There's a hard moon risin' on the streets tonight

Marley stiffened up with a jolt. “What was that just now?” She looked around, trying to dispel the uneasy feeling rising up in her chest. She could sense that her sister was having a lot of fun without her. And even if she was fine with that, it still made her feel a little jealous, not that she would ever admit that to anyone.

“Whoa, hey, watch it!” Rose snapped down at her. “Hold onto the ladder! Unlike you, I don’t splatter into slime when I fall, I actually break bones!”

“Oh, r-right, sorry,” Marley said, her cheeks flushing as she grabbed onto the ladder again to steady it. “Just had, a… a dizzy spell, I guess you could call it.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not like she can actually get hurt if she falls or anything, my girl,” Sylvia assured her daughter with a wave of her hand. “On Harem Hotel, the only injuries that you can sustain are sexy ones, she won’t break any bones.”

Ella was almost afraid to ask, “Uh… what’s a sexy injury?”

Sylvia shrugged. “You know. Like getting a splinter on your finger, and the other person having to sensually pull it out of you? Maybe with their teeth, then they put your finger in their mouth and tenderly-”

“Yeah, no, that sounds gross,” Marley said, shaking her head.

“Not to mention unsanitary,” Dawn said, crossing her arms over her chest.

Sylvia rolled her eyes. “Then, you know, soreness from getting spanked on the bottom a lot, I don’t care! I’m not exactly into that sort of thing myself, anyway!”

“Really?” Rose tittered as she hung up the red streamer in her hands. “I would have thought that someone trying to be a bratty daughter would enjoy having ‘Daddy’ give them a spanking!”

Sylvia looked coldly up at her. “…Marley, sweetie, can you give the ladder a shake for mommy, please?” She cooed.

“Whoa, hey, leggo, psycho!” Rose snapped down at her sister.

“I wasn’t going to do it, don’t get your panties in a twitch!” Marley groused at her.

“It’s ‘panties in a twist’,” Rose corrected her. “Mon dieu, you’re such a grandma.”

“Hey!” Marley glared up at her and Rose stuck her tongue down at her. Normally the two of them got along just fine, but now that Rose had become Marley’s new sister, they were feuding like no tomorrow with each other.

Dawn sighed in exasperation and shook her head. “Are you even wearing panties, Rose?” She questioned. “Because when I got my tail-”

“YES!” Rose snapped at her. “And before we start playing the comparison game, I’ll have you know, this is FAR more of a pain than YOUR tail, Dawn!”

She climbed down the ladder and swatted her hands together a couple of times. “Take a look!” She turned around and showed off her fluffy tail. “This thing is, like, the size of my head! Do you know how hard it is to put up with?! Aagh, I hate this transformation!”

“Really?” Sylvia asked. “But you look so pretty like this, Rose!”

Rose’s fox ears twitched and her face brightened. “Eh? You really think I look pretty?” She asked Sylvia hopefully.

“…She really is easy, wow,” Ella said incredulously.

Dawn nodded. “Yup, she really is.”

“Anyway!” Rose put her foot down. “It’s almost time for my party! And it’s my party! So, no more making fun of me, okay?! …I’m not going to cry or anything, but still!”

“Yeah, sorry, Rose, maybe I was going a little hard on you,” Sylvia apologized.

“I should have been more sensitive,” Dawn agreed. She walked over and patted her friend on the arm, offering her an apologetic smile. “I guess I forgot how inconvenient these were when I first got them. They’re so much a part of me now that it slips my mind occasionally, you know?”

Rose eyed her warily before nodding. “Yeah… I get that, Dawn, really, I do, it’s just, well…”

She bit her lip. Then, ultimately, decided not to say what she was going to say. “…Never mind.”

“At least your tail and ears aren’t erogenous zones,” Dawn pointed out, giving her tail a swish. She was still trying to make Rose feel better. “So, you’ve got that going for you!”

Rose let out an exasperated sigh. “Yeah, I guess…” she murmured, scratching her head. It still felt uncomfortable having her hair sheered short like this. “…But it’s still pretty crummy making me hang up all the high streamers on my party day!” She pouted.

The other girls all looked at each other, feeling a little guilty. Rose did raise a valid point, they had to admit.

