And there ain't no road just like it, anywhere I found

A hush fell over the crowd as the four women got used to their transformations. Ella was still shaking like a leaf, and stood off to the side, away from the other girls. Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin was standing away from the others, as well.

“What’s the matter?” Dakota wondered, tapping her chin. “Oh, are you all feeling uncertain about everything that happened? Well, that’s no good! Everyone should be getting along now, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I-I have nothing against getting along with everyone in a vacuum,” Rose said, glancing over at the other women. “It’s just… uh… this is a lot to drop on us all at once…”

“You can say that again,” Dani nodded. “We were all getting used to things the way they were, and now, well… talk about a major shakeup.”

“I have a mountain of questions,” Dawn said, staring suspiciously at Ella, before turning back to Dakota. “How are they going to work within the rules?”

“Oh?” Dakota blinked innocently. “Whatever do you mean by that?” She asked, tilting her head to the side in confusion.

Dawn’s eye twitched.

“I have the same question,” Sylvia said, only her statement was a little more timid than Dawn’s given who she was talking to.

Dakota scowled and turned to her. “Oh?”

“Y-yeah,” Sylvia stammered, swallowing her doubts. “What are you going to do about distributing the points? You know, VP and BP? After all, shouldn’t the Auditionees get Mary’s points? But that’s so much. She’s got 2100 BP, which is a decent amount, of course, but then, she’s also got 73 VP! That’s an insane amount to pass on! What, are you going to give 73 VP to each of the girls?!”

“Oh! Now that’s an idea!” Dakota sneered. “Yes, in fact, that sounds just perfect! Let’s give each of the girls 73 VP, what do you think? That way, we can have a four-way tie for first place! I think that’s a darling idea, don’t you agree?”

Sylvia turned pale. “B-but… NO! That’s NOT what I said, Dakota, you can’t really be thinking that that would be a good idea!”

“That’s crazy!” Kim exclaimed. “Why do they get that much VP out of nowhere?! No way!”

“It isn’t out of nowhere,” Dakota replied with a sniff. “It’s Mary’s VP. She got eliminated, and now these girls will be given the amount that they deserve. And if you don’t think that’s fair, well… maybe you should be trying a little harder to get ahead, don’t you think? It’s not like you’ve been earning any Victory Points just mulling around doing anything.”

Sylvia turned red. “B-but that’s because… Daddy…”

She glanced reluctantly over at Nick, who turned red out of shame. He averted his eyes, knowing that she was right to call him out on that, even if she was hesitant to do it. The memories he’d accumulated from his time in Dream Alley overwhelmed him at first, but now he was able to sift through them clearly, and as he did, he remembered the conversation he’d had with Amelia about his relationship with Sylvia, and how complicated it was.

I really need to set things clearly with her, he thought, biting his lip. The only thing that made him hesitant, however, was the fact that he really wasn’t sure how to approach the situation directly in this regard.

But it still needed to happen.

Right now, though, there were other thoughts to consider.

“So wait, you’re telling me that we can get a whole mess of these… what are they again? Victory Points?” Vivian asked, peering down her sunglasses at Dakota. “Let me guess, that’s the stuff we need to get in order to win?”

“Exactly,” Dakota confirmed with a nod. “If you manage to obtain 200 Victory Points, then you’ll become the winner of the show, and the queen of Nick’s harem. It’s a very simple process, you see.”

“And I’m guessing that those other points, that… ‘BP’ I think it was called, that would be… some form of in-game currency?” Amelia inquired.

“Ah, smart thinking, Teach!” Vivian nodded and gave her professor a thumbs-up. “No clue what BP stands for, but if my prospective transformations are any hint, it’s definitely something involving money.”

“Leave it to the two rich girls to make that assessment,” Dakota chuckled. “But yes, you’re exactly correct. Mary had a decent amount of BP, or Bonus Points, but not a lot. On the other hand, she had a considerable amount of VP, or Victory Points, putting her in a very comfortable winning position. She’s the only one who managed to break 70 VP, and all she needed to do was get married! …And get pregnant. Hm…”

Dakota stroked her chin thoughtfully. “You know, now that I’m thinking about it… shouldn’t that have come with a VP bonus of its own? I mean, it’s obvious that Nick is very pleased by the fact that she’s pregnant, so it’s only fitting that she should have gotten some VP as compensation…”

“Eh?!” Mary turned red at the idea of that.

