It was another pleasant day in Australia, although the girls wouldn’t really know that until they went their own separate ways for the day.

     None of the punished girls were exactly certain when Martin’s effect had ended, all they knew was that they found themselves waking up whole once more. Those that had not yet had a rehearsal with him also found a little note in their room explaining what times he was available during the day, and the many times he wasn’t going to be thanks to yet more obligations.

~~~

Rachel’s Practice

     “Hey Martin,” Rachel waved as she came in.

     “Hello Rachel,” Martin smiled at her, “I’m surprised you offered to take the earlier morning rehearsal.”

     “Is that so?” Rachel asked, her clothes morphing similarly how they had a couple of days to something more comfortable, first morphing more towards her own skin tone, before shifting to a tank top and short shorts, their colors returning once again.

     Martin raised an eyebrow at Rachel’s display, before saying, “Well. I sort of had you pegged for the ‘wait until the last minute’ sort of person.”

     “Well, looks can often be deceiving,” Rachel grinned.

     “Mhm. And what did you have in mind for our trick on Saturday then?”

     Rachel stared at him deadpan for a bit, before sticking her tongue out. “Okay, so you may have pegged me correctly the first time.”

     “If you want to just use this session to brain storm, I’m fine with it,” Martin shrugged, “But Saturday’s only two days away, and while you may be good at winging it, I typically prefer a couple of days to prepare before a performance.”

     “I’ll keep that in mind,” Rachel grinned, “So, what should we do first?”

~~~

Olive’s Practice

     “Hello, dear!” Olive was all smiles as she walked into the practice studio in her golden leotard and various other pieces of workout accessories.

     “Hello Olive, How are you today?” Martin asked.

     “Oh, I’m doing very well, thank you very much,” Olive was reaching into her purse, “Now, I hope you don’t mind, but I brought us some granola bars, just in case we get a little peckish during rehearsal.” She pulled it out of her purse putting it on a table present in the practice studio, “But I wasn’t really sure if you liked granola bars or not, so I also got some fruit snacks, just in case.” Another box of snacks was placed on the table. “And I wasn’t exactly sure if the studio was going to be prepared for a magical medical emergency, seeing as it’s a dance studio and all, so I thought I’d go ahead and just bring my first aid kit with me,” With this third item pulled out, any doubt that this was a magical purse were dismissed, as the opening distending slightly to eject the decently sized first aid kit. “And-“

     “Olive,” Martin laughed, smiling from ear to ear, “Thank you for being so thoughtful, but I am a grown adult.”
    “I know that dear,” Olive laughed, “But you know what they say, ‘better safe than sorry’.”

     “I swear Olive, it’s almost sickening,” Martin laughed, “You’re sweeter than my own mother, and that woman’s practically a saint.”

     “For sweet,” Olive responded, “but I’m just doing what any other Mom would do”

     “Oh, and by the way,” Olive had finished rummaging through her purse, having pulled out a water bottle and tissue box during their exchange, “I had an idea for a trick for Saturday, but it would need a prop to be specially made for it. I would of come and told you, but I didn’t really have the idea until yesterday, and you’ve been so busy, dear, I didn’t want to intrude by asking.”

     Martin scratched the back of his neck, wincing slightly as he said, “Yeah. Sorry about that. Production’s got me running ragged with all of these promos they want me to do.”