“…We’re sorry, Rose,” Marley apologized. “Is there anything we can do to make it up to you before the party starts?”

Rose touched her super short hair and had a flash of brilliance. “Actually, yes, there is!” She exclaimed, giving her temporary sister a huge smile.

She held out her hand.

“Hand over your panties!”

Every other girl in the room froze stiff.

“Uh… what?” Marley stared at Rose incredulously as a blush slowly spread across her cheeks.

Dawn’s mouth fell open. “Rose, what the fuck?!” She screeched at the other girl, shaking her head. “Panties?! Huh!?”

“I-I don’t think that’s… you mean from all of us!? No way!” Ella grabbed her wrist and fretfully snapped her rubber-band.

“Thwap!”

“I’m not wearing panties,” Sylvia bluntly informed the other girl.

That earned a bunch of looks from everyone else again.

“…Okay, I should probably explain what I mean by that, huh…” Rose noted.

“Gee, you think?” Dawn’s eye twitched in irritation.

Marley was right there with her. “Rose, what do you want our panties for?” She asked, keeping her frustration in check.

Rose took out her bounty sheet and showed them the relevant portion. “I didn’t really look at the other stuff because I was so focused on the marriage part, but if you look at the other choices, it says it right here, you guys see?”

Collect Panties from Each Contestant for the Master – x200 BP (Can obtain multiple times, 200 BP per contestant.)

Ella’s face turned bright red. “Wait, what!?” She exclaimed.

“So, you don’t just want us to give you our panties… you want us to give you our panties so we can give them to Nick?” Dawn’s face was reddening as well. “Rose, that’s a little, uh…”

“I’m not even a contestant!” Marley flung the paper back in Rose’s face.

Rose blinked. “…Oh, yeah.”

She turned to the other three girls. “So, what about you three?”

“Why do you even want us to give our panties to Nick for such a paltry sum?” Dawn asked. “There’s gotta be another way we can help out, right?”

Rose shrugged. “I mean, sure, yeah, but I figured that if you guys each gave me panties, well, 600 BP isn’t nothing. My hair will grow out a bit!”

She scratched at her shorn head again. “I hate it when it gets this short, it’s basically a crew cut!” She complained. “And it makes my ears stand out even more! I just want to look my best for my party!”

Dawn could admit, Rose wasn’t wrong about that.

“Well, I’m in!” Sylvia chirped. “Happy to help, in fact! Just let me go get a pair of panties for you,” she hummed.

“Yeah, and go put some on!” Dawn shouted after her. She still couldn’t believe Sylvia was walking around going commando, but then, well, it did make sense for the former host in a way.

“I’m not giving you mine!” Ella snapped at Rose. “I didn’t even say anything that mean or that bad, either, so no way!”

She didn’t know why Nick would even WANT a pair of her panties! …Well, she could imagine, but that didn’t mean…

“…Just, no!” Ella put her foot down.

She snapped her rubber-band a couple of times to keep Cinder from jumping out and strangling Rose. “Thwap! Thwap!”

Rose let out an exasperated sigh. “Well, that just leaves you, Dawn,” she said, turning to the cat girl with a hopeful look in her eyes.

“…Oh, come on…” Dawn didn’t like that pleading expression, and she was pretty sure that Rose was just messing with her. But what exactly was she supposed to do? The other girl had her trapped!

Before she could find a way to actually address Rose’s request, the doors to the Banquet Hall swung open and a procession of three butlers walked into the room.

“We’re back!” Vivian chirped. “And we’ve got more decorations!”

Dawn made a quick escape over to greet them.

“You seem to be in a good mood, Vivian,” she noted, adjusting her glasses. “Something good happen?” Vivian was smiling a lot wider than she had been when she left.

Vivian glanced over at Kim, who looked away. There was an awkward atmosphere between the two women, but when was that ever not the case? Kim went off to go set down the boxes she was carrying, while Vivian turned back to Dawn with a soft expression on her face.

“We both just… felt a lot, that’s all,” she murmured. “Worked some stuff out, had a nice little chat, you know, girl things! Not a big deal! You know how I love the company of others!”