Ella blanched. “P-p-pregnant?” She stammered. “Nobody said anything about that!” She waved her hands frantically. “I just, I mean… I wanted to…”

She glanced at Nick out of the corner of her eye, and her stomach churned with remorse. She looked down at the ground and bit her lip. “I just wanted to spend some time with a boy, that’s all…” She mumbled to herself.

Dakota smirked in amusement. “Well, that’s a surprise. And here I thought that you would have loved the prospect of getting married and pregnant? Isn’t that the happy ever after you’ve always envisioned for yourself?”

Ella turned red. She refused to look either Nick or Dakota in the eye. Nick, in the meantime, was just stewing with embarrassment at being dragged out in front of everyone like this.

And it was about to get so much worse, too.

Amelia cleared her throat, drawing attention to herself.

“Excuse me,” she said, pushing her glasses up her nose. “Now, I assure you, I have no intention of getting pregnant. But from what you just described, it sounds like the way that we accumulate these ‘Victory Points’ is by doing erotic acts with the master… correct?”

She made sure not to refer to him by name, even though everyone knew exactly who she was talking about. Amelia felt that if she could distance the concept of doing sexual acts from the actual person the show wanted her to do them with, Nick, she could put off that awkwardness for as long as possible.

“Hey, I think that’s right,” Vivian nodded, chiming in. “Nick, didn’t you say something about getting VP for touching my breasts? Because there was that notification that flashed in the air… yeah, it’s all coming back to me now!”

“Oooh, someone got busy real quick,” Carly teased, flashing him a grin.

“Knew he had it in him,” Gina laughed, nodding in agreement.

Nick turned an even deeper shade of red. He immediately felt the piercing gaze of his stepmother boring into him.

“I see…” She said, not sounding upset or even disappointed in the slightest. The clinical detachment with which she spoke those words was almost even more embarrassing. She just stared at him with that same inquiring expression she wore whenever he’d done something bad as a child and she was grilling him for it. It was a look that he knew well.

“If you say you didn’t do it, then I believe you. I’m your stepmother. I will trust you absolutely.” How many times had she said that, while sweating him like a perp in the interrogation chamber? He collapsed like a house of cards every time.

“Um… m-mom…” Nick stammered, slipping the word past his lips without even realizing it. He quickly shut his mouth and blushed even more. “I mean… Amelia…”

He saw the way her eye twitched when he called her that, the way it always did.

“You needn’t look ashamed of yourself,” Amelia calmly addressed him. “That is the purpose of this show, is it not? For you to interact in a sexual manner with the women in your harem? And in spite of my personal feelings on the matter as they relate to Miss Carrington, you are certainly an adult able to choose your own partners. I would never think to detract you for that.”

God. She was just making it worse.

Meanwhile, Vivian was making it a point to be as unhelpful as possible, because of course she was. She was holding her sides and trying not to laugh, while Nick stewed in his own juices under the imperious gaze of the woman who had sat him down for three hours on the sofa in time-out because he had accidentally tracked mud over her new rug.

“It… it wasn’t like that!” He finally exclaimed. “I didn’t touch her like that! Dakota was just playing around, she didn’t get any VP or anything!”

“That is true,” Dakota acknowledged with a nod. “In spite of your stepson’s passionate embrace of Miss Carrington’s svelte form, she did not actually get any VP for those acts.”

Amelia raised her eyebrow and looked pointedly at Nick, who quickly turned to Dakota in his flustered outrage.

“Dakota!” He exclaimed. “Don’t say it like that! I didn’t… I mean… that’s not-!”

“Is that not an accurate statement?” Dakota wasn’t even bothering trying to hide her smirk.

“I’d say it was a very passionate embrace,” Vivian unhelpfully chimed in. “His arms were wrapped so warm and tightly around me… ooh…” She wrapped her own arms around herself and shivered with delight, having a jolly good time of driving Nick up the wall.

Amelia stared at heiress with a flat expression on her face.

“…I see. So I’ll take that as Nicholas being a perfect gentleman, then.”

“Huh?” Nick was surprised that she believed him so readily after she’d been so suspicious before. “Amelia, what? You believe me?”

“Am I mistaken?” Amelia raised her eyebrow.

