The first thing the contestants noticed when they entered through the auditorium doors yet again was that the security detail had seriously improved. In addition to the ushers, there were both plastic and metal partitions along the walkway to the stage. If it was even possible, it seemed that the cheers were even louder than last week. The percentage of fans wearing ANGA themed clothing was much greater than all of the prior weeks combined.
    “Ladies and Gentlemen!” Drake announced, the crowd cheering him on, “Last week, we tasked these assistants to create a magic trick with future elements. Today, we’re going to see those preparations of the past unfold into a spectacle unlike any other. While it’s their job to perform, it’s your job to watch and enjoy!”

    “Now, It’s time for some Magic!!!”

~~~
Ophelia

    Ophelia steeled herself for what she was about to do. She might hate herself for it later, but it would only be for a few minutes, and then she could change right back into her normal clothes. “Don’t worry. You’re going to do great,” David said from behind her, calming her nerves a bit. Their cue of the sound of tumbling rocks played throughout the auditorium, and Ophelia took her step out on to the stage.
    She was wearing a dark purple parka, black snow pants, black mittens, and brown hiking boots. She took off her black beanie, shaking the snow off of it and her hair, and tossed it and the ice pick she was carrying to the floor. “We found it, after all these years,” she said rather stiffly, not used to having to act so upbeat.
    David followed close behind her, wearing a similar set of winter weather gear and an overstuffed backpack. He placed the backpack on the floor near Ophelia’s gear. “Oh wow!” he said.
    “David can you believe it?” She was looking around the set, which was decorated in a black marble with alien writings upon it. In the center of the stage, fountain that was dripping out some sort of black liquid was bubbling away.
    “I can’t Amelia. Who would have guessed that we would be the ones to find the last remaining altar of the Ancient World?”
    Both of them were walking around the set, until eventually Ophelia approached the fountain in the center of the room. “Hey David, did you see this?’
    “No,” David approached Ophelia, running his hand along the rim of the fountain, “there’s some inscription here. Can you read it?”
    “I can try,” Ophelia brought her head closer to the writing, “If you should drink from the Fountain of Youth, the power of the ancients shall be yours… I can’t read the rest though.”
    “Well then, we should probably leave that be and bring some specimens back to the lab to study,” David said, stepping back from the fountain and walked to his backpack, pulling out a beaker.
    “We could… Or,” Ophelia cupped her hands together, pulled out a little bit of the strange liquid, and sipped it up.
    “Amelia! No!” David shouted, but by that point it was too late. Ophelia, pleased by her first sips of the liquid, had completely forgone drinking the liquid by the handful, instead kneeling on the edge of the fountain and drinking straight from it. By the time David had the chance to reach Ophelia to stop her, she had already fallen into the fountain.
    The surface of the fountain began bubbling, and with an explosion, the liquid burst out of the fountain, covering everything on the set (but thankfully not the audience) in a layer of black. Standing where the fountain had been was Ophelia, now in her classic black wedding dress outfit, “Ah. It feels good to be back,” she said, eliciting cheers from the audience.
    “Ophelia,” David said, wiping the black goo off of his face, “What happened to you.”
    “I’m afraid your dear Amelia is gone. You may call Ophelia, Master of the Ancient Magicks, Ruler of the Underground, and your new mistress.”
    “Mistress?-” David questioned, but before he could go any further the black liquid that had splashed upon him, and some from the surrounding ground began surrounding him in a cocoon of blackness. After a few moments, the cocoon burst open, the liquid quickly evaporating, revealing David in the outfit he typically wore when he performed with Ophelia. “What is your bidding, Mistress?”
    “Excellent. I need you to tell me of the world I have found myself in. The last thing I remember was those dreaded simpletons imprisoning my spirit within that fountain sometime in the 21st century..”
    “Mistress. The year is 2514 AD. Humanity has discovered that they are no longer the singular species in the universe, and most people have fled off the planet when the nuclear winter began,” David said.
