“So, what does this mean? Well, at the end of the day we’ll have one last trick that they designed before the contest to celebrate their being here before we send them off. From this day forwards, they will not be able to answer any questions sent their way. They will be allowed to keep any prizes they may have received from midweek challenges, and several gifts that have been given to them as thanks for appearing on the show.”
“To the other contestants, I recommend saying your goodbyes, and taking a rest to prepare for next week’s competition. If that’s all then-”
“Wait!” David said, walking up onto the stage, “before this competition can continue, I believe that Cameron has an important announcement to make before we can continue in a fair manner.”
Cameron walked up on to the stage, looking heavily embarrassed before sheepishly saying, “Thank you David. I have not been completely honest with you all. You see…” Cameron pulled out a little golden stopwatch from his jeans pocket. He pressed the top of the stopwatch, and a white light began to glow out of it, surrounding his body in an cocoon like manner. After several moments of being encased in this magic cocoon, the light began to die, and standing where Cameron had been standing before was Cameron as he had looked after swapping genders during his performance. Although, instead of a maid outfit, he was wearing the exact same clothes as he was wearing now, his bust pushing slightly against the fabric of her dress shirt.
“You see, I’ve been using a magic stopwatch to change my gender for the pas couple of years to help with performing shows with my partner, and one of the drawbacks of using it is that it uses all of my magic in order to maintain my male form. I was discussing with David, and he requested that I should refrain from using it for the rest of the contest or he would disqualify me for making use of an outside magical artifact. I agreed, hence why I am now announcing it, the only people who were aware of this before now were David and Jill. I hope you all can forgive me for hiding my true self,” Cameron said, bowing to the audience, who gave him some supportive applause.
“Well then,” Drake said, honestly looking shock at this newest development in the competition, “Thank you Cameron-“
“Oh, and call me Cammie,” Cameron said, “It’s what I used to go by in high school.”
“Okay Cammie. Thank you for sharing. Now, if there aren’t any further announcements to be made,” Drake looked around before continuing, “Then I can officially announce this first round of competition over. Thank you so much for watching!” And with that, the contestants made their way back to their separate rooms.
~~~
Holli & Leela
“Holli, I’m so sorry that you got kicked out!” Leela said, hugging the old young woman.
“Oh no dear. No need to apologize, it’s not your fault,” Holli said, holding back her tears to appear strong. “Besides, I guess this was the sign I’ve been looking for all this time.”
“What’s that?”
“The sign that I should retire,” Holli sighed, “I may look young, but I’ve been in this business longer than most assistants.”
“No way Holli,” Leela said, looking at her sternly, “you’re still in your prime!”
“You’re just saying that…”
“No Holli, I mean that. The show you gave out there yesterday is going to make every magician in Los Angeles wishing they had an assistant as creative and experienced as you.”
“…Leela, I want to thank you so much,” Holli said, the tears finally breaking through her eyes, “for everything.”
“Oh Holli, I want to thank you to! You’ve always been my inspiration!” Leela said, embracing Holli as she also began to cry.
~~~
Goodbye Ceremony
“Well Holli, I want to thank you so much for appearing on the show,” David said “and I want to show you my appreciation by giving you some gifts.”
“Oh David,” Holli said, her eyes were still a little puffy from her crying this day thus far, “you don’t have to give me anything.”
“No Holli, I insist. I thought it was very brave of you to face your fear and allow me the chance to do some mind control magic on you. I would feel remiss if I didn’t give you something as compensation. So, firstly, some gifts for the kids and grandkids,” David said, waving his hands and spawning out several tickets and pieces of paper out of thin air, “tickets and travel details for each of them for my inaugural show with my new assistant at the conclusion of this show.”
“For your husband, I got him a that new fishing rod he’s been holding out for,” David said, the rod and its box being brought out by a stagehand.
“And finally, for you,” David said, reaching behind his back and bringing out his final present handing it to her, “A rolodex filled to the brim of colleagues of mine who are currently dying to look for a veteran assistant such as yourself.” The audience clapped, as the tears Holli had been holding back finally broke as she went to hug David.
“David! Thank you so much!” Holli cried.
When she had finally calmed down from her emotional episode, she was finally ready to leave. “Well ladies and gentlemen, Holli is ready to go. As with all the assistants that shall be kicked off this show as the weeks go by, we allowed each of them to design how they wish to be returned home. Holli here has asked if she could be sent home through a trick that many of you may know. I would like to present, the Iron Maiden!” David said, two stagehands wheeling out the iron sarcophagus.
David opened it up, the spikes protruding menacingly out of the inside of either half, and Holli walked in, looking joyfully out towards the audience, “Well Holli, any final words?”
“I had a wonderful time, and to all my fans out there, don’t worry. This isn’t the last you’ll see of Holli Kim!” And with that, David slammed the Iron Maiden closed.
