Episode 5

  Hades’ Canteen

  “Last time on Endurance Forest!” Vince Goldman says over clips of the previous episode. “Contestants were faced with a challenge to try to get the other team to lie about themselves. With anyone doing so being eliminated and electrocuted. Many people’s dirty laundry were exposed from Mina not truly wanting to be in the profession she’s in school for, to her mother’s history in the not safe for work industry. In the end Clarence, Ed and Regina won it for Team Water, though this didn’t go without consequence. Mina didn’t seem to like Regina targeting her mother’s personal life and Ed saw this as an opportunity to start painting a target on his own alliance member’s back. Meanwhile on Team Fire Lucas confessed to Jillian the story behind his scar and… wait…” Vince’s voice is heard a bit from the microphone, “You’re actually planning to air that part?” There’s a pause that makes it clear that someone else was talking that wasn’t being picked up on the mic, “Good television? I don’t know, it seems a bit intrusive to me.” Another pause. “I know it’s a reality show, but-” Vince is interrupted by the unheard voice. Soon after Vince’s voice returns to the microphone, “Fine, fine. F****** leeches. Anyways, the guys alliance seemed to have their sights set on Nicole as a plan, but in a shocking turn of events, Lucas sold them out, causing there to be a tie in the votes between Nicole and Ben. In a tiebreaker that tested their pain tolerance, Nicole came out on top and Team Fire’s Youtuber has officially been demonetized… seriously? Who the hell wrote this? Eleven are left, who will be the next to go? Find out on this episode of Endurance Forest.”

  ~~~

  The episode begins as Team Fire returns to their camp right after the elimination of the previous episode. Simon and Yong-Gi looking less than pleased as they turn around and face the rest of their team, though their scornful glares were being focused on Lucas. Simon spoke up, “So, you decided to throw us under the bus, eh Scarface?” he asked the aspiring writer with his arms crossed.

  “Look, I can tell that you’re mad, but I have my reasons. I-” Lucas began to defend himself, but was interrupted by Simon.

  “Look, I get it, you like older women. Perfectly understandable. I totally get it. I mean I lost my virginity to my friend’s mom when I was seventeen, but we had a deal and you stabbed us in the back the first chance you got.”

  “Look, just let me explain.” Lucas said, but this time was interrupted by Yong-Gi.

  “What’s there to explain? You sold us out for what?” He motioned over to Jillian, “For a woman you’ve known for just a little over a week?”

  “Hey, lay off him.” Jillian said, stepping in front of Lucas, “Besides, he’s known you two for just as long. So that argument is kinda dumb.”

  “Maybe, but I’m at least smart enough to know not to be thinking with my second head in this game.”

  It was at this point that Nicole stepped in between the two groups, “Now hold on all of you, no need to fight. Despite what has gone down, we’re still a team. We can’t be fighting amongst ourselves.”

  Yong-Gi rolled his eyes, “Whatever, I’m going to bed.” he said before stomping away. He was followed by Simon.

  ~~~

  A still annoyed Yong-Gi is shown in the confessional, “As much as I hate it, Nicole is right. We still need to work together. As tempting as it would be to throw the next challenge, that would be thunderously stupid. Now that Lucas has gone turncoat, if we lose again, it’s safe to assume that it will be either me or Simon going home. Though, Vince did mention that there is a coin in the woods somewhere that gives whoever finds it invincibility if they get voted out. Maybe I should try harder to look for it. Just so I can hopefully have that safety net. Alright! Yeah! It’s time for Yong-Gi Hwang to lock the f*** in!”

  ~~~

  Lucas is then shown in the confessional, “I know Yong-Gi and Simon are mad at me and I don’t blame them. It’s just… I really like Jillian and if I stuck with the guys alliance and we lost again, she’d be out. The only way she wouldn’t have been is if I had somehow managed to convince Ben and Yong-Gi to drop Simon first, but I don’t know if I could have done that.” He let out a sigh and said, “Between this and what I told Jillian… I wonder how people are going to see me. Should I even care? I don’t know.”

  ~~~

  The show cuts to a few days later where Sue is shown cutting logs with an axe that she seemed to have made herself out of a stick, some vines and a flat and sharp stone. She was in the usual style of outfit, but with the one major difference of a shorts bra in place of a shirt. Showing off her midriff. Something at Lissa seemed to notice as she walked up to her.

  Lissa clearly looked at Sue’s rock hard abs for a few moments, blushing a bit before snapping herself out of it and asking, “You need any help with that?”

