I'm tryna be a better man, it's taking me some time

“Sylvia… what the heck happened?!” Nick exclaimed. He stared at her in shock.

“What happened?” Sylvia leaned forward and batted her eyelashes. “Why, that’s very easy to explain Da- ahem.”

She cleared her throat before she used the “D” word, and tilted her head to the side in a coquettish smile. “Pardon me. Now where was I… oh, yes! What happened. If you remember correctly, I used my Fuck the Voters transformation to acquire Rose’s Method Acting transformation at the end of the last round!”

Sylvia winked at Rose as she said that. Rose stared at her with uncertainty on her face.

“After that, I had the brilliant idea to use Method Acting to copy Dani’s Soft as Silk transformation!” Sylvia chortled. “You didn’t like that I had such a childlike body, after all, so I thought it might be better to add a little bit of plush to my curves!”

Now that Sylvia explained it, Nick could see what she was saying. He’d thought, momentarily, that she had somehow regained her old body. And while she certainly looked similar to how she did before, it wasn’t identical. Her face was still softer and younger, like an older teenager’s, even if her curves had filled out more. Instead of looking like an adult Sylvia she still looked like a youthful Sylvia, just one that had gotten some increases in certain areas.

“If you ask me, that’s playing a little dirty,” Rose grumbled, but she couldn’t argue with results. Or that this was, technically, something she facilitated.

Or something she had done several times in the past, for that matter.

“…Well, if I’m being honest, it wasn’t all my idea,” Sylvia admitted. “Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin was the inspiration for this little gambit!”

Nick’s eyes widened. “Wait, you mean you actually talked with her? …Err, not talk, I mean, but, well… you know what I mean!”

Sylvia laughed and nodded. “She’s actually very nice once you get to know her… not that I can say that’s exactly what happened,” she admitted sheepishly.

Then she shrugged.

“I think she’s enjoying herself plenty right now,” Sylvia concluded, done talking about the assassin for the moment. “Let’s not talk about other girls.”

She stepped seductively over to Nick, and brushed her fingers across his chest. “Shall we get on to business?”

“Hey!” Rose scowled.

“Sylvia…” Marley didn’t even know what to say to this. Sylvia was her mom. And it had startled her momentarily to see Sylvia look so similar to how she was when Marley knew her, but now that the other woman was being so overtly seductive…

…Seeing your mom try to seduce the guy you’re in love with isn’t exactly a pleasant thing.

“Hush now, my girl,” Sylvia cooed, pressing her finger over Marley’s lips. “Mommy’s trying to settle some things, if you don’t mind…”

She leaned forward even more, pressing her tits up against Nick’s chest. The way his cheeks reddened was just adorable!

In the meantime, all Rose could do was stew in impotent frustration. Sure, she could make a scene and try to drive Sylvia off, but if she did that, Nick would probably get mad at her. No, as annoying as it was, if she wanted to maintain her place in his heart, she couldn’t be jealous or possessive in every interaction.

So she swallowed the bile in her throat, and let Sylvia have her fun seducing her man.

Nick sighed, and reached down to grab Sylvia by the waist. She gasped, and then fluttered her eyelashes with a blush.

“Ooh, now we’re talking! So forceful…” She cooed, squirming her hips.

She had quite a change of attitude when Nick then pulled her away from him and let her go.

“…Eh?”

“Sylvia, what are you doing?” Nick sighed. “Why did you transform your body like this? Just to try and seduce me?”

Sylvia pouted and fought back the tears in her eyes. “Of course I did, Daddy!” She snapped, tossing away all her hard work of not calling him that. “I wanted you to see just what I could do for you! I want you to look at me, too, you know! Even I have urges!”

Nick was well aware of that fact. But that wasn’t the point.

“Sylvia-”

“So you’ll do it with my daughter… but not with me?” Sylvia questioned, slumping down in defeat. She looked up at Nick with eyes that formed crystallized pools of sorrow. “Why? Why does Marley get to have you… but I don’t?”

Marley winced. The only thing she hated more than seeing her mom try to seduce the man she loved was seeing her mom at the brink of tears like this. Even Rose felt sympathy for Sylvia’s plight, though she still tightened her grip around Nick’s arm now that she had the freedom to assert herself.

