And who I, who I wanna be

Kim all but shoved Sylvia out of the way when Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin approached the two of them.

“Hey! I’m trying to make a sale here!” Sylvia groaned, sticking out her tongue at the tomboy.

Kim rolled her eyes. “You don’t even get money for that,” she scoffed. Then she turned to the assassin with a bright smile. “Good morning! How can I help you?”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin raised her eyebrow and cocked her hip to the side, crossing her arms over her chest.

“…Right, sorry, I forgot,” Kim sheepishly admitted. Asking an open-ended question like that to someone who couldn’t speak wasn’t really the best thing to do. “So are you here to buy some clothes then, is that it?”

To her surprise, the assassin shook her head.

“O-oh, you’re not? Then what-err, sorry!” Kim stopped herself before she asked another dumb question. “I just… well…”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin approached Kim, and circled around her like a shark. Her blue eyes twinkled.

“Eh?! Me?” Kim stiffened and turned pale. “You wanted to see me?”

The assassin shook her head again. She turned on her heel and skipped further into the store, scanning the shelves.

“So… I guess she does want to buy some new clothes?” Sylvia wondered, stroking her chin.

“I guess so?” Kim wasn’t sure what to make of the girl’s bizarre behavior. “I mean, it makes sense. If the only thing she has is that jumpsuit…”

“Plus, there’s her transformation to think about,” Sylvia pondered. “Remember? Tear Away? I guess when your clothes are as fragile as tissue paper, you need to restock.”

That was a good point, too.

“I should probably help her out then,” Kim sighed, trudging after the odd girl.

“Hope you survive it!” Sylvia called after her.

Kim quickly caught up with Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin among the shelves, and saw the woman wearing a dissatisfied look on her face.

“Did you find anything you like?” She tried, keeping up her smile.

Oddly, for once, the assassin wasn’t smiling herself. She crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head firmly.

“Oh, you didn’t? I’m sorry about that… could you show me anything you might be looking for? What kind of section might we find that in?” Kim gestured to the sign hanging over the department they were currently standing in, which was the Fetish Costume Department.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin looked up at the sign hanging over her head, then glanced back at Kim with a blank expression on her face.

“…Right, you can’t read, shit…” Kim muttered under her breath. “Um, in that case, maybe I could give you a guided tour? Find what you’re looking for there, maybe?”

The slender girl’s lips turned up slightly and she nodded.

Kim sighed in relief and began walking the assassin through all the sections, explaining what they had in stock. Talk about a pain in the ass!

And I thought Karens were hard to deal with… Trying to help a customer who can’t talk and can’t read is a nightmare! At the very least, Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin could understand what she was saying, so it wasn’t impossible. In several of her old jobs Kim had needed to assist the odd customer who didn’t understand any English at all.

Soon enough, they did a full tour of the store. But Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin didn’t look satisfied. If anything, she seemed rather frustrated.

A silent sigh escaped her lips and she crossed her arms again with a shake of her head.

“No luck, huh?” Sylvia had been trying on lingerie while Kim was helping the other woman. Of course, they both knew she wasn’t going to buy anything, the cheepskate.

“Sorry…” Kim looked apologetically at the other girl. “I don’t know what you’re looking for, but it looks like we don’t have it…”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin’s unsatisfied expression shifted into a scowl. Then she raised her hand and pointed it at Kim, before curling it down into a fist. She held her thumb against her fingers to make a circle, and spun it.

Finally, Kim realized what she was looking for.

“Ah!” Her eyes widened. “An umbrella! You wanted to see if we had an umbrella!”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin’s face lit up, and she nodded quickly.

“Right, should have guessed, to replace the one Dakota confiscated,” Sylvia nodded. “I mean, we used to stock umbrellas in the store, I know for a fact I put them here.”

Kim remembered that too. Particularly, how a certain someone had used an umbrella during the second challenge to fight off the swarm of Mimis.

On that note…

“I think Dakota probably pulled them from the shelves,” Kim said with a sigh. “If I had to guess the reason, it’s because…”

She gestured at Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin, who scowled. She stomped her foot on the floor in frustration.

“Sorry, but I’ll be she took ‘em out of any store that would have ‘em,” Sylvia apologized. “Dakota likes things to be her way, if she says no umbrella, then the answer is no umbrella.”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin puffed up her cheeks in a pout.

“Look, sorry, I can’t help you out,” Kim apologized. “I guess management pulled our selection. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

The assassin turned her head with a silent “humph!” and walked out of the building.

Exhausted, Kim slumped over against the counter.

“That rough, huh?” Sylvia winced sympathetically.

“I wanted to help, because I didn’t want her to be mad at me… so much for that,” Kim griped. An assassin being on the outs with you wasn’t exactly where anybody wanted to be. “Hope she doesn’t blame me later.”

“Nah, I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Sylvia assured her. “She’s pretty clearly pissed at Dakota.”

The blonde cleared her throat. “Anyway, with that in mind… I’m gonna go spend some time with her! Thanks for all the support, Kim!”