    “Well then, slave. Across the travels of your vessel, has he discovered what species of aliens are the most powerful.”
    “I believe so mistress. At the very least he has came to his came to his own conclusions on what he feels are the most powerful.”
    “Excellent. I shall allow you brief access to my magic, and command that you turn me into his vision of the strongest alien species.”
    “Yes mistress,” David said, approaching Ophelia, his hands glowing with a dark energy as the black liquid that still dripped from around the room began to slowly inch towards Ophelia.
    Ophelia’s flesh began bubbling, her pale white skin darkening into dark purple. In pain, Ophelia began to shout out, as her knees and elbows wrenched backwards, her back shifting and forcing her down onto all fours. Her hands and feet began to lose definition, sharpening to singular points for her to stand on. From her stomach, and additional two insect-like legs broke out, giving her form more support. Her midsection began to expand, her body turning ovular and her dress hardening into a hard shell. Her face similarly expanded, her eyes multiplying and her eyelids compounding, her grimace turning into a cheshire grin, while her nose faded away to nothing. Two long pincers exploded from the side of her mouth, and as she opened her mouth, two additional, elongated tongues drooped out. Eight tentacles began to grow out of her shell, four on the bottom and four on the top, and they swirled around their quadrant of her shell, forming an additional rough layer to act as extra protection or articulation if needed.
    “Slave!” Ophelia huffed, “What is the name of the form I have taken?”
    “They are known throughout the galaxy as the Doom Bringers. Believed to have originated from a mutated cockroach, they are immune to almost all weapons in the known universe, can breed with any species in existence, and have an almost immortal lifespan.”
    “Excellent. This shall be the perfect form for my domination of the known universe. Now, get this spaceship running so that we may begin our invasion!” Ophelia ordered.
    David followed, the glyphs around the room beginning to shine a bright red, as the entire set lifted off the ground, the curtains closing as it quickly approached the ceiling.

~~~
Jill

    “Alright Jill, what have we got on the docket today?” David said, back in his standard tuxedo.
    “Well David, today we’re going to do a magic trick with the future of production,” Jill grabbed the edge of the tarp that had been covering a square shaped object and pulled, revealing, “The 3D Printer!”
    “Excellent!” David said, a grin plastered across his face.
    “There’s just one problem,” Jill said, walking behind the machine and turning it, revealing a control panel to the audience that was currently flashing red. “We’re all out of ink!”
    “Oh no!” David said, the sarcasm dripping from his voice, “Whatever shall we do?”
    “Okay David, you can cut the act,” Jill said, walking over to an extremely large pot suspended over a fire pit and climbing in, “Let’s get this show on the road.”
    David walked over to where the large pot was sitting, and started the fire. Jill began melting almost immediately, and David jokingly said, “Looks like she couldn’t stand the heat,” getting a few chuckles from the audience. When Jill was fully melted, David poured her out into four equally sized canisters. Into each one, he poured some food coloring, turning the gelatinous Jill into four colors: cyan, magenta, and yellow, and black. He took the four canisters, and hooked them up to the 3D printer, the little control panel now flashing green.
    “Now I don’t know how many of you have ever actually used a 3D printer before, but they’re pretty cool pieces of technology,” David said, fiddling with the control pad, “Of course, you’ve probably never seen one of them like these, but that’s besides the point.” He pressed the green go button that had appeared, and the printer began running at an almost impossible speed. Layer by layer, the printer squirted out the fleshy ink, the general shape forming until finally David’s creation stood in the center of the printing area.
    It was a Funko Pop figure version of Jill, a miniature version of her green, sequined leotard on her body that was holding up her massive head. “Wow!” Jill’s voice escaped her tiny body despite not having a mouth. It was also pitched cartoonishly upwards, and it was a little disturbing whenever her beady black eyes blinked. “Everything’s so big!” She commented, doing her best to balance her head as she walked towards David’s outstretched hand. He held the mini-figure up victoriously, as he place it on a little table.
