The beach is bright, everyone’s hands are greasy with gears and glue. Mewo floats above the worktables, arms folded, grinning like he knows how this is going to go.

“Mewo: Today’s task — build a functioning Khaby Lame mechanism. It has to take an overcomplicated contraption and reveal the obvious solution with a single deadpan gesture. Keep it simple. Keep it obvious. You have six hours. Last team standing wins. Go.”

Both camps dive in. The challenge, at first, is almost absurdly wholesome: levers, Rube-Goldberg nonsense, quiet mimicry of Khaby’s shrug.

— BIG SHOTS: Steve engineers a clean pivot arm; Binah calibrates tolerances; Luigi is steady-handed soldering; Springtrap styles a slightly sinister “reveal”; Spamton attempts to sell replacement parts mid-build in ALL CAPS; Peter is gone. Everyone’s focused.

— RITUAL RULERS: CassiLyn designs runic simplicity into the trigger, Noxor rigs a tiny microcontroller, Wembry times the final slow blink, Blobert scores a perfectly balanced counterweight, Kaibi watches, smiling quietly, translating tiny psychic nudges into better placement.

They’re neck-and-neck. The room fills with banter and the clack of mechanical assembly.

“Steve (to Binah): This cam has to move in under 0.2 seconds when the dumb lever drops. If it’s slow it looks staged.”
“Binah: Make it fast. Make it final.”
“Wembry (to Cassi): On my three, count the pulse and release the latch.”
“CassiLyn: One — two — three. Now.”

For almost four hours both teams trade small victories and setbacks. The two final assemblies sit on pedestals, ready for demonstration. Mewo checks his watch, smug.

Then the island’s air changes.

Anzor returns — violent, loud, hateful

A ripping sound from the treeline. Anzor — the eliminated soldier who’d once been sent away — stumbles back onto the sand. He’s gaunter, eyes wild, and there’s a weird static under his words that smells of the Awakened and something older.

He strides to the Ritual Rulers side and grabs Wembry with an iron, unbreakable grip. She’s mid-step, a crowbar in hand, and suddenly there’s a hand on her throat.

Anzor (cold, low):
“YOU’RE NOTHING. THEY DON’T NEED YOU. YOU’RE A BURDEN. YOU WERE FATED TO FAIL THE MOMENT YOU SET FOOT ON THIS ISLAND.”

Wembry claws at the hand, eyes wide, throat constricting. She tries to breathe, tries to speak, and Anzor’s voice keeps lashing, each line a knife:

Anzor: “LOOK AT YOU — SMALL — WEAK — A TICK, A WEAKNESS. I’LL TEAR THIS TEAM APART.”

The world explodes into noise. Teams push forward at once.

CassiLyn: “Let go of her now! Get off! No—”
Blobert: “NO! LET HER GO!” — he slaps at Anzor with both tiny green hands, useless against that iron grip.
Spamton: “[[BRIBE]]—I WILL GIVE YOU [KROMER]—BUY THE EXIT—PLEASE—DROP HER!!!” — offers a fistful of junk coupons. Anzor laughs like a gunshot.
Springtrap tries to tackle, to wrench, to brute-force; his metal hands yank but Anzor’s grip is unshakable.
CassiLyn shouts runic phrases, chanting: “Let go! Loosening! Unbinding!” She throws a ritual sigil into the air — giant spectral arms begin to form but falter, buffeted away like wind.
Kaibi reaches inward with a soft psychic press: he nudges, a pressure on Anzor’s mind — and Anzor only snarls, fingers tightening.

Noxor’s drones do their best, buzzing and trying to entangle ankles; they fail. The tiny networked servos can’t pry that grip free. No technology, no ritual, no bargain seems to move him.

Wembry mumbles between clenched teeth: “I won’t be what you say. I—” She can’t finish. Her face is going grey.

The impossible choice — and Steve’s action

Chaos: friends screaming, hands straining, the Khaby devices half-baked on pedestals. Time fractures.

Steve feels everything snap into focus — Wembry’s small form, the iron shape of Anzor’s hand, the way CassiLyn’s fingers tremble on her last rune. He makes a single decision in a heartbeat.

