The world is not my home, I'm just a-passing through, you got to come on up to the house

Because Sylvia had been the one to invited Nick out to the Shopping District, he had assumed there was somewhere in particular that she wanted to visit.

He really should have known better.

“Hmm? Somewhere particular I wanted to go on our date together, Daddy?” Sylvia scrunched up her face and thought about it, tapping her cheek. “…No, I can’t say I have any thoughts, if I’m being honest,” she said after a moment, shaking her head.

With a shrug of her shoulders she gave him a coquettish wink. “Sowwie!”

Nick held back his frustration, knowing this was just the kind of woman Sylvia was. It had taken time for him to get to know the many sides with her, and he was sure there were still plenty of facets to her personality that he had yet to understand. But he could at least see through that smile of hers.

It was bright. It was coy. The kind of cute smile a young daughter just might give to her father… except Nick wasn’t her father, and they both knew it.

And then he realized why he felt uneasy. Why he found it hard to relax around Sylvia from the second she appeared in front of him this morning. It had nothing to do with the physical changes her body went through.

The look in her eye… it was different.

There was an innocence there, as if she’d been grappling with something for a very long time, and finally come to a decision.

Gone were the flirty looks, the innuendo, the sexual overtones. She was smiling at him with chaste adoration, and coming from Sylvia, that was unnerving indeed.

“Is everything alright?” Nick asked, approaching her.

Sylvia looked at him like she didn’t understand what he was talking about. “Why of course, Daddy!” She chirped. “Can’t you see? I’m all smiles!”

She was. And he didn’t doubt that smile.

But a smile wasn’t the whole story.

“Something is different about you,” he said sincerely. “And it’s not just the hair. No, it’s your whole attitude, Sylvia. And honestly… I kind of like it.”

A look of surprise flickered across her face for a fraction of a second before she regained her focus. She raised a surprised eyebrow.

“…You do?” She inquired, leaning forward curiously.

Nick nodded. “You seem happier,” he stated. “Less burdened.” He wasn’t sure if he should pry any further than this, honestly, even if he was curious. If Sylvia really was happy…

But then he saw another flicker. For the briefest of instants there was a gleam in her eye, a note of dismay… or maybe disappointment? It was gone before he fully registered it so he couldn’t be sure, but the one thing he knew was that Sylvia wasn’t completely, unquestionably happy with this subtle shift in her personality.

And if that was the case, then Nick wasn’t, either.

“…Is there something you’re not telling me?” He asked, taking another step closer. He half-expected her to pull away, but she didn’t. She quickly shook her head, instead.

“No, not… it’s not important, really,” she said, thereby admitting that, yes, there was indeed something she wasn’t telling him.

He already knew that much. The question was how did he go about getting through to her?

Sylvia is usually so eager to please me. To please anyone, really. If she’s still not talking even when I’m pressing this hard, then it really must be something serious.

Her smile may have been unreadable, but he knew her.

“Daddy,” Sylvia said, her voice as smooth as silk, and incredibly convincing, even if Nick refused to be convinced, “it’s really not a big deal. I don’t want it to spoil our date together… do you?”

This was the point where she would bat her eyelashes. Maybe try to flirt. Under normal circumstances, anyway.

It didn’t happen.

“I’m only asking because I care about you,” Nick tried to coax her. “Wouldn’t you be worried if something suddenly happened to me, and I was giving you completely different vibes than I always do, Sylvia?”

She winced a little but her smile refused to dim. “You said you liked it, though,” she reminded him. “You said I seemed less… less burdened.”

“I know, but that’s not the vibe I’m getting from you right now,” he said as gently as he could, trying to make sense of it himself. She’d seemed lighter than air, completely unburdened… right up until he told her as much, and then the cracks started to show.

That didn’t make any sense. Nick tried to understand the mental process that would lead to that sort of response, but he was completely stumped.

And her cagey smile wasn’t helping matters.

Ultimately, Nick had to make a choice. If he went at Sylvia’s pace and let her push past all this stuff, it could end up just like his date with Vivian. He might not see the red flags before it was too late, and something could go wrong.

He didn’t want to risk an outcome like that ever again. So he pushed forward and grabbed her by the shoulders, making her yelp.

“H-hey! Daddy!” Sylvia gasped, her eyes widened and her mouth falling open. He wasn’t holding her tightly or anything but the sudden gesture of physicality caught her completely by surprise. So she stood motionless, just staring at him, as if she was waiting for him to say something.