David waited several seconds, before opening the Iron Maiden once more, revealing that the cabinet was now completely empty. “Well everyone, thus brings to an end Holli’s run on the show, but thankfully not the end of her career. I wish you all a wonderful night, and we’ll see you on the next episode of ‘America’s Next Great Assistant’!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
& Question Corner &
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Ophelia: “Your trick was incredible. Not so much for the magick on its own, but defying the traditional style of stage magic for your own unique take. It was mentioned to a couple contestants as a warning, but I just hope you continue to exceed expectations like that for the rest of the competition.” -FlexibleAnatomy
Why thank you. I shall continue doing my best to demonstrate the power of my ancient Magicks.
To Jill: “Would this be your first time with four arms? Besides practice, of course. How was the experience, is it something you would be interested in trying in the future? And as a final comment, regardless of your own magic reserves, in your creativity you really are talented.” -FlexibleAnatomy
Yep! Having four arms was really something else. When David and I tried it out for the first time in our practices, It took several hours to get coordinated enough between my two torsos to be able to do the limited stuff I did in the show. I would definitely love to try it again, although I would probably only want to spawn the extra arms, as I felt having the whole extra torso just made it more cumbersome then useful.
Also, thank you so much for the kind words! I’m pretty sure that performance on stage used up my magic reserves again, but that should mean I’ll be able to pull of bigger and better tricks in the future!
To Leela: “I haven't really experienced flight yet: the closest I've achieved was levitation, and even then I struggle with it. How is it, having the wind drift around your paper thin wings? Also, I doubt being a 1' square sheet is really the smallest you've gone. Have you gone any further?”-FlexibleAnatomy
Flying was amazing! When you’re so lightweight, any little gust can send you flying off course and crashing. We actually had to have the stagehands turn off the air conditioning in the auditorium during my trick so that I could actually perform the flight paths we had practiced. I will say though, it’s nothing like how it feels when you fly in your dreams. It’s more like… your falling downwards at a much slower rate, and by flapping your arms you can transfer that downwards motion forwards instead, and maybe upwards if you flap hard enough.
For Origami, I believe the smallest I’ve ever gone is about an inch cubed, as there are certain limitations one reaches when using a physical prop like the wooden box used in Origami. Otherwise, I think the smallest I’ve ever gotten was about the size and shape of a dime. It was part of a bet between a friend of mine back home, who bet that she could push her body to get smaller than mine. We had a mutual friend use a rolling pin to roll us out and then fold us, and whoever stopped being foldable first lost. She ended up getting to about the size and shape of a quarter, but he was able to push my body just the tiniest bit further. It was pretty crazy to be so small, but we both weren’t able to hold those shapes for long before we started growing back to normal.
To Saffron: “You conducted your personal part of the show well, did a wonderful switcheroo on the Radium Girl, and were generally brilliant. Did you just go with your gut on that, or did you prepare with David beforehand?” -FlexibleAnatomy
If it is even possible to think that I played that entire act by ear, then I guess I’m a better assistant than I thought! David and I trained hard to make sure that the timing and everything would be appropriate and timed out for the show. We actually came up with a lot more stuff for the act, like the hole growing so large that I was basically a living outline of a human shape, however we had to cut almost all of it down so that I wasn’t going overtime for my trick.
To Holli: “I'm surprised to took the trick in such a wildly different direction. From what I knew about you from your bio, I thought you would have kept the Dagger Head Box as the primary trick, not make it secondary to a more visible bodily transformation trick. What was your inspiration there?” -FlexibleAnatomy
Well, the way I saw it, if I kept the Dagger Head Box as the center of the trick, I would have been definitely kicked out of the competition, as you never actually see the penetration happen in the trick, since it’s obscured by the box. By making the actual stabbing a component to the overall act told during the trick, I could actually show off the knife in my head, and make a cool spin by making myself the box.
The inspiration for using the idea of the knife interfering with my brain and granting David full control of my body is kind of loosely inspired by the contract that Arnold would use to trick woman into turning into his bimbo assistants. He was kind of shocked when I asked to perform it that way, but I insisted because I am not going to allow that negative experience to haunt me for the entirety of my life.
I guess in the end this gamble didn’t pay off as well as I hope it would, but I’m glad that you enjoyed it!
To Cameron: “How was it, being a member of the opposite sex, if just for a moment? I did like that twist on the trick, since normally it's a swapping of parts between a male and female assistant, and of course the vanishing of your chest was a nice change of pace for a Mismade.” -FlexibleAnatomy
Well… This question hasn’t aged well… Well, since I’ve spent a large amount of my adult life swapping between genders, it wasn’t as big a deal for me as it probably would have been for other people.
To Ophelia: “Your performance really surprised me there. Especially with how you ended it.” -quad2
Thank you for the kind words quad2. I am glad that you enjoyed it.