After a lengthy walk in the sweltering midday heat, godconnie and her followers finally arrived at the reward challenge area.
The fanfic writer was quickly losing patience with her ill-behaved charges. In fact, if she heard one more grumble from Rudy or one more crude joke from Kelly or Soo she thought her Probst-sized cranium would explode.
"All right, Survivors, listen up," she once again repeated the phrase she'd heard the show's real host use many, many times. "You'll notice that a large section of the jungle has been cleared in order to..."
"Uh..." Colleen interrupted. "Youse guys actually cut down trees for this challenge?"
"Yes, Colleen, we did," gc said firmly. "If you look u..."
"But that's not right," the co-ed broke in again. "You can't go around destroying nature just so we can participate in some stupid reward challenge!"
"We can and we did," gc wondered why she always wrote herself into such precarious situations.
"Well, I'm sitting this challenge out in protest! Tree killer!" The cuddly cutie folded her arms in darling defiance.
The writer knew she
had to get herself out of this predicament quickly.
"The trees were diseased and dying. We'll replant as soon
as we finish shooting," godconnie rambled off the top of
her head.
"For real?" asked Colleen.
"Pinky swear!" gc held her hand in the air, the smallest finger extended. She nearly gasped out loud when she noticed how hairy her knuckle was, but then she remembered that she was not in her own body. Entirely.
"All right then," Colleen conceded. "Count me in!"
"As I was saying..." gc continued. "If you look up, you will see 80 multi-colored coconuts suspended from overhanging branches that extend from the trees that line the perimeter of our playing field." She made quotation marks with her fingers as she said the word, "field," and hoped that she had overexplained enough to continue to pass as the windbag Probst.
"There are ten coconuts per Survivor," the writer explained as if she were talking to a group of 4-year-olds. "They are hung randomly. As you can also see, there is what essentially amounts to a circus net stretched 10 feet below the coconuts. It is there in case you lose your balance and fall."
"If I break a hip, Probst," Rudy threatened. "I'm suing you and Burnett and CBS!"
Not to be pulled into yet another minor squabble with a castaway, godconnie continued her spiel.
"There are rope ladders leading up the length of eight trees - one for each of you. From there on out, you will see more rope ladders and smaller nets strung horizontally in a web-like pattern between the outer trees."
By now, Sean looked like the proverbial deer caught in headlights. "Coconuts, rope ladders, and nets?" he thought to himself. "Why, that's just impossible!"
"Your assignment," gc proceeded. "Is to make your way up and across, gathering one of each color coconut."
The pseudo-host paused for dramatic effect.
"The catch, however," she explained. "Is that, even though there are ten colors per Survivor, you are only allowed to collect the ones that represent the colors found in a rainbow."
At that moment, a small vessel burst inside of Sean's head. Luckily, it was of no use to him.
"If you should return to me with too many colors, not enough colors, or the wrong colors..." she droned on as only Probst would. "...you will be eliminated."
"Yo, dude," Gervase spoke up.
"Yes?"
"Once this challenge is over, can I have the circus net?"
"Whatever for?" asked gc.
"It's like a King-sized hammock times infinity!"
godconnie closed her eyes for a moment and wished she were back home in Ohio.
"The first contestant to return to me with the correct number and correctly colored coconuts wins." She looked around at the ragged bunch. "Any questions?"
"I have one," announced Xena.
"Yes?"
"Do we have to climb the ladders?"
"Are you saying that you don't wish to participate?" The author hoped this wasn't true.
"No, I'm asking if it is against the rules to gather the coconuts without climbing the ladders."
"Uh..." gc knew that Xena had more moves than a topless dancer in a Zalman King movie. "No, it's not against the rules. You can get the coconuts any way you want."
Kelly chuckled.
"But you can't take them off of other contestants," the writer quickly added.
Kelly groaned.
"Once the coconut is in a contestant's possession, it must remain there."
"How are we supposed to know which colors are in the rainbow, fer Chrissakes?" Rudy growled.
"Water to drink and fire to live..." gc broke into rhyme. "The colors you seek are Roy G. Biv,"
"What da hell?" asked the old sailor.
"Water to drink and fire to live. The colors you seek are Roy G. Biv," gc repeated, enunciating every word.
Rudy turned to Gervase. "I got no clue what he's yappin' about!"
"Me neither, man," the youngster agreed.
"It's a poem and a clue!" the writer yelled. "Like the ones you find in your tree mail!"
"We didn't get any tree mail this time," stated Colleen. "Are you sure this is on the up and up, Jeff?"
"I'm positive, Colleen." gc chastised herself for agreeing to write such a sharp-witted co-ed.
"So we're supposed to carry a bunch o' loose coconuts while climbing on ladders?" asked the ever observant Soozin.
"I'm glad you brought that up," said gc. "Hanging on a hook at the bottom of each tree is a burlap sack with each contestant's name on it. Find your name and take the sack. When I say 'go,' start climbing."
The castaways took a few moments to find their respective sacks. Eventually, they were set to compete.
"Survivors ready?" gc asked. "Go!"
And they were off.
godconnie cringed at the sight of Sean accidentally swinging his ladder into a tree. That's a little less skin on the good doctor's right forearm, she thought.
Jenna was determined to win this particular reward challenge. It'll be so nice to have a... Her train of thought was derailed when she realized that Jeff hadn't explained what they would win. Poor, overworked Jeff, she thought. He deserves a reward of his own...
The young mother of twins was unable to postulate any further because Sean, who was now swinging wildly out of control, collided with her mid-air, sending them both hurtling toward the circus net.