  “Nah, the work helps distract me from the fact that I haven’t had a smoke in over a week.” Sue explained, slinging the axe over her shoulder and whipping the sweat off of her brow. “Besides, are you even sure that you can? Asking since, no offence Princess, but you look like you’ve never even touched an axe before, let alone used one.”

  “Not true. Some friends and I went out and tried axe throwing once. It was pretty fun.”

  “That certainly sounds fun.”

  “Maybe when this game is over we can go. Granted I’m certain you may have an advantage since I’m sure you’ve… hunted with throwing axes before.”

  “No, I have more experience with bows and firearms, though perhaps that could be good practice if I ever need to. Though is that an invitation? Would you like to hang out outside of the game? I figured that you wouldn’t since I’m sure that you had some problems with me enjoying hunting.”

  “I do, but…” Lissa said looking at Sue’s six-pack again, “I’m not going to shove my beliefs down your throat. I mean you even told me not to. Though think about it. We go out to an arcade or something that has it and other games, play around, get something to eat, it’ll be fun.”

  Sue chuckled at that, “Are you inviting me to hang out or asking me out on a date?”

  “I… I didn’t mean it to sound that way.” Lissa said blushing a bit, “But… just hypothetically here, what would you say if I was pitching it as a date?”

  Sue smiled at that, “I’d say sure.”

  ~~~

  Lissa is shown in the confessional, “I didn’t exactly mean to ask Sue out on a date. I just know that the members of my friend group that are also vegan would crucify me for it, but it’s not like I couldn’t call them out on the hypocrisy since it’s not like they haven’t dated total carnivores because they looked hot and had a nice car. Regardless, I think getting to meet up with her sounds nice. Granted we’d have to figure out where and when to meet up since we live in different parts of the country, but we got time to figure that out.”

  ~~~

  Sue is then shown in the booth, “I’m surprised that Lissa was bold enough to ask me out like that. Not that I’m complaining. She’s pretty cute when she’s not whining about being outdoors. Which is something I’ve noticed her doing less and less as the days pass. Though I do think we shouldn’t make anything official yet. Being a couple on these types of shows tends to do nothing, but paint a target on your back. One that the two of us may already have since while Lissa is friendly with Clarence, we’re not really close with anyone else on the team.”

  ~~~

  A cut to Team Fire’s camp shows Lucas and Jillian on a walk through the woods as Jillian tells Lucas a story.

  “And as the trap goes off, Dale rushes out exclaiming that he did it, he had captured the elusive Wendigo, only to find a less than happy raccoon with the rope tightly wrapped around its tail.”

  “Aww… poor little guy. I hope he wasn’t hurt.”

  “She.” Jillian corrected, “I could tell because when I showed up I saw her belly and she was clearly pregnant. Though as for if she was hurt, no she was fine. Even if Dale didn’t want to go anywhere near her as he was afraid of her biting him.”

  “To be fair that’s reasonable, I mean raccoons do carry rabies, right?”

  “Not all of them, more like about twenty percent.”

  “I see. Still I wouldn’t want to take a risk on a one in five chance. Though just to go back to his whole plan to capture The Wendigo, I mean first thing’s first, isn’t that a Canadian cryptid? What did he think it was doing in Arkansas?”

  “No idea, but that's what he insists that he saw wandering around that night. Even still, not a single soul in the ranger’s station believes him, but still.”

  “Secondly, let’s just hypothetically pretend that he was right. The Wendigo does turn out to be real, he did in fact see it and he did manage to capture it instead of a pregnant raccoon. What was his plan afterwards? Was he gonna kill it? Would he try to contain it before handing it off to some scientists or something? If so, how did he plan to do that? That thing’s like a man-eating deer monster. I don’t think that’s something some rope is just going to stop.”

  Jillian laughed and shrugged, “Knowing Dale, I doubt he thought that far ahead.”

  It was at that point Vince’s voice echoed out. Attention teams, your next challenge begins in one hour. Get ready to test your skills in a certain environment.”

  “Huh. I wonder what he means by that.” Lucas said.

  “Well I certainly hope by “a certain environment” he means the outdoors. I’ll finally be able to use my job as a park ranger to my advantage in a challenge.”

  “You almost say that like you aren’t already our team’s powerhouse.” Lucas said with a wink.

  Jillian blushed and giggled at that. “Thank you, but still, an easy win would be nice.”

  “True, very true.”

  ~~~

  Team Water is shown standing around in front of a large tent with Vince standing across from them. The host then makes a motion to his left to cue Team Fire to walk in, “Team Water, take a look at Team Fire, now unsubscribed from one Youtuber. Ben having been eliminated last time via tiebreaker.”

