And heart to heart you'll win, if you survive

Gina wasn’t much one for strategy, she could admit that. Not only had she made Dani mad from the start of the round by trying to goad her into disqualifying herself, but she’d only upped the ante by giving her a good groping when Dani wasn’t looking.

Yes. That was a bad call. And Gina could acknowledge that was a bad call. And a big part of maturity was acknowledging when you made a mistake, and try to make it right.

And if Dani would stop firing long enough to let her try, maybe they could get somewhere. But fat chance of that.

“ZIP!”

Another paintball smacked into Gina’s shoulder, and a surge of pleasure shot through her body, making her weak in the legs. She groaned and l raised her arm to keep from crashing into a tree. It didn’t help that the slight tingle of pain that came from getting shot also got her motor revving a little.

“Are you done running?” Dani stomped through the brush, rifle brandished. “Because the more you run, the angrier I’ll be when I finally catch you, you know that, right?”

“Sorry,” Gina said, feeling an ache in her side. She shoved the edge of her hand beneath her ribs to numb the pain like she’d learned way back in grade school when she’d run the Pacer. Too bad she couldn’t numb the smile on her face. It was going to get her in trouble and she just knew it. “I’m a glutton for punishment.”

Dani’s eye twitched.

“Maybe you should just give up?” Gina asked hopefully. “I mean, uh… you’ve shot me… a lot. And I’m still kicking, so… can’t we just let bygones be bygones? No hard feelings? I mean, I made you feel good, right? I happen to have a bit of experience with girls, so I know my way around. Yes, I groped you while you were loading your gun, and you spilled ammo on your shirt, but come on! You enjoyed it, right?”

Gina couldn’t run for crap and she didn’t have very good aim with a gun, either. A few girls had complained about not being cut out for this challenge, but Gina was probably the least cut out for it out of all of them.

She did have one “edge” over her competitors, though. Because she very likely had more sexual experience than most of these women put together, Gina actually had a pretty good tolerance for pleasure, when she wanted to. She’d done denial play a few times to boot, as part of embracing her desires as a sub. And while she’d never take it as far as Holly, she could be proud of the fact that if she didn’t want to cum, her body was trained to take a lot of ****.

Then again, Dani was doing a darn fine job.

Seeing that the tomboy was unmoved by Gina’s attempt at an apology (which wouldn’t even cut it as “halfhearted”) the cornered rat decided to barter instead.

“Okay, how about this? There’s a reason you haven’t shot me, right?” Gina pointed out. “Which means you want something!”

Dani smiled slightly. “Maybe I just like hearing you grovel a bit,” she teased, coaxing Gina to stick out her tongue in response.

“Ha ha. But seriously. How many bullets did you get in that thing, anyway? Because you shot me a LOT and you missed a lot more shots than you hit.”

Dani’s eye twitched. Score! Gina had gotten in enough bar bets over the years, she could tell when someone was flinching.

“Right, see?” Gina nodded slowly, a catlike grin curling up her lips. “No telling when you’ll find more ammo, huh? How many shots’ll it take before I actually cum? 5 more? 10? Do you even have that many? Because you might have me outclassed in the athletics department, but if there’s one thing I know better than anybody it’s shots, shots, shots.”

Sadly, the architect of Gina’s elimination did not appreciate her excellent wordplay. Square.

But she was getting under Dani’s skin, that much was obvious.

“…Fine,” Dani growled, lowering her rifle. “You’re right, I’d rather not waste more bullets on you if I don’t have to.” She could have resorted to using her hands, but that would probably cross a few lines. And it would give Gina the opportunity to turn the tables on her, unless Dani used her strength and **** her down. And that would make her feel even worse.

“See? I knew you could be reasonable!” Gina curled up her lips in a toothy grin. “Now how about we just let bygones be bygones, hmm? Tell you what! I’ll even help you out a little, eh? Help you find Carly and Marley? An extra pair of eyes wouldn’t hurt!”

Dani was tempted. “…You’ll help me look for them?”

“Sure thing! Just, uh, don’t shoot me. We can work together! That’s the smart thing to do, right?” Gina pointed out. And it looked like Dani was getting swayed, too! She was making such a good case right now, her mother would be so proud of her!

“You were the one who started this in the first place, though!” Dani pointed out in frustration. “When you groped me!”

