Down in the Underground, a land serene

“This place is really fucking weird,” Gina said, looking around the room she and her group had found themselves in. “Very ‘horror movie’ if you get my drift.”

Kim looked blankly at the punk girl. “Sorry, uh… I don’t have a lot of free time for watching movies,” the tomboy said, scratching her cheek. “What are you talking about right now?” Yeah, the room was bizarre- the walls had this twisted, “plastic perfection” vibe to them, that just felt off. And that wasn’t the worst of it. The parts that weren’t completely glossed over were strained and fractured, like splinters. It was like some bizarre hand had tried to assemble a dollhouse, but was so clumsy they kept breaking the pieces but had tried to **** them into place anyway.

That was it, a dollhouse. That’s what this reminded Kim of. She had never been one for playing with dolls before (her family couldn’t afford them, and even if they could have, she would have been too busy working) but this reminded her of those plastic dollhouses that she’d see in the department stores and toy shops that she’d worked at, right down to the color scheme.

Gina picked up a plastic teacup off the table. Empty, just like the pot beside it. All decorative. All staged. Like someone was putting up a display for them.

“Definitely the kind of vibe you’d expect from a creepy-as-fuck maze like this,” she muttered, shaking her head and putting the cup back down.

Was it even part of the maze, though? The hair on the back of Gina’s neck was standing on end, and she honestly wasn’t sure that she could say it was.

Something about it just felt wrong. But she couldn’t put her finger on what that was, not specifically, anyway. But the vibes… not good vibes.

Kim may not have been a fan of horror movies, but Gina thought they were awesome. And the halls they’d passed to get to this room were definitely reminding her of setting foot in a creepy, twisted prelude to the serial killer showing up and hacking them all to bits. Like they were inside “Night of the Living Dollhouse 5”, only instead of a group of buxom co-eds, they were a group of buxom adults.

…Well, two buxom adults and Kim. Who wasn’t quite old or buxom enough to fit either category in Gina’s opinion.

“Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin knows what I’m talking about, she watched a bunch of horror movies, right?” Gina laughed, trying to keep things light. She turned her head, and froze.

Their companion hadn’t just been being her usual quiet self, which both girls had assumed had been the case. Oh, she was certainly silent, but one look at her and both Kim and Gina could tell something was very, very wrong.

For one thing, she wasn’t smiling. Most of the time, Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin had a very playful smile on her face.

Right now, she had a stony visage and piercing eyes, and her fingers were wrapped so tightly around the handle of her umbrella she seemed liable to snap the damn thing in two. It was the trained stance of a woman ready to strike.

But neither of them felt any aggression or hostility coming from the assassin. She was focusing her ire on them in the slightest, no, her eyes were on anything but the two of them. They were calmly scanning across the room, like she was waiting for something to jump out and attack.

Immediately Kim and Gina stopped joking around. Whatever this was… it was serious.

“Hey… m-maybe we should get out of here,” Kim suggested, not trying to seem like she was scared, but not knowing how else she should be feeling.

Luckily, Gina didn’t give her grief for it. The other girl was on the same page.

“Yeah, took the words right out of my mouth,” she muttered with a nod. “Let’s get out of here.”

Both girls looked to Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin again, but it was unnecessary. She was already heading for the door.

The only problem was that they were still stuck in the labyrinth. And as they tried to retrace their steps and go back the way they came, they found themselves only getting more lost. And with the uneasy tension in the atmosphere, no one was thinking about orgasming for a map at a time like this, that was for sure.

Gina and Kim just silently hoped that whatever was going on here, it wouldn’t be a big deal. Just all part of the challenge, right?

---

“What did you do?” Dakota’s voice was like ice, and yet burned like fire as she turned to the producer with a smoldering glare on her face.

Nick, Mary, and Holly jumped in surprise, not expecting a sudden reaction like that from Dakota. They’d been trying to watch the events play out in front of them, from Dani and Ella getting tangled up in vines to Dawn, Carly, and Marley stumbling on the hidden bazaar, but Dakota’s accusation sent a chill through the air that shattered their complacency.