    “Of course, these things can do so much more than that,” David said, already putting some more commands into the control pad.
    “Yep! Currently, this technology is only good at making plastic toys like myself, but there are those who believe in the future, the tech will be there to work on organic material!” Jill finished for him. The 3D printer was hard at work, and within moments, a fully sized male mallard was now actively waddling around the printer bay. To help prevent overloading Jill’s sense, David had opted for her to place a simple pattern for the duck to follow, which was to waddle around in a circle and if it were to hit a wall to honk. Of course, the audience didn’t need to know that.
    David picked up the green-headed duck (it quacking up a storm in the meantime), and placed it down on the table next to the Jill Figurine, where it quickly began walking in a circle once again. “Yep. Well, is there anything else you wanted to do Jill?”
    “Nope! Just print out my body again and we’ll be all good,” Jill said.
    “Okay,” David began inputting the necessary data to print out a life-sized Jill, but when he went to press the print button, the screen began flashing red once more. “Oh no!”
    Jill groaned, “What do you mean ‘oh no’?” Jill was getting much more convincing at being able to fake not knowing exactly what was going to happen.
    “It’s seems that there’s not enough of your ink left to print you out,” David said, already walking off stage, “But don’t worry. I have the perfect back up plan!” David wheeled out what looked like an industrial-sized old school printer.
     “David. That printer only prints things in 2D,” Jill sighed. If she could have reached her face with her tiny limbs, she would have facepalmed.
    “Maybe if you’re thinking only in two dimensions,” David said, pulling the canisters out of the 3D printer and hooking them up to the regular printer. He connected the 3D printer via a USB cable, and then pressed the go button on the regular printer. Almost immediately it began spitting out paper just as long and wide as Jill was. The printer was going at an almost impossible rate, but if a viewer was paying attention or pausing the stream, they would be able to clearly see that each page was a different frontal cross section of Jill.
    When the printer had finally printed everything out, David pulled out a massive pair of scissors, and with impossible precision cut away the massive stack of paper, leaving only a Jill shaped mass of paper, which he covered with a cloth. Whisking it away, Jill was once again whole and completely back to normal. Standing up, Jill went over to the table, where her Funko Pop figure and the Duck had stopped moving, she grabbed one in each arm before taking a bow with David, the audience applauding her performance.

~~~
Saffron

    “Muahaha!” David laughed maniacally. He was wearing a mad scientist jacket, his hair dyed white and wearing ridiculous looking goggles. Tied up on two standing gurneys were Saffron and Fernando. “I have finally found the perfect test subject for my Evil experiments!”
    “You monster!” Saffron shouted.
    “Now now my darling,” David said, filling a syringe with a light green liquid and squirting it, tapping on the needle to make sure there were no air bubbles, “with my special detachment serum, I shall be able to take control of the world with my army of loyal soldiers!”
    “You’ll never get away with- Ouch!” Saffron shouted, as David stuck the syringe into her shoulder, pressing down on the plunger and injecting the placebo into her bloodstream. He followed this action up by taking the syringe and sticking it into Fernando as well, who stayed completely motionless.
    “Anyways, you were saying?” David asked, walking back to where he had first picked up the syringe and put it back down.
    “I said You’ll never get away with-“ Saffron wasn’t able to complete her protest, as David grabbed her lips between his fingers and pulled. There was a bit of give, before her lips completely pulled off, leaving a thin expanse of skin where her lips should have been.
    “Oops, I’m sorry. It looks like I accidentally took your lips,” David grinned, holding the loose piece of flesh in the palm of her hand so Saffron could see it. It sat there completely motionlessly. “Well, you won’t be needing these anyways,” David walked over to a small metallic trash can, opened it up, and flicked Saffron’s lips into it.