“Right, I was trying to eliminate you,” Gina bluntly replied. Amelia and Mary would be so proud of her honesty right now!

Dani rolled her eyes. “Well at least you’re being honest. I suppose you get a little bit of praise for that,” she groused.

Gina shivered as a spike of arousal surged through her body.

Wait… fuck! I forgot about that!

Dani looked confused for a second. It looked like Gina had just gotten a spike of pleasure even though she hadn’t been shot. And the panicked expression on the other girl’s face, like she was worried about something, it almost reminded her of…

A triumphant smirk crossed Dani’s face, and Gina started to sweat.

“H-hey! Come on, Dani, we were talking, right?” Gina stammered. “Let’s not get any funny ideas or anything!”

“You know, Gina, I’ve gotta say, I’m pretty impressed at how well you managed to elude me for this long,” Dani noted. “That takes some real persistence! Pretty impressive if I do say so myself!”

Gina winced, feeling another slight jump of arousal. “Come on, Dani, it wasn’t anything special, it wasn’t, no need to compliment me for something like-”

“And you’ve got more willpower than I gave you credit for, too, resisting this long,” Dani interrupted her, eyes shining evilly. “You’re pretty tough!”

“Urgh!” Gina’s eyes fluttered and she bit her lip, slumping against the tree. “Come on, Dani…”

“And thank you SO much for offering me to help find Carly,” Dani added. “That was so sweet of you, Gina!”

“Agh, fucking cunt!” Gina clenched her legs together as dots of pleasure flashed across her vision. Dani was bringing her towards the brink of orgasm without even firing a shot, and it was all due to that shitty transformation of hers!

• Damned by Faint Praise: Gina has never really been one to get positive reinforcement for anything she does. But she’s **** for it. Whenever someone compliments her on something she’s done well, she’ll receive a spike in arousal. Depending on how “good” the act she’s receiving praise for is, the stronger this arousal spike will become, to the point of even being possible to orgasm from it alone. (Good Girl)

I can’t believe I have to be stuck with this shitty thing! The times Gina received genuine praise were few and far between, but they had been happening a lot more these days, and as a result, Gina had been enjoying some delicious pleasure sensations. It had really gotten her to like this transformation of hers.

Now she hated it.

“Come on, are you really going to do me like this?” Gina groaned, trying to steady herself. She wanted to run, but she barely had any feeling in her legs at this point. “I meant what I said you know! I really did want to help!”

Dani looked conflicted. “I know you did,” she said, fighting off her feelings of guilt. “But this is a competition. I’ve gotta eliminate everyone eventually, right? So I might as well eliminate you now, otherwise there’s a chance you might stab me in the back.”

“Come on!” Gina groaned. “I wouldn’t… …Okay, you’re right, I would definitely do that because you’re a big threat.”

Dani smiled sweetly at her. “See? Honesty! Thank you for telling the truth.”

“Bitch!” Gina moaned, on the cusp of orgasm. She was fighting it hard, but between her transformation and all the paint she’d been splattered with, she was pretty much done for.

“Wait! Dani, stop, don’t do it!”

Gina’s eyes widened. Salvation!? Could it be?

Dani whirled around, surprised, and raised her gun.

Dawn and Morgana were running towards her. They were both carrying rifles, and Dawn had a handgun at her waist for good measure.

Before Dani could open fire, though, she saw both women waving their hands.

“Don’t eliminate Gina!” Dawn panted, reaching the clearing they were standing in. Her heart was pounding and she took a second to catch her breath, as Morgana collapsed in the dirt, practically passing out from running that hard. Luckily her breasts made for good airbags.

“Dawn, what the hell?” Dani kept her rifle aimed at the cat girl, even if Dawn wasn’t presenting a threat. As for Gina, she was still too close to the brink of orgasm to be in danger of running away.

“Don’t… eliminate Gina…” Dawn panted. “I saw you… from across the river… you couldn’t hear, so… I had to chase… finally caught up…”

She swallowed, finally catching her breath, and straightened up. The look of determination on her face was enough for Dani to take her seriously.

“Don’t eliminate Gina yet,” Dawn said firmly. “We need her.”

“We? Who’s we?” Dani grumbled.

“People who don’t want to lose this game, that’s who,” Dawn snapped. “You don’t get it, do you? Gina’s our ace in the hole!”

Dani stared blankly at her. “She is?”

“I am?” Gina asked excitedly. “Ahn!”

