Challenges As Deep As The Ocean

Mandy knew that she wasn't far behind Kathryn, and she got a bit excited when she heard Kendra say that Kathryn had already won the challenge.

"Just gotta...get over the hump," she said, winded from all the running she had been doing. "Just because I'm...double the age of everyone else here, doesn't mean that I'm...any less capable of doing well in the challenge."

As she dumped the latest haul of water she had collected, she estimated that there was only one more trip she'd have to make before she was done.

Kathryn, on the other hand, wanted Sara to get second place instead of Mandy. She'd given Sara an advantage in the challenge, and certainly didn't want it to go to waste. Then, an idea popped into her head.

"So, Mandy, I actually wanted to ask you something," she said, strolling over to the older woman.

"Kinda...in the middle of something...can it wait?" Mandy huffed.

"I actually wanted to know if you had idea advice for me on how to seduce Turner," Kathryn said, smirking.

That caused Mandy to freeze in her tracks, as she was filled by the insatiable need to tell Kathryn anything and everything which might help. It didn't help that she'd known Turner for years, decades probably, so had a pretty good idea on what made him tick.

"I...I...can't-" she stammered out, trying to fight the urge to get into a long and drawn-out conversation at the moment.

"You can't...what?" Kathryn feigned confusion. "I figured you were the best person to come to with this question, y'know, since you've known Turner for almost all of his life."

"Are...are you...?" Mandy tried again.

"Confused on where to go from here?" Kathryn finished. "Absolutely. After all, my date with him is tonight, I might need to bring up my score a little bit."

Mandy didn't try to respond to Kathryn, instead starting to move past her back towards the beach. Each step that she took looked and felt like she was stepping through molasses instead of water as she fought the temptation to give in to Kathryn's requests.

For Kathryn, though, it achieved her main aim, as while Mandy was walking as if she was fighting hurricane-**** winds, Kendra announced that Sara had filled the bucket and gotten second place.

"Oh, never mind," Kathryn waved dismissively. "I actually just thought of an idea. Thanks though!"

To Mandy, it felt like a boulder the size of Jupiter had just been lifted off her shoulders. She ran back to her bucket as fast as she could and unloaded what water she was carrying.

"Mandy!" Kendra announced. "You get third place, two strong finishes in a row!"

"You," Mandy seethed, hastily walking towards Kathryn with a vendetta. "Why the fuck would you do that to me?"

"Do what?" Kathryn feigned ignorance.

"Don't play dumb with me, girl," Mandy warned. "I know you were smart enough to get the job that you have, you knew exactly what you were doing."

"Even so, what did it matter?" Kathryn reasoned. "You still got third. Kendra's not gonna give you any worse transformations than if you got second again. You're not like those two idiots who are just sitting there and not doing anything. This isn't worth getting your panties in a twist for."

Mandy looked like she was about to pop a blood vessel, but she did have to admit that Kathryn had a point. There wasn't really a huge difference between getting second and getting third, but in that case, why did Kathryn care so much about Sara getting second place instead of her?

"Of fucking course Paige is right on my tail," Becca rolled her eyes as she neared the finish line and saw her competitor's bucket similarly full. "Not that it really matters since we're not fighting for first or fighting for last with Kathryn and Liam here, but God knows she's gonna be bragging about beating me if she wins."

She hadn't worked this hard since...well, since last week's challenge. But before that, she wasn't huge into working out that often. She did yoga occasionally, she had done Pilates once or twice before when a class fit into her schedule, but aside from that, her exercise amounted to zip. All this running around that she had been doing the last couple of days had the physical exertion more similar to running a marathon than anything she had endured previously, unless all of those stupid physical fitness tests they made her do in middle and high school could be counted.

It was worth it to push through the pain, though. Running a few dozen paces between the waterline and the catchment area didn't seem like such a huge deal at first, but doing it again and again whilst trying to hold water was certainly taxing.

Dumping the last bit of water she had on her, it pushed her over the tick mark on the inside of her bucket.

"Becca!" Kendra called. "You have completed the challenge and gotten fourth place!"

Fourth place. That wasn't terrible. Better than what she had gotten in the last challenge, although not by much. This time, she had beaten Paige too.

That victory was made even more sweet when she saw the blonde girl run up to her container next to Becca, filled it up, and Kendra announced Paige's completion of the challenge.

