unethical-” Chris hit him with a frying pan that came seemingly out of nowhere, he turned to the rest of us.
“Anyone else have a problem with it?” And so that was that, Chris finished his intro, and they all gave their bags to the interns to put in the plane.
While they were putting the bags on the plane the producers had the contestants get CGI scanned, so other actors could create an intro that matched whatever happened in the season. The scans were also used for the editors when they needed clearer shots of contestants or again, to add things to fit into the storyline. The filming only took about ten minutes per person but it was seventeen ten minutes that they had to sit through, so for about three hours they were left to talk amongst themselves. Unfortunately, Heather wasn’t the most popular with the others so without any other sort of entertainment, she was left to read books. Despite how she may appear, Heather was actually a massive dork and loved books. Her dream was always to have Belle’s library from beauty and the beast, but for now a singular bookshelf in her room and piles of books stashed in various places was enough. Though she was a fan of books on psychology, she also had a taste for fantasy, crime, and classical literature. She decided that she was going to read a new book today, and bought ‘Picture of Dorian Gray’ by Oscar Wilde to read. It wasn’t a long book, but it was new and she was going to annotate it so it should fill the three hours just fine. She read and scribbled until her name was called only fifteen minutes later. She put her bookmark in her book and walked toward the production room where she went to get her shots recorded for her third and final season; Season Three: Total Drama World Tour.
As Heather disappeared into the production room, Alejandro fell silent. This year he was going to win. He had the advantage of anonymity against everyone else. He supposed that Sierra did too, but he doubted that she would use that to her advantage. Although, looks could be deceiving, as he of all people knew. It was unfortunate that Chris had to reveal so much about his intellect and upbringing, he saw the doubt forming in Heather’s eyes. His face acted as a mask for his mind and he preferred it that way. People just assumed that he was an incompetent lover boy who used his looks to achieve what he wanted, which to a certain degree was true. But he always knew that knowledge was power and made sure to be well spoken, good with people and to be well versed in most subjects. But most importantly, he made an effort to read people. From the show he assumed all of the contestants were pretty easy to read, but he didn’t realize that their actions on the show could be a persona. Until Heather pulled out a book, he was confident in his judgment. Despite this, he was fairly sure his plan would work, he could adapt to situations anyhow. He was interested in the material Heather was reading so he decided to walk over to her currently empty spot to read the title.
“Hey what are you doing?” said Cody, who was desperately trying to create some separation between himself and Sierra.
“I wanted to see what Heather was reading.” Alejandro answered truthfully.
“Knowing Heather it’s probably about some psychopath.” Noah mumbled. As Alejandro read the title of the novel, he had to hold in his smirk.
“Picture of Dorian Gray,” he announced, “Not psychopathic but rather about the horror of one’s own soul.”
“Sounds like Heather alright.” Courtney muttered from where she sat next to Duncan. While the others laughed, Alejandro glanced down to where she had underlined a passage on page sixteen.
‘The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what it’s monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful’
She had written a comment in the margin:
‘Inability to resist temptation is weak unless giving into it works out in your own favor.’
Such an interesting choice of text. How thrillingly relevant. With that, he put the book down and walked over to sit next to Bridgette who would be the first under his influence to fall. This most certainly would be more intriguing than he previously thought.
-
Turns out they would be singing in this season, which Heather only found out through the singing of random notes and common words that could match to any pitch or song. So what if she hadn’t read the contract before signing, she would do anything- anything- for a million dollars. She walked back over to her spot on the benches and went back to reading. As she got further into the text the more intrigued she was. Reading about Dorian’s loss of innocence was like reading a slow-burn romance and it felt like a punch in the gut every time he said anything that parroted Lord Henry’s beliefs. She got into a state of reading where she was utterly in another world and practically burned through the book. She was two-thirds of the way through the book when everyone was finished in the production room and one of the producers came out.
“You guys can board the plane now, everything should be ready. Has everyone got their carry-ons?” Everyone mumbled in agreement. “Cool cool. Now Chris will give you all a tour of the plane and we will have your raw reactions. So if everyone has their things you are free to start boarding the plane.” Chris came out of the plane.
“Okay, firstly,” He dumped a bag of little boxes on the ground, “here are your microphones. Sound quality, am I right.” Everyone clipped the almost invisible mics to their shirts. “We’ll walk in and I’ll explain the rules. We're on a timer here.” He turned around and started walking toward the plane, everyone followed. “Secondly,” everyone flinched as the mics vibrated where they were clipped on their shirts. “These mics have a vibration setting in them which I can set off. A vibrating metronome will play for when you are singing, they will also queue you to sing if you are unable to hear the impossibly loud announcement I make when I do want you to sing.” They entered the first room of the plane.
