And worst of all, for me to live

Rose didn’t know what to make of the blonde-haired girl with fox ears on the ground in front of her. Not only did she look more surprised than Rose, but she was, well, a fox girl, judging by her ears and her tail. Rose had never seen one of those before. The woman’s outfit was flashy, bright pink and made out of what Rose assumed was latex judging by the sheen across it. It looked like she’d stepped right off the stripper pole or something… except when you looked at the innocent gleam in her crystal blue eyes, and the pleading expression on her face. She seemed so innocent, the perfect ingénue…

Immediately Rose guessed that this woman was an exceptional actress. It was the only explanation she could come up with.

When the initial surprise wore off, it was replaced by an awkward tension in the air. The two women looked at each other, one brimming with anxiety and one just confused in general.

“Um, hello, sorry to bump into you like that?” Rose apologized halfheartedly just to move the conversation along. After all, it wasn’t really her fault, the other girl had been the one who wasn’t looking where she was going.

“No, it-it was my fault!” The fox girl immediately burst into histrionics. “I’m quite sorry, truly! I-I was not looking where I was going, and I crashed right into you! Please forgive me!”

“Okay, okay, okay, settle down!” Rose soothed the panicking woman. Those big blue eyes looked like they were about to burst into tears. “No need to get hysterical, it was an accident. Anyway, who are you? What are you doing here?”

This was supposed to be part of Dakota’s challenge, right? Even if this weird hallway didn’t look like part of a maze (although neither did the swamp) Rose knew it had to be tied to the whole thing.

So what did this girl have to do with everything?

The pink woman stood up slowly, finally regaining her composure enough to not panic. She took a deep breath and exhaled, before meeting Rose’s eyes.

“I’m sorry for… inconveniencing you like that,” she sincerely apologized, lowering her head in a bow. “Please, call me Jess. I am mistress’s humble assistant, pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Rosemary.”

Rose flinched, surprised at the formal introduction and use of her full name. “No, like I said before… wait, your mistress? You talking about Dakota or something?”

Immediately Jess’s face turned sour. “Absolutely not!” She huffed, turning angry for the first time since Rose ran into her. “My mistress is special and amazing, she’s far better than that… woman!”

Rose had a feeling that the girl intended to use a different word than “woman” but was too polite for that.

…But apparently even that was going too far, because one she finished, Jess’s face turned pale and her eyes widened like she’d seen a ghost. “O-oh no! Did… did I say too much? I was so rude just now, I apologize! Please, Miss Dakota, I was just saying that… um, it-it is unfair to **** a comparison between a respectable host like yourself, and my most beloved mistress! Pl-please don’t get upset with me…”

Rose was thoroughly confused. “Dakota isn’t even here,” she pointed out.

“Even so-! If… if somebody heard…” Jess started to fret, her ears twitching the way Dawn’s did when she got nervous. But her bushy tail was a little too thick to flail about. Rose was pretty sure it got stiffer, though.

“Okay, take a breath…” Rose pinched the bridge of her nose. Why was she bothering with this woman again? She was supposed to be getting out of this maze! …And maybe go see what that whistle was about. If she felt like it. …She was in the neighborhood, after all…

“Please accept my apology for my outburst just now,” the fox girl said, lowering her head in another bow. “I believe we got off on the wrong foot. As I said before, my name is Jess. I am the lovely assistant of the most wonderful mistress in the world, Little Miss, proprietor of the HH Store. Yes, THAT HH Store!”

She looked at Rose expectantly, as if the other blonde was supposed to know what that meant.

“…Yeah, Little Miss? Never heard of her,” Rose said sincerely.

The fox girl’s jaw dropped. Once she picked it back up off the floor she puffed up her cheeks in agitation, her ears standing up on her head.

“Well… that is your loss!” She huffed. “…Err, I mean… sorry. That was rude of me… to talk back against a contestant, unthinkable!”

Rose was really not good with this girl. Every time she said something it seemed to elicit another apology out of the anxious fox’s mouth. And though Rose had no qualm with a nervous sycophant trying to prove her sincerity, it was kind of overwhelming…

“…Look, I just need to find a way out of this maze,” Rose said, wanting this conversation to be over with. “I’m sorry for running into you, I’m sorry I’ve never heard about your mistress’s store, but I really have to be going now. There’s this challenge, see-”

“Oh yes, I know ALL ABOUT the challenge!” Jess chirped, her eyes sparkling with delight. “In fact, that’s why I’m here! The audience voted for me to come and support you in whatever way I can!”

