“Good Morning, Girls!” Howard's voice echoed throughout the entire hotel. “Would everyone please make their way to the basement of the hotel, and make sure to bring a small bag with toiletries and spare changes of clothes. We’ll be spending a bit longer than usual at our destination
~~~
Basement
The basement to the Weiss hotel was about as plain as any other part that wasn’t going to see regular people walking around it. There were racks of tables and chairs that were probably used when the seemingly infinite dining room wasn’t enough, several crates and boxes of replacement furniture and construction materials. There was also a large metal machine that was clearly the boiler, and an equally as large generator.
“Ah! Excellent!” Howard said, looking at all of the girls. They each had a small duffle bag with the ANGA logo on it, which the production team had made sure to leave in their room the night before. From Annette’s bag, the tiny, furry head of Rocky peered out, before burrowing back into her bag. “You’re all packed. And right on time too! The train should be stopping here any moment.”
“Train?” Sable asked, looking at Lisa and Ann, who if they did know where they were going, were not showing any signs of what Howard was talking about.
“Yes. Now stand back a bit,” Howard instructed.
The girls all took a step back, as the boxes along the outer wall began to shift out of the way, giving a good view of the foundation. Minuscule cracks began to form along the gray wall of cement, the cracks joining together, until the vague pattern of an arch cold be seen.
The cracks continued to spread, making smaller and smaller chunks, until all of the chunks shot forwards, propelled by the subway car that had broken through, a set of tracks magically appearing in front of it. As the subway grinder to a halt mere feet from where they had been standing, all of the girls jaws dropped. The door to the subway car opened, and Howard nonchalantly stepped inside, commenting, “Alright, let’s go!” Still stunned, Nora, Annette, Sable, Lisa, and Ann boarded on silently behind him.
The train began to reverse, and as soon as it passed by the archway, the various rubble on the floor began to climb upwards, rebuilding the broken wall, and sealing them into the strange underground tunnel
The train had been driving several minutes, when Annette had finally thawed out, asking Howard, “Howard… Why exactly are we traveling by train and not the shuttle bus?”
“It’s rather simple Annette. To avoid the reporters. If we left via the front door, they would have simply followed our bus, and then harassed all of us for comments or the like,” Howard explained as though it were the most obvious answer to their problem, “This way, they’ll have no idea where we are until the episode airs later tonight.”
“Okay… But why wouldn’t we just use teleportation then?” Sable asked.
“Because, my Dear, I’m trying to make up for lost time with my Daughter, and she’s never gotten to ride a train before,” Howard pointed to Nora, who was looking with her face pressed against the glass at the rocky tunnel that had seemed to miraculously form in front of the subway car. “And besides, trains are fun! And if we wanted to teleport, we would have to go through all the paperwork, and get permission from the Department of Transportation for a mass teleportation. Much easier to rent a train car for the day.”
“And you wanted to show off?” Lisa asked.
“That too,” Howard grinned, “After all, it takes the work of two very talented magicians in order to set something like this up.”
~~~
One Underground Subway Ride Later
“We’re almost there girls!” Howard announced excitedly, “You might want to hold on to something… We’re going to make a bit of a bumpy entrance.” As soon as he said this, the front of the train began to tilt upwards ever so slightly, eventually reaching a forty-five degree angle as they continued to head upwards.
The cabin began to shake as whatever force that was breaking up the tunnel a certain distance in front of them stopped, a similar process to what had occurred in the basement happening on the dirt in front of them. With surprising speed, the subway car broke out through the ground and came to a near instantaneous stop, the front wheels fo the car suspended in the air for only a moment, before smacking back down on the earth, sending up a large cloud of dirt.
As Howard and the girls shakily stepped out of the car, a familiar and exasperated voice asked through the dirt cloud “Did you have to completely mess up my lawn with your entrance, Howard.”
“Sorry!” Howard said, sounding genuinely apologetic, “I thought that your front gate was closer.”
“Well, it has been quite a while since you’ve stopped by,” the dust cloud finally settled, revealing none other than the magician who had helped kickstart the popularity of ANGA, David Angel. Upon realizing this, Annette and Sable gave a look of excitement to each other.
“David!” Nora ran up to him, hugging him.
“Ah- Nora!” David smiled, returning the hug, “My! How much you’ve grown! When I last met you, you were only about yea high,” He broke apart the hug so that he could gesture with his hand slightly slightly above his knees.
“Yeah, fifteen years will do that,” Nora smiled, before becoming very serious, “Is Mr. Whiskers still alive?”
