These pills and my Pro Tools still got logic

The tentacles came at the girls from all directions. Carly was very athletic even though she didn’t appear to be at first glance, so she was able to avoid the first volley from the creature, jumping and ducking around the tentacles coming after her as she broke into a sprint, before rolling under another tentacle to get out of the cluster completely.

Her less athletic sister was not as fortunate. A tentacle wrapped around her waist in an instant and held her tight, squeezing down and binding her before she could get away.

“Yeeeeeee!” Marley screamed as the tentacle lifted her up off the ground. She struggled in its grasp but she couldn’t get away, it was too tightly wrapped around her. Even if it was slimy, for some reason the slime seemed to hold her even tighter, like it was made out of glue or something.

SO GROSS!

“Marley!” Carly cried out for her sister.

“Hey! Let her go, you jackass!” Gina snapped at the tentacle monster, too angry to bother caring about whether or not cursing the creature out might cause it to change its mind and target her, as well. She was the only one not getting targeted by the tentacle monster thanks to the grace of the audience. Like she could give a damn!

Gina might not have been the greatest friend in the world, but she wasn’t going to just sit back and let someone else get captured!

“Excellent, now I’ve captured another one!” The tentacle monster triumphantly crowed from above their heads, its tendrils writhing about. “Neither one of them are contestants, but that’s alright. There’s nowhere to escape now!”

“Guys!” Holly cried, having already resigned herself to her fate. “You have to get away! These things are way too tough! There’s no way we’re escaping here! So just run!”

“Yeah, you… you heard her…!” Marley grunted in agreement. She hadn’t resigned herself quite as readily as Holly had, but she was struggling to come up with a way out of this herself as she struggled against the tentacles’ binds.

“Damn…” Gina cursed.

Carly bit her lip, her heart racing as her sister was hoisted up into the air, dragged further and further away from her. How was she supposed to get Marley down if she couldn’t-?

And then Marley burst into white slime in the tentacle monster’s grasp.

“WHAT?!” The creature exclaimed in shock, shivers running through its tentacles as it waved them around in a frenzy of confusion. Sticky white slime clung to its limb and slid off, and as the sticky substance fell towards the ground it reformed into a screaming and thrashing Marley.

“Yaaaagh!” Marley was in free-fall… for about ten feet. Not exactly a pleasant landing, but she didn’t break any bones.

“Marley!” Carly’s tearstained face lit up with relief as she looked down at her sister, who slowly struggled to get back to her feet. “You’re okay!”

“You try falling ten feet out of the air…” Marley muttered, glaring at her sister. But it couldn’t be denied that she’d made it to safety, and escaped the creature’s grasp.

“Awesome!” Gina grinned. “That guy had no idea that if he took you more than ten feet away, you’d be slimed! …Wait, IS it a guy?” She asked, realizing that she’d never considered that.

“Excuse me,” the creature snapped, “but we tentacle folk do not define ourselves by gender the way you humans do! So I don’t consider myself a male, or a female, and I would thank you to consider me as such, if you don’t mind!”

“A socially progressive and open-minded tentacle monster,” Holly said from within the creature’s grasp, barely able to contain her giggles. “How illuminating.”

“And I take offense to the term ‘monster’ as well!” The monster added.

“Well, where I’m from, ‘guy’ is actually gender-neutral,” Carly pointed out. “So the first time Gina referred to you that way wouldn’t actually be offensive.” Of course, the second time she had been explicitly referring to “guy” in the male sense, so she would have to apologize for that.

“…Oh. Well, in that case, I’m fine with it,” the tentacle creature said after a moment’s pause. “Thank you for being considerate enough to not misgender me.”

“Are we just ignoring the fact that this mass of tentacles just grabbed me and isn’t going to stop?” Marley dryly asked, looking down at her rumpled clothes. Thankfully they’d survived the fall, tight as they might have been. She wasn’t looking forward to what other outfits the audience might cook up for her.

“Gotta say I agree,” Gina nodded. “This is getting pretty absurd.”

“Why were my tentacles unable to grab you?” The creature inquired. “I’ve never seen a human turn into slime before. …Well, technically I’ve never seen ANY human before, since I don’t have eyes. But forget about that. Are you not human?”

