The dining room that each of the contestants found themselves in matched the luxury and splendor they had come to expect from the entrance hall and the foyer. Once again, the ceiling was obscured by black fog, but like a scene straight out of Harry Potter, the room was lit by various floating candles. In the center of the room was a truly massive table. There were easily more than a hundred place settings available, although the only ones that were currently occupied were those near the other end of the room, where David and Amanda were enjoying a meal of salads, steaks, and a dark red, non-alcoholic grape juice.
    David turned towards the competitors, and seemed startled as he stood up, crumpling his napkin as he said, “Oh! I- I didn’t expect you all to get here so soon. I expected you all to take a bit longer settling in… No matter! Dear,” He said, turning towards Amanda and whispering in her ear, “we’ll finish this later let me just get these nice people on their way.”
    “No problem honey,” Amanda said, taking another sip of her juice.
    David walked down several tens of rows of chairs before arriving at the group of contestants. “Right. Now, normally Drake’s going to be the one doing all this officiating and stuff. However, he doesn’t exactly know about this because the producers told him he could have this weekend off. So, because I’m more curious than anyone, I’ve made up my own challenge and little bit of guff to go with it. Already ran it by the producers, so if you’re all down for it, we can get started on your first challenge. What do you all say.”
    There were looks of confusion between the contestants, but Saffron spoke up first, saying “I’m game!” The other contestants eventually acquiescing to David's proposal.
    “Excellent! Well, normally I would do the whole reality TV spiel thing, but that’s more of Drake’s job. So, according to production each challenge is supposed to accompany some virtue a good assistant is supposed to have, which honestly sounds like complete rubbish to me, but they make the rules. So, the arbitrary virtue this challenge has is that ‘A good assistant needs to be able to think on their feet,’ and I like to call this challenge…”

    “Now, the goal of this challenge is simple. You each have 24 hours to prepare your best trick, to present to me and the world on my private stage, alone. I’ll give each of you an hour of practice with me, to be decided in a random order, to help prepare your trick. So… have at it! This is the moment you’ve been waiting for, the chance to impress me and the audience with your best magic!”

~~~
Jill

    “What do you mean that you can’t do any magic?” David asked, looking at Jill incredulously. Jill and David were situated in a massive gymnasium with hardwood floors and a massive mirror on one wall. Scattered about the room were various boxes of varying shapes and sizes, clearly designed for tricks.
    “Well. I only joined the magic community a few months ago. My body hasn’t really had enough time to store the magic energy necessary to pull off any amazing,” Jill said as she ran through the warm-up stretches she normally did for her tennis practices. “I made some sparks fly out of my hand before if that helps any.”
    “But you showed up to this show flat as a pancake!”

    “Yeah, I had my friends do that for me...” Jill said, having moved on from her stretches to doing lunges.
    “Alright, alright. I’ve been in worse spots before,” David said, rubbing his temples, “Although I hope you realize that this means you’re going to have to work much harder than any other contestant in order to impress.”
    “Of course,” Jill said, straightening up and looking David in the eyes, “I knew what I was going in for when I signed up for this show.”
    “Excellent,” David said, a gleam in his eye, “but you do realize that you must be able to complete the trick on your own.”
    “Well, if I gave you an object, would you be able to enchant it for me? Would that be against the rules?”
    “I don’t see why it would be,” David shrugged.
    “Great! Well, here’s what I have in mind…”

