Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters of Total Drama. Those rights belong solely to its respective creators and distributors, namely Fresh TV, Cake Entertainment, and Teletoon.

And to ward off accusations of plagiarism right off the bat: Yes, many aspects of this story are heavily influenced by Batman: The Animated Series, which was also the main inspiration for this story.

Setting: Set in an alternate universe where Total Drama itself never happened. Chris McLean is still a multi-millionaire, world-famous reality TV personality, and Chef Hatchet his co-host. But by night, they fight to defend their home city of Toronto from evil, under the masked alter egos of Hostman and Pythonicus (aided by Pthonicus's pet cat Dander Boy).

Characters: Hostman wears a dark blue cowl, with a cape extending from the general mask that has black eyes and a voice-scrambling mechanism, along with a small communicator implemented in the left ear of the mask. His suit is a similar dark blue with black boots and gloves. His utility belt, which is yellow, contains numerous weapons and pieces of equipment (from a grappling gun, to a tear-gas emitter, to a tranquilizer gun) all disguised as microphones. Similarly, the logo in the center of his chestplate is the image of a black microphone in the middle of a yellow circle. Pythonicus and Dander Boy's outfits are the same as it appeared in Super Hero-Id.

Note: Like Batman: TAS, some episodes may just feature Chris by himself, without Chef and Dander Boy's help.

Rating: K+, as it will mostly contain similar humor to Total Drama. Though this series was heavily inspired, and will be influenced by, Batman: TAS, it'll more than likely never be THAT dark.

Format: Each chapter will be purely episodic (again, like Batman: TAS), though some episodes and characters may be intertwined here and there. Obviously, about the first 10 to 15 episodes will be "origin stories" for all of the major villains, and from there they'll simply be returning for basic capers and adventures.

And now, without further ado, onto the show!

Prologue: New Sheriffs in Town

"And the award for Best Reality Ensemble goes to…"

McLean sat back in his chair, wine glass in one hand while his other hand tightly clenched the armrest.

"…Golden Oldies in their Undies!" The devilishly-handsome Alejandro announced on the stage.

"Haha! I knew it!" Chef declared, reclining on the couch next to Chris with his pet cat in his lap. "I loved that show, and so does everybody else!"

"Except me!" Chris roared, pounding the armrest with his clenched fist, and nearly breaking the glass with his other hand.

"Oh, get over yourself, pretty boy. As much as I hate to tell you, your best days are behind ya."

With one swift motion, Chris replaced the wine glass with the remote and shut off the TV, standing up out of his chair and dropping the remote to the floor.

"No. NO! It can't be true! I'm Chris McLean! The host with the most! The former boy band member, turned author of the best-selling autobiography, turned actor who won many accolades for 'The Flipper', turned host of some of the most popular reality shows ever…reduced to not even getting ONE Gemmy nomination, or even a MENTION, this year?! Especially with my good friend Alejandro announcing the winner? I helped launch his career in the first place with his show 'Pecs vs. Specs'!"

"I'll admit, it was shocking to see that show not get a single award, either."

"If only we had managed to get the green light for that one show…what was it going to be called? Camp TV?"

"Doesn't matter anymore! Why do you keep rambling about that show that never happened, anyway? What makes it so special from the other failed or cancelled projects?"

"There was something so promising about it…It was building up to be an awesome show! …Stupid budget cuts and location disputes."

"You can't have everything, you know."

"It's preposterous! I'm only 34! I can't be past my glory days now!"

As Chris ranted, he paced back and forth rather rapidly, glancing every now and then at his case of trophies, awards, statues, and plaques, as well as magazine covers, newspaper articles, and other printed material that all focused on him.

"Hey, we all hit rock bottom eventually, you know. Just look at me!"

"I know that, Chef! I can't deny reality…but I can delay it!"

Chef sighed and facepalmed, muttering to himself.

"There's got to be someway to continue to be famous...someway to keep my name and identity in the spotlight…"

"At least let me turn it to the news or something." Chef muttered as he picked up the remote from the floor.

As soon as he turned on the TV, he quickly moved the channel up several notches until he stopped on the local news station.

"And the situation in Syria continues to boil over. With the United States aligning with France and Israel against Syria and Iran, China and Russia have both surprisingly taken the side of the Islamic countries. Could this be the lighting of the fuse of World War III?"

"Eh. Boring." Chef muttered, moving the channel up one more, to the local TMZ station.

"TMZ! The Internet outcry over Ben Affleck's casting as Batman continues. Next: The top 5 most outrageous threats that have been issued toward the actor, director, and studio over Twitter!"

"Wait…what was that!?" Chris asked loudly, turning away from his framed portrait of himself and Jeff Probst together in New York.

"Oh, more immature brats ranting and whining about Ben Affleck being cast as the new Batman."

