I'm not in my subconscious, I'm conscious

Apprehension weighed heavily on Nick’s heart as he watched things play out.

“Morgana…” he murmured, his eyes tracking across the screens, following not one, not two, but three Morganas, all of whom looked completely distinct.

“Oh?” Of course, Mr. S didn’t fail to notice that. He crinkled his brown and smiled like a cat. “Yes, I thought that was quite a clever little trick on Dakota’s part,” he agreed, beaming at his masterpiece. “I’m so relieved to see that in spite of my harshness, you don’t fail to rise to the occasion when it’s called for, Dakota!”

Dakota tensed, and **** a calm smile to her lips, doing her best to look like she wasn’t intimidated by the man she absolutely couldn’t trust. “…Well, of course,” she said slyly, narrowing her eyes. “I have to keep bringing the surprises. This challenge has already gone on for far too long. Frankly, I’m surprised that the audience hasn’t lost interest.”

Nick and Mary both looked at her in alarm. That was a tricky statement for her to be making. Nick could sense the bluff in her words, but he was still shocked. The thought of Dakota taking a risk like that… it was insane!

Mr. S raised a curious eyebrow and leaned forward, studying Dakota’s firm expression with a careful eye. “Daring of you, to call your own skill into question. Fishing for compliments, are you? Well… perhaps I can oblige.”

He leaned back in his seat, drumming his fingers on the arm of his throne. “While you’ve certainly still retained the interest of the audience, it IS readily apparent that your efforts are beginning to lose their… potency,” he said judiciously. “While twists like draining some of Dawn’s intelligence or splitting one girl into three can be good for the shock of it, perhaps you’re biting off more than you can chew?”

Dakota flinched. But she tried not to look like she had.

Mr. S leaned forward, and for a second Dakota felt like he was right in front of her.

“If you can’t tie everything together in a neat little bow, that would be… unseemly,” he warned. “Continuously expanding the scope of the challenge to the point it becomes unwieldy and collapses in on itself… I certainly hope you will not allow such a thing to transpire.”

He clicked his tongue and shook his head. “No, certainly not.”

Dakota grimaced. But there was nothing she could say in response. Sighing, she clenched and unclenched her fist, forcing herself to calm down.

“…I will not fail to disappoint,” she assured her boss with a calculated smile.

“Dakota…” Nick could tell how much Dakota was struggling. He wanted to support her, but he wasn’t sure how he could.

Then Dakota’s eyes landed on his and he flinched. The way she was looking at him in that moment… it made everything freeze around him. Nick had a total lack of regard for his surroundings, meaning he couldn’t notice Mary shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

She looked at her husband and bit her lip, rubbing her legs together. Her heart pounded with worry in her chest. I hope this is over soon, she thought, worry and anxiety blossoming in her chest.

---

“Man, how long is this challenge going to go on for?” Kim groaned in irritation, scratching her short hair. “It feels like we’ve been walking for days! I’ve worked some tedious jobs in my day, but this is just a total freaking pain!”

Kim was eternally grateful that Dani had helped her build up her endurance so much. She liked nature walks as much as the next person and had gotten used to being on her feet for long stretches of time due to her part-time jobs, but if she still had the body she did back when she first came to this island, she would have probably collapsed by now.

“It hasn’t been days,” Dawn said, shaking her head. She squinted and tried to concentrate. “It’s only been, um… a few hours… maybe… maybe half a day? I think…”

“You’re assuming that time flows the same in each part of the maze, though,” Kim pointed out. “Maybe for you it’s only been part of your morning, while the section we were in was slowed down or something so we’ve been wandering around for over a day. I mean, Dakota has complete control over this stupid place, right? Who knows what she’s capable of.”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin nodded in agreement. She didn’t have the first clue herself how long they’d been stuck here for, but if Kim was getting frustrated and tired she was always willing to step in.

Dawn looked down, her cheeks red. “I-I should have thought of that,” she muttered, scratching her ears. “It didn’t even occur to me… damn…”

Kim looked warily at the other girl and sighed under her breath. She felt so bad for Dawn like this. It was clear that she was still the same rational, competent woman Kim had looked up to since coming to the island, and as far as Kim was concerned, she was still brilliant. Sure, maybe she wasn’t the super-genius that she used to be, but Kim was fairly confident that she was still the smartest woman in the hallway right now, if not the smartest woman on the island.

Then again, Kim wasn’t actually in Dawn’s head. So she had no way of knowing just what was going through the other woman’s mind. Biting her lip, she wished there was something she could do to help her…

But anything she could think of to say would just sound patronizing.

So she decided to go for the opposite approach. Instead of telling Dawn how smart and clever she was, Kim went the other way with it.

“So how did it happen?” Kim asked, slowing down her walking pace so she was abreast with Dawn. (Figuratively speaking- with Dawn’s enhanced assets, that proved a difficult ask.) “What did it feel like, huh?”

Dawn blinked and raised her head, looking at the other woman. “What did… what feel like?” She questioned.

“You know, the, um…” Kim tapped the side of her head, finding it embarrassing to ask directly. “Brain… stuff.”