  “A tiebreaker?” Mina asked, looking over to her mom, “Mom, what was the tiebreaker?”

  “Why do you assume that it was me who was in it?” Nicole said with an eyebrow raised.

  “I didn’t. Though was it?” Mina asked, a bit confused.

  “Yeah… we were given those shock collars again and zapped until one of us said uncle. So any others will probably be based on whatever challenges we did that day.”

  ~~~

  “I don’t know how to feel about knowing that my mom almost went home three nights ago.” Mina said sitting in the booth, “I mean on one hand I’d no longer have the stress of facing off against her, but at the same time… she’s my mom. I don’t want her to be voted out.”

  ~~~

  “Teams, now that you’re both here I will explain today’s challenge. That tent behind you is a makeshift kitchen. Complete with ingredients, ovens, and utensils. Your challenge is to create a three course meal of whatever you want consisting of an appetizer, main course and dessert. With one to two people working on each one. You have until five o’clock to complete what you’re making and present the meal to me to judge. I will rate each thing on a scale from one to ten. Whichever team has the higher score will win immunity and the reward. Which this time… well I’m going to insist that both teams make more than I can just eat of their dishes, because the reward is the leftovers. After a week and a half out here, I’m sure a home cooked meal is sounding pretty nice right about now. Figure out who’s making what. Oh, and since Team Water won last time, they get first pick when it comes to the ingredients. The challenge starts now. I’ll be back for dinner.”

  “Wait.” Lissa said raising her hand, “Is there anything you want us to avoid? Like food you don’t like or anything you’re allergic to?”

  “As far as I know I have no food allergies. Though if I was, we would have made sure to not have those even been options for the ingredients. Hence why there’s also no pork or shellfish there since my faith makes it so that I’m not allowed to eat those.” Vince said.

  Simon, despite figuring that was the case when it came to Vince due to the last name “Goldman” still gave him a nod at that in recognition of a fellow jewish man.

  “As for food I dislike, while I certainly have a few, I’m not going to tell you. You’re just going to have to hope I like what you’re making.” With that Vince made his leave.

  ~~~

  Nicole is shown in the confessional, she lets out a confident laugh, “Wait, so you’re telling me that me, a mother, gets to participate in a cooking contest? As long as they don’t have a Michelin star chef on their team, I think we have this.”

  ~~~

  Mina is then shown in the booth, “I’m sure my mom will probably have a confessional about how she’ll certainly carry her team, if she does say something like that, she forgot one thing. She taught me everything she knows about cooking and if there’s one thing that you can do with the knowledge passed onto you is improve upon it.”

  ~~~

  Team Water is shown at the booth of food grabbing stuff and Mina speaks, “Alright I think I can handle the main course of pulled chicken mac and cheese. Who else wants what?”

  “I call making the appetizer.” Lissa said, “I can give Vince a nice salad to balance out the meat and cheese with your dish.”

  “Alright.” Mina said, grabbing a box of macaroni. “Who has dessert?”

  Regina, seeing a basket of peaches on the table, smiles and says, “I can make peach cobbler.” She looked to Ed, “You can handle peeling and cutting peaches, right?”

  “Sure.” Ed said, grabbing the basket.

  “Sue, since you seem like the one with the most experience handling meat. Would you mind handling the chicken while Mina makes the mac and cheese?” Sue asked.

  “Alright.” Sue said, slightly unenthused.

  “I guess that leaves me to help with the salad.” Clarence said with a shrug.

  “Alright. Sounds like a plan.” Mina said before Team Water walked off with all the food they grabbed.

  Once they were finished Team Fire walked up to the booth. Simon instantly noticed a bottle and grabbed it. “Ah hell yeah, rum.”

  “You’re not planning on just taking that to drink are you?” Jillian asked.

  “Oh please.” Simon said with a roll of his eyes, “While I may take a glass or two if I can get away with it, I’m mostly planning to use this in what I make because I see some bananas there as well. If there's some vanilla ice cream I can make a mean bananas foster.”

  “I’ll help you with that.” Yong-Gi said, giving the rest of the team a glare.

  Lucas looked over the booth and saw three things that put a smile on his face, chili sauce, worcestershire sauce and grape jelly. He grabbed them and said, “I can make my cocktail meatballs. Which could work as either the appetizer or main course. I just need someone else to grab the ground beef, an onion, a potato and two eggs.”

  “I can take care of that.” Jillian said, starting to open the bag of potatoes in order to grab one, but Nicole stopped her.

  “Take the whole bag.” Nicole said to the park ranger. “I can use those as a side with this.” She then picked up a large t-bone steak.

  “Alright, so you’ll be the main course and I’ll take care of the appetizer? Sounds good.” Lucas said before Team Fire rushed off to their cooking station.

