Dress Off 05: Arena of Embarrassment

It was on their third corner that Takara edged her way around to find herself facing Tess, who had her arms crossed some four metres down a longer expanse of corridor.

"Takara, I assume." Tess said, drily,

"Tess." Takara replied. "You choose the easy way or the hard way. Either way, you end up naked." Takara's tone was matter of fact, and she signalled for Akemi to join her.

Akemi stared at her suspiciously. "Where is Bree?"

Tess laughed. "Well, she was more interested in taking on Monica than finding the keys, so she's undoubtedly amusing herself with taking out Green Team."

"No matter." Akemi replied, and extracted a small device that was hooked on to the back of her red utility belt. "In your culture, red means a warning or danger. For us, taser says the same thing." Akemi pointed the taser at Tess and smiled. "So no misunderstanding here then. You can strip yourself where you stand, or we can strip you ourselves."

Takara nodded at the taser her partner was carrying, and matched Akemi's smile. "You won't enjoy us stripping you."

Tess's attention centred on the taser being pointed at her, and seemed to momentarily lose her calm confidence.

"Easy ladies." Tess replied, "No need for that. Have you considered that maybe we might work better as a group against the others? No need to take each other out just yet."

Akemi gave a light laugh, and Takara cocked her head to one side. "Really Tess? No, what do you people say? 'Three's a crowd'".

Tess sighed, and slowly raised her hands over her head. "Well, if that's the way you want it..." Tess kept one hand in plain view in front of her face, as she indicated that she was going to undo the back clasps on her top with her other hand.

Takara and Akemi impatiently indicated for Tess to hurry up, Akemi in particular seemingly half-expecting Bree to come from behind at any point. Tess let a look of defeat cross her face as she reached behind her to remove the first item of clothing. Momentarily, she seemed to struggle to reach the clasps, and took a small step to the left as she slightly over balanced. The viewers at home who would have been salivating at the chance to see a naked Tess Trueheart were suddenly treated instead to a flurry of movement.

Triggered by Tess's slight movement to the left, a door to her side slid open to reveal another one of the many rooms scattered around the maze. At the precise moment as the door slid open, Tess smoothy brought her hand from behind her back and over her head, throwing the small object at Akemi and Takara that she had secreted in the back of her top. Simultaneously, Tess dove through the open door, while Akemi and Takara instinctively evaded the thrown object. Red Team launched into a string of colourful Japanese curses as they realised that Tess had thrown a simple torch at them.

Without pausing, Akemi and Takara regained their pose and raced after Tess, both barrelling through the door into the room and swearing as they found themselves facing both Tess and Bree. The two blonde agents stood resolutely in the middle of the room, with Bree holding a simple box in one hand. Too late, Akemi and Takara realised that the door frame they were standing in overly constrained their ability to dodge. As Akemi went to take aim with her taser, Bree drew her throwing arm back and pitched a perfect fastball, sending the box straight into Takara's stomach, momentarily winding the ravishing Japanese thief who nonetheless instinctively held on to the catch.

Whoever was watching online might have noticed the single moment where everything seemed frozen in time, as Takara stared in surprise at the box, and Akemi tried to figure out who to taser first. That moment was quickly shattered though, as the box in Takara's hands suddenly unleashed a fine-grained netting that completely engulfed the two Japanese women, sending them falling to the ground in confusion, and causing Akemi to fire the taser in a shocked, delayed reaction. If the netting was problem enough, the taser compounded the women's predicament many times over by sending an electroshock throughout the netting and completely incapacitating the Red Team.

Akemi and Takara twitched on the ground from the aftershocks, and the effects of the taser seemed to last for several minutes, as Tess and Bree carefully peeled the netting back from their two prone opponents. Once the danger seemed to be over, Bree liberated the taser from Akemi and made sure that it had another charge in it, now training it on Takara as Tess set to work on Akemi's clothing.

The seductive Japanese contestant was helpless to resist as Tess turned her on to her front, and broke the clasps that ran down the length of her top. Rolling Takara over on to her back again, Tess then proceeded to pull at the front of the top, causing the clothing to peel off Takara's body, and reveal a magnificent pair of breasts held back by a simple red bra. Tess paused to grudgingly admire her opponent for a moment, before flicking the front clasp that kept the two cups of the brassiere together, and ripping the material away. Unable to resist, all Takara could do was just lie there as her sensuous breasts were revealed for the benefit of the thousands of cameras dotted around the arena, and the two tiny sensors secured to her nipples were exposed to the light.