Goddamn it.

Dawn blinked. Her cheeks reddened and her tail began flicking behind her. “Oh, um… th-that… yeah…” she stammered out, adjusting her glasses with one hand while straightening her bangs with the other. Her cat ears twitched wildly on her head as her human ears burned scarlet.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin leaned forward, quite intrigued herself. Which only made the pressure building up around Dawn even more intense.

Luckily, she was in the perfect state of mind to not overthink things and get all self-conscious.

“It felt really weird,” she groaned, shaking her head. “Like… REALLY weird.”

Kim blinked. She’d kind of figured that out.

“It’s like… like I told you before,” Dawn said with a sigh. “I’m still me, I’m still… kind of smart, but-”

“Very smart,” Kim sharply interjected.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin nodded in agreement.

Dawn felt a little better hearing that, but only a little. She sighed and scratched her cheek. “But… it’s like… I’m a little numb. I remember once, when I went into surgery as a kid to have my wisdom teeth removed-”

“You had your wisdom teeth removed?” Kim blurted out, her eyes widening. “Wait, but then why are you still so smart then?”

Dawn squinted at her, crinkling her nose. She wasn’t sure if Kim was serious or not.

“…Sorry,” Kim apologized, blushing. “Lame joke. You can go on now.”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “…Thanks. So like I was saying, when they put me under to do the operation, I can remember that it felt all weird. Like my brain was floating away. And, like, I’m a little kid, so this is the first major surgery I’ve had, right? So I’ve never been under general anesthesia before. But it felt kind of like this, I think. Like part of me is here and part of me isn’t, and if I try to think too hard, it’s like going down a rabbit hole…”

“Kinda like when you’re trying to remember the tune of a song you heard on the radio but the melody and the words just won’t come to you?” Kim suggested. “You know it’s a real song and you can remember it, but you can’t really remember it?”

Dawn raised her head and looked at her. “…That doesn’t happen to me,” she bluntly replied. “But that does sound exactly like what I’m feeling right now.”

Kim nodded. That made sense to her. “Well, that sounds really weird,” she said. “I’m glad I never had my wisdom teeth taken out. Or had any other reason to go under that stuff. I like my brains just the way they are!”

She winced and looked at Dawn. “Um, no offense. Like I said, I think you’re still really smart, Dawn, I just, well…”

“No, like I said, it’s fine,” Dawn cut her off, waving her hand. “But you never got your wisdom teeth taken out?”

Kim snorted and rolled her eyes. “Seriously? Please, I’ve never even gone to the dentist!” She said with a laugh.

Dawn’s mouth hurt just hearing that. “Seriously? Never?”

Kim shrugged. “With what insurance?”

Ouch. Poor girl.

“I’m surprised your teeth haven’t rotted in your mouth,” Dawn blurted out. Then she turned red with shock. “Err, that… that came out wrong…”

“No, it’s fine, I mean, I still brush and floss and all that,” Kim assured her. “Gotta take of them even harder since I know I can’t get some ‘general anesthesia’ for mouth surgery or whatevs.”

She was mostly taking the piss out of Dawn for kicks, but she was also sincere. Dawn could hear the sting in her voice.

“But what if you get a cavity?” Dawn fretted. “Look, when we get back home, I’ll pay to send you to the dentist, Kim!”

Kim appreciated the gesture. “What cavities? I don’t eat enough junk food for that,” she pointed out. Or regular food, for that matter.

Dawn bit her lip. Maybe there was something she could say that would sound helpful and that Kim could latch onto, but her brain was too tied in knots at the moment for that.

“Anyway… I appreciate the gesture, Dawn,” Kim said sincerely, giving the other woman a smile. “Really, it means the world to me.”

Dawn shyly smiled back. This was nice. Having a nice conversation with Kim, a girl she hardly ever got the chance to spend time with, it really took her mind off…

“…Oh gosh!” Dawn gasped, covering her mouth. Her ears stood up in shock. “We- we haven’t even been paying attention to where we’re going!” She looked frantically around the maze, but absolutely nothing looked familiar.

“Shit, you’re right,” Kim realized. She’d been so caught up in the conversation that she’d barely been paying attention herself.

“How could I be so stupid?!” Dawn bemoaned, rapping her fingers against the side of her head. “I never would have messed up like this with my normal brain!”

“Sure you could’ve,” Kim said, trying to help. She probably could have picked a better method of support though. “I mean, anyone can get distracted. We were hanging out and having a good time, it’s no big deal! All we need to do is call up the map again, right?”

Dawn took a second to breathe, and nodded. Thinking clearly, she knew that Kim was right. They just needed to not lose their cool, and see the map again. Easy. No trouble at all, really!

“Right,” she agreed. “I’ll… I’ll do it. Since it was my fault and every-THIIIIIIIINNNNNGGG!!” Her sentence ended in an erotic moan as jolt of pleasure shot through her tail and up into her brain, pushing her into an orgasm as she felt a bolt of electricity strike her nervous system as a result of the fingers wrapped tightly around the furry appendage.

Dawn nearly fell over, but she had enough presence of mind to turn her head and see Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin standing behind her with a bright smile on her face… and a firm grip on the girl’s tail.

