“Good Morning girls!” The voice of Howard Weiss echoed through all of the girl’s rooms, “The shuttle that will be taking you to your first midweek challenge is waiting right outside the front lobby. It will be departing in approximately one hour. Make sure you’re on it, or you will suffer the consequences. Also, make sure you dress in shorts, I’ve heard its going to be a hot one today.”
Many of the girls groaned, a little sick of how often Howard had been waking up them early. Nevertheless, they slowly began getting up and started prepping for the day.
~~~
Outside of the Front Lobby
The girls gathered outside of the front lobby. While the show had once again set up the blockades from the first day, they didn’t seem to be that necessary, as the hot Nevada heat and time of filming meant that most people didn’t want to wait outside for a chance to glimpse the contestants. All of the girls had chosen to dress for the heat, with variations on the same outfit of a t-shirt in the color they normally wore, and shorts.
Sinopia walked over to Patricia, rubbing her shoulder as she said, “Hey Patricia, I took the magic enhancement potion right before I went to bed like you recommend, but I woke up this morning super sore.”
“Yes, that sounds about right,” Patricia said.
“Wait. What?”
“Well yes Sinopia,” Patricia said, rolling her eyes as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, “Magic is about an exchange of energy. It takes energy to create energy. Where did you think your magic reserves were going to get the energy to store up more magic?”
“I don’t know! It’s magic! I just assumed that-“
“*Tsk* Of course you wouldn’t-“
Patricia didn’t get to finish that thought, as Drake Brodignon stepped out of the revolving door that separated the front of the building from the lobby.
“Good morning Girls!” Drake said, pulling out a pair of black aviator glasses from his black button down shirt pocket. “I believe that that’s our chariot coming down the road right now!” From down the street, a large bus rounded the corner. It was mostly black, save for the large golden banner advertising Howard Weiss’s hotel in large golden letters and his smiling face. “All aboard!” Drake grinned, the bus driver opening the door for the assistants to get on.
~~~
One Bus Ride Through The Desert Later
The bus came to a stop outside of a large sports stadium. Heat lines radiated off the stadium’s parking lot.
As they finished lining up in front of the stadium, most of the girls already having started to sweat a little bit, Drake began the big speech he had planned out the night prior, “Welcome ladies to The Little Patch of Heaven Racing Track, here in Las Vegas, Nevada,” The camera cut to an audio pan of the area, showing off the horse racing track, the center of which being filled with lush, green grass despite being in the middle of the desert. “This half of a mile course has a long history, being the one of the first horse racing tracks to begin racing other species of magical beasts,” The camera cut back to where the girls were standing, “Today? It’s going to be the first location for the first midweek challenge of season 2. And to help introduce this challenge, may I introduce, for the second time, the current world record holder for the 400m Air Sprint, Mrs. Michelle Phillips!”
The camera panned up, catching the glimpse of a figure zooming past in the sky. After a few more passes, the figure began slowing down, allowing for the camera to follow it as a woman with two majestic, white wings slowly descended. As she landed on the ground, her wings folded inwards, hugging the back of her body. She pulled of a brown flight helmet with the US flag on the side, allowing her long brunette hair to flow in the wind as she said, “Hello again Drake. It’s great for you to have me again.”
Once the group made their way to the inside of the stadium, Michelle having changed into a much more comfortable black t-shirt (with holes cut in the back for her wings) and shorts, she began explaining the challenge they were about to face. “With the Guinness Plague having delayed the Summer Olympics being pushed to next year, we thought we’d try and help create a substitute event to help tide people over with a magical twist on some of the track and field events that would have occurred. So today, you and your partner will be running, throwing, and jumping through three, in the hopes of winning this fabulous trophy!” A stagehand wheeled out a small trophy on a stand, the front displaying a black ‘#1’.
“Additionally,” Drake said, looking sternly at the girls, “Due to pressure from the network, we’ve decided to implement an additional incentive to win the competition. From now on, losing a competition will result in a magical punishment to be endured for the following day of competition. This punishment will be selected from a list of punishments by the audience at home.”
