Mark was too strong willed and overbearing for his cronies to support. They simply broke under the pressure that Mark was exuding in their combined mindscapes. In order to work, they had to work together and fuse their psyches together. I was glad I was not paired with him. As a Player, it was not like that for me. I just had to do the minigame well enough in the time limit. "What the hell am I supposed to do if these losers can't keep up with me!?" Mark demanded. The researcher gave him a chilling smile. "First of all, watch your tone. We already have an odd number. I could literally kill you and solve the problem that way." he said calmly. Mark just crossed his arms and huffed. "If it is normally like trying to cannonball into a teacup, we have hypothesized that if you were the Bottom, it would be like dipping one's toes in the ocean. Maybe that will at least get you on the charts." the researched explained. "Me be a Bottom!? And have some loser stare at my ass all day!? Fuck no!" The researcher shrugged. "I don't care. Once again, if the other 10 can sync up without you, that's it for this stage." he said.
Matt
His anger abetted a bit once he heard that. He looked at John. "Fine. Change up. We'll try it their way. If you can't get it up this time, you're dead meat." was all Mark had to say. They changed into their other plugsuits. Mark roughly yanked the unconscious Matt out of position. "You better not stare at my ass!" Mark fussed at his remaining partner. "I won't! I'm not into guys." John mumbled as he got into his seat. "Good." Matt said to get the final word in. "Remember, you have to let John in a little." the researcher said. "I get it. Now shut up." was the response from Mark. After a minute, the screen did turn on. Mark's yellow bar went all the way to 99%. That was insane considering the highest was 97% and only 4 people got into the 90's yesterday. John was grunting from the now obvious pressure. His bar got to 71% Statistically, that was about the limit for synchronizing if you were putting in equal work. Basically, Mark was still dominating, but allowed John to do the minimum to get the damn thing to turn on. "MTM Synchronization Rate 70%." the monitor reported. "Phew!" John sighed. Mark yelled "Hell yeah!"
The controls extended from Mark's waist and John took hold of them. "Is that all!? You two were making a big deal over nothing. I can barely feel you inside of me." Mark gloated. "That's because I was only barely able to get inside you. You are still way too big, Mark!" John whined as he tried to catch his breath. "My skills are way too high for chumps. That's why you have to stick with me." Mark said, his ego sufficiently boosted. Even though he clearly wanted to be a Top, being a power Bottom was the next best thing. He was the one that turned the thing on. John might be the one leading with the controls, but he would not be able to take a single step further than what Mark allowed him to take. Sometimes you had to roll with the punches life dealt out to you. That was those two down. There were still 9 more to go. The 3 bad pairs decide to trade off partners to see what could be done about it. It took a while as some were more compatible with others, but that strategy led to 2 of the new pairs working out. It still left 5 candidates without a partner. "We really only have about an hour left." one researcher said.