"Just remember we gave you the option to team up on this one." Tess said, matter-of-factly, as she then proceeded to grab Takara's leggings and panties in one big bunch, and begin to work them down her legs. In a matter of seconds, Takara was fully naked, and any relief she may have had from the slowly fading after-effects of the taser were swamped by the embarrassment of her new state. Her flawless thighs met at an impeccably maintained bush of black pubic hair, and Tess wasn't in the mood to spare her opponent any embarrassment. Parting her legs, Tess moved her opponent's body into the room so that one of the more obvious cameras hanging from the ceiling now had an uninterrupted view of Takara's crotch.

Takara groaned, as Tess finally helped the struggling agent to her feet, and indicated that Takara should wait at the back of the room. Defeated, the sullen Japanese beauty staggered over to the back wall and leaned against it to get some of her strength back. As she watched, Bree handed the taser to Tess and began to follow the same process on Akemi.

In a matter of moments, Akemi's clothing was separated from her chest, and with her red bra hanging open from her shoulders, the world stood witness to the allure of her perky, perfectly formed bosom. As the taser effects wore off, she found herself with the leggings down around her ankles, and with Bree's hands grasping her panties on either side.

As Bree escorted Akemi back to join her team mate, Bree guided Akemi's attention to the small sensor nestled in Takara's bush, and smiled warmly.

"Have fun, ladies." Bree said, sweetly. In one fluid motion Bree pulled Akemi's panties down and stood back, revealing a completely shaved pussy. Red Team was finally, totally, and irreversibly exposed. Akemi and Takara looked at each other helplessly as the sensors - working together to betray their owners - noted the fact that they were both now completely naked, and began to flash a bright red alarm. Placed as they were over their nipples and pussy, the look was almost comical.

"Give our regards to the Palace of Penance" Tess said, before both she and Bree turned on their heels, gathered up their beaten opponent's red clothing, and sauntered on out of the room.

As the door slid shut after the two agents, Akemi and Takara looked at each other, embarrassment painted in a broad brush over both of their faces. As they both staggered away from the wall and towards the door, a voice emitting from their sensors breached the silence.

"Red Team. We look forward to seeing you in the Palace of Penance in less than ten minutes. I'll be your guide as to how to get there from here. Rest assured though, we'll leave it up to your imaginations as to how you convince our audience to let you back into the game..."

Takara gritted her teeth as Akemi flashed her a guilty look, and Red Team began their trek from one embarrassment to the next.

**********

Blue Team looked up the stairwell and weighed up their options. The stairs started where the main corridor emerged into the central arena, and there was an identical stairwell on each of the other three sides of the main open area as well. From what they could make out, these stairwells were their only way up to the other two floors.

"We haven't fully explored this floor yet." Bree said.

"Yes." Tess replied, "However right now I don't much fancy the idea of walking through countless rooms and down dozens of corridors with two other teams ready to jump us. If we get up to third floor, we'll have the best possible view of the central area, and the main corridors have transparent walls, We might be able to see where the other two teams are, and be able to hatch a few surprises for them."

"Three other teams." Bree responded, almost absent-mindedly.

"What?" Tess said, still keeping her attention on the stairwell.

"Three other teams. Akemi and Takara haven't been cuffed to the Pillar of Purgatory yet. Maybe they managed to convince our darling audience that they deserved another opportunity to lose their clothes." Bree waved a hand in the direction of the exact centre of the arena, where a tall pillar rose out of the ground and reached up all the way to the ceiling, and was impossible to miss even with large airbag bunkers blocking several lines of sight.

"Maybe." Tess shrugged. "I'm not worrying about that right now. Let's get up there and see what there is to see."

"Fine." Bree agreed, and took one last look around them. "Anyway, if the others had the same idea, may be can get this over and done with sooner rather than later."

Bree and Tess entered the stairwell slowly, and then without warning broke into a run, taking several steps at a time. The stairwell was relatively open, so if there was anyone nearby at the top, Bree and Tess weren't exactly going to be able sneak up on them.