“There’ll be a fifteen minute between the start of each event, so make sure you prepare properly before each task. Now with all the logistics out of the way, let’s get on to the first event!” Michelle grinned.
~~~
Event 1: Three-Legged Race
“I can’t believe you would give me something that drains my energy THE DAY BEFORE WE’RE SUPPOSED TO COMPETE IN PHYSICAL CHALLENGES,” Sinopia yelled at Patricia as they stretched for the three-legged race.
“Ow! You don’t have to shout!” Patricia said, rubbing her ear, “We’re closer together now, remember?”
Patricia was right. Unlike last year’s singles race, this year’s race three legged race was going to be in the duos race, although they were only going to do half of the standard mile long race for simplicity’s sake. Each pair of contestants was instructed on how to meld their inner portion together in proper racing form, with each girl controlling their half of the body, and their inner segment being controlled jointly by their two heads.
The two teams of Patricia and Sinopia, and Elise and Annette had managed to recreate the desired effect with minimal difficulty, their central leg and central breast seeming to have morphed into the average appearance of the two parts surrounding it, but Maya and Sable seemed to be struggling much greater difficulty with getting the effect to work out, partially because of their different biologies, but also because of the height difference between the two.
“Do you think we should help them?” Annette asked Elise, looking concerned as the two girls attempted yet again to meld together as instructed, the transformation being rejected by their bodies and forcibly sending them apart. \“Nah, I’m sure they’ll figure it out,” Elise said, “Now, let’s start practicing so we can make sure we have the walk down, I’ll go first, then I’ll move the middle, and you can do your outside foot,” Elise instructed.
“Yeah, yeah. I know how to run a three legged race,” Annette grumbled, watching as finally Sable and Maya figured it out, although the resulting transformation still appeared to be a little lopsided.
The girls finally lined up at the starting line, and Michelle readied the starting pistol. “On your marks… Get set… Go!” The blank fired, and the girls were off.
Obviously, since Sinopia was exhausted and Patricia was not particularly sporty to begin with, the two girls very quickly began lagging behind the other two. But shockingly the other two teams managed to stay neck and neck. As they rounded around the first corner, the girls realized why performing this race on a muddy track might not have been the best idea, as both teams slid slightly as they took the corner, managing to get back up to speed as they got on to the second straight-away.
As the two teams approached the second turn, however, things took a turn for the worse. Annette and Elise had taken the lead during the straightaway, hitting the turn at full speed and sliding hard outwards. As they landed on their outer foot to attempt to correct course, the ground gave way, causing the girls to tumble face first into the mud. As Maya and Sable rushed past them, Annette and Elise tried to get up out of the mud, shaking it off awkwardly, before slipping once more on their back into the mud.
Once they finally got up, it was far too late for them, Sable and Maya had shockingly taken the gold, while Patricia and Sinopia had managed to catch up enough to earn themselves the silver.
~~~
Event 2: Head Toss
“Okay, what the heck! You two were struggling to even morph together! How did you manage to keep pace with us?” Elise whined at Maya and Sable, who were trying through all of their magic to pull themselves apart.
“Well, I actually used to run duos with Sin back in high school,” Sable grunted, straining to pull herself off of Maya again, “It was one of the few magic things our Dad let us do outside of the house.”
“And back home I used to do sprints with the track team all the time,” Maya grunted, pulling yet again, hope being in site as the skin between their connection seemed to be thinning out, “So getting down a rhythm between us wasn’t that bad.”
“You see!” Elise complained to Annette, reaching up and removing her head from her body in preparation for the next game, “I told you we should have practiced the rhythm more!”
“We would have been fine if you didn’t have the bright idea to take a muddy turn full speed ahead. Have you ever even played in mud before?” Annette shot back, detaching her head in a similar manner. She would have been fine with losing the race, but now the mud on both of them was begin to harden and bother her. She would need to take a nice, long bath when she got home.
Maya and Sable’s body’s made a shlorping noise as they finally successfully pulled apart. At least, almost pulled apart. While their missing arms had returned, Sable looked down and realized that Maya had seemed to steal one of her legs and breast, her remaining body part having moved to bring her body more into a central position. Meanwhile, Maya’s parts had shifted over to accept the new limbs, her shirt and pants having an awkward stripe of Sable’s clothing on them.
“There’s not time to fix this,” Sable said, reaching up and taking her head off and walking towards the grassy center of the field, “We’ll just have to make do.” Maya god up, doing her best to move her new leg in time with her other legs, reaching up and taking off her head with some increased proficiency after using her head box in her room multiple times last night.
“Alright girls, standard Head Toss rules apply,” Drake said, “Choose a head, other sits as a marker for your middle point. Start a meter apart, and every time you successfully catch the head, take a step back. If you drop the head, you’re out. Team with the farthest distance between teammates at the end is the winner. Ready? Go!” Drake blew a whistle and the teams started tossing a head around.
Sinopia and Patricia’s team did the worst, Patricia managing a single toss to of Sinopia’s head to the poor girl and taking a step back, before Sinopia pitifully tried to lob her back, managing to get it to go a couple of feet in front of her before falling like a rock.
So once again, the competition seemed to be between Annette’s team and Sable’s team, as they managed to pass the named head between the two. While they put up a good fight, Sable managing to keep her balance relatively well despite the loss of a leg, their undoing came when they were about six meters apart. Despite her magic contacts doing wonders to help her depth perception issues, they did nothing to help improve her ability to toss and object considerable distances, especially ones that must have weighed about ten pounds. She threw the head with all her might, but it swung far to the right, missing its mark and eliminating them from the round. Meanwhile, Annette and Elise had gotten into a rhythm, managing to get a good eight meters before Annette’s head just barely slipped through Elise’s hands.
~~~
Event 3: Team High Jump
“Oh my God! Were not going to win anything today are we?” Sinopia asked Patricia.
“Not necessarily,” Patricia said, drawing something in the mud with a stick. I think we might be able to barely win the last competition, given that it’s a jumping contest.”
“But how?” Sinopia whined, “I can barely even stand up!”
“Leave that to me,” Patricia grinned.
“Okay, this is getting us nowhere,” Sable sighed, as she let go of her stolen leg. She had been trying to pry it off of Maya, who was currently lying down on the grass, for the past five minutes, to no avail.
“I’m really trying hard. I warned you about how lousy I am with restorations though.”
“Okay… Let’s try something that usually helps my little sisters out when they steal someone’s parts and can’t get them off,” Sable sat down on the ground, “Now, I want you to close your eye,” Maya did as she was told, “Now, I’m going to pull on a leg, and I want you to detach it. I’m going to use my magic to reattach it right after, so I don’t want you to even bother thinking about that. Only focus on activating the effect as fast as you can with the leg I pull on.” Maya nodded, and Sable began to pull on legs.
Maya did her best to keep up, starting out with taking a couple of seconds for her to let her leg go, but as she warmed up to the idea it became easier to detach. Sable kept only to Maya’s original two legs, reattaching them at a similar pace to Maya, until she felt that Maya was just instinctively allowing her to detach the part. She took her chance, pulling on her original leg, and finally freeing the offending limb from her, the pants segment coming with it.
“Okay, you can open your eye now,” Sable said, attaching her leg back onto her.
“But what about-“
“You can keep it,” Sable blushed, “At least until we get back to the hotel and figure out a better way to transfer it back over.”
“Alright girls, We couldn’t really think of a good way to figure out a team version of the high jump, so we’re going to be doing it a different way,” Michelle said, handing each girl a large backpack, “From a standing position, using a single jump, get as high as you can. These bag are parachutes, pull this red cord if you go too high. I’ll be flying around in the sky for some additional safety in case it doesn’t work,” Michelle picked up her flight helmet, giving a thumbs up to Drake before unfurling her wings, taking off.
“Okay girls. We’ll take the best of your two heights, so give it your best. First up… Sinopia!”
Unfortunately for her, Sinopia was barely able to manage to get in the air, not even managing to land on her feet from such a pitiful jump.
Next up was Maya, who similarly just attempted to do a normal jump, not really sure of what magic she could have used in order to enhancing her jumping ability.
