Like the seasons are all gone

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin fired off three shots in quick succession. Each one hit the target square in the center, so closely packed together that it looked like all three slugs struck each other.

She twirled the gun in her hand and held the barrel up to her lips to blow the smoke away, then turned back to the audience and cocked her hip to the side, flashing a sly smirk.

“Well, now that’s really something, isn’t it?” Vivian applauded her, but at the same time, she narrowed her eyes and tilted up the brim of her hat as she studied the other girl closely. “I’ve always prided myself on my aim, but my my my…”

Nick could see the flames of competition start to get fanned, and he stepped in immediately.

“Okay, I think that’s enough,” he said, holding up his hands. “Let’s not turn this into some big thing, alright you guys? The last thing we need is for people to start getting competitive over a shooting competition, please.”

He really didn’t like the notion of a competition where guns were involved.

“Well… if you say so,” Vivian sighed in resignation and shrugged. “Alright then.”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin puffed up her cheeks in frustration, but then she nodded in agreement.

Of course, when she handed the gun back to Vivian, she didn’t do so without giving her some serious eyes first.

Nick could already tell that in spite of his best efforts, the two of them were definitely going to be competing over something or other in the near future. A gauntlet had been thrown out here on the beach today.

In the meantime, Mary and the others were watching from the sidelines, not sure what to feel about any of this.

“A shooting contest, I mean… that’s kinda weird, don’t you think?” Dani asked, looking to the other girls for their insights. She wasn’t exactly someone who had a lot of experience with guns.

“Wh-why are you looking at me?!” Morgana wailed.

“Probably because you’ve got massive school shooter vibes,” Kim suggested.

Morgana looked over at her and her jaw dropped. That wasn’t something to joke about!

“Kim,” Mary gently chastised her friend.

“Sorry, sorry,” Kim apologized, hanging her head. “I’ve been having a bit of a rough day, I’m a little on edge. I didn’t mean to act like such a bitch.”

“No, it’s okay,” Morgana said, shaking her head.

“I’m just surprised Vivian’s a gun nut,” Carly said. “She really doesn’t strike me as the type, you know? She always seemed a little laid-back.”

“I’m not surprised at all!” Kim groused. “People like that, who only care about money, don’t tend to be very empathetic. She probably enjoys the rush of power that comes with holding a gun in her hands, for the same reason she enjoys the power rush of abusing her workers and using her company to exploit the financial desperation of the lower middle class!”

Everyone stared at the ranting half-naked girl.

“…Well gee, Kim, tell us how you really think,” Carly said with a sarcastic smirk.

Kim hugged her knees to her chest and looked down at the sand, mumbling something to herself.

“I think guns get a bad reputation, honestly,” Mary said, frowning. “There’s nothing wrong with owning guns for home defense, or a little target shooting. My dad used to go hunting all the time, and I remember when I was little, he’d have me go set up cans on the fence of our pasture for him to shoot down. It was so much fun!”

Now everyone looked at Mary in shock.

“…You know, because of how fawning and motherly you are, I always forget you grew up as one of those redneck types,” Dani said.

Mary shot her a dirty look. “Hey! That’s my culture you’re talking about, here!”

“Culture? Where?” Carly couldn’t help but get in on it. She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help herself.

Mary huffed, and crossed her arms. “Well… shows you!” She lamely replied. But she couldn’t deny that her family heritage wasn’t exactly the most respectable. After all, her folks had tried to marry her off to an old man who worked in the general store!

That…

Yeah.

She hadn’t thought a lot about her family much since she came to the island, but now that the topic had been raised…

Unthinkingly, Mary slowly rubbed her belly. A gesture that didn’t go unnoticed by the other women.

“Hey, is everything okay?” Morgana asked gently.

“Hmm? Oh!” Mary gasped and pulled her hand away. “Sorry, just… I was thinking about my family, that’s all… I got married, and they didn’t even know. And not only that… I’m pregnant. I’m having a baby…”

She sighed and looked down at the sand, her eyes watering. “When I was little, I always thought that my mom would be there for me, you know? That she’d help me through all this. But she’s going to be a grandmother, and I don’t even know if this deranged show will even be over by then.”