Mr. S’s unreadable face slowly twisted into a grin. “Oh?” He blinked and leaned back in his chair, hands extended and palms facing the sky. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Dakota?” Nick asked worriedly.

Mary bit her lip. “Is something wrong?”

Dakota didn’t answer. It was as if she didn’t even hear their words. She just continued to glare at the man in front of her, seething.

“First Amelia… now Gina, Kim, and Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin… what are you playing at here, huh!?” She shouted.

Nick recognized that tone. It shook him to the core. When Dakota spoke like that, it was an emergency. It meant something was happening that wasn’t going according to her plan, and when THAT happened, things REALLY got bad.

But Mr. S just looked at Dakota like she was an energized, yapping puppy. He didn’t take her seriously at all.

“I’m the host of this show!” Dakota fiercely asserted herself. “I should have total control over this island! I should be able to see every corner of it if I try, but right now-!”

She waved her cane frantically and summoned a black screen. It crackled with static and then shut off, like a television that just expired.

“Why can’t I see what’s happening with them!?” Dakota demanded. “This is MY challenge! But entire portions of my maze- they’ve been cut off from me entirely! What are you doing!? I thought the point of this challenge was to prove my worth?! So why-?! Why would you interfere like this?!” She roared, stomping her heeled foot like a tantruming child.

Mr. S drew in a long intake of air, even though he had no need to breathe. Slowly he rose to his feet, looming over the host.

Daunted, Dakota shrank back. Nick was stunned. He had never seen her retreat before.

“This is your challenge,” Mr. S stated, his voice as far from soothing as possible even while sounding as smooth as silk. “You have complete control.”

Dakota’s eyes narrowed and she squeezed her cane. “No,” she hissed, glaring at the smirking, unrecognizable face of the man in front of her. “I don’t.”

“Your challenge was certainly impressive,” Mr. S noted, not bothering to address her response. “You’re engaging with the audience just like I hoped you would, and they seem quite taken with your idea. I might go so far as to say it’s your finest challenge of this season. Really, Dakota- you should be proud of your accomplishment.”

His words weren’t matching his actions.

“Then why-!?” Dakota nearly exploded. Only her survival instincts were keeping her temper in check at this point, and it was getting harder and harder for her to even do that.

“Think of it as my gift to you,” Mr. S said, flashing a slimy smile that sent shivers down Dakota’s spine. “A little bit of… anarchy. A small little disruption in your perfectly-crafted maze. Now I know, that doesn’t quite seem fair… but believe me, my dear, it’s better this way.”

He leaned forward, his eyes twinkling. “I promise, you won’t want to miss the surprise.”

Dakota started grinding her teeth together. Ever second that passed, more and more of her maze was disappearing from sight. Like a virus or a cancer spreading across the map, and even if she tried to shift around it, it didn’t matter.

Whatever it was, it only continued to grow.

“This isn’t fair!” Mary blurted out, jumping to her feet. “Dakota really put a lot of work into this challenge, and just ruining it like this-!”

“I’m not ruining anything,” Mr. S cut her off sharply. He turned his gaze onto Mary and she immediately turned to stone. “I told you, I just introduced a little variable. Your dear friend here brought in all sorts of outside help, that siren, and our dear Little Miss, of course. And who knows what other guests she has waiting in the wings? I simply decided that if she could have fun on those terms, there was nothing wrong with doing the very same thing myself. Don’t you agree? So I sent in a bit of support of my own choosing… someone who’s just dying to make an impression. She’s the one responsible for what happens down there… in her little dollhouse.”

Dakota’s eye twitched. “Of all the-! Introducing something like that into MY challenge and then blaming ME if it doesn’t go over well with the audience… how could you!?” She exclaimed. “It isn’t… this… this isn’t FAIR!”

