Well, I'm back in black, yes, I'm back in black

It took a second to sort everything out. Rose got off of Mary without crushing her, and Gina rolled lazily off of Dawn.

For Kim and Nick, though, things weren’t as easy.

Huh… what? Nick stared at Kim for a second, wondering where she’d come from. The last thing he remembered they were running through the forest.

And then… wait, there was a ledge there… we must have fallen off, and… what’s this? His hand was wrapped around something soft and warm. He gave it an experimental squeeze, not sure what it could be.

“Haahn…!” Kim gasped, and her cheeks flushed. Nick immediately knew what he was holding before the words flashed before his eyes to confirm it.

Master Touched Her Boobs! +2 VP

“A-Ah! Sorry!” Nick exclaimed, practically flinging himself off her. He reddened with shame as he looked away, unable to bear her flustered state.

“It… don’t worry, um, it’s fine,” Kim mumbled, standing up and straightening out her uniform. Feeling Nick grope her had actually felt pretty good, but that was something she would be keeping to herself. They shared a look, both silently agreeing to not say another word.

Holly made no such promise.

“Oh my gosh!” She squealed. “It’s like something out of a romcom manga! He fell onto you and groped your boobs, how lucky!”

She squirmed in place, her face flushed with desire. “Ah… if only I was in your place… but I don’t deserve such a thing…”

“Holly, snap out of it!” Rose grabbed her partner's attention, helping Mary up to her feet. She glanced at the redhead’s belt, and they both gasped.

“Y-Your cards!” Mary’s jaw dropped. She yanked her hand away from Rose.

When Rose had crashed into her like that, Mary’s fingers must have brushed up against the other woman’s belt when she tried to break her fall. As a result of that, she’d managed to grab Rose’s two Aces on accident.

“I-I didn’t mean to-!” Mary moved to return the cards, but Rose held her hand up and shook her head. She didn't really want them anyway.

“I think we have more pressing issues right now,” she frowned, glancing at Gina and Dawn. Gina had basically flattened the smaller girl, and was just now standing up. Dawn crawled to her feet as well, and when she saw the other girl, her face went white.

“No…” Dawn’s hand shot down to her belt, where her cards should have been. They were all there… except one.

“NO!”

“Ugh, my head… stop yelling already!” Gina grumbled. “What’s the big deal?” She rubbed her aching head, and felt something strange in her hand. She took a look at what it was, and gasped.

“Give it back!” Dawn shouted, lunging at Gina. “NOW!”

But it was too late. The Seven of Spades in Gina’s hand began to glow, along with the other Sevens on her belt. The cards started shining, combining together into a box in Gina's hand.

All strength left Dawn’s body and she collapsed back to the ground, staring helplessly up at her “buddy” who had just locked herself into getting a set of Sevens due to nothing more than simple dumb luck.

It wasn’t fair.

“Hey, uh, look, I’m sorry,” Gina said lamely. She did actually feel a little bad about the whole thing. “It was an accident…”

“Just forget it,” Dawn spat, fighting back tears. “Forget it!”

She didn’t even care at this point. Dani had stolen her Eight. Her conscience had made her return the Queen. And finally, Gina had come out of nowhere and snagged her last hope right out from under her. What was even the point?

“Listen, we can’t stay here,” Nick said, glancing up at the ledge. He didn’t know how much longer they’d have until the slime creatures caught up to them. “I can’t explain everything now, but we need to get as far away from here as possible.”

“Huh? Why?” Kim asked. “Wait, why are you all together anyway? And why did you come falling off that cliff?! That was really dangerous, weren’t you looking where you were going?”

“Long story. Short version? Slime girls are chasing us,” Nick sighed. “They melt clothes and drink sexual fluids, and they’re after my semen.”

Kim stared blankly at him, then turned to Holly with an “is he serious?” look on her face.

“He’s telling the truth,” Holly nodded.

“That’s crazy!” Dawn exclaimed. “Slime girls?! No such thing exists! I’ve never heard of it!”

“Well, I’d never heard of some creepy lady with a cane teleporting us to an island, but that didn’t stop her,” Gina scowled. Dawn didn’t even look at her she was so upset with her buddy.

“I believe him,” Mary said. She stared at Nick with unshakable faith. “Nick would never lie.”

Nick had, in fact, told many lies in his life. So many that the fact Mary believed in him so absolutely actually felt like a smack in the face.

It became a moot point about a second later because one of those slime girls tumbled off the ledge, splattering on the ground in front of them. Her head was the first thing to form out of the puddle, blankly at the group as the rest of her body began to reconstitute itself.

“Okay, yeah, slime girls. Totally real. You convinced me.” Dawn changed her attitude on a dime, and moved to run. But she winced. “Aargh! Ow!”

“Dawn? What’s wrong?” Nick cried.