  ~~~

  Lucas is shown in the confessional, his eyes a bit red, “I was looking forward to this challenge. Show off what my, admittedly somewhat limited, cooking skills are off to Jill, but there was one little problem.”

  ~~~

  “Dammit.” Lucas said as he looked amongst the appliances they had access to, “There’s no food processor.”

  “Is that a problem?” Jillian asked.

  “I mean…” Lucas reached over and grabbed a cheese grater. “I can work with this, but… I am not looking forward to grating the onion.

  “You want me to do it?”

  Lucas smiled at her, “I appreciate the offer, but you’re already taking care of the oven roasted potatoes for Nicole. I don’t think you’re allowed to help me with this. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I just might not look super tough for a bit.” he said with a laugh.

  “Oh no. You’re telling me you’re not the peak of masculinity?” Jillian jokingly said.

  Lucas playfully stuck his tongue out at her before making his way to the counter.

  Simon watches all this and mutters to Yong-Gi, “Disgusting.”

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “I don’t know if I agree, but… what are we going to do if we lose?” Yong-Gi whispered.

  “We just try not to.”

  “But what if we do?” Yong-Gi said, slightly annoyed at Simon not answering his question.

  Simon’s eyes drifted over to Nicole who was seasoning the steak and said, “I might have a plan. Can’t guarantee that it’ll work, but it’s better than nothing.”

  Over on the other side of the tent, Team Water was getting to work as well. Sue was shown pouring barbeque sauce into a crockpot as Mina began grating a block of cheddar cheese with a block of pepperjack nearby.

  “So…” Sue began, “What’s your opinion on Lissa?”

  “Why do you ask?” Mina responded.

  “Because I’ve gotten the vibe from you that you don’t like her and was wondering if you were going to target her if we lose?”

  “Hmm… she hasn’t been the most useful in challenges and… I… like everyone else on the team so… I guess to be honest. She might be the only choice I have.”

  Sue noticed the hesitation in Mina’s voice as she said that she likes everyone and decided to call it out. “Sounds like to me that there may be someone you’re not being honest about.”

  Mina let out a sigh and said, “Okay fine. I’m still a little mad at Regina over the last challenge with how she bombarded my mom with those personal questions, but… she’s kinda the team leader, so what can I do?”

  The camera pans to Ed peeling peaches, dramatic music playing to make it clear he overheard the whole thing.

  ~~~

  Sue laughs in the confessional, “Team leader? I don’t remember agreeing to that. Though… maybe I can use this to my advantage. I mean okay, I still get the feeling that Mina is going to pick everyone else on this team over Lissa, hell, over me, but maybe I can use this to shake things up in the hierarchy here.”

  ~~~

  Ed is shown in the confessional, “If my detective instincts are correct, I assume that Sue is trying to get information out of Mina as to where she and Lissa fall on the totem pole of our team. This actually works for me. She now knows that Regina sees herself on the very top of it. Making her a threat to us all. I just need a chance to talk to the others if we lose.”

  ~~~

  Lissa and Clarence are shown working on the salad. Lissa speaks up, “So I haven’t gotten the chance to ask. Mina told me you have a boyfriend. How’d you two meet? What’s he like?”

  “Oh Alex? Yeah he’s great. We met when I had a knee injury. You see he was my physical therapist and I thought he had really pretty eyes and, well, even if it may be seen as a bit of a faux pas with the whole doctor and patient thing, but once I was healed I decided to shoot my shot and we’ve now been dating for… about a year and a half now.” Clarence explained with a smile, “As for what he’s like… he’s cute, funny, a bit into weirder books, shows, movies and whatnot. I mean the man partially worships David Lynch and was absolutely devistated when he passed away back in January. Though him liking trippier stuff isn’t a dealbreaker to me. It just means we have some different interests. Sure you want to date someone who has some things in common with you, but you don’t wanna date someone just like you, you know?”

  “Yeah… I think I get that.” Lissa said, briefly glancing over at Sue.

  “Though, I guess the main thing that I love about him is that… he’s supportive of me. Even though I’m still performing in high school gyms and bingo halls, he believes that I’ll make it to a major promotion one day. I can tell you one thing. He’s much more supportive than other people throughout my life.”

  “Like who?”

  “The main one I was thinking about was my father.”

  “Your father doesn’t think you’ll make it?”

  “My father… was the type of man who thought that the best way to raise a son was to make them live in fear of them. Thinking that every lashing with a belt would toughen them up and not have the opposite effect.” Clarence explained, a single tear running down his face. “I distinctly remember him scoffing at me wanting to be a wrestler because I started crying after yet another beating.”