“Shit, uh…” Dawn realized that even that must constitute praise. “Okay, everybody, say nothing! Especially you, Morgana! Mouth shut!”

Morgana nodded from her spot in the dirt. It was easy to not say anything when you were facedown in your own boobs.

Dani glared at Dawn, but seeing how seriously the other girl was taking this, and considering that the cat girl would NEVER spare Gina if she could help it, she decided to give the other woman the benefit of the doubt.

“Fine,” Dani snapped. “But she better not run away. In fact…”

Dani glanced at the handcuff on Gina’s wrist. “…I just had a great idea.”

“Huh? Hey! Leggo!” Gina wailed as Dani grabbed her arm and yanked her towards the tree.

“If I handcuff you to the tree, then you can’t run away!” Dani pointed out.

“What?! No! I don’t have a key myself!” Gina wailed. “Only Nick has one! I’ll be stuck here!”

Now that she thought about it, she had a lot of transformations that weren’t good for this situation.

“Dani, that’s a bad call too,” Dawn said. But Dani already figured that out.

“Fine,” she grumbled, maintaining her grip on Gina’s wrist. The handcuff was cool in her grasp. “But until you finish explaining, I’m not letting go.”

After a couple minutes of awkward silence, mostly spent with Gina trying to break free, until Dani stopped her with a look, Gina’s arousal levels had finally dropped to a more manageable level. Mostly.

“Okay, I think I’m calmed down about as much as I can be,” Gina groused, wiping her forehead. “You sure about this? I mean… I’m still feeling really hot.”

“I figured it out when Morgana and I were looking for weapons,” Dawn said. The goth girl had recovered enough to sit up, at least. “Even if we get turned on from a transformation, our arousal level will drop. Unlike when we get shot by an aphrodisiac. If we get turned on from that, it stays in our system apparently.”

“It does?” Gina gasped in surprise.

Dani was suspicious. “How do you know that, exactly?” She demanded, narrowing her eyes.

Dawn glanced awkwardly away. Morgana puffed up her cheeks in frustration.

“Because she tested it on me, that’s why!” She exclaimed. Apparently, the redness in her cheeks and her sweat wasn’t just because of running.

“It was a reasonable hypothesis!” Dawn groaned in response. “I figured that there was no way Dakota would let us just wait out the aphrodisiac, so it must be something that sticks in our system! It was the only explanation that made sense, or else this challenge could take forever.”

“Yes, and then you shot me!”

“Well, did you want me to shoot myself?” Dawn protested.

“…Yes!” Morgana didn’t like playing the crash test dummy, even if the pleasurable feeling from the aphrodisiac was nice.

Dani sighed. “So basically, Gina’s going to be stuck at that level of arousal. Well, at least that means I can finish her off whenever I want.”

“But… you don’t want to because we’re such good friends, right?” Gina grinned.

Dani tightened her grip on her gun and glared.

“Right, shutting up, forgot.”

Dawn sighed and rubbed her temples. Of course her plan would have to rely on Gina, and of course the punk girl would have to be a master at pissing people off.

“So spill it already,” Dani said, crossing her arms over her chest impatiently. She was willing to spare Gina a gruesome, aphrodisiac-filled end if she needed to, but she wanted to hear Dawn’s explanation first.

Dawn straightened up and adjusted her glasses. “So we can all agree that Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin is the big threat here, right?”

“I mean, probably?” Gina nodded.

“Of course she is,” Dani agreed. “That’s why I’m looking for Carly, strength in numbers. And to make sure she’s safe.”

“Right. But our elusive assassin hasn’t been doing anything,” Dawn said. “The only person eliminated so far was Amelia! That’s suspicious. It could be that she hasn’t found a weapon yet, but it’s more likely that she’s biding her time and waiting for something.”

Dawn had no idea what that “something” was, and she didn’t want to find out.

“So what’s your point?”

“My point is, we should all team up together, and wait for her to come to us,” Dawn said. “She probably wants us to eliminate each other first. Clear the herd and whatnot. Then when we’re low enough in number she can get rid of us without any trouble.”

Dani frowned. That sounded like the smart thing to do.

Morgana nodded in agreement, her mouth still zipped shut.

“So what does this have to do with me?” Gina asked. That was usually her question about most things, in fact.

Dawn let out a tired sigh.

“Gina I think out of everyone here has the best chance of beating Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin. Not in a direct confrontation, obviously, but because of her transformation.”