“W-well, no,” he stammered, shaking his head. “I’m just a little surprised, that’s all.”

“It’s simple,” she said, glancing over at Vivian. “The fact that she would be suggesting you two did something together is enough reason for me to believe that nothing of substance actually occurred between you. She wouldn’t be enjoying herself so much otherwise.”

Vivian blinked behind her sunglasses and then burst out laughing. “Oh, come on! That’s just perfect! Ha!”

She straightened up and adjusted her posture. “Well… you’re right. He just hugged me from behind to better ride on the back of my horse, that’s all. There wasn’t any heavy petting… in spite of my offers!” she slid her sunglasses down her nose and winked at Nick, who blushed.

Vivian was a very pretty person, and a bit of a tease. And Nick’s time with Rose showed that he had a weakness to girls like that.

As for Rose, she was too starstruck to realize the threat Vivian was to her position.

In the meantime, though, there was clearly a divide between the new girls and the old. But nobody was that concerned about the new women drawing too much focus away from them- they were more concerned with how the rules were going to change to accommodate all of this.

Dakota cleared her throat. “I think we should return to the matter at hand,” she said, regaining the attention of the crowd. “To confirm the answer to your question, Amelia, yes, you’re right on the money. By doing sexual acts with the master, you will accumulate VP. So long as you’re doing something together that you haven’t already done with him before, of course. And you can also get VP by winning challenges. But it is far more fun to do erotic acts!”

“Eh, shouldn’t be a problem,” Vivian stretched her hands above her head. “Can’t speak for the other girls here, but he and I haven’t even met before today!”

Ella swallowed and nodded in agreement.

Then, to Vivian’s surprise, Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin flashed her a coy smirk.

That took the heiress by surprise. “Oh, really? You saying that you two met before?”

The assassin nodded proudly.

“What!?” Amelia exclaimed. “When was this?! Nicholas, what are you keeping from me?!” She demanded. “What contact could you have possibly had with an assassin!?”

“It’s not what you think!” Nick protested. “She was just a little girl back then!”

The second the words left his mouth he realized that was probably not the right thing to say either.

“W-wait, that came out wrong… I didn’t mean…”

“So you had contact with a little girl?” Dakota shook her head and clicked her tongue, even though she knew exactly what she was talking about. She just couldn’t help but gleefully rub it in his face. “Nick… that’s not the kind of thing you should be talking about in a situation like this, don’t you agree?”

“Dakota!” Nick groaned.

But Amelia was pretty perceptive, and could tell by this point that Dakota was just trying to play with him.

And of course, the dark-haired girl was more than happy to move things along. “…Well, leaving questionable meetings behind-”

“There was nothing questionable about it!” Nick snapped. “I didn’t do anything with her that would lead to getting VP!”

Dakota shrugged. Whether she believed him or not wasn’t the point (she did) the point was that it amused her a lot more to pretend that she didn’t.

“Dakota!”

“I didn’t say anything,” Dakota chastised him. “But anyway. We do need to move on! As I said before, if you’ve done anything with Nick already before coming onto this show, you won’t be getting any Victory Points for it!” She held up her fingers in an “X” symbol. “Sorry, but those are the rules. So if Nick’s sucking on your boobs, mommy, that won’t get you any VP.”

Amelia’s eye twitched. “That has never happened once,” she sharply admonished the other woman. “Something you know quite well.”

“A-and besides, there’s no VP bonus for drinking a woman’s milk, anyway!” Mary pointed out.

Everyone turned and looked at her. Her face turned scarlet.

“I-I mean… I’m guessing.”

Right.

Guessing.

Dakota chuckled and shook her head. “Mary, you’re such a breath of fresh air. It’s quite a pity that you were eliminated just when things were going so well… but if you think about it, isn’t this a great opportunity for you to appeal to your new stepmother-in-law? I’d certainly choose to take it that way if I were you.”

Mary glanced warily at Amelia. She didn’t know what the blonde thought of her, but she feared the worst. After all, Mary had screwed Nick at their wedding altar right in front of her! That wasn’t the kind of thing most stepmothers were supportive of.