  “Oh… s*** Clarence… I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. The second I turned eighteen I did everything I could to move as far away from that house as I could and I haven’t seen or spoken to him since. Which I plan on keeping it that way since I know he would lose his shit if he learned that I’m gay.”

  “I see… What about your mother?”

  “Dead.”

  “Oh… If you don’t mind me asking, how did she pass away?”

  Clarence let out a sigh, “Have you ever heard of The Beaverton Lumberjack?”

  “No.”

  “He was a serial killer in the state of Oregon back in the nineties. Which I realize is a bit weird to say since we’re in Oregon right now… I guess I’ve been away for so long I still don’t feel like I’m back here. Anyways, when I was a year old my mom had apparently put me down for a nap when he broke into the house. My father was at work at the time so he was lucky, but… she wasn’t… in fact she was his very last victim before he got caught the next day.”

  “Jesus Christ, Clarence I am so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  Clarence sighed and said, “It’s fine. You didn’t know and besides… It’s not like I miss her. I mean I was one… you can’t really miss someone you never knew. You can only miss the idea of them. Maybe my life would have been different and better if that bastard got caught two days earlier, but… I’m sure that’s a thought shared by everyone who has had family taken away from them by some psychopath.”

  ~~~

  Lissa is shown in the confessional, “I genuinely feel terrible for Clarence. Losing his mother and the abuse from his father… It makes me realize that I don’t have it as bad… Maybe my father didn’t cut me off for no good reason.” She then looks directly at the camera, “Dad… I doubt you’re watching this, but… if you are and if this airs before we get a chance to… I’d like to talk.”

  ~~~

  “AHHH! Motherf*****!” Lucas shouted as he stepped away from the cheese grater for a bit to rub his eyes with his forearm.

  “Are you okay, Lucas?” Nicole called as she began melting butter in a pan.

  “Yeah… I’m fine. It’s just that grating an onion is a million times worse than cutting it.”

  ~~~

  The red-eyed Lucas is shown in the booth again, “We better win this. If I have to suffer to make my meatballs without a food processor and then I don’t even get to eat them… I might seriously crash out.”

  ~~~

  “By god, Ed. What’s taking so long with the peaches?” Regina asked as she placed the crust on the bottom of a baking pan.

  “Was I going slow? I didn’t realize.” Ed said, looking around and seeing that nobody else on either team seemed to be in a rush.

  “Yes.” Regina said, walking up to him. “Just give me the knife and stand off to the side. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  “Are you sure, because Vince said that we all need to work and-”

  “If you want you can mix the sliced peaches with the spices and whatnot. Okay?”

  “Oh… sure.” Ed said in a purposely disappointed sounding tone before stepping to the side.

  Seeing this, Clarence looked over to Lissa and said, “I’ll be back.” Before walking up to Ed. “Hey man, you okay?”

  “Oh? Uhh… yeah. I’m fine. Regina just thought I was a bit in the way so… yeah.”

  “I hope that doesn’t deduct us any points.”

  “I hope so too. I mean this is her recipe, so I assume she knows what she’s doing, but… I don’t know…” Ed said before whispering, “She doesn’t have to be so bossy about it, you know?”

  “Yeah.”

  ~~~

  A montage is shown of everyone cooking. Lucas rolling up the meatballs and placing them within a crockpot, Mina straining the macaroni, Jillian checking on the roasting potatoes, Regina putting the peach cobbler into the oven. All this and more was shown until there's a cut to later in the evening. When Vince arrives back.

  “Well everyone, I hope your food is ready because you have five minutes.” Vince announced. “I will be sitting at a table outside. Place your dishes onto one of these two carts and bring them out to be presented to me.” With that two carts one red and one blue were wheeled into the tent by a pair of interns. With that Vince made his leave.

  ~~~

  The show cuts to the outside with both teams standing on opposite sides of the table.

  “Alright.” Vince said, wrapping a napkin around his neck, “We’ll start with the appetizers first obviously. Team Water, since you had the head start, you’ll go first. Oh and I want whoever made which dish to present them.”

  Lissa and Clarence walked up and placed a small bowl of salad in front of the host. Clarence spoke up, “Here we have a mostly traditional Caesar salad.”

  “Mostly traditional?” Vince asked.

  “It’s more of a vegan version.” Lissa explained, “So no eggs or cheese.”

  “Alright.” Vince said, taking a bite. After swallowing it he just shrugged and said, “Meh, I’m going to give it a four.”

