Challenge 1, Part 3: Chekhov's Balcony

Francis

Francis would not consider himself a violent man. He certainly has never put himself in a position where actual **** was needed. The closest thing he saw to needing to exert **** was the rare militia call to assist crowd control or something similar during a natural disaster. He never thought that the first time he would strike someone with unbridled aggression was a spindly hag of an old lady.

But strike he must.

He knows that this is a bad idea even before he does it. He’s seen enough contestants (sometimes conspiring with their Master) try to pull a coup against their Host. He knows it never turns out well.

But strike he must.

Since he heard one of the mermaids complain, “Man, did I get assigned the shit job today or what?”, Beckie has been rubbing her hands with glee. Fortunately, that means what little attention she was giving Francis has dissipated. He stood up and approached the Host. He – somehow – felt the harpy summoning some terrible magic. He felt this once before, but he doesn’t remember when or how. He was confused as to why; Francis scanned the room to figure it out quickly. Most of the girls look ready. Skye’s transformation! The psycho bitch set her up. Need to take the heat off the poor girl. That’s at least one thing I can do.

The one advantage of having such a defensively poor form is that there is little need to get into it for a first hit. He’s essentially in his Southpaw stance by his position slightly behind the monstrous host. He shifts his weight onto his back leg, pivots it with a slight hop, and delivers a devastating side kick directly into Beckie’s knobby knee. As she starts to lean over, bones cracking, he shifts his stance to the traditional version with a hop, cocks his back hip, then whips around to land a roundhouse kick to her flank. She hits the balcony banister, hard. He shifts back, reloads, and kicks again; this time, his foot lands square on Beckie’s temple. The wood on the banister is starting to creak. He hops back and throws a front kick to the teeth. Beckie rolls back, breaks the balcony, and falls to the ballroom floor with a wet crunch. Black ichor oozes out of the heap.

Beckie Peteresen

The mass of wrecked host starts shaking and popping. The goo flows back into it as it rises up. The wad starts to hover, reforming into the ghastly host, alive, whole, and well, eventually looming over Francis. As it reforms, the Host within starts to panic. Ouchie. How could that have happened? It is statistically impossible for one of the dumb humans to try something like that until they have time to conspire. It’s usually a Week 2 or 3 thing. And it’s almost never a fucking sucker punch out of nowhere. The brat is not only ungrateful, but dangerous. Don’t have a plan. Fake it ‘til you make it, right?

“Oh, how exciting! Most of the time, a contestant is the first to break the whole ‘no ****, no matter how impotent’ rule. Those eliminations are such fun. Now what to do with you?”

The unruly brat just stands there. Glaring.

“Well, I certainly can’t eliminate the Master. Who would these girls mold? It’s poor form to bring in a fresh Master mid-stream. Hmmm... There’s a fun idea. Boop!”

The ungrateful fool continues to stand there, but now with a look of confusion.

“I gave you a punishment transformation, Master. While, by the end, you won’t think it a punishment, applying it so early in the game will be absolutely devastating to you. I’m currently suppressing it, but will stop if you even think about doing something like that again. Trust me when I say you’ll desperately want to not be under the influence of this transformation for as long as possible. I’ll give you the details when I turn it on, either when you try to be naughty again or as the highlight of your portion of the transformation round, whichever happens first. Now sit down on your throne or you will regret it.”

The brat, surprisingly, complies. Man, I’m a good liar! I’ll still need to figure out how to actually punish the rapscallion. That’s something to do during commercials when watching ****, She Wrote tonight!

“Moving on. Staff, if you would please remove the distracting furniture while I talk? Onto how you will be judged. We’ve brought it some special guests to judge this competition. Since this challenge is all about displaying your vision, who better to judge your vision than your Master? Of course, your Master would no doubt already have biases, so, it wouldn’t be fair to just leave it to him. So, instead, you will be judged by a panel of volunteer Francises from other seasons! Some are successful Masters from completed seasons; they were allowed, but not required, to bring a plus one. Some are contestants, being escorted by their Master. If a contestant Francis experienced an elimination transformation that resulted in the inability to vote, the contestant’s Master will vote in its stead. What fun! The judges will mill around and observe your work; when ready, they will climb up the stairs, give your Master a greeting if they wish, then submit their vote in this here ballot box. We will announce the results, along with the ‘Best Girl’ poll results, when we present the transformation options to the audience at the end of our event today. Here are the prizes for placement.”

A series of screens display the placement prizes, as it is difficult to position a single screen to cover every line of sight:

• 1st 10 VP 50 BP

• 2nd 5 VP 40 BP

• 3rd 0 VP 30 BP

• 4th -5 VP 20 BP

• 5th -10 VP 10 BP

• 6th -20 VP 0 BP

The **** sluts and the sitting brat are, almost universally, unhappy. The naked slut is still passed out. Was I going to be doing something about that? Oh well.

“The VP payouts for this challenge is way worse than the last one!”

“Why wait to reveal this until after giving us not enough time to fashion our Francis?”

“That mermaid bitch ruined my outfit!”

The slaves keep vocalizing complaints. Beckie stops listening. The brat behind Beckie (gotta keep him in mind) is balling up fists and breathing. In. Hold. Out. Repeat. He is obviously angry but is (at least for now) playing along.

“Enough!” Beckie bellows. They still bitch.

The brat behind Beckie sighs, quite exasperatedly, then actually speaks up, “Please stop fighting. We’ll figure the point deficits out later. Sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can do so.”

That got the slaves quiet. Maybe the terror has a better handle on his **** sluts than I thought. The Grand Theory is being proven right!

Beckie smiles as she continues, “Now that we have the rules explained, let’s bring in our special guest judges! Staff, please make sure our guest are happy. Sluts, make yourselves presentable. Time to show off your vision!”

With that, some of the staff members open a pair of double doors to let the judges in, being lead by a different staff member (I should really decide whether I want to keep them around after this season before I bother to learn their names...). Other staff shimmy around, holding trays of hors d'oeuvres or champagne flutes. The slaves are doing as they are told. The Master looks sullen, which will not be a great look when judges come greet him, but will do for now. And, the crowd of judges start to enjoy the party, Beckie’s smile only grows.

Time to schmooze.