A while later, Lucy came out of the bathroom with her hair removed from their pigtails. Making her way back to the middle of her room, she saw Maddie poking the still laying Sour Bill with a hairbrush.
"Feeling better, Lucy?" Natasia asked.
"I'll live." Lucy replied. Her attention returned once again to her friend and the fainted candy man in her door. "So Maddie, what's up with Bill?"
"I don't know. He hasn't moved an inch since... you know..." Maddie said, feeling a bit too awkward mention what happened a while ago. "Should we call someone?"
Lucy shook her head. "Nah, I'll handle this." She walked to the candy's side and tried to nudge him awake with her foot. "Psst... Hey Bill. are you okay?"
"Mmmhhhmmm..." Bill started to move. He started to regain his vision and was immediately able to make out the shape of Lucy. Suddenly recalling what he went through, he got up and ran away as fast as he could down the hall, thinking Lucy was going in for another lick. "GET AWAY FROM ME! AAAHHH!"
"Well that was rude!" Lucy said. She then returned to the circle and sat down to resume the game with her friends. "So, whose turn was it?"
"I think it's mine," Natasia piped up. She turned to Maddie and asked, "So Maddie, which one? Truth or dare?"
The mermaid didn't want to choose truth again, not after the question asked of her a while ago. Instead, she was willing to go with dare. "I'm gonna say dare."
"Okay," Natasia said. "I dare you to go..." She looked around for an idea of what to have her friend do. She scanned the room and saw her bag on the floor next to the dresser. She smiled and went over to open it. She fished out what looked like a sandwich from inside, still wrapped in foil and quite warm. "I dare you to eat this chicken club sandwich."
Maddie had a look of disbelief. She really didn't want to do this dare. "Natasia, you know I can't eat that! I don't eat meat."
Natasia shook her head. "Ah ah... Like I said before, that's not how the game works. My dare for you is to eat this chicken club, and that's what you're gonna do." The brunette brought the sandwich closer to her friend's face but Maddie tried to push it away. "Unless you wanna back out now?"
Her friend didn't seem to budge. "Not gonna do it, Natasia. I told you all that I'm a vegetarian. Eating meat is like eating my friends, which is not only gross but a terrible crime where I'm from. No meat, no fish, no seafood, period!"
The two looked at each other. At first, they really wanted for their friend to do a simple dare but... judging by what happened earlier when the young mermaid cried, they decided to make it even easier for her.
"How about we switch it up then?" Lucy suggested. She went back to her drawer and took out some pop rocks. She tossed them over to Natasia, who nodded
"Yeah, this'll work." She opened up the packet and removed the small stick inside. "You just have to put all of this candy in your mouth. But you can't open it up until every pop is gone."
Maddie thought about it. "Hm... okay, I'll do that."
Maddie opened her mouth while Natasia poured the entire packet in. As the candy hit her tongue, Maddie got a funny sensation of it popping. It wasn't so bad except for the flavor being a bit too intense, but that passed after a minute or two. A couple of minutes later, the candy was finished and Maddie was drinking some juice.
"Okay, that was... interesting. I've never had that candy before," Maddie said.
"They're good, huh?" Lucy gave her some extra packets. "Here. But word of advice: don't drink soda when eating those. They react just like diet cola and mentos."
Maddie nodded. "Okay, so who's next?"
Natasia yawned, getting kinda bored with the lack of excitement. Lucy grinned.
"Well... it was supposed to be Nat's turn, but she hasn't really done anything yet," Lucy said.
Natasia sat up. "Fine. I'll pick dare."
Lucy went to the snack table and grabbed a bottle of soda. "I dare you to drink this whole bottle of Sprite."
Natasia shrugged. "Okay." She grabbed the bottle and proceeded to drink it. The two were surprised that their friend was able to drink that much soda. What surprised them more was that the whole time, Natasia had her mouth open and was continuously pouring the fizzy beverage in, as if pouring it into a glass. She wasn't even having a hard time either. There were no hiccups coming out of her as she chugged the whole thing down.
After finishing the beverage off, Nat let out a rather loud belch.
"BURRRRRRP"
Feeling a bit relieved of the gas, Natasia sighed happily and sat back down. When she did though, she could see the odd stares of her friends.
"What?" She asked.
"Uh... are you okay?" Maddie asked.
"Y-Yeah... why?" Natasia replied.
"Um... it's just that... that was two liters of soda," Lucy said.
"I know," the brunette answered nonchalantly. "And?"
Lucy shook her head. "N-Nothing... nothing... I just thought that... I don't know... you might be feeling sick or something?"
Natasia got a bit suspicious of this. "Why would I feel si-" A thought came to her, "Wait... was there something in that soda?"