“Uh-huh, right…” Kim rolled her eyes and stood up straight. She checked the clock. Not much time left, and then she was finally free for the day.

Sylvia skipped down the sidewalk, following the brisk pace of the Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin as she walked through the shopping center. Apparently, now that she knew that umbrellas were off the table, the assassin wanted nothing to do with any of the shops.

“Hello there! Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin? Excuse me?”

The dark-haired girl paused, and turned back to look at Sylvia with a curious expression on her face. Sylvia caught up to her and smiled.

“I’m glad I made it!” She chirped. “I was hoping that maybe we could hang out together for a little while? Maybe get some ice cream?”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin’s eyes lit up, and she nodded cheerfully.

“Excellent! I know a great place. I built it, after all! Come on!”

Heh! Too easy! Sylvia was thrilled at how simple it was to make friends with the other girl. Silly Kim. You don’t need to get so worked up about it, a little ice cream goes a long way!

“…And so, that’s my problem,” Sylvia explained over a bowl of double mint fudge chocolate chip. “I want to be one of Daddy’s best girls! But… he only looks at me like I’m a kid. And yeah, part of it’s because I call him ‘Daddy’ but that’s my transformation! Isn’t that so annoying!? …I mean, sure, there’s also a part of me that kind of likes that parent/child relationship we have… I mean, one way to look at it, I am the daughter of his childhood lover… but that’s all technical stuff! Is having sex with me really so bad?! Come on now!”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin sucked on her spoon with a blank expression on her face. She’d gotten significantly more ice cream than the other girl, and the area around her was littered with empty cups.

“…Thanks, you’re such a good listener,” Sylvia sighed, finishing off her bowl and sinking back into her chair. “I just don’t know what I should do to get his attention… I’ve already grown past when I was obsessed with giving people transformations, and I’ve definitely improved for the better! But I just feel like there still might be a wall there, you know? …I don’t know why I asked you that, sorry. It’s not like you can give me an answer…”

The assassin shook her head. Then a conspiratorial grin crossed her face and she leaned forward and tugged down her zipper. She unzipped down to her navel, revealing the sides of her petite breasts. They looked a little bigger than when they were zipped up before- Sylvia realized it must have been her transformation in action!

The mute girl mimed a swoon and fanned herself with one hand, while pushing out her chest even further.

“So wait, you think I should throw my body at him?” Sylvia questioned.

The assassin nodded rapidly.

“Hmm… I guess that could work…” Sylvia begrudgingly admitted. “But what if he’s not interested? I mean, the main problem is Daddy still sees me as his daughter, right?”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin shook her head, and pointed at Sylvia.

“You mean… it’s my fault?”

The assassin nodded sharply.

“Huh… yeah, you’re right! I guess in a way, it IS my fault!” Sylvia nodded back, stroking her chin. “Because I act like Daddy’s daughter, he only ever sees me as his daughter! But if I act more sexy and seductive, and stop with the ‘Daddy’ stuff, then I’ll be able to win him over!”

Nodding cheerfully, the assassin pointed at her lips, which were shut tight.

“That’s it! That’s what I’ll do!” Sylvia hopped up out of her chair and held her fist up. “If I just don’t say anything, then I won’t call him ‘Daddy’! And then I can seduce him outright with my sexy body, and he’ll be all over me! That’s the plan!”

There was no way she could go wrong with this course of action! The only problem was that she needed a sexy body now.

Fortunately, she knew just where to get one of those!

Her thoughts of borrowing Rose’s bounty sheet were well in the past.

Coincidentally, Nick happened to be in the shopping center as well.

“Don’t you think you’ve been hogging him enough?” Rose asked with a scowl on her face. She sandwiched her breasts around one of Nick’s arms to hug him close. Thankfully, she had agreed, begrudgingly, to change out of her maid costume into something a little classier.

“What’s the problem?” Marley huffed. She was hugging his other arm. “It’s not every day I get to spend time with Nick without Carly around. Can’t I just enjoy this?” She had changed clothes as well; after a quick stop back at her room, she’d changed into her usual white sweater in defiance of the heat.

And Nick was stuck between the bickering girls.

Damn it, Mary, did you really have to push this? He questioned. Her heart had been in the right place, but his morning had been awkward enough as it was.

Not long after Vivian’s bizarre little production, Gina came into the Master’s Suite looking for something very specific. No one had used any words, but they all kind of understood what was going on, and why Gina took Nick into the bathroom. Of course, when they came back out, Nick was a little embarrassed and Gina wasn’t.

When she’d left, Rose caught him off-guard and asked if they could spend the day together. But Marley wanted that, too.

And now here they were.

“Just because I’m not technically part of Nick’s harem, does that mean I can’t spend any time with him like the others?” Marley demanded, tightening her grip on his arm. She was being a lot more forceful than she usually would be, but that was because she had no intention of losing to her sister- Carly OR Rose!

“No, it’s because you got to hog him all yesterday!” Rose pointed out. “You got your own private date with him, remember? And now you want to spend today with him as well?”

