If it's all a magnificent mistake, there goes the universe and its order

When the sun rose over the Proximity Palace, it did so shining down on Kim’s face, revealing the changes that she had gone through in the night. Although to call what her body underwent a change wasn’t quite accurate. If anything, it was a reversion.

Kim still possessed the upgraded transformation she received from Sylvia; she would keep that for several more hours. And the large breasts she’d received from Vivian the previous morning would last the entire rest of the round! …But they had still shrunk somewhat. The Soft as Silk transformation Dani had bestowed on her had passed the 12-hour mark she’d given it to Kim for. Across the island, Dani was waking up to find that her curves had been restored, and her hair was long and silky again.

At the same time, Kim’s hair was back to its ordinary choppy shortness.

The changes didn’t stop there. Her hips had slimmed down slightly, and with Gina’s Sweetcheeks transformation wearing off as well, her ass had gotten a not-insignificant reduction in size. And while Morgana’s transformation had left no changes to her body that could be observed on the surface, the fact that Kim had flopped over onto her back in the middle of the night and was still sleeping like a baby showed the effect it had had on her body. The soreness she’d sustained from Nick’s spankings was gone.

…But other changes were still present. Like the large breasts Vivian had given her, Kim’s backside still curved out in a soft, bouncy peach. Until Nick sank his teeth into it, the loss of Gina’s Sweetcheeks transformation wasn’t a considerable downgrade.

Something he found himself appreciating as he woke up to feel his palm sinking into something soft and supple. As his eyes adjusted to the sunlight he gave it a testing squeeze, and earned a moan for his troubles.

“Ohohm… oooh…”

Nick turned drearily over in bed, to see Kim’s snoozing face. Her cheeks had a light pink dusting across them and her soft lips were twisted into a silent moan. Then her eyes fluttered open and she gazed into his, realizing that he was still giving her a nice little squeeze.

“…Didn’t get enough of me… last night, eh…?” Kim’s attempt to be flirty so early in the morning was appreciated. But it was clear that she was pretty tired, and maybe forcing herself just a tiny bit. Not that she seemed to mind.

Stretching, she regretfully slipped her butt free of Nick’s groping caress, though noting with appreciation that she liked the way it felt with her butt in his hand. Her eyes slid over to his with a sly grin, and then she looked down at her naked figure.

“So… it looks like the transformations I borrowed have worn off,” she noted. “Not so bad. Don’t you think?” She posed, glad that she could sit down on her ass to do so now, and enjoyed the look of appreciation in Nick’s eyes.

“Yeah, you look great,” Nick agreed. “Though like I told you last night, Kim, it’s got nothing to do with any transformations you borrow. Whether it’s that slender, sporty girl, the voluptuousness from last night… or even back when we barely knew each other, I still thought you looked cute,” he assured her with a smile.

She smiled back at him. The pink on her cheeks darkened slightly to a dusty red.

Kim: 10500 BP + 500 BP = 11000 BP

Surprised, Kim checked her BP just to make sure those numbers were right. “Seriously? That’s it?” She groaned, scratching her newly re-shortened hair. “I only got 500 BP for last night? But I was loaned, like, three transformations!”

She did some quick math, as good as her sleepy brain could muster. After having to wake up in the middle of the night last night for a quickie- which had ended up morphing into an additional two rounds of sex until she got her numbers up satisfactorily- she had completely crashed, and was still dealing with the aftereffects. The transformation she’d borrowed from Morgana may have restored the physical damage her body had sustained, but when it came to fatigue that was an entirely different story, unfortunately.

Still- math wasn’t exactly hard.

“So I borrowed two transformations for 12 hours, and one for 6…” Kim rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “So does that mean if I borrow a transformation for 6 hours, I get 100 BP, and for 12 I get 200 BP? …Math says that’s about right, but…”

That didn’t sound like a very worthwhile reward.

“I mean, I guess it kind of makes sense,” Nick said, sitting up to join her. “IF you keep that transformation upgrade, you’d be able to use it a lot, right? It lets you borrow a transformation from each person once a round.”