“Of course she’s not human, she’s a little sister, they’re basically demons,” Carly immediately replied.

Marley drove her heel into her sibling’s foot. “I’m not a normal human, no,” she replied firmly, shaking her head and looking up at the tentacle monster over their heads. “I used to be a mimic jelly, but now I’m just a regular girl.”

“A regular girl who turns into slime,” Gina clarified.

Marley rolled her eyes. “…Right. Yes.”

Holly giggled again. “Sorry, tentacles, but Marley’s a slippery one. You’re not gonna get her that easily, no way!”

“Yeah, that’s right!” Carly nodded. “Don’t worry, sis, I’ll be sure to stay as far away from you as I can! That way, if you get grabbed, it’s slime time!”

“Please don’t…” Marley groaned halfheartedly. She really didn’t enjoy getting turned into slime over and over again… but at the same time… she understood the importance of actually getting away from this thing, so…

She might have to make some sacrifices.

“Look, it’s good that Marley can’t be grabbed either, but we’re forgetting the main issue here,” Gina said, looking up at the tentacle creature hanging from the ceiling. “It’s not like we can just run away. We have to get Holly back somehow!”

“Aww! Gina! That’s so sweet of you!” Holly gushed.

“Sorry, but I have no intention of returning my prize!” The monster exclaimed, its tentacles lashing down towards the girls. “And I’ll scoop you all up! …Oh, but not you, Gina. You’re safe.”

Marley and Carly had to be careful, evading the creature’s tentacles. Luckily, Gina had a good plan as to how to accomplish that. Whenever one of the tentacles got close to Carly, Gina would throw herself in the creature’s path. That would cause the tentacles to back off, since they couldn’t capture Gina, sparing both girls.

Marley, on the other hand, got captured numerous times. And every time she did, Carly would run the other way, and her sister would be freed again.

It got to the point where Marley was seriously getting pissed at this dumb thing.

“Hey, will you stop grabbing me already!?” She demanded, glaring furiously up at the tentacle monster. “This is really starting to become a pain in the ass! Do you think I LIKE turning into slime or something, you asshole!?”

“Don’t worry,” the tentacle monster replied in a surprisingly considerate tone. “There’s nothing for you to be worried about.”

Marley raised an incredulous eyebrow at it. “…Excuse me?”

“I’ve gotten a sense of how your body works,” the creature replied. “If you’re more than ten feet away from that other girl, your sister, then you’ll turn into slime, correct? …But don’t worry. Next time I get you, I’ll be sure to get you both, and when that happens, I’ll keep you together. There will be nothing to worry about! You’ll both stay my prisoners!”

“Great, he- err, they figured it out,” Gina quickly corrected herself, shaking her head.

“I guess even a tentacle can learn if it sees something enough times,” Carly grumbled, making sure to remain light on her feet to keep out of the tentacles’ grasp. She had half a mind to use her Anitrix, since it was charged again, and try to get a more agile form, but she was hesitant. What if that didn’t help her and she ended up needing something else?

For once, she was being cautious. Maybe even too cautious. It felt weird, if she was being honest with herself.

“Hey, I have a question,” Holly called from up near the ceiling. “How does it even know any of this stuff, anyway?”

The three girls looked at her for a second, not sure what she meant.

“Huh?” Gina tilted her head to the side.

“Well, I mean… they said they don’t have eyes, right? So how do they know not to grab Gina when she gets in front of Carly? And for that matter, how do they know where any of you are in the first place to grab onto you?”

Marley blinked. Holly raised a good point. She thought about how the eyeless creature could possibly be following them so precisely with its tentacles, to the point of being able to discern her from her twin sister, and from Gina, when her thoughts were interrupted by a tentacle wrapping around her waist.

“AAAHH!” She cried as she was suddenly and swiftly hoisted into the air.

“Marley!” Carly cried. “Hey, what’s the big idea?! I thought you said you were going to grab us together, you giant-”

She didn’t have time to finish her sentence because another tentacle came flying towards her as well. Gina threw herself in front of it to try and deflect it… but it grabbed her, instead!

“Hey, what the fuck!?” Gina squirmed against the tentacle. “This wasn’t what you said before, you piece of shit!”

