Invited to the Hunt

The graphic and picture are made by Orifalcon, who has made nearly all of this season's pictures.

***

Richard had fallen asleep long before Stella had come back. The last thing that he remembered was both their phones dinging in the late evening so that Genet could let them know to be in the auditorium by nine tomorrow.

He’d woken up around his usual time just after six, and found that Stella was already gone. So it was just him getting ready in the Master’s Cottage. After his shower he stood in his closet longer than usual, trying to figure out what to wear. Should I be formal like it’s a concert they’re performing in? Should I dress comfortably since nobody will be paying attention to me? He realized as he was trying to decide that he should’ve watched some of the challenges with Helena, Hazel, and Felicia to get a better sense of what his role in this sort of thing is. He ended up trying to compromise between the two ends of the spectrum by putting on a navy polo shirt and dark jeans before heading off to the dining hall.

The dining hall was loud despite how few people were there. Felicia was at the middle table, with an empty cup of coffee and the dregs of a bowl of muesli. She was looking into the kitchen, where Stella and Genet were hard at work together trying to prepare everyone’s breakfasts at once. Aubrey’s Pancake Punch was easy to just leave at the buffet table, but there were six more meals that needed to be made by the time their contestants showed up. He decided to get a bottled smoothie from the buffet before sitting down with Felicia.

She was watching Genet’s movements, her eyes tracking the buxom host as she pranced from one bowl or tray to another. He noticed that Felicia’s hair was still damp in the ponytail she was keeping it in. She had a bulging backpack on the bench next to her, and she seemed torn on where she wanted to look after he arrived.

“Hey,” he greeted her. “Feeling ready for the challenge?”

“I don’t know.” She groaned. “I’ve been watching her from the moment curfew ended, and she hasn’t given me any clues as to what kind of challenge we’re looking at. I’ve tried to prepare for everything I can imagine, but what if there’s something I haven’t imagined? You’re lucky that you don’t have to compete in this for second.”

He ignored her little burst of competitiveness thrown in at the end. “Is there something you’re hoping it’ll be?"

“I figure I’ve got good odds if it’s some type of puzzle or scavenger hunt, but my best case scenario is a blowjob contest. I’ve been training for that all week.”

He almost choked on his smoothie. “You’ve been training?”

Felicia took a break from watching Genet. “I’ve been working on breaking my gag reflex. Trying to use my toothbrush to test it in the evenings, spoons and and my fingers at other times I was alone. I even borrowed Luna’s sewing kit so I could test this acupuncture technique I’ve read about.” Seeing his reaction, she decided to go a little further. “I bet I could suck you dry in under thirty seconds.” She smirked at his loss of composure. I win.

He was saved from responding by Genet putting several plates in front of him, including a crêpe, corned beef hash, and a bowl of muesli like in front of Felicia. “Don’t be worried about finishing everything, just eat what you want.” She reminded him, before sauntering off to the kitchen.

He was halfway through his meal when people started coming in. First came Helena and Hazel, who gave him and Felicia a noticeably icy amount of distance. Then Aubrey, who happily sat next to him. She had a really nice dream she had wanted to talk about in between bites of her cereal and kissing him. Felicia had grown visibly annoyed at that, but thankfully was holding her tongue more than he’d expected at first. It was only when Aubrey was done eating and concentrating fully on frenching him that the shorter girl’s tongue had grown barbed.

“Some of us don’t want to hear about your sex dreams while we’re eating.” Felicia groused. “I don’t even get the obsession with white at weddings.”

“The white dress is about innocence, purity, a new beginning with your perfect match.” Aubrey argued. “It’s one of the most important parts of any wedding.”

“You were dreaming about getting railed at the altar in your dress. What part of that says ‘innocence and purity’?”

“The part where my love is pure.” Aubrey shot back, gripping his hand under the table.

“And the innocence?” Felicia asked with a raised eyebrow.

“The innocence is less important. What matters is that we would do anything for each other.”