Rose perked up when she heard that. “Wait, for real? So you’re going to help me?”

Jess bobbed her head up and down. “That’s right! …But don’t get the wrong idea! This doesn’t make me your assistant or anything!” She snapped fiercely. “I only have one mistress! You could never sway my heart away from her!”

“…Right, yeah, wasn’t planning on it,” Rose said, shaking her head. “But if you’re gonna help, feel free! Lead the way, fox girl!”

Jess blinked and stared at Rose in confusion. “Hmm? But… I don’t know how to get out of this maze either,” she replied.

Rose stared at her. “…You don’t? Then how are you supposed to be supporting me?”

Jess stroked her chin. “I’m not actually sure… mistress never told me,” she confessed. “I assumed I would be helping lead the way, but now that I think about it, if I don’t know the way out myself, then how would…”

Her voice trailed off and her ears twitched in realization. Her eyes opened wide. “…Wait! Could it be… are we lost!?”

Rose’s eye twitched. “Gee, do you think!?” She huffed.

Why do I have to be the one stuck with the airhead bimbo fox!? Rose wanted to be catered to and pampered, not have to do all the heavy lifting for herself! Dawn or Dani were the ones who were supposed to be dealing with stuff like this, while she was spoiled! I don’t want to be stuck having to do all the wooooork!

Hopefully Rose could find this mistress of Jess’s soon and get some actual help.

How will Jess help Rose?

https://strawpoll.com/e6Z2ArqAqgN

“I can’t believe I got this dumb transformation, and you get the useful x-ray glasses,” Marley grumbled as the trio of her, Dawn, and her sister shuffled down the corridor. Like Rose, they had also heard a whistle earlier, but ignored it to focus on getting through the maze.

They reached a fork in the road.

Carly covered her mouth and tried not to laugh. “Well, sis… I guess it’s up to you now, right?” She snickered.

Marley wanted to strangle her.

Dawn looked apologetically at her friend and gave her an encouraging nod. That was enough to get the other girl moving, at least.

Sighing, Marley headed to the left.

“Smack!”

Marley jumped in surprise- her curvy booty just clapped together unwittingly, and she nearly fell over in the process. It was hard enough walking with this tight princess dress, and now she was stuck with-! Aagh!

“Other way,” Marley grumbled, turning on her heel and heading down the other path. As she proceeded, a new sound filled the corridor as her sister and friend followed her.

“Boing!”

“Boing!”

“Boing!”

Grimacing, Marley looked down at her breasts, bouncing so much in her tight top she was afraid they would bounce right out.

“You’ve got a real spring in your step right now, sis,” Carly said, patting her sister on the back.

Marley slowly clenched and unclenched her fist.

This stupid transformation!

The transformation Marley had received from Little Miss had been hardly a “gift” no matter what the perky shopkeeper said.

• Guide the Way: When heading in the right direction of the maze's exit, Marley's breasts will start bouncing. When heading the wrong direction, her butt will clap instead.

Was it useful? Absolutely. The advantage of this transformation couldn’t be overstated, knowing that they were heading in the right direction at all times was absolutely valuable, even more than the glasses that were now perched on her sister’s nose.

But Marley’s body turning into one big jiggle factory was absolutely not what she’d been hoping for today. She was self-conscious enough about having so much meat on her body, and now it was like whatever she did, it was being emphasized.

“I thought I was done with transformations…” Marley groaned.

Dawn looked sympathetically at her. “Hey… look, I know it’s tough, but you’re really helping us out a lot here with this, Marley. Okay?”

Marley looked at her and almost burst into tears. “Dawn…”

“Yeah, Dawn’s right!” The smile had left Carly’s face now, and she was nothing but supportive of her sister. “We’re doing our best, and that’s what matters.”

She took her sister’s hands in hers. “When we get out of this, sis, I’ll do any one thing you want. Just name it.”

Marley’s eyes widened. “You… you will?”

“Mm-hmm!” Carly nodded in assurance. “It really means a lot to me to beat this challenge. And I want to give it my all! So you helping out… it’s worth a favor or two.”

“Carly…” Marley was surprised. Usually Carly couldn’t be bothered to care about stuff like this. Not really. Of all the girls in Nick’s harem, she was probably the one who subscribed the least to the idea that this was some big competition.