Her voice cracked. Nick was certain that if this was the old Dakota, she would start crying at any moment.

But she wasn’t.

Mr. S slowly turned back to Dakota, and stroked his chin.

“You don’t remember her?” Mr. S actually seemed surprised for a moment. “Oh, that poor girl… she’ll be brokenhearted when she finds out. After all… she’s been waiting for SUCH a long time to finally reunite with you… I hope she isn’t too torn up when she hears you’ve forgotten her. She… might not respond well, shall we say…”

Even Dakota looked chilled by that response.

Nick bit his lip. “Dakota…”

---

“Okay, fuck this place, fuck the everloving FUCK out of this place,” Gina said, looking at yet another empty room. If this whole section of the maze wasn’t creepy enough as it was, she’d found the part of the dollhouse where the dolls were kept, evidently.

They were all stacked up in neat little rows on shelves, lining each wall of the wide bedroom. And all of their heads were turned towards the door, looking right at the three of them.

“We need to get out of here,” Kim urged, tugging on Gina’s handcuff.

Like the punk girl needed to be convinced.

“Ugh… I’m really in no mood for this, but you’re right, we don’t have a choice,” Gina muttered, shaking her head. “Okay, I’m gonna bring myself to orgasm, and see if we can find a map out of this place, alright, Kim?”

Kim nodded. It was embarrassing, but it was their best option. “Right, I think-”

“Also, I need you to start complimenting me, okay?”

The tomboy blinked. “…Huh?”

“It’s my transformation,” Gina prodded her. “Damned by Faint Praise! Nick isn’t here to use Trigger Word, so this is the only option right now. The more compliments you give me, the quicker I’ll be able to finish!” She already was working on getting her torn jeans down her legs. “Then we’ll be able to get outta here!”

It was a solid plan. But it was also a plan that had Kim completely flustered, and she looked at her friend in embarrassment.

But since Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin couldn’t talk, it wasn’t like they had any other options, now did they?

The middle of the hallway might not have been the best place to do this, but given the current situation it could have gone worse.

“Okay, um…” Kim struggled to come up with compliments that could get Gina’s engine going. “You… uh… the way you, um, take charge with confidence, that’s… pretty cool…”

“Mmmf, fuck, yeah… thanks, that’s great,” Gina moaned, her fingers going wild. “Keep going, keep going!” She urged the other girl.

“R-right! Uh… so I think…”

But Kim’s voice died in her throat and her face went pale. Down the hall, at the turn they’d just made, she could see a shadow spread across the far wall. It was moving, bobbing slowly as it approached, and it made Kim’s blood run cold in her veins.

“Shishishishiiii…”

A haunting laugh echoed through the air, and Gina yanked her hand away from her nethers with a gasp. Staggering backwards while trying to pull her pants back up, she landed on her ass, never more grateful for the cushioning than she felt right now.

The shadow was getting bigger and the voice was getting closer.

Kim knew she had to run. But she was rooted in place. Despite her lack of experience with horror movies, she was keenly aware that, right now, she was right smack in the middle of one.

And it terrified her to the bone.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin could move, though. But she wasn’t moving to run like the two girls desperately wanted to do, just the opposite. She launched herself forward, umbrella brandished, and placed herself squarely between Gina and Kim, and whatever or whoever it was that was coming down the hall.

As the shadow grew bigger and stepped in sight, Kim had a faint hope in the back of her mind that this was all one big misunderstanding and that it was one of the others. Rose, maybe, pulling one of her pranks, or Sylvia, clueless to how her actions might be taken.

In that moment, Kim would have even been happy to see Vivian. She would have thrown her arms around the heiress in a big hug.

But no. The figure who stepped out to greet them was no one Kim had ever seen before.

It was a girl. Young, maybe younger than Kim, it was hard to say, because her face was pale and her eyes were two blue pits in her skull, sunken deep into her face while the rest of her was twisted into a bizarre grin. Her hair was stringy and knotted like unkempt straw, rolling in tangles down her back and bobbing with her as she bounced from foot to foot, giggling to herself with a maddening gleam in her eyes.