"Really? Where was I when this news came out?"

"It's still a fairly new development, mind you. But they're already practically protesting about it."

"Hmm…"

Chris paced back over to his display cases again, now moving down the hall to the long line of costumes he had worn over the course of his career. He soon laid his eyes on one of his particular favorites…his cheap tribute to his favorite superhero of all time, Batman.

"You know, the same outcry was heard just as loudly over Michael Keaton's casting…and over Heath Ledger's casting as the Joker…and look how well they turned out."

"Hmm…A celebrity…as a superhero…"

"Yep. I guess it can still be done." Chef muttered.

"…That's it."

"Huh?" Chef turned to face Chris. "What's it?"

"Becoming a superhero!"

"You mean…being cast as the next Batman after Affleck? …Or if he gets removed from the role by force?"

"No, you fool!" Chris spun around sharply on his heels. "Although that would bring in some major dough. No! I'm going to become a REAL-LIFE superhero!"

"…You're kidding, right?"

"Nope! Not at all! Quite the opposite, in fact!"

Chris walked back across the room, now standing between the TV and his friend on the couch. "We've got the money…we could buy or create the gadgets…I'm devilishly handsome, good with the one-liners, and fairly agile…while you…well…you were in combat, weren't you?"

The briefest mention of Chef's past caused him to freeze up, save for one eye twitching ominously. Even his cat Dander Boy detected his master's newly-found unpleasantness, and leapt off his lap.

"I wasn't just in combat. I was in the war to end all wars."

"World War I?"

"No, you idiot! Nam! Vietnam! That was a war unlike any before! Days upon weeks upon months of marching through the jungle, weeds tangling your feet, slushing through the swamps, wondering if the ever-skilled and ever-agile enemy would drop down on you from the trees like monkeys, knowing that they had mastered the very environment upon which you were trespassing…it hardened me and made me tougher than ever before."

After a long, awkward pause, Chris resumed. "Um…OK. So, yeah. You've got the combat skills, the fearlessness, and the tall, imposing, intimidating stance to be an awesome sidekick! Maybe even Dander Boy can help out. He's always so vicious whenever he defends you or sees you with anyone else. That's why you've got to keep him locked up when we have company, right?"

"Sure. But that would take some serious consideration on my part before I'd let my little coochy-coochy-kitty-kitty get in harm's way." As Chef said this, he coaxed Dander Boy back into his lap and pet it soothingly.

"So? What do you say?"

Chef slowly looked from his cat back up to Chris.

Then he shrugged casually. "Eh. Whatever. But you do know that you can't go around revealing your secret identity, right?"

"What? Why? I want to be famous for it!"

"Yeah, look how well that went for Tony Stark. Besides, if you're well known as your alter ego, at least you're still well-known, right? You may not get the name recognition, but people will still be talking about you."

"Eh…I suppose. OK. So we'll be incognito about it. Now all we need are the costumes! Come on! We haven't spent some money in a while, so let's get to it!"

A few weeks later…

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

"Freeze! Let the woman go!" The officer shouted through the megaphone.

"No! It's a lie! It's a trap! It's all a lie! It's all a trap! I'm innocent, I tell you! INNOCENT!" The mountainous man shouted, his hook placed firmly over the woman's neck and the whirring chainsaw in his remaining hand, held high above his head.

"You don't want to hurt the woman, psycho! Put the chainsaw down and let's all calm down here…"

"Please…" The blonde woman sniffled.

"NO! I've been framed! I'm innocent, I tells ya!"

"Alright, fall back!" The officer in charge called out. "Give him some space."

"Should we call in the SWAT team, sir?" One of his subordinates asked nervously.

"No. It could anger him even further, and we'd lose our chances of getting that hostage back in one piece."

"Alright, we're backing into this here alley slowly!" The massive killer declared, gesturing at said dark alley with his massive weapon. "No funny business, you hear?!"

And with the small, terrified woman held by his hook, he slowly backed off the street and into the alley, with rats scurrying away around his feet, and the stench of dumpsters, trash cans, and week-old laundry filling the small space.

"OK, so we'll just continue backward through here…"

Just then, a sudden WHIP-CRACK! could be heard in the air behind him. Before he could even turn around, a powerful force knocked the whirring chainsaw out of his hand. It flew forward over his head and landed on the ground just outside the alley, sparks flying as its blade collided with the pavement. The blade was instantly destroyed, its long, sharp chain whipping off in an instant while the stub of the blade continued whirring with the buzz of the engine.

"Huh?! Who dares mess with me?!"

He spun around to see, just in time to see an equally-mountainous man, only with darker skin, on one of the fire escape ledges several stories above him, wearing a light-green spandex outfit with a snake-like mask covering his face. In his hands he held a long, green rubber snake with small, piercing yellow eyes and sharp white teeth at the head. He had just retracted it back into his other hand, and cracked it threateningly toward the psycho killer, cracking it like a whip and with the same sound effect as heard before.