“Oh, one other thing of note about VP,” Dakota added, turning back to the new girls in Nick’s harem. “This might be an unlikely situation to occur, after everything Nick’s already done with the women in his life, but if you somehow manage to find a sexual act that he hasn’t done yet, and you’re the first person to do it with him? Then you get double the points. Just something to keep in mind. We’ve got a couple first-time bonuses still on the table, if you want to capitalize on your lead.”

“Lead?” Dawn didn’t like the sound of that. “So you really are planning on giving them all 73 VP? That’s really not fair.”

Dakota shrugged. “Well… what are you going to do?” She scoffed. “That’s the way the game works. You read the rules, you know that. The Auditionee gets all the VP and BP from the eliminated contestant. There’s really not anything I can change about that!”

She shit-eating grin on her face said otherwise, and everyone knew it.

“…Can you just get on with it already?” Dani sighed, rubbing her temples in frustration. “We can all see that you’re planning to change things up somehow, to make it more amusing.

Dakota frowned. She didn’t like being upstaged. And she liked it even less when the person doing the upstaging was correct.

“…We’ll get to it,” she snapped. “First, I need to explain one other rule to them. You guys remember the part about BP, correct?”

“Bonus Points, the money, right?” Vivian nodded. “How much would it cost to get me some of those? I didn’t get any bonuses from my transformations, but Octavia here can definitely balance my current books, right?”

She turned and smiled at her butler, who gave her a sharp, wordless nod.

“Ah, no, it doesn’t quite work that way,” Dakota said, shaking her head. “This isn’t the crypto currency season, you see. Your money’s no good here… well, not in a meta sense, anyway. I’m sure there’s an actress or two who might be willing to take a bribe.”

“Hey!” Rose snapped.

Dakota ignored the outburst. “Bonus Points are primarily accrued at the end of a round, during the Popularity Poll,” she explained. “The audience will vote on who they like most, and depending on where you place, you’ll get that much BP. That sounds fair, don’t you think?”

“I suppose,” Vivian nodded thoughtfully. “And judging by the transformations you put up to offer for me, I’m guessing we can use that BP to buy stuff that will help us out, isn’t that right?”

“Exactly,” Dakota confirmed with a smile. She liked that the heiress was on the same page as her. “There’s a list of stuff you can buy with BP. I’ll get you each a copy. You’ll be able to buy things from the general store, and each of you will get your own special items to purchase as well. Assuming you wish for that, of course.”

The girls all nodded. Ella was a little shaken, though. Given her upbringing, she wasn’t exactly used to the concept of spending money.

“And we all start out with 73 VP?” Amelia frowned. “That doesn’t quite seem fair. That’s the highest, isn’t it?”

Dakota shrugged. “Who cares about fair? It’s how the rules work. …Okay. Fine. You got me.”

She held up her hands. “…Technically, you girls aren’t Auditionees. Because I abolished that system, remember? Instead, I’ll be giving you each… a little bit of a game to test just where you fall, and what you deserve.”

“A game?” Amelia sharply asked.

“Wh-what?!” Ella sputtered.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin leaned forward intently, already studying the other women. It was clear that she had a different thought about what this “game” could be.

Fortunately, she wasn’t even close to correct.

“In previous rounds, new girls have been brought into the harem one at a time, to demonstrate where they fall in regards to their popularity with the audience,” Dakota calmly explained. “They all had a chance to make an impression. But now, the audience is meeting four new girls, and I think it’s only fitting that they get the chance to determine who they like most, don’t you?”

“So you’re going to be holding another popularity contest?” Amelia raised her eyebrow. “I can’t say that seems fair. After all, we’ve barely had any time to appeal to the audience, compared to the other women in Nicholas’s harem.”

Dakota smirked. “Oh, don’t worry your pretty little head about that!” She assured the other woman. “No, this contest will be a little different. Instead of competing against the other women who’ve paid their dues and proven themselves, you’ll just be competing amongst each other. You four are, more or less, on the same footing, after all, being new members in Nick’s harem.”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin reacted immediately. She turned to the side and held up her hand, preparing a combat stance as she sharpened her stare into a piercing expression.

Ella cringed and nearly fell over out of fright.

Dakota sighed and rubbed her temples. “No, no, no, not like that at all,” she harshly rebuked the other woman. “No fighting, no killing, just a popularity contest!”

The assassin lowered her hands and straightened up. She let out a silent scoff and rolled her eyes, clearly not thrilled by that idea in comparison to the alternative.