~~~
Holli

    “Hello David, it’s great to see you again,” Holli said as she entered the practice space.
    “Hello Holli. How’s Arnold? It’s been a decade since I’ve seen him.”
    “Oh, you know how he is. His look hasn’t changed since 1950 and his show hasn’t changed since 1850.”
    David chuckled at this, “Yeah, that sounds like old Arny to me. I don’t know why he’s so insistent on keeping everything in his show exactly the same. Still using that same scheme to get more lovely ladies in his harem?”
    “You know he hates when people call it that,” Holli was giggling now too.
    “Oh yes. My mistake his ‘Troupe of Everlasting Beauties’ or whatever he called it.”
    “Yes, he’s still using the same trick. Although he’s hit a bit of a dry spell recently, the last one that joined was about 10 years ago by my recollection.”
    “You know if he didn’t make those contracts iron tight the rest of the community would stop him in an instant, right?” David said.
    “I’m well aware of all the politics involved David," her demeanor cooling slightly, "It was my mistake to sign it in the first place, and even if I wanted to help the others I already signed off that I can’t. That’s why I’m here now rather than letting it hold me back.”
    “Very good. So, did you need me for anything at all, or do you know what you’re doing?”
    “Oh, I wasn’t planning on practicing anything, I just wanted to have a good chat with you, catch up on Amanda and everything.”
    “Right. Well then,” David pulled a piece of cloth out, whisking it through the air and causing a table and two chairs to appear. A bottle of white wine and two wine glasses were sitting on top of it. “Where do I begin…”

~~~
Leela

    “How are you Leela?”
    “Wonderful David, how are you?” She was sitting on the floor, her legs looked a bit like a pretzel the way they were folded. Her arms were intertwined an impossible amount of time.
    “Pretty good, that doesn’t hurt any does it?” David said, gesturing.
    “Of course not, it’s an old exercise a friend of mine taught me, enhanced with a bit of magic of course to push it a bit further.”
    “Very nice. I’m assuming then that this has something to do with your act?”
    “Oh, not at all. My old master taught me a valuable lesson that everyday challenges are much less stressful when you’re more flexible.” Leela untangled her arm, bonelessly wrapping themselves around her waist a few times over.
    “Fair enough.” David said, chuckling, “Do you need me for anything in that case? Someone to bounce ideas off of? Help with any tricks you want to work on?”
    “As much as I would love to David, it’s going to be a while yet until I finish my stretches, and then I’m going to have to move on to my stretches,” Leela giggled at her wordplay, “and besides, I have to do the trick alone anyway, and we’ll have plenty of chances to talk afterwards.”
    “Alright, but if you decide that you would like my help on anything, feel free to call anytime. Unless of course I’m working with another contestant.”
    “Thanks David!” Leela said, standing up and returning her arms to their normal look, before spinning herself multiple times around her waist, the skin bunching up where the twirls were occurring.

~~~
Saffron

    “So, do you think this is too many pieces?” Saffron asked from her position on the ground. Her body was sliced such that her body was disconnected at her wrists, ankles, elbows, knees, shoulders, hips, chest, and neck. Where there should have been blood and guts, a clean layer of pinker skin spread across the cut surfaces. The only thing keeping her modesty were a pair of black short-shorts, and a yellow sports bra.
    David reached down, plucking her head off it’s location on the ground where it had rolled away from her body, the knife she had used to cut it off lying on the floor a few inches from her hand. “Well, it certainly is impressive, although it might be a little overkill for your first performance.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean, this is just your first performance. It’s the one that all of your others will be compared to. Think of this contest more like a marathon and less like a sprint. If you do too well here, you might be seen as regressing in later rounds.”
    “Or, I could just continue to improve, and people will love me even more!” Saffron said, a look of determination on her face.
    “Well, that’s one way to look at it,” David chuckled, placing her head back on the ground, “Oh, and there’s one other thing you forgot.”
    “What’s that?” Saffron asked, David already making his way back to the door of the practice room.
    “The most important part to any magic trick is the restoration,” David said, giving Saffron a wink as he left the room.
    “Wha- Oh…” Saffron said, her bits wiggling uselessly against the wooden floor as she tried her best to get the pieces to stick together again.

~~~
Ophelia

    “Alright Ophelia,” David said entering the practice room. David looked around the room, the room completely empty. “Ophelia?” David walked around for a couple of minutes, before approaching the door he came in from. He rapped on the door a couple of times, asking “Ophelia?”
    A voice from the other side of the door said, “Enter.”
    Drake entered the room, finding Ophelia standing over the cauldron, reading over a book as she poured a strange looking orange liquid into the cauldron. “Ah, yes. I was wondering if you wanted to get together to practice? This is your scheduled time.”
    “Oh, is it that late already?” Ophelia says, still not looking up from her book, but resealing the container of the orange liquid and pulling up a container of green toes floating in some bluish liquid.
    “Sadly, it is. We can reschedule to a later time if need be.”
    “No need to bother,” Ophelia said, closing both the book and the jar and walking back over to their respective shelves. She pulled out a similar looking red book with a different title, placing it on the book stand as she continued to stir the cauldron, “Although, if you wouldn’t mind, you could stick around and discuss the changes you will need to make to your appearance and overall act before I work with you during this competition.”
    “My what?” David snickered, stopping himself as she looked over at Ophelia who was giving him a death glare worse than any Amanda had ever given him.
    “You heard me David. I’ve done research on your shows, and I’m sorry to say I’m not your typical girl who’s going to just wear the sequined dress and look pretty. I am very selective with who I work with. The spirit within me has worked many millennia to perfect the look of this vessel, and as such those who I work with must match it.”
    “Well Ophelia-“
    “I’m sorry. It’s my one condition. If you will not acquiesce, I can simply quit now.”
    David looked at the ceiling for the longest time, before finally speaking up, “Alright.”
    “Excellent,” Ophelia said, throwing a bit of dust into the cauldron, sparks flying upwards. “Do you want to do wardrobe or make-up first?”