Mary wasn’t adapting to the situation as well as she appeared to on the surface. Yes, she’d taken to being Nick’s wife like a fish took to water, but that was because it was fun, sweet, and a little sexy, too. It was everything she’d ever wanted.

But when things got real… well, they were real. And she didn’t know how to feel about those situations, unfortunately.

She had never been great at independence. And as twisted and backwards as her parents might be in a lot of ways… she still loved them, and wanted them to be part of her life going forward.

Then she felt a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Mary looked up, surprised, and saw Amelia standing over her.

“A-Amelia!” She turned red and scrambled to her feet, hastily brushing the sand off her swimsuit. “Um, I-I didn’t see you there…”

Amelia shook her head. “My apologies for eavesdropping,” she said. “It was unbecoming of me. But I couldn’t help but overhear your statement about missing your family.”

Before Mary could react, she was pulled into a tight hug by the other woman. Startled, she flailed her hands about on either side of Amelia’s waist, trying to process what was happening.

“Umuawaagh?!” She mumbled out through her open mouth.

Amelia definitely didn’t seem like the kind of woman who would hug someone so directly like this. Only when the initial shock wore off and Mary’s brain started working again did she remember the details of her stepmother-in-law’s transformation.

“…Sorry,” Amelia said, stepping back. Her face morphed into an awkward expression and she looked down at the sand. “I felt the urge to do that. It seemed like you needed a hug.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Mary said, still a little frazzled but very grateful. “I appreciate it, Amelia. Really. But it’s okay. I miss my mom, but it’s not like I’m never going to see her again, right?” She shook her head and smiled, her eyes sparkling with a sad, nostalgic warmth. “Although, she’s really going to be surprised when I show up back home with a baby.”

That would lead to a lot of questions that Mary wasn’t quite ready to answer just yet.

…

Maybe they should stay on this island for a little longer, after all.

Morgana watched the exchange, and felt a little sad herself. She sighed and hung her head.

“Hey, everything okay with you?” Dani asked, picking up on the goth girl’s negative vibes.

Morgana glumly shook her head. “I was just thinking of my family,” she said softly.

Dani winced. In the last challenge, she and Morgana had both gone a little overboard with the transformation gun. In Dani’s opinion, her own targets were very justified, given that they were horrible people, but Morgana had lost control and turned the gun on her own family, transforming them into a bunch of sexualized goths.

…And while that might have sounded like a good thing, in Morgana’s mind it definitely was not.

“Do you think they’re ever going to forgive me?” She wailed. “I messed up so bad…!”

The poor girl was almost on the verge of tears. And Dani really didn’t know what to say to make her feel better. She wasn’t the best when it came to showing her empathy through acts of sweetness and compassion, unfortunately.

But Amelia was there to see what was happening, and she turned to the goth girl. She held open her arms, inviting Morgana in for a hug of her own.

“…Well?” The older woman might not have been the best at expressing her love for other people with words, but body language was another matter altogether.

Morgana didn’t know what to say at first, but she quickly stood up and hugged Amelia right back. When she did, she burst into tears.

“Uh… ah.” Amelia might have felt compelled to hug Morgana as a result of her transformation, but when it came to actually comforting her? She wasn’t exactly the most skilled in that regard, unfortunately. “There… there?”

She awkwardly patted the back of the goth girl’s head, handling her like a dangerous animal practically. But Morgana didn’t notice, and she certainly didn’t care. She just sobbed into Amelia’s arms, glad to have someone soothe her.

Mary watched from the sidelines, grateful to Amelia for being able to give Morgana, and herself, for that matter, the motherly affection both women felt they desperately needed.

And Amelia didn’t stop there, either. Once Morgana was effectively mollified, she turned her attentions to Carly next.

“Uh… what?” The tomboyish cosplayer looked up at Amelia in confusion.

“Hug?” Amelia offered her.

“Err… I mean…” Carly stared blankly at the other woman’s outstretched arms, wondering what she was getting at. “…You want me to hug you?”