Dakota wasn’t really concerned about her enthusiastic consent, though.

“Here’s how it works. To start, you’ll each be given 73 VP,” Dakota said, snapping her fingers. “And 2100 BP. These are your carryovers from Mary.”

She tapped her cane on the sand, and the numbers flashed up on the screen.

Amelia: 73 VP

Amelia: 2100 BP

Cinder/Ella: 73 VP

Cinder/Ella: 2100 BP

Vivian: 73 VP

Vivian: 2100 BP

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin: 73 VP

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin: 2100 BP

“Now… don’t get too attached!” Dakota warned. “These numbers won’t remain fixed. No, the audience is going to vote for you girls, to determine who they like best. From first place to fourth place. And whichever ranking you are, that will determine how much VP and BP you’ll have moving forward! Isn’t that exciting? A nail-biting bonus lightning round, all or nothing! One of you girls will be walking away in a definitive first place in the VP totals, while the others… well, here’s how it works. First place? You keep a flat 73 VP. Second? We take away 10 VP. For each rung you drop, that’s another 10 VP off the top. This way, the audience gets to choose who they want to have the advantage! Sounds fair enough to me.”

“So whoever gets the least amount of votes will have 43 VP by the end of this, then?” Amelia calculated.

“Exactly,” Dakota nodded, flashing a cattish smile.

Ella paled. She had a pretty good idea who that would be.

“Hey, that would put them right into last place in the rankings,” Dawn realized. “Right behind Sylvia.”

“That’s right,” Sylvia nodded. “I only have 44 VP…”

“Funny how that all works out, isn’t it?” Dakota smirked. Nick had a suspicion she’d planned it out that way. This poll would determine a new ranking; who would be first place, and who would be last.

“What about the BP, then?” Vivian asked. “The money’s pretty important too, yeah?”

“Indeed it is,” Dakota confirmed with a nod. “That’s what will help you get an advantage and buy things to help you succeed. So instead of taking away from your totals, we’ll be doing the opposite! You’ll get an additional amount of BP depending on where you place! Last place will get nothing, because that’s fair, and then third place will get an additional 1000 BP! And another additional 1000 BP for each place above!”

“So first place will get 73 VP, and 5100 BP?” Dawn calculated, frowning. “That’s quite a lot, don’t you think?”

“I’d say it is, kitty cat,” Dakota confirmed with a nod. “But that’s fair, at least to me. Don’t you want the most popular girl to get such a great advantage? I know I certainly would.”

“And meanwhile, I didn’t get ANY bonuses when I joined the show,” Rose muttered under her breath, crossing her arms over her chest.

Sylvia winced and looked away while Dakota rolled her eyes.

“Are you still complaining about that?” She sighed. “Fair is fair. Hopefully, you girls managed to make good impressions on the audience!”

Ella looked like she was about ready to cry.

“Dakota, you said ‘fair is fair’ but this isn’t fair,” Nick said, approaching her. “Some people here, they’ve barely had a chance to make a good impression! Don’t you think something like this is a little unbalanced?”

He looked at Ella when he said that. She’d had to share her time with him with Cinder. He didn’t know a whole lot about her disorder, or whether she and Cinder were essentially the same person. But he knew that Cinder’s actions more likely than not had penalized Ella severely, and wasn’t looking forward to what would arise from that. And then there was Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin. Her violent killing spree certainly hadn’t endeared her, either.

“Nick… fairness doesn’t mean everybody gets all the same rewards and they’re all cheerful friends,” Dakota admonished him. “I thought you would have realized that by now. True fairness? Or ‘equity’ as people like to call it? Would have been giving all of them 73 VP. Now, is that fair to the other girls in your harem?”

Nick winced. “Well…”

“No, I don’t think it is,” Dakota said, shaking her head. “This is as fair as I can be. Who knows? Perhaps the audience actually likes them quite a bit! Either way, as your stepmother will gladly tell you, sometimes life just… isn’t fair.”

A shadow crossed her face and she scowled. “I would know that better than anyone.”

Her sour expression lasted for only a couple moments and then she raised her cane. “Now then!” She declared, twirling it above her head. “Shall we get to the votes? How much VP and BP are our new girls going to end up with?”

https://strawpoll.com/XmZRQadYKgd