“I guess so,” Kim conceded with a nod. “That’s 11 people, and if each one gives me a transformation… yeah, that’s a lot of money I could make off this if the numbers were higher. I guess to keep me from going nuts with this one, it’s only a meager gain.”

It kind of made sense that a transformation named “Just the Dregs” wouldn’t exactly be a lucrative side hustle.

“Very insightful, you two. I’m glad. And here I was expecting some complaining about being ripped off. Glad to see you’re such a sport about it, Kim. You know what they say- good sex has a way of clearing away the things that don’t really matter.”

Kim and Nick both jumped slightly in bed. They looked up to see Dakota leaning in the doorway of the bedroom with an amused smirk on her face, and glittering sheen in her golden eyes.

“…Oh, it’s you,” Kim said with an exasperated sigh. She rubbed her eyes again. “Let me guess… you’re here to see if I’ll take a Sick Day transformation, huh?”

Fat fucking chance. As long as the host still held a grudge, Kim might never use that transformation again. It was too risky. At least last round, Dakota was trying to use the carrot to coax her into seeing the temporary transformations as not a big deal. But that had been when their relationship was a neutral one.

It definitely wasn’t that any longer.

Dakota seemed unfazed. “Kim, Kim, Kim…” with a click of her tongue, she shook her head. “Look at you… sure, perhaps you met the letter of the law when it came to Morgana’s transformation asking for a ‘good night’s sleep’ but are you seriously going to sit there and tell me that you’re up for a hard day’s work after such a restless night?”

She shook her tongue like a disapproving mother. “Four times… now as the host of the show, I can’t exactly condemn behavior like that, but even I feel obligated to express my concern about your priorities. Weren’t you the one who encouraged Nick to get some rest yesterday?”

Kim leered at her. “Oh, yeah, I’m sure your heart is just bleeding for me,” she griped, rolling her eyes. “Like you actually care.”

“Of course I care,” Dakota sniffed. “Why not come over here and tell me I don’t to my face?”

Kim wanted to do just that. But she was so tired she could hardly stand. Honestly, what she wanted to do more than anything right now was go to sleep.

But that would be like letting Dakota win. Not an option. So she twisted her face into a hissing glare, and stuck out her tongue instead.

The concerned expression on Dakota’s face shifted into a smirk. “Fine, have it your way… if you’d rather not use your Sick Day, I can’t **** you…”

“Kim, maybe you should do it,” Nick said, intervening in the conversation for maybe the first time. Usually he let Kim handle matters related to her own work schedule, because he trusted her to be able to handle herself. But right now it seemed like Kim was just being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn.

From the tired look on her face, he REALLY thought that she should take today off and get some sleep.

Kim looked incredulously at Nick. Was he being serious right now?!

“Nick, you don’t get it!” She groaned, shaking her head. “Dakota, she’ll…”

“She’ll what?” Dakota sharply preempted the tomboy, glaring daggers at her.

Too late though. That little note had been enough for Nick to sense the tension between the two of them, and now he was fully engaged in the conversation.

“Kim, hold on a second,” he urged her, before turning to Dakota. He looked directly into her eyes, which made her shift in discomfort.

“Dakota…”

“…What?” Dakota asked.

Kim could at least appreciate how put off she seemed. Seeing her thrown off like that brought a smile to the tomboy’s face.

Nick’s expression was serious.

“Don’t screw her over on this,” he pleaded with the host. “Kim needs her rest. But she won’t take a Sick Day because she thinks you’re going to do something horrible and petty to her. I don’t know why she thinks that… but I really hope she’s wrong.”

He gazed sincerely into his eyes, hoping he could see a trace of the friend he knew in those glowing golden orbs. Usually, if he tried hard enough, he could see the girl underneath all the pain and hurt, under the mask of being a host.

But this time he saw only coldness.

And then he saw the regret.

“…What more does she want, anyway?” Dakota muttered through clenched teeth. “She’s already in first place now, have you forgotten?”

