“Good morning Girls!” The much too cheerful voice of Howard Weiss awoke the girls at their regular time. For some odd reason, he seemed to be happier than usual, as he announced, “It’s time to come downstairs for eliminations!”

~~~

Lobby

     The girls arrived downstairs, and spotted Drake who was nervously fake biting his nails, “It looks like this is going to be a very close one girls.” On the screen were three bars representing the three contestants, and each bar was wildly fluctuating, almost seeming like one of the three took the lead every few minutes.

     With only a few minutes left in the poll, Drake turned off the monitor, as Howard stepped out, a huge smile on his face. “Girls,” he said, “I just want all three of you to know, regardless of how this poll turns out, I’m immensely proud of the progress that all three of you have made. Not just on yourselves, but on me. Without you three, I really don’t know if I could return to magic, and for that I shall owe all three of you a debt for however many years I have remaining.”

     This touching moment was interrupted, as Drake’s timer hit zero, a little slip of paper spitting out with the results of the poll, “Well girls, the show must go on,” Drake said, as he quickly scanned over the card, a look of sadness spreading over his face, “The polls have closed, and the results have been calculated. I’m sorry to announce that the contestant going home this week is … Maya.”

     Maya’s large eye began to well up, her shoulders tensing up in anticipation of having to wipe down both sides of it.

     “As always, your send-off will be later this evening on the rooftop stage. If you want to say your goodbyes, make sure you get them done before then,” and Drake and Howard left to give the girls a moment alone together.

~~~

Dining Room

     “I’m so sorry to see you go, Maya,” Annette said, digging into her pancakes, “It just seems so unfair after how hard you’ve worked just to get here.”

     “Yeah!” Sable agreed, herself eating some scrambled eggs, “You probably worked harder than anyone else.”

     “Hey now,” Maya said, blushing slightly, “Don’t sell yourselves short. You both worked hard too!”

     “But not as hard as you,” Annette retorted back, “and unlike Sable or I, you clearly had a better motive for winning than we did.”

     “I wouldn’t really describe it that way,” Maya continued to blush, “All I wanted to do was prove that some nonhumans could perform magic too.”

     “Well, I think you’ve definitely done more than just prove that,” Sable said.

     “Yeah,” Annette agreed, “I’m pretty sure that you single handedly increased the interest in nonhuman magician assistants. Don’t you remember all those people on the street talking about how much you competing was going to change the magic scene?”

     “Stop!” Maya said, still blushing, “I’m sure that that would have happened on its own given enough time.”

     “It only takes one incident to start a movement,” Annette grinned, “You should be beyond excited, so why are you so nervous?”

     “Because I don’t really feel like I deserve all this praise!” Maya said, practically hyperventilating, “All I did was compete on a reality TV show, a show I didn’t even win! And I’m nervous because I don’t want people back home to suddenly start treating me like start of a new great age of magic. And I’m terrified that when I leave, suddenly everyone will expect me to be some master assistant that can perform any trick. I mean, I’ve definitely gotten a lot better, but clearly I still struggle with a lot of stuff!”

     Sable and Annette sat in silence for a while, as Maya did her best to calm herself down. “Maya,” Sable eventually said, “You shouldn’t really worry about it all that much. I’m certain that most people are just happy that you felt brave enough to compete in the first place.”

     “Sable’s right,” Annette said, “you shouldn’t really worry yourself too much with other’s expectations. As long as you can look at your accomplishments and be proud of them, then who cares what others think. You’ve done enough, and everyone deserves a little bit of rest.”

     Maya sniffed, her eye beginning to well a bit with tears as she said, “Thank you so much guys. I”m really going to miss you both so much.”