“It seems you need a hug as well,” Amelia said. That’s what her transformation was urging her to do, anyway.

Carly snorted and shook her head. “No, no way. Come on. I appreciate the offer, really, I do. But I’m fine,” she assured the other woman. “That’s just your transformation telling you to treat me like a daughter, since I’m sleeping with your son, remember?”

“…Stepson,” Amelia corrected, lowering her arms. And maybe Carly was right. After all, she didn’t feel any impulse to hug Dani. Or Kim, for that matter.

Honestly? Dani was grateful for that. As nice as it might have felt to get comforted by the other woman, Amelia was quite a stunner. And hugging another woman in front of her girlfriend would have made her feel all kinds of dirty.

…Not to mention, she wasn’t sure she could be trusted to keep her hands to herself, as awful as that sounded.

As for Kim, she didn’t really care one way or the other. She already had a mother who loved her. As nice as Amelia was (and she greatly respected the other woman for making the difficult choice of becoming a stepmother) she didn’t feel like hugging her for it.

“Can I get a hug?!” Sylvia asked desperately. She’d been keeping quiet this whole time, not wanting to make a scene. But she really wanted some affection, especially with how cold Dakota had been acting since the sandcastle contest.

Amelia turned to Sylvia, concerned, and as she did, she caught a glimpse of Dakota out of the corner of her eye. The dark-haired woman was standing off on her own, looking rather miserable. Amelia wondered if she was looking for some excuse to join in with the other girls.

But Amelia couldn’t make that opportunity for her. If she wanted to do that, she would need to do it herself.

What she could do, though, was hug Sylvia, even if the young woman wasn’t romantically connected to her stepson.

Amelia’s hug wasn’t as deep or affectionate as the ones she’d given to the women she was compelled to see as her daughters. It was a rather perfunctory thing, in spite of her best efforts.

Sylvia didn’t really care though. A hug was a hug, and human contact was human contact.

“Yeah… that’s the stuff…” She was giddy with joy, and almost resisted Amelia’s attempts to let go of her as a result. But she was eventually freed, leaving Amelia to her own devices.

And not a moment too soon, either.

“Hey, look! Gina’s got the gun now!” Kim pointed out. With the growing rivalry between Vivian and Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin cooling, it was finally time for Gina to get her shot at the target.

“Everybody better run,” Dakota said grimly. “Duck for cover.”

Gina turned back to her and stuck out her tongue.

Kim actually laughed though.

“…Hah!” She shook her head and smiled incredulously. “Who would have thought!? Dakota of all people, having a sense of humor to crack jokes like that!? HAH!”

A small, lopsided smile cracked up Dakota’s lips as she shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other, not sure how to respond to that. It had just been a joke she’d thrown off the cuff, but seeing a positive reception to it actually made her feel pretty good.

Once Gina regained her focus, she tried to aim the rifle.

Already Nick could see this was a bad idea in so many ways. Vivian and Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin demonstrated that they both had extensive experience with firearms.

Nick was pretty sure that if Gina tried to buy a firearm, she’d be arrested, and then dragged out for dubious political ends and maybe have her genitals shown on the floor of congress.

Still, he wasn’t going to stop her, because if he tried, he knew she wouldn’t listen. Telling her not to do it just would have made her want to do it even more.

So he decided to follow Dakota’s advice, and duck for cover. Metaphorically, of course. He wasn’t going to make a big show of jumping behind a sand dune or anything, but he definitely took a big step back, just in case.

BANG!

Gina missed the target by a mile.

“Ah, dang,” she groaned, adjusting her grip on the rifle and trying again.

She fired off a few more shots, but none of them came close. Nick watched as the sand burst time and again from where her will bullets landed, and sighed.

“Yeah… Gina, I don’t think this is gonna work,” he warned her, shaking his head. “You clearly don’t know how to aim that thing.”

“Hmmph, well… it was still fun,” she said, cracking a smile and handing the gun back to Vivian. “It woulda been nice if I hit the target, though.”

