Live Buckshot Roulette

Noah found herself in a strange place after being grabbed. She was surrounded by a small army of mannequins, of the type used to test firearms or other violent implements, not the kind one sees in a department store. Oozing through the room, the slime girl saw the edge of the mirror maze she had just been in, but from a different angle than when they had arrived. This revelation caused the slime girl to think back on her flawed plan of hiding atop the mirrors. Her slimy nature had wrecked it because could never prevent her body from at least partially dripping down, which meant even if the monster hadn't been traversing the mirrors, she would've been easy to spot.

"Alright Noah, how about you meet up with the rest of us?" The demon's voice asked, and unlike in the mirror maze, the direction it came from was clear.

Once Noah oozed her way over to where the demon was, she saw Janessa, Z, and Nox sitting on a bench near a small table. On the table was a pump action shotgun near eight shotgun shells. As the slime girl got closer, she recognized the shotgun as a Remington 870, and she started to see more details about the shotgun shells. She saw that there were four red shells with a brass base, and four blue shells with a grey base. The red shells she recognized as real buckshot, but what were the other four?

"Excellent for you to join us," the demon said. "As you can see, there are eight shells on the table. Four are red, and four are blue. The blue shells are fake, the red shells are real. Now, are you familiar with Buckshot Roulette?"

"Yes," Noah said as the slime girl made her way over to the bench. "Saw some streamers I liked play it. The basic idea is each of us takes turns either shooting ourselves or each other with a shotgun. If we shoot ourselves with a dud we get an extra turn, whereas if you shoot your opponent with a dud, you have to pass the shotgun to them. However, I'm pretty sure we're not supposed to kill each other on Harem Hotel?"

"Indeed not," the demon replied while walking over to the group. "When a lethal round leaves the chamber, in the split second before you would be hit, you will instead be teleported back to the meeting room, and be given your final BP amount for both activities. I'll even repair any hearing damage you take from the gunshot."

"The game also allowed the player to take multiple lethal shots depending on the stage of the game they were in," Noah said. "Does that apply here?"

"No, a single lethal hit will end the game for you," the demon said. "Even if you are a creature that is bulletproof. Also, unlike in that game, there will not be any items at any stage here, just you, and your ability to distract your opponent perhaps while deciding whether to shoot yourself or your opponent."

That statement about being bulletproof caused the demon to give a look to both Noah and Z. But really, outside of Nox, all of them could be bulletproof. The slime girl suspected the angel could use magic, or the equipment she sometimes saw the angel summon, to laugh off something like 00 buckshot. For most of the them, the shotgun wasn't lethal, but rather, was a test. For her, it was a test of whether she had conquered any leftover fears she had from once being human. Although given the slime girl had already done that in both the last challenge, and the last BP event, she suspected the demon had something else in mind as well.

"The last difference, and this is important," the demon said as she went to pickup the shotgun on the table. "You will see me load the first four shells, unlike in the game this contest is based on. I suggest you pay very close attention, and remember the order the shells were loaded in. Now, first up: Noah and Janessa. Whoever survives this round goes onto face the next contestant."

So there it was. This contest wouldn't simply be a game of raw probability, but rather of memory under stress, and of trying to get your opponent to forget critical information. These thoughts went through Noah's mind as she oozed towards the table with the shotgun shells still on it. The demon removed the chair on the slime girl's side of the table, while Janessa went to sit down across from her.

"Remember, pay very close attention," the demon said. "I will not slow down."

Noah took her warning seriously, and watched the demon's hand load the shells very, very fast. The slime girl managed to catch the two dud rounds were inserted first, to ensure that whoever got the shotgun first didn't just immediately use it to kill their opponent. Then one live round, and one dud. After that, the demon turned around, and nobody could see what was loaded in next. The final four rounds would be a probability game, but the first four... that she could do something with. The question was whether she got it first, or if Janessa got it first.

"Let the games begin," the demon said before announcing the first one with the shotgun. "Noah."

This would be easy, all Noah had to do was grab the shotgun, and fire it at herself twice. All that Janessa Smith could do was try to get the slime to forget, and she wasn't **** to such tricks. She didn't even to harden her hands anymore to grab the shotgun, although did so anyway to get a better grip, and brought it to her side of the table.

"Well, I guess you will win, huh?" Janessa put her hands on the table, and tried to manipulate her, but the tactic was too ****. "I wonder whether it was one dud or two?"

She ignored the angel's taunting, and put the barrel under her head. Noah had already put her head into a buzzsaw, pulling the trigger on a firearm wasn't going to be any harder than that, even with the high temperature. So she pulled the trigger, and sure enough, all that happened was a click. The slime girl racked the slide, ejected the dud, and prepared to pull the trigger again, but then the demon said something that interrupted her smooth plan.

"Remember that in the game after every shot, you must put the shotgun back on the table," the demon announced. "I'll forgive this because I can understand why it'd be unclear, and because I didn't explain that beforehand. But, going forwards, there will be penalties."

The slime girl sighed, and laid the shotgun back on the table while Smith tried again. "You're just a good rule follower, aren't you?"

Smith wanted to provoke her, but she was bad at it, because had no practice. She was used to her authority being enough to upset people or set them on edge. If anything, she was the one that got provoked as a human, and handed out bullshit punishments for it. Noah had once been scared by being given a detention for a sarcastic remark until hearing that such bullshit was commonplace when Smith was involved. All of it meant that in a contest relying on making an opponent forget something, she had nothing.

