Someone's always tryin' to start my baby cryin', talkin', squealin', lyin'

“Sylvia!” Dawn gaped in shock at the giant girl in front of her. What she was seeing flew completely in the face of all known physics… rather like most of her experiences on the island up until this point. “What the heck’s going on?! You’re transforming!”

“I know!” Sylvia called down.

Dawn cringed and her ears flattened against her skull. “Quieter, please!” She hissed. “Your voice is pretty loud too, you know!”

Sylvia laughed. “Fee fi fo fum!” She boomed, taking big steps around the room. “Look at how big I’ve become!”

The concern Dawn had felt was quickly being replaced with frustration and exasperation. She sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Seriously?”

“What? Come on, look at you, Dawn, surely you of all people can appreciate how fun it is to be this tall, right?” Sylvia pointed out.

“Cracking jokes about my height now, huh?” Dawn groused.

Sylvia shrugged. Dawn was afraid if she did it again she might accidentally bring the roof down on both their heads.

“Sylvia-”

“I like it like this,” Sylvia cut her off. She crouched down and showed Dawn a smile. “What, don’t you?” She asked playfully.

No, Dawn wasn’t a big fan.

“What’s going on here?” She asked warily. “How did you grow that tall so fast? A transformation, right? Was it those marshmallows you ate?”

Sylvia nodded. “Exactly,” she said. “Those must have been Puff-Up Marshmallows! Another transformation candy! You know, like the sweets we saw back at the candy shop at the Amusement Park?”

Dawn remembered those vividly. “So that’s what this room does, huh?” She said, scanning the sweets surrounding them with newfound caution and wariness. “It has a bunch of those transformation candies in it.”

“Looks that way,” Sylvia agreed. “Hey, you want to try eating some of the other stuff, just to see what they’ve got here?”

Dawn glared at her.

“No.”

“What?! But come on, it’ll be fun!” Sylvia whined. “The transformations are all temporary, anyway. Before you know it, I’ll be back down to my normal size!”

“You better hope so,” Dawn said, glancing up at the ceiling. “Because I don’t think you’ll be able to fit through the doorway at your current height.”

Sylvia laughed sheepishly. “Well, you’re not wrong,” she admitted. “But still, you’re a smarty-pants, Dawn! Doesn’t that mean you know the best thing to do is experiment? Test stuff out? Come on, there’s no downsides! I know what all the candies can do, and there aren’t any dangerous ones! …At least, I don’t think…”

“What a glowing recommendation.” Dawn rolled her eyes. “No, that’s not what this is about. We don’t have time to experiment, remember? We have to focus on cleaning this place!”

“Oh, right.” Sylvia had been so excited about the opportunity the candy opened up for them that she completely forgot why they were in the Candy Suite in the first place!

Fortunately, Dawn was always on the ball when it came to stuff like this. And she had the good sense to be careful about the situation as well.

But Sylvia wasn’t wrong- this was a good opportunity for them.

One she was going to exploit.

“Sylvia, how long do those marshmallows last?” Dawn asked.

“Only a couple of minutes,” Sylvia replied. “A half-hour, max. Just enough to have fun doing some giant play!”

Dawn didn’t want to know what sort of person would have a fetish for ten foot tall teenagers, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she changed the subject.

“Well, hopefully these will wear off fast,” she said. “Because I think you’re going to be the solution to our problem with cleaning this room!”

“Oh, really? Yes!” Sylvia cheered. “Wait, what’s the problem?”

Dawn pointed up at the candy-coated ceiling.

“We have to wipe this stuff down on every surface to count as cleaning the room, remember?” She pointed out. “But with my height, I can’t even reach the walls. So…”

“Wow! Oh, that’s so smart, Dawn! Look at you! You little problem-solver you!” Sylvia giggled with joy. “Nice thinking! Now that I’m this big, I can clean the ceiling no problem!”

