Yeah, after all this time, I'm still into you

“Come on… almost…!” Dawn strained her fingers to reach the black box crammed under the wooden deck. The deck belonged to a log cabin that sat on the ledge of sheer cliff overlooking the ocean. Why someone had built a cabin on the other side of the island she didn’t know, but her radar had led her here, and fortunately for her, she was slender enough and flexible enough to get to the box, when no one else was.

In theory, anyway.

Dawn hadn’t realized just how much of her flexibility had been lost to the ravages of time until she tried squeezing under here. In the past she would have been able to slip through like a hand in a glove (she assumed) but right now, her muscles were a little too tight.

Come on. I stay flat as a board all through puberty with an ass that can fit into a pair of children’s panties, and this is what growing up does to me?

It just didn’t seem fair.

Now I really wish I’d gotten that de-aging transformation.

“Ah!” It was just barely, but her new flexible fingers managed to brush against the edge of the box. That was enough to make it disappear, and the card teleported to her belt before she had a chance to take a look.

Her tail leapt up in glee and brushed against the bottom of the deck, sending a slight tremor through her loins. But she clenched her teeth and endured it. It had been grinding against the wood ever since she crawled down here and she’d be damned if she let herself lose another challenge to her libido.

Dawn managed to shimmy her way out from under the deck with some slight doing, and checked her belt.

Her face fell when she saw the value of the card.

A crummy Four of Diamonds?

Add that to the Three of Spades she’d gotten earlier, and Dawn had managed to score a whopping 7 whole points.

She sighed.

“Maybe it wouldn’t have been the worst idea to let Rose help me,” she sighed. She might have been able to squeeze into tight places, but her luck was abysmal. She glanced up at the scoreboard again, and saw that Gina had found the Seven of Hearts.

Her buddy had only found one card so far, and it already matched the value of hers.

I spent all that BP for a hint and everything, and this is what I get? Dawn felt cheated. And that made her feel mad. She clenched her teeth, brushed the mud off her skirt, and stormed back into the forest, determined to find more cards.

In the back of her mind, she wondered if Rose had found someone to team up with already.

“Holly!”

Holly turned to see Rose coming through the bushes. She looked a lot different dressed in Nick’s clothes.

Lucky bitch.

She would have died of bliss if she’d been given the same opportunity. But that’s what made her outfit so hot. Nick wouldn’t bestow his garments on just anyone. Rose deserved the privilege of letting his scent wrap around her, and Holly didn’t. It was as simple as that.

“What’s up?” Holly asked, glancing at Rose’s belt. The blonde had only one card on her, a Nine of Spades. That was better than her Five of Clubs. She wondered if the other girl was going to try and take her card. She didn't really care either way, though.

“I want to make a trade,” Rose started, taking the Nine off her belt and offering it to Holly.

Holly stared at the offered card suspiciously.

“I only have a Five,” she replied.

“And I only have a Nine. Want to trade?” The blonde asked again.

“Why would you want to trade a higher-value card for a lower one?” Holly studied Rose’s expression. She seemed genuine, but then, she’d been lying to them for the entire week.

“Because I want you to win,” Rose said. “Forget the trade. Here, just take it.” She stepped forward and pressed the card into Holly’s hand, causing it to transfer to the girl’s belt.

Holly stared at her waist in surprise, then looked up at Rose. “You want… me to win.” She echoed Rose’s words with confusion. “Why would you want me to win?”

Rose sighed. “I only have one chance of making it to the next round, that’s why,” she answered. “And that’s if someone decides to make me their buddy. I was aiming for Dani or Carly, but they’re both deciding on each other. Kim and Mary aren’t going to split up either, so that leaves-”

“Me, Dakota, Gina, or Dawn,” Holly frowned. She wasn’t a big fan of being manipulated. “So why pick me out of all of them?”

“Well, Dawn doesn’t want my help,” Rose frowned. “And I don’t want to make her my enemy by helping Gina, either. That leaves you and Dakota, and honestly… I like you better than her.”

Holly’s jaw dropped.

“You like me better than Dakota? Are you crazy?!” She sniggered in disbelief. “Have you seen that girl’s body? Imagine, Nick getting his hands on something like that? She was literally designed to be his perfect sexual fantasy, whereas I-”

“I don’t care about any of that, though!” Rose insisted. “Forget the sex stuff! I mean as a person! You, Holly… you just…”

“You thought I would be easier to manipulate,” Holly said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Because I’m so horny all the time. That’s why you boosted my libido before, right? Get me horny enough to admit the truth, then play with me until I called you mistress, so you could weasel your way into being my buddy.”