“Gina!” Carly cried. But her concern quickly shifted to concern for herself, as the tentacle shot out and grabbed her, next.

Now all the girls were bound up, suspended over the ground. And the tentacle monster made sure that it kept Carly and her sister very close to each other, just in case either of them intended to try anything shady.

“There we go,” it rumbled. “Now I have everyone.”

“But you said-!” Gina struggled against the tentacle holding her prisoner (a first for her, trying to get out of bondage) only to find it opened up and gently deposited her on the ground.

She went pale as she realized what just happened. “Hey, wait a second!” She cried. “You can’t just do that!”

“Of course I can,” the creature smugly replied. “I can’t keep you prisoner because the audience said so, but I can certainly capture you temporarily in order to keep you from causing a fuss over the other girls. It’s all covered in the Guidelines for Tentacle Beings.”

Gina glowered at the creature, 99% sure that they were just making that up.

“Like I said,” the tentacle creature continued, “you’re free to go. I have no business with you. But I’m going to hold onto these ladies for a little while, because that’s my duty!”

“I hate to say it, Gina, but the tentacle creature has the only offer on the table worth picking up at this point,” Carly grumbled. “You just get out of here! Don’t worry about us!”

“Yeah, what she said,” Marley grunted out. “Thanks for being willing to stick with us and help out, it really means a lot! But… I don’t see a way out of this anymore.”

The three of them were all held pretty tight. And even if Marley did somehow manage to escape, as long as they kept her sister more than ten feet away from her, she would be a useless puddle of slime.

Gina at least had a chance to keep going. She should take it!

“No, no way!” Gina shook her head adamantly. “Look, this isn’t like the last challenge with Dani! That time, I only betrayed her because it was down to just the two of us! That was the only option I had to win! You expect me to just chicken out and run away!? No chance!”

“That’s sweet and all, but what other options are there?” Holly pointed out.

“Exactly,” the tentacle monster rumbled. “You can’t get the others back. All you’re doing is wasting your own time, and the audience’s decision.”

Gina flipped the creature off. “Man, fuck the audience!” She snapped. “You think I give a crap?! What, did the audience vote for you to capture Carly and Marley? No, that was YOUR decision, you squirming piece of shit.”

“…Actually, they did,” the tentacle monster informed her.

“…Ah. Well, whatever!” Gina didn’t have the brainpower to waste on stupid stuff like this! She wanted to help out her friends, even if she didn’t know how to do that! “Just tell me how I can free them already, damn it!”

“What, you think that’s gonna work?” Holly rolled her eyes in exasperation.

“There’s gotta be a trick to it,” Marley said. “Dakota wouldn’t put some unstoppable creature in here that we can’t escape! What kind of puzzle is that? No, there’s a way out of here, we just need to figure it out!”

Of course, that was relying on Gina’s brainpower to come up with a solution, since the three of them were basically helpless. Not exactly a glowing prospect.

“How rude! I already told you, it’s not like I’m going to hold onto you forever!” The tentacle monster huffed in frustration. “I’m just here to impede your progress, that’s it! Once I’ve discerned that enough time has passed, I’ll let you all go!”

It was better than nothing, Carly supposed. At least they wouldn’t be out of the challenge entirely. But she would still really rather not be subjected to something like that.

But while Carly was starting to be tempted to give in, Holly, on the other hand, was still trying to find a way out of this.

“There’s gotta be something,” she muttered under her breath. “Some way out… come on… there’s no way this tentacle monster could be invincible… some hint, some clue…”

“You said it yourself, didn’t you?” Marley sighed. “It was even able to figure out which one of us it couldn’t hold onto, and go for the rest of us, even though it’s blind. This thing is just way too capable, damn it!” She wasn’t used to cursing, but the frustration of her circumstances was starting to get to her a little bit.

“Hey, yeah!” Gina said, perking up. “We never did manage to figure that out, did we? How it was able to tell us apart!”

In the frenzy of the creature grabbing them all, they had stopped thinking about that.

“Hah! It wouldn’t help you even if you knew,” the creature said smugly. “But if you’re so curious, the answer isn’t hard. It’s your pheromones, obviously. I may not have eyes, but I can smell all of you quite clearly!”