“Right, of course.” Felicia said. Dick thought he heard some disappointment in her voice. “I’ll leave you two lovebirds to your wedding planning, maybe there’s some clues at the auditorium if I get there early.”

He knew that both of them had feelings for him, even if they communicated that in very different ways. Despite the possessiveness of Aubrey and how tightly she was holding his hand, he wanted to still make sure Felicia wasn’t too badly hurt. “Wait, stay. Maybe we can get Stella to spend some time with us too, we could keep things a bit more casual?”

“I’m fine, Dick. I’m still open to training with you later on what I was telling you about. I just want some space right now.”

Maeve and Luna arrived for breakfast next, within a few minutes of each other. They ended up sitting next to each other across from him and Aubrey. Their presence managed to cool down the conversation, though it’d been a bit late to prevent the issues between both the blondes.

Ava came in with barely ten minutes left before the challenge. She sat down with Richard and the others and devoured an omelet and a half, then finally they all needed to hurry to the auditorium.

***

Genet was on stage again, sometime in the two minutes between the last contestants leaving the dining hall and her arrival at the podium she’d changed into a sparkly green dress. The spotlight from an unseen source followed her as she moved to the podium.

“Great job this round everyone, and thank you for getting here on time. I promise you, there’s just one more thing this before we dive into the first challenge of the season. Let’s dim the lights.” As she said that, the lights in the auditorium dimmed, and the thick red curtain of the auditorium split to reveal a LED screen embedded in the back wall. “A friend of mine in the records department designed this, it’s so much better than the one that I threw together to track things. I’m glad he’s been helping, because graphic design is definitely not my passion. If he hadn’t been watching things like a hawk I might have even forgotten to write down some of the VP that I owed you. Let's take a look at your progress.”

“As we can see, several of you have made significant progress in gaining Victory Points. Aubrey has taken a strong lead, with forty-three VP. But it’s still anyone’s game, as three people are almost a third of the way to claiming one of the three wishes that await our champions this season. But let’s turn to the season specific part of our scoreboard.”

She snapped her fingers and the Referendums section of the board glowed brighter. “For those who may have forgotten over the course of our broadcast, a second competition is happening between the Master and I. I win his loyalty if I can convince eight women to fall in love with and willingly form a polyamorous relationship with him. Richard wins if he can work with his harem to earn six hundred Victory Points before that happens. The eight of you are together at one hundred and fifty-five points, about a quarter of the way to Richard’s victory. I have moved from two in each group to three and two. Slow so far, but you each have only had one date. I’m betting that the longer he spends with each of you, the rest of you’ll see just why I chose him as Master.

Now that we’ve covered that scoring update, are there any other questions before we move on?”

Aubrey’s hand wavered before going back down, but Felicia’s shot up. “Yes?”

“How will the results of the challenge impact everyone’s scores?” The most competitive contestant asked.

Genet smiled before dimming the scoreboard. “That’s a great transition towards our challenge. The bottom two contestants will receive small penalties to their VP scores, losing five and two points for placing in eighth and seventh respectively. The top five contestants will gain a certain amount of Victory Points, the winner receiving a boost of ten VP. There’s one extra prize available, but I’ll save that to be explained in a moment.

Now, onto the challenge itself. I know that a few of you have been trying to get a sense of what the challenge might be. I’d like to summon everyone’s favorite shopkeeper to help explain her design.” Genet snapped her fingers again and Ata appeared on stage in a pungent cloud, the smell of copper bleeding into the usual scent of roses that came with Genet’s magic.

She appeared dazed until Genet quietly said the words: “Ready to take a break?” Then Richard and Maeve noticed her attitude quickly morph into something hawkish, like his stepsister one of the few times she’d let journalists into the mansion or Luna during one of the budget meetings they’d negotiate together for. Her stance changed too, reminding him of Hazel while she was acting as Hel’s guard. Her fists clenched and her gaze sharpened from what he was used to seeing in her shop. She was scanning over them all as if preparing for a fight.