  “A four?” Lissa asked, sounding a bit insulted.

  “Without any meat or cheese it kinda is a bit bland as a salad. So I’m going to have to give it a below average score. If it had something more to it, I might have been willing to give it another point, but it doesn’t, so I won’t.”

  Team Water: 4

  Clarence and Lissa walk away, Lissa looking more than a bit disappointed in the results. With that a red-eyed Lucas walked up with a bowl as well, this one with three meatballs covered in a reddish brown sauce.

  Vince took notice of his contestant’s eyes and asked, “Are you okay? It looks like you’ve been crying.”

  “Oh yeah, I’m fine. It’s just the onions from making this.” Lucas explained, putting the bowl down in front of Vince.

  “What do we have here? Smells great.” Vince said.

  “Mister Goldman, I present to you my cocktail meatballs.” Lucas said, giving some jazz hands towards the bowl.

  “Cocktail huh? So what kind of cocktail is it based on?”

  “Oh no, not the alcoholic kind, more like a shrimp cocktail. Though it uses chili sauce and not cocktail sauce, but whatever. Those two are similar enough anyways.”

  “I see. Well I guess time to dig in.” With that Vince stabbed his fork into one of the meatballs and placed it in his mouth. After the few moments that it took him to chew and swallow it he said, “The sauce is interesting. Sweet yet savory. Like I certainly taste something within it other than chili sauce.”

  “That’s probably the grape jelly.”

  “Grape jelly? That is certainly surprising, yet… I can say I’m certainly digging it. Though it does seem a bit greasy. Like I can flat out see a layer of the stuff floating on top of the sauce.”

  “Yeah.” Lucas said, rubbing the back of his head. “Not to sound like I’m making excuses, but normally when I make this, I make it the day prior so I can let the grease solidify and remove it before reheating the whole thing, but I couldn’t do that here.”

  “Regardless… I’m going to give this one an eight. Putting Team Fire in the lead by double the points.”

  Team Fire: 8

  “Alright Team Water, bring out your main course.” Vince said, in which Mina and Sue walked up to the table with a bowl of mac and cheese that had chunks of meat in it.

  “Here you go sir.” Sue said, “Pulled chicken mac and cheese.”

  “Pulled chicken, eh?”

  “Yeah.” Mina said, “Normally when either me or my mom makes it, it’s pulled pork, but due to there not being any pork, I had us kinda improvised. Though it should still be similar enough.”

  ~~~

  Sue is shown in the confessional. “Mina didn’t say anything about improvising, yet at the same time, I understand. If we lose, I could use this against her, but there’s a bigger threat on the team.”

  ~~~

  Vince ate a bit of the mac and cheese, let out a hum and said, “I’m liking how thick the cheese is.”

  “Yup. My mom always says that if your cheese sauce isn’t thick enough to lay bricks with, you’re doing it wrong.” Mina said with a smile. Nicole nodded in agreement in the background.

  “Though I can’t help, but feel like it’s missing something that would raise it to a higher score than the one that I have in my head for it. So I think I’m going to give it an eight.”

  Team Water: 12

  “Alright, I’ll take it.” Mina said.

  “Yeah. Honestly a bit better than I thought he was going to say.” Sue added.

  “Twelve out of a possible total of thirty so far.” Regina whispered to Ed, “If we lose this, the heiress is dead in the water. Got it?”

  Ed just nodded, hoping that their team could still pull this off somehow. Either their cobbler being mind blowing or the other teams completely botching their other dishes. In fact he realized that he may have to pray for both.

  Next up Nicole and Jillian walked up with a plate of steak and roasted potatoes.

  “Here you go Vince.” Nicole said, “A juicy t-bone steak cooked medium rare with a side of crispy oven roasted potatoes.”

  “Huh, you know when I said that you guys were to make a three course meal, I didn’t expect any sides, but you know what? I’ll allow it.” Vince said, eating some of the potatoes and letting out a hum. Then he moved onto the steak. Cutting a piece and examining the red color and the flowing juices a bit before placing the bite of meat in his mouth. Once swallowed he muttered, “Dear god that’s amazing. I’m not exaggerating when I say I’ve had steaks from restaurants with a Michelin star that weren’t as good as this. In fact, I’m probably just going to take the rest of this for my actual dinner tonight. I mean it’s a steak. How are you going to split it up between five-to-six people anyways. Though there is one thing that’s going to stop me from giving this a perfect score. The potatoes. They’ve not as crispy as you made them out to be and I feel like they’re a bit oversalted. So because of that… you get a nine.”

  Team Fire: 17

  Jillian let out a sigh, “Sorry Nicole.”

