The last one to survive gets a million dollars.
What do you get?
Survivor
Duo burped in contentment. He had a silly grin on his face. What more could anyone want in life? he thought, flicking out a hairpin and picking his teeth. A night by the fire, a meal in your stomach...and no Relena.
Duo giggled drunkenly at that. Man, what a funny joke, her screaming off like that. Whenever Relena was surprised, her face just kind of rolled. Just like that time when he shot Heero, back when they first met.
Duo sighed. Should've brought a camera.
Beside him, Quatre was having a one-way conversation with Trowa. Like a mother hen clucking to her chick, Quatre asked Trowa all these questions such as "Are you alright?" or "Where have you been?" and other stuff like that. If Quatre wasn't male, Duo would've thought...oh, well, never mind. Leave that for the fans to decide.
On his other side, Heero was still gazing up at the stars while Wufei was sitting in a tree. Somehow sensing that Relena had left, all the boys had filed in one after the other to gain advantage of the fire. Duo was still kind of miffed that he had to share the hunk of meat with four other growing boys but, then again, he wasn't the one that caught it. Whatever "it" was.
He looked at Heero in admiration. No wonder he was called the perfect soldier.
"Hey, wanna hear something cool?" he asked.
"No!" four silmultaneous voices answered him.
Duo shrugged and said it anyway. "What if Relena got eaten by a cougar?" At the twisted look in Quatre's face, he could tell that Quatre really thought it unlikely that there would be cougars on a deserted island. He continued, "Poor Relena, left out there all alone with nobody to cuddle with," he teased, nudging Heero. He said it extra loud just in case Relena might be close by. He continued talking about all sorts of disasters that could have befallen Relena until he ran out of ideas. Then he made the animal noise that he used to scare Relena away. For some reason, Quatre always looked really uncomfortable whenever he did that. He did it several more times and then stretched out on his back and fell asleep, warm by the fire.
Relena still hadn't come back the next morning. Which was really cool. The fire had burned itself out and, after a meal of coconuts, everyone went their separate ways except for Duo and Quatre. Once again, Duo didn't ask and Quatre didn't volunteer answers. This went on for several days. Duo was in paradise. There was an endless supply of coconuts.
Despite what everyone thought, Relena was still alive. She was hidden in a cusp of trees. Several times, she had seen a braid-like appendage whip by in the trees, just like that night when she first ran from the fire. Whenever it went past, she quickly ran away in the opposite direction to be away from that...thing. Who knew what other unknown horrors lay on this island? Again, several times every night, she heard the animal's call and she ran away again and hid in the bushes. She always thought she heard voices of the other boys after that but she wasn't sure. She hoped they were all right. Especially Heero. She still felt really ashamed at leaving Heero that night, but he just wouldn't budge. She tried to keep telling herself that. She hoped he was okay. She hoped.
Anyway, onto more important things. First of all, she was dirty and smelly. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't find the oasis again. Every time she thought that it would be in a certain direction, she caught a glimpse of that animal and then she had to run away again. So troublesome!
Another thing she was worried about were those pesky video cameras. Every time she thought to change clothes or something personal like that, she always heard a whirring sound coming from in the bushes, or up in the trees, or anywhere else she could imagine. She didn't know whether she was being paranoid or not. Every time she looked in the direction of the sound, it stopped. She wondered if the other boys ever noticed. If they were even alive by now.
But, anyway, onto more important things. Time to find some more "toilet-paper"!
For the second time that day, Quatre thought he might have seen Relena but he wasn't sure. Every time he looked, something flitted away among the trees.
"Maybe it's Relena's ghost or something!" Duo would say, mocking him. "Maybe she's come back to haunt us for revenge on that meat she gave us!"
Quatre didn't bother pointing out that Duo was the one who stole it from her. Instead, he just played along. "But why me?" he asked, just a little bit spooked. "I didn't do anything!"
"Maybe that's why," Duo would say mysteriously, eyes glinting in the shade. Then he would suddenly turn around and do that animal cry of his, which always made Quatre shiver. At least he could do something about that.
"About that sound you're making," Quatre began when Duo did it for the umpteenth time. It was Duo's next big thing after coconuts.
"What, this?" Duo asked, and he did it again. He laughed when Quatre winced.
"Well, I hope you are aware that that is---" Quatre cleared his throat. He wasn't accustomed to speaking of such things, "the mating call of a rhinocerous."
