“Rise and Shine, girls!” The voice of Howard Weiss echoed through the girls’ rooms, oddly chipper than usual, “Rehearsal scheduling starts today! After all, I wouldn’t want you all to perform your most complicated trick without going over it a couple of times!”

~~~

Annette’s Rehearsal

     “Good morning, Howard,” Annette said, unclipping Rocky’s leash (Rocky taking the form of a flat-coated retriever) and allowing him to start running around the white-tiled version of the practice room.

     “Good morning, Annette. I hope you don’t mind, but since I told Frankie that I would not be available to give her a tour around Vegas, she’s requested to sit in on our rehearsals. Is that all right with you?” He pointed to the other side of the room from where Annette was looking. As Annette turn, she spotted the veteran magician, who looked up from a notebook she was writing some notes down in to smile at her. She was wearing a green t-shirt and some plain black shorts.

     “Y-yes!” Annette said, looking and sounding more visibly nervous, “But what’s the special occasion? We never have rehearsals on Monday.”

     “You’re correct. We normally don’t because it would normally be more beneficial for you all to spend the time thinking about what you want to do, but since the challenge is more so to perform something at the limits of your skills, I thought it would be much easier to figure out where those are as we go!”

     “Okay then…” Annette said, looking at Howard skeptically before leaning in and whispering, “Also, can I talk to you in private? It’s about Friday…”

     “Don’t worry my dear. I watched back the footage and saw that you already promised the other girls you would show them the floor before you came to talk to me. I don’t blame you for following through, but I ask that you don’t go to that floor again,” Howard whispered back.

     “Don’t worry, I won’t. What about that ghostly lady we saw?”

     “What ghostly lady?” Howard asked.

     “The one we all saw? The one that I imagine showed up on the tape when we went to the dining room after exploring the floor?”

     “My dear. There was nothing of the sort on the footage. Are you absolutely sure you saw something?”

     “Well… I’m pretty sure we all saw it… You could ask the others!”

     “Alright, I’ll ask them later,” Howard placated her, “but for now, let’s not keep Frankie waiting.” He stood more upright, proclaiming, “Alright! Let’s get this rehearsal on the way! Do you have any ideas for the act?”

     “Well, I have an idea on what we can work on with Rocky. Rocky! Assist!” Rocky’s dog body arched up, standing upon its hind two legs, as its muscle mass began to shift around to better work with its bipedal stance. While this was happening, his front legs began to gain increased articulation, better resembling human hands, and muscles began to balloon outwards into two orbs at his chest level. His canine face similarly began to shift, turning more feminine and disturbingly human, his snout becoming closer to a human nose, the fur on the top of his head growing longer, while his mouth still retained the disturbingly sharp teeth and tendril-like black tongue from all of his other forms.

     “Rocky! Pose!” The monstrous looking human stuck one hand up in the air, flipping his dark mane of hair and using his tendril-like tongue to lick his feminine lips.

     “Well… I must say that has to be one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever seen,” Howard said. Frankie looked on in wonder, scribbling away at her notebook. Unfortunately, only a few seconds later Rocky began to look like he was sweating, and before too long, the beast was on all fours once again, his features mutating into strange, beast-human hybrid bits.

     “Unfortunately, he can’t seem to hold a human’s form for very long, but he’s been getting better!” Annette said, “Of course, it’s clearly still inhuman, but I always thought that if I could train him to maintain that pose longer, I could use his silhouette to do some interesting stuff.”

     “Well, in that case, I might have some ideas we can try out…” Howard said, walking around Rocky, who had taken his master’s relaxing attitude to be an indication that he could turn back to a canine form, this time of a dachshund.

     After rehearsal had ended and Annette was toweling down, Howard approached Annette. “After you said in your audition tape that everyone you’ve contacted have came up short in getting more information on Rocky, I had to reach out myself to some people I know who are experts on rare beasts,” Howard explained, “and they all are similarly stumped. You very well might have discovered a brand new species of beast!”

     “Well… I’m still holding out hope that Rocky has a family somewhere,” Annette said, rubbing him on the tummy for his good performance during the rehearsal, “after all, I couldn’t bear to imagine this big softy being the last of his kind!” Rocky licked her face.

     “I haven’t exhausted everyone yet,” Howard said, “and the production team is apparently getting hundreds of letters on what other people think he might be, so who knows?” Howard shrugged, “I just wanted to tell you so that if he is a new species, you’re prepared to name it.”

     “Hopefully, it won’t come to that,” Annette said, tying Rocky’s leash and leading him into the Golden Elevator.