Lucy shook her head again. "N-No... and it's just...-"
"That was two fudging liters, Nat! And you finished it in two minutes!" Maddie blurted out. "I've never seen anyone guzzle it down so quickly."
Natasia smirked. "Pff... that's nothing! My dad can finish three sodas in that time. I used to go with him to food challenges. I'd usually try to copy him and get sick afterwards," the girl remembered the things she'd try to do when she was much younger. She once threw up when she tried to eat one too many marshmallows. "But I learned my lesson and got better at it."
"Huh... I never knew that about you, Nat," Lucy said.
"Eh... you never asked." Natasia's answer was casual. "Hey, you got any other dares? That soda's got me kinda buzzing."
Lucy was a bit stunned but got an idea. She went downstairs and grabbed some hot sauce from the kitchen. She glitched back into the room, got a Doritos chip from the snack bowl, and poured the hot sauce on it."Do you think you can try this?"
Natasia took the chip and ate it without hesitation. Her friends watched her face turn slightly red before it went back to normal. Natasia licked her lips and smiled. "Huh... not bad. I'm gonna have to tell mom and dad about that. Doritos and hot sauce is a pretty good combo." She even went back for a few more Doritos and hot sauce.
Her friends were in utter shock. They couldn't believe how anyone could eat like that and not be bothered at all.
"What's wrong with her?" Maddie whispered.
"No clue," Lucy whispered back.
"I heard that!" Natasia said. She turned around, having finished off the entire bowl of chips and bottle of hot sauce by herself. "Anything else?"
'Seriously?' Lucy thought. She put up her hand. "Uh... give me a minute." She went back downstairs and grabbed a dark, six-sided box. She returned to her room and showed her friends what it was.
Natasia examined the item. It was a box labeled "Paqui One Chip Challenge."
"It's supposed to be the world's spiciest chip. I've seen loads of videos on the internet about it," Lucy said.
Natasia opened the box and found only one chip sealed in a packet. "Huh... just one? And it's supposed to be the hottest?" Lucy nodded. Natasia opened the packet and was hit by the smell of the Carolina Reaper pepper flavoring. It made her eyes water a bit as the scent wafted into her nose. Inside the packet was a singular dark-colored chip. Taking it out of the packet, she slowly began putting it closer to her mouth.
"Nat, wait!" Maddie interjected, "Are you sure you want to do that?"
The half chocolate and frosted treat themed girl chuckled. "Oh don't be such a worrywart, Madz," she said, using a nickname she made up for her. "A dare's a dare. Besides, what's the worst that could happen from eating a chip?"
Famous last words...
As she crunched on the chip, she could feel the intense heat and capsaicin take effect. Her eyes were totally tearing up and her mouth was burning.
"Aaahhh! Water! Water!" she called out. Rushing to the snack table again, the poor little racer chugged another liter of soda, but didn't seem to help much. Lucy laughed while Maddie watched, worried about her friend.
"It's not working!" Natasia yelled. She ran out of the room and went down to the kitchen. The two girls followed behind her, not sure what was gonna happen.
In the kitchen, they found her chugging a gallon of chocolate milk from the fridge. It seemed to reduce the spiciness a bit but it was definitely still burning. Turning towards the sink, she grabbed the sprayer and sprayed her mouth with the cool water.
Off to the side, Lucy was giggling while Maddie glared at her.
"Lucy!", Maddie said, punching her arm.
"Ow!" Lucy whined. "Okay, okay..." She stepped next to the girl by the sink. "Yo Nat, you alright?"
The girl in question pulled her head up, her mouth dripping with water and drool. "Ugh... y-yeah... I think I am now..." She sipped some more water from the sprayer before spitting it out again.
"I'm really sorry... I-I didn't know they'd be-"
Natasia cut her off. "Nah, it's fine. Look, what do you say we just forget this and get back to the slumber party, m'kay?"
Lucy agreed and made her way back to her room, passing by Maddie who saw Natasia taking something from the refrigerator.
"What're you doing?", she asked.
Natasia was scrounging around for something in the back of the fridge. "Hold on, give me a sec... Got it!" She revealed it was a jar of... pickles.
"What's that?"
"Kool-Aid pickles. I saw it when I was looking for the milk." Natasia opened the jar to reveal pickles soaking in a red liquid. She took a pickle and bit into it. "Mm... Cherry flavored. Want one?" She offered one to the mermaid.
Maddie declined, finding it gross. "N-No thanks."
"More for me then." She made her way back to Lucy's room while munching on the pickles and drinking the pickle juice like it was normal Kool-Aid.
Maddie shook her head and made her way back as well, thinking, 'I have the weirdest friends.'