Nick really didn’t know what to say to that. He had forcefully rebuffed Sylvia’s advances as a matter of course, since doing so had become second-nature to him at this point. Even before she’d started calling him “Daddy” he would instinctually turn down her attempts to goad him.

And now that he saw her in a body so similar to her old one, he was starting to figure out why that was.

“Sylvia… it’s not going to work like this,” he said firmly.

“Why?” Sylvia demanded, stomping her foot. “Because you see me as your daughter!? Well… how is that my fault!?”

“No, that’s not why,” he replied, shaking his head. That surprised Rose and Marley, and it surprised Sylvia most of all.

“Wait… really?” She asked, not sure if she was hearing him properly. “It’s not because of my transformation? But…”

She remembered the night of Gina’s party, when she’d taken a few steps to pleasure Nick in all the best ways. He certainly hadn’t rebuffed her then. So why now?

“I thought it was the daddy/daughter stuff, but I’m not sure anymore,” Nick said, shaking his head. “I think… seeing you like this, it helped me figure it out.”

Sylvia stood a little taller and preened a bit in spite of herself. “What, because of my hair?” She scowled. “Because it’s too long? That’s not my fault! Dani’s transformation comes with a hair extension, so…”

Nick shook his head. “It’s not about the hair, or about your physical features at all. It’s because of you, Sylvia.”

He didn’t realize how harsh that sounded until he saw her eyes start to water and her body shake.

“Be… because of me?” Sylvia sounded so soft and weak, like a little girl.

“Nick…” Rose tightened her grip on his arm, digging her nails into the flesh. He also felt the piercing glare of Marley from his left side.

“That… that came out wrong,” Nick said, shaking himself free from both women and approaching Sylvia, who was on the very of tears. He held out his hand to her and gently caressed her arm. She looked up at him with a face filled with desperation and resignation.

“Sylvia… don’t you remember how this all started?” He asked.

She flinched.

“So it’s… because I used to be a host, is that right?”

“Yes, and no,” Nick said. “Back when you were the host, do you remember the way you acted? You flung innuendo everywhere, and tried to seduce me at every turn, both with your own propositions and by offering up other women for me.”

“But… but I’ve changed!” She objected. “I’m better now!”

“In some ways, yes, that’s true,” Nick admitted. “You have changed, there’s no denying that.”

“Then why!?”

“Because it’s not about you taking joy in transforming other people, or not having respect for their boundaries,” Nick answered. “It’s not about how you treat other people. It’s about you as a person, and what you want.”

“What I want is you!”

“Yes, I get that.” Nick sighed, not sure how he could get Sylvia to see what he meant. “Look… Sylvia, you’re just not ready for this yet. And it has nothing to do with you calling me ‘Daddy’ or looking so young physically. I’ve slept with Dawn, and she looks more like a child than you ever have!”

Somewhere in the hotel, Dawn sneezed. She scowled, feeling that someone had just denigrated her inadvertently.

“I… I don’t understand then…” Sylvia mumbled, looking down. “What’s wrong with me then? Why can’t I be like the others?”

Nick sighed again. “Sylvia… I didn’t just sleep with Marley last night because we were alone together,” he said softly. “And it wasn’t just because of her body, or because she was mentally an adult, or her boobs, or her ass, or-”

“Th-that’s enough, Nick, I think you’ve made your point!” Marley exclaimed, turning a deeper shade of red with every word out of his mouth. He knew he was telling all this stuff to the woman who raised her, right?!

Nick blushed a little. “Marley and I were in an escape room together,” he informed Sylvia. “And during the puzzle game, Dakota would mercilessly try to make the situation sexual. And frankly… it wasn’t all that different from the kind of stuff you used to do. Remember when you dosed me and Dani with aphrodisiacs in the sauna, and during the massage?”

“Wait, when was this?!” Rose’s eyes bulged out in shock. “There was stuff like that I could have been doing!?”

Marley jammed her heel into the blonde’s foot.

Nick ignored the grunt of pain and continued. “I didn’t put it together until I saw you like this again, but I think you and Dakota have similar issues. Hers are… a lot more severe, I’m not gonna deny that. But a lot of who you are, you learned from her. Especially when you do stuff like this.”