“Singing? Really?” Gwen turned to face the rest of the cast, “I thought Chris was joking about that.”
“Well I don’t have a problem with it.” said Courtney. She was going to be insufferable with her singing all season, but before she could express her thoughts, Leshawna piped up,
“Yeah ‘cause you like singing.”
“Well I don’t, girls sing, little birdies sing, but Duncan’s do not sing.” typical boys, the littlest things causing them to feel emasculated.
“Think I’ll get to beatbox?” Oh god, Harold would be just as insufferable as Courtney.
“I'll beat you if you try.” Duncan threatened, Heather hoped he wasn’t bluffing.
“Why are you doing this to us?” she demanded.
“Singing reality shows are huge and, the worse the singing, the higher the ratings. Which is why on this show there will be no vocal coaches or rehearsals or warning.” He was met with a large wave of complaints from the entire cast, and Heather was seriously starting to regret not reading that contract. He ignored them and continued on. “Anywho, this is the dining area where you will enjoy in-flight meals.”
“Not for long eh?” Zeke interrupted, “Prepare to lose to the Zeke.”
“Okay, so not trying to be mean here but you do know you voted off first last time, right?” Gwen asked
“Word, and I spent every minute since making sure that don’t happen again. I’m stronger, faster, smarter-”
“Chattier, blabier, can’t-shut-up-ier.” She was thankful that Chris made Zeke stop his musings, “Now zip it and let me finish the tour so we can get this bird in flight.”
“Is there a ladies room?” asked Leshawna
“Just through there.” Chris said with enough of an suspicious innuendo to peak Heather’s interest.
“Good cos I’ve gotta make a deposit,” Leshawna announced, seemingly not picking up on the strange undertones. She left to do her business and Chris’ smile seemed to grow more evil.
“Did you prank the toilet or something? Why are you grinning like that?” Heather snapped.
“No reason.” Chris drawlled as the bathroom door opened so fast it nearly fell off the hinges.
“The confessional is in the potty. Again.” Leshawna shouted. Everyone groaned.
“Oh yeah, that,” Chris laughed in that sadistic manner of his, “No need to be pee-shy, the confessional is completely soundproof. You can go in there and reveal your deepest, darkest thoughts and feelings. Now let's move on.” They walked through to what looked like the worst plane interior in existence. “Losing teams will enjoy luxurious economy class accommodations between destinations.”
“Ok but where are our beds?” Lindsay asked.
“Owen, care to demonstrate?” Chris gestured to where he was knocked out and strapped to the wall.
“That does not look comfortable,” Heather winced.
“No comfort for losers, safety harnesses and an emergency exit but no comfort here, here or here.” He pointed to various random spots in the room and Sierra laughed.
“OMG Chris I am just LOL.” She laughed even more.
“We should hit the winners compartment eh? ‘Cause I ain’t never gonna sit back here-ha- never.”
“Is never your policy on mouthwash too homeschool?” Noah mumbled
“Follow me toward the next area,” Chris gestured for them to follow. As they walked back through the dining room, and into the next part, it was blatantly obvious that this was first class. Everyone rushed to sit in the seats and look around the compartment.
“Oh my gosh this is so nice.” said gwen sinking into the seat cushions,
“Yeah I could stay in here forever.” Bridgette agreed. Heather walked down the aisle looking to try find a whole booth to herself. She found one and sat down in it. She had to stifle a groan at the absolutely luxurious feel of the chair.
“This is the first class cabin,” Chris announced, “the domain of each weeks winners.”
“Now this is the kind of accommodation ladies deserve.” Alejandro said to lindsay.
“They get ladies in first class too? Oh- me. You meant me.” Lindsay stuttered, charmed by Alejandro and his act. She heard Tyler and Dj talking behind her about how Lindsay was supposed to like Tyler. Meanwhile she looked at the new guy- really looked at him, and he was using his body language deliberately to seem more desirable, she noticed how he would have to move his feet to point to lindsay every couple of seconds. As she was looking at him suddenly Tyler pathetically attempted to get lindsays attention by doing gymnastics, which landed him on his face.
“Oh my gosh, poor- I’m blanking on his name, oh- oh I know Alejandro.” Lindsay said.
“That’s my name.” Alejandro said
“And what nice name, Alejandro,” she sighed “I could say it all day.”