~~~

Maya’s Rehearsal

     “Alright Maya,” Howard said, after getting the same consent to perform in front of Frankie as Annette had, “I imagine that you and I have a similar idea of what pushing your limits is going to be?”

     Maya sighed, her one eye looking downwards as she said “Yes… I know.”

     “Look at it this way,” Howard said, wrapping his arm around Maya’s shoulders, “after nearly two weeks of practicing with prop-based magic, surely you’ve built up a bit more magic reserves, and have a generally better idea of how to go about returning to your base form.”

     “You know what? Yeah!” Maya said, getting excited, “I mean, how bad could it be?!”

~~~

Dining Room

     Maya slammed her head down on to one of the many available tables in the dining room. They had started out rehearsal by trying to do a simple, propless missmade. Surprisingly, the trick had managed to go off relatively without a hitch, her body separating nicely at the points Howard instructed (they had opted to perform without blades as well, just in case their assessment had been incorrect in regards to getting better at performing tricks) and after two excruciatingly long hours had managed to reattach her legs to her hips and her stomach to her chest, leaving her in three distinct pieces.

     Howard, not wanting to take away from the next contestant’s rehearsal time, had opted to order Dudley to help move Maya get around, at least until she had restored herself. Hence, why she had came to the dining room with Dudley carrying her upper torso which was holding on tightly to her head and her lower legs following along behind him.

     “Do you wish for me to stay around for lunch Ms-… Maya. Just in case you might need to go somewhere?” Dudley asked, clearly implying what he hoped her response would be.

     “Of course I would, Dudley,” Maya huffed, her mood brightening the tiniest bit.

     The two ate lunch together, Dudley occasionally feeding Maya a bite of her food for some laughs. When their food was mostly over, Maya thought to ask, “Hey Dudley… How long have you been working at the hotel?”

     “For quite a while now, Maya. Really ever since the hotel opened.”

     “So… Have you ever gotten a complaint about ghosts before?”

     “G-ghosts?” Dudley stuttered, looking around nervously, “W-what sort of g-ghost?”

     “Well… The other contestants and I went up to the floor that’s under construction-“

     “Really Maya? You’re not supposed to be going there!” Dudley seemed really defensive, “It’s very dangerous up there! Promise me that you won’t go back.”

     “A-alright!” Maya said, shocked by Dudley’s outburst, “I promise I won’t go back! It seemed to be rather uneventful anyways!”

     Dudley sighed in relief, “That’s good to hear. I’d hate to think you went there when there was some construction going on and you accidentally getting injured.”

     “A-anyways,” Maya said, going back to her incomplete thought from earlier, “When we came back down. We spotted this woman with long black hair and white skin. When she saw us staring, she seemed to sink into the floor!”

     Dudley looked like he was in thought for a moment, before he said, “Hm… I can’t say that I’ve ever heard of something like that happening in the hotel before…”

     “So, do you think it might be a ghost or some sort of sneaky witch?” Maya asked, her large eye looking at him expectantly.

     “Well… As a full-blooded demon I can say with some certainty that ghosts aren’t real. As for the other theory, the hotel is built with a large variety of magic detectors designed by Mr. Weiss, so it would have to be the best witch of all time in order to sneak in here. Most likely, I think it might have just been a part of your imagination.”

     “But all five of us saw it!” Maya said, “How could we all have imagined exactly the same thing?”

     “I don’t know!” Dudley said defensively, “I’m just giving my thoughts on it like you asked! I didn’t say it was definitely the case, just the most likely explanation!”

     “I cannot believe this! You would really rather think that we all had a simultaneous hallucination rather than believe in what we saw?”

     “I didn’t say I didn’t believe that you all saw this mysterious ‘woman in white’! I’m just saying it was most likely nothing!”

     “Ugh… Take me back to my bedroom!” Maya said, closing her eye and crossing her arms. “I’m done with lunch.”

     “Maya…”

     “Just do your job, Dudley!” Maya ordered, “and don’t whine about it!'

