But while you were away, you tell me you were at peace

Everything was weighing on Nick in the worst way. He was relieved that Mary was back, but Dakota’s absence was making him anxious. He didn’t know what to do! Not to mention how things seemed to only be escalating in the maze, even as more girls met up with one another and teamed up to get through, it was all so overwhelming…

He just wanted this challenge to be over. He wanted Dakota to come back, he wanted, he wanted…

…He just wanted everything to go back to the way it was supposed to be.

And yet, in the back of his mind and the pit of his stomach, he knew that wouldn’t happen. He didn’t know how he knew, he just… had a sinking, ominous feeling.

Then Nick felt a hand on top of his. He raised his head to see Mary seated beside him, gentle eyes staring into his soul, understanding him, sympathizing with him.

“Don’t worry,” she said, her voice like honey in his ears, “I’m right here. We’ll get through this, you and I, together.”

Her gentle smile turned into a dazzling grin. “Okay?”

Nick found himself smiling back at her. Somehow, Mary always seemed to know just what to say to soothe his fears and doubts. He nodded.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Okay.”

“How sweet,” Mr. S said, his voice oozing contempt, or maybe condescension, or even gleeful, sarcastic amusement. But it was definitely oozing, Nick could tell that much.

The producer leaned forward, resting his chin in his hands. “Hopefully the other girls in your harem are having as easy a time of things as you are, Nick, enjoying your cute little wife’s company.”

Nick glared at the sneering producer but kept his mouth shut. He knew that nothing he said could possibly be productive here, so he didn’t even bother. He just let his scornful expression do the talking for him.

Mr. S actually seemed to like that.

“…Now then!” With a jolly laugh, the odd-looking man leaned back in his chair and clapped his hands together, making Nick jump at the suddenness of the gesture. “The audience has spoken, and they agree, as I do, that maybe being stark naked is a smidgeon too far for our cute little princess. For such a spitfire of a girl, she’s actually quite modest, isn’t she?”

“Leave her alone,” Nick snapped. “Cinder and Ella are doing the best they can!”

Mr. S raised an eyebrow. “Cinder AND Ella? You realize they’re the same person, don’t you? …Or are you feeding into their delusion as well?”

Nick wanted to tell the producer to fuck off when he felt Mary’s nails dig into his arm. She was warning him, and she was right to do it. Right now, Nick needed to keep his cool.

“…Whatever she wants to call herself, or however she chooses to express herself, that’s her business,” Nick said as evenly as he could. “I care about her. And if expressing herself through an alter helps her, then I’m fine with it. If, someday, she’s able to move past her trauma and become complete again, then I’ll be happy for her. Until then, I’m not going to judge her for anything.”

“Not even the three murders she committed? My, my, what an understanding master,” Mr. S said sarcastically.

Nick winced. That wasn’t what he meant, but…

“That was before Nick knew her,” Mary said, coming to his defense. “And in the Bible it says ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone’!”

“…While I’m fairly certain that hubby dearest has never butchered anyone with an axe, I have no interest in debating the matter,” Mr. S said with an exasperated sigh, clearly over this discussion topic. He clapped his hands together. “Now then, I don’t have a cane to tap, but… here you go. Something for our foulmouthed princess to preserve her modesty with.”

Cinder’s transformation should have made getting through the rest of the maze a breeze. But in practice, it did not. The fact that she had to scoot forward with her back against the wall, while covering the sensitive areas of her body with both arms, wasn’t exactly making for good time.

“Cinder, if you’re that bothered by being naked, couldn’t you just step into the wall and let it cover you that way?” Kim pointed out. “That would probably be faster I think.”

Dawn glanced at Kim, not sure what to say. “That… sounds like it could work,” she said, scratching her shaggy hair.

“Absolutely not!” Cinder barked. “What if someone on the other side of the wall sees me?! What then, huh!?”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin rolled her eyes and let out a silent sigh of exasperation. What a whiner! If SHE had been gifted that transformation, she’d already be through the maze by this point! What was this girl complaining about?!

…What, being naked? Big deal.

With a silent scoff, Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin stripped out of her jumpsuit and planted herself in front of Cinder with her hand on her hip and a defiant glare on her face.

Cinder’s mouth fell open her face lit up with shock.

“What the fuck!? Slutty bitch!” She cursed, quickly covering her eyes. “Put some fucking clothes on, you… you bitch!”