"Who, you ask?" Another voice called out as a much smaller man in a black and dark blue outfit, with a cape trailing behind him attached to the mask that covered his face. He leapt off the roof of one of the adjacent buildings, did a flip in mid-air, then grabbed one of the laundry lines and swung around on it, landing up and perching on it perfectly on the soles of his feet.

"None other than Hostman and his sidekick Pythonicus, that's who!"

"Oh, great. So I'm not the freakiest person around here for once!" The killer declared with obvious exaggeration in his voice. "But I'll still take you both down!"

In one quick movement, he switched the woman around so that his good hand was around her neck, while he now held his hook up in the air menacingly.

In an even faster motion, the one called "Hostman" reached into his belt, which contained over half a dozen microphones, and withdrew one. He took careful hold of the handle, aiming the top of it down at the killer, then pressed a button on the side. The head of the microphone instantly shot out from the handle on a long cable, and instantly burst open into a metal, three-pronged claw.

The grappling hook shot forward and made a direct hit on the killer's hook, detaching the appendage from his stump of an arm and sending it flying out into the street as well.

"What?! NO!" The killer screamed.

"Yes!" Hostman declared happily. "Let's go get 'im, Python!"

And with that, both men leapt off their respective perches, legs extended for flying kicks aimed directly at the killer's head. Due to his massive height, their target was far away enough from the victim.

And for once, it was the killer who was doing the screaming instead of the hostage.

…

"Did you hear that, chief?" One of the officers called.

"I heard it, alright! That wasn't the woman screaming!"

"Come on! His chainsaw and hook are already out here in the open, out of his reach! Let's just move in now and see if it's our best chance to take him down!"

"Alright, lock and load! We're going into the alley!"

The chief, the subordinate, and four other officers charged into the dark alleyway, running past the two discarded weapons and with their own guns at the ready.

One of them shined his bright flashlight wildly around the alley, frantically looking for clues as to what happened.

Just then, a figure dashed out of the darkness at them.

"OH, thank you! Thank you all! Thank God you're here at last!" The woman cried happily as she flew into the nearest officer's arms.

"We've got the hostage here, chief!" He reported. "She's safe."

"Good! Get her out of here now!

"Let's go."

As the one officer led the woman out of the alley, the other five continued forward.

"He's gotta be nearby."

"CHIEF!"

At the young officer's call, the other four came running over and looked inside the dumpster he was shining his light into.

There, surrounded by trash and other unpleasant things, was the massive killer; numerous bruises and swollen spots on his face, several more teeth missing, a dazed look in his eyes, and his hands and legs bound by ropes.

"What in tarnation?" The chief exclaimed.

"Please…get me out of here…" The killer muttered. "Away from…"

He then looked straight up into the sky, past the officers, at the two dark figures on the rooftop above him.

"…FROM THEM!"

"From who?" The chief asked as he turned around and looked up in the same direction the killer had been looking.

There was nothing except the moon up above them, lighting up the night and all its emptiness.

…Except for the two masked figures slowly walking off across one of the rooftops, having successfully completed their first mission, and on their way into fame and obscurity at the same time.

Author's Note: Yep! I'm back, everybody!

Ah, I knew I just couldn't stay away from it. I just couldn't stay away from you guys forever.

In all honesty, though, this is one of those ideas that just spontaneously popped into my head out of nowhere...while I was re-watching episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, that is. But this is one of those ideas that just wouldn't go away.

And in all honesty, this is the perfect formula for a story for me to start and continue in college. It's not one long, overarching story like my "Second Season" trilogy. Each episode is its own oneshot story, so that way, I don't have any deadline of my own to meet. That way, it's not so pressing that I must focus on it, but can merely write each chapter for fun during my downtime (which especially works now that I'm in college). I don't have any pressing story that needs to be finished anytime soon…and above all else, the inevitable rise in activity in the TD fandom with the premiere of Season 5 will allow this story to get more attention than the last one did. Thus, as you can imagine, the chapters will not be regularly updated. They'll be once in a random while.

But at the same time, I feel this is a chance for me to expand on my writing skills and style. It's no longer a basic competition story like my magnum opus series. This is now a test for me to see A) How well I can parody Batman: TAS and other super hero stories in a clever/non-ripoff manner. B) How well I can still incorporate Total Drama-style humor into it. And C) How well I can establish and set apart these characters from Total Drama, since Total Drama never happened in this alternate setting.

But I hope it's still something that you will all enjoy. It's definitely different, it'll definitely be fun, and I'll definitely look forward to it.

Until next time!

-Fedora Kid