Rose winced. Yeah, that was about the sum of it. A part of her had wanted to let Holly finally breathe from her sexual repression, but no, for the most part it had been a method to try and endear herself to the other girl so she could become her buddy.

Holly wasn’t done, either. “All of that, you just… you just used me, physically, as a way to get ahead…” Her voice was starting to get raspy and her cheeks began to pinken. Her eyes glazed over. “You showed Nick who I really was, and then… then you played with him… it wasn’t even about me, really, you just wanted to worm your way into his harem, even… even if you had to unleash my inner pervert to do it…”

She began scraping at her crotch as she continued, her fingernails bumping uselessly at the cold metal beneath her skirt.

Rose sighed and rubbed her temples in frustration. She clapped her hands together. “Holly!”

“Wha-buh?” Holly snapped out of it, shaking her head. “S-Sorry, I just got lost in thought, what were we talking about?”

“You and me! Teaming up!” Rose reminded her. “I need help. And you, well…”

She glanced down at the clear liquid rolling down Holly’s legs.

“…I feel bad. About what I did. Using you like that to get ahead.”

“No! Don’t feel bad!” Holly grabbed her arms and stared up at her, her eyes glowing with excitement. “Do you have any idea how hot it is, knowing that you almost got me kicked out of the game so you could take my place?! That’s… I can’t even describe it! In fact, I think you should team up with Dakota after all!”

Rose’s jaw dropped. “What?!”

“Yeah… yeah… team up with Dakota… both of you, work together to beat me, and then you kick me out… I go from being in master’s harem to his little cuckpet locked away forever, **** to watch the worthier girls take him and make him theirs…”

“HOLLY!”

“Sorry! Sorry!” Holly shook her head, trying to dispel the erotic thoughts that kept seeping into her brain. It was like using a fork to scoop water out of a sinking boat.

“I’m serious here. Don’t get horny!” Rose pleaded. She was really worried that, at this rate, Holly would get eliminated. And yeah, maybe part of her wanted that, but Rose suspected that another part of her didn’t.

She sighed. “You weren’t always like this,” she reminded the cherub-faced girl. “You told me, remember? You said Nick was your prince charming. You wanted to be in a relationship with him, didn’t you? A real relationship, not… not whatever this is.”

Holly winced, remembering her past naïveté.

“That was before I knew better,” she muttered, averting her eyes. “Back then, I thought that Nick would accept me for who I was. That he wouldn’t care if I was a pervert, he would want me anyway because he loved me. But you heard him. He called me a freak. Because he knows as well as I do that’s my place in his life. On the ground at his feet, making up for all the terrible things I did for him.”

“No, that’s wrong,” Rose said, shaking her head. “Nick’s not like that!”

Fire lit up in Holly’s eyes. “How would you know?” She snapped. “You’ve only known him for ten days! He was my closest friend for years! When he called me a freak, he meant it.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I don’t know him very well,” Rose admitted. “And maybe he did mean it when he called you a freak. But does that mean you don’t deserve to be a real partner for him in his harem, just as equal as the others, even if you are a freak?”

Holly felt her cuck instincts flooding her mind, reminding her of how hot it was to see Nick with all those other girls. How they were so much better than her, hotter than her, how they deserved her master so much more than she did...

“N-No, I can’t, I-”

“Have you considered the possibility that Nick only call you a freak because he thought it was what you wanted to hear?”

Rose’s words came crashing down on her head like a waterfall. She stared up at the statuesque actress in wide-eyed amazement.

“It was… for me?”

“Maybe,” Rose shrugged. “Think about it. Remember that night.”

Holly did. Vividly. And on multiple occasions.

“You’re drooling.”

Embarrassed, Holly wiped the drool from her lips and stared bashfully down at the ground.

“Rose…”

“He was giving you what you wanted,” Rose continued. “At least… that’s how it looked to me. He saw how turned on you were by the whole ‘cuck’ thing, so he said whatever he thought would turn you on the most. I know because… I was goading him into it.”

“You were?” Holly asked, surprised.

Rose nodded, flashing Holly a smile that looked far more genuine than any of the others she’d seen from the blonde.

