Episode 7: Part 2

<Announcer Gippal>
     "Teams must now enter the actual Wonderland courtyard, owned by the Queen of Hearts. To do so, teams should enter the bizarre room and find a very small door hidden behind a bed. Teams will then have to figure out how to first push the bed out of the way, then -using the drinks set on the table- shrink themselves to enter through the door. Once inside, they will find their next clue."

<Rikku & Yuna: Cousins, Currently in 1st>
     Rikku and Yuna opened a door, revealing another smaller door. After opening the following door and several other smaller doors, they crawled through and found themselves in the bizarre room. There was a fireplace on the right, an end table and a bed on the left, a circular table in the middle with one chair in front of it and two bottles on top of it, and a small door that snored. They approached the door and crouched down to talk to it. Rikku poked the door in the nose, which also doubled as the doorknob.
     The door awoke with a start. "Hey, careful there," it whined. 
     "We need to get through," Yuna said. "It says we need to get inside."
     "I dunno, Yunie," Rikku said. "I don't think I could even get one of my legs through this door." She started pressing her leg up against the door. Her foot pressed against the doorknob, which started to complain loudly.
     "Watch the foot!" it yelled. "You two are mistresses of torture! If you want to get in, you'll have to use the other door. I'm too tired to have a bunch of people inside me."
     "But then how're we going to get in?" Rikku asked.
     "There's another door here somewhere," the door explained. "It's smaller than I am, so you might want to use the bottle."
     "Drinking is bad!" Yuna yelled at the door.
     "Yeah, beer bad!" Rikku said.
     "Not beer," the door whined. "The bottles."
     Yuna stood up and found the two bottles on the table. They were each labeled differently, one with a blue label with a picture of a full tree with an arrow pointing to a small plant, the other with an orange label with a picture of a small plant with an arrow pointing to a full tree.
     "Ohh, I get it!" Rikku said. She pointed to the orange bottle. "See, this thing makes little plants grow into full plants, right? And plants are like trees. And trees are made of wood."
     Yuna nodded as if it all made sense.
     "And so are doors," Rikku said. She smiled at Yuna and grabbed the orange bottle. Then, before it could react, she uncapped the bottle and poured a small amount into the keyhole of the door, which also doubled as the doorknob creature's mouth. 
     The door tried to complain, but it was cutoff as it quickly grew to the size of a normal door. "What the hell do you hope to accomplish with this?" the door whined.
     "Now we can get through!" Rikku said, smiling proudly.
     "You can't!" the door argued. "You'll crush all of Wonderland! Give me the blue bottle and leave me alone! You have to push the bed out of the way and drink the blue bottle and shrink down and go into the door behind the bed!"
     "Ohhh," Rikku and Yuna both said. 
     "I was just gonna say that," Yuna added quickly.
     Rikku pushed in the bed as Yuna fed the blue bottle to the door to get it down to its original size. The wall around the door managed to shrink down with the door as well, though there was now a spider web of cracks on the wall. Yuna then drank the blue bottle and began to shrink to a size smaller than Rikku's shoe.

     "SOLVED," Fujin said. She and Raijin both leaned against the door they'd both crawled through as they watched Yuna shrink down.
     "Yeah, it looks like we got here just in time to see how it's done, ya know?" Raijin said.
     "Cheaters!" Rikku yelled at them as she walked to the table and picked up the blue bottle. "First you steal first place from us, and now you're mooching off our puzzle solving skills!"
     Fujin started to laugh, but Raijin nudged her, to which she responded with a solid kick to Raijin's shin.
     Raijin winced in pain, then looked back to Rikku. "We didn't come in here to steal the answer, ya know? Good timing I guess. But since you did this for us, we'll make you a deal. Next puzzle we'll solve, and you can leech off us, ya know?"
     "HA! Fat chance!" Rikku yelled at him. "I mean, I should probably talk to Yunie about this, but she's only three inches tall right now. Still, fat chance! I'm not forming an alliance with you two! You're you're... cheaters!"
     "HURRY," Fujin said to Rikku.
     "Yeah, so hurry up, ya know?" Raijin said. "We all need to use that blue thing to go on with the race, and you're killin' our lead, ya know?"
     Rikku glared at them, but finally drank the blue drink and shrunk down to Yuna's size. Once small, she and Yuna ran to the door and found the clue box. Yuna pulled out the clue just as Raijin and Fujin ran through the door after them. 
     "Detour," Yuna read. "Barrels or branches?"