  “It’s fine.” Nicole responded, “We’re still in the lead.”

  “Alright. Time to see what you all whipped up for dessert. Team water, you’re up first.” Vince said, motioning for Regina and Ed to step forward.

  “As you may remember, I’m from Georgia, a state known for its peaches, so I give you a slice of peach cobbler, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.”

  “Ohh! Peaches are my favorite fruit, so that certainly sounds good to me.” Vince said as the plate was placed in front of him.

  Vince took a bite with both the cobbler and ice cream and his eyes shot open. He paused for a second before he started wolfing down the whole plate as fast as he could. Once he was done with it he just exclaimed, “Ten! I am giving that a ten. It’s just like the kind my mom used to make. I haven’t had that in… nearly two decades at this point.”

  Regina and Ed both smiled at this.

  “So that brings Team Water up to twenty-two points. The question is if that’ll be good enough to win?”

  Team Water: 22

  As Regina and Ed were dismissed, Simon and Yong-Gi walked towards them and in that moment an underhanded idea popped into Regina’s head that could possibly win her team the challenge. The moment right as Simon was beside her with a bowl in his hand, she stuck out her leg, tripping the sixty-year old man.

  “What the?” Simon exclaimed, as he fell forward, the bowl of bananas foster flying out of his hands.

  Reacting quickly, Yong-Gi managed to leap forward and catch the bowl before it hit the ground, only spilling a little of the sauce.

  “Nice catch.” Clarence complemented from the background.

  “Ahh…” Simon said, spitting out some dirt as he pushed himself up from the ground, “What the hell lady? That’s sabotage!”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Regina smugly said, walking back to her team.

  Ed just gave the rest of his team an unsure look as he rejoined them as well.

  Yong-Gi placed the bowl on the table in front of Vince and said, “Umm… it’s a banana’s foster… also with vanilla ice cream… we hope you like it.” He then shot the host some finger guns before rushing back to Simon to help him up to his feet.

  “Are you okay?” Yong-Gi asked, fighting every urge in his body to not say that like Terry Bogard.

  “Yeah. I’ve gotten my ass beat worse than simply being tripped. Even if that really could have hurt me at my age.” He said, glaring over at Regina as he said that last part.

  Vince ate a bit of the bananas foster, letting out a hum before saying, “It’s alright… I guess I’ll give it a six. Though with that score, if my math is correct. Team Fire wins by one point! So you’ll be enjoying the rest of this food tonight!”

  Team Fire: 23

  The members of Team Fire cheer, both because of the fact that they’re safe from elimination, but because of the meal.

  Vince stood up and said, “As for you Team Water, I’ll be seeing you again in a few hours. Figure out who you’re voting for.”

  ~~~

  Ed is shown in the confessional, “I bet that Regina feels pretty safe right now considering that her peach cobbler was the only thing that got a perfect score and logically she should be. If we were just going off who’s been doing the worst, Lissa should be the obvious target, but… in these types of shows emotion often overtakes logic. Which is good for me. I can’t have anyone who can figure me out around and thankfully between these last two challenges, she’s been rubbing almost everybody the wrong way.”

  ~~~

  Lissa is shown in the confessional, “I know I’m on the chopping block… I mean I apparently make a subpar vegan salad. Part of me is thinking what if it was good enough to get that extra point, but then it would have been a tie and who knows how Vince would decide to resolve that. I’m just gotta hope that my team likes me enough to keep me over somebody else.”

  ~~~

  Team Fire is shown sat down at a table with all the extra food in front of them. Each and every one of them enjoying the meal.

  “Mmm… These meatballs are great Lucas.” Jillian said, “I think they deserved more than an eight.”

  “Eh, I’m not going to complain about the score considering that we won already.” Lucas said, “Besides, he was right about the grease since, yeah, like I said, when I normally make this for like Thanksgiving or something I let it solidify then get rid of it.”

  “Well maybe one day I can try the better version.”

  “Yeah, that’d be nice.”

  “If we’re going to complain about Vince unfairly lowering the score on something, I’d say it’s these potatoes.” Simon interrupted. “You did a great job, Nicole. No idea what he was on about, saying that they’re oversalted.”

  “Oh… thanks. Though you should give Jillian the credit on those.” Nicole said before eating a bit of the mac and cheese her daughter made that was pretty much identical to her own.