Elise was up next, who started to squat down, her legs seeming to crush into themselves, before finally her legs extending outwards, shooting her up into the air several feet before falling back down to earth. She landed rather hardly on the ground, but not hard enough to worry about having accidentally broken anything.
Sable went next, and with everyone’s eyes focused on her… staring at her… judging her. Her mind froze not being able to focus on the effect she wanted to do, and when she went to try and jump, she ends dup only doing a normal jump.
Annette went up next, and her skin seemed to be turning more and more red, until suddenly a fiery blast radiated out from her feet, sending her upwards propelled by a red flame. She propelled several meters up into the air, one air thrusted up into the air as though she were superman. After reaching the impressive height of fifty meters into the air, her entire body seemed to catch fire and explode outwards, the small ashes peacefully falling back downwards to Earth.
The last contestant to go was Patricia, and considering the performance that had previously happened, hers was probably the strangest yet. Because, for all intents and purposes, it looked as though she were quickly thrust upwards of no outward movement of her own, like a puppet being pulled upwards by a string when their part in the puppet show was over. When she reached fifty one meters in the air, she suddenly disappeared, magically reappearing right where she had started. The other contestants jaws dropped at this impressive feat of magic, Patricia acting as though she hadn’t really done anything even slightly impressive.
“C-c-congrats Patricia… It looks like your team has won,” Drake said, genuinely shocked.
After several minutes of tabulation and whispered talks between Drake and Michelle, Drake returned to the girls and said,“Alright girls, we added up the points, and unfortunately, we’ve ended in a three way tie. Thankfully, we’ve planned for just this occasion, with one last competition…”
~~~
Tie Breaker Events: Humantaur Race
“Since we’re in one of the most famous horse tracks in the world, we felt it would only be appropriate to have the Tie Breaker be the human embodiment of a horse-“
“A centaur!” Sinopia interrupted, excited at the chance of being one.
“No. A humantaur!” Michelle announced, a production assistant wheeling out a cart carrying several modified human bodies. It looked sort of like a normal human’s body, but was completely missing any sign of a head, and their arms were replaced by a matching pair of legs. “To make things fair, we’ve gone out and ordered some regulation legs in order for you all to compete with. One of you will be the horse, the other will be the jockey. First team across the finish line takes home the trophy!”
Shockingly, the girls managed to set up at the starting line with minimal problems. Due to her exhaustion, Patricia had elected to perform as the horse, well aware that she did not have the physical prowess to actually win the race, but hopeful that the other two teams might fall over once again.
Maya had chosen to run for her team, as they agreed that Sable had the better form for the purposes of the jockey position, and even with her only running experience being vanilla running, she would hopefully get enough experience during the brief training period to be able to run the race well. Thankfully, Howard had thought enough ahead to produce an specialized pair of humantaur legs for Maya to compete with, their shorts prominently showing the eyeball logo that the props in her room had.
Despite Annette’s protests that she had more experience as the horse, Elise decided she would be running the race as the horse, siting that it was Annette’s non-committal to her plan in the initial race that caused them to fall over and lose the first round.
With the racers decided, the teams lined up on the line, and once again with the shot of the starting pistol, the girls were off! Once again, Maya and Elise shot off quickly, leaving Patricia behind as they rounded the first corner. This time, both teams managed to keep their footing much better around the first corner, remaining neck and neck the entire way. Annette and Sable each doing their best to hold on, the only handhold available to them being to hug their teammate from behind.
As they passed by the second corner, Annette was worried that Elise was going to lose her footing once more and fall over, but shockingly the girl barely managed to stay upright, her body tilting ridiculously far into the turn. So far, that Annette knew that if she didn’t let go, she would cause Elise to fall over. So that’s what she did, letting go of Elise and tumbling safely off into the dirt once again.
With the weight off of her legs gone, Elise felt a new surge of energy, managing to break past Maya and Sable and cross the finish line first. She threw her hands up into the air in victory.
Eventually, after all of the girls had returned to normal (or at least mostly normal in Maya’s and Sable’s case), Michelle announced “Congratulations to Maya and Sable! For winning the first midweek challenge!” Drake came over and handed the golden trophy to the girls.