That was what Nick was waiting for. For her shield to come down with her surprise, so he could try and get a peek at what was behind the mask.

But all he saw was confusion and alarm. No hint of what was really bothering the oddly-behaving girl, unfortunately.

And this was about as far as his comfort level would let him go. If it was someone like Rose who was playing games with him he might have kissed her, just to really shock her, but Sylvia? Absolutely not.

“I… D-Daddy…” Sylvia stammered, trying to smile like nothing was wrong, but failing miserably. “Come on, what’s up? Let me go, you’re acting weird!”

“Sylvia, I know something happened last night,” Nick said, taking a shot in the dark. Although he hadn’t seen Sylvia for several days at this point, the other girls had let him know that she’d been acting perfectly normal.

Until now.

The way she flinched said it all. His bluff was proven correct.

“You… you d-do?” Sylvia stammered, swallowing. “Who… who told? Was it Emmy? She didn’t know any better… Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin couldn’t have told you, obviously… Amelia, would she have…?”

Then the color drained from her face. “Did… Dakota-?”

And then suddenly Nick wasn’t on the sidewalk anymore, holding Sylvia in his arms. He was back in that field, suddenly slingshot into his dream again, and the face in front of him was Dakota’s.

It was only for an instant, but he remembered everything. And then it was gone again.

Gasping Nick let go of Sylvia and staggered back, gasping for breath.

“Daddy!?” Sylvia cried out in a panic and rushed to help keep him steady as he stumbled, feeling like the street was twisting around him. He couldn’t breathe, it was like his ribs were caving in and his lungs were tightening, and he could feel the sweat dripping down his face.

He was lucky he didn’t pass out as Sylvia helped him to the bench, and hugged him until he managed to calm down.

By the time Nick was able to think rationally again, Sylvia’s face was covered with tears.

“D-Daddy…” she whimpered, wiping her eyes. “Are you okay?”

Nick shook his head, still a little dazed. “Yeah… I-I’m sorry, just… I just had a panic attack, that’s all,” he said gently. “I had a really weird dream last night… I don’t know why, but… I think it was about Dakota maybe…”

There it was again. That sad face of hers. It popped into his mind again just by saying her name. Impulsively he tried it again. “Dakota!”

Nothing this time. It was gone.

But without the image of his friend’s face popping into his head (which was already starting to fade) he could see the strained look on Sylvia’s face now.

Just as he thought. Dakota was responsible for this, somehow.

“Sylvia, please tell me what happened with Dakota,” Nick said gently, taking her by the hand. “You don’t have to worry. I can handle it. I’m not going to have another panic attack or anything.”

The way she flinched when she heard Dakota’s name made sense. Given how Dakota had treated her, continued to treat her, that response from Sylvia was completely natural and understandable.

But the look she gave him now wasn’t.

She almost seemed… lost.

“I don’t… actually know,” Sylvia finally said. A sigh escaped her lips, and there it was. All those burdens that seemed to have been lifted from her earlier this morning, they were back with her now, and there was that weight in her eyes again.

Nick winced.

“Sylvia… if it’s too hard for you to tell me, then-” Nick stopped himself. “No, I’m sorry. Never mind. That’s not my place. Whenever… whenever you’re ready. Alright?”

What was he doing? Sylvia had been perfectly content and happy, and he’d dragged these negative emotions out of her and brought them back up to the surface. And now he was gonna just tell her to ignore them?

Talk about a shitty thing to do to someone.

So he kept his mouth shut and let Sylvia confide in him at her own pace, recounting the strange sequence of events for him.

“More deflection,” Amelia sharply rebuked Dakota. “Trying to shift the focus onto me, and away from yourself. I take it then, that your repeated refusal to answer the question means that you have no answer? Is that correct?”

The furious grinding of Dakota’s teeth echoed through the classroom. Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin watched the exchange with a gleeful smile as Emmy shivered.

Sylvia had no idea what to think. The two women in front of her were standing in staunch opposition to one another, and for once, Dakota was the one who couldn’t do anything.

Amelia had her trapped. She could see it in the gleam of Dakota’s eyes. The host could either answer, or she could flee, and thus admit that Amelia had defeated her.

And then, slowly, Dakota straightened her back.

She sighed.

She looked into Amelia’s eyes.

“I don’t want her to go.”

A cacophony of silence echoed through the room.

Emmy looked totally lost. Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin raised a quizzical eyebrow, intrigