“Alright Ladies! That was great, although I’m not sure we can use that trick for the finale,” Saffron said, looking at Leela and Holli. The three girls were in the practice room, which had been modified by placing a massive, soundproof wall into the middle of the room so that both teams of girls could practice at the same time. Leela and Holli were standing in a modified Twister cabinet that allowed for two people. Their heads and feet looked relatively normal, but the open cabinet revealed that their bodies resembled a thick rope with blue and red strands. Their hands peaked out from the rope at seemingly random intervals along its length.
“What do you mean?” Holli asked, “The two person Twister is a woefully underrepresented trick.”
“That may be true,” Leela said, “But I think I’m going to have to agree with Saffron on this one. While her tricks have been rather simple from an execution standpoint, Jill has always put a lot of imagination into how to weave the magic into her tricks. She won’t just take a classic prop like the Twister and add to it, she’ll find her own way to create an effect.”
“Plus, it’s so boring,” Saffron said, crossing the trick from her ideas list, “I want everything to be visible when I do my effects. Covering it up defeats the whole point of showmanship.”
~~~
Jill’s Practice
Meanwhile, on the other side of the barrier, Jill covered her face, nearly crying, “Oh gosh! We’re so screwed!”
“Jill! Calm down and try again,” Cammie said, rational as ever.
“Yes Jill. Listen to Cammie,” Ophelia said from where she was standing in the corner. She had used Saffron’s animation spell to animate her cauldron once again, bringing it into the practice room so that she could work on a witch’s brew to help out Jill.
“Fine,” Jill said, trying her best to sound confident as she grabbed the rolling pin once again and focused with all her might on the vision she wanted. She closed her eyes in concentration, imagining the rolling pin gradually flattening out Cammie. Just as with every time she had tried before it, she found it easier to push her mental image out onto Cammie, her flesh giving way as she passed the rolling pin over her body. After several more rolls up and down Cammie’s body, Jill looked down at her work and…
“Oh my God! You did it Jill!” Cammie shouted, her face beaming with pride. For the first time since they had started practicing, Jill had managed to completely compress Cammie down to about the thickness of a piece of paper. Cammie sat up, her body flopping over and thus folding herself in half.
“Eee!” Jill squealed, unfolding Cammie and lifting her effortlessly off of the table, giving the flat girl a hug and wrinkling her in the process.
“Congratulations Jill!” Ophelia smiled, still busy mixing her potion. “But remember, the most important part is the restoration.”
~~~
Foyer
All six of the girls took a break from practice when their camera crews told them that David and Amanda were now approaching the house. They waited excitedly, and began cheering as soon as they walked in, getting a stern look from David as he said, “Girls! Isabella’s trying to sleep!”
The six girls quieted down immediately, but made quick work of surrounding Amanda, who was carrying Isabella in her arms. They all fawned over her, asking various questions about how the process went, but Amanda held a finger up, silencing them as she made her way to one of the many doors of the foyer so that she could put Isabella down to rest.
With the baby out of the equation, the girls shifted their attention to David, surrounding him in a massive group hug. They had all missed him dearly for the few days that he was gone. “Wow girls! If I knew you all had missed me so much, I would have left much earlier,” David joked.
“So David. What took you so long?” Cammie asked.
“Well, they wanted to keep Amanda in the hospital for an extra day to make it a bit easier for us to get home. I probably shouldn’t have shown that video on Saturday, because the hospital was absolutely swarming with journalists trying to get a comment or picture to share all day on Sunday and Monday. They finally gave up after I asked them to leave last night. But enough about me! Jill! Saffron! I wanted to congratulate you two for making it to the finale!”
David gave each of them a hug. “You’ve both made me so proud with the amount of work and dedication you have brought to this show. If either of you need anything from me over the following few days, don’t hesitate to ask. And Girls! I’m so happy you all decided to return!” David continued with the hugs, completing his journey around the circle. “Feel free to help out your team captain in any way you want that doesn’t break the rules. Oh! And remember, they are the magician in this scenario, so what they say goes.”
“Now, if you all will excuse me, I’d love to answer your questions, but those hospital chairs are not the most comfortable beds, and I’ve been sleeping in them for the past few days. I’ll hopefully see you all some time on Thursday when I’m more awake,” David yawned, before entering one of the foyer doors, heading off to sleep with his wife for the first time in nearly a week.
~~~
Jill & Ophelia
“So, are you really going to be okay with not doing shows how you used to do them with David?” Jill asked for about the fifth time that night.
“Jill. I’ve already told you. My Coven approved of me performing in any manner for my return to the show thanks to all the hard work I’ve already done in spreading the word on the Ancient Magicks. David is a masterful magician, so I knew he could handle whatever I threw at him. I do not have the same expectations for a beginner such as yourself,” Ophelia was not even looking up from her spell book as she reached over and poured various containers into her cauldron, “If you asked me to go out on stage in a pink tutu and frills, I would. Because you’re my friend, and I want to do whatever it takes to help you to win.”
“Yeah. But I still feel bad is all,” Jill said, moping “I mean, both you and Cammie have done so much to help me out, yet I’m the one who’s still in the competition.”