He waved his other hand at Sylvia, who just looked at him with confusion on her face.

Seeing that he wasn’t getting through, Nick took a page from his stepmother’s book and directly cut to the heart of the matter.

“Sylvia, I slept with Marley because I care about her. And not just that, but because we developed a real, genuine emotional connection. I spent time with her and got to know her better as a person. We fell in love, and that’s why I didn’t mind being with her that way, because I knew that was what we both wanted.”

Marley buried her face in her hands, delighted by Nick’s words but embarrassed all the same.

“Yeah, and that’s what I want too!” Sylvia’s voice cracked with desperation. She clung to Nick’s shirt and stared up into his eyes. “Come on, Daddy! Please?!”

“No, Sylvia, you’re not getting it,” Nick groaned, removing her as gently as he could. “I connected with Marley emotionally. That’s why I enjoyed myself with her… that way. But with you… it’s like you’re still in the host persona, even though you’re not that person anymore. Even now, you still decided that the best course of action wasn’t to try to get to know me as a person or spend time with me, you thought that all you’d need was a sexier body and then if you threw yourself at me, that would be that. It’s exactly like back when you were running the show. But I need more than that, Sylvia! It’s not enough to just be sexy, I want an honest emotional connection!”

“Well… well, I can do that!” Sylvia exclaimed. “I’ll show you! So…”

“If you and I can really forge an emotional connection like that, then I’d welcome it,” Nick acknowledged. “But right now, we don’t have something like that. You’re not going to win me over by trying to seduce me like this, Sylvia. It didn’t work back when you were the host, and it’s not going to convince me now. Look, I know you’ve changed a lot since you became human. I watched you in the last challenge, and I saw exactly why the audience decided to make you the winner. And believe me, you definitely earned it.”

He shook his head.

“But growing as a person isn’t enough. I’m not some prize for you to win once you’ve accumulated enough ‘nice girl’ points. Right now, I know a lot about you, but I don’t really know you,” he tried to explain. He wished he could get her to understand, he really did. But it just didn’t seem to be getting through. “That’s what I want, Sylvia. Not you throwing your body at me, no matter how many upgrades you give it. I want to spend the time to get to know you the right way.”

Sylvia started to tremble. She could feel the urge to cry welling back up in her breast. But it wasn’t out of sadness or rejection. She was burning with frustration.

Kim had it right from the start.

“I messed up,” she whimpered, hanging her head. “I shouldn’t have copied Dani’s transformation… I should have listened to Kim, and gone for the bounty sheet instead…”

“Sorry, what now?” Rose scowled.

Sylvia jerked her head up, and her eyes widened. “Err… I mean…”

“You… you were going to copy my bounty sheet!?” Rose exclaimed. “You thieving little minx!”

“Rose, now isn’t the time,” Nick snapped. He turned back to Sylvia and his voice turned gentle again. “Sylvia, what do you mean?”

Sylvia sighed. “I went to Kim earlier, before I ran into Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin,” she informed him. “I wanted to know what I should do with my Fuck the Voters transformation this round… but also, I wanted to know how I could use it to make you happy, Daddy. So we could finally be together. And Kim said that instead of trying to win you over with physical transformations, I should try to get to know you as a person, without the transformations doing the work.”

Nick nodded slowly. Smart girl, that Kim.

“I was going to use my transformation to borrow Rose’s Side Piece of the Action transformation,” Sylvia explained. “Then I would burn through as many bounties as possible in order to get a ton of BP, and then use that to buy a date with you. But that seemed too slow, and I ended up falling for the cheap and easy shortcut Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin proposed instead.”

Nick scowled. That sounded like Sylvia alright. So impatient to get to what she wanted that she didn’t even think about what he might want.

“If it makes you feel better, I don’t think taking my bounty sheet would have done much good,” Rose offered.

Sylvia leered at her warily. “You’re just saying that because you don’t want me to borrow it tomorrow,” she mumbled.

Well… there was some truth to that, yes.

But Rose was still right.