“Nora,” Howard laughed, “Mr. Whiskers was a rabbit! They only live for about ten years, and he wasn’t a particularly young rabbit when he was a part of my act!”
“Oh,” Nora sounded a little sad.
“But,” Howard smiled, “You’ll be happy to hear that he had a lovely litter with Mrs. Whiskers, and those children are currently hopping in his footsteps and working with magicians all over the world.”
“Well… that’s good to hear at least!” Nora smiled again. #
Howard walked over to Lisa and Ann, shaking each of their hands thoroughly, “It’s so nice to finally meet both of you!” He smiled, before turning towards Annette and Sable, “And you two are obviously Annette and Sable!” He offered each of them a firm handshake, “Amanda, Jill, and I have only been sporadically paying attention of the new season, what with Isabella, and planning for charity events to help squash out the last remnants of the nasty plague, and preparing to organize another world tour. Very busy around here… Anyways! You two have been absolutely lovely, and it will be my honor to house all of you for the next few days.”
“Next few days?!” Annette asked excitedly, looking towards Howard for confirmation.
“Of course,” Howard grinned, “After all, I imagine David and I have much to catch up on.”
“Oh yes,” David grinned along with him, “A whole lot of stuff it seems. Why don’t you two girls make your way to the auditorium? A certain someone has a challenge set up for you two to do today.” As the two girls made their way towards David's castle, David shouted after them, “And don’t worry about your bedrooms! Howard made sure to send the blueprints so that I could make sure your time here is just as enjoyable as back at his hotel!”
~~~
Auditorium
Maya and Annette excitedly entered the auditorium, and as they expected Jill was standing smack dab in the center waiting for them to arrive. When they did, she excitedly ran off the stage and into the aisle, wrapping the girls up in a massive hug, “Oh my God! I’m so excited to finally meet you both!”
“You’re excited to meet us?” Annette asked in surprise, “We’re excited to meet you! You’re practically an assistant legend!”
“Of course I’m excited to meet you both!” Jill responded back, “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me an assistant legend. I’ve only been David’s assistant for a year now. Maybe you can call me that in a few years when I’ve actually been working hard for a long time. Now,” Jill broke up their group hug, suddenly becoming serious, “are you two ready for a death-defying challenge that’ll push the definition of what it means to be a magician?”
Sable and Annette looked at each other, not being able to respond before Jill said, “I’m just kidding. It’s not that crazy. Here let’s go on stage and I’ll explain it to you two.”
The girls walked up on stage, with Jill quickly dashing into the backstage area to wheel out a table filled with a variety of things. They ranged from the relatively mundane things, like an umbrella, a cooking pot, and a fan among them, then took a turn for the strange, with a rubber chicken, a nerf gun, and a tiny toy xylophone among the weirder options.
Jill put the table in front of them, gesturing among the props, “During my time on ANGA, I typically liked to design my tricks around looking at ordinary things and making magic with them. So, I decided to try and design my challenge around that. The two rules are rather simple: 1. They can only use one of the props on this table, and 2. Your trick has to have some element of flattening, mainly because I absolutely love flattening tricks. You’ll be performing the trick by yourself, so that means no using Rocky Annette, and the winner will be whichever Howard and David judges to be the best trick. You've only got thirty minutes to figure out the logistics, so make sure to give it your all girls!” Jill pumped her fist up in the air a little bit, signifying the start of the challenge.
~~~
Challenge 5: Jill’s Flattening Challenge
Nearly as soon as the challenge had began, their thirty minute timer ended, and all that was left to do was to perform the actual tricks. With little fanfare, Howard and David walked into the auditorium, seemingly discussing something, Nora tagging along behind them, admiring the auditorium like it was some alien environment.
“Alright girls,” Howard said, sitting in one of the front row seats, “are you ready to dazzle David with your impressive abilities?” Both girls looked rather nervous, to which Howard didn’t pay any attention, saying, “Sable, why don’t you go first?”
Sable walked on stage with her prop of choice, the fan, and gave a deep breath. She turned the fan on, the small device producing a surprisingly large gust of wind, that spread across her entire body, blowing her hair and her clothes back. She set it down on the floor and focused on the effect that she wanted.
It wasn’t immediately obvious at first what was going on, it sort of looked like Sable was beginning to develop a cowlick near the top of her head. But then, the cowlick flowed back, and it looked like a circular chunk of her hair had flown off and into the air, another cowlick forming where it had previously been.