     The three girls stood up and embraced in a long hug.

~~~

Dining Room - A Little Before Evening

     While Sable and Annette went off to take a bit of a break before Howard gave Maya a proper sendoff, Maya had elected to spend almost her entire last day in the Dining Room. She wasn’t sure if he would come, but she knew that she had to talk to him at least one last time before she went, and she couldn’t get up the courage to ring the front desk to do force him to listen.

     “Is this seat taken?” A voice asked from behind her, spooking her a little bit. From her peripheral vision, she caught a glance of Dudley, as he pointed to the chair opposite Maya.

     “N-No…” Maya said, looking away from him. The two sat in silence for a while, maintaining the direction they were looking in the whole while.

     “Do you know how long a demon normally lives?” Dudley asked.

     “No…” Maya responded.

     “There’s not really a hard and fast rule, but most scholars think it’s about eight times of the maximum age a person could reach without any magical ability, so about a thousand years old. Because of that, people often say that Demons are among the most depressed nonhuman races alive on Earth. And why wouldn’t they be? They get to watch all of their friends grow older around them until they die, and then get to start the cycle all over again. And that’s if they’re lucky. After all, there’s still a huge amount of stigma against Demons, thanks to the myths of us being agents of destruction, sent from the Underworld to destroy all that comes before us.

     Do you know how old I am?” Dudley asked.

     Maya briefly glanced at him, looking away just as quickly, “I don’t know… In your twenties?”

     “If I were a human, I’d be about twenty five. Which means that I’ve been around for two hundred years. Do you know how many friends I’ve lost in that time period?”

     Maya didn’t answer. “None of them,” From his pocket, Dudley pulled out something that looked a bit like a booklet, He unfurled it, revealing that inside every single page was either a crude drawing of two people (one of which was clearly Dudley) which gradually got better as he flipped through the pages, or photographs of Dudley and people, which similarly, grew in better quality as the years went along. “A lot of people think that just because someone dies, they’re got forever, and I feel like that’s often the trap that a lot of my fellow demons fall into. But if you keep the memories of those people alive, how they made you feel, how they could make you smile, even in the worst of situations, are they truly gone?”

     Dudley kept flipping, stopping at one of the pictures near the very end. It showed Dudley, who looked like he hadn’t changed a day since the photograph had been taken, and a little girl with long black hair and a white dress on his shoulders. She was grabbing on to his horns, as though she were steering him in what direction she wanted to go. “I can understand why you’d be mad at me,” Dudley said, “I’d probably be mad at me too. But it’s very rare for a demon to find people like Mr. Weiss and Nora, who are both so genuinely kind to others and want to see them succeed. When Nora was born, I promised Mr. Weiss that I would do everything in my power to protect her. But I also promised to her that I would help her achieve her dreams, regardless of what they were. When he got nervous that you contestants would cause her to leave, something I knew she wanted more than anything in the world, I entered into a moral dilemma that I could not escape from on my own. I can’t ask you to forgive me for betraying your trust, but I do hope that you can understand where I was coming from.”

     Dudley stood up, closing the book of pictures and stuffing it back into his pockets. “Well. I hope that you have a safe journey home tonight…”

     He turned around to leave, but was stopped by Maya saying, “Hey Dudley!” He turned around, surprised to see that Maya had somehow managed to appear a polaroid camera that was floating in air, “Say Cheese!” She smiled, Dudley only having a moment to smile before the camera took their picture.

     Maya walked over, flicking the polaroid picture through the air to make the photo appear. The picture was slightly blurry, but it was quite clear that Maya was smiling while Dudley looked utterly bewildered. “Here,” She said, handing him the photo, “put this in your book so that you’ll never forget that we were friends.”

     “F-Friends?” He asked, slightly bewildered.

     “Of course!” Maya smiled, “What else would you describe us as? Bellhop and Contestant? Doesn’t exactly have the same ring to it.”

     With tears starting to well up in his eyes, Dudley put the photo graph into the next available blank page, the two hugging goodbye as May began making her way up to the rooftop to be sent home.

~~~

Rooftop Stage

     Once again, the atmosphere on the rooftop was rather depressing. Nora had made her way up, and had managed to get a quick goodbye and a hug before Maya properly left to go set up backstage.

     The curtains rose, and in center stage were Howard and Maya, who was happy that she had managed to get all of her goodbyes done before she had to leave. “Once again, we gather here today to say goodbye to a bright colleague of ours,” Howard said, “But it isn’t all bad. Maya over the course of your time on this competition, you have helped inspire plenty of nonhumans and hemihumans to seek out the call of magic, and have proven your own worth by designing fantastic props with wonderful enchantments for your performances. As such, I would like to introduce you to a friend of mine.”