“I asked him if he thought you were cute enough to eat,” Rose told her. “And you know what he said? ‘Fuck yeah she is’ and his penis jerked so hard in my hand I thought he was going to spill his load right there. He was cumming for you, Holly. Because he liked you. I was the one he was using as a tool to get off.”

Holly was having trouble wrapping her brain around this. The sexual haze of confusion swirling around inside her left her on her back foot as she tried to process Rose’s words.

“So don’t give up yet, okay?” Rose insisted, placing her hand on Holly’s shoulder. “Nick does like you. As way more than just a cuck. You’ve got to have other sexual fantasies you want to fulfill with him, right? Besides this one? Don’t you want to actually feel him inside you? To be one with him?”

Holly’s lip trembled. Once upon a time she had wanted that more than anything. Now she wasn’t so sure.

“B-But… but I’m not…”

“Not what? Not worthy?” Rose shook her head. “That’s for him to decide, isn’t it? Shouldn’t he be the one making the decision whether or not he should have sex with you, rather than you making that choice for him?”

Holly stared in wonderment at Rose as she considered the other woman’s statements. “Do you think… would he really want me?” She squeaked out.

Rose shrugged. “If there's one thing I've learned from this whole mess, it's the value of honesty. Be direct with him. You’re not going to know unless you ask. And you won’t be able to ask if you lose here and get eliminated, right? …I mean, maybe you will, but your exit transformation will probably turn you into a full-on cuck, so you might not even care at that point.”

A shiver went through Holly and she flashed a crooked grin. In spite of what Rose said, the thought of that still seemed appealing.

“Well… that wouldn’t be so bad either,” she admitted. “But you’re right! It’s too soon to give up now!”

“That’s the spirit!” Rose smiled. She felt a little dirty, like she’d manipulated Holly into this. But she hadn’t, right? She’d just given the other girl a new perspective to think about.

She was finally doing something nice for someone, and that felt good. No wonder Mary was such a sweetheart to everybody! Even if she gained something out of it too, that was fine.

“So let’s work together, then,” Holly decided. “You help me get ahead, and if I get immunity from elimination, then I’ll pick you to be my partner.”

Rose’s eyes widened with glee. “Really? You will!”

“But!” Holly raised her finger. “I have one condition.”

“Anything! Name it!” Rose practically shouted.

“Well, uh…” Holly blushed, using her finger to scratch her cheek. “If we’re buddies, well… I’d like if you helped me out a little, you know? Um… on my nights for pleasing Nick, I mean.”

“…Oh.” Now it was Rose’s turn to get embarrassed. She’d already promised Nick and herself that she wasn’t going to play the seductress role anymore, but what Holly was asking for sounded pretty seductress-y. It may have been an innocent request from Holly’s side (okay, maybe “innocent” wasn’t the right word) but to Rose it was asking a lot.

“No real sex,” Rose countered. “As for the other stuff, we’ll play it by ear, okay?” She extended her hand, hoping Holly would agree to the conditions.

“Deal!” She didn’t even blink, grabbing Rose by the hand and shaking so vigorously Rose thought her arm was going to tear off.

“Now, let’s go!” Reinvigorated, Holly turned and headed out of the clearing. Almost as if a reward for the two coming to an accord, their Radar Systems began to beep.

Holly found the box underneath a clump of leaves and opened it. The Jack of Clubs!

“Nice!” She grinned, showing the card to Rose. “We got another one!”

Rose grinned. They had a pretty high score now. The highest on the board so far, in fact. And it worked out perfectly that they’d just passed Dakota’s score, a King and a Six. It didn’t matter to her that all their points were consolidated under Holly’s control, that worked out just fine. Rose didn’t even need to win a single point, honestly.

“What should we do next?” Holly asked. Rose seemed like a more tactically-minded person.

Rose studied the board for a second. “Hmm… we have a Nine… Dani has a Nine as well. We might want to see if we could get it off her. On the other hand, Dakota has a King. That could be worth a lot of points. And she doesn't have as much strength as Dani does. I’m thinking we target her to take it.”

“What?! No, we can’t do that!” Holly exclaimed.

“We have to!” Rose said. “Come on, I know it sucks to play ruthlessly and take cards from other people, but-”

“No, not that!” Holly shook her head frantically. “I mean we can’t take the King! I don’t want that card, no!”