"I probably could go rub it in her face," Becca thought to herself. "I don't really wanna start more drama with her this week though, I had enough of that last week and look what it did to my date with Turner. I should just lay low this week, wait until my night with him, and then focus all my love and attention on him."

Lauren had been managing to make pace with the other girls, similar to her roommate, Charlotte, who was equally running out to the water at almost the exact same time as her. She was a little bit perplexed why Charlotte wasn't going faster, especially because the former cheerleader was still incredibly athletic and had immediately ran off at the beginning.

She had a sneaking suspicion that Charlotte was trying to let her get a better placement in the challenge, maybe as an unspoken way of trying to suck up to her? It was hard to know her motives, but Lauren was sure that for some reason or another, Charlotte was trying to let her get ahead in the challenge. She could've been done ages ago if she was really trying her hardest, it didn't take a rocket scientist to discern that Charlotte had enough energy to power through this grueling challenge.

It didn't matter, though, because Charlotte didn't really have to suck up to Lauren at all. They were never going to be friends, despite her roommate's wishes, but there wasn't any animosity between the two of them. It wasn't a combo like Sara and Kathryn, but definitely a far cry from the drama-fueled Paige and Becca.

"Lauren gets sixth place!" Kendra announced as Lauren wordlessly and unimpressively made her final deposit of water. "Only four of you are left, and there are only two minutes until we end the challenge and just take however much water you have as your final amount!"

Her suspicions were confirmed when Charlotte immediately picked up the pace at which she was making water runs. True, it could've just been due to Kendra'a reiteration of the limited time they had remaining, but that seemed a bit too surface-level. Charlotte was bubbly and a bit naïve at times, but she wasn't stupid.

"Charlotte, you get seventh place!" Kendra called out soon after. "Down to the last three of you; Abby, Emma, and Liam!"

How long had it been since Abby had started searching? To her, it felt like a century, but it had probably only been about fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes that she could've used to fill her own bucket. Fifteen minutes that she could've used to win the challenge and get a favorable position.

But no, she was too nice for her own good sometimes.

She was honestly surprised that her own bathing suit top hadn't been taken out by one of these absurdly strong waves that were crashing on the shore. It wasn't the same type of suit that she normally wore, which was more than modest. This one was a Kendra-approved swimsuit, which looked more like lingerie than sportswear.

"This is fruitless, I'm never gonna be able to find it in this endless abyss of water. Plus, swimsuits aren't even buoyant, so it's probably just sitting at the bottom of the ocean caught in a rip current somewhere."

After resigning, she paddled back to Emma to tell her the bad news.

"Hey Emma," she glumly said. "So, bad news, I couldn't find your top out there. It's probably long gone by now, I'd just cut your losses."

"Even more bad news," Emma responded. "We probably only have-"

"Thirty seconds!" Kendra unintentionally cut her off.

"-left", Emma finished.

"I...see," Abby slowly nodded. "Welp, guess this is where we'll be this round. At least we're not the last two again, since Liam is probably in last. Has he even moved from his spot there?"

"Nope," Emma shook her head as she joined Abby in the trudge back towards the shore, still covering her chest with her forearms. "I feel bad for him though."

"Yeah, that can't be easy at all to go through what he's been through," Abby agreed. "Plus, who knows how harsh Kendra is gonna be on him for just sitting this challenge out. I know she may play hardball, but she seemed genuinely proud of this challenge."

"And that's time!" Kendra called out. "Abby, Emma, and Liam, you three did not fill up your buckets the whole way...even though I gave you more than enough time to do that."

Final Standings:

1. Kathryn (DONE)
2. Sara (DONE)
3. Mandy (DONE)
4. Becca (DONE)
5. Paige (DONE)
6. Lauren (DONE)
7. Charlotte (DONE)
8. Abby (DNF)
9. Emma (DNF)
10. Liam (DNF)

"Liam, you...didn't even try in the challenge?" Kendra asked quizzically, raising one eyebrow in mild disbelief.

"Nope," he said nonchalantly. "You never said participation was mandatory, and I am not doing any of this just because you want me to."

Kendra stood there for a second, wondering what she could do about this, before a metaphorical light bulb appeared over her head. Everyone who was close enough to see her face knew that she just thought of some devious plan due to the way her face contorted.