But here she was, stating her determination to win!

As someone with quite a competitive streak herself, Dawn was surprised as well.

“Look…” Carly glanced down. “I know that the audience is really down on me right now, okay? And I get why. I’ve been spending so much time with Dani, I’ve been neglecting Nick. My ranking in the Popularity Poll is dropping lower and lower, and like… I get it. I’m not the girl. I’m the gal he has sex with because of my rocking body, and that’s great and everything, but… Dawn, I don’t have the same connection with him that you have. And definitely not like Mary or Rose or Gina or any of the others…”

Marley couldn’t believe her sister was actually worrying about this. Relationships with boys had always been so far down on her sister’s list of priorities that this was maybe the first time Marley had ever seen Carly act this way.

“Sis, I bet a lot of people really like you,” Marley encouraged her sister, even though she knew Carly was probably right. While the other girls had all been working hard on developing their relationships with Nick, Carly had been putting that energy towards Dani. She still had sex with Nick whenever he wanted, of course, and enjoyed that wholeheartedly, but surprisingly, it seemed that steamy sex wasn’t enough for the audience.

“How does winning the challenge help, though?” Dawn asked. That was the part that she didn’t get.

Carly shook her head. “I know, it doesn’t… but I thought… well, if I can get a big win and show it off, maybe I could get some of the attention back on me, at least for a little bit. So… that’s what I’m going to aim for.”

Sure, it wouldn’t really solve any of her problems. Carly knew that she and Nick had to have a talk in the future and that she was putting it off like she always did with stuff involving personal relationships like this.

But for now, at least, it felt like Carly was doing something.

She raised her head and flashed her sister a smile. “So… you just name it, sis,” she said. “Whatever you want, you help me get through this challenge and I’ll do anything!”

Marley had no idea what she would even ask for.

Luckily, the audience had her covered.

What favor will Marley ask of her sister?

What!? NO! The audience DOES NOT get to decide what I ask my sister for! Marley screamed internally.

Never mind then.

“Err… I’ll think about it,” she said instead, scratching her head.

Carly nodded obediently. Then a flash of light sparked on her wrist. She glanced down and her mood immediately changed, like the negativity she’d just been feeling had evaporated.

“Hey, look!” Carly held up her Anitrix. “It’s active again!”

She knew that she should take advantage of this watch as much as she could, especially since it would be going away at the end of the round. So with that in mind she pressed down on the button and transformed herself.

What animal will Carly end up turning into?

https://strawpoll.com/7rnzVdPx6nO

Morgana really should have expected that when the vines came loose and Dani was let free, that she would fall to the ground.

If she had foreseen the obvious, then she would have stepped out of the way.

But she didn’t, and so…

“Uwaaah!”

“THUD!”

Dani landed right on top of the panicking goth, pancaking her boobs into Morgana’s face and knocking her hat off. The pasty girl flailed in a panic as she was pressed to the dewy grass, struggling to breathe as tan titmeat filled her vision.

“M-Morgana!” Dani quickly scrambled off the floundering girl, her face hot as she helped her friend to her feet. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to!”

“N-n-n-n-no, it’s fine,” Morgana stammered, picking herself up off the ground. Her face was burning with embarrassment as well. “I’m just… glad you’re okay, Dani…”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Dani said, her heart still racing from the adrenaline, or maybe from Morgana’s Sotto Voce transformation. “But…”

She raised her head and looked up at Cinder, who was practically mummified by the vines.

“…I don’t think Cinder is.”

Even now, Cinder refused to calm down. She was thrashing like a lunatic, or at least that’s what Dani and Morgana assumed. They could hardly make her out through all the vines. Basically every inch of her body besides her feet were constricted by this point. How could she even breathe like that?

…Well, she had to be breathing somehow at least, because both girls could still hear muffled curses from within the depths of the vines.

“Cin-Cinder!” Morgana cried out, cupping her hands over her mouth. “You need to calm down! If you keep fighting, the vines will just… …She’s not listening to me, is she?”

Dani grimly shook her head. “Yeah, she, uh… she doesn’t do that.”

Morgana glanced at the other girl, noticing for the first time that Dani was dressed like a dominatrix. She didn’t want to ask.

“There’s gotta be some way to get her down…” Morgana bit her lip with uncertainty. “Come on, think… think…”

One of Cinder’s shoes came flying off and nearly hit Morgana in the face. The goth girl ducked out of the way at the last second as it knocked her hat off, again.