<Announcer Gippal>
     "A detour is a choice between two tasks, each with its own pros and cons. In Barrels, teams must fly to the Coliseum and find the trainer of Hercules: Phil. They will then have to complete two obstacle courses in which they must break a number of barrels in a limited amount of time. This detour could become difficult since only one team can be on the obstacle course at a time and will have to line up again after completing each individual obstacle course whether they were successful or not, but teams that complete the courses quickly with little interruption could complete the detour in good time. In Branches, teams must fly to the Deep Jungle and slide down a series of branches while avoiding low branches on the way. After sliding down, they will have to swing across several vines to a small platform where they will receive their next clue. The task is physically demanding, but will not require teams wait on each other to get through. Both detours are located in different worlds, so teams must choose wisely when deciding between detours because changing will be very costly."

     Rikku and Yuna looked over their clue, then looked up at Raijin and Fujin, who were standing over their clues.
     "Which one are you two doing?" Raijin asked them.
     "Like we'd tell you!" Rikku snapped at him. "We're waiting to see what you do so we can do whatever you don't!"
     "Well what if we don't tell y-" Raijin started, but Fujin interrupted him by slapping the clue against his chest.
     "BRANCHES," she said.
     "We're umm, doing branches, ya know?" Raijin said as he followed Fujin out the small door.
     "Fine!" Rikku yelled after them. "Well we're doing barrels!"
     Yuna smiled. "Oh good! Maybe we'll meet back up with the Shinras then!"
     "Goodie," Rikku sighed. "Yeah, I guess they'd do the barrels. They might even be forced into barrels if there's a weight limit to those vines."
     All four contestants ran out of the bizarre room and climbed up the table to reach the orange drink. They took turns drinking it and ran to their respective gummi ships, which departed in different directions just as another gummi ship approached Wonderland's platform.

<Auron & Jecht: Grizzled Old Guys, Currently in 3rd>
     Auron and Jecht left their gummi ship and jumped into the hole. They both fell slowly down as the objects swam past them. Auron crossed his arms as he floated down while Jecht made an attempt at swimming downward to speed up the process, only to find he did not go any faster. He finally gave up and looked up at Auron.
     "Hey Auron," Jecht said. "Does this remind you of a severe acid trip too?"
     "You asked me the same thing when we first got to the Moonflow too," Auron said. "I've still never done drugs."
     "Maybe you should. You're way too young to act this damn old. You act like you could be my grandpa."
     The two touched down and grabbed their clue before proceeding into the bizarre room. They searched the room and found the small door that should have been hidden behind the bed, but the bed was never moved back after the previous teams.
     "Heh, no problem," Jecht said. He laid facedown on the ground and stuck his arm inside the door. He adjusted several times as he fished around inside the door before finally pulling his hand out with a tiny clue between his fingers.
     "It's a bit small," Auron said. 
     "Yeah, I'll never read this without my glasses," Jecht said. "And there ain't no way I'm wearing my glasses on public television."
     "They might make you look smarter though. Maybe you could make people think your IQ is actually a positive integer."
     "Hey!" Jecht yelled, pointing at Auron forcefully. "I'll have you know my integrity doesn't factor into this at all!"
     "Of course not," Auron said. He grabbed the tiny clue from Jecht and pulled it up to his face to try to make things out. "It's a detour. Brunches or bullets or something like that. Let's just do this first one. It's in the Deep Jungle. Let's find it and just hope it's self-explanatory."
     "Fine," Jecht said as he pulled the bed back out to try to hide the small door.
     The pair ran out of the bizarre room and got into their gummi ship. It flew off the same direction that Raijin and Fujin had previously flown.