Kim blinked, confused for a moment. In her daze she’d forgotten some of what had transpired last night, or at least the consequences of it. “…Oh, yeah,” she mumbled, looking down at the number on her hand.

101 VP.

That was how many Victory Points Kim had accrued. It put her just ahead of Rose by a single point, cementing herself in first place in the leaderboard. And while getting to the top of the rankings last night had been a real pain in the ass (heh- she had to laugh at her own little joke) the effects hadn’t even carried over to this morning thanks to her schemes.

A sly smile crept up Dakota’s face, and she applauded the sleepy tomboy.

“I’m not surprised you’re so exhausted,” she murmured, eyeing Kim like a juicy steak. “With how hard you worked to earn your place in first… it really does seem like the perfect opportunity to just take a nice, long, relaxing rest, don’t you think so, Kim?”

Kim could see the merit in what Dakota was saying, and she would LOVE the opportunity to get a good night’s sleep if she was being honest.

But this was fucking Dakota she was talking about here. After everything that had gone down between them yesterday, that pasty-faced bitch had to be crazy if she thought Kim would EVER put her safety in Dakota’s hands.

Dakota, seeing that Kim wasn’t biting, just shrugged. “…Whatever. If you don’t want to take a Sick Day, that’s your choice,” she conceded. “I will say though, Kim, you’re not really thinking very long-term here.”

Kim scowled. “What’s THAT supposed to mean?” She asked, not liking the tone of Dakota’s voice.

The host smirked. “Well, just that if you’re really worried about what I might do to you… refraining from taking Sick Day transformations isn’t much better than a band-aid solution.”

“Dakota, stop talking to her like that,” Nick insisted. He was trying to stay neutral here, not wanting to defer too much to Kim in the hope that he could still reason with Dakota, but with the sneery tone in his old friend’s voice it really seemed like she was trying to goad Kim into doing something reckless. And he didn’t like the sound of that.

But he didn’t like the look on Dakota’s face when he spoke up to her, either.

“…Nick, it seems you don’t understand me,” she huffed, shaking her head. “I’m only trying to explain to Kim that her worries and fears aren’t exactly rational, in the grand scheme of things!”

The host placed her hands on her hips and turned to face Kim with all the regal authority she could project as the host of the show.

“If I wanted to screw you over, there are a thousand ways I could do that, none of which involve your consent,” she pointed out.

Kim looked incredulously at Dakota. Did she really think that was an argument that had any chance of changing her mind?

“…You’re fucking crazy,” she said finally, shaking her head in disbelief.

Dakota pouted. “…Maybe,” she conceded, shocking Nick and Kim both. “But you’re letting your ego get in the way of sense here. Fact is, you can barely stand.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Kim wasn’t going to be pushed around by the snooty woman. In a show of defiance she promptly hopped out of bed and crossed her arms over her chest, showing off her naked body in all its glory to the other girl.

Dakota raised her eyebrow.

“Well… perhaps I was wrong,” she admitted with a shrug. “At least you’re capable of standing on your own two feet.”

She picked up Kim’s discarded qipao and chucked it at the other girl. “So I’ll take it that you’re saying ‘no’ to taking a Sick Day. In that case-”

“Dakota, I think Kim just once wants some assurance that you’re not going to screw her over,” Nick interjected again, earning him a frustrated look from the host.

“…What more does she want from me in that regard?” Dakota asked, sounding a lot like the petulant child Nick remembered from his youth. “I already told her that it would be counterproductive for her to fight this fight in the first place, because I could screw her over whenever I wanted! Ergo, I would have no need to do so in this instance.”

Nick stared at his childhood friend.

“…Yeah I think she wants an assurance that sounds less like… a threat,” he said bluntly.

Dakota looked like she’d just swallowed mud.

“…Fiiiiiiiiine,” she sighed, rolling her eyes and turning to look at Kim with the speed of a woman drenched in molasses. “Kim… I promise that I will not ‘screw you over’ if you take a Sick Day transformation today.”