“Hey, maybe we can go practice sometime,” Vivian suggested. “I’d be happy to teach you, if you wanted to learn!”

Nick wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that.

Amelia definitely didn’t, though. She loudly cleared her throat.

“Excuse me, Carrington,” she said sternly, walking up to Vivian with her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes locked into a disapproving glare. “Do you really think that you of all people are in any way qualified to teach anything whatsoever?”

Vivian replied with a cheeky smile, “Well… I could definitely teach you a thing or two about how to have some fun!”

Amelia’s eye twitched, while Gina and Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin both chuckled in amusement, though only Gina’s laugh could be heard.

Nick just sighed. This wasn’t the kind of situation he wanted to be in, either!

As much as he appreciated getting to know the new women in his harem, and as much as he enjoyed seeing them all getting together and enjoying themselves, the conflicts that were starting to crop up were more than he’d anticipated.

I can’t believe I’m actually missing the days of Holly being a jerk out of embarrassment and shame, and Rose’s screw-ups trying to manipulate everybody, he thought, shaking his head.

Things were simpler back then.

“Well, leaving aside the boring teacher acting too big for her bikini top, I think we should really plan something like that sometime!” Vivian said. “If Mary can run her cooking class, then who knows? I could definitely have some fun with target shooting.”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin nodded in agreement. That sounded like a wonderful idea in her eyes!

Vivian wasn’t done though.

“Or, hey, maybe horseback riding!” She suggested. “That would be a blast! I’m sure there are some lovely trails, and I did see a stable the other day…”

Mary gasped and rushed over to the heiress, staring at her with stars in her eyes. “Wait, Vivian! Do… do you like horses, perchance?”

Vivian blinked, taken aback for a moment by the amount of energy Mary nearly rolled her over with.

“Well… yes, as a matter of fact, I like them quite a bit,” she replied, flashing a smile. “Back home, I would take Hazelnut out riding at least every other day, when I could!”

Mary squealed with glee. “Oh my gosh! That’s amazing! I love horseback riding! Oh, I miss our horses so much… they have some here, but it’s not the same, you know?”

“True, true,” Vivian nodded sympathetically. “When it’s your own baby, it’s completely different.”

While the two of them gushed over their surprising shared interest, Kim watched from the sidelines, feeling a little jealous. She and Mary had been so close not that long ago. But ever since they changed rooms and stopped being a team, it felt like they’d slowly started to distance from each other.

And now, seeing her getting along so nicely with Vivian… it really stung.

But she hid that behind her smile, so nobody could see. Maybe if she’d been more willing to show her emotions, Nick might have come over to comfort her, or Mary might have noticed, and invited her to join in the conversation. However, she didn’t want to let those feelings come to the surface, so they didn’t.

At the same time, Nick took the opportunity to remove himself from the equation. Vivian had made no secret about her intention of showing off to him with her shooting skills (along with just having some jolly good fun) but now that he had a chance to escape, he decided to take it. As much as he enjoyed spending time with her, it was clear the heiress was trying to monopolize him, and control the flow of the day by looping Nick into all the activities that she wanted to do.

Part of the reason he’d been supportive of this beach party was because it would give him the opportunity to spend time with the other women in his harem. And he hadn’t gotten nearly as many opportunities to do that as he would have liked.

He was about to go and check in with the girls building a sandcastle down the beach, but then he noticed Ella out of the corner of his eye. She was sitting at the picnic table, looking pretty down in the dumps.

Even Morgana, as antisocial as she was, still found herself able to mingle with the other women in the harem. But Ella… Ella still hadn’t found her place.

“…Hey,” he said, approaching the lonely girl.

Ella gasped and raised her head. She looked up at him with a hint of fear in her surprised gaze, but at the same time… she also looked happy to see him.

As an introvert himself, Nick could sympathize. He remembered when he first got to know Carly, and how he hadn’t known how to interact with other people. But Carly had come up to him and brought him out of his shell, and as shy as he had been, he’d appreciated her so much for that.

He was no Carly, but he could still extend a hand to Ella, at least.