Dawn gasped. “Aug-Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin?” She stammered out.

Kim winced. “Geez, warn a girl next time!” She chastised her friend. “She’s really sensitive there, you know.”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin turned to Kim, an innocent expression on her face.

She tightened her grip and sent another jolt of pleasure through Dawn’s body, pushing her to orgasm again.

“Hyaah!” Dawn moaned, her eyes rolling back into her head.

Through the pleasure of her synapses firing, Dawn had the vague thought that she saw a look of spiteful triumph in the assassin’s eye. Along with copious amounts of jealousy.

Damn, should have figured, Dawn thought, exasperated. Her roommate was getting possessive since Dawn was spending so much time talking with Kim.

Talk about a pain.

Luckily, the orgasms went as quickly as they came, and as they lingered in Dawn’s body, the map lingered in her head.

Her brain wasn’t what it used to be, but Kim was right- she had more than enough power up there to memorize a simple map.

“Okay, I… I know where to go,” she said, catching her breath. She led the way, turning down a side tunnel with Kim and Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin right on her wagging tail.

And at least the assassin had let it go. That was nice of her.

“Here we go…” Dawn bristled at what she saw. The glass door in front of them… it was wide open! Steam was leaking out of the room behind it, slowly filling the hallway around them. That was a first. Usually the doors were supposed to be closed, right? This must have meant that someone had already gotten here first!

Dawn’s eyes leapt to Kim, not ready to make that connection all by herself yet. She still didn’t fully trust her brain. But the way Kim looked back at her signaled that the tomboy agreed with Dawn’s estimation.

“You think someone’s in there already?” Kim asked hopefully.

Dawn nodded. “I’d say so. Let’s see who it is.”

She pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped into the chamber. Immediately she was greeted with a blast of hot air and humidity.

“It’s a greenhouse,” Kim recognized, looking around in amazement at all the plants. “There’s a greenhouse in here…”

“Be careful,” Dawn warned both girls, but Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin in particular. The nosy killer was already poking a bulbous plant with a curious finger. “It’s likely that these plants are all like the ones we’ve already seen on this island… probably loaded with aphrodisiacs or even worse.”

Kim remembered the transformations that the girls in the Garden Suite had gone through as a result of some of their plant purchases. She shuddered and shook her head. “Yeah, I agree,” she murmured, biting her lip.

“We should be on the lookout for a way through here,” Dawn said, scanning the parts of the greenhouse walls she could see among the foliage, trying to find a door out of this place.

But before any of them could spot an exit their thoughts were interrupted by a passionate moan that made Dawn’s tail stand on end.

---

“Alone again, huh?” Vivian looked down the long corridor where Cinder had run down with a wistful expression on her face. She sighed and shook her head. Most people would have likely given chase, running after the angry girl to try and work things out with her.

Not Vivian, though.

Cinder had made herself very clear. She wanted nothing to do with Vivian. Ella had made things even clearer.

When both sides of a person were telling you to get lost, there wasn’t much reason to continue pursuing them.

“I’m sorry,” Vivian muttered as she took the first turn she could find, refusing to follow Cinder directly even if the other girl was heading the right way. That would just invite more awkwardness and discomfort.

If Vivian wanted a chance of ever becoming friends with the other girl, she would need to be sensitive to when she needed space. But she was fairly certain that ship had already sailed.

“If I’m by myself… then I should probably find people to team up with, right?” Vivian reasoned as she headed down the hall. “…But what would even be the point? I mean… it’s not like I have anything to bring to the table as a teammate…”

She’d tried so hard to show her value to everyone, from Nick, to her fellow contestants, and even to the audience themselves. And in the end she was right back where she started, all alone with no benefits to speak of.

“The only thing the audience even gave me was this outfit,” she said, looking down at her clothes. “And I’m not even sure what it’s supposed to be!”

She tugged on the hem of her tanktop.

As she did, she had a flash of realization. “Wait, if it’s a costume, then…”

Vivian had completely forgotten about her transformations. And she had one that was just perfect for this! She checked the wording of her transformation just to be sure.

• Dressed for the Part: Vivian has a lot of experience, but no boss knows how to do everything. Well, until now, that is. Whenever Vivian dresses up in the stereotypical style of a specific career or fashion subculture, she will instinctively know all relevant skills and details corresponding to that outfit, and feel compelled to behave accordingly. (Fashionista)

“Instinctively, huh?” Vivian murmured. She was always good about trusting her instincts. Except when her instincts made her say insensitive and harsh things that would upset the people she was trying to befriend. Then maybe she shouldn’t trust her instincts…

As Vivian contemplated her costume and what it could accomplish, it suddenly became apparent to her. “This is… a treasure hunting outfit! An archaeologist!”

All the relevant skills for navigating a labyrinth like this immediately made themselves apparent to Vivian. As she went over what she was capable of now in her head, she couldn’t help but smile with glee, her eyes shining brightly.

“Oh yeah… I got this,” she said, picking up the pace with a swagger in her step as she headed down the hall, thinking about what to do next.

What will Vivian run into?

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