Realizing that by covering her eyes she’d exposed the rest of herself, she quickly squeezed her legs together and tucked her elbows in front of her chest to hide as best she could, before belatedly realizing that she could just close her eyes too.

“I, uh… w-wow,” Dawn said, blushing. She scratched her head, not sure what to feel about that. She could smell Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin’s arousal growing now that her naked body was exposed to the air. Did Tear Away work if you just took the clothes off normally? Dawn had known the answer to that at one point, but with how excited she was going it was hard to keep her thoughts straight…

“Cinder, I think, um, she’s taking her clothes off out of, like, solidarity, maybe?” Kim guessed. It was hard for her to say for sure when it came to the assassin, her mute friend was a bit of a mystery.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin looked back at Kim and met her gaze. She nodded sharply.

“…There, see? Just like I said!” Kim grinned.

“I don’t fucking care!” Cinder spat. “Just… just put your fucking clothes back on, fuck!”

She still wasn’t looking. And hopefully nobody was looking at her.

Dawn sighed. They weren’t getting anywhere with this!

“Cinder!” She stepped forward and looked forcefully at her friend, not that Cinder was paying attention. “I get it’s embarrassing, but come on! We’re not going to get anywhere like this!”

Her Wildcat transformation was causing her to lose her inhibitions, and part of that meant not coddling a friend when they needed some sense talked into them. And Cinder clearly did.

“What do you know, bitch!?” Cinder’s eyes popped open and she hissed at Dawn like she was the one with the cat transformation. “YOU get to wear clothes!”

She glanced at Dawn’s ill-fitting outfit practically shrink-wrapped over her oversized breasts.

“…Well, almost… ...Fuck, whatever!”

Dawn turned red and moved to tug her shirt down, but somehow the more she tried, the more of her flesh she left exposed. Finally, frustrated, she let out a growl and forgot about it. “Look, whatever, okay!? I just wanted to help-”

Before Dawn could say anything, Cinder began to glow. She looked down at her body in shock as a flash of light covered her, and…

“…What the hell!?” The Latina screamed when the light died down and she got a good look at herself.

The good news was that she was wearing clothes. The bad news…

“This… what even is this!?” She demanded, looking at the lacy negligee. “Is this skanky thing supposed to be a dress!?”

“It’s lingerie,” Kim said. “I guess the audience voted that you could get some clothes you can wear, instead of going naked, so they gave you some lingerie.”

“The fuck is lawn-jer-ray!?”

“Underwear,” Dawn answered. That solved the riddle of how much shopping at Kim’s store Cinder did…

“Bullshit this is underwear, you can see right through it! I’d rather be naked!” Cinder screamed, covering herself.

Dawn rolled her eyes. “Seriously?!”

“I mean… she IS pretty exposed still,” Kim pointed out. “It’s better than nothing, but…”

“No, it’s fucking not!” Cinder snapped.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin, fully clothed once more, stormed forward and jammed her hand into Cinder’s face.

“Huh!?” Cinder didn’t know what to make of the “gimme” gestured the other girl was giving her. “What’re you…?”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin’s expression was adamant.

“…I think she’s trying to say that if you don’t want the clothes, she’ll take them,” Kim said, catching onto what the other woman was playing at. “I mean, since you said that being naked was better than wearing that…”

“Rrrrghh!” Her bluff called, Cinder couldn’t do anything other than grind her teeth and stare furiously at the three women. “…Fine! I’ll wear this! Alright!? Even if it’s frilly and lacy and see-through and… shit, this stuff is so…!”

She hated it. No way was she the kind of person suited for something like this! These clothes were for Ella, not her! …But Ella wasn’t coming out.

Then a screen popped up in front of her. “Huh!?”

“I think it’s a note,” Dawn said, walking around the screen. “What does it say?”

Cinder stared at the screen. Her eyes nearly bulged out of her skull.

Midnight Temptation: This gorgeous negligee is the only thing our lovely princess can wear to the ball! But she better hurry up. If she doesn’t get out of the labyrinth soon, her clothes will turn back into a pumpkin! Or however it went.

“…Are you shitting me?!” Cinder roared.

“Did you hear something?” Marley paused and looked over her shoulder. “It sounded like someone was yelling.”

“You’re being paranoid,” Carly scoffed. “It’s been smooth sailing ever since those tentacles! Trust me, there’s nothing to worry about!”