    “Now then,” David rubbed his hands maniacally, “let the head swapping procedure begin!” David walked over to Saffron, and pulled off her head. As he did so, Saffron’s entire body went limp, making him happy that she had remembered to put her brain back in her head for this trick. He placed it on a nearby table, where Saffron’s eyes gave off the impression that she was genuinely fearful at the loss of feeling in her body.
    David then walked over to Fernando, doing the same procedure (although his body wasn’t moving beforehand anyways. Instead of placing it on the table, he placed Fernando’s head Saffron’s body, which jolted with activity once more.
    “It’s Alive!” David yelled, as he loosened the restraints holding Saffron’s body. Fernando awkwardly stumbled forwards, getting a feel to his more solid body. He reached up, feeling his large stuffed head, followed by feeling up the rest of his body as David explained his evil plan, “You see, by attaching an inanimate object, such as this large teddy bear’s head to your body, it fills your body with a spirit that will be willing to do whatever I command it to do!”
    Saffron rolled her eyes, which was about all she could do without a mouth. “Now that my test run has been successful, I can begin creating my army of soldiers, using only the best parts of everyone’s body. Muahaha. Muahahaha!” David’s maniacal laugh continued for a while, all the while he didn’t notice Fernando walking over to where he had left the syringe of his ‘detachment serum’. He did notice when Fernando jabbed him in the arm with it though.
    “Ouch! What the!?-“ David didn’t really have enough time to finish his thought, as Fernando lifted David’s head up, his body falling limp to the floor. As David’s protests continued, he opened up the same trash can David had thrown Saffron’s lips into, and stuffed David’s head into it.
    The muffled sounds of David’s shouting continued as Fernando placed Saffron’s head on his prior body, unlocking it from its shackles. Saffron took a tentative step outwards, trying her best to balanced on her stuffed limbs, eventually figuring out how to move her much less articulated body.
    Fernando and Saffron danced around a bit, before Saffron made a motion pointing between the two to try and indicate that she wanted to swap head backs. Fernando shook his head ‘no’ before making a thinking motion with his hands before pointing his finger skywards.
    From behind one of the stands, Fernando pulled out a sign which read ‘One Year Later’ as he began performing complex ballet with Saffron’s body. In the background, hidden in darkness, Saffron moved elements of the set around in preparation for their final scene.
    The two mismatched assistants stood behind a counter as David walked in from the left side of the stage, his head reattached and wearing his tuxedo once more, he approached the counter and said, “Hello, I’m here to pick up the package for my wife?”
    The two silent assistants nodded to one another, and as Saffron put the body of a small, headless, blue teddy bear on the counter, Fernando walked over and jabbed David again with the ‘detachment serum’. He grabbed David’s head, and firmly planted it on the small teddy bear’s body, looking somehow even more ridiculous than the sight of Saffron’s head on Fernando’s body.
    “Thank you so much!” David said, as Fernando fireman carried David’s body off the right side of the stage. “Do you mind carrying me out to my car? Amanda is waiting for me.” Saffron nodded, picking David up, and carrying David to the center of the stage so the two could take a bow with some applause from the audience, as they walked back off the left side of the stage.

~~~
Cammie

    “Alright, you can come in now,” David said. He was wearing a doctor’s jackets, with a stethoscope around his neck. Behind him was a medical operating table, and a rather large and intimidating looking computer with a bunch of wires connecting out of it. Cammie walked in from the side of the stage, and as David looked up he said, “Ah. Hello there. You must be my next patient.”
    “Yep, that’s me,” Cammie said. She was wearing her standard performance outfit of a plain black leotard.
    “Excellent, why don’t you you take off that disguise and we can get right to work on your check-up C4MM13.” As he said the words, Cammie’s skin began to shift, her hair rescinding into her head as her body began to take on a more metallic sheen. Her joints became more pronounced, as they turned into an equivalent metal articulation point. After a few moments an android version of Cammie was on stage, and made her way towards the metal operating table.