The roller looked rather small in Sylvia’s hands as she wiped it over the ceiling. Fortunately, the coating clung to the surface of the candy, rather than drip down onto their heads.

But Dawn was starting to get suspicious.

“Hey, Sylvia, wait a second,” she scowled. The other girl had seemed a little too eager when Dawn had mentioned that. “…You knew what those marshmallows were all along, didn’t you?”

“Uh…” Sylvia’s flinch was answer enough.

Dawn smirked in begrudging admiration. “Not bad at all… so you expected they might be enchanted to help you grow taller, and you tried them in order to reach the ceiling better to help us clean. That’s pretty smart of you, Sylvia!”

“You’re not mad I didn’t tell you?” Sylvia looked sheepishly down at Dawn. “I mean, I expected from the start that the candy in this room might be… well, you know.”

Dawn shook her head. “No, it’s fine. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with you using a transformation on yourself, right?” She pointed out. Still, she was suspicious about something else. Why had the candies worked on them?

…She could ask Dakota when they were done. For now, she was going to do her job and clean the room, and absolutely under no circumstances touch or eat any of the candy at all! …Not even the marshmallows, or the gum that made her boobs grow. None of it!

With Sylvia now able to touch the ceiling without effort, cleaning the rest of the suite seemed to breeze by. They made pretty good time coating every surface with the special substance, though Dawn was reticent to do so in the bathroom.

“You better not be able to eat this toilet,” she muttered under her breath as she slathered the spread over the shiny porcelain. At least, it looked like porcelain…

She really didn’t want to know. Everything about this room was so gross.

Before long, they were finished.

They met up back in the main room after Dawn finished up in the bathroom, and to her relief, Sylvia was already starting to shrink. She was still a bit taller than normal, but at least she could fit through the door now.

Dakota was amused by what she saw.

“Smart idea, making use of those marshmallows to grow taller and reach the ceiling,” Dakota acknowledged. “That’s just the kind of out-of-the-box thinking I would expect from a former host. Although…”

She glanced over at Dawn. “I’m surprised you weren’t tempted, even a little bit,” she mused, stroking her chin.

Dawn’s eye twitched. “I’m not dumb enough to put strange food in my mouth,” she testily replied, earning her a laugh from Dakota.

“No, I suppose not,” she admitted. “Still, it must have been tempting…”

The dark-haired girl reached down and tore off another chunk of marshmallow. She held it up to Dawn, the sticky white substance just as pale as her hand.

“You sure you don’t want a try? Live on the tall side for a bit?” She crooned.

If Dawn said that she wasn’t tempted to eat it, she’d be lying. And she was too honest of a person to do something like that.

But that being said, it would take more than temptation to get her to do something that reckless. “Like I said, I’m fine,” she replied, pushing Dakota’s hand away. “I’m not eating anything in this room until you tell me why it’s working on us.”

“Oh, hey, yeah, good question,” Sylvia nodded. “Shouldn’t the effect of the rooms only work on the people who are staying there? We shouldn’t have been able to eat the candy!”

“Very perceptive of you both,” Dakota nodded. “And you’re right, of course. Under normal circumstances, you wouldn’t have been affected by the transformations coming from the candy at all. It would have just been normal candy to you. Only the people in the room get to partake in the transforming effects.”

“So why the change?” Dawn asked, narrowing her eyes. It just fed into her suspicion that Dakota was hoping they’d do something in one of the rooms that would lead to a massive screw-up.

“So you could have fun, of course,” Dakota said bluntly.

It took a second for Dawn to process that.

“…Huh?”

“While working on your bounty, I set it so that you would have full access to the faculties of each room,” Dakota calmly explained. “It won’t do much for an activated effect relying on BP like in the Garden Suite, or a passive effect like in your Luxury Suite, Dawn, but if you girls want to try on some clothes in the Fashion Suite or play some games in the Arcade Suite, feel free to do so.”

“Really? That’s so cool!” Sylvia’s eyes shined with excitement.