“Yeah I gotta say, between Marley’s body and those glasses of yours, we’ve really got an advantage,” Gina agreed. She scratched her head sheepishly. “Honestly… I kinda feel bad that I’m not doing more to help, you know? I couldn’t even beat that tentacle creature, even though it couldn’t even grab me! You really saved the day, Carly.”

“Well, I’m sure you would have done something if you could,” Carly said, trying and failing to make Gina feel better. She held up her watch. “Too bad I can’t loan the Anitrix to somebody else.”

“How long until you can use it again?” Holly asked curiously.

Carly shrugged. “No idea. It doesn’t seem to have a set amount of time to recharge.”

Marley rolled her eyes. “Knowing Dakota, she probably recharges it whenever it’s most convenient to do so for us. Or inconvenient!”

She had meant it as a joke. But nobody was laughing. They all looked at each other, realizing that, yeah, that was EXACTLY how Dakota did things.

The four girls shared a sigh.

“Well… no sense worrying about it now,” Carly said. “I’m glad I can use it if it means getting out of here! I’ve been falling behind the other girls, and I need to get ahead! Gotta get as high in this challenge as I can, you know?”

“You have a lot of Victory Points actually,” Marley pointed out. “The real issue is your popularity.”

Carly winced. She wasn’t used to not being the most popular person in the room, even after rounds and rounds of hovering near the bottom.

“…Well, I’m trying, okay?” She mumbled, looking away from her sister and continuing the walk down the hall. “It’s not like I’m not!”

“I think the real issue is that you still haven’t ironed out all the details about your relationship with Nick!” Holly volunteered, smashing through the walls of subtlety like a bulldozer. Or maybe a wrecking ball. “I know you’re in love with Dani, but do you have feelings like that for Nick, too?”

Marley groaned and rubbed her forehead. Gina looked at the shorter girl in shock.

Carly recoiled. “That-! Why would you even bring that up!?” She sputtered. “Nick and I, our relationship is fine just the way it is! Casual sex friends, that’s good enough for me! And if the audience doesn’t like it-!”

“That, that’s why the audience doesn’t vote for you,” Holly interrupted her. “Even though you’re open to doing whatever you want sexually with Nick, you’re always taking the ‘If the audience doesn’t like it, too bad!’ stance when it comes to what they want.”

She squinted. “…That was how you were going to finish that sentence, right?”

Carly guiltily glanced away.

“See?! That’s not how you get popular!” Holly put her hands on her hips. “Did you run your cosplay channel with that mindset, Carly?”

“Sh-shut up!” Carly’s face was red now. This was one of the more embarrassing expressions Marley had seen on her sister, she was actually surprised. “Did you start taking a commission from the producers or something!?”

“Take Gina for example,” Holly said, dodging the question. She gestured to the punk girl who stiffened up, surprised. “She’s totally fine with casual sex too. But she’s actually giving some serious thought to potentially getting into a relationship with Nick. A real relationship! It makes her a LOT more fun in the eyes of the audience. And thus- first place!”

She placed her hands on her hips and held her head up with pride, satisfied that she’d made her point.

Gina looked sheepishly at Carly and shrugged. Carly glanced down, still blushing.

“Look, I… I get it, okay?” She mumbled, scratching her cheek. “I’m trying my best too… but it’s awkward, you know? There’s Dani’s feelings to think about, and Nick’s feelings too, and as for me…”

She glanced at her sister, not sure what to say.

Sensing what Carly was about to do, Marley stepped back and held up her hands. “Whoa, leave me out of this,” she said, shaking her head. “This is about your feelings, sis, not mine.”

Carly sighed and nodded. “Yeah… I know. Look, Holly, maybe you’re right. But regardless, it won’t matter until we get out of here, yeah? Then I can work on figuring this whole ‘feelings’ mess out.”

Holly considered that, and decided it was good enough. “Yeah, you’re right,” she agreed. The girls set out again, and Carly had only Dani on her mind right now. She hoped her girlfriend was doing okay.

“Rock…”

“Paper…”

“Scissors!”

The three Morganas all threw out their fists at the same time.

“Rock again!? You cheaters!”

“Like, oh my gosh, I’m not cheating! I just wanted to throw rock!”

“It would seem to be another tie.”