As chunks of her hair flew up in the air, it became more obvious what Sable had done, as every time that a flat chunk of her flew off, another cowlick appeared, and soon flesh colored discs of Sable were flying up into the air. Very quickly, her body went the way of a stack of papers in the wind, each flat piece of her body flying off the top (where there was less weight pushing down) and swirling around in the air with the other slices of her body. Within moments, her entire body had been reduced to paper-thin circles of her body fluttering around and mingling in the air.
After letting this go on for a bit, the fan turned off, allowing the flat slices of her body to lazily float down to the ground, flipping and flopping as they did so. When all of the paper had settled, the colors of the various pieces of paper made out a cute smiley face.
After giving some time to write down notes it was now Annette’s turn to perform a flattening routine. Annette picked up the rubber chicken she had chosen and held it up towards the audience. She held the chicken by it’s neck, and with a snap of her fingers, created a large flame that quickly surrounded the whole chicken. When the flame died down, the rubber chicken looked like it had been deep fried, it’s normally plastic yellow skin replaced with a nice, brown, breaded skin. She bit into it, removing its head in one bite, and quickly stuffed the rest of it into her mouth.
She rubbed her tummy, indicating that it was rather tasty, commenting, “Mmm… Tastes just like chicken,” and it seemed like the trick was over, until Annette hiccuped, producing a soft squeaking sound effect and causing her to cover her mouth in embarrassment. She looked like she was about to say something again, when she hiccuped once more, the squeaking sound effect repeating itself louder.
She tried to say something, but instead of her voice, the same squeaking sound came out. She tried again, and just the squeaking sound caused by air leaving her body. After a third attempt to say something, it began to look like Annette’s clothes were beginning to look too big for her body. Annette didn’t seem to realize that as she tried to speak, her body was slowly losing air until it looked like she was too weak in order to keep herself standing and keep her mouth closed, as the agonizing sound of air leaving her body continued.
When she had became a complete flat shell of her former self, the sound of air running through the noise machine finally stopped and the kazoo like object that causes rubber chicken’s distinct sound rolled out of the tiny cave her lips made.
Howard and David seemed to talk it over for a moment, as Annette slowly began to re-inflate herself and Jill and Sable came back on stage. The three nervously waited, and eventually, Howard looked at the two of them, “Well girls,” Howard said, “David and I have been discussing it. And we’ve decided that the winner is
Sable!”
“Annette!” David said at the same time.
The two of the looked at each other, Howard eventually saying, “Um… David. We chose Sable. Remember?”
“No, I thought we decided on Annette,” David said in return.
“David,” Howard said seriously, “I thought we agreed that Annette’s trick was rather derivative of what a rubber chicken already does.”
“And I thought,” David retorted, “That we agreed Sable’s trick was less of a flattening trick and more of a very thin detachment trick.”
“Well, if we’re talking semantics, then Annette’s trick was more of a deflation trick than a flattening trick,” Howard returned back.
“Ah yes, but at least she was all in one piece,” David refused to back down.
The two of them went back and forth like this for a good few minutes, neither side really managing to convince the other. “Jill,” David said, asking his assistant, “Which would you consider to be a flattening trick?”
“That’s no fair!” Howard responded childishly, “She’s your assistant! She’s just going to side with you.”
“Well…” Jill said, scratching her head, embarrassed at the immaturity between the two magicians, “They both ended up with their bodies completely flat… and I’d be hard pressed to argue that just because someone gets cut up in the process, doesn’t mean they weren’t flattened.”
“Ha! So she thinks I’m right!” Howard grinned.
“*sigh* Howard, bickering like this won’t get us anywhere,” David said.
“You’re only saying that because I won-” Howard argued, David holding up a finger.
“Well… Since both of these girls won, I guess there’s only one thing we can do,” David gave Howard an uncharacteristically devilish grin.
“Ah… I see what you’re getting at,” Howard returned the grin. Howard stood up, “Well girls, it appears that David and I have agreed that this midweek challenge has ended in a draw!”
Sable and Annette looked at each other quizzically, Sable asking, “So… does that mean there’s no punishment this week?”
“Oh no, my dears,” Howard grinned, “It would be such a shame to not throw a bit of spice into the final week of the competition, and since you two have clearly proven that you’re of an equal caliber of assistant, I’m sure you’ll both be able to manage with sharing the punishment.”
“What!” All three assistants on the stage asked in shock.