"You don't want to participate then?" she said in an eerily calm voice. "Well then, I guess we'll just have to keep giving you last place punishments. Your last place punishment this round will come in two parts, and the first part will be happening now, you getting a transformation from last week. I've decided that in addition to 'No Point in Denying It', you'll be like our very own Kathryn here and get an extra transformation. It's gonna be 'We'll Go Down in History', because that one seemed very popular amongst our voters and very _un_popular with you. You'll also get the normal last-place downsides. Enjoy having three major punishments back to back to back!"

Turner was initially looking at Liam with the "Why did you do this to yourself?" face that he knew all too well from being his friend for years, but as soon as Kendra finished her diatribe, he had a splitting headache. Not because of being teleported anywhere, but because the transformation was taking effect and creating duplicate memories of Liam, just ones where he was a girl.

Becca wasn't spared this treatment either. As a person who'd known Liam for quite a while, she had memories placed in her mind of Turner's best friend, Lana. She had always been a little skeptical of their friendship growing up, but knew that they were-

"Wait, stop it, stop it, those aren't real," Becca told herself.

Paige had no shortage of new memories implanted either. Whereas before Liam had always been a little wary of Paige's motives with Turner, it was now Lana that was wary. Paige always figured that Lana was just trying to drive a wedge between her and Turner so that once Turner was convinced that Paige was no good, she could sweep him off her feet and take him.

The person who was affected the worst by this aside from Liam, though, was Mandy. Even his own mom had trouble telling the differences between what was real and what was fake, because she had two tribes fighting for control in her mind; one where her only son was Liam and one where her only daughter was Lana. Both of them were unemployed, helped out at home, and played video games. However, this new Lana alias was a streamer as well-

"No, it can't be, I can't give in to this," Mandy vowed. "They can do whatever they want to me, but they're not taking away my memories of my son."

"How's that for getting your just desserts?" Kendra smirked at Liam/Lana, who was struggling to maintain their identity as everyone else was struggling to find which version of events was right.

"I-i-w..." they stammered out, before collapsing on the ground.

"Oh Lordy," Kendra rolled her eyes. "Guess the mental taxation was a bit too much for her. Anywho, here are your point totals for completing the challenge!"

1. Kathryn (+10 VP) 2 -> 12 VP
2. Sara (+8 VP) 16 -> 24 VP
3. Mandy (+7 VP) 8 -> 15 VP
4. Becca (+5 VP) 5 -> 10 VP
5. Paige (+3 VP) 18 -> 21 VP
6. Lauren (+2 VP) 6 -> 8 VP
7. Charlotte (+1 VP) 3 -> 4 VP
8. Abby (+0 VP) 13 -> 13 VP
9. Emma (-1 VP) 6 -> 5 VP
10. Liam (-2 VP) 7 -> 5 VP

"As y'all can see, some of you are gonna start losing points for performing poorly in challenges, as is evident by Emma and Liam's new point totals!" Kendra rubbed her hands together menacingly. "That means that y'all'er gonna have to work harder when it comes to date nights with Turner, else you might risk goin' into the negatives and gettin' yourselves eliminated!"

Paige hummed as she saw that Sara's new point total had beaten hers for first place, and not by a negligible margin. Sure, it was small enough that doing basically anything with Turner would get her even, or even surpass Sara's score, but it was still a splash of cold water.

Sara was over the moon with this new revelation. She was almost already a quarter of the way to getting out of this game, and they were just starting round two! Who knows what the new round would bring when it came to her, and how high she could climb?

"Ah, that brings me to one more thing I forgot to mention," Kendra clapped to regain everyone's attention as they started murmuring about current events. "Abby, you spent most of the challenge helping Emma look for her top, correct?"

"Um...yeah?" Abby trepidatiously affirmed.

"Such dedication to your fellow harem members deserves a reward, so you will have your transformations be as if you came in second place during this challenge," Kendra announced. "Y'know, that and we had to figure out how to balance out Liam's current racket of collecting major transformations."

"Um, thanks I guess," Abby accepted, looking over to Emma, who was smiling deeply at her.

"Alrighty, y'all got new transformations to explore if y'all'er feelin' so inclined," Kendra said, wrapping up the challenge. "You're more than welcome to get back to your rooms and catch up on some sleep, aside from you, Kathryn. You've got a date to go to tonight."

Liam woke up on the beach, feeling mentally exhausted. It was just like he had come out of taking the SAT.

He chuckled, remembering the time that he had to take that stupid picture for the card that they printed his test ticket on, and his pinkish-blonde hair kept getting in the way of-

"Oh shit," he thought, remembering what Kendra had done to him. "What the fuck did I just doom myself to?"