~~~
Cameron

    “Which do you think is better? Black Tuxedo with white shirt underneath? Or something more casual like black button-down with jeans?” Cameron said, holding up the two outfits side-by-side in front of the practice room mirror.
    “Tell me Cameron,” David said, “How did you get into the assistant trade?”
    “Why do you want to know?” Cameron said, giving him a dirty look, while still focusing on the outfits in front of him.
    “Just curious, if it’s a sore subject for you, I won’t push it.”
    “Nah. It’s fine. I know it’s a little odd for a guy to be a magician’s assistant.” Cameron put the outfits down onto the rack of various outfits he had brought out before continuing, “You see, I used to be a magician like you. I worked solo mostly on the small bar scene. One night a friend of mine named Alex called me up, saying that their assistant bailed on them on the last minute and if they could borrow mine. I told them that I didn’t have an assistant, but that I would be willing to help out any way I could. Turns out we had great on-stage chemistry, which inevitably turned to off-stage chemistry, and next thing I know we’ve been going out for a year and I have to start thinking about marriage.”
    David looked over, a smile on his face of the all to familiar story. “That’s wonderful, Cameron.”
    “Thanks,” Cameron said, already moving on to the next two outfits from the rack.
    “Also, I recommend going with the button down. If you’re going to be my assistant, I can’t have you upstaging me.”
    “Eh. We’ll see,” Cameron said, “maybe it will do you some good to have some competition.”

    To Saffron: “What’s up with your last name?” -quad2

    Oh that? Yeah, old family curse. My family has a last name, and if you’re in person we’re even able to tell it to you, but any time it’s ever recorded, even partially, the part of the recording that has it gets corrupted. It’s why me and my family only ever goes by our first names.

    To Saffron: “Why are you so cute?” -Cheesyterestr1al

    Somebody on this show has to be *wink*.

    To Ophelia: “When you’re boyfriend vanishes your head, are you headless or bodiless? Do you mind explaining what you experience? ” -quad2

    I don’t mind explaining, but I will keep the personal bits private. When Lucien disappears my head, my consciousness is essentially split, so I guess I’m both headless and bodiless. However as the consciousness in my head is removed from this plane of existence the memories that it experiences disappear with it, so it would probably be more correct to say that I’m effectively headless. I’m not exactly conscious when my head is gone, as my body does not have a brain to think with, so I can really only describe it as a general sense of feeling and touch. Close your eyes and plug your ears, and that’s probably the closest I could connect it to anything you might find in your normal life. While I’m vaguely aware of what my body touches, in terms of decision making, it’s simply acting off of its instincts. So since I’m usually exhausted by the end of the day from witch training and being an apprentice apothecary it typically just goes to bed and rests. Lucien says that it might make some food and try to unsuccessfully eat it by smearing it over its neck stump, or do some other things that I would normally do with my head on, but that is usually the exception and not the rule.

    To Saffron: “Is being openly nonhuman really that big a deal in this day and age?” -HeraldOfOpera

    Ooh. I see I’m Ms. Popular today. There’s absolutely no problem with being nonhuman in this day and age, although you definitely will get a lot of strange looks from the more normal members of society if you have no partially human features. I used to date this guy, and I’m totally sorry hun, but I’m going to butcher your name like I always did while we were dating, pzerapkogij qweptobvu. He was a higher being from the seventh dimension. He literally blew my mind on a daily basis while we were dating. I had to break it off after he accidentally consumed the life force of my dog.
    Also, to answer the question that you’ve were implying, I am not a cosmic horror or some other non-human entity. I’ll admit that there are certain oddities about myself and my family that one could wrongfully assume means that I’m not, but I swear that I am, at the very least 95% human. (I’m not 100% certain because I’ve never taken those DNA tests. It seems like everyone nowadays have some weird non-human ancestors in their blood).