Dawn wasn’t convinced.

“It’s a trap,” she scoffed, shaking her head. “You’re trying to distract us, so we won’t be able to get as much BP, right?”

“I wouldn’t need to do something like that,” Dakota replied, shaking her head. “After all, you’re doing a fine job of delaying your work yourselves with all these questions.”

Dawn opened her mouth in response, only to realize that Dakota had a point.

Maybe she should just shut up and take the money.

“So to be clear though,” Sylvia interjected, “the special characteristic of this room is that the contestants who are staying here can benefit from the magical effects of the candy all over the place, is that right?” She asked.

“Exactly,” Dakota nodded. “And it refreshes every night. Eat your fill if you want, and enjoy the temporary transformations!”

It was a useful room ability to be sure, but a very temporary one. Dawn could see the benefit, but at the same time, it seemed… reckless.

But maybe it was worth considering, even if Dawn found it disgusting and unsanitary to eat candy that had been left lying in the open like this. No, the sweet spread they’d glazed everything with didn’t help matters.

“I think we’ve had enough discussion for now,” Dakota judged, tapping her cane. “Here are your rewards, girls!”

Dawn and Sylvia checked their numbers, pleased to see everything go up again.

Dawn: 4000 BP + 1000 BP = 5000 BP

Sylvia: 4400 BP + 1000 BP = 5400 BP

“Slowly but surely, we’re getting there!” Sylvia crowed. She knew exactly how valuable BP was, and every little bit helped. Dawn was also pleased, but didn’t make as big of a deal out of it. She was more focused on the nature of the last remaining room, the Romantic Suite.

They would have a choice coming up very shortly.

“Keep going, you girls are making decent time,” Dakota said, waving them off. She disappeared as the two girls headed into the lounge to strategize.

“Where should we go next, Dawn?” Sylvia asked. She was almost back to her normal size now. “It’s up to you!”

Dawn shook her head. She didn’t want to be responsible for that choice, not after looking at the clock in the lounge.

“We don’t have as much time left as I’d hoped after cleaning up half the rooms,” she said grimly. “We won’t be able to get to all six of them.”

“Aw… well, that was a bit of a stretch anyway,” Sylvia acknowledged. “So what now?”

“…I think… I think we have a hard decision ahead of us,” Dawn admitted, glancing at the other girl. “You were a lot of help in that last room, Sylvia, so I’ll leave it up to you. I don’t want to be responsible for the decision.”

“Come on, Dawn, it’s not THAT bad,” Sylvia scoffed, rolling her eyes. “We’re not aiming for Victory Points here, this is just BP we’re talking about! And we both have more than enough!”

The girls had more than doubled their scores from this morning, that’s how good they were doing right now.

Dawn still looked unconvinced.

“Well… the way I see it, we can go to the Arcade Suite and the Fashion Suite, and clean up both of those,” she explained. “We’d get 2000 BP apiece, but we wouldn’t learn anything. Thing is, if we did that, we wouldn’t be able to do the Romantic Suite.”

“And what if we do that one first?” Sylvia asked. She knew how big of a mess her room was, thanks to Gina.

Dawn shook her head. “We’ve got more than enough time to clean up the Romantic Suite, in spite of Gina’s… yeah. So don’t worry about that! But the thing is… that’ll take so long, I don’t think we’d be able to finish either of the other rooms. So we’d only end up completing four. We’d get another 1000 BP, but not 2000. But in exchange, we would finally know what that room does.”

It was a tradeoff. Either they maximized the amount of possible BP they could both get, or they both ended today 1000 BP lighter, but with the knowledge of what every suite did in their pocket.

Dawn could see both sides of the situation, and she wasn’t sure which was preferable. If she wanted to make an informed decision in the future, she would need to know what she was getting into, but if she wanted more BP…

So she let Sylvia make the final call. “It’s your room,” she pointed out. “Do you want to know what it does? Or do you want to focus on getting that BP?”