<Steiner & Beatrix: Dating>
     Steiner and Beatrix ran back to 1st district and found Kuklux the moogle waiting by the light pole. He was running frantically in circles while holding his head in frustration.
     "How many did you find?" Beatrix asked the moogle.
     "NONE!" Kuklux responded. "There bloody weren't any! I swear I checked everywhere!"
     "Great," Beatrix said. She looked back at Steiner. "How many did we get?"
     "Three, ma'am!" Steiner said with a salute.
     "That means there are seven in here?" Beatrix said. "Great. We should start searching immediately."
     "Indeed," Steiner said. He and Beatrix ran off to find more postcards while Kuklux ran behind them and tried to catch up.

<Amarant & Lani: Coworkers, Currently in 4th>
     Amarant and Lani exited their gummi ship and went down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. Both desperately tried to hold their dresses as they fell.
     "I quit," Amarant said, rubbing his hand along the dress and down to the frills at the bottom.
     "It really doesn't matter one way or the other," Lani told him. "See, if you keep going, people will think you have no balls, what with the dress and all. If you stop racing, I'm going to rip your balls off, what with me being pissed and all. You may as well race it out for the million, since at least with that much money you don't need your balls."
     The two touched down and entered the bizarre room. Lani instantly ran to the small talking door in the middle of the room while Amarant searched the room for secrets, starting with the fireplace.
     "You! Tell me your secrets!" Lani yelled at the door. It continued to sleep. "Fine! I'll find another way in then!"
     "I think this'll make us smaller," Amarant said, handing Lani the blue bottle. "Just a hunch."
     "Cool. Now all we need is a way in past this sleeping bafoon!"
     Amarant walked up to the door and pressed his hands against the wall. He took a deep breath, then slammed his foot into the tiny door. It snapped off its hinges and flew inward. Lani instantly chugged the potion and shrank. Amarant sighed, then grabbed the orange bottle off the table and set it on the ground by the door before picking up the blue bottle and drinking it as well.
     The pair ran inside the Queen's Courtyard and passed the sobbing and whining door.
     "Why did you have to do that? I was sleeping! I would've moved!" the door whined. "I was jus-"
     "Shut up," Amarant ordered the door. He found Lani at the clue box.
     "Detour," Lani read. "Branches or Barrels. Barrels sounds retarded, so let's do Branches."
     "Fine," Amarant said, then he promptly turned and left.
     "Wait, I wanted Barrels!" Lani shouted after him. "You were supposed to argue because you never want to do what I want to do! Flamer! You jerk! I mean, umm, I wanted to do Branches. So there! I got my way!" She waited for a response, then quickly sprinted after him. "Oh fine, just wait up!"

<Shinra & Rufus: Father/Son, Currently in 5th>
     The Shinras' gummi ship touched down and the pair exited the ship in a cloud of smoke. Rufus waved at the smoke and coughed as he exited.
     "Must've been a faulty part or something," Shinra said to Rufus.
     "Yeah, that's possible," Rufus said between coughs. "Either that or it was the retard driving and smoking a cigar in a confined area!"
     "You could've put down the window like when you were a kid."
     "We were in space. You can't put down the window! Besides, that thing about putting the window down when I was a kid never happened."
     "Don't deny your childhood," Shinra said.
     "Don't make up memories! That never happened! First off, you have a convertible and always refuse to put the top up. Second, you never let me in the car while you were driving. You said I had to stay out just in case some hot females needed a ride and sex, and a little boy is a turnoff for hotties and a turn-on for uglies. And third, I'm pretty sure I didn't meet you until I turned eighteen, and that was only to collect a check."
     "Is that so?" Shinra said. He thought for a minute. "What was the check?"
     "Can we hurry up?" Rufus said. "We're already losing from your crappy piece of crap ship going so damn slow!"
     The Shinras ran inside and saw the broken door on the ground with two bottles next to it. 
     Rufus picked up the bottles and examined the pictures. "Ah ha. This one shrinks us so we'll fit. Let's do it." Rufus drank the bottle and shrank, then looked up in horror as he saw Shinra chugging the orange bottle. "Oh hell," Rufus squeaked as he darted inside the door. It wasn't long before a giant fat shoe plowed through the wall behind him and crushed half of the Queen's Courtyard. Rufus barely rolled out of the way in time to avoid being crushed. The clue box flew through the air after making impact with his shoelace and landed next to Rufus. He grabbed the clue and waited. After a few moments of what he assumed were the first bits of brain activity Shinra had used since birth, the leg sucked quickly out of the courtyard and a tiny Shinra ran inside. 
     "I figured it out, Rapunzel!" Shinra said happily. "The blue bottle shrinks us."
     "Next time drink the black bottle that has the rat poison label," Rufus said as he read the clue. "Detour, and we're doing barrels. I wonder if Yuna-"
     "What're we waiting for then?" Shinra shouted as he moved faster than Rufus had ever seen and powerwalked out of the courtyard.
     Rufus quickly followed and both drank the orange bottle. He looked around at the bizarre room, which had been completely decimated by Shinra's expansion. "I'm not going to ask," Rufus said as he led Shinra back to the gummi ship, only turning around once to slap Shinra's hand when he pulled out a new cigar.