     “Ah, dear,” Olive went over patting him on the arm with a look of concern on her face, “I’ll bet it can be tough trying to balance those things.”
    Martin seemed comforted by Olive’s patting, sighing, “It’s just the way the business works nowadays, unfortunately.”

~~~

Luna Park (Afternoon, Rachel, Kacie, Natalie)

     “You know, I feel so bad Dahlia’s missing out,” Natalie said, as the three approached the front entrance of Luna Park.

     The large animated face that framed the park’s entranceway did its best to welcome customers. The walls around the girls vibrated as it offered the following greeting to the guests behind them “El-onge oo Uuna Aark’

     “I mean, falling sick two days before the first elimination competition? That just seems so unlucky.” Natalie finished her thought.

     “I don’t even know how she managed to get sick,” Rachel said, “basically the only thing we did yesterday was hang out in the park on a pleasant day.”

     “Maybe she has pollen allergies?” Kacie offered, “That’d also explain why her voice sounded so sore.”

     “Should we pick her up some allergy stuff on the way back then?” Natalie asked, “Or maybe tell the show doctors-“

     Natalie was suddenly interrupted, as a voice from the crowd shouted out, “G’day girls!” The three assistants turned towards the voice, mild surprise coming to their faces as a familiar woman strutted towards them, an unfamiliar face in tow with them.

     “How ya goin this arvo?” Joey asked. Unlike when they had first met her, she was wearing clothes that were much more appropriate for a casual day in Sydney. She had on a very high cut, dark green crop top and khaki shorts that allowed her to have easy access to the pouch that stretched across her stomach.

     Kacie was the first to recover, “Hi Joey! The competition’s on Saturday, and Rachel wanted to go to Luna Park at least once before we left. Natalie and I basically came so that she didn’t have to come alone.”

     “Well, and because I thought it would be a good break from practicing,” Natalie sighed.

     “And to be clear, I didn’t invite them so I didn’t have to come alone,” Rachel clarified, “I would have been perfectly comfortable coming alone.” Kacie and Natalie gave her a look that clearly showed they didn’t believe her.

     “Good on ya!” Joey smiled, “I get to have a bit of a bludge mid week since tourism is a bit crook at the moment. But, my mate Tachy reckoned it would be a ripper idea if we headed down here to 'av a go at some of the midway games.” Joey gestured to the woman she had dragged over.

     She was slightly taller than Joey, but that might have been from the black combat boots she was wearing. She was wearing a dark blue t-shirt with a picture of the night sky on it, and black skinny jeans. She was also clearly non-human like Joey, as she had long black nails, a slightly longer than average nose, and bone-like spikes protruding from her head in the approximate pattern of a pixie cut. Currently, she was looking where the girls were standing, but she had a vacant look on her face, as though she wasn’t really seeing them.

     “Tachy’s an Ekinna,” Joey explained, "And shes a deadset huge fan of ANGA! She'd be devo if she missed an episode, so she hasn't skipped one yet!"

     Tachy turned towards Joey whispering above the ambient crowd noise, "Um... Joey... Who do you reckon you're talking to, mate?"

     “Settle petal,” Joey laughed, "I forgot you wouldn't catch cooee of em' 'cause of the coins." Joey sighed.

     “That’s right,” Kacie said, pulling out a small golden coin from her pocket, “I almost forgot we had these.”

     Kacie focused for a moment, and suddenly, Tachy’s face lit up, as she practically screamed, “Oh my God! Kacie!” The crowd paid her no mind, as she gave her a hug (being careful to not poke her with her hair or nails).

     Natalie and Rachel soon followed suit, and eventually Tachy was properly introduced to the three.

     "So, you'll be right if we tag along with you lot? We can rack off if you want though, no worries!"

     “Sure thing!” Natalie said.

     The five girls had an exciting afternoon riding the rides and playing the midway games available at Luna Park. Joey even managed to win a stuffed animal, which she immediately gave to Tachy, who was disappointed that she lost in front of the ANGA contestants.

 Rachel had managed to get everyone to go on the Sledgehammer with her, a massive pendulum looking machine that spun riders around on multiple axis of rotation, and while she was ultimately unimpressed with the ride, it was a bit too traumatizing for some, as it caused Patricia to refuse to go on any rides more intense that a merry-go-round for the rest of the day.

