DJ grabbed the baton with a rather serious look, he understood the need he had to rush this challenge. While before, DJ wouldn't have noticed Noah's scheme and may have chosen to take his trial lightly, his third challenge had been one that tested his intellect and left him with lasting results of improvement.
DJ took off at his fastest speed, wasting no time in starting his attempt at crossing the bridge. As he rushed across the bridge, DJ was making great time, the only problem he had encountered was when the parts of the bridge would occasionally collapse.
Still, DJ would just change his course as minimally as possible to not fall through the newly created gaps while barely decreasing his running speed.
The bridge was the biggest of the obstacles, taking up a little under half of the entire course. So, even though DJ was making great time, he was still only a little under halfway through the bridge when the five minute timer rang out.
The sound had distracted DJ, causing him to nearly fall through a newly created gap. Taking a deep breath as he glanced down at the hole before him, DJ shook his head in determination before he continued his sprint.
DJ's opponent was also incredibly fast however, which would make sense considering it was Eva. From what Gwen had seen of her from their time on the island, she spent a lot of her time in the morning running, so she was obviously very fast at it in comparison to the rest of them.
While fast, Eva had one major problem; she wouldn't account for the gaps appearing, causing her momentum to slow considerably in comparison to DJ who's momentum would barely deviate upon encountering a fallen part. This led to an almost stalemate, the gap between the two not really lengthening or shortening.
While people might expect Gwen to feel a bit disappointed at this result, they would be surprised to find her actually rather happy with the result. Gwen had assumed that this would be the competition in which the Killer Bass could potentially catch up to them, even Noah seemed to think this as well.
This could be seen by the rather annoyed look that appeared in his eye, clearly showcasing his feelings toward this result.
As was previously said, the bridge was the largest obstacle course in the challenge, with the Screaming Gophers still maintaining a five minute lead, their victory would be almost assured.
Still, Gwen chose to not celebrate early, understanding the situation could easily reverse on them.
Around seven minutes later, DJ had managed to finish the course while Eva was only a bit over halfway through it.
As DJ reached Justin, he passed the baton off to him before giving him a pat on the back. The reason behind this was the danger imposed by Justin's challenge, the only one that actually seemed deadly so far.
Justin had a rarely seen serious look on his face, mentally preparing himself for his challenge. With a deep breath that lasted a couple seconds, Justin managed to stop the slight quivering of his legs as he took steady steps forward, heading toward the bear.
The grizzly bear was rather monstrous in height, reaching 4ft while on all fours. Justin gave the bear a glare, one the bear seemed to return far more fiercely. Justin let out an audibly gup before steeling himself, walking with heavy steps toward the bear.
It was as if the bear could feel the challenge in Justin's stare, it rising to all fours where it towered over him.
The bear reached a rather impressive height of around ten feet in height while on its hind legs, as it let out a loud bestial roar.
Still, after steeling his nerves, Justin was already prepared for the fight, feeling no fear at the sight of the gargantuan bear. Giving the bear a rather challenging look, Justin's previously sedate pace seemed to suddenly pick up speed, rushing toward the bear.
Justin had a calculating look in his eye, choosing the moment the bear chose to show dominance over him to attack, a point where it would be slowest to react.
Luckily, the objective of the challenge wasn't really to beat the bear, but rather to survive in a cage with it for five minutes. Upon Justin reaching around three meters from the bear, a cage door slammed down behind him.
Justin didn't even flinch at the loud noise the door closing created, his pace not slowing in any way. Upon reaching around two and a half meters from the bear, Justin suddenly dropped into a slide, aiming to slide between the open legs of the bear.
This was Justin's plan all along, he never planned to fight the bear head on. His goal had always been to avoid the bear from the start. But, he'd noticed that Chris must've agitated the bear beforehand, it showing a rather unusual aggression toward him.
This led to him deciding that instead of just avoiding the bear and hoping to not provoke it, he had to actively dodge it. But it really wasn't much of a deviation from Justin's original plan, something he'd easily gotten used to.