Rose blinked. “What? Why not? If you don’t want the risk of getting the set, that’s fine, we don’t have to get all four of them-”

“If we have one of the Kings, then that means someone else won’t be able to complete the set!” Holly exclaimed. “The King is the highest point value in the game! If any set will result in a punishment transformation, it’s that one! And the more transformations the others get, the sexier things will be for master, right?! What if Carly gets the other Kings? She’s soooooooooo hot, and she’d look even hotter with a new transformation, don’t you think?! We can’t just deprive him of that!”

Rose stared at her newly-minted partner and felt an immense swell of regret for teaming up with someone who had Holly’s worldview.

Why couldn’t I partner with someone more reasonable?

“Mary! Over here! It’s another one!” Kim called out. They’d moved inland from the beach by this point, and were walking down one of the grassy trails. Kim had found a black box in a bed of flowers and beckoned her partner over.

“Really? Great!” Mary cheered. “It’s your turn now, right?”

The girls had been working together to find boxes, going in order. Right now, they both had two cards, and their points had risen considerably thanks to Mary finding the Seven of Spades and Kim finding the Five of Diamonds.

Now it was Mary’s turn. She opened the box to reveal… another Two, the Two of Clubs.

Mary sighed in disappointment.

“Well, they can’t all be winners,” she mumbled.

“Huh…” Kim stared at the Two on Mary’s belt. She felt the urge to grab it from her.

“Hey, uh, Mary, why don’t you let me have that one?” Kim asked.

Mary blinked. “What? The Two? Why?”

“Oh, you know, just because.” Kim couldn’t really articulate why she wanted it, but she wanted it. “I’ll let you have the next box in exchange, okay? Or I could trade you my Five!”

Mary stared at her partner in confusion. “Are you sure? I mean, Two is so low… let’s wait and see what’s in the next one, okay?”

Kim already had fewer points than her. She would feel terrible foisting all her bad cards on the other girl.

“Right, let’s find the next box, then.” Kim blazed forward with renewed purpose, using her years of experience stocking shelves to scan the field for any boxes. But the fact that her Radar System wasn’t beeping meant she didn’t have a prayer. Mary trailed behind her, pleasantly surprised but also a little startled by the sharp increase in her partner’s work ethic.

“Yeah, let’s do this!” She agreed, nodding. They walked out of the field of flowers and reached a dusty trail, one of the paths leading up towards the mountain. Their Radar Systems began to beep, and Kim scanned the hilly area and found a box a few yards ahead of them.

“There!” She ran towards it immediately and practically pounced, ignoring the fact that her tartan skirt got covered in dust.

“What is it?” Mary asked excitedly. “Is it good?!”

“Oh, you bet it is!” Kim crowed, taking the card off her belt and holding it aloft. “It’s the Queen of Diamonds!”

“Whooa!” Mary’s eyes widened and she clapped excitedly. That was the highest card they'd gotten yet! “That’s amazing! Way to go, Kim!”

“I know, right?” Kim skipped down the hill back to Mary. “So what do you think? Can I have that Two now?”

Mary blinked. “Wait, what?”

“The Two! The Two of Clubs? Come on, give it here!” Kim urged, practically shoving the Queen at Mary.

“Wh-Why do you want it so badly?” Mary stammered. Kim’s insistence about getting the Two was starting to make her nervous.

Kim seemed to realize for herself that something was wrong, so she backed off, looking a little shaken. “I-I don’t know,” she mumbled. “I mean, a part of me… part of me knows that keeping the Queen is the right move, since it's worth so many points. But… I don’t know, it’s like I feel this urge to just… get your Two from you.”

“You’re kind of scaring me a little…” Mary admitted, staring warily at her friend. She wasn’t trying to make her feel bad, but it was the truth.

Kim’s face turned crestfallen. “Mary, I’m so, so sorry,” she said, shaking her head. She returned the Queen to her belt. “Keep the Two. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I'm not going to steal it or anything, I swear.”

Mary swallowed and nodded. The two girls decided not to go further up the hill, taking the fork in the road instead to double back towards the forest.

The entire time they were walking, Mary could feel Kim’s eyes burrowing into her side, like they were making their way through a desert and the Two of Clubs was the last bottle of water left.

She shivered, wondering what had worked up her friend so badly.

“PWAH! Ha! Ha!” Dani pulled her head above the surface, treading water. “Fucking finally, shit! This damn thing better be worth it.”

It had taken her several tries, but she’d finally managed to get the card from the bottom of the lake. She tore it off her belt (somehow the cards, like the Radar System, seemed immune to the effects of water) and checked it.