David got up, turning so that he was looking straight at the camera, and smiling as he said, “That’s right! So get on your devices at home now and vote on what sort of predicament we should put these two lovely assistants into tomorrow. And to channel Drake for a moment: Goodnight Everybody!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
& Question Corner &
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Sable: “Thanks for the support but there are just so many things that prevent me from just deciding to be a magician. At best, I can do tricks around the shop but it's not the same as before. As you guess it, my shop is a big issue as I need a legit successor who is capable of caring for the heads for long periods of time. Also I am capable of doing other type of tricks but I felt that I lost my mojo in doing magic acts and more into using magic for other means such as arresting head thieves and all.” -Rei
I wouldn’t really worry about all that Rei. If being a magician is something you really want to do again, then it’s better to go out and do it yourself, rather than just waiting for the world to align perfectly. If not wanting to leave your heads alone for too long is a problem, then why not use your store as your venue and invite others to come see? If you’ve felt that you’ve lost your mojo, then the best thing to do is start over from the basics and work yourself back up.
Of course, if you’d rather just be a Heads Trader, that’s perfectly fine too! I just want to make sure you are happy, since you made Ron so happy by giving her a job until she got back on her feet.
To Sable and Annette: “That is true that magic was used for different reasons. The closest we got for performance magic is when we decide to mess around, play practical pranks, or for wars. Yes, sometimes magic acts are used for wars without casualties and that's how we take war so lightly back in my day.” -Izzy
Sable: Oh yeah, I think I read something once about the magic wars during pre-humanity in a history class once.
Annette: I think I remember that lesson too! That originally the magic wars started out rather humanely, which resulted in a lot of swapping of power between kingdoms, but gradually the conflicts got bigger and more dangerous as people started looking into more malicious magic.
Sable: Yeah! And then when all that fighting nearly destroyed the planet, it lead to the first magic dark age. I really hope you don’t know such dangerous magic Izzy, because I’d rather not unleash that sort of magic on the world again.
To Sable and Annette: “I wish you girls the best and greatest outcome, but now to my question, what have you learned during your time at ANGA and would you get mad at the other contestant, if you don't win?
And would you recommend any other interested girls to join the next Season of ANGA, if there is one?” -Andrea
Annette: Thank you so much for the good luck Andrea!
Sable: Yep! Thanks a lot!
Annette: So, as far as what I’ve learned, I’ve learned a few new things that Rocky can do, and on a more exciting note, I think I’ve definitely improved my magic reserves and how to act more like a magician’s assistant
Sable: I’d like to think that I’ve managed to learn to open up a little bit and work past my shyness. I obviously still have a lot to learn, but I’ve definitely gotten better at it. It's been pretty nice to learn magic from someone who actually knows it too, instead of just testing stuff on myself until I get the effect I want. Also, I wouldn’t be mad if Annette won! She’s my friend! I’d be excited for her!
Annette: Aw! Thanks Sable! I wouldn’t be mad if you won either!
Sable: Also, I’d really recommend anyone who’s interested in competing on ANGA to go ahead and try to get on. After all, the worst that could happen is you get rejected, but you’d still get some publicity from the ANGA webpage’s hosting of auditions.
Annette: Plus, if you do get on, it’ll help make you a better assistant!
To Everyone: “I have watched all Episodes of the current Season of ANGA and I have to say I'm super impressed by all the performances, regardless of getting further or not. Also the Guest Stars really were amazing. Though I have to admit "The faceless Magician", therefore Penny and Jean, are still my favourites. If anyone want's to answer, who was your favourite Guest Host/Star?” -Andrea
Sable: Ooh… Favorite guest star… I’m assuming we’re not counting family?
Annette: Of course not. That’d be cheating.
Sable: Okay then… Probably Rei!
Annette: … Really? She’s practically a part of your family.
Sable: Fine then! Um… I had a really fun time designing my Akko cosplay with Kairi, so I guess I’d probably say her.
Annette: I think I’d have to say Frankie, because she helped start our tradition of eating breakfast together and just talking about what we planned to do for the day. It was really cool of her to do. What about you Howard?
Howard: Oh no. You’re not pulling me into this one.
Sable: Come on Howard! Who was your favorite?
Howard: *Sigh* I liked all of the guest hosts and stars equally. They’re all my favorite, simply because they were kind enough to come on in the first place.
Annette: Really? You’re going to go with that excuse?
Howard: My dears, you’ll learn the value of not burning bridges by playing favorites when you’re older.
To Howard: “I thank you for the tickets. My father, mother, and brothers will attend. I’ll see you soon. You will be amazed at meeting him, I'm sure.” -Genie Schutter
No problem Genie, and I am very excited to meet both him and the rest of your family. I’m sure that they’ll have many wonderful stories to tell of your amazing acting talents.