Steve (shouting): “Get back! Everyone get back!”

He bolts past people, yanking a long, ceremonial blade out of a prop rack from the Challenge Set. Springtrap lunges to stop him but is shoved aside. Binah moves to intercept; Steve’s eyes are terrible and steady.

He drives forward and impales Anzor through the chest — silence for a beat — then follows through with a final, wrenching motion. Anzor slumps forward. The grip on Wembry releases and she drops to the sand, gasping, sobbing.

Anzor’s eyes go white with something leaving them — the monstrous static and twin whispers of the Awakened and Nocturne peel away. For a second, naked human fear flashes across his face, genuine and raw, the mask of rage falling.

Anzor (bare, weak): “I— I’m… afraid.”
Then he collapses and is still.

Nobody moves for a long second. The island seems to hold its breath.

After the strike — frantic, raw, human

CassiLyn kneels at Wembry’s side, hands shaking. “Wembry, you’re safe. You are safe. Breathe.”
Wembry (sobbing): “He said—he said I’d fail—he… he—”
Kaibi gently moves closer, placing a hand on Wembry’s shoulder. His psychic presence is soft and steady: “You are here. You are important.”
Blobert sits stunned, a green blob shivering, whispering, “Me tried…”
Spamton actually stops his spam mid-word, and for once his voice is small: “He… he was a problem…”

Steve stands with blood on his hands, chest heaving. Binah approaches, face unreadable.

Binah (flat): “It is done.”
Springtrap steps back into shadow, eyes sparkling like obsidian: “Very efficient.” (He means it in his own way.)

Mewo floats down, expression almost unreadable, then speaks with very little ceremony:
“Mewo: That was violence. That was necessary. The island doesn’t like parasites. The challenge… will resume in thirty minutes. Decide if you will continue.”

There is no cheering. There is no celebration. The Khaby mechanisms sit silent, half-assembled, ridiculous in the aftermath.

Do they finish? The choice to continue

Both teams are shell-shocked. People huddle, clean hands, whisper, soothe wounds. Wembry remains shaken but alive; CassiLyn clings to her. Kaibi watches the treeline as if he can still feel distant stirrings.

Slowly, the practical survivors refocus. The task is absurd and small relative to what just happened, and yet — the game continues. Teams repair, reposition, and finally present their final Khaby Lame contraptions.

Ritual Rulers’ final move: their mechanism is elegant and gentle — a rune-triggered simple lever that collapses a complex gear chain and reveals the obvious handle. Wembry manages the last quiet blink gesture to sell the deadpan finish.

Big Shots’ final move: Steve’s team — hollowed out by the violence they just enacted — sets off a clean, efficient arm that slaps away a ridiculous birdcage full of maracas to reveal the true handle. It’s precise, but the room feels colder.

The winner

Mewo studies both devices like a judge tasting two wines. He hovers, the island’s quiet judge of small gestures and large moral calculus.

Mewo: “Both mechanisms capture the joke. One lands cleaner. One lands kinder. But today… given what’s happened, I value steadiness and care.”

He points to the Ritual Rulers.

Mewo: “Ritual Rulers win Day 22.”

CassiLyn exhales; Wembry clutches at Blobert and Kaibi alike. Kaibi simply smiles, small and tired.

Steve doesn’t smile. He looks at the sand where Anzor fell. The rest of Big Shots stand in a tight, silent ring.

Closing — consequences and resonance

Anzor is dead. The Awakened/Nocturne influence that animated him dissipated from his eyes the moment Steve’s strike ended him; his last expression was fear and a tiny, human regret. No resurrection — this time, nothing returns him.

Wembry is alive but deeply shaken. CassiLyn and Kaibi begin a quieter, more personal regimen to keep her grounded.

Steve acted violently and decisively. He saved a life but took one; he carries that weight. He’s physically uninjured but will not be the same.

Blobie remains at large somewhere in the forest. The Awakened influence on him is still a threat.

Teams are frayed. Victory tastes thin.

Took a dark turn fast