Gina blinked. “My transformation? Which one?”

“The, uh… the punishment one,” Dawn said, glancing at Gina’s arm. She winced, recalling how badly that little coup against Sylvia had gone. She couldn’t help but feel guilty about that mess.

“Huh?” Gina looked at her sleeve, covering her arm of tattoos. “But that just makes people’s sexual fantasies pop into their… holy fuck! Dawn, you’re a total genius!”

“Oh, really?” Dawn said sarcastically. She rolled her eyes. “You’re just figuring that out now?”

“I’m still a little lost,” Dani said. But she was intrigued, too.

“All we have to do is show Gina’s tattoos to Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin, and they’ll fill her head with a bunch of sexual fantasies! She’ll be overloaded with Gina’s sexual desires, and since Gina is a total degenerate-”

“Hey! Wait, never mind.”

Dawn gave her a look. “…And since Gina is a total degenerate, they might be so overwhelming that it causes her to freeze up. And maybe even arouse her a bit on top of that. And that’s when we get her from all sides, she won’t be able to dodge our bullets if she’s fantasizing. We can also use Morgana’s Sotto Voce transformation to turn her on at the same time.”

“Damn! That’s so good!” Gina shook her head, amazed. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

She could have easily gotten away from Dani if she remembered that little trick!

Dani nodded, coming around to that idea. She grinned. “Yeah, I like the sound of that,” she agreed. “We use Gina’s tattoos to turn her on! All I need to do is get in a good tackle while she’s dazed! I’ll be able to rip all most of her clothes off, which will arouse her even more!”

It would also make her faster, too. So it had some downsides. But in a challenge like this, the extra arousal might be enough.

If only Nick had had the opportunity to tell them about his game of tag with the assassin, they might have known just how risky this idea was. But even then, it was still the best they could do.

Save for one slight problem.

“There is an issue though,” Morgana squeaked out, trying to change her voice as much as she could to resist arousing the alliance.

“An issue?” Dani questioned.

Dawn frowned. “…Yeah. One tiny issue. I’m not so sure if it’s going to work.”

“Huh? Why not?” Gina asked, a little disappointed that her tattoos weren’t some magic trump card after all.

Dawn sighed. “Gina… do you remember the exact wording of your transformation?”

“Uh…” Gina gave the other woman a vacant stare. Dawn thought she could actually smell the smoke of her brain shorting out.

“…Right, why am I not surprised?” Dawn grumbled. “Well, I remember it perfectly, like everything else.”

• Wearing Your Heart on Your Sleeve: Gina has always been pretty up front about her desires. Now she’ll be incapable of hiding them. Her arm will now be covered in a tattoo sleeve that will have written down all her lurid fantasies. And any time someone reads one of them, including herself, that fantasy will immediately appear in their mind. (Punishment)

Even after Dawn recounted the full transformation, Gina still didn’t understand anything more concretely.

“So… what’s the issue?” She questioned.

“Did you hear that word in the middle there?” Dawn grumbled. “‘Read’? Any time someone reads one of them?”

“Yeah, still don’t see what the problem is,” Gina said, shaking her head.

Dawn clenched her teeth together so hard she thought they would crack.

Dani sighed. “I get it… Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin can’t read.”

Morgana glumly looked down and Dawn grimly nodded.

“Exactly,” she replied. “She can’t read. We have no idea if that transformation works on someone illiterate. Do they have to actually read the words? Or just look at them? I have no idea! And it’s not like we can test it out!”

“And no way Dakota would tell us,” Dani groaned. The host would probably love to see them try and fail and all get shot up by the assassin. It would make for great ratings.

Gina blinked. “Well, I can think of one person who would know for sure!” She said cheerfully. “Sylvia would know, right?”

The other three girls’ eyes widened as they all realized what she’d just suggested.

“Whoa, I didn’t even think of that, but you’re right,” Dani nodded.

“She came up with the transformation in the first place, so of course she would know,” Dawn murmured, stroking her chin. She’d gotten so used to Dakota being the host that it had completely slipped her mind that this was actually a punishment transformation from Sylvia.

Dawn smiled. “You know, Gina, you can actually be pretty clever sometimes, you know that?”

Gina beamed with pride. The spike of pleasure she’d gotten from that compliment might have been a step closer to her elimination, but it was definitely worth it.