As Justin slid between the bears legs, he watched as the bear swung downwards irritably, growling in annoyance as it missed.
The bear began to slowly turn around following its miss; Justin reacted to the change in scenario quickly, instantly rising back to his feet and running in the opposite direction of the way the bear was turning. This caused the bear to miss him, shaking its head in confusion at its prey vanishing before its eyes.
A smirk appeared on Justin's face as his plan showed success, before he quickly wiped it away, not wishing to grow complacent and allow himself to be caught at the last moment in carelessness. Chancing a glance at the clock, Justin could see that two minutes had gone by, leaving him with another three to go.
It was at this point the bear finally noticed him, reacting by lashing out in an attempt to catch its prey. Justin was prepared for this, already planning his next course of action; with a jump to the side, Justin easily cleared the attack from the bear, before rolling on the ground in an attempt to keep his momentum.
This was how the next few minutes played out, with Justin now only having around 30 seconds before his challenge would be complete.
It was at this point Eva had finally reached her teammate, who was of course; Duncan. Not only did Duncan not seem worried at his imminent bear fight, he actually wore a cocky grin. Only he would know whether the look was a facade or if he was actually truly not worried.
Still, Justin only offered the man a glance, his attention once more focusing on the bear that was currently attempting to rip his head off, with little success.
As Justin slowly watched, his timer counted down before it eventually hit the zero mark, causing the collar around the bears neck to make a loud air pressurizing noise followed by the bear flopping to the ground, either dead or knocked out. Justin couldn't bring himself to care for the bear, it had just been swinging wildly at his beautiful face after all.
Walking out of the other side of the cage slowly, Justin couldn't find the will nor care within himself to stop the rapid spreading of his rather smarmy smirk.
Walking forward, Justin was greeted by the sight of his teammate; that being Beth. She had apparently been the one chosen for this challenge, when she raised her hand for this position, she had explained to the rest of the team, "I live on a farm, this is what I do for a living. I can't wait to show off!"
While Beth may have viewed it as showing off, the rest of her team didn't seem to share that opinion; but in the end, Gwen just shrugged in acceptance of her taking the position, finding no reason to disagree.
Beth gave the rather dreamy Justin a smile showing off her bracketed teeth, something Justin seemed to barely even notice with his current self-inflation of his ego.
Passing the baton to her, Justin walked off, showing no interest in how Beth would do in the competition. Beth seemed put off by this for half a second, before a wide smile grew on her face. After all, she had the perfect opportunity to show off right in front of her, why waste it?
And so, Beth quickly rushed toward the twenty or so wild pigs, beginning the tedious process of wrangling them all into the rather expansive pig pin.
She seemed to move with a grace despite the rather arduous task; but, while she moved with grace, nothing short of a miracle could make wrangling pigs look appealing. She was the fastest of the contestants to complete her objective so far, finishing before Duncan's five minute time-limit was even up, earning loud cheers from her team.
So with a smile on her face, Beth handed the baton over to the seventh member of their team, the excitement seeming to slowly build in the Screaming Gophers hearts at their lead.
The remaining challenges seemed to flash by, ending in a hole in the wall competition in which Cody passed with flying colors, leaving the Screaming Gophers the raining champions once again.
"And the winner is... the Screaming Gophers! That means I'll be seeing the Killer Bass at the campfire!" Chris exclaimed, voice coming out in a not-quite yell.
Gwen couldn't help but let out an audible sigh; while she had been confident in her plan, there was always the chance of failure, and she had definitely been a little frightened at Noah's display of efficient tactics.
'Still, it was the Screaming Gophers who came out on top. With this challenge, I can safely conclude that the reason I came here was for the thrill of the competition, the feeling of being on the edge of a loss! I especially found out that I love leading, being in charge of the challenges has led to me realizing how nice it feels for a plan you created to succeed. Not only that, but I managed to win without three of our teams biggest players, something that's definitely left me feeling thrilled; guess you were right Aoife, I didn't come here just for the money.'
With this final thought came the end of the relay race, but the beginning of one exhilarating week.
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A/N: Hope you enjoyed the chapter!