Sylvia considered that carefully. “…Thanks for letting me choose,” she said with a nod. “I think… I think I want to do the Romantic Suite.”

Dawn’s ears perked up. “You sure?”

Sylvia nodded. “I don’t know what that room does!” She said. “And I don’t like not knowing, Dawn, it’s not in my nature! I’m just so curious!”

It made sense, her being a former host and all.

“Well, if that’s what you want to do, then I’ve got your back,” Dawn said. Deciding on a course of action, the girls headed to Sylvia’s room.

The mess was as bad as Dawn had feared.

“Haah… Gina didn’t learn anything, did she?” She grumbled, picking up a food wrapper from off the ground. “At least you guys don’t have any laundry lying around. That’s an improvement at least, I’d say…”

“Thank Amelia for that,” Sylvia laughed, getting to work on her own side of the room. “She made Gina and I grab our laundry this morning and clean it!”

Good on Amelia. Dawn still didn’t understand how Gina had never figured out to use the hamper and the faerie’s cleaning service.

“Maybe this could be good,” Dawn said, taking precautions while cleaning up the decorations around the room. She didn’t want any surprises like with the catnip or the marshmallows. “But there’s still one problem left.”

She glanced over at the door on the far side of the suite, across from the bathroom.

“Oh, yeah, the sex dungeon, I totally forgot about that!” Sylvia laughed. “Yeah, we’re going to need to clean that one too, huh?”

The fact that the Romantic Suite had a whole other side room to clean factored into Dawn’s decisions. And she expected that room would certainly be… dirty.

Even if she couldn’t imagine Sylvia and Gina actually doing anything in there.

“You think this place is tied to the room’s special characteristic?” Dawn wondered as she walked inside, cringing a little as she saw all the fetish gear. That definitely wasn’t to her tastes, she was too vanilla for stuff like that.

“Could be,” Sylvia called from the bathroom. The sound of Dawn vacuuming drowned out the rest of what she had to say.

Again, Dawn decided not to take any chances. She made sure to touch as little as possible, carefully vacuuming around all the equipment. And when it came time to actually cleaning the stuff herself, she made sure to grab some gloves from Gina’s dresser. She was sure the punk girl wouldn’t mind.

In the end, it was just as she’d feared. The room took longer to clean than the other ones had. A lot longer. And it wasn’t all Gina’s fault, the lack of laundry did help quite a bit. But the punk girl sure hadn’t made it easy on them.

Unfortunately, by the time they were finished and Dawn checked the clock, it was obvious that this was their last room. Even if they ran to the closest one and got to work as fast as possible, they wouldn’t have time to clean a whole other suite before they had to get ready for the party.

“Still… four rooms in four hours, that… really isn’t that bad,” Dawn said, shaking her head and smiling, feeling pretty proud about herself.

“I’ll say. I’m impressed you two,” Dakota said, appearing before the girls and applauding. “You really put your hearts into this! I was thinking you’d only be able to get half the rooms clean, if that!”

“It was a lot of fun!” Sylvia beamed. “The time just flew right by!”

“I think we made the right choice,” Dawn agreed. “So what’s the story? What’s this room’s special characteristic?”

She’d had to grab Gina’s crusty panties from under the bed, because the punk girl hadn’t been as thorough about picking up her laundry as they’d hoped. And why did she bring food into her room when the common area had a perfectly good table to eat at!?

…Needless to say, Dawn really hoped their efforts hadn’t been for nothing.

Dakota just laughed. “Yes, yes, we’ll get to that, but first, let me reward you ladies with some BP, shall I?” With a wave of her cane, a screen appeared, and the girls watched their numbers go up one final time.

Dawn: 5000 BP + 1000 BP = 6000 BP

Sylvia: 5400 BP + 1000 BP = 6400 BP

Sylvie whistled. “6400 BP… that’s so much!”

“It’s more than I’ve ever had,” Dawn nodded. “A lot more.”