~~~

Moleside Inn (Afternoon, Paxton)

     Paxton peaked into her door’s peephole. That morning, she had been good about getting up early and sneaking some food into her bedroom, for lunch, she had waited about two hours after most people would go out and eat, and was now just making sure the coast was clear before probably running to a nearby Maccas to sustain her until dinner, when Martin was scheduled to make an appearance at a dinner between some of the larger Australian Sponsors.

     Seeing that the coast was clear, Paxton slowly opened the door just wide enough, so that she could see down the hallway. She opened it slightly more, peeking her head out and looking both directions, before closing it. She took a deep breath, opening her door and stepping outside.

     Literally the moment the door had closed and locked behind her, Martin popped around the corner of the cave way. Martin clapped his hands together “Ah! Exactly who I was looking for!”

     “Eep!” Paxton went to turn around and try to dash back into her room.

     “Come on Paxton,” Martin sighed, as he approached her “The show’s in two days, and so far you’ve been doing a pretty good job at avoiding me as much as possible.” Paxton seemed to visibly bristle, standing with her back towards Martin and her hand on the doorknob.

     “I know that you’re in a vulnerable spot right now, not really being sure with what you’re going to do with your life,” Martin’s word had a familiarity behind them, “but right now, you’ve got a once in a lifetime opportunity in front of you, and a person extending an arm out to have you in it.” Martin reached out his hand to only further his metaphor.

     Paxton sighed, dropping her hand down from the doorknob, she turned around and looked Martin in the eye, “But… What if I find out I don’t like it?”

     Martin seemed serious as he said, “Well then, you can always choose to quit the show,” he flashed her one of his trademark smiles, “Although, I’d just try being my assistant for a bit before deciding I’m too tough to work with.”