Vivian’s posh laugh was hiding something sincere, Dawn could tell. But she didn’t press the issue. It was private, after all.

Instead, she just smiled, and appreciated that they seemed to be getting along better with one another. That was good progress.

“So what’s up, you’ve got this place looking pretty nice, don’t you think, Octavia?” Vivian looked around and whistled.

“Indeed, Lady Carrington,” Octavia agreed with a nod. “The five of them did an excellent job. And you did as well, in my opinion. You should be commended for your contribution.”

“Hmm?” Vivian blinked. “But I wasn’t even here to help.”

Octavia nodded again. “Precisely my point.”

“Hey!” Vivian’s eye twitched.

Ella couldn’t help but giggle. She never in a million years could have imagined saying something so rude to her stepmother or stepsisters back when she was slaving away for them as the household’s maid.

Maybe if she’d had the courage to do so, things wouldn’t have turned out the way they had…

“So where’s Sylvia?” Kim asked, coming over to check in. “I don’t see her around. Is she off getting more decorations or something?”

“No,” Marley said, shaking her head. “Panties.”

Vivian and Kim stared at Marley in shock. Octavia remained completely unreadable.

Kim dug into her ear with her finger. “Sorry… I think I might have heard that wrong,” she said, staring at the other woman. “Did you say panties?”

“Yeah, what the heck?” Vivian agreed. “Explain.”

“Rose wanted them,” Ella volunteered.

That earned another set of stares from the two girls, this time aimed at a nonchalant Rose.

Then Kim and Vivian looked at each other, then back to Rose.

“…Explain more,” Kim said finally, still totally lost.

“It’s not what you guys are thinking!” Rose exclaimed, even though she had no idea what the two of them specifically might have been thinking. Her cheeks were bright red. “I just, well… it’s for my bounty sheet, okay? I need to get panties to give them to Nick, so I can get Bonus Points and grow my hair back out, that’s all!”

“That’s dumb,” Kim said automatically.

“You prance around in lingerie all day!” Rose pointed out.

“…Okay, fair,” Kim conceded. “Though it isn’t because I like it.”

Rose sighed. “Well… Vivian, can you help me out, at least?” She turned to the heiress with a hopeful look in her eyes.

“Eh… ehehe… uh…”

Vivian’s face was bright red. Dawn didn’t know what to make of the expression she was wearing, it actually left her momentarily taken aback.

“Vivian? You good?” Marley asked, concerned by the look on her face as well.

“You guys want… panties, for… for Nick, that, uh… wh-why not? I mean, it’s not totally abn-normal to give a guy panties or something, right?” Vivian stammered, waving her hands. “Not if it’s for a good reason or anything!”

That morning, Nick had mentioned getting Vivian’s help with a quest from Echo. But to spare her any embarrassment, he had been vague about the specifics.

Vivian may have been flustered like hell, but her brain was working quickly, realizing that Echo had probably put that little detail on Rose’s bounty sheet specifically as a dig against her!

“We can get you panties, Rose,” Dawn conceded finally. “But not the ones we’re wearing! That would just be gross!”

“Yeah, even that’s a little… over the line,” Kim agreed, unaware of the psychological damage she was inflicting on Vivian. “I mean, it’s not like they have to be used or anything, right?”

Rose checked the bounty sheet just to be sure, and then sighed in relief. “No, it looks like they don’t have to be,” she said.

That got a sigh of relief from a lot of other girls, too.

“Well… I still don’t want to,” Ella said, putting her foot down. She still didn’t think she did anything wrong, and this seemed really, really embarrassing!

Even if they weren’t the panties she was currently wearing, the idea of Nick having a pair of her panties, that was just… no!

“So what, you’re all just going to go get panties from your rooms and give them to Rose, then?” Marley questioned. “Because if you ask me, that’s a little… weird.”

The girls thought it over and were forced to agree, going specifically out to go get them also felt kind of off. It made the whole thing seem way more sleezy.

“I don’t have a problem with it!” Vivian said a little loudly. She was still bright red. “I can go to my room right now and get you some panties! Let’s-”

Kim sighed. “Vivian, stop talking.”

Vivian immediately shut her mouth and looked to Kim for reasoning. “…What? What did I say?” She asked worriedly.