Noah picked up the shotgun again, pointed the barrel at her own head even faster, and pulled the trigger. Another click as nothing happened, another rack slide ejecting a useless dud, and once again having to put the shotgun on the table. However, the demon said nothing about the speed at which she could do those actions, so before Janessa could say anything else, the slime girl picked up the gun again, and fired at the angel. The sound was deafening, and the flash **** her to close her eyes, but she had succeeded...

"For the purposes of this contest, a dyad is a single contestant who has two lives," the demon announced. "With that in mind, can Nox come to face Noah next?"

The goblin swallowed, but did as she was told. Her ears were still ringing from the shotgun blast, and while Janessa hadn't been hit, the chair she had sat in was. The holes from the buckshot were of no comfort to the goblin while she went to face Noah. This was made even harder because the demon took the shotgun, and fired all the remaining rounds in quick succession, causing the goblin to jump every time another live round went off.

Then the demon loaded eight fresh rounds. Nox paid as best attention as they could, and the first four rounds were all blue... which meant they were all duds. Assuming it was a 50/50 split like last time, all someone had to do to win was fire the shotgun at themselves four times. Could she do it? She tried to psych herself up, but also knew it was quite possible that Noah would get the shotgun first instead.

"Nox, the gun is yours." The demon said before going back to observing them.

Psyching herself up, Nox grabbed the shotgun, maneuvered it under her head, and then realized she didn't quite have a way of pulling the trigger. Her arms couldn't quite reach. So she put the shotgun back on the table and took her shoes off, something that took long enough that Noah took advantage.

"So, Hanson," Noah said. "Do you remember who I used to be?"

Nox didn't take the bait, as with her right shoe off, she could figure this one out. The goblin took the shotgun off the table, and brought it down so that the big toe she had on her right foot could pull the trigger. She got the gun in place, and pulled the trigger.

"Great job!" Noah yelled, and managed to disorient the goblin.

As Nox put the shotgun back, Noah continued. "Really great job, now maybe you can pass a class without bullying someone to do your homework for you. Oh wait, you probably just use ChatGPT for that now, right?"

This time, Nox didn't take the bait, as she grabbed the shotgun again, and went through the procedure of getting her toe into the trigger guard so once again, she could pull the trigger, hearing another click.

"Like look, I knew how to deal with you, and I even tried to help Felix on it," Noah said as the goblin once again set the shotgun back on the table. "But Felix was just too good of a guy, and you couldn't let that stand, could you?"

That just caused Nox to glare at Noah, while once again, the goblin went through the same tedious procedure. Why did she have to set the gun back on the table every fucking time?

"You must be so impatient," Noah said. "Must be so hard to go from having everything just given to you by your father and then go here where... well, I think we know how things are going, don't we?"

Another click, another setting the gun back on the table. Nox tried something sneaky, as after all, the demon didn't say you had to remove your hands-"

"Hands off, Nox," the demon said. "I think just for that Noah gets the gun now."

"Wha... she broke-" Nox tried to whine.

"Ah ah, the slime girl was unsure about how we were going to translate something from the game, and I hadn't made the rule explicit yet," The demon said. "You tried to find a loophole because you were frustrated."

That was it. Nox was going to lose because she tried to save a few seconds on the fucking procedure they had to go through. Once again, she was going to suffer because of her new goblin body making everything harder. It was enough to reduce her to tears while Noah just laughed while grabbing the shotgun.

"Damn Hanson," Noah said. "I didn't even think that was going to work, yet here we are."

The slime girl pulled the trigger while aimed at her own head, there was another click, the shotgun was racked one more time, and Noah returned the shotgun to the table. She got her hands all the way off of it before grabbing it again. All Nox could do was watch as the gun was aimed at her.

"But seriously, fuck you Hanson." Noah said with an icy rage before pulling the trigger.

Nox didn't even hear much of the shot. One second she was in the damn room with the mannequins, the next she was in the meeting room. No BP score yet, presumably because the oni hadn't gotten done yet. Did she even want to know what Z would do once she got back?

Z approached the table, and sat on the chair that at this point had become a short stool from having the back blown off of by buckshot. The same process with the remaining rounds being fired repeated itself. Then a fresh batch of new shells were loaded, with three duds, a live round, and then the demon turned around to hide the rest.

"I played Russian roulette once," Z said. "I told them to use the biggest magnum they could find so the round would kill me instantly rather than risk it turning me into a brain dead vegetable."

It was a story the oni shared often, and it helped that it was true. She told it not out of bravado, but to explain her priorities in life. Z knew she was headed to an early grave, but she refused to allow the fear of **** to hold her back. Nor would she let herself get brain damaged, and then put in some lab to be cutup so that humans could figure out how she worked. However, things were different now because her world was being overrun by nature, and humanity was on the backfoot, ready to be dominated by monsters again. Oh how she wish she could be there to drive in the knife.

Instead, once loaded, she picked up the shotgun, and spent little time aiming it at her own head and then pulled the trigger. An unsatisfying click, a racked slide, and Z returned it to the table.

"My regeneration might have prevented that, but I wasn't sure," Z said as she picked up the shotgun again. "Now it would, but then my body is immune to bullets anyway, especially my skull, so it doesn't matter."

Another empty click, another racked slide, and the oni placed the shotgun back on the table. "The point is, I don't fear ****. I only fear being a ****."

"How do you stand it?" Noah asked as Z picked up the shotgun for the last time. "You're part of a human man's hare-"

Z interrupted Noah's argument with a shotgun blast. There was a reason she could deal with that, but the slime girl didn't need to know. At least not yet...