     From offstage, a large, ten foot tall, muscular man stepped out. He had four, large muscular arms that had seemingly ripped through holes of his black business suit, a single large eye that took up the space where his eyes would normally go and his nose, and a large, white horn on his forehead. “Hello!” He bellowed, taking a knee so that he was more on level with the normal humans on stage, “My name is Mono-I the Cyclops. I helped produce the props in your bedroom.

     I’ve been paying attention to you all throughout this competition, and I was wondering if you would like to come and work a paid summer internship at my production studio? We want you to help us design a series of props designed to help non- and hemihumans practice magic, of course donating a percentage of the profits to a charity of your choice, as well as design rights. What do you think?”

     Maya was stunned, but before she even had time to answer, Howard interjected, “And don’t feel intimated by his size,” Howard said, “Mono-I hires a range of human and nonhumans to help in his production team.”

     Maya seemed to think about it, before saying, “Alright! I don’t know much about prop manufacturing, but I’d love to try!”

     “Excellent!” Mono-I said, “My team will get in touch with you through Howard’s team to set everything up.”

     “And,” Howard said, “I’ll help chip in a donation of one hundred thousand dollars to the charity of your choice as well, just because I know that you’re worried about how well you’ll do. This way, you’ll be able to get to work knowing that you’ve made at least some tangible good.” Maya hugged Howard, Mono-I getting a little teary eyed as he stood back up and slinked into the shadows of the backstage.

     “Alright then. How are we getting you home now Maya?” Howard asked after they had broken from their hug.

     “Well… You told us all to design these farewell tricks as though we were going get kicked off week one and be at a same level to how we came in…”

     “Yes, and?”

     “And, well. You know I didn’t really have much talent for magic back then, so you’ll have to forgive me for how plain the trick is,” she went up to Howard’s ear and whispered it in.

     Howard smiled, “it’s definitely a little plain, but I can clearly see your inspiration. Alright let’s do it.” Howard clapped his hands, and from offstage, two stagehands wheeled out a plain looking wringer, the handle of which had Mono-I’s plain eye logo on it.

     With minimal effort, Howard fed Maya into the wringer, quickly squashing her as flat as a sheet of paper. He held her up, and she did her best to give a little wave. He then proceeded to fold her arms, legs, and head inwards, before folding Maya up into a little sqaure. He fed this square into the wringer, flattening it out but maintaining the square shape.