“Please do.” he smiled.
“Confessional!” Heather said. Sierra and Alejandro looked at Chris, confused.
“Oh yeah, on this show we like to keep things real, so if you have something to confess, just say so and when you get back to the confessional booth we’ll play the clips for you to see if you remember what you wanted to confess. If you do, then you can talk to the camera, if not we’ll edit it out and pretend it never happened. Heather, you can go confess to your heart’s content.” With that she walked out, passing the toilet and taking the camera out to the cockpit, where Chef was preparing to fly. She set up the camera on the only sort of stable surface and hit record.
“I can see right through that guy. You know this extra confessional is one thousand times nicer than talking in the toilet.”
“Maybe for you, I’m trying to prep for a flight here.” Chef interrupted.
“Hello, venting, shhh. Anyway, new guy is so transparent, so fake, so-”
“Deliciously seductive?” he suggested.
“That is exactly the opposite of what I was trying to say.”
“Pretty good looking guy to boot. I’m just saying.”
“Ugh, forget this.” So this was why confessionals were private. She picked up the camera and stormed back to the bathroom, setting it up for a better confessional. She hit record again.
“Anyway, with Beth gone, Lindsayiot and Alej-whatever looking like a real threat, my only strategic option is to make friends with the new girl. But pretending to like that is going to be hard. I do not heart the new girl.” She stopped recording and went searching for the others. She walked out to the dining area where she heard footsteps and voices approaching, so she just leaned on the table and waited for them to come down. As they came into view, Chris told everyone to take a seat. The plane started moving.
“Did I miss anything?” Heather asked.
“Just Chris’ personal chambers,” Harold replied, “His ridiculously expensive personal chambers.”
“Before I forget, I’m also giving you all these walkie-talkies, for safety or whatever. As for the tour that’s pretty much it,” Chris said, placing all the walkie talkies on the table. Each contestant grabbed one and clipped it to their clothes. “I skipped the cargo hold and galley. But I’m sure you’ll find those exciting destinations later, when I ‘accidentally’ lock you in them.” The plane went faster and the entire plane shook resulting in some contestants falling. She didn’t miss the way Bridgette fell into Alejandro’s arms.
“Oh, one more thing. I’m sure you remember a little something called the elimination ceremony, takes place right in there my friends. We’ll have a look a little later but for now keep your butts on the seats, wouldn’t want you dying already.” He chuckled. So they sat on the plane, waiting for the challenge to continue.
-
“Have you had much time to surf between seasons?” Alejandro asked Bridgette.
“Oh- uh yeah, I haven’t done much but I- uh, I try to keep surfing.” She stuttered. It was very clear that not much would have to be done to secure her trust in him. The only issue was her boyfriend, but he had a way of making people forget their significant others.
“Well, I hope our next destination will allow me to see you in action.” He put his hand on her shoulder and looked deeply into her eyes, “I would love to see you surf.”
“I uh- yeah, I love- uh- surfing.” He smiled and leaned toward her, making a conscious effort to move himself closer to her. He took a breath, leaning in to flirt with her when Chris interrupted.
“We are now officially ready for take off, let’s move people. To the elimination room!” They all stood up and moved into the room.
“If you don’t receive a barf bag full of airline issue peanuts-”
“I’ve got a peanut allergy yo, or more like a sensitivity?” Zeke piped up.
“You will be forced to take the drop of shame-”
“Okay I just don’t like-”
“Kinda like this.” Chris said, gripping Zeke by his shirt and throwing him off the plane. This was Alejandro’s first wake up call to the genuine brutality on the show as Zeke yelled something unintelligible.
“All decisions are final bro.” Chris yelled back, and they took off. “We’re done here for now, so you guys can hang in the dining room, or you can explore the plane. It’s a 10 hour flight so make yourselves comfortable.”
“So where will we sleep then?” Leshawna asked.
“Economy class,” he was met with various groans. “Is what I would have said if I wasn't in such a good mood after throwing Zeke off the plane.” Everyone cheered. “Do whatever you want, as long as you don’t bother me, I don’t care.”
Alejandro thought that the best angle for him right now would be to get to know everyone. To secure a spot, especially later down the track, he would need his focus to not only be on Bridgette, but the rest of the team. Especially since if his plans worked properly Bridgette wouldn’t be around for much longer. So he sat with the remaining boys, Tyler, Dj, Harold, Owen, Noah and Cody, who came as a package deal with Sierra, and struck up conversation, preparing to secure his million.