Duo stopped. A look of wonder crossed his face. A split-second later it was replaced by a humongous grin.
"So that's what's got you worried, eh?" Duo asked, nudging and winking at Quatre. "Well, if you had just said so instead of keeping it to yourself...." At that, Quatre turned red. Duo laughed even louder and patted the poor Quatre on the back. "Don't worry, kid," he said. "I won't do it ever again."
Instead, he did another animal cry which sounded like a cross between blowing one's nose and breaking wind. Why, wasn't that the sound of....
When Duo saw his face, he smirked and said, "What now?"
Quatre just shook his head.
Duo stared at him for awhile, then asked, "I've been noticing for a few days. Why are you following me?"
At Quatre's shocked look, Duo grinned and started walking away, trumpeting his animal cry as he went.
Elephant.
Relena was getting tired of all this running and hiding. It took a lot of determination, but she finally decided to do something about it. Confront the animal. That was the only thing left to do. If she was lucky enough, the video camera would see her amazing feat of courage and then she would be able to stay on the island longer with Heero. It was one more day until voting time and she was running out of ideas. This was the only option.
Nodding to herself in approval, she cradled the humongous coconut in her arms. Another, an empty shell, rested on her head. One would be her weapon, the other would be her protection. Whatever that animal was, it really liked to eat coconuts and she had followed the trail of empty shells carefully, until she winded back where she first met it. By the campfire.
By now, the animal noises had stopped completely. She assumed that it was sleeping after eating a meal of one of the boys. She hoped that it was Duo.
Palming the coconut in what she thought would be a good attacking stance, she crept over to the clearing. It was incredibly dark and she wished she had some sort of light source but, in the game of "Survivor", she told herself sternly, this would have to do.
She crept closer to the clearing. She thought she could just make out that braid-like tail, the rest of it's body asleep on the grass. And beside that thing was...Heero? What was he doing here? And wasn't that Quatre? And Trowa! She could just make out Wufei on the other side. She looked again, but couldn't find Duo anywhere. So what she suspected was true. Duo was eaten by that monster, and now it was keeping the rest of the boys with it, so that it could eat them all for later! She had to give the monster some credit. At least she had one less competition for Heero, now that Duo was gone. No, what was she talking about? Duo never had him in the first place!
Now, she was ready. For the sake of love, she would do this!
She jumped out from her hiding spot, careful not to step on Heero, and attacked.
Duo was dreaming. In his dream, Relena was some bug-eyed monster, come to suck the life out of him and his friends. He twitched a little in his sleep, struggling to get away. He was caught in her trap and in his dream she was hitting him with her multi-pronged arms.
No, wait, someone was hitting him.
Hitting him over the head with...a coconut?
He raised his arms to protect himself. They weren't hitting very hard, of course, but all the same, he thought it was kind of rude that someone would attack him without telling him first.
Grabbing the attacker's wrists, he raised his leg. His foot pressed against something soft. "Oof," it said as he continued into his move and flipped his opponent over his head. Then he quickly got up and rolled away, crouched in a fighting stance, to see who it was.
It was Relena. Whoops. He quickly checked to see if she was okay, but then she glared at him and continued her attack. She had some sort of weird, hairy coconut shell on her head and as she swung her arm (and missed, of course) it dropped over her eyes and then she had to adjust it again to see. Duo clucked and shook his head in disapproval. Very inefficient.
But inefficient as she was, she was still attacking him. "Monster!" she cried, swinging and missing again. "You release my Heero!"
Duo quickly glanced over at Heero, who was beginning to stir from the commotion. Release him from what?
Someone had relit the fire, probably Quatre. Now, even Trowa was awake and he was watching the confrontation with dull eyes. Someone jumped out of the trees. It was Wufei. Now, he was grabbing Relena's arms from behind and locking it in a grip. Relena's head, still shaking with rage, bopped Wufei on the nose with her helmet and made Wufei's nose start to bleed. But, instead of letting go, he only held even harder. Blood didn't make Wufei weak. It only made him angry.
By now, Heero was fully awake and glaring at Relena for disturbing his sleep. Duo quickly ran behind him to protect himself from Relena. She wouldn't attack her hubby. Peering over Heero's shoulder, he made a face, thumb against his nose and fingers waggling, taunting her.
"Heero! Look out behind you!"
Heero didn't even look.
"What the hell are you doing, woman?" he demanded.