     He repeated this step several more times, until Maya was a flat square of flesh approximately a foot in length on each side. He folded her in half lengthwise, then widthwise, repeating this step over and over agin, the little square of Maya getting smaller and smaller, until he opened up his hands wide, revealing that she had completely disappeared, presumably having been transported back home.

~~~

Challenge Delivery

     “It’s sad to see Maya go,” Drake said, dipping his head and pausing briefly as he cheered himself back up and continued, “However, now it’s time to unveil the Final weekly challenge, and boy do we have a doozy for you girls this week.”

     Drake walked to center stage to begin his introduction, “These women represent some of the very best in the field of magician’s assistants. Appearing in over one thousand public shows combined, and easily more than that if you were to add in the thousands of private showings they’ve done. Ladies and Gentlemen, I would ask that you please stand and put your hands together for the Lovely Lisa and the Amazing Ann!”

     The two remaining contestants and Nora all stood up, clapping and cheering as the curtains slowly rose up, revealing the two famous assistants standing side by side, their inner arms raised in the air. Lisa was wearing a bright green, sequined dress that flowed slightly past her feet which greatly complimented her brunette hair. Meanwhile, her tanned skin helped in contrasting her from the much paler Ann, who was sporting almost the exact same dress (minus some differences, such as the bow that she had tied around her waist) in Red. Her long blond hair rippled down her back, as the two of them stepped slightly forwards in the very center of the stage.

     “Hello girls,” Lisa grinned.

     “I hope you’re ready for an absolutely amazing time this week,” Ann grinned along with her.

     Howard walked out on stage, giving each of the two girls a massive hug, and telling them how wonderful it was to meet them, before handing them the envelope he had given each of the assistants before them.

     The two assistants opened it, glancing at each other with a knowing smile. “Do you want to tell them Lisa?” Ann asked.

     “I would love to,” Lisa said, taking the card from Ann’s hands. “Ladies, for your final challenge of Season Two, your task is going to be something rather simple to imagine, but incredibly difficult to execute.”

     Ann, who clearly had practiced this move with Lisa, walked out from behind her and snatched the card out of her hand, “Your task is this: ‘Create and then performa Dueling Magician’s Routine in a week. The final performance will be this Saturday.’”

     Lisa feigned some annoyance, as Howard took over, walking in front of both women so that he could explain. “The Dueling Magician’s Routine is a longstanding favorite of mine, and will ultimately put together all of the skills that you should have been learning over these last few weeks. One stage, Two magicians, Two assistants, and no major breaks between the sets. Each magician will get the opportunity to perform their individual trick first, the order of which will be selected shortly, and then the four of you will work together to pull off a spectacular final trick, utilizing both assistants. The winner of this will, of course, be selected by the audience, and thus will have earned the right to call themselves my assistant.”

     “Now!” Howard said, clapping his hands together, “All we must do is sort out the difficulty of finding two proficient magic users to help…” Howard scratched his chin, as Lisa and Ann walked out from behind him, linking their arm together with Howard in the middle. “Ah! Lisa and Ann! I’m terribly sorry to push this burden upon you-“

     “We accept!” Lisa grinned.

     “After all the fun we’ve seen the other girls having, we were hoping to get a larger part of the action for being the final celebrity assistants,” Ann explained.

     “Excellent!” Howard grinned, breaking apart their little chain as he started pacing the stage, “Of course, now the only art part is deciding which one of you will get to perform first… Say, don’t you two have a bit of a rivalry?”

     “I would say it’s more on the friendly side, but I suppose you could say that,” Ann smiled.

     “Yeah, we compete, but I’d still say we’re good friends,” Lisa put her arms around Ann.

     “Well, how about we have a little competition then to decide which of you will go first?” Howard offered up.

     Lisa and Ann looked at each other, a brief fire glowing in their eyes as they said, “We accept!”

     “Great!” Howard clapped his hands together once more, this time resulting in several stagehands walking out from either side of the stage. The ones on the left were carrying a large yellow colored basin that seemed to be filled with a green slime that was bubbling ferociously, the side of the container labelled with a black skull and crossbones. The ones on the right were a large silver basin with a visible flame underneath, the slightly yellowish liquid bubbling for different reasons, as the side of the container showed a black droplet, the words ‘Caution: Hot Oil’ underneath.

     “I’ve heard that you both are trained escape artists?” Howard asked.

     “You’d almost have to be with some of the shows we’ve gotten asked to perform in,” Ann chuckled.

     “Well then, you two should have no problem with this task. These,” Howard reached behind his back, producing two pair of black handcuffs, a series of red runes inscribed on them, “Are some magically resistant handcuffs, equipped with a locking mechanism of my own design.” Ann and Lisa put their hands out, allowing Howard to put the handcuffs on so that they wouldn’t dig too much into their skin, while still not allowing them to pull their hands out easily. From the ceiling, two hooks slowly descended from which Howard tied the chains of their handcuffs around, Lisa for the one on the left, and Ann for the one on the right. “The first one of you to unlock the handcuffs, and get to safety will be the one to go first on Saturday.”