“It’s… fuck. It’s my ankle,” she groaned. “I must have twisted it when I fell, I don’t think I can run…”

That was bad. The first slime girl was already moving towards them, fully reformed, and more were following her off the ledge. This was a really bad time to not be able to run.

“I’ve got you!” Rose hoisted Dawn up with one arm.

“H-Hey! Put me down! Don’t carry me like this!” Dawn squirmed.

“Save it! You wanna deal with those things? Guys, get moving!” Rose shouted to the other girls. Her superhuman strength was causing her to be a lot more confident and aggressive, and she found herself liking the thrill. The seven of them ran down the trail with the slime girls in hot pursuit.

“We need to split up!” Nick shouted when they reached the clearing at the bottom. “Lure these things in as many directions as possible!”

“No, we need to do just the opposite,” Rose shouted back. “Dakota had the right idea! We’ve gotta hold them off!”

Nick stared incredulously at her. Sure, Rose had super strength. But the rest of their party consisted of a guy (the only man among them) who’d spent the last five years of his life as a recluse, a girl barely out of high school, a woman who, if her right arm was uncovered would besiege everybody with a deluge unstoppable sexual fantasies, a farm girl who would become petrified with shame the second any of that gunk melted her clothes, and finally two shorties with the combined weight of a woodland critter.

Not the most tempting of prospects.

“Um, I vote for running, not fighting,” Gina said.

“I second that!” Kim nodded frantically. If these things could really melt clothing, with her total lack of fighting ability there was a real chance she’d be showing Nick all her special areas. Which was something she’d been hoping to save for if they ever made it to the bedroom. Heck, at this rate, we might not even make it out of the forest.

“It’ll be fine,” Rose assured them. “Look over there.”

She used her free hand to point back the way they came. At the mouth of the trail was a large sheer rock face, the base of the mountain, and a large boulder was on the other side of it, forming the tight passage they’d all just squeezed through.

“What are you saying?” Nick asked.

“It’s a bottleneck,” Dawn realized. “Those things have to get through that gap to get to us. As long as we can keep them in there, they won’t be able to surround us and we can take them down.”

“That’s the idea, yeah,” Rose said. “But I don’t mean all of us.”

She nodded to Nick.

“You guys, get out of here,” she shouted over to him. The slime girls had almost reached the mouth of the gap. “I can take care of this.”

“Wait! Don’t I get a vote in this?!” Dawn exclaimed, pounding frantically on Rose’s back. The others were only a few yards ahead, but with her foot in the state it was, that might as well have been miles away.

Rose glanced at her. “You’re like, part cat, right?”

“Huh?” Dawn didn’t like the way she’d asked that question, or the mischievous gleam in her eye.

“Well, cats always land on their feet, yeah? So this should be fine.”

Dawn’s eyes widened in horror. “Wait, no, don’t even think about it!”

Rose turned, and using her super strength she chucked Dawn across the clearing.

“UWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!” Dawn screamed as she soared through the air. She landed in Nick’s arms. It turned out that Rose had phenomenal aim.

“Take Dawn and get moving. I’ll buy as much time as possible,” Rose called over her shoulder. “With my speed, I should be able to catch up to you before these gals can overwhelm me.”

She grabbed a branch off of one of the trees, and like Dakota before her, broke it off as a weapon.

“Are you sure this is okay?” Nick called back. He really felt like he should stay behind to help.

“It’s fine,” Rose said, twirling the stick in her hands with shocking skill. With fluid movement she sliced through the first slime girl to reach her, shattering the core and spraying her gunk across the rock wall. “I never mentioned it before, but I'm qualified to do all my own stunts!”

She took up a martial arts stance, wielding the gnarled branch like a bo staff.

Mary glanced back, and frowned. Then, to everyone’s surprise, she turned and ran back to Rose.

“Mary?! What are you doing?!” Kim exclaimed. “We need to go!”

“I-I gotta give Rose her cards back!” Mary cried. “It was an accident, so-!”

“Just keep ‘em, geez!” Rose groaned when the redhead reached her. “They’re Aces anyway, who needs ‘em?! Hurry up and get lost!”

She swung wide, splattering another slime girl and stepping out of the way of the explosion of splooge. But she probably should have been a little more careful, because a big glob of the stuff ended up spraying out and landing right on the front of Mary’s dress.

Mary’s eyes widened in horror as her breasts were exposed to the world for the second time in as many challenges.

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

The redhead’s shrill scream nearly burst Rose’s eardrums. Mary wrapped her hands tightly over her boobs and shot past the others like a bullet, fleeing into the forest. Gina and Kim followed after her, and Holly glanced back warily.

“Thank you!” She shouted to Rose.

“Are you sure you’ll catch up with us?” Nick demanded.

Rose just waved, not even looking back.

Nick sighed. There was nothing else he could do. He shifted the way he was holding Dawn, and ran after the others.

Princess Carry! +1 VP

First! x2 Multiplier

“I do not consent to this!” Dawn hissed, her face bright red. But in spite of her furious expression, her tail was wiggling back and forth in excitement. “Do you hear me?! I do not consent to these points! These are points acquired under false pretenses!”

“Phew… ha… that should be… far enough… I think they’re gone…”

Dani was out of breath. Which was quite a feat, given what good shape she was in. But even she could only run while carrying another girl for so long.

Nick was lucky that Dawn was so light; if he’d had to carry Carly like that, he probably would have died.

“Thanks for this…” Carly said as Dani set her down. They’d run for quite some time, and had made it to the river. “It really means a lot to me.”

“Yeah, no… no problem,” Dani muttered, shaking her head. She **** herself to smile. “What else could I do? Just leave you there? You’re my buddy, I had to save you.”

Carly nodded. She stared down at the water, her face red with shame.

“I’m sorry… it’s my fault we’re all in this mess. I got too greedy, and I grabbed all those boxes… and now, look at this!”

She smacked the water, displacing her reflection.

Dani sighed, crouching down next to Carly as the water cleared. She stared at both of their faces for a second, then put a comforting hand on the other woman’s shoulder.

“Look, you never would have expected that opening those boxes would send all those slime girls after us,” she said gently. “You were just playing the game. And hey, you’re not the only one who did something stupid because she got greedy, you know. Look at this.”

She flashed the Eight of Spades to Carly.

“This right here? I stole this. From Dawn.”

Carly gasped. “What? Why?!”

Dani winced at the pain in her friend’s voice. “Because I was stupid,” she muttered. “It was early in the game, and I’d already gotten two cards that were really high value. And I saw a third, and I just thought… ‘well, if I get this one, too, I’m in perfect shape!’ But the thing is… I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It is part of the game,” Carly said, trying to make her friend feel better. “I don’t think it’s SUCH a bad thing to take cards from other people with the way this thing is set up.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I think I should be better than that,” Dani groused, punching her own reflection. She didn’t hold back, either, sending a spray of water over them. Whoops.

Carly laughed, wiping her face. “Yeah, I guess… I guess so. Sylvia clearly wants to use this game to turn us against each other. But… why would you do it? It’s not like you need the immunity. I already told you, I’m picking you for my buddy.”

Dani shook her head. “It wasn’t about that. It was about the points. I wanted to get as high of a score as I possibly could. Because the more Victory Points I have, the less stuff I have to do with Nick, you know?”

“…Ah…” Carly hadn’t even thought about that.

“You’re at the top of the point total,” Dani continued. “And it’s because you slept with him, right? But if I do that… well, I mean, it’s not like I haven’t slept with guys before. And as much as I’d hate it, I probably could have **** myself to go through with it under normal circumstances. But with my punishment…”

“That’s right…” Carly nodded. “Anything you and Nick do together, you’ll have to relive in your dreams. So if you have sex…”

“I don’t want to do anything with him,” Dani said adamantly. “And that's why I wanted to get as many Victory Points as possible.”

And that's why I'm such a fucking jerk, she silently chastised herself.

Carly considered her friend's position for a while.

“Then… here.”

She handed Dani the Jack of Diamonds.

Dani gasped. “C-Carly, no, this is…”

“This is my card,” Carly stated simply. “The Jack of Diamonds. I want you to have it.”

“B-But…”

“Like you said, I’m in first right now. Though I imagine that’ll change by the end of this challenge… still, I don’t need points as badly as you do,” Carly said, shaking her head. “So take it. Get as far ahead as you need to, so you won’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“Carly…” Dani felt genuinely touched that her friend would look out for her like this.

“B-Besides, well… it’s the least you deserve,” Carly continued. “After all… you saved me from that slime thing, right? You didn’t care that you could get sucked up by it, you lunged right in and pulled me out. You were so heroic… so, here.”

Dani couldn’t refuse the card, not with Carly staring at her so adamantly. She nodded, taking the Jack from her.

“And, um… one more thing, too,” Carly added. She leaned in and placed a delicate kiss on Dani’s cheek. “Thank you.”

“Uuuuuhhh…” Dani needed a second to process that. Her face felt like it was on fire, except for the spot where Carly’s lips had touched. Then the last thing she knew was that the world around her was spinning.

“Dani?!” Carly exclaimed as her friend faceplanted into the river.

“Blurbglglle…” Dani bubbled, too out of it from the kiss to comprehend.

Nick and the others broke out of the forest and arrived at a wide open field. He gasped when he saw where they were. This is…

“That park again,” Holly muttered, looking around as they approached. “Rose and I came this way trying to get to the hotel! We’ve walked in a big circle! Is this the fucking center of the island or something?! Geez!”

Everyone tensed. That should mean they were even closer to the slime girls. But they couldn’t see any trace of the slimy Carly knockoffs.

“Park? Why’s there a park here?” Gina asked, completely ambivalent to the danger they were in.

Dawn slapped her hand against her face and groaned. “Were you not paying attention to ANYONE ELSE’S dates two weeks ago?”

“Uh… no,” Gina shook her head.

Dawn sighed in exasperation.

“It’s too much. I can’t deal with this. Set me down, Nick, let the slime girls get me.”

“Come on, don’t be ridiculous,” Nick said, carrying her towards the playground. As they approached, everyone’s Radar Systems began to go off.

“There’s a card here!” Kim gasped.

“But didn’t you guys come here already?” Nick glanced at Holly.

“Yeah, there is, and yes, we did,” Holly nodded. “But it’s so low-value, we didn’t bother grabbing it.”

“What?” Mary gasped, horrified. She clutched Gina’s cardigan. Thankfully, Gina was nice enough to shed her outer layer to help preserve Mary’s modesty. The wool tickled her exposed breasts and it wasn’t nearly as nice as if she’d been wearing her dress, but at least she wasn’t flashing her enlarged boobs to anybody.

“But… it’s still a card, right? You didn’t have to throw it away! Every card is valuable, you should have kept it!”

Holly winced under her friend's accusatory tone.

“What are you blaming her for?” Dawn scoffed. “It’s just good strategy.”

“Listen, guys,” Nick said, setting Dawn down on the steps of the play structure. “I think we need to have a talk about our strategy.”

“What’s there to talk about?” Gina groaned. “We’re going to find all the cards, while dodging those slime things. And we can start with the one over here.”

“But we have no idea where the remaining cards are,” Kim reminded them. “Well, except for this one.”

Nick picked up the Ace of Spades that Dakota, and then Rose, had tossed into the woodchips. “With this, there should be ten cards left,” he said, glancing up at the screen hovering above them.

“Three of Hearts, Three of Diamonds, Four of Clubs, Four of Hearts, Six of Spades, Six of Clubs, Eight of Diamonds, Jack of Hearts, Queen of Spades, Queen of Hearts,” Dawn listed off immediately. She didn’t even have to look at the scoreboard, she’d already memorized what everyone had.

“Mary and I have practically torn this entire island apart,” Kim said glumly. “We can’t find any more boxes.”

“Rose and I did the same,” Holly nodded. “I don’t think there are any left in the wild.”

Nick frowned. “So that just leaves the hotel, then. The last ten cards have got to be there somewhere.”

“Do we even know if Sylvia hid cards in the hotel?” Mary asked.

“Carly came from there,” Nick said. “She had the Jack of Diamonds with her. She might have found it on the way there, though.”

“It’s a gamble we’ll have to take,” Dawn sighed, though she was loathe to use that word. What does it even matter at this point? I’ve lost this game anyway.

The pain in her ankle had started to go away, but she still felt miserable.

Nick had an idea. It was risky, but it was the best he could come up with.

“I think we should wait here, actually,” he told everyone. “And wait for everyone else to find us. Rose and Dani especially. We’ll need their strength if we want to get to the hotel through an army of those slime girls.”

“Is that really the best idea?” Kim winced. “This island is pretty big, I don’t think they’d find us here.”

“And this place isn’t exactly a fortress,” Gina muttered. “Take a look around, besides this playground it’s just grass as far as the eye can see!”

“That’s a good thing,” Nick corrected her. “All this open space means we’ll see those things coming a mile away. We’ll know when it’s time to pack up and run.”

He turned to Kim. “As for what you were saying… here.”

Nick handed her the Ace of Spades.

“Huh? What’s this for?” Kim asked, taking the Ace.

Nick pointed up at the scoreboard, and everyone was still confused.

“It’s a signal,” Dawn muttered, glancing at Nick. He nodded in confirmation.

“Holly, you said you and Rose came here already, right?”

Holly nodded. “Yeah. We found that card. It was already open, though.”

“Then that means Dakota or Dani must have been the one to find it first,” Nick said. “Which means Rose and someone else knows where the Ace of Spades should be. Which means now they know where Kim is, since it looks like she just picked it up.”

“I get it!” Kim gasped. She passed the card over to Holly. “So we just pass it around to everyone!”

“That’s right,” Nick nodded. “We give the Ace to everybody, and it sends a signal ‘we’re all here at the park’ to the others. Then we just have to hope that whoever’s left finds their way here, I guess.”

Mary winced. “But, um… what about me?” She gestured to the other three Aces on her belt. “If I get the card…”

“We’ll just give it to you last,” Gina said, snatching the card from Mary and handing it to Dawn. “It’s not like anyone else cares about the Aces, right?”

Dawn stared at the Ace in her hand, and glanced at Mary. In theory, she could have taken the rest of the girl’s cards, and banked the points. Maybe if it was another set she would have risked antagonizing the others over it. But the Aces? Who cared about those? 4 points was basically nothing compared to the 36 points Gina had amassed.

“I guess you deserve it,” she muttered, tossing the card to Mary. “Seeing as how you’ve been clinging onto that Ace the whole game.”

Mary was the only one who actually treated the Aces like actual cards, and not a burden to discard. Nick felt that was why she deserved to complete the set. Mary picked the card up off the ground and it began to glow, spinning around her.

The cards formed a box. Mary opened it, and found a tiny figuring of Sylvia carved out of gold.

She stared at the statue in confusion.

“…Huh?” She mumbled, raising her eyebrow. Then she checked the note enclosed within, and the shock was so overwhelming she practically dropped the box.

“What’s it say?” Kim asked, peeking over her shoulder. When she saw what the note read, her mouth fell open.

Trembling, Mary read it aloud.

Ace in the Hole: This totem can be used before an elimination one time to **** the user’s current Buddy to spare them from elimination. (Totem may be traded but cannot be lost or stolen)

Mary took the golden statue out of the box, and stared at it in awe. It disappeared in her fingers for parts unknown.

“Wait, so that’s… dude!” Gina gasped.

“Mary got a ‘get out of elimination free card’?!” Holly exclaimed, her jaw falling open.

The redhead didn’t know what to say. She’d been the only one not to throw away the Aces, and because of that, she now got immunity?

“W-Wow…”

Dawn clenched her teeth. Immunity. Fucking immunity. The most popular girl on the island, best friends with everyone and a buddy who would never kick her out, and she gets fucking immunity to boot. She doesn’t need that sort of thing! I should have been the one to get that! I’m the one who needs to make it to the next round, not her!

It was enough to make her want to cry. But she couldn’t cry. She refused. That would be like admitting defeat.

“I guess with this, all we can do is wait,” Nick said.

Then Gina gasped.

“Shit! I totally forgot!”

She held up her own box. In the heat of the moment, running all the way here, it had completely slipped everyone’s mind that before the slime girls attacked, Gina had received a reward of her own for completing the set of Sevens.

“Well, come on, open it already,” Kim said, excited to see what was inside. Mary and Holly were also curious, while a bitter Dawn glowered at the other girl.

“Okay, I guess!” Gina laughed, ignoring her buddy’s bad mood. She was swept up in the moment. She opened the box, and everyone received proof immediately that this was supernatural in origin.

Because inside the box, which again, was barely larger than Gina’s hand, emerged a woman in a bunny girl outfit.

The buxom bunny looked like she should be dealing cards at a skeevy casino or on stage at a magic show. Her outfit was a black and red checkerboard pattern, with dark tights and high-heeled shoes. One side of her hair was layered red, and the other black, and she wore a black and red domino mask over her eyes. To go along with her outfit's color scheme, one eye was red, the other was black.

The girls and Nick all gasped. Even Dawn was stunned.

“Greetings!” She waved to everyone, her furry ears twitching. For a second, Nick wondered if they were real. She turned to Gina. “Pleasure to meet you! My name is Jackie Seven! And I’m here to explain how this little reward of yours is going to work!”

She winked and stepped back, pulling a sheet of white cloth out of thin air. She draped it over thin air and yet it still took shape, capturing the appearance of something underneath. With a tug she removed the cloth, and a gold slot machine appeared in front of her.

“Do I, like, get money or something?” Gina asked excitedly.

Jackie shook her head. “Not at all!” She giggled. “No, you get something much, much better! You get a chance to play for the jackpot!”

Words flashed into the air in front of the machine.

Jackpot: The Contestant will get the chance to relinquish one of her transformations. She will permanently lose one of her transformations, and in its place, receive one from a list of randomly-selected transformations. (The new transformation will be selected at the next transformation vote)

“No way!” Mary gasped.

“So what, it’s like… I get a do-over?” Gina stared at the bunny girl, still not sure what was happening.

“You betcha!” Jackie winked. “Which of your transformations would you like to replace? It can be any of them, even your punishment!”

Gina glanced down at her right arm. Without her cardigan on, looking at it flooded her mind with all manner of sexual fantasies, and she quickly yanked it away, turning red.

“Gina, you really need to think carefully about this,” Holly urged her.

“Holly’s right,” Nick agreed. “This is really serious. You can get rid of any of your transformations. Like that punishment. It’s really debilitating. The others, they’re a lot safer.”

“I would vote for that one, too,” Mary agreed.

“Yeah,” Gina mumbled, staring numbly at the slot machine.

“Well?” Jackie asked. “You don’t even need to say it. Just mentally make the decision, and we’ll be done here for now!”

Gina nodded, but she still couldn’t make a decision.

There were too many people in her head right now.

She saw Dakota, calling her out for just being led around and not actually making any real decisions for herself. Then there were Rose and Holly, who told her that it was okay to not be a “good girl”, that she could just be herself, too.

Then there were her parents. Her mom and dad, who cared about her, but in the end, had given up on her because she didn’t fit their ideal of a “perfect daughter”.

She wanted to be a good girl. She wanted to be the kind of girl her parents would accept. The kind of girl Nick would love.

Nick…

Gina glanced at Nick, and saw the hopeful look on his face. That’s when it all made sense to her. That’s right… it doesn’t matter what I choose. Good girl or bad girl, he’s going to care about me either way, right? That’s what our night together was about, I get it now.

She felt like such a fool, thinking she had to live up to some sort of “standard” to be good enough for Nick.

Now, Dakota’s voice was louder in her mind than anyone else’s.

“How much time do you think you have to ‘figure out your feelings’ as you put it?”

Enough time. I’m certain now.

“Are you just trying to fit the mold that the audience wants from you?”

No. Fuck them. I’m my own person, damn it! This is... this is!

“This is my choice!” Gina declared. Fuck this stupid game, fuck being a “good girl”, and most of all, fuck YOU shitty fake memories!

Gina began to glow. Light enveloped her body, and she began to change.

The first thing to go was her hair. The long, straight blonde hair that she had so dutifully maintained began to darken, curling and flaring out wildly like her bedhead from this morning. Her clothes were the next to change. Her long skirt broke and wrapped around her legs, going from soft silk to denim as runs and holes started to appear in the jeans. Her sensible shoes morphed into combat boots and her blouse darkened into a torn shirt with the logo of her favorite band, riding up her midriff to expose her tattoos and the straps of her thong. Her favorite leather jacket completed the punk look, along with her old piercings. The cuffs around her wrists jangled as she raised her arms above her head and stretched, feeling refreshed like she'd just woken up from a two-week nap.

Everyone gasped when they saw Gina’s new appearance. Light washed off her, the last vestiges of her first transformation fading away.

Jackie took the light and gathered it together, forming a single coin. She handed the coin to Gina, and winked.

“We’ll meet again soon,” she promised, and disappeared along with the slot machine.

The park was silent for a moment, then the air was filled with voices.

Mary’s scream was louder than any of them.

When Gina’s old outfit disappeared, that didn’t just affect the clothes that she was wearing. The cardigan she’d loaned to Mary was part of that, and with it gone, Mary’s boobs were exposed to the world again.

And Nick was staring right at them.

Showed Master Her Boobs! +2 VP

Mary’s hands shot up to cover her enlarged chest, but it was too late. Nick had gotten an eyeful, even as he whipped his head away out of shame.

“Mary!” Kim rushed over to her friend, who fell to the ground, her face burning up.

“He saw…” She mumbled, shaking in the woodchips. “He saw-!”

“I knew it! I knew they were over here!”

Everyone looked up to see Dani and Carly running through the field towards them, their faces shining with relief. Mary’s scream had called everyone in the area for miles.

Dani and Carly made it to the others. When they saw Gina’s new appearance, they both recoiled.

“What happened to you?” Carly asked, surprised.

“Wearing more than you right now,” Gina fired black, glancing at the hood wrapped around Carly’s body.

“Gina, this isn’t a joke,” Nick frowned. “Why did you get rid of that transformation, out of all of them? You could have gotten rid of your punishment if you-”

“Because this is what I want,” Gina said stubbornly. “Wearing those foo-foo dresses? Those prim blouses, that neat hair?! That’s not me!” She slapped herself on the chest. “That’s who they WANT me to be. But fuck ‘em! This is me! This is who I am! I’m not a good girl! And I don’t care! I like wearing leather and torn jeans! I like having my hair a mess like this! I like my tattoos! My piercings! All this stuff is who I am, of course I’m going to undo it if I have the chance!”

Her voice cracked with desperation. Maybe she’d been all wrong about Nick. Maybe he only liked the “good” her.

Two hours ago, that wouldn’t have fazed her. Now just the possibility was enough to break her heart.

“Well, as long as you’re happy with it,” Nick said, and his smile made her melt then and there.

She threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly, practically crushing the life out of him.

Dawn watched all of this from her seat on the stairs, a bitter scowl etched permanently on her face. Dani stared at her, and gulped.

She was in a bad mood. That much was obvious. But that didn’t matter. Dani needed to make things right.

“Dawn…” Dani stepped closer to her, and Dawn shot her eyes at the other girl in a glare.

“What?” She asked, her voice barely a step removed from a hiss. Dani gulped.

“Dawn, she… she’s trying to apologize,” Carly offered. “You know, for before.”

Dawn raised her eyebrow and glanced at Dani’s belt. Two Jacks, two Eights, and a Nine. She didn’t know a damn thing about poker, but that looked like a pretty decent hand. In this game? It was a killer.

“Really now?” She asked icily. “And when you say ‘before’ do you mean when you pushed me down and stole my Eight?”

“You did what?!” Nick exclaimed, turning to Dani, incensed. Holly frowned and shook her head disapprovingly and Kim crossed her arms. If Mary was capable of responding, she would have been even harsher. Dani wilted under their stern gazes.

“I-I know…” she mumbled. “I did a bad thing. I’m sorry! Here.”

She took the Eight of Spades off her belt and handed it back to Dawn. Dawn accepted the card, but didn’t even give it a second glance. Too little, WAY too damn late.

“Whatever,” she muttered, turning away from Dani. Dani winced. She felt awful.

“I promise, I’m going to find some way to make this up to you!” Dani pleaded.

THAT set her off.

“Oh, you are, are you?!” Dawn demanded, glaring at the girl. “Well, fine then! Give me your cards! Not just a paltry Eight, all of them!”

Dani flinched. “Th-That’s-”

“Oh? Can’t do it? What a shock,” Dawn spat. “You sabotaged my chance to get ahead, and now you expect me to settle for some crummy apology? No fucking way! As long as Gina’s got all those points, this Eight might as well be a fucking Two!”

“Dawn, be reasonable,” Nick pleaded. “Come on, this isn’t-”

Dawn shook her head incredulously. “Are you serious right now? You can’t be defending her!”

Nick flinched. “N-No, I’m not, it’s just… you know.”

She raised her eyebrow and he looked down, his face flushing. Not even he “knew”.

“Fine, whatever, it doesn’t matter,” Dawn spat. She got off the steps, forcing some weight onto her bad leg. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d had to play through pain before, her gymnastics accolades hadn’t come cheap. “It’s not like I can fucking win this stupid game anyway.”

“Dawn…” Mary wanted to reach out to the other girl, but she was too focused on shielding her chest.

Before the situation could escalate any further, a figure burst out of the trees.

It was Rose, wearing only her lacey red lingerie and strappy sandals. Tatters of Nick’s shirt clung to her luscious curves as she ran over to them.

“Rose!” Holly brightened. “You’re okay!”

“Somehow,” Rose nodded. “I fought off as many of those slime bitches as I could, but they just kept coming. I think I gave us about a twenty minute head start. Nice signal, by the way, with the Ace? I knew just where to find you.”

She turned to Nick. “Sorry about the shirt, by the way. It was unavoidable.”

“Well, you’re not a second too late,” Nick said. “Dakota’s the only one still not here. But if she doesn’t show up soon, we’re going to have to leave without her.”

“Leave? Leave where?” Rose asked.

“The hotel,” Kim said. “It’s where we think the rest of the cards are hidden.”

“Well, they’re certainly not outside,” Dani grumbled. “I’ve been all over this place. Even the fucking mountain.”

“Are we sure we can actually find cards in the hotel, though?” Rose asked. “It could be a red herring.”

“We can,” Carly confirmed, nodding to the Jack on Dani’s belt. “I found one in the elevator. I suppose you could argue that’s not exactly the hotel, but…”

“But it’s not like we’ve got anywhere else to look,” Dani shrugged. “Why don't we give it a chance?”

“So, what do we do, then?” Holly asked. “Should we wait for Dakota?”

“I say leave her behind,” Gina said automatically. She cackled. “Let’s see how she likes it!”

“We should probably wait for her,” Nick said. “As long as we can, at least, while staying safe.”

“Are you sure?” Kim asked. “I mean, we have Rose and Dani here… you said we’d need their strength if we want to break through… and I mean… I know this is bad to say, but…”

“She’s asking if we really need Dakota,” Rose said, willing to be blunt so the other girl didn’t need to say anything awful. “And honestly? Judging by the size of the slime girl hoard, I’m not sure if we can afford to wait. That’s just my two cents.”

They paused for a moment. Everyone was deciding what would be better. Wait for Dakota to meet up with them? Or leave her to her own devices while they stormed the hotel with the forces they had at hand.

“One thing, before we go,” Rose said, glancing at Holly, then at Dani. “Dani. We want to make a trade with you.”

“We do?” Holly asked. Rose elbowed her in the side, and dragged her away.

“Look, there’s 10 cards left, right?” Rose kept her voice low so the others wouldn’t hear. “And a few of them have a pretty high value, yeah?”

Holly nodded.

“So we need to clear up our hands so we can get as many cards as possible,” Rose explained. “If you trade Dani your Jack, she’ll probably accept it. Then we get all the Nines, and your hand will be empty! We’ll have the opportunity to get a ton of cards, enough to beat out Dakota!”

Holly stared at her for a second, then gasped. “Wait, Rose, you’re not suggesting we leave Dakota behind for strategy, are you!? So she can’t find any more cards?”

“What?! No! I didn’t make up the slime girl army! I swear!” Rose hissed. “If we wait too long, those girls are going to grab us, Dakota or no Dakota!”

“…Okay, we’ll go with your plan, then,” Holly nodded. They returned to the group, who looked expectantly at them.

“So what’s up?” Dani asked.

Holly took the Jack of Clubs off her belt and held it out to her.

“For your Nine. Jack for Nine. That’s fair, right?”

Dani blinked. She wasn’t really in a position to do any negotiating after the shit she pulled.

“Yeah, sure, I guess,” she nodded, trading the two cards. Dani got her third Jack, needing just one more to complete the set, and Holly got the final Nine.

The Nines began to glow, and a new box appeared. Holly opened it, and found… nothing.

Just a slip of paper.

She glanced at Rose, who nodded. Dani tensed. Would it be a transformation, like Dakota had gotten for completing the Kings?

Holly took the paper, and her eyes bugged out when she read what was on it. She beckoned Rose over to read, and the two women stared at it in amazement.

The Whole Nine Yards: Choose another Contestant. Switch all your banked sets of cards with the all the banked set of cards of the chosen Contestant. (Point totals will change to match. Any rewards obtained from completing sets will remain with the individual who won them.)

“Are you serious?!” Dawn exclaimed, her jaw falling open in shock.

“So wait, you can just… steal another player’s points like that?” Kim gasped.

“But wait, that doesn’t make sense,” Dawn said, shaking her head. She refused to believe something so convenient could exist. “I thought that the rewards were supposed to get worse the higher the value you get? This is game-changing!”

Was she the only person who found this whole thing incredibly unfair?

“I think I understand,” Carly frowned. “Look at the language there. It’s a mandatory effect. Think about it like this. Let’s say you managed to complete all the Nines, right? And now you have to choose another player to switch banked sets with. But what if the Nines are the highest set completed? Or what if you have other completed sets, besides Nines? There’s a huge possibility if you complete this set, that you could trade away for much less points.”

Rose shivered. She was so, so grateful to Dani for keeping that Nine safe all this time. If we’d gotten to it too fast… no, I don’t even want to think about what could have happened.

She and Holly glanced at each other. There was only one person they could pick.

“Dakota,” they said simultaneously. Then Holly began to glow.

At the same time, Dakota was trudging in the direction of the park. She’d managed to fend off every last one of those slime girls, and she was exceptionally pissed off about it. Her clothes told the story of her battle. Her black jeans had melted down into tight jean shorts at this point, exposing lovely amounts of creamy white thigh. As for her blouse, the slime had eaten away most of it, turning it into a tattered black sleeveless tank top that wouldn’t look out of place in Gina’s wardrobe, showing off her tight midriff.

And she had a scowl that would melt a slime girl the second it saw her face.

Then she started glowing.

“What the hell?!” Dakota sputtered, staring at the light surrounding her body. It shot off of her and flew through the air, as another light slammed into her and knocked her backwards. Dazed, Dakota looked up at the scoreboard, and what she saw made her blood run cold.

Then it started to boil.

“Those bitcheeeees…!” She roared, staring up at the massive swing in points.

Rose and Holly looked at their new point total. Then they looked at the other girls. Pretty much everyone was in agreement. Waiting for Dakota to find them had suddenly become a very unappealing prospect.

“So we’re going to the hotel, right?” Dani clarified again as everyone got packed. “I know a shortcut. That’s how Carly and I got here.”

As everyone prepared to go, Dawn just stared numbly at the scoreboard. She couldn’t believe how effortlessly everyone seemed to be upending their terrible situations.

Everyone but her.

Even Holly and Rose had managed to find salvation thanks to that miracle card.

And what did she have? A handful of slop. She’d spent 2000 BP to get a hint for this challenge, and what did it amount to? Nothing.

Is this really it? Do I really lose like this? She wondered, closing her eyes. She played that dream over in her head again, trying to see if there was anything there, and scrap of information she could use to figure out a strategy. Some hint, something!

But no, it was just like she’d remembered it. Everything was…

Wait! That’s it! Inspiration struck her. Keeping her eyes closed, she looked back through her memories of the day, relying on her perfect recall to run through everything Sylvia had said and done all over again as she explained the rules to them. If her hunch was right… everyone had completely missed something really big.

A conspiratorial grin spread across Dawn’s lips and she opened her eyes, wincing at the sunlight. She had a plan. If it worked, well… she couldn’t quite be sure. Maybe it wouldn’t matter, even if she was right.

But she had to try.

“Dawn, you coming? Do you need me to carry you again?” Rose offered. But Dawn shook her head.

“No, it’s fine,” she murmured. “My ankle’s feeling better now. I’ll go on my own.”

The girls headed into the forest, following Dani’s shortcut towards the hotel. It was longer than they’d expected, and the terrain was pretty uneven.

Rose turned back to check with Dawn again about whether or not she’d need help getting to the hotel.

But the cat girl was nowhere to be seen.

Sylvia turned to the audience.

"Well, that was quite a surprise!" She laughed. "Now then, as you just saw, Gina has won quite an interesting reward. Giving up her previous transformation, in exchange for a random one... of course, when I say random, what I really mean is chosen by you. That's right, audience, now is your opportunity for participation! Suggest whatever transformations you like, through whatever method (comment, DM) and we will consider them. The ones we like most will be part of the selection, and who knows?"

Her lips turned up in a conspiratorial grin, her blue eyes shining wildly. "You might even get what you want."