At Heero's tone of voice, Relena stopped long enough to look at Duo. Really look. The fire still made him look evil and menacing, but that was all it was. His braid was just a braid but now it had some coconut juice running from it and Duo was taking the tip and sucking on it, so that it wouldn't go to waste. He looked like a baby when he did that. Not a monster at all. But how?
Now, everyone was looking at her, waiting for an explanation. She opened her mouth several times, but nothing came out.
Behind her, Wufei sniffed the air. "When was the last time you had a bath, woman?" he said in disgust, and quickly let go of her, wiping his bloody nose with his arm. Quatre quickly came over to help him stop the bleeding.
Relena felt a little faint at that comment. How dare anyone say that about her?
It was just too much to take.
She fainted dead-away. Nobody ran to catch her, not even Quatre.
"Bad Relena," Duo scolded, shaking his head. "In 'survivor', you're supposed to work together."
Everyone was standing around on the beach, waiting for the boat to arrive. After last night's incident, everybody was really sleepy because right after Relena fainted, the smell coming from her was so strong that they had to spend the night all huddled at one end of the clearing while she took up the other. And the snores coming from that girl were monstrous. The entire night was spent with legs kicking at ribs and arms twisted awry. But at least they were far from the smell.
And now came the time for the voting. Sure enough, it was the end of the week and both the people on the island and the viewers watching at home got to cast their vote.
"So, who are we kicking off the island?" Relena called, from downwind. Heero wouldn't let her in their vicinity unless she was at least ten metres away. The smell was that bad. The wind was blowing towards her so her words couldn't be heard very clearly.
Everyone looked at her warily, afraid she was going to come running over.
Wufei backed away a step, knowing how bad she smelled, since he was the one who was closest to her last night. "What do you want?" he asked.
Relena sighed. "Nevermind!" she called. She tried walking towards them but they all shuffled away together in one big clump. She sighed again. They had been doing that to her all morning.
She looked down at herself. Dirt smears covered both her arms and legs while the bottom of her dress was tattered in fringes. She sniffed. She didn't smell anything. What was wrong with them?
"Do I really smell that bad?" she called, hands on her hips.
"Yes!" they all answered. Even Trowa.
Just then, the boat arrived to take one of them away. A representative from Survivor's studio was rowed onto shore. Behind him cam a video-cameraman to tape the encounter.
"So," the man said when he arrived on the beach. His nose crinkled at the smell coming from Relena. "Who do you vote off the island?"
All the boys looked at Relena. Relena looked at Duo.
"What?!" she cried. "What did I do?"
"You can smell for yourself," said Wufei, than walked away coolly in one of his typical Wufei exits.
"I do not smell!" she retorted. "Quatre?" He was the nicest out of all the boys. He could never say anything bad about her. Especially to her face.
"Well..." Quatre hesitated. He gulped.
"You can do it Quatre!" Duo cheered from behind him. When Relena turned her glare his way, he immediately ran behind Heero, just in case she chose to hit him again.
"I cannot lie, so..." Relena inwardly smacked herself. She completely forgot! "...she refuses to cooperate, she orders everyone about, she hit Duo with a coconut..." Duo cheered at that. Quatre continued, "and...she is unsanitary." That done, Quatre's face turned immediately red and he looked guiltily at the camera.
"Trowa?" she pleaded. She turned to the silent boy. "What about our coconut drinks?"
At first, no one thought that he would answer. His gaze flickered from Relena, to the water, and then to the sky. No one could understand what that meant.
Finally, "You cannot cook. I was the one who prepared most of the coconut drinks. And you smell." That was the longest speech Trowa had made since he came on the island. He ended it by looking at a tree.
Relena completely skipped out Duo but he spoke up anyway. "This crazy woman, here," he cried, looking directly into the camera. He counted off his fingers. "She can't swim, she treated me like a slave, she wouldn't share her food, she doesn't cooperate, she attacked me with a coconut..." he switched fingers, "...she is a dictator, she IS RELENA, AND SHE SMELLS TOTALLY GROOVY!" He threw up right in front of the camera. Quatre patted him reassuringly on the back, then looked accusingly at Relena.
Relena turned to Heero. Surely he would understand?
Heero answered her by holding his nose. "Take her away," he replied nasally.
The man took her gently by the arm but she shook him off. It took all five boys, the man, and the video-cameraman to finally get her into the boat and send her off. She was screaming the entire way.
When her screams faded off into the distance, the boys looked at each other.
For the first time in hours, they breathed in deeply.
Where's Trowa?