“You drafted a few of these bounty sheets before,” Rose reminded her. “All the good stuff is locked behind sexual acts with Nick, remember? So trying to use the bounty sheet to get enough BP to go on a date with him so he’ll get to know you is like putting the cart before the horse.”

Sylvia blinked. She hadn’t even considered that.

“So… it’s pointless?!” She wailed.

“Mom…” Marley winced as she saw Sylvia practically burst into tears. What Rose was saying may have been true, but couldn’t she have said it with a little more tact?!

“Wait, Sylvia, no one’s saying it’s pointless,” Nick said quickly. “You’re making too big of a deal out of this.”

“No I’m not!” Sylvia wailed. “I need that BP! I’ve only got 2000! And a date with you costs 5000! It’s too much! That’s, like, three rounds of popularity polls!”

Nick shook his head. “Sylvia… you don’t need to buy a date with me in order to get me to spend time with you, you realize that, right?”

Sylvia blinked and wiped the tears from her eyes.

“Huh?”

Good lord…

“You could just ask,” he said. “Look. Marley and Rose both asked me to go out with them today, so I did it. You think I wouldn’t do the same if you asked me to?”

“W-well…” Sylvia hadn’t really considered that possibility. “I guess…”

“See, this is what I was talking about before,” Nick sighed. “You’re trying to use the rules of the game to push ahead, when you could just ask. Again, I’m not a prize for you to win, Sylvia. If you want to spend time with me, you don’t have to **** it. You can just ask.”

“That’s right,” Rose nodded. “You can spend time with him without needing to spend 5000 BP on a **** date!”

Marley gave her a side-eyed look. “Didn’t YOU do that last round?”

Rose waved her hand dismissively at the other girl without even looking her way. “Hush you. We’re not talking about me right now.”

Marley rolled her eyes. “Yeah, for once,” she muttered under her breath.

“You… you’d really do that, though?” Sylvia asked hopefully. “You’d spend the day with me if I asked you to? For real? I wouldn’t even have to pay?”

“That’s right,” Nick assured her. “It’s not like I don’t care about you, Sylvia. I’ve seen how much you’ve grown, and I really want to help with that however I can. And if spending time with you will help you develop your relationships with myself and other people better, then I’m happy to do it. I think it’s for the best, honestly.

Plus… given Sylvia’s current frame of mind and the way she behaved when she was the host, Nick doubted he’d enjoy whatever she had planned for her “date” with him if she was given control of Dream Alley.

No, it was safer to limit Sylvia’s options and keep her imagination in check until he could lead her to a more grounded state of mind.

Sylvia looked like she was on the verge of tears again.

“…Oh, Daddy!” She exclaimed, and lunged at him.

Nick felt like he was hit by a truck. Sylvia bowled him over with her superhuman strength and practically flattened him to the ground, hugging him tightly.

“I promise, we’re going to have such a great date! I can’t wait for tomorrow!” She gushed.

“Wait, tomorrow?! Hold on a second!” Nick managed to get her off of him without touching any suggestive parts of her body, which was no small feat. “It’s not going to be tomorrow!” He protested.

“Eh!? Why not?!” Sylvia demanded, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Because tomorrow is my night with Morgana,” he pointed out. “What if she wants to do something with me?”

Sylvia frowned. That was a good question. “Well…”

“Sylvia, part of making this work means you need to accommodate the needs of other girls, and not just yourself,” Nick pointed out, rising to his feet and helping her up. “There’s a system in place here, and you should really respect it.”

You were enforcing it for a long time, after all.

“That’s right, that’s for the best,” Rose nodded in agreement, conveniently ignoring the fact that she herself had strong-armed Nick into a date on a night that wasn’t hers today already.

Marley gave her another side-eyed look.

“Okay, Sylvia, my night with you is going to be on the sixth day in the round, right?” Nick asked, recalling the schedule of the round. “That’s five days away. If you promise to behave yourself and not throw yourself at me like this anymore, then I promise, we can spend the whole day together then, just getting to know each other. Does that work for you?”

Sylvia’s eyes twinkled with delight. “Oh, yes, Daddy! That would be just wonderful!” She gushed.

A whole day on a date with her Daddy… could a girl ask for anything more?