“Smell us?” Marley raised her eyebrow. “But you don’t have a nose, either.”

“Who cares!? Even without a nose, we tentacle beings have a very sensitive sense of smell!” The creature replied, outraged at being called out by the smart girl. “So there!”

“I guess it makes sense,” Holly said, finding herself amused by the idea in spite of it not helping very much. “After all, it’s a tentacle monster. They’re supposed to go after women, and **** them a bunch. Of course they would be able to smell our pheromones, it helps them know who the horniest ones are, hehe!”

“You and your offensive stereotypes!” The tentacle monster screamed at her, tightening their grip in response. “That is NOT why we developed these abilities! …Mostly!”

“Still, not much we can do about that,” Gina muttered. “It’s not like I could bring any weed into the maze. Then I could smoke ‘em out! Nothing stings more than the smell of marijuana up that thing’s nonexistent nose!”

It was like a lightbulb went off above Carly’s head.

“Holy shit!” Her eyes widened. “That’s it! I think… I think I know how we can beat this thing! I can’t believe it!”

“What!? Seriously?” Marley swung her head around to look at her sister incredulously. “How the hell does THAT help?!”

“Impossible!” The tentacle monster exclaimed.

“No, I can do it,” Carly said. Luckily her hands were still free, meaning she could just… barely… reach… the Anitrix…

She just had to hope that it would work, and she could get the transformation she wanted.

“Okay!” She raised her hand and slapped it down hard on the dial. “Here’s hoping this works! Come on, baby, don’t steer me wrong this time!”

Gina and the other girls shielded their eyes from the flash of pink light. The tentacle monster had no eyes to do so, but it could feel its prey transforming in its grasp.

“What are you doing?!” The creature demanded, tightening its grip. “Stop that right this instant, I demand it!”

“No fucking way,” Carly said, her cheeky grin the first thing the girls saw as the light faded around her body. “This is gonna be sweet!”

At this distance, it took Gina a second to tell what she was looking at. But that wasn’t really her fault. Marley was right next to her, and she was confused as well.

Carly had definitely changed. Her brown hair had turned into a strange black and white striped pattern, and her clothes also had a similar monochromatic appeal to them, with a nice fur jacket and very short shorts. Not that it was easy to make out her clothes from under the tentacle monster’s tentacle wrapped around her waist.

But the most notable part of her transformation was the big, fluffy tail sticking up behind her.

Holly went white as a sheet. “…You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” she muttered under her breath. She shook her head frantically. “Oh, HELL no! Don’t you fucking dare!”

“Sorry, but it’s the only thing that I could think of! Here’s hoping it works!” Carly said gleefully. “I am a skunk girl, now, after all! So I gotta!” She raised her tail, and did the one thing that skunks were known for doing.

A thick, pungent pink cloud filled the room.

“GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!” The tentacle monster’s scream was so loud the girls dreaded that the whole chamber would come crashing down around them. It writhed in pain as Carly’s stench filled the air, and released the three girls from its grasp, sending them tumbling down to the ground.

Carly landed on her feet. Holly and Marley weren’t so lucky. But they were free, and the tentacle monster pulled away from them, retreating up into the crevice of the ceiling.

“It… it doesn’t stink,” Holly realized as she scrambled to her feet. “It’s a really strong smell, but it’s not a bad one… what… what even IS this stuff?”

It had no effect on Holly, because Holly was immune to things like aphrodisiacs thanks to one of her active transformations. She could only get truly aroused in relation to Nick.

But Gina and Marley sure felt the effects.

“I’m burning up!” Marley groaned, hugging herself tightly as she felt like her skin was on fire each time she breathed it in.

“I’m pretty sure skunks aren’t supposed to do this,” Gina said, her face flushing from the feeling of arousal shooting through her.

Carly looked apologetically at them. “Sorry, I know this isn’t exactly how skunks are supposed to work… but we’re free now, right? Let’s go!”

Without missing a beat, the girls rushed out of the chamber and to safety, even as the aphrodisiac was making it difficult for Gina and Marley to walk straight. They’d managed to get away from the tentacle monster, but what awaited them on the other side?

What are they going to encounter next?

https://strawpoll.com/NPgxeXEMrZ2