     “And what are the vats of dangerous substances for?” Lisa asked as the hooks slowly started ascending, causing the two girls to raise their arms.

     “Just for the added sense of danger,” Howard grinned, the chains soon causing the two girls to lift up in the air, neither noticing that Howard was standing on the trails of their dresses. As the reached a certain height, the hooks began to strain against the pulling of their dresses, before powering through, completely ripping their fancy dining dresses off, causing both of the girls to scream.

     Underneath, Lisa and Ann were wearing bikinis that matched the outfits that Howard had just ripped off of both of them. The two couldn’t do much to maintain their modesty, as their handcuffed hands forced their arms upwards. “Howard! That was a very nasty trick!” Lisa said.

     “I’m sorry,” Howard said, holding up the two dresses, “but it would have truly been a waste to see such lovely dresses destroyed so needlessly. At least this way they can be simply repaired,” and with a flick of his wrists, each dress was miraculously returned to its normal state.

     The hooks eventually reached their destination, Lisa hovering dangerously close to the acid, while Ann hovered above the boiling oil. At this point, Howard turned towards the camera and said, “The Producers have requested for this part of the show that I remind our intelligent audience that the following stunt’s cleanup will be handled by a proper team of waste specialists, and should not be imitated without taking the proper safety precautions to ensure that such destructive materials are properly contained and removed in order to prevent house fires and the destruction of water supplies. After all, we all share this planet together, let’s not ruin it for everybody.”

     His environmental safety message out of the way, Howard turned back towards the girls hanging in their precarious situations, “Alright Ann and Lisa! On the count of three! One! Two! Three!” A whistle sound effect blew, and the two assistants quickly started struggling against their bindings.

     Lisa seemed to be fiddling with something, twisting her hands at an awkward angle in order to try and reach the keyhole of the lock. Ann, meanwhile, had taken a very different approaching, using her legs to swing her body forwards and back. After a few more swings, Ann’s arc now took her way beyond the lip of tub of hot oil, while it seemed that Lisa had made some progress with her handcuffs, making sure to grab onto the hook she was suspended by before continuing any further.

     Just as Lisa successfully removed the first of the handcuffs, now suspending herself by the hand with the handcuff still attached, Ann had made her move, using her momentum to loosen her chain from the hook, flinging her body forwards and landing with poise on the stage in front of the tub of oil, her handcuffs immediately disengaging as she did so.

     “Congratulations Ann!” Howard said, walking over and holding up Ann’s hand, “For figuring out the solution, and getting to go first on Saturday, and a little bonus,” From behind his back, Howard pulled out a box with a large red button on the top.

     “What is that?” Ann asked, smiling as if she already knew the answer.

     “It’s the control’s for Lisa’s Hook,” Howard responded returning the smile as he handed Ann the button, who immediately pushed it.

     Lisa squealed as she fell the several feet into the pool of acid, managing to keep her head and arms above it as the surface of the acid bubbled wildly from the reaction it was having with her body. Lisa waded forwards, eventually reaching the lip of the tub and pulling herself out with surprising ease.

     From her neck down, Lisa’s entire body had been replaced by a skeleton’s the bones moving as they should have despite the lack fo muscles to connect them, the cross section where her fleshed arms met her humerus (which had managed to get eaten into a little bit) revealed a fully skinned crosse section which looked rather ridiculous tapering down to the bone. Lisa looked down at her body, giving a little gasp, before commenting, “Well… I guess that’s one way to lose weight,” Howard and his two assistants having a good chuckle about it as the curtains drew closed.

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

& Question Corner &

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

     To Annette: “That is a classic way of focusing the attention on yourself: a beautiful rivalry of magician and assistant. What I like more is that not only did you have Howard as your rival, but Rocky on his side. The bright colours in the spotlight and the blacks in the shadows, really make you pop out visually alongside standing out in the performance.” -@@WanderTones

     Thank you for the kind words Penny! When we were practicing the trick, Rocky seemed to get really agitated that he had to change me when I was actively telling him to stop, but he seemed to grasp the actual concept of the trick when we finally practiced the part where he comes back to my side and transforms Howard.

     To Sable: “That's one way of drawing attention to yourself: instead of showing up the magician, you just make yourself into more individuals, that way you, mathematically speaking, are guaranteed more attention by the audience. By the way, was that actually fractionation magic? That's quite a complex effect, regardless of if it was or if it's just you copying yourself several times, and it all came together into quite a unique result. -@@WanderTones

     You understood exactly what I was going for. I also did it, because that way the audience wouldn’t be tempted to just stare at one of me for too and it help lessen my stage anxiety.