“You girls earned it!” Dakota agreed. “Now, I believe you wanted to know the special trait of this room, is that right?”

“Yeah,” Dawn nodded. “So what is it? What’s up?”

“Have I already been affected by it?” Sylvia asked curiously.

“A little bit,” Dakota nodded. “Have either of you heard the old saying that couples who are together a very long time eventually begin to act like each other?”

Already Dawn didn’t like the sound of this. “…Yeah…” she said, squinting suspiciously behind her glasses.

“Well, the same thing applies here!” Dakota said. “When two people share the Romantic Suite together, they become closer! Or, more specifically, certain personality traits they have start to influence the other the closer they get! For example, Sylvia… that… garish color of yours,” Dakota said, waving at Sylvia’s bright red hair. “And those clothes you wore, on your date with Nick.”

“Eh!?” Sylvia’s eyes widened. “Wait, that was… so Gina was influencing me, or something?”

“Like brainwashing?” Dawn bristled, her tail standing on end.

Dakota shook her head. “No no no, nothing like that,” she assured the girls. “It just makes you more open to embracing the qualities of the other person you find most admirable. For you, Sylvia, that was Gina’s rebellious nature. You started acting out a little more, instead of being ‘Daddy’s little girl’ does that make sense?”

“I-I guess,” Sylvia nodded. “So then, what about Gina? What did she get from me?”

Dawn was alarmed at how nonchalant Sylvia was being about all this. “Sylvia-!”

“Your need to please, of course,” Dakota stated. “More specifically, the need to be a good daughter. It’s why Gina has been so determined to get Amelia to see her in a positive light. …Though to be clear, those qualities were already a part of her. Proximity to you just helped bring them out to the forefront.”

“So what’s happening with Gina and Sylvia, that’s not normal?” Dawn scowled. “You ARE brainwashing them!”

“I don’t think it’s that simple,” Sylvia said, shaking her head.

“And you’d know that how, exactly?” Dawn asked, raising her eyebrow.

Dakota sighed. “Don’t be so melodramatic, Dawn. It’s not any different from the Luxury Suite drawing out your inner desires. All the Romantic Suite does, is help you take on the things you admire most about the other person. You slowly become a little more like them- or more specifically, your own version of them. Make sense?”

“And what happens when they leave the suite?” Dawn asked, narrowing her eyes.

Dakota shrugged. “They will no longer be under the effect of the room. If their new attitude is a part of who they are, it will continue. Any undue influence will fall away, leaving them as the person they want to be.”

“Lots of mental transformations are like that,” Sylvia tried to explain. “It’s like opening a door! The room opens the door for you, but you still have to step through it yourself.”

Dakota nodded. “Absolutely!”

Dawn still wasn’t convinced. “So if I was paired with Gina, she’d become more responsible and honest, then,” she reasoned. “But in exchange, I’d become a slacker and a hedonist?”

“Only if there was a chance of that happening to begin with,” Dakota concluded. “…Though judging by how much you’ve been sleeping in lately…”

“Hey-!” Dawn flustered. “That… that’s different!”

“The source is different. The effect is the same. If it’s not in your nature to be lazy, then you won’t. If it’s not like Gina to be responsible, the room won’t change her that way. It only helps you reflect those qualities you most admire, making you more like each other. Understand?”

Dawn understood. That didn’t mean she had to like it, though.

“I think I get it,” she said grimly, scowling. “Fine then.”

She wasn’t sure if she wanted this room or not, either. It would all depend on who she was paired up with.

But she didn’t want to think about that right now.

“We can save all these worries next time, when you’re assigned to your rooms again,” Dakota said, clapping her hands. “For now, though, why don’t the two of you start getting ready? We have a party tonight, after all!”

True. There were other things to be concerned about.

Dawn sighed and trudged back to her room, as Sylvia went to the closet to go get changed.

They’d worked a lot today, and could use a relaxing party as a reward.