Her clothes were shabby. A fancy dress, but one that looked like it had been patched up and stitched together more times than anyone could count. And as the humming figure drew nearer to the girls, her frightening appearance a stark contrast to the bright hallway, she raised her slender hand and brandished an object that froze Gina and Kim in place.

A pair of rusty scissors.

“Shishishi…” the strange girl giggled. “Shishishishi!”

Kim and Gina were paralyzed.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin was not. The trained killer didn’t need to question or interrogate, she just moved. Leaping forward she raised her umbrella and swung it at the girl without a second thought.

It passed right by her as she sliced through the air.

This girl… she wasn’t just strange. She moved faster than even the assassin, bringing her scissors up and aiming right for the mute girl’s chest.

If it had been anyone else, she would have scored a direct hit. But Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin was no ordinary woman, and she deftly evaded the strike. The strange girl’s scissors only managed to shave off a few shreds of her outfit.

The assassin began grinding her teeth in frustration and lunged with her umbrella again, swinging it like a bat at the small girl’s legs. Again, she missed completely.

Kim was in a daze. She had no idea what was going on or who that was who was attacking them, and she certainly had no idea what she should do about it.

It was only when she felt Gina’s fingers wrap tightly around her wrist, pulling her hard, that she snapped out of her shock.

“Come on!” The punk girl practically screamed in her face, startling her. “We need to get out of here! Kim, COME ON!”

Kim couldn’t take her eyes off of the assassin’s figure as she grappled with the willowy girl. Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin’s chest had slimmed down considerably, which meant that she had used quite a lot of her stored-up nanomachines already just to keep going. It seemed insane, but… was she actually being outfought by this girl?

How was that even possible?

Then, Kim’s eyes met the blue eyes of her friend, and she saw the urgency in the other woman’s fierce gaze.

“RUN!” Her eyes seemed to scream, and that finally broke the trance for her. She turned and followed after Gina, running with all her might. She only just barely managed to look back in time to see Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin finally land a blow on the other girl, practically launching her down the hall with her enhanced strength.

Somehow, Kim didn’t think it would be enough.

---

Amelia was not having a good time. Her arms were very sore. Perhaps it was because she was being hung from the ceiling by her wrists, meaning all the extra weight she was carrying in her rear end was now dragging her down.

But somehow she suspected that this would be just as uncomfortable even with her usual proportions.

“What’s going on here?” She muttered. “How… how did this happen?”

Amelia had no idea where she was. She could hardly make out anything in this dimly-lit basement. She shook her wrists against her manacles, but to no effect.

She was stuck.

“Damn it…” she cursed, shaking her head in dismay. It was a rare bit of profanity from the woman.

Suddenly a crack of light pierced through the room and Amelia winced, shielding her eyes as the door to the basement swung open.

“Shishishishi… hello… I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long…”

It was her. The strange girl who’d captured her and brought her here.

“Who are you?” Amelia demanded. “Are you one of Dakota’s obstacles? Is that why you-!”

“HUSH!” The woman roared from the top of the stairs. Amelia could feel the room practically throbbing with her anger. “Don’t you mention her name! You do NOT get to mention her name!”

Her voice was normally the scratchy sound of spiders across the floorboards. But now it erupted with a fury so violent it sent a shiver down Amelia’s spine.

She couldn’t even craft a proper response. All she could do was look weakly up at her captor, framed in light.

Having calmed herself, the woman stepped forward, descending the stairs with creaks and groans that made the whole room feel like it was going to break apart.

Amelia could just barely make out the twisted smirk on the woman’s face.

“I brought you a friend,” she cooed. “She’s not doing a lot of talking… but she’ll keep you company… shishishishi…!”

Amelia gasped as the **** body of Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin was thrown at her feet.