<Rikku & Yuna: Cousins, First to Barrels Detour>
     Yuna and Rikku ran inside a large coliseum with large golden statues and tall columns. They ran straight ahead and found a room with lists and inspirational plaques on the walls and a small satyr guarding a roped off path.
     "Two girls?" the satyr said. "Heh, you two don't look like heroes at all, but if you wanna just wait around here, I get off at five."
     "What? Why would we wait until five? Does the detour not open until then?" Yuna asked.
     "He's coming on to us," Rikku whispered to Yuna. She looked back at the satyr. "Look, we've never done bestiality before and we're not starting now! Now tell us where Phil is!"
     "You're lookin' at him," he responded. "I guess I was just expecting a manlier team to come through here first, but if you two are in first, you must have somethin' to ya that doesn't exactly meet the eye. Unless everybody else took the other detour."
     "No, we're in first!" Yuna said. 
     "I see," Phil said. He handed them each a steel rod. "Prove why that is. Rules are as follows: you're only allowed to use these rods to break the barrels. Break sixty in sixty seconds and you'll move on to Round 2. Break anything except the barrels and consider it bought. This coliseum ain't cheap and I sure as heck ain't gonna pay for damages. It's a rental. Got it?"
     "Got it!" Yuna and Rikku said.
     "Then get in there and prove that you're heroes! The time starts as soon as you step into the arena. Good luck, ladies!"
     Yuna and Rikku looked at each other, then ran through the roped off path and stood in front of the arena. They looked at the barrels, which were all slightly spaced out, but all were jammed inside the small marble arena that was consealed by four marble columns. There were enough barrels that they were all stacked in piles of two. Yuna and Rikku crossed the line to the arena and a large mystical timer in the sky lit up and immediately started counting down. 
     Rikku jumped at the sight of the timer. "Oh man, it's already started!" she looked ahead at Yuna, who was already busy bashing at the two closest barrels. "Yipes! Sorry, Yuna. I'm coming!"
     The two bashed away at the barrels. Yuna attacked the top barrels then moved to the lower barrels, while Rikku went for the lower barrels first and hoped the top barrel would break just by the impact of the ground. They never did.
     The timer in the sky stopped at seven seconds as Yuna and Rikku panted in the middle of a pile of broken wood. They walked back inside and looked to Phil.
     "It's starting to make sense, ladies," Phil said. "Not bad. Not bad at all."
     "So now there's a Round 2?" Rikku asked.
     "Yes, ma'am. And you'll go right after we pick up this mess. Shouldn't take more than a couple minutes with Herc on cleanup duty."

<Raijin & Fujin: Friends, First to Branches Detour>
     Raijin and Fujin overlooked the series of branches that they would be sliding down. There was basically one large branch that they had to go down that was covered with moss and otherwise sanded down by Tarzan's feet from past slides, but several other branches overlapped it, some low, some high.
     "Looks a bit tough, ya know?" Raijin said.
     "NO," Fujin responded.
     "Wish I had your optimism," Raijin said.
     Fujin looked over her shoulder and saw a second gummi ship land with Auron and Jecht quickly hopping out and racing towards them. She finally ran behind Raijin and slammed her shoulder into his back, knocking him onto the branch. "GO!" She hopped on right behind him and the two slid down the branch.

