13 The Relay Course Introduction

~~Gwen's POV~~

Gwen lie awake, her brain constantly flitting from one thought to another. She had been this way since coming back from her third challenge, one that had thoroughly pushed her to her limit.

Her challenge was a mixture of both physical and mental, she had apparently lacked in both departments just enough for them both to be viewed as a weakness.

Her challenge was specifically to complete an obstacle course specifically designed to target her weaknesses. She had shown a lack of stamina and as such, she had been forced to complete challenges that would repeat until she had done them perfectly, something that became harder for her as time went on.

Not only were the challenges physically intensive, they were also mentally intensive. While the challenges repeated, each new one required her to think of the solution before she had to attempt to perfectly complete it.

For instance, her first challenge was to climb up a ledge that was just out of her reach. She had to scan her surroundings and find objects she could use to climb her way up, where she eventually settled on scaling a gutter.

This was the easiest and fastest of the challenges for her to complete, becoming more difficult as time went on.

Slowly, this mentally drained her, her weaknesses becoming so apparent to her leading to her mind becoming distracted, making the challenges that much harder.

While she eventually managed to complete them, Gwen had failed numerous times in the process.

Since then, she had spent her time in deep thought, wondering if this survival challenge had truly been worth it.

Upon returning to the island, she was disillusioned from quitting when she spotted another contestant who seemed to truly thrive from the challenges; that being Aoife.

She had approached him in secret, seeking his help with her problem of believing herself inadequate.

He had helped her with her problem, leaving her with some words to think on before departing for the island, Chris clearly disliking his affect on the competition.

She remembered his words, them repeating in her head all day, as she slowly seemed to come out of her fugue. "Why did you choose to compete in this challenge? When I asked you this previously, you said it was for the prize money; however, is that really the truth? If it were the case that the reason you joined this survival challenge was for the prize money, then why'd you come to me for advice, instead of giving up?"

This had left her in deep thought, but it wasn't the end of Aoife's speech.

"Do you want to know why I joined this challenge?" Aoife asked, causing Gwen to nod with a serious expression, hoping to glean her reason through his explanation of his own.

Aoife nodded at her response, continuing on, "I didn't join for the reward nor for the competition, but rather for the experience. For the excitement that comes with being free from basically all outside control. If you came here for the challenge, then you would of course feel that the competition is only worth it up to a point, but from your reaction, you seem willing to compete even thought the challenge has gotten too hard."

Aoife paused here, giving her time to digest his response before continuing, "I think you should spend some time thinking on why you chose to compete in this challenge, and whether you view it as worth it to continue or not." These words had stuck with her since, constantly replaying in her mind.

With Aoife now gone, Gwen had become even deeper in thought, no longer able to go to him for advice. She spent the entire day brooding, her mind feeling jumbled and chaotic.

When the siren rang out, Gwen snapped out of her thoughts, rushing toward the meeting point. As she ran, Gwen had to admit that Aoife was right, there was no way she'd be getting up to join the competition as she was now if she were just doing it for the reward.

Gwen decided to put her thoughts off for later, focusing her entire attention on what was before her. Chris was standing there, the arrogant smirk still plastered across his face, seeming even wider than normal. "The competition this time will be less intensive than normal, the teams strengths are about evenly divided currently, and so a less intense competition is in order."

It seemed with every word he spoke, Chris would take a dig at Aoife, Izzy and Bridgette, seemingly very excited at their being gone. "This competition is a team based obstacle course; each member will be arranged one after another, the order being decided by yourselves, then will complete a portion of the obstacle course in which they compete with a member of the opposite team, then switch to the next. I call it, The Relay Course!"

Chris seemed nonplussed at the abysmal reaction following his words, so he felt the need to explain the joke, assuming the reason they weren't laughing was because they didn't understand the joke.

"Get it? Because, The Relay Course, because it's both an obstacle course and a relay race?" Here, Chris seemed to laugh at his own joke, someone else also laughing along with him. The other competitors turned toward the laughter in confusion, finding the figure of Beth. This seemed to cause looks of incredulousness on the faces of the competitors, even Chef, who was standing behind Chris, could be seen sporting a look of incredulity.

Beth seemed to notice their dry gazes, her expression turning to one of confusion, before she began defending her action. "What? The joke was funny!" She exclaimed, seeming to only elicit further reactions of incredulity.

"Anyway!" Chris' sharp voice rang out, clearly in an attempt to circumvent the conversation. With a roll of their eyes, the two teams looked back toward Chris, expectant expressions on their faces. Chris continued on, "You all will determine your own teams, so get together and organize!" Chris ended, leaving the two teams to their own devices.

The teams glanced at each other wearily, before they both split in opposite directions, choosing to organize themselves away from one another. Heather immediately began to try and take charge, trying to organize the teams. The problem was, that her organization was terrible.

Gwen rolled her eyes, she couldn't believe how terrible her organization of the team was. Truthfully, Heather's organization wasn't bad, it was just that after the previous challenge, Gwen's attention toward this type of thing had increased after her third challenge.

This was because her challenge required her to pay attention to the smallest of details. As a result, she felt Heather's organization to be terrible, when it really wasn't bad, just not the greatest it could be.

It was at this moment Gwen remembered Aoife's words, and so she swallowed the lump in the back of her throat and chose to speak up, taking charge of her own volition for the first time in years. After all, how could she find her reason for being here if all she did was silently sit in the corner, going along with whatever plan other people came up with?

"I don't think that'll work." At her statement, she received looks of surprise and confusion from the other members of her team, none of them expecting her to speak up at this moment, nor for her to disagree with Heather.

None of them had looks as shocked as Heather's own however, as she stared at Gwen in clear astonishment.

While Heather wanted to say something snarky to her, she stopped herself after remembering the good will she had managed to accumulate after she destroyed the tapes. Putting on a fake smile, she glanced at Gwen before saying, "Go on."

Gwen could clearly tell the look was fake, but chose to ignore it, not wanting this to devolve into an argument. "Well, while your plan is good, choosing to have the weaker members go against the weakest members of the other team, it won't work against the other team, seeing as ours is at a severe disadvantage in terms of physical prowess. This means that even with the weak links creating the smallest gap possible, we just don't have enough manpower to compete in terms of our stronger members."

She took a deep breath before continuing, "The only one physically strong enough among us to compete with, say, Duncan, would be Justin, and maybe Leshawna. The rest of us; however, wouldn't have the strength or endurance to compete with the other team. So, I propose we take a unique strategy,"

Gwen chose to stop here, while she wasn't someone who typically spoke out, she still understood the strength of allowing others time to understand her words and develop interest in them.

Her plan worked like a charm judging by the looks her teammates were giving her, full of curiosity. Heather seemed the most interested, though when she spoke, a hint of annoyance could be heard in her tone.

"Continue."

Her tone was demanding, sounding less like she was asking and more like she was telling Gwen to continue.

Gwen resisted the urge to roll her eyes, instead choosing to ignore Heather's clear show of disrespect. "We should wait until the competition starts, where we see the obstacle course presented, we can then choose who competes in which spot. We can optimize our teams composition for specific challenges, which may be enough for us to clutch the win!" She ended with a tone of excitement.

Gwen paused at the sound of her voice, a bright smile lighting up her face. 'It seems Aoife was right, maybe the reason I came here was more than just the prize money. But, while I am here, I'll make damn sure to try my best and win it as well.'

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A/N: Sorry about not uploading yesterday, I ended up being incredibly busy with school so I didn't have time.