  ~~~

  Simon appears in the confessional, “Those potatoes were oversalted. I’m just trying to butter Nicole up a bit in case we lose again and I need to convince her to vote with me and Yong-Gi.”

  ~~~

  Around the area of Team Water’s camp Ed is shown pulling Clarence to the side.

  “What’s this about?” Clarence asked.

  “What do we do about Regina?” Ed asked.

  “Why are you asking me?”

  “Between the last two challenges… Regina is starting to worry me, but… I don’t know if I can do anything about her. I came to you since you’re friends with everybody.”

  “So you would like me to convince the others to vote for her?”

  “I was going to suggest that you ask her to tone it down, thinking that maybe she’d listen to you, but if you think eliminating her is the way to go… I guess I can go along with that… if you can promise me that enough people are on board since she’s honestly starting to scare me. What if she sues us?”

  Clarence gave a small chuckle at that, “I don’t think voting for someone on a reality show is lawsuit worthy. Though… I can see what I can do and I’ll let you know if any others are up for it.” With that Clarence walked off.

  ~~~

  Ed is shown in the confessional booth, “Alright so the plan is set and the best part is that I believe I successfully managed to convince Clarence into thinking that it was his idea. My biggest threat on this team will be gone and my ruse is kept up.”

  ~~~

  The show cuts to the members of Team Water sitting in front of the bonfire with Vince standing nearby behind his podium. “Team Water, welcome back to elimination. You came up just a bit short tonight and now you have to send one of your own away. Now get to voting.”

  A montage is shown of the members of Team Water writing down names. Regina is shown to be confident while Ed had a smug smirk on his face. Then for a few seconds Sue is shown to be looking a bit torn, clear that she’s a little unsure of who to vote for.

  Once the montage ends it cuts back to Vince with the clay pot in front of him. “Alright time to see who you’re voted for… first vote goes to… Regina.”

  Regina looks a bit angry at this, yet unsurprised.

  Vince pulls out the next piece of paper, “The next vote goes to… Lissa. That’s one vote for Regina and one for Lissa. The third vote goes to… Lissa. That’s two votes for Lissa and one vote for Regina. Fourth vote goes to… Regina. We’re now tied two-to-two between Lissa and Regina.”

  Both women in question are shown to be nervous now as dramatic music plays.

  Vince pulls out the second to last piece of paper, “Fifth vote goes to… Regina. That’s three votes Regina, two votes Lissa, one vote remaining. The final vote goes to… Regina. That’s four votes, you’re out.”

  “What?” Regina exclaimed standing up, “Who the hell flipped?” her eyes fell on Mina, “You!”

  “What?” Mina asked.

  “Still mad that I went after your mom in the last challenge? It’s not my fault she’s a whore.”

  “How dare you!” Mina shouted back standing up, “My mom is a great woman and I don’t need you bad mouthing her. Especially when I did vote with you!”

  “I’m the one who flipped.” Ed said standing up.

  At that Regina’s glare shifted targets, “Ed? You f****** idiot! Why would-”

  “Between the previous challenge with Nicole, what you’ve said to Mina and tripping Simon, I realized something. You’re mean.”

  “Mean? I’m just trying to win!”

  “There’s trying to win and then there’s just being a jerk, and I don’t want to work with a jerk.” Ed explained in his fake innocent tone.

  Regina rolled her eyes and said, “Whatever. You just eliminated the only person with a brain on this team.” before walking off to the distance.

  ~~~

  The camera cuts to a still angry Regina practically stomping her way to the road, not long after an intern brings her suitcase. After a few minutes a car pulls up to take her to the hotel.

  In the car Regina sat down and signed, “Well this was a big waste of time. Though I guess if the people running this show need a good lawyer, you can still give me a call. At least then I’ll still get something out of all of this.”

  ~~~

  Ed is shown in the confessional, “You know, even though I set this whole thing up, I do feel a bit bad for getting rid of Regina. If I were acting as myself I feel that she’s one of the few people here I could have had a nice, intelligent conversation with. Though that’s the reason why I needed to get rid of her. Though considering that Mina was still loyal to her, even after the things she said about her mother, I may have to do some damage control with her. And if that doesn’t work… I can always try jumping ship to Lissa and Sue.”

  ~~~

  Mina is then shown in the confessional, “I want to be mad at Ed for turning on the alliance, but… he’s right. With how Regina acted after the votes were read, immediately blaming me and insulting my mother to my face… she showed her true colors and I’m starting to think that the alliance was doomed to fail. Though also considering that Regina decided to expose that we were working together… I hope this doesn’t put the two of us on the outs.”

  ~~~

  Vince is shown alone at the elimination area. “Well now, that certainly was quite the scene now wasn’t it? With cracks in the structures of both teams, which one will fall apart first and who’s going to be the next one to suffer from it? Find out next time on Endurance Forest!”