     "Run, Auron!" Jecht said. "We caught up! We don't have time for you to be scared about sliding down something like this, so just follow my lead and go fast! We can pass them!"
     Auron raced ahead of Jecht and hopped onto the branch with both feet immediately sliding down the branch. "Don't worry, Jecht," Auron said. "Maybe someday I'll retell you about Bevelle."
     "Riiiight," Jecht said, sliding right behind him.

     Raijin slid down the branch first and was a bit disoriented. Branches slapped him in the face and slowed his downward momentum, which was only resumed when Fujin slammed into the back of him.
     "This is-" slap "-hard, ya kn-" slap "-oww!" Raijin said between branches.
     "DUCK," Fujin ordered. 
     Raijin continued to duck under branches, only to meet a stationary bush on the course that tripped him as he started to slide on his chest. Fujin reached forward and picked him up onto his feet while the two continued to slide. It was only a few seconds on the course when Auron and Jecht caught up to them and waited for Raijin to perfect his dodging techniques.
     "I can't take it anymore," Jecht said as he fell backwards and twisted until he was on his chest, then gripped the branch loosely and twisted to go under the branch. Auron followed suit and the two slid quickly underneath Raijin and Fujin. They finally popped back up on top of the course slightly ahead of the slow-moving Raijin and Fujin.
     "Hmp," Auron said as he regained his footing quickly and helped Jecht to regain his.
     "Piece of cake," Jecht said. He looked back to Raijin and Fujin. "Don't even try to get in our way! I'm the best! And Auron isn't too bad either at times. You two are just a couple of weaklings! Why don't you go home and cry!?" Just as he finished taunting the pair, a branch slapped him in the back of the head.
     Auron ducked under the branch and crossed his arms. "You had that coming," he said to Jecht.
     "Bite me," Jecht said, rubbing the back of his head.

<Steiner & Beatrix: Dating>
     "I got one!" Beatrix shouted as she hung from the ceiling fan of the item shop. She dropped down with a postcard.
     "That makes nine!" Steiner said as he fumbled with the other eight. Beatrix put the new postcard on the top of his stack. "Maybe our moogle friend has found our last one, too! We might be on our way to the pitstop shortly!"
     Beatrix looked over Steiner. "I think he found something else." She pointed to Steiner's backpack, which was opened with a pair of long johns hanging out the back. There were a few purple drops on the floor leading away from the shop."
     "That dishonorable moogle!" Steiner yelled. "He stole the Superslick!"
     Beatrix fumbled through is backpack. "He also took one of my bras!"
     Steiner looked at her over his shoulder. "Dear? Why was one of your br-"
     "We should've never trusted that damned perverted moogle! I will not rest until Kuklux's entire clan is dead!"
     "Dear, he already explained that they were dead," Steiner said. He thought for a minute. "Although he may have been lying. That would have been a clever way to gain our trust, which he finally betrayed when he stole our Superslick, which I just remembered we didn't bring with us!"
     "Pardon?" Beatrix asked.
     "I just remembered that we didn't bring any Superslick with us at all! It was a mixture of berries from this bush. It makes a delicious purple colored drink that are commonly grown outside of palace walls to keep stray moogles away. The berries are indeed delicious, but they're poisonous to moogles, so they tend to keep away."
     Beatrix opened the door and walked outside and saw Kuklux lying on the stairs, doubled over with a purple liquid leaking from the corner of his mouth.
     "Y-you tricked me," he muttered. "Jerks."
     Steiner exited the item shop and looked ahead. "Is he?" he asked Beatrix.
     "I don't really want to check," Beatrix said. "Let's just kick him to check."
     "Yes, ma'am." Steiner stood on the step beside Kuklux and kicked him. Hard. It was more like a punt that sent Kuklux flying over the nearby cafe and out of sight. Steiner bit his lip and watched the moogle soar into the distance. "Yes, it is for the best that we assume he is dead."
     "We should hurry in case of a penalty," Beatrix said.
     "Indeed."