    “Alright then, we’re going to test your download and upload speed for your wifi first,” David said, grabbing a hold of Cammie’s right leg and rotating it several times, the leg disconnecting off a screw, revealing threading along the inside of her hip where her leg had connected. He placed the leg against the table so that the sole of her foot was off the table, he began tickling it, and shortly afterwords Cammie began laughing in a metallic tone. “Alright, about 0.7 milliseconds. Well within the allotted range, although I think we’re probably going to have to upgrade it next checkup.”
    “Next, we’re going to disconnect you at all of your joints so that we can do a diagnostics test on everything,” David said, already starting the process by unscrewing Cammie’s other leg, follows shortly by Cammie’s arms.
    “Ha ha! That tickles!” Cammie said as David began pressing around Cammie’s collarbone as though he was looking for something. Eventually, he found what he was looking for, as he pushed down on a button, Cammie’s head popping off of her body and into David’s arms. For each of her body parts, he connected a wire from the computer to the limb, and to her torso, which was still lying on the operating table.
    “Alright, one last thing,” David said, pressing on both of Cammie’s temples, “Now, you’re not going to remember this, but you should still be functional during this part.” The top of Cammie’s head lifting up, revealing a CD spinning around a central pivot labelled ‘C4MM13’s Brain’ in black permanent marker. He pulled out the CD and put it into the computer’s CD drive.
    As the test was proceeding, Cammie looked nervously towards David and asked, “Hello… what’s going on?”
    “I’m just doing a diagnostics check. There’s no need to worry. It’ll be over soon and you’ll be able to think properly.” David said, not looking up from his computer
    “Okay… but… who am I?”
    “You’re a research android for the government,” David said, still not looking up.
    “And who are you?”
    “I’m David. Your Physician.”
    “Alright… But what’s going on exactly?”
    “*Sigh* It’s almost over, just don’t worry about it.” After a few more back and forth of the same three questions, David rapidly ejected the disk, placing it back into Cammie’s brain and closing her head. Her eyes shut briefly, before reopening.
    “Hello, my name is C4MM13, how are you doing?”
    “I’m doing just well. And according to these diagnostic tests, so are you. Let me just quickly update their software, and we’ll get you put back together lickety-split.” After several more seconds, the computer chimed with a little victory tune, allowing David to unplug Cammie’s limbs and start reattaching them.
    “Alright then C4MM13. Now, these updates will require a restart. Would you like to do it here or back home?”
    “It would probably be best to have it done now,” Cammie said, still in that same mechanical tone. David got to work to do the restart procedure, he grabbed the faceplate that made up the entire front of Cammie’s body and pulled it off. Inside, a variety of wire, gears, fans, and pistons were hard at working making sure Cammie was running properly. David pulled out one of the stationary gears, revealing a large red button behind it. He held the button down for a second, and the various things in Cammie ground to a halt.
    Unlike when David had removed her brain disc, Cammie’s eyes did not close, instead it seemed as thought the life behind those eyes completely disappeared, one of her eyes rolling to a different direction to the other as her jaw hung open and her body slumped. David waited a few more seconds, making sure all signs of life had completely disappeared from Cammie before pressing the button once more.
    Slowly, the various mechanizations within Cammie’s torso began moving again. Movement slowly returned to Cammie’s body. It started with the occasional twitch of a finger or toe, maybe one of her eyes rolling around, or a strange guttural noise escaping from her lips. Eventually, more complex movements began occurring, such as spinning her hand around her wrist, or her hair growing out and slipping back in, or saying small phrases, such as “testing” and “wake up completion at 40%”.
    Finally, Cammie was completely back to normal, well minus the fact that she was still clearly an android. “Alright then, you should be completely fine now C4MM13. There may still be a few glitches as you adjust to the updates. If the glitches persist after a week, feel free to schedule another appointment.”
    “Thank you Dr. David,” Cammie said, standing up, her metallic skin shifting around to return to her human complexion. She walked off the stage to applause.