“…This is getting us nowhere,” Dani sighed in exasperation, rubbing her temples.

“It’s quite amusing, though,” Sylvia giggled.

Vivian frowned. Seeing that this could go on for a while, she stepped forward. “Okay, Morganas! Listen up!”

The three witch girls all stiffened up straight, standing at attention when they heard Vivian’s voice. All of them turned to her, and faced the fierce expression of the heiress.

“You’re all deciding whether or not you should reunite together, right?” Vivian said, stating the obvious. “Well, there’s only once answer to that question.”

The three girls leaned forward eagerly.

“…Of course you shouldn’t!”

All three Morganas looked at Vivian in surprise. Dani did a double-take.

“Huh!?” She sputtered. “Vivian!”

“What do you mean?” The real Morgana asked.

“I am also confused,” Moonshadow said.

Magnifica nodded in agreement.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Vivian scoffed. “There’s three of you! In other words, now I have two more friends than I did before! Clearly, there’s no need for you three to go back to normal!”

She clapped her hands together and smiled gleefully. “It’s much better this way! Oh, I can’t wait to dress you three up in matching outfits! You’re basically triplets, right? We’ll have so much fun together! Uehehe...” She cackled like a hyena.

Sylvia doubled over with laughter and even Dani had to admit that Vivian’s statement was kind of funny, in an absurd sort of way. But the Morganas clearly disagreed, judging by their wary reactions to the conspiratorial look on her face.

The three Morganas looked at each other, and in silent, mutual agreement touched hands together and reunited as one person.

“Wh-whoa!” Morgana, complete, stumbled back, overwhelmed as she felt her silver and gold selves reintegrate into her body. She nearly fell over but Vivian was able to catch her before she did.

“Whoa, there we go, let’s sit you down. That was probably pretty intense, huh?” Vivian helped Morgana to the floor before the goth girl could end up there on her own.

“Yeah… yeah…” Morgana nodded, still struggling with all the new memories she’d gotten, even though they were only a couple hours’ worth. “Just… …Oh, uh… s-sorry about, um…”

It felt embarrassing to say, but Morgana was really ashamed of what had just happened. How they’d all decided it was better to merge than become Vivian’s dress up dolls. “I know I’m not a triplet, but… it made me happy, what you said… a little…”

She knew her words must have sounded pretty hollow after what just happened, but…

“Huh? Nah, I was being overbearing on purpose. To get you moving,” Vivian said, patting her on the shoulder. “Don’t sweat it! I knew you three’d be **** to get as far away as possible if I came on so strong! Hehe!”

Vivian was laughing, but Morgana could hear the sadness in her voice. She felt really bad now that all three of herselves were back together again. Three times as bad as usual, in fact.

She would make it up to Vivian somehow! ...Maybe.

“Here we are!” Jess came to a stop in front of an iron door, and looked back at the two blondes. She still had a hazy look in her eye, but she seemed to be doing a lot better now. She looked more put together, which was good. “I told you, I could get you a good portion of the way, but this is as far as I go! So good luck!”

She moved to leave, but Rose stepped in front of her.

“Hold on, one second,” she said, looking suspiciously at Jess.

“Wh-what?” The fox girl squirmed.

Rose squinted. “You said that you would lead us through a shortcut that wouldn’t take us through any obstacles or booby traps, right?” She asked.

Jess nodded. “Right… so?”

“So… if this is as far as you can take us, then doesn’t that mean right past that door, there’s probably an obstacle or a puzzle or something?” Rose smelled something suspicious in the air. “Kinda suspicious that this door, right here, is where you decide to stop…”

Blinking for a moment, Jess looked away, cheeks red. Her ears twitched and she started to sweat.

“Jess?!”

Without another word the fox girl turned and booked it down the corridor.

Rose sighed in exasperation and scratched her head. “Darn it… just like I thought.”

“There’s nothing we can do,” Amelia said bluntly. “Either way, we must move forward.”

Knowing Amelia was right (but hating to admit it) Rose sighed and the two women headed into the next room.

With that all settled, there were only a few questions to ask as the girls were all on the move:

Which girls should get a benefit? (Part 1)

https://strawpoll.com/e6Z2AEBNGgN

Which girls should get a benefit? (Part 2)

https://strawpoll.com/xVg712zkKyr

Which girls should get a benefit? (Part 3)

https://strawpoll.com/QrgewKJDOyp