As Morgana retried her hat, a dark thought came to her. There was one way she could think of to get Cinder to calm down… or at least, to get her body to stop fighting the vines the way they were.

…She really, really didn’t want to do it, though.

“I… I have an idea,” she mumbled, bringing out her spellbook.

Dani looked alarmed. She remembered Morgana’s spells, and couldn’t think of any that would be helpful here. “Wait, Morgana, you’re not going to set the vines on fire, are you?!” She asked in a panic.

“No!” Morgana looked horrified. “That-that one doesn’t even WORK that way!”

She shook her head and squeezed the book tightly. “No, this… this one is… a new one.”

Morgana felt horrible. She’d sworn that she wouldn’t use this spell again after it went so wrong with Nick before.

But she didn’t have a choice. Not if they wanted to free their friend. Cinder… Ella… whoever she was, she would understand.

…Right?

Taking a deep breath, Morgana found the right page. She pressed her hand on the picture to activate the spell, and stepped forward, taking hold of Cinder’s bare foot. There was just enough skin to make contact under the latex bodysuit she was wearing.

That tingle from before passed through Morgana’s body, and suddenly she wasn’t holding onto another girl’s foot anymore. Instead, there was darkness all around her, and an intense pressure bearing down on her body from all sides, like that time she’d gotten stuck in the climbing spiral at her elementary school playground. But the pressure was already starting to give, and she could feel the grip on her loosening.

Because she wasn’t fighting anymore, she was still.

From Dani’s outsider perspective, it was a surreal sight. Morgana had grabbed onto Cinder’s foot, and then both girls went completely still. With no one struggling the vines stopped moving as well, and for a good couple seconds it was like Dani was looking at a statue.

Then Morgana staggered away, kicked back by Cinder’s foot. Dani watched her fall on her butt without so much as a yelp; it looked like she was caught in a daze. Dani had seen that look dozens of times before in the mirror, when she “woke up” to go to school after a long night of binging anime instead of sleeping.

But that wasn’t what caught her attention. Because Cinder had stopped fighting the vines. She was calm and still for maybe the first time ever, and looked completely serene as the vines opened up and lowered her down.

Well, “lowered” in the sense of “dropped her on her ass in the mud” but whatever.

“Ah!” The latina scrambled to her feet, her face flushed. For a second, Dani thought Ella had regained control of her body. “It… it worked! Dani, it worked!”

Cinder or Ella or whoever it was turned to Dani with a bright smile on her face, and Dani gasped. That eagerness…

Dani had only seen Ella smile a couple of times before, but she knew that wasn’t how Ella smiled. “…Morgana?”

It was a crazy thought, but the only explanation Dani could come up with. Morgana had somehow switched their bodies. Cinder wouldn’t calm down, so she’d taken over and been the calm one instead so the vines would let her go. Insane, right? There was no way! But…

“Uh… uh-huh…” Morgana admitted with a sheepish smile in Cinder’s body. “I didn’t think she would calm down, so… so I…”

“How… how does that even work?” Dani turned and looked at the dazed body of Morgana, now occupied by someone else. “Doesn’t she have split-personality? Is Cinder in your body now, and you’re sharing with Ella? Or is it the other way around? Or are both of them in there, somehow?”

She had a dozen questions about how Morgana’s spell worked, and Morgana couldn’t answer them. They both looked anxiously at Morgana’s inhabited body, but it seemed vacant; like neither Cinder NOR Ella was there.

Then there was a spark of awareness, and for the first time Morgana got to see what she looked like waking up.

“What… huh?” The bleary-eyed girl looked at Morgana in muted confusion, and all Morgana could do was stare back at her, trying to figure out who it was that was looking at her through Morgana’s own eyes.

“Ella?” Morgana asked tentatively.

“Cinder?” Dani asked warily.

Morgana’s body blinked. She shambled forward and Morgana gasped, rushing over to her in fear that she’d fall. But just as her hands touched her own bare arms, she remembered how her spell worked, and that tingling electricity sparked through her again.

Like a rubber-band snapping back into shape Morgana was slingshot back into her body, and found herself being tightly gripped by the woman in front of her. She stared into a familiar set of amber eyes as the other girl slowly came to her senses as well, and they both looked at each other, not sure what had just happened.

So who’s in control of the body now, though?

https://strawpoll.com/xVg71rq1eyr