A Wild Card

Case number 1 opened and revealed a single joker playing card inside instead of an emblem.

"Ooo, I love this one!" Spiral bounced up and down like a schoolgirl. "You get to decide your own fate! In a way."

"What is this?" Emma asked.

"I'd say it's simple but then I would be lying." Spiral pulled out from behind her a deck of cards. "Basically your options are decided by what you pull out of this deck. You'll pull four cards. Each suite decides what changes, and the value decides the severity. You want low. Then the audience will vote on which wins. Got it?"

"I'd like some more information." Emma paused with her hand hovering up of the deck of cards. Spiral rolled her eyes.

"Fine. The values are separated into four categories. Two, three, and four give you something amazing. Five, six, and seven give you something positive but won't knock your socks off. Then it starts getting really fun." Her smile widened and her eyes got more intense. "Eight, nine, and ten are all negative. A bit worse than your average change. The face cards are negative as well and pack a real wallop. And then aces are downright evil, even for us. I wouldn't even wish an ace on my worst enemy." Spiral shivered. "Now draw!"

"And the suites?" Emma was stalling.

"Ugh. Hearts change you, diamonds change other people, clubs change the world itself, and spades change the rules of the game." Spiral said quickly.

"The world itself?" Emma said, puzzled.

"Pick. Your. Cards." Spiral pushed the deck closer to Emma. "I won't say it again."

Emma didn't need to be told again. She carefully took four cards from the pack and looked at them. Spiral leaned over and stared at them as well.

"Nine of spades, seven of clubs, two of clubs, three of spades." She said. "So a moderately negative change to the game, a positive change to your world, a really positive change to your world, and a really positive change to the game." Spiral pouted. "You got off really lucky. Oh well, let's look at those changes!" Spiral turned to the screen which started to populate itself with the options.

1. Nine of spades. A new contestant joins! It can be anyone in the universe, truly. They will get changes just like Emma does, but will not be allowed to participate in challenges with her. It's a punishment after all.

2. Seven of clubs. People will now respect you independent of how you dress or what the changes to you do. Only your actions will matter. How does this interact with degradation magnet? You'll just have to wait and see.

3. Two of clubs. Emma will become the headmaster of a brand new Massachusetts Academy. Not only will this be populated with students and the best teachers reality warping tech can scrounge up, but they will be protected from targeted misfortune. Danger and hardship can still befall them like anyone else, but they will be generally safe against people who want to do them harm specifically.

4. Three of spades. Emma will get three lifelines to use during the rest of her challenges. Ooo mysterious. What exactly they do will be revealed in time, but they are mighty powerful.

"I can have my school back?" Emma said, shocked.

"Well, if the audience votes for it," Spiral said.

"And my students will be safe?" Emma asked.

"Yes, that was in the pitch," Spiral answered, annoyed.

"That one," Emma said. "I want that one. I want it so bad." She wanted to say the other options could "go to hell" but that just stayed in her head.

"Well you heard it folks!" Spiral said. "Make your voices heard and vote!"

Author's Note: I have been prepping for this choice and literally since we started. Like the form is actually days old because I made it early just to test out Google forms. I can't believe I've already gotten this far. Those card choices are really random by the way. I use random.org's random deck function. The playing card thing with high being good and low being bad is taking wholesale from Ggnt's Charlotte branch but I did put a little spin on it. Thanks for that though.

Voting form here: https://forms.gle/c2UMcG84mKQDZpZr7

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