"Do you mind?" Gervase barked at the two of them as they landed perilously close to his supine form. "I'm trying to get some rest here!"
It was at this point that gc noticed that Xena hadn't even begun to compete. Instead, the warrior was walking around the perimeter, seemingly gauging the action above her.
Come on, Xena, the writer begged internally.
You're supposed to win this one!
Gabrielle had been enjoying her time alone at camp. She was nearly finished cleaning the pheasants when the ground started trembling. Fifteen feet away, the sand began to rise and then fall. The bard's eyes widened in preparation for something big. And bad.
"Or really weird," she considered and decided to remain seated.
A large, rectangular-shaped metal box ascended slowly, coming to a gentle halt as it reached its full height above ground. After a brief pause, what seemed to be doors in the front of the box slid open. Gabrielle gripped the camp knife she'd been using and rested her other hand on the sai that was nestled against her left boot.
An average-looking man in his mid-forties stepped out of the box. He was wearing khaki slacks and a light blue shirt.
"G'day," he said to the wary Amazon as he walked toward her. "Do you mind if I take a seat?"
She eyed him suspisciously, not answering.
"I'll take that as a 'yes,'" he smiled and sat across from her.
The man spoke with an accent that was different from the other Survivors' yet it was familiar to Gabrielle's ears. She had heard comparable inflections during her years of travel and even Xena slipped into similar speech patterns when she was tired.
"Are you Greek?" the bard asked.
"No, mate," he tapped himself on the chest. "I'm a red-blooded Aussie!"
"An Aussie?"
"You know..." he began to sing. "I come from the land Down Under!"
The hair stood on the back of Gabrielle's neck. "You... You were sent from Tartarus, weren't you?"
"I don't know Tartarus from a hole in the ground," he said seriously.
"Funny," she replied, appreciating the irony. After a beat, the bard stiffened. "You're not a demon from Hell, are you?"
"There are some folks who would call me that, I suppose," he smiled again. "But, no, I'm not a demon."
"Are you a god?"
At that, the stranger seemed to lose himself in fantasy.
"Hello?" the bard prodded him back to reality.
"I'm a god in the industry," he informed her.
"The industry?"
"The entertainment industry. Reality television is my specialty," he bragged.
"Television?" the bard's ears perked up. "What do you do in television?"
"I'm the executive producer of Survivor," he said proudly.
"Reallllllllllllllly?" the blonde drawled, the wheels in her mind spinning furiously. "Would you mind answering a few questions for me?"
"I was going to ask you the same thing," he replied. "How about a little give and take?"
"I'm game," said the more relaxed bard.
"Mark, by the way," the man extended his hand.
The Amazon took it. "Gabrielle."
Back at the reward challenge, Sean had managed to fall seven times without collecting a single coconut in the span of four minutes.
Soozin and Colleen were tied with three coconuts each, but Soo's bounty included a black coconut while Colleen's included a pink one. Neither color could be found in a rainbow.
Jenna was consumed with guilt after clumsily smashing her first coconut into a tree, thus causing a hairline fracture. When the milk began leaking out, she was sure she had injured the poor, defenseless creature. Forgetting about her earlier desire to win the challenge, she swore on her own life that she would nurse the hair-covered pod back to health.
godconnie was thrilled when Xena finally took custody of the burlap sack that had her name printed on it. Still, the warrior did nothing but watch the Survivors scurry overhead.
"Xena," the fanfic writer tried to get her attention.
The warrior put her index finger up to her lips as if to say, "Hush."
In the blink of an eye, Rudy tripped and plummeted head-first into the circus net. A split second later, Xena grabbed her chakram and whisked it into the air. It ricocheted from tree to tree. Every so often, a rope was sliced and a coconut would fall into her waiting bag.
gc was startled, not only by the sheer mathematic genius it took to master such a feat, but by the fact that each coconut was small enough to squeeze through the holes in the circus net. And, to top it all off, they fell in colored order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
Xena walked over to godconnie. "You're going to catch flies if you don't shut that," she nodded toward gc's open mouth.
"That was the most amazing thing I have ever seen in my life," the author gushed.
"Haven't seen much, have you?" the warrior said, unimpressed. She handed the bulky sack to gc. "I think you can call the others off now."
godconnie nodded her head in wondrous agreement.
After informing Xena of her prize and directing the contestants back toward camp, godconnie returned to the hidden cave that she had been sharing with Mezzo while on the island. She paused in the entranceway when she spotted the green-eyed beauty rifling through the massive rough draft of their fanfic, muttering to herself.
"I can't believe she wanted to bring Joxer into this story," Mezzo grumbled quietly. "And who gives a flying fig about Joel or Greg or..."
"S'up?" gc interrupted.
"Probst! Ack!" screeched a startled Mezzo.
"Where?!" godconnie looked around her in alarm. It took a few seconds before it occurred to her that she still looked like the Survivor host. "No! Wait! It's me, gc!"
"How do I know that for sure?" asked Mezzo as she made a crucifix with two pencils and held them out to ward off any evil that might come her way.
"You made me!"
"But how do I know you're the one I made?"
gc rolled her eyes. "I dunno. Ask me a question that only I would know the answer to."
"Okay... How many toes was Gabrielle born with?"
"Eleven."
Mezzo squinted and pondered the answer.
"She had six toes on her right foot, five on the left," the dimpled writer proclaimed. "You know I'm right!"
"Yes," the wary woman considered. "But how do I know that Probst doesn't know that too?"
"Why I oughtta!" godconnie lunged for her co-conspirator who nonchalantly stepped out of the way.
"Rage much?"