As a result, it was rather anti-climatic when they reached the third floor without any sign of trouble at all.

Tess and Bree surveyed the scene in front of them, and quickly ascertained that this corridor was much like the one they'd just left.

"Someone must have cut these guys a good deal on sterile white walls." Bree murmured, as she looked up and down the corridor. There weren't any side-corridors in their particular section by the stairwell, so they had a pretty good line of sight on the only three ways an opposing team could try and sneak up on them. Tess indicated for Bree to keep an eye on each end of the corridor, so she backed up against the external wall and sat down. Like the corridor on the first floor, this one also had a window starting at waist height that ran the entire length of the corridor, and that looked out on to the central zone below. From here, Tess crouched down and peered over so that she could observe anyone who might move below, or on any of the three floors of the other three arterial corridors.

Nothing moved.

"Harrington could be nearing the prize now, you know." Bree said, after a few minutes of silent waiting.

"No, she isn't." Tess said, trying to keep her eyes from focussing solely on one point, so that any movement anywhere would grab her attention.

"You seem pretty certain of that."

"I am." Tess replied, quietly. "Look at this place. It's huge. Some of the gear we've found isn't exactly cheap, and even if our hosts aren't the kind to be worried about financial profit, you can bet they didn't drag us all out here so we could run around in tight outfits and then stumble across some box by sheer random chance. We're here to take each other out, and to entertain. And that means our hosts are going to make damn sure we run into each other before the game ends."

Bree thought about that for a moment, and had to concede Tess had a point. "So you think the key is even in here?"

Tess shrugged. "The intelligence HQ received certainly suggests so. They may not have deployed it yet. May not even do so until there's only one team left. Either way, we've got to make sure we're the one team left..."

Tess fell silent for a few minutes, and then threw a quick glance at Bree before continuing.

"If we get a chance, I'm happy to take on Monica if you want a crack at Harrington."

Bree just smiled. "The Director wouldn't have picked me as your partner if she thought this was going to be a problem. Don't worry about it, boss. Rumour around the agency is that I'm the local expert at getting into Monica's pants."

Tess couldn't help herself from smiling back. "I take it you two are..." she stopped and reprimanded herself for forgetting that the cameras might be recording audio as well, "I take it you two were lovers?"

Bree lazily looked down the opposite end of the corridor, facing away from Tess.

"Yeah, we 'were'." As the doors at the end she was looking at steadfastly remained closed, she turned her head back to Tess.

"You and the Director?"

Now it was Tess' turn to look away.

"In the early days. Before things got complicated."

"Yeah, well, sometimes love is the best way to greatly simplify things."

Tess reached over and squeezed Bree's shoulder after that last remark, and was about to comment on her fellow agent's philosophical streak when the much sought after movement out in the central arena finally transpired.

Tess let out a low whistle, and tapped Bree on the shoulder. "You're going to want to see this."

Bree did one final check of the corridor, and then peered over the edge of the window. Any need to ask Tess where to look immediately vanished. Next to the Pillar of Purgatory, and facing the right-side wall as Tess and Bree looked on, a floor segment was sliding away to reveal a ramp from a hitherto unannounced basement level. The floor segment took 30 seconds to fully open, and for several seconds after that there was no sign of life or subsequent movement.

Just as Bree was about to ask Tess what she thought of this new development, six heads appeared, as a small group made their way up the ramp and towards the Pillar of Purgatory. Even from this distance, it wasn't hard to make out the composition of the group. Four of the six figures were entirely dressed in black. Large, overtly muscular, and positioned so that the two other figures in the middle of the group had no avenue of escape. Those other two figures were also immediately recognisable. Naked, black hair cascading over their shoulders, and with their hands tied behind their backs, the unmistakable forms of Akemi and Takara made their way back into the arena.

The four guards marched Akemi and Takara over to the Pillars or Purgatory at a slow yet methodical pace. The Pillar was hexagonal, and Akemi and Takara were taken to neighbouring sides, where the naked Japanese women were first released from their current restraints. With almost theatrical ceremony, the guards then proceeded to back each woman up against a wall, and shackle their feet to the ground. Finally, and with an almost out-of-place tenderness, each guard raised one of the women's arms up to the overhead shackles, and made sure that Akemi and Takara were completely secure. Seemingly happy that Red Team would be spending the rest of the games attached to the Pillar of Purgatory, with no means of escaping, the four guards then silently backed away, and made their way down the ramp without any other outward sign of communication. As the last guard disappeared from sight, the floor segment began to slide back again, and within less than a minute the unobservant would be hard pressed to say even where the ramp had been.