“It’s not what you said, it’s what you were going to say,” Kim explained. “You were about to say something like ‘Let’s go!’ isn’t that right?”

Vivian nodded slowly. “Yeah…”

“That’s an order,” Kim pointed out. “If I went with you- which I have to do- I would have felt a burst of pleasure from that.”

Vivian had an ashen look on her face. She nodded, aghast. “Oooh, you’re right… sorry, Kim, I didn’t meant to-”

“No, it’s fine,” Kim assured her, interrupting her again in the process inadvertently. “Don’t worry about it, alright? Just be more careful.”

Dawn watched the whole exchange incredulously. “Which one of you is supposed to be the butler?” She joked.

Kim and Vivian shared an awkward look, and Dawn winced. Maybe this was a bit more complicated than she’d expected…

“I think, um… we should probably just go,” Kim said, before Vivian could say the same thing and have it be taken as an order.

“I can support that,” Vivian nodded. She turned to Dawn and gave her an apologetic smile. “Sorry, this whole thing is a little… awkward. We’re doing the best we can to make it work, though.”

Dawn shook her head. “No, it’s fine…”

“Yeah, we can tell it’s a weird shift for you guys,” Rose agreed. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Octavia!” Vivian turned to her actual butler. “Kim and I are going to go, can you stay and help Rose and the others decorate?”

“Yes, of course, Lady Carrington,” Octavia said, nodding.

Kim was surprised by the lack of backtalk from her. Apparently, Octavia was capable of following orders without sass.

With that settled, Vivian and Kim headed off, followed shortly by Dawn. That just left Rose with Ella and her sister, and Octavia of course.

“Okay!” Rose clapped her hands together. “Let’s get started! We’ve got a whole bunch of new decorations to get through, so let’s get through ‘em! …Only, I’ve been doing most of the decorating all morning, and this IS my party,” she pointed out.

Marley sighed. Her sister did raise a valid point.

“Fine… Ella and I can handle this ourselves, I guess,” she conceded.

Ella jumped. “Wait, what!? Why!?”

Marley looked at her questioningly. “Well, it needs to get done, doesn’t it?” She pointed out, and Ella couldn’t really refute that.

So, my choices were either give Nick my panties or help with all this crap… darn it! Did I make the wrong choice after all? She wondered. What would Cinder have done in this situation?

Ella paused as the thought crossed her mind, and felt a shiver roll down her spine.

What am I doing, thinking about that? She asked herself. Since when did I try to put myself in Cinder’s shoes like that?

She was Ella because she did her own thing. And she still could!

Ella resolved herself to get to work and try her best. It wasn’t like decorating would be that hard or anything.

“I’m back!” Sylvia pranced into the Banquet Hall with a pair of white lace panties in her hand. “And I brought underwear!”

Rose held back her laugh and Marley sighed in exasperation. Her mother really needed to learn to restrain her candor sometimes.

---

Sylvia wasn’t the only one to bring a pair of panties. Not too long after that, Dawn, Vivian, and Kim all returned with panties in hand. None of them seemed thrilled by the prospect. Vivian seemed the most shaken of all.

“It’s alright!” She said loudly, handing the panties over to Rose. “This may seem strange, but we have no reason to be ashamed, we’re just helping someone else out!”

“Yeah, we know,” Kim said. She raised her eyebrow. “You’ve been talking like that for a while now, Vivian. Everything alright?”

“Couldn’t be better!” Vivian said, wearing a forced smile that Kim saw right through, thanks to her many years of mastery over the field.

…But she didn’t really care. It wasn’t her problem.

All the girls handed their panties over to Rose to give to Nick.

“So how does this work?” Marley asked curiously. “Is it going to kick in immediately? Or do you have to actually physically give Nick the panties before the bounty sheet does anything?”

Rose wasn’t so sure herself. But a second later, she found out thanks to a shift in her BP.

Rose: 13700 BP + 800 BP =14500 BP

“…You have a lot of BP,” Dawn noted. “What are you even going to do with it?”

Rose tapped her chin thoughtfully as her hair lengthened a bit. Still nowhere close to what it used to be, but more of a pixie cut now than something shorn almost entirely off.

“…I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’ll have to think about it.”