“Wait. What!” Elise shrilled, “What do you mean? Our team crossed the finish line first!”
“No,” Michelle pointed out, “you crossed the finish line first. Annette crossed the finish line by herself some time later. If you were paying attention, you would have notice I said the first team to cross the line. Since both members crossed the line first, Maya and Sable are the winners.”
Elise gave Annette the stink eye, believing that it was her fault once again for their loss. Before she was able to mouth off though, Drake said, “Well girls. It’s time to return home, and to the losers,” Drake pointed towards the two failing teams, “report to the main lobby bright and early tomorrow morning for your punishment.”
~~~
Outside the Stadium
“Well Michelle, it was great to have you on the show again,” Drake said, giving her a hug.
“Thanks Drake,” Michelle said, breaking free of the hug and saying, “I officially announce this midweek competition over!” She put on her flight helmet, puffed out her wings, and blasted off the ground, flying away.
“And for all of you at home watching this, make sure you go and vote how you want to see the losing teams punished! Goodnight Everybody!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
& Question Corner &
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Elise: “For sure and I just messaged him. Still waiting. I even got some of the heads in my shop using their old accounts to subscribe to you if that helps.” -Rei
Awesome! Can’t wait to have you on!
To Patricia: “Okay thank you! I can't stress how troublesome it was when being stuck in that world. I had people telling me that I was being insensitive when comparing any disaster to that. I made new friends and I did get used to not having a body at least. Hell, it was the main influence for my head shop to give those lost heads a home.” -Rei
Yes, I truly feel sorry for you. But It’s good to hear that at least some good things came out of your suffering.
To Sable: “So I got in contact with Saffron and she'll get to it when she's ready.” -Rei
Thank you so much!
To Elise: “Sorry for not answering that question during breakfast: it does get a bit involved. But to put it simply... I have anatomical polymorphism: an obsessive desire to have my anatomy rearranged. I get extremely uncomfortable when in a "normal" body, or just settling into a form, so most of the time I have my body arranged in some weird fashion.
But yes, I would absolutely love to chat with you for your show, and I'd also love to have a TF session with you for my own blog sometime, if you're interested. Share form ideas, give each other anatomical makeovers, etc. Maybe we could even combine the two?" -@@WanderTones
Oh wow! I knew this girl in high school who had something similar! She got diagnosed in middle school with body dysmorphia, and thankfully her parents were cool enough to help get her a magic councilor to help her try and find a form that would make her more comfortable in her own skin. I think she finally ended up with having two heads and eight arms with no legs… Actually, I should totally reach out to her and get her on the show too at some point.
Also, I love your idea for a crossover! We can film all our shenanigans for my show and then you can post all about it!
To Patricia: “I'm not well versed in potions or biochemistry, but does such a potent magic reserve booster have any side effects? I know that artificially enhancing natural functions has risks of imbalances (even something as innocent as magically-gained flexibility causes problems if you don't balance it out with proper strength and co-ordination training... and before you ask, my flexibility is mostly naturally trained, though I did some intense training for my most extreme stretches in tandem with explorations into dissociation magic...)
But getting back to my question: Will there be any issues with Sinopia taking those magic boosters? Anything she would have to adjust to, or if anything could go wrong with a regular dose, or even how the magic overdose would manifest if she does take both within 24 hours?" -@@WanderTones
Well, clearly based on today’s events, you can see what the side effects of the magic reserves booster is. In hindsight, I guess I should have seen this coming, but with the boost I saw in her magic reserves today, I think it was still the right call. Now, we might actually have a chance to win this first contest. Assuming of course that our punishment for losing isn’t too harsh.
Some of the longer short term effects include random magic discharge, which may occur as her body adjusts to having more magic reserves than it’s used to; a general feeling of physical weakness; and potentially some cramps when performing magic.
If she were experiencing magic overdose, some of the major signs would be a general feeling of nausea, quickening heartbeat, extreme magic discharge and reality warping, an aggravation of pre-existing magic based conditions, a feeling of immortality, and potentially being rendered unconscious, or in extreme cases death. Hence why I explicitly told her not to take both.