“So this is the new cast?” Ata asked. “They’re more interesting than usual. Are women allowed to have weapons nowadays, or is she special?”

“It’s getting more common, but I think most of the people here would agree with me that she’s special.” Genet said with pride as she found Ata’s gaze on Hazel’s firearm.

“And the one showing her midriff. Did you find a gladiator? I thought that they stopped allowing those kinds of matches.”

“She’s an athletic trainer, she teaches others how to get stronger. Gladiators are back though, they just call them wrestlers now. There’s a new season focused on them, I haven’t had time to watch but Mark said it’s off to a good start.”

“Genet, we’re tangenting again. I'll acknowledge you found a few gems this time, but we need to move on.”

She’s already met most of us, hasn’t she? Why is she acting so different? Richard wondered. From the looks on the faces of his friends, it looked like they were having similar thoughts.

“They might be my best cast ever.” Genet boasted. “Trust me, you’re going to love them. But go ahead and introduce your idea, Pray for Pleasure.”

“Prey for Pleasure.” The shopkeeper corrected. “Contestants, your challenge is to evade me, and you may run, hide, or employ any other tactic Genet allows in your attempt to do so. I’ll teleport back here after finding one of you, then go searching again. Each person I catch will make me stronger, as I’ll be able to pick up whatever skills you have to offer as you resist. As the day goes on an aphrodisiac mist will fill the air, which may distract you or make it more difficult for you to remain silent if you’ve found a good hiding spot. Your ultimate goal is to last until sunset, and if someone manages to do that they win the extra prize of being able to design a transformation for your…” she looked disgusted as she mulled over the word. “For the season’s Master.”

Hang on, I’m getting transformations now? Richard thought in alarm. He almost raised his hand to protest, but thought better of it. Everyone else had been given transformations, it was only fair that I accept one too for them.

Ava blurted out a question, not raising her hand like Felicia had earlier. “What happens if multiple people make it to the end?”

Ata smirked. “If that happens, then Genet has agreed to hold a separate round of voting to decide a tiebreaker and determine which transformation proposal the Master received. Any other questions?”

This time it was Helena that raised her hand. “How much latitude would we have to design these?”

“That’s not for me to answer.” Ata said.

Genet took the question. “I’ll have to give final approval on anything you all come up with before either giving it to Richard or putting it on the ballot for the audience.”

“Anything else?” Ata asked again.

The room was silent. Seeing nothing, Genet spoke. “I’ll be taking Richard for a watch party in my apartment so he doesn’t accidentally interfere. We’ll host a little lunchtime intermission for everyone still playing.

One more thing that I almost forgot to let you all know about before we left. I’ll be opening mail to any of our viewers who wish to send you all a message. In between the end of the challenge and this evening’s transformation vote, I plan on dispersing your mail.” Genet moved to leave, but saw Luna raising her hand. “Yes, Ms. Lopez?”

The lawyer had a reasonable question. “If this is all supposed to last less than a day, how many people do you expect to send messages?”

“For us, it will be a day. Our audience is experiencing all these events in a different relation to time than you are. By the time they met all of you for our opening ceremony, you’ll have been home for a few days, but at the same time here for them to vote on your polls and send messages to. It might be weeks for them by the time you all have lunch. But that means they’ll have plenty of time to decide what to write.”

“Timey-wimey.” Felicia muttered.

“Now that I got those last few announcements done, Richard and I will be heading out. I’m looking forward to seeing all of you at lunchtime. Even if you’re not present at the group luncheon, I’ll be stopping by to check on you in our waiting rooms.” She made a pulling motion towards Richard, and the two of them disappeared in a puff of perfume like Ata had appeared from earlier.

It was just the contestants and Ata now. The shopkeeper looked again at each of the women seated in front of her, her eyes lingering on Hazel’s gun and Ava’s biceps longer than the rest. She gave them a wry smile as she stood on stage.

“I’ll give you all a five minute head start. Don’t disappoint me.”