Tess and Bree looked out on their now ex-opponents from a safe distance. Akemi and Takara were in a spread-eagle position, their restraints ensuring they couldn't fully close their legs, and their arms were completely unable to cover their breasts. Neither looked overly happy about the current arrangement.

"And then there were three." Bree whispered. Tess didn't reply for a moment, but then suddenly replied.

"Well there's one thing Takara said that I agree with her on. 'Three's a crowd'."

Bree glanced enquiringly at Tess, and then belatedly realised that Tess was no longer looking at the two Japanese women. Instead, Tess was now focussing with laser-like intensity on the left-hand side wall, where Bree now spotted the unmistakeable auburn hair of Monica Fairchild, at the base of the window, halfway along the third floor. Two corridor segments along from Monica, moving steadily towards her, and making no attempt to hide the fact, were Charlize and Thula of Yellow Team.

******

Charlize and Thula stopped dead in their tracks as the door slid open in front of them. Further down the corridor, and seemingly unaware of their presence, Monica was peering through the window at the arena below.

Thula nodded at Charlize, and the two flattened themselves against the far wall of the corridor. Edging their way along, Charlize pointed at the stairwell between them and Monica, and exchanged a few quick hand gestures. It was pretty clear that the other member of Green Team was waiting in there to ambush them, and Thula had just the gadget to turn that around.

Closing the distance even more, Thula counted down from five with her fingers. Mouthing the last few numbers, Thula and Charlize shared one last glance, and pounced.

Thula threw two tiny metal blocks on to the sides of the stairwell wall. The blocks stuck to the walls with magnets, and now that they were separated, generated a barely-visible electromagnetic field that spanned the stairwell entrance. Thula waited triumphantly for the other Green Team member to emerge. Once they made it through the field, they'd be too disorientated to stand a chance against a fully prepared Thula.

Simultaneously, Charlize made a move for Monica, who glanced up in surprise and let out an involuntary shriek. Not even bothering at the pretence at a fight, Monica immediately sprinted down the corridor with Charlize in hot pursuit.

Thula waited for several seconds at the top of the stairwell, before an uneasy sense that things weren't going as expected began to gnaw away at her. Glancing down the corridor at her team mate, she realised too late that they'd now been separated, and yelled at Charlize to slow down as she herself set off in chase.

Too late. Monica was almost at the next door in the corridor when she suddenly dove at the ground, covering her face in her hands, and triggering the door sensor as she did. The door slid open as Charlize got within touching distance of Monica, but the tall blonde South African then found to herself face to face instead with Harrington.

Harrington wordlessly threw a small object at Charlize's feet and turned her own back. Unfortunately for Charlize, she instinctively looked at what had landed at her feet, and her world suddenly exploded in light. Stunned, the statuesque pale beauty staggered back, her sight temporarily lost. Behind her, Thula caught part of the blast too, and held up a protective arm far too late to be effective.

Harrington turned back to the disorientated Charlize and calmly stepped forward. Grasping the front of her yellow top, Harrington then proceeded to pull with an unexpected strength. Charlize gasped in surprise as the clasps at her back held for scarcely a few seconds, before unceremoniously ripping apart. Harrington planted one foot in Charlize's upper thigh, and then simply tore the top away from her defenceless foe, using her own body as leverage.

That wasn't the end of Charlize's problems though. From her position by her feet, Monica spun around and grabbed Charlize's leggings and panties, and dragged them as far down as she could, before Charlize was able to regather her wits and consider any kind of counter-attack. Reaching her knees, Monica left Charlize's panties bunched up just above her kneecaps, further restricting her movement. Pushing herself away, Monica retreated behind Harrington as the senior member of Green Team casually deflected an attempted punch, and reached in for the bra clasp. Flicking it with one finger, the bra smoothly separated, and another attempted punch by Charlize twisted her chest in just the right way for her right breast to pop out.