     And to answer your question that was fractionation magic! I’m actually pretty impressed that you could spot the genuine article (or at least make a guess that that was what was going on). When she was with us, my Mom used to be an expert in light magic, so she’d do things like making rainbows for us, or make her reflection do silly things in the mirror, or if it was raining outside, or make a miniature sun so that we could all still go outside. She taught us some rudimentary stuff like making sparks, but she made sure to write down the harder stuff in a notebook she had. When Dad was tossing out her stuff, I managed to save it and learn a couple of the harder techniques.

     It turned out that using the refraction method was actually more cost effective in terms of magic reserves (well, after Howard charged me up with a bit of his own reserves). The only downside of it was that I didn’t have direct control of the refracted versions of myself, and apparently Howard had to struggle really hard to make sure that they all were behaving during rehearsal.

     To Maya: “You created a fascinating act, taking inspiration from the Emerald City of Wizard of Oz. You truly were a fair and just queen, giving your all into your duties, yet sharp enough to turn away any opportunity to deceive you. I do have to provide a small amount of criticism, which is that the interesting designs of Howard's various characters were distracting whenever he came on stage. Especially the lion "costume", which while humorous, took my eyes off you for a good 5 seconds. The shifting of your own appearance did help to counteract that, but your job as the assistant is to keep eyes on you, not the other way around.” -@@WanderTones

    Were Howard’s costumes really that distracting? When I had designed the set, I was really hoping that people were more so going to be focusing their eyes upwards after his first costume, since practically everyone’s seen The Wizard of Oz and would know which three costumes he was going to use.

     In hindsight, I can see that you’re right, but it really makes me frustrated. This whole competition I’ve sort of felt like every time I design a trick, I always manage to miss one or two details that threw the whole thing off. Maybe it’s just because I tend to overthink things. Hopefully Mono-I will be able to teach me a lot of new techniques so that I can make my shows more interesting in the future.

     To Maya: “The only reason why we get some centaur and harpy heads is that they are often in battle more and there are people who are really into them. A shy centauress is new though I'd imagine that she's the odd one of her kind. As for your performance today, I like the theme but it got repetitive with the request part. Not enough tricks. I do suggest in the future to keep a theme but do more.” -Rei

     Well, I guess you weren’t the only one who found the trick rather repetitive. I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to provide as many tricks and transformations as you would have liked. Hopefully though, Mono-I and I will be able to develop props that will help others start developing some amazing tricks in the future.

     To Sable: “Based on today's performance, the splitting is good but you were so focused on the theme that you forgot to do more than just detachment.” -Rei

     I mean, I did some size readjustment and shape changing too, and a bit of flattening with turning my selves into playing cards. Not to mention the fact that the whole trick revolved around refracting myself into my core personalities. I’m glad you enjoyed the detachment part of the trick Rei, but I think you’re selling me a little short if that’s all you came out of it with.

     To Annette: “Wow, you were really flexible today! Like the extremes you went but the theme seems all over the place in my opinion. Keep up the good work.” -Rei

     Glad you liked the shape changing parts! Rocky and I had to work hard to make them look natural. I’m not sure how you found the theme confusing, but I’ll be sure to work on it

     To Bernice: “Please don't! These heads are begging to be a part of an issue. I'll figure something out!” -Rei

     Alright! I’m sorry I brought it up! I was just teasing you a little bit! I wouldn’t pull the plug on someone looking to enter the modeling industry that quickly.

     If you are finding that your other heads are acting a little pouty because they didn’t get selected to model for the ad agency, I would recommend holding a little party while you send the heads out to the photoshoot. That way, both groups get to have some fun, and while I’m sure that they’d much rather have gone modeling, it will at least help placate their complaints a little bit by showing that you acknowledge their importance to you.

     To Sable, Maya, and Annette: “What Rei said about your performance is similar to my own thoughts. You all did well but I am disappointed at the same time. Though you three have much to learn and there is no fault in that.” -Rei

     Sable: Et tu, Izzy? Nah. I’m just kidding. I’m sorry to have disappointed you. We’ve got one more week, so hopefully I’ll be able to create something that’ll make you proud to join the family.

     Maya: I think you’re right that I have a lot to learn, but hopefully Mono-I and his team will be able to teach me a lot of stuff that I don't know about designing props and tricks.

     Annette: Well, now I’m a little confused, because it seems that Rei said she liked the performance (admittedly with some faults), but then you say you’re disappointed in all of us? I’m sorry if that’s the case, and Rocky and I will work hard to try and get you to like our final performance.

     To Howard: “I would never want you to endanger your daughter, nor break any agreements you made in good faith. Perhaps in a few years such props will be available to you though the Props Manufactures Union.” -Jacob Schutter.

     I’m very glad that you understand why my hands are tied, Jacob. I hope that one day we might get the chance to meet so that you can demo these amazing enchantments to me. Tell Genie that I wish her luck on the premiere of her new movie.