“Well stop thinking like that,” Ophelia said in a stern tone, “You won on your own talents and imagination alone. Yes, Cammie and I have helped you out, but if we were in your situation, I’m certain you would do the same for us. Now, try a bit of this,” Ophelia raised a spoonful of her concoction for Jill to try.
Jill accepted the spoon, giving the bright orange mixture a strange look, before swallowing it down. As it traveled down her throat, Jill felt a surge of energy rush through her. She felt as though she could do anything! “Wow! That stuff is amazing! What does it do?”
“It’s a bit of a magic enhancer,” Ophelia said matter of factly, as she begin to ladle the contents of her cauldron into extremely small bottles. “It’s not going to make you all powerful or anything, but I should have made enough to help fast track your magic training so that you’ll only be slightly underpowered in comparison to Saffron, as opposed to the David and Goliath situation you two currently have.”
“Really? Ophelia you’re the best!” Jill said, walking over to her and giving her a good hug. As she let go from the hug, she looked down and noticed that Ophelia’s waist was now comically thin.
“I should probably mention. You’re going to have to be very careful when you’re under its effects,” Ophelia laughed, breathing in deeply and causing her crushed waist to expand outwards, “It pushes your magic reserves way beyond your limits so that they can grow quicker than normal, which also means that you’re not going to be aware of the sort of stuff you can pull off now. But, your magic should work as intended if you keep in mind the stuff Cammie taught you about keeping your mind clear and focusing on the effect you want. Ooh. And before I forget, make sure you stop using this stuff at least twelve hours before the competition. That’s how long it takes to flush out of your system.”
“Thank you so much Ophelia,” Jill said, being much more careful with her hug this time and managing to not crush her, “If there’s anything you ever need from me-
“Well, you can thank me after we win,” Ophelia interrupted, giving her a grin.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
& Question Corner &
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Jill: “So, from barely capable to hold a complicated form, to having to run the show. How do you feel? You've got a lot ahead of you, and are at quite a disadvantage compared to Saffron. But don't worry, I believe you can pull off a great act.” -FlexibleAnatomy
Well, I’m nervous… But also extremely excited! To think I’ve gone from literally having never done any magic on my own to having to be the magician in my own show. It’s pretty crazy! I’m sure if you told any of my friends in the Flat Pack that I was going to get to this point in the competition, they would have called you crazy. Yet here I am!
Hopefully, Ophelia’s potion can come through to give me a bit of a fighting chance so that I can do more than just flatten people on stage, but even if it can’t I’m going to try my very best! I can’t give up when I’m so close! And I’m sure Saffron’s not going to go down without a fight either.
To Saffron: “Weird stuff, huh? I guess we have something in common. Crotchface, upside-down torso (I know Jessica popularised it, having to navigate with re-oriented arms is an experience in itself). I've consolidated my body into one short amalgamation of pieces after going through a 5 box Mismade, and of course, haphazardly rearranging myself and my GF into one unrecognisable body is always fun. Especially when we rely on the roll of the dice to select pieces, which often ends up with us having long spider-like limbs attached to random torso bits. We should swap ideas sometime.” -FlexibleAnatomy
Oh, I’d gladly swap ideas with you! In fact, I’m going to have to try out some of those forms tonight! They sound beyond fun!
If you’ve ever seen John Carpenter’s The Thing, there’s two weird transformations I love to do from that movie. The first is moving my mouth down to my torso and enlarging it until it takes up my entire torso. That one feels really freaky, because it turns your entire core into a cavity. I once tried to fit one of my sisters in my giant mouth, but they were always too scared that I might try to swallow them.
The other one is that I like to elongate my fingers a bit and attach them to my head to look like that bug creature from that head creature from the movie. I tend to add a bit of stickiness to my fingertips too to let me climb on walls. I’ve scared my sisters multiple times with that one.
Oh! And If you’re really want to get weird, I have one word for you. Webbing. Seriously, adding a thin layer of skin between joints can make you look like the most freakish monster, but it’s also a ton of fun to make your skin flap. Sometimes, I like to thin out my muscles a bit and pretend I’m a just a giant sentient blanket when I add webbing everywhere. I’ve had a friend of mine tell me that they once went paragliding with their skin like a giant flying squirrel, but I’d be much to freaked out to try that.
To the others: “It's so great to see all of you again. All of you are fantastic assistants, and magic (and Magick, in your case Ophelia) users in general, so it was a shame to see you all leave. Did you all know that you would be returning, or was this as much of a surprise to you as it was to all of us?” -FlexibleAnatomy
Leela: Well, here’s the thing. Disappearance and teleportation magic is a bit crazy, especially when you’re doing it across the country for some of us, so when we signed up, we knew that David was going to be sending us to the nearest airport instead.
Holli: What was different than what we agreed upon was that he had a producer waiting for us at the airport to explain that David wanted us all to return for the finale of the season. He was going to pay to fly us back out, and we’d get the chance to perform again.
Cammie: Except for me. I was teleported to the driveway instead so that I wouldn’t have to drive back if I accepted.
Ophelia: Of course, all of us accepted the deal. It was the least we could do for David seeing as how he did so much for us.