“Yes! Jack of Spades! Score!” She grinned, punching the air. That brought her point total up to 20, knocking her up into second place. The more points she could get, the better.

Dani was in this challenge to win it.

She needed the Victory Points.

There was absolutely no way Dani was going to do any erotic stuff with Nick. MAYBE if it involved a threesome. Maybe. But since she wouldn’t be doing anything to him specifically, she doubted that would win her anything. She’d gotten a bunch of points due to the mishap in the sauna, but that was a mistake that would not be repeated.

No, her victory in the previous challenge made the strongest case possible for her actions; the best way to win was to play the same. She’d get a bunch of Victory Points, and that meant she wouldn’t have to do anything with Nick.

Unfortunately, playing like that came with its own set of risks, as the card in her hand made clear. If Dani wanted to accrue enough points to seize first place, it would probably be unavoidable that she obtain a set. At least one. Probably multiple.

And every set came with the potential risk of more transformations.

But that’s a chance I’m going to have to take. Dani had never been good with calculations. But doing the mental math, she decided getting an extra transformation or two would be worth it in the long run, if it meant she had to do less stuff with Nick. Besides, I didn’t get a transformation from the last challenge anyway. If I win this one and get immunity, then even if I get a punishment transformation it’s like there’s no real difference, right?

That was the conclusion she’d come to. With that in mind, she returned the Jack to her belt and began swimming towards the shore on the other end of the lake.

She pulled herself out of the water just in time to see another girl make her way to the tree, following her Radar System. It was Dawn! Both their scanners began to beep and the brunette jerked her head up, gasping when she saw Dani emerge like a mermaid from the lake.

“…Hey,” she waved awkwardly at the other girl.

“Hey,” Dani said back. “You, uh… you found anything good?”

They’d gone to high school together and both excelled in their chosen sports. But the two girls couldn’t be more different. Dani towered over everyone, first with her muscles and now with her womanly figure, while Dawn had the body of a prepubescent middle-schooler. Dawn was a genius honor student with a doctorate, and Dani struggled to make it out of high school without having to repeat any classes.

But right now, they both had one very important thing in common, a desire to win.

And the box Dawn had just opened contained the Eight of Spades. A pretty high-ranking card.

They tensely held eye contact for another second before Dawn realized what was happening, turned, and ran back the way she came.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Dani shouted.

Dawn was quick for her size, and Dani was soaking wet. But it sadly wasn’t much of a competition. Dani caught her before she could even make it out of the clearing, snatching the Eight from her belt.

“No!” Dawn screamed, swiping at Dani to try and get her card back. “Give that back! It’s mine! I found it!”

Guilt swelled up in Dani’s chest, but she couldn’t afford to go easy on the other girl. Like a schoolyard bully (a comparison that made her feel even worse) Dani grabbed Dawn’s forehead and held her at arm’s length. The difference in size meant Dawn’s fumbling fingers didn’t even get close.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized, pushing Dawn over and running past her. “It’s how the game is played.”

She was nice enough at least to leave Dawn with her other cards.

Because her face was soaking from the lake, no one could see the tears rolling down her cheeks. Not that Dawn would care how bad she felt. The smaller girl let out a frustrated scream and chased after Dani, even though she knew it was pointless. In less than a minute the star athlete was a blue-haired blur amongst the trees.

Dawn fell to her knees and choked back a sob. She’d finally gotten a card worth some actual points, and she hadn’t even gotten to keep it for more than a minute.

It wasn’t fair.

While Dani was making some decisions of dubious moral character, her partner was actually using her brain for once. Carly had thought about what Sylvia said about the entire island being open to them, and went to the place where she assumed the largest number of cards would be accumulated.

The Harem Hotel itself.

While she couldn’t ask the staff to help her search, she did have access to the elevator, which could take her to any of the countless locations in the dimension-defying tower. In fact, the elevator itself contained a box, sitting right there on the ground, containing the Jack of Diamonds.

Then, after the sixth room she checked held nothing at all, she began to wonder if this was the definition of “looking for a needle in a haystack”.

One more place, she convinced herself. Just one more room, and then I’ll leave the hotel and start looking around outside.

The next place the elevator stopped at was the botanical garden. Humid air from outside washed in to greet her as the doors opened. But that wasn’t the biggest smack to her face when she arrived. Her eyes widened in shock when she saw who was already there.