“Well… I have to! You want to, right?” Marley pointed out. “And we can’t be more than ten feet apart from each other!”

“Then let’s go find Carly. Meanwhile, Nick and I can have a romantic day together! Right, Nick?” She turned and batted her baby blues at him, and Nick **** himself not to roll his eyes.

“Look, guys, we need to be better about this sort of thing,” Nick urged the two of them. “Because of how this whole harem mess works, it’s only going to get harder for me to budget my time with so many different girls, you both know that. So if we’re going to go on group dates like this, we can’t just spend it bickering.”

He looked pointedly at Rose, who puffed up her cheeks.

“Why do you gotta stare at me when you say that?” She huffed.

“Because usually when it’s a problem, it’s because of you?” Marley pointed out.

“I’m just trying to get my Nick time!” Rose protested. “You don’t mind that, right, Nick?” She looked up at him with hopeful eyes and he blushed.

“Yeah, no, of course I don’t have a problem with that,” he said, shaking his head. “I enjoy spending time with you, too, Rose. But I like you best when you’re not making trouble.”

“Oh, is that so?” Rose gave him a smirk that could only be read as a “sure you do” expression of doubt.

Nick blushed and glanced away. Okay, so maybe troublemaker Rose had her own charms. But that ended as soon as she started bickering with the other women in Nick’s life, particularly Mary!

“Keep in mind that this was Mary’s idea, too,” he reminded them both. “She was the one who thought it would be better for me to go out and spend some time with you guys outside of the suite.”

“Fair enough, I guess I’ll thank her later,” Rose grumbled.

“Mary’s such a sweetheart,” Marley agreed, seizing on an opportunity that Rose had squandered and praising Nick’s wife. “I’m always trying to be nice like her.”

“Well… so am I! But I’m even nicer!” Rose exclaimed, falling for Marley’s attempt to stoke her competitiveness like the lovestruck fool she was.

“It’s not a competition,” Nick said, even though it was, in fact, precisely that, at least as far as the show was concerned.

“Yeah… you’re right, it isn’t a competition,” Rose agreed. Then her eyes widened and a slick smile crossed her lips. “Hey, Nick, I was thinking…”

She began twirling her finger over his chest as she rested her cheek on his shoulder. Nick could tell that this was another one of her games, and while he was willing to humor her, he also remained cautious because Rose was still Rose.

“Yeah? What?” He asked.

“Tonight’s your night with Dani, right? So I’m thinking, sex is probably off the table?” Rose pointed out.

“Yeah, obviously,” Nick nodded.

“So… maybe invite me up to your room? You know… for some late-night fun? We could schedule it for right before…”

“I think Nick will probably enjoy having some time off without sex,” Marley pointed out. She glanced apologetically at him. “I mean, we went kind of wild together last night, so he could probably use the break…” Her red cheeks spoke volumes and they made Rose scowl.

“Nobody asked you!” The blonde wanted to scream, but she held her tongue.

Nick frowned. “Rose, my night with Dani is for the two of us,” he replied. “We’re just friends, and that’s fine. I’m not going to focus on some other girl just because she and I don’t have a sexual relationship. That’s really rude.”

“You were with Carly though,” Marley pointed out. “Last time it was Dani’s night.”

“That was different,” Nick replied. “Dani wanted that.”

“So what you’re saying is that if I ask her and she says it’s okay, then we can be together?” Rose asked hopefully.

“Do you really want to have sex with me when Dani’s sitting there watching us?” Nick questioned. “And don’t forget, Mary’s going to be there, too.”

Rose opened her mouth to reply, but her brain stopped working so no sound came out. As she fumbled for an answer to his question, Marley suppressed a giggle.

“Look, it’s a complicated relationship,” Nick sighed. “But like it or not, Dani’s a member of my… well, my ‘harem’ and that’s not going to change anytime soon. And it’s important for me to remind her that she’s still my friend. I’m not going to start using my night with her as some kind of bonus night for whoever asks me first.”

“Fine… I get it,” Rose sighed. “I’m sorry, Nick. I’m just frustrated because my night with you isn’t until the end of the round! I don’t want to wait that long!”

“At least you get a night with him,” Marley muttered, rolling her eyes. “Carly’s probably going to ditch me again…”

Rose sighed. She didn’t really have a response to that. But she didn’t want to wait until the end of the round to be with her love again.

Particularly, she didn’t want any other girl to have a chance at snagging the coveted “Anal Sex” reward from him before she could get a chance. She had no idea if any girl would offer it, or if Nick would even take them up on it if they did, but she desperately wanted to secure first place by winning those points if she could.

But what was she supposed to do? Just proposition him in the middle of the street, like some floozy? Rose might give off the air of a girl with loose morals, but she was a very pure and chaste young lady!

…Most of the time.

“Daddy!”

Nick jerked in place, startled by what he heard. There was only one girl who called him that, and it was Sylvia.

Why was she here? Why-

He turned around as best he could with two buxom women clinging to his arms, and when he saw who was approaching him, his jaw dropped in surprise.

It was Sylvia… but she looked a lot different than he remembered.