~~~

    “Let’s give another round of applause for David and his lovely assistants!” Drake said, the cheers drowning him out before he could even finish his sentence.

    “Now, once again we begin the hardest part of our evening. For you see, it is up to you all watching at home to decide which of these beautiful assistants we need to send back home. Using your smart devices, click on the link below to vote off who you think performed the worst, or want to see kicked off the show for whatever reason. I want to wish all of our contestants the best of luck. Good night everybody!”

    To Fernando: “So Fernando, your first show is coming up. How are you feeling?” -FlexibleAnatomy

    The large pink teddy bear shrugs, and then rubs it’s stomach.

    To Ophelia: “I can understand what you’re getting at, but at the same time it is a process to get over assuming the worst of others. Sure it might seem impossible, but I learned through traumatic events in my life that sometimes you just have to not care and think of what is good at the moment. In other words, you should look at the bright side. That doesn't mean to ignore the worst or just some cheesy moral, just something to give an insight of life is all.” -quad2

    Honestly, until I came on this contest Lucien was the only one who ever said anything nice about me since I devoted myself to the Ancient Magicks. I’m just not used to it is all. I am working on it though.

    To Saffron: “On the one hand, I can understand where your parents are coming from, but on the other hand, you should do what you like. While being a magician assistant is nice, perhaps you could expand it somehow like working with someone to solve magical mysteries or be a magician yourself. I am not saying to not follow your dreams, but just be open minded and expand your view on what you want.” -quad2

    Well, as much as I love magic I don’t think I have the charisma or the technical skill to be a magician by myself. Besides, if I become a magician I’ll be trapped only doing magic to others instead of to myself, which would be super boring.
    Also it’s Parent. My Dad raised me alone (not counting my two older sisters). I never knew my mother. Neither do any of my sisters really.

    To David: "You have no idea how hard it is to run a head shop. Taking care of the heads is the least of my worries. There are a ton of legal procedures I have to follow, not to mention I am limited in the kinds of heads I can have. Since I only carry female head, I have to get so many inspections done to make sure that they have an appropriate and safe living space and that I’m not accidentally committing human trafficking. Then I have to make sure that the heads are bought by people who are responsible and won't be abusive to the heads or vice versa. I’ve had too many cases where one of my heads turned out to be evil and mistreated their owners or stole their bodies. There’s also have to try to figure out proper price for each heads, giving them therapy if they need it, deal with the occasional headhunter, and so much more!
    I only started running this shop as a favor to the lost heads in the floating head realm I got trapped in. In that accident, I didn’t simply disappear, I literally lost my body and had to go looking for it for who knows how long. I swore that if I ever found my body, I would open up a head shop to help out the other heads trapped in that dimension with me, and honestly I’m extremely lucky to have made it out of their with my body and nothing else changed about me.
    After I opened my shop, I just kept finding more and more lost heads and my stock kept growing and growing. A couple of years go by, and suddenly my small kart shop has upgraded to a small building of my own, and my responsibilities increased dramatically.” -Rei (rewritten a bit, some content added)

    Oh wow. I didn’t realized you were so stressed out from work, Rei. I’m sorry if my previous comments from yesterday seemed like I was belittling your profession. It truly sounds like you have your hands full, and I must commend you for sticking to it through all your struggles.
    If I had known what realm you had disappeared to, I would have done everything in my power to go and save you. But since nobody could determine where that magical explosion disappeared you to, we had to do it the old fashioned way of searching every magic dimension for you. The magic community as a whole gave up after a year, but the rest of us who were there kept going at it until even we lost all hope that we were ever going to find you. You know, if you had returned earlier like you claim, you could have called or sent us a letter or anything so that we could have stopped worrying about you!
    Anyways, you could never understand how relieved I was to finally hear that you got back, and If you ever feel like running your head shop gets to be too much and you need a bit of a break, I can try and get my friend, Guillermo Lamonte, to schedule an appointment for you at his body salon. He’s excellent when it comes to treating both your body and head like a true prince or princess. It would be no trouble at all, since he owes me a favor anyways.