~~~

Sable’s Rehearsal

     “So… Howard,” Sable said, after agreeing to allow Frankie to sit in and watch their rehearsal, “I think for this weeks show… I’m going to try and wear my own face for once.”

     “An excellent thought, Sable!” Howard agreed, “I wasn’t going to push it after what happened on that first week, but I think that if you can overcome this stage shyness of yours, you’ll find that performing on stage as yourself can be really exciting.”

     “I hope so,” Sable said, still looking a little green from the thought of having to perform in front of others, “B-but! Let’s take it a little slower to start! Maybe just a crowd of four or five prop people before jumping into the deep end!”

     “We can go as slow or as fast as you need to Sable,” Howard said, comforting the girl, “just as long as you’re ready for that large crowd on Saturday.”

~~~

Sinopia’s Rehearsal

     “So, Sinopia… What do you feel like is your limit in terms of performing magic,” Howard asked.

     “Well… I generally like to believe that the sky’s the limit if you try hard enough!” Sinopia said idealistically, a twinkle in her eye.

     Howard had to hold back a bit of a chuckle, “My dear… While that is generally a rather noble thought… you must remember that your magic reserves are still… blooming. And while I was kind enough to assist a little bit with the minor transformation aspects of your trick for Saturday… I think it might be in your best interests to focus today on building up your magic reserves.”

     “Okay! If you really think so! What do I have to do!”

~~~

Sable & Sinopia’s Room

    “Ha ha ha!” Sable laughed.

     “It’s not funny Sable!” Sinopia whined, “Howard said that this was the best way to build up magic reserves quickly! After all, it’s what Jill used last year!”

    Sinopia was currently just her head, and was perched directly in Sable’s lap, who was sitting cross-legged on her bed. “I know! It’s just funny to see Ms. Grabby-Parts stuck as just a head!”

     “H-hey! I wasn’t the only one who took people’s parts back home!”

     “That’s true. But at least the other sisters usually have the common decency of asking to borrow parts before taking them.”

     “I can’t help it if they look better on me!” Sinopia said, her neck moving clearly showing that she was trying to turn her head away.

     “Yeah. Yeah. Hey Sin,” Sable reached down, plucking off her nose, leaving flat plain skin behind, “I’ve got your nose!”

     “Sable!” Sinopia whined, her voice sounding like someone was holding her nose shut (which they were) “When Howard restores my body back tomorrow morning, I’m going to get you back for this!”

     “Of course,” Sable grinned, “but until then…” Sable grabbed another part of Sinopia’s head, and spent the remainder of the day just playing around with her sister’s head.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

& Question Corner &

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     To Elise: “I'm so sorry to hear that you were eliminated, especially so soon. But the competition, even at this early stage, was so fierce that everyone had a decent chance of leaving. Don't consider it a failing on your part, think of it as a success on everyone's part that the bar was so high to begin with. I hope to see you again in person soon for that interview/hangout, once my current gig is over and I get some time between jobs. And after catching up on your channel, consider me a loyal viewer of your content.” -@@WanderTones

     Oh yeah, in the end I wasn’t that upset about getting kicked off. Everyone did an amazing job this week, and at the end of the day somebody had to be eliminated, and I guess I just pulled the longest straw.

     Also, I can’t wait for our interview/hangout too! I’m already compiling a list of some of my favorite transformations that we can try out! I hope that Cody and I can continue to deliver the content that you like seeing, especially as we start shifting things around when we add Howard’s former agent to our production crew!