     Paxton giggled, looking down at Martin’s still outstretched hand, and reached out her own hand to shake it.

~~~

Moleside Inn (Evening)

     When the contestants made their own various ways back home, they were pleasantly surprised to find a letter waiting in their rooms (or for those who were in their rooms for most of the day, to find it magically appear in a puff of smoke on the coffee table in their rooms.

     It was a rather plain card, all things considered. Approximately index sized, with a golden border and plain white text. The card read,

     ‘Hello contestant,

     You are formally invited to an exclusive dinner party at The Cat’s Meow, tomorrow after the last rehearsal to celebrate your first successful week as ANGA contestants. Please dress appropriately.

     Sincerely,

     -Penny & Jean <3’

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

& Question Corner &

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

To Drake: “Do the contracts have a mute effect for more absent-minded performers?” -Phian (@@vanishedmagician) (Posted originally on S3E4)

 Drake: Drake grins mischievously, chuckling as he explains, “No, only for the ones that are suspected of purposefully planning on breaking their agreements, and who can’t be bothered to read the contracts they’re given.”

To Tetra: “ ”My head’s sort of my whole identity." You know, most people would say the same, and yet it means something completely different here.” -Phian (@@vanishedmagician) (Posted originally on S3E4)

 Tetra: “Ha ha. It certainly does.

 Rei’s not the only person though who’s came asking about marketing my head before. I’ve had people asking if they could advertise on it during gigs, and plenty of offers asking if Joel could make them a replica. It gets a little tiring sometimes honestly, but I completely understand the interest.”

To Rachel: Have you been naked this whole time? -Phian (@@vanishedmagician) (Posted originally on S3E4)

 Rachel: No, I've clearly been wearing clothes this entire time. Just because those clothes happen to be a part of my body, doesn’t mean I’m naked, at least as far as broadcast television is concerned.

To Everyone: “I enjoy the show a lot, seeing all that potential in all of you makes me feel proud. Now that said, hope you can unwind and enjoy your time. Also next week is already in Europe, so you know what that means!” -Andrea (@@Jeaune)

 Rachel: “Oh really? I guess we’ll be able to get that ‘Friend Sampler’ even sooner than I thought.”

 Natalie: “Oh man! I’m so excited to meet you in person! Especially after learning that you’re a fellow assistant! You definitely’ll have to share some stories with us while we’re there!"

 Paxton: Paxton blushes profusely, “Thanks, Andrea.” She smiles warmly at the camera, “I’m very excited to finally meet you in person. Next week can’t come soon enough.”

 Kacie: “Thank you so much! I’m so excited to meet you, and to go to Europe! I’ve played a couple of gigs in Amsterdam, but never really stayed long enough to go exploring around Europe. You’ll have to show me around!”

 Olive: “Uff da. We’re going to Europe next week? Oh jeepers, I’m going to have to go out to the store tonight to pick up those shortbread cookies.”

 Dahlia: “…Thank you… I’ll do my best to keep it together... and not stress out.”

To Drake: "Oh my bad, mistook you for David from the first ANGA. Sorry.” -Noel (@@quad2)

 Drake: Drake laughed, “Ha ha. You wouldn’t be the first person to make that mistake. It’s rather funny how much people mix up our names when we look pretty different. Probably doesn’t help that they’re so similar.”

To Drake: "Hey Drakie, Dad's been fine, just very, very busy, as we all have been. You'll see in due course of time.” -Genie Schutter (@@James-MacCloude)

 Drake: “I definitely understand that. Writing my book and scheduling the book tour took up so much of my life that I nearly considered stepping away from ANGA this season. Of course, things ended up turning out better than I expected, as they often do.

 It’ll definitely be nice to see him again though… and you, obviously,” Drake blushed, scratching the back of his head, “-just to catch up, of course."

To Martin: “I know I've seen you before, or at least one who looks and talks a lot like you. Do you have a brother or cousin who works in the LA wellspring? A friend and I went there last year about the time ANGA was visiting, to repair a magical arm bracelet, that was damaged. I thought I saw you there.” -Genie Schutter (@@James-MacCloude)

 Martin: “Well, I’ve been known to ‘do my time’ in LA. I’ll usually do a couple of pop-up shows there every now and again, mostly just to catch up with some old friends there. I’m afraid, though, that if we did meet in the past, you’d have better odds of remembering than I do. I can’t exactly remember what days I did shows there last year, but I imagine most of them were after the plague was resolved.”

To the Girls: “That is an interesting effect, you had for your punishment, I do hope it increased your magic reserves.” -Genie Schutter (@@James-MacCloude) / To the floating heads: “I wonder how it must have felt to be a floating head?” -Noel (@@quad2)

 Rachel: “I personally think it would have been fun to see what the ‘Herman’s Head’ one was going to be. Like, would we be splitting into multiple personalities like ‘Inside Out’? Or would there only be one tiny version of us running around? Oh well. There could have been worse options selected.”