    To Amanda: “Hey Mandy! I know that you’re still a bit upset about me swapping your head with a monkey, but I swear I'm really, really sorry about that! I never expected the monkey would go nuts with your body…. or that the vet would freak out like he did… or that the FBI would get involved. And I’m still really sorry that it lead you developing a fear of monkeys and then there was the whole mess of you having to get therapy to try and fix it… But hey, I helped pay for the damages to everything, Remember?” -Rei (rewritten a bit)

    Producers’ note: Amanda has refused to answer this comment. When pressed, she gave the statement that she “does not owe that b***h a response.” and “it took [her] years before [she] could enter a zoo again without emotionally breaking down” and that “she better stay away from her family if she doesn’t want [her] to do something much worse than getting the FBI involved”.

    To Ophelia: “About your comment, some of the magick heads are growing skeptical of your future and the ones who can see the future are already preparing a spot for you. For your sake, I am just going to pass on their warnings so you can be on the lookout. First off, avoid getting into a feud of which mythical beasts are the best as one of your possible futures from that argument has you fighting some of Gaia's mightiest creatures and losing. Secondly, don't ever associate yourself with Club 666 or even go near there, you end up betraying Gaia and fighting the Spirit of Gaia that resides within you. Thirdly, make sure you regularly show Lucien how much you love him and try to keep him safe. If you don’t, there’s a future where he might betray you and lead to the destruction of humanity. It's a long and dramatic story of how it gets to that point, so please try to keep this warning specifically in your mind. Fourth, if you decided to be bodiless for self-reflection and being closer to Gaia, keep your head away from strong rivers and whatever you do, do not get Saffron drunk. I know you might not believe in fortune telling, but me and my heads are just trying to prevent you from having a tragic future. And hey, if worse comes to worse, your head is always welcome at my place.
    P.S. Some of these heads are willing to give you guidance on how to reach your full potential and are begging me to let them be your mentor.” -Rei (rewritten, changed some content)

    While I appreciate the support, the witches in my coven have long warned me about listening to the words of fortune tellers. I’m sure there are infinite possibilities where my doom and I shall meet, but the simple fact of the matter is there are too many possibilities for me to get stuck on the ones where things don’t work out.
    Although, I will take that recommendation of avoiding Saffron when she’s drunk to heart. That girl already does outrageous things when sober.
    Also, I’m going to have to respectfully decline from taking on one of your heads as my mentor… At least until I’m a full blown witch.

    To Saffron: “I see that you’ve got some family issues you’re working through. If you’d like, I am willing to let you work with me in my head shop as my assistant. You see, most of my part timers have some sort of baggage, and they always end up leaving because they’ve either resolved whatever issues they had or were busy with other stuff going on. Knowing you, you'll have just as much fun taking care of the heads as being one. You'll even get a cute lil’ magician's outfit to wear!
    Fun fact, when David and I were little, he was actually my assistant. During our shows, I did most of the transforming, cutting and all that other stuff to myself. All he did was to make sure my tricks worked, did some magic to entertain between tricks, and all the boring, technical stuff I didn’t want to deal with. Well, except for the finances, I wasn’t going to trust him anywhere near my money. He was always the straight man to my zany antics. Oh! And he was so short! He was half my size until high school. I don’t know when he finally outgrew me because my family moved away midway through our sophomore year. Sorry If it seems like I’m rambling a bit, but in many ways, you remind me of how I was back then. Ive got more stories if you’d like to hear them.” -Rei (rewritten a bit)

    Oh wow. I’ll need some time to think about it, especially if I win the assistant position with David, not to mention I still would need to give my two weeks notice at the Smithsonian. I’m not going to tell you no, but I can’t give you a yes yet.
    I’d love to hear more stories about little David! He’s always so secretive about his past, almost like he’s embarrassed about it.