“Nick?” She asked. Nick jerked his head up in surprise. He’d been wandering around the wooden footpaths and checking his own Radar System, looking for the other girls. What he didn’t expect was for Carly to materialize right in front of him.

“Um… hey,” he offered lamely.

“What are you doing here?” She asked. “I thought… well, I mean, I rushed here right away, so how did you get to the hotel before me? Did Sylvia bring you here?”

Nick shook his head. “No, actually, that’s the thing. I was just wandering around the island and I stumbled upon this place. I came up here because I was confused; I came here with Kim before, on her date. I thought that the rooms in the hotel were actually, well, in the hotel, so I was surprised.”

“Huh…” Carly considered what that meant. “So wait, you think that the other places that wouldn’t fit in the building, like the outdoor shopping center, those actually exist somewhere on this island too?”

Nick shrugged. “Could be.”

Carly sighed, and scratched her black and red hair. “Well, this is a pain in the butt. This island’s a hell of a lot bigger than it looks, isn’t it?”

Nick couldn’t agree more. He’d seen a lot of familiar places, but at the same time, it seemed like he was always coming across something new. “It’s like it’s as big or as small as it needs to be for the purpose of this show.”

Sylvia smirked from her seat, watching their entire conversation through a screen she’d summoned in the air. He had no idea how right he was.

“Well, that’s a bummer,” Carly sighed. “That makes this whole scavenger hunt game seem like an exercise in futility, don’t you think?”

“Well, I mean, Sylvia wouldn’t make a game that she didn’t expect you girls to be capable of winning, right?” He considered. “So maybe it’s not as difficult as we think.”

Carly hoped that was the case. But given she only had one card for her efforts, she really doubted it.

But that made her remember why she came here in the first place. She checked her scanner and gasped. They were too far away for the machine to start beeping, but right on the edge of her screen was a cluster of dots!

“Cards!” She cried, grinning at Nick. “Yes! Finally, things are turning around!” She tore through the garden, following her scanner through the paths as she got closer to her destination. When she was about halfway there, Nick grabbed her by the hem of her cape and yanked her back.

“Hey! Watch it! This is my own costume from home, okay?” Carly scowled. She raised her head and understood why Nick had stopped her.

The two were standing in front of an archway, one that Nick was very familiar with. He’d seen Sylvia come out of here on his date with Kim.

Written in what looked like blood were the words “Flora of the Demon World”. Behind the arch was a shrub maze, and at the mouth of it was a sign that read “NO TRESPASSING”.

“We can’t go in there,” Nick said. He’d been willing to tag along with Carly since she was here, but he wasn’t going to let her do something that reckless.

“Come on, this says there are cards in there!” Carly shook the scanner at him. “She wouldn’t put those inside if we weren’t supposed to go in!”

Nick frowned. She raised a good point.

“You’re not afraid, are you?” Carly teased. “Afraid of the ‘Flora of the Demon World’?”

“Wouldn’t you be?!” Nick exclaimed. It was a stupid question. Carly was one of the most adventurous people he knew, he wondered if she even knew what fear was.

“Eh, come on, there’s no way Sylvia would let anything happen to us,” Carly said, waving away his concerns. “Especially not with you here! You’re the master, after all! If anything happened to you, she’d be in big trouble!”

Carly hooked her arm around Nick’s, hugging it into her boobs. He turned red as the soft sensation engulfed his arm.

“It’s like you’re my own personal hero,” she cooed, batting her eyelashes.

Nick sighed. “Fine. We can go. But the second I see something suspicious, I’m dragging you back out of there.”

“Deal.”

Still keeping her firm grip around his arm, Carly and Nick walked under the arch. As they passed through it, the “NO TRESPASSING” sign shifted, and the words rewrote themselves.

“I’M SERIOUS, ABSOLUTELY NO TRESPASSING!”

Nick and Carly glanced at each other.

“That counts as something suspicious,” he said.

“She’s messing with you,” Carly replied. They continued forward.

“OKAY. FOR REAL THIS TIME. STOP.”

They shared another look, but took a few more steps, actually entering the hedge maze this time.

The sign shifted one final time.

“I MEAN IT, BACK THAT BOOTY UP BUSTER BROWN!”

That made Carly burst out laughing, which completely drained the tension. The two headed deeper into the maze, following Carly’s Radar System as a guide.

Sylvia watched them from the comfort of her throne, eating popcorn.

“Sigh. How illiteracy does plague the modern youths…” She clicked her tongue and checked the points again.