 Natalie: “I ended up having fun with it after I found it was safe. Oh! And I can’t speak for the other contestants, but I definitely felt a little stronger in the magic reserves department after it. Of course, that could also be bias from the fact that I’ve been following Martin’s instructions and practicing basically non-stop in my room.”

 Dahlia: “…Being a ballon was nice…” Dahlia blushed at the memory, “…Just floating in the air… No senses to distract…” Dahlia hugged herself tightly.

 Olive: “I had a blast, dears. Plus, I’m so happy that all of the girls loved my idea for a picnic. It was just such a pleasant, and you know, no point in letting one of those go to waste.”

 Paxton: Paxton smiles. “It definitely was a unique experience…” she hides her face away, “I don’t know if I’m much a fan for getting cut to pieces though. Which in this line of work…” Paxton trails off.

To Paxton: “I hope my dumb brother didn't bother you too much, if he gets out of line, just let me know and I'll give him a few good lumps on the head for you! On lighter note, I do want to wish you the best of luck, and hope you make it though. As for what you want to do in life, I actually struggled with that too, I wish I could go into more details, but I can't. Maybe when we meet, and we will meet, we can talk.

You have my private E-mail, if you need a friend I'm here, it won't show up in the public eye.” -Genie Schutter (@@James-MacCloude)

 Paxton: Paxton blushed, “N-no need to worry. I wasn’t mad at him, just mad with myself. Your brother was an absolute gentleman.”

 Paxton smiled weakly, “But thanks for the offer to talk to me. I’ll definitely have to email you some time. I hope that we’ll meet someday too.”

To Natalie: “Looks like you had a blast today, I do hope you get to do some rehearsing tomorrow.” -Genie Schutter (@@James-MacCloude)

 Natalie: “Well, it was a lot easier to have a good time after Rachel showed off that we weren’t going to accidentally lose our heads. But before that,” Natalie shook as though a chill passed over her body, “I was so nervous! I was probably picking at my string every few minutes, just to make sure the knot I tied was tight and I wouldn’t accidentally float away!”

To Rachel: “I thought your performance was fantastic, too bad it didn't make anymore money for your team, but your punishment seemed like fun, so win win.” -Genie Schutter (@@James MacCloude)

 Rachel: “I’m glad you enjoyed it! And it’s even more of a win-win-win, since all the money we raised is going to charity.

 Although, I wish that the punishment would have been actually more of a challenge or something extreme. I mean, the worst thing really the punishment did was make it hard to move around, and that would have really only affected things if Martin wasn’t so freaking busy with these dumb press things to have rehearsals with us.”

To Kacie/Tetra: “Did Joel add any other dorky little features to that pyramid? Wouldn’t be surprised if he did.” -Shannon (@@FlagsOtherSide)

 Kacie: “Ha ha. You’re right on the money. Joel’s such a massive dork that he couldn’t even just give me the list of easter eggs like a normal person. He had me do an actual treasure hunt using clues that my head would automatically translate into GPS co-ordinates just to get it. Most of them are just in-jokes between us, but he’s put in some other dorky stuff.”
Kacie picked up Tetra, who chirped awake. “So yesterday, I showed that Tetra could work as a D4, but actually if you shake her enough,” Kacie lightly shook Tetra up and down three time, a rapidly changing number appearing on her front panel, replacing her normal animated face. “The more you shake it, the higher the dice type, but Tetra can basically work as a random number generator up to a D100.” Kacie stopped shaking, and the number on Tetra’s front panel continued rapidly shifting, until slowing down and eventually ending on a ’16’.

 Tetra’s face came back, giving a cute smile as Kacie continued, “Joel also included a lot of Easter Eggs as default skins for Tetra.” Tetra’s face began to disappear, as her normal hue was taken up by an industrial, rusty brown color, crusty red specks occasionally popping up onto the screen before being absorbed.

 The metallic sheen on her screens began to morph again, taking on a blocky, light green hue. The topmost blocks near the tip of the pyramid morphing on the screen to display the Eye of Providence.

 The screens once again changed in hue, taking on a layered approach of rainbow colors. Music began to play, as the various foods of the food pyramid began to march across their rows.

 Tetra’s regular blue hue and animated face came back, “Of course, I mostly stick to the skin I designed. I think it suits Tetra best,” She rubbed the top of the pyramid, the pyramid’s mouth turning into a 3 and eliciting a purring noise.

 “And then really, there’s all the cool bits and bobs he shoved into Tetra. I’ve already shown off the printer, and it’s pretty obvious that Tetra’s speakers can play anything, but also,” Kacie grabbed the tip of Tetra’s pyramid, giving it a twist three times to the right and pulling off a portion of pyramid that contained Tetra’s eyes. The triangular cross section it revealed shockingly had an exposed disc drive, a little nub just waiting for a disc to be placed on it. “Tetra also can play CD’s, DVD’s, even blu-rays!”

 Kacie reconnected the portion of Tetra’s head, “Anyways, there’s plenty more stuff to share. Seriously, Joel’s a wizard with technology. But I think I probably should stop here before they kick me out of the booth.” Kacie smiled warmly, “Thanks for the interest though!”