The little air quotes she made didn’t exactly reassure the exhausted tomboy.

“Define ‘screw me over’.”

Dakota rolled her eyes. She SO wasn’t in the mood for this.

“You can barely stand,” she grumbled. “I’m not going to give you some debilitating transformation that’s going to make things even worse for you. Nick is right. You need to get some rest. Just like he does. And you’re not going to get it at that job of yours. We just got in a new shipment of clothing, leftovers from what we couldn’t sell in our Halloween line.”

“But it’s the middle of summer,” Nick said, confused.

“Maybe on your earth,” Dakota sniped back at him. “We’re working on the interdimensional scale here. …But yes, the fact that it’s still summer is why we have such a robust surplus remaining.”

Even Kim had to crack a tired smile at that.

“…You’re telling me the truth, then?” She asked finally. The longer she spent awake, the less she wanted to be. Dakota was right about one thing- her body was screaming at her to get some fucking sleep, and she wasn’t listening to it like she should be. “You’re really not going to fuck me over on this one?”

“The master himself has asked me to cut you a break,” Dakota said, sounding genuinely contrite for maybe the first time Kim could remember. “I would never go against his direct request like that… not when it involves something like this. And frankly all that would accomplish is making you despise me even more.”

Kim could feel herself giving in… for better or worse. She still didn’t like the idea of trusting Dakota with anything.

But if she could trust one thing, it was Dakota’s feelings for Nick. True, the arrogant woman was a bully who delighted in flexing her power over innocent people- likely to make up for the powerlessness she felt when she was still alive. But Kim knew that Dakota wasn’t stupid.

Screwing Kim over, after promising Nick that she wouldn’t? No matter what grudge Dakota might have towards Kim, it was hard to believe that she would shoot herself in the foot so blatantly. The host would basically be saying “No, Nick, you can’t trust me. I will lie to your face solely to screw over someone you care about out of petty spite.”

Unless Dakota was so far off the deep end that she didn’t even care what Nick thought about her anymore, it was hard to imagine her making a choice like that.

So maybe this time… Kim could trust her.

“Thank you, Dakota,” Nick said sincerely. After hearing Dakota’s promise, any doubt in his heart was gone. He may not have fully trusted her good nature (whatever was left of it) but he knew she wasn’t lying right now.

Dakota gave him the faintest of smiles in return before turning back to Kim.

“…The choice is still yours, though,” she reminded the tomboy. “Are you going to take the Sick Day and get some rest, or not?”

Kim sighed. It was a risk, like everything that involved Dakota. But she couldn’t exactly back down here, could she?

“…Yeah,” she said finally, nodding. “I’ll take it. Or whatever.”

Dakota grinned from ear to ear and held up her cane. “Excellent! Then I hope you enjoy.”

With a flash, the light from her cane engulfed Kim. The tomboy expected the cane to unleash a new transformation on her, which was what Nick expected as well.

…But instead, Kim vanished completely.

“…What!? Kim!?” Nick scrambled out of bed and rushed over to the spot where Kim had been standing just seconds ago. But she was nowhere to be seen.

Hurt, betrayed, and enraged, Nick immediately turned on the host.

“Dakota!” He exclaimed. “You promised!”

“Hold on now,” Dakota said, raising her hands and taking a step back. “I’m a woman of my word. Trust me- I would never break my promise to you, Nick. Not one of them…” She held her hand over her chest and bowed.

“Then where is she?!” Nick demanded.

Dakota raised her head, a smirk emblazoned across her lips.

“…Somewhere she’ll be treated just as she deserves.”

Kim appeared in a shop that she didn’t recognize. Still tired and quite dizzy from her sudden transformation (and still naked) she had to lean against the counter to keep her balance as she tried to stop the room from spinning.

“What…” Kim blinked and tried to refocus. “Where am I…?”

“Welcome!” A pleasant voice chirped as a pink-haired figure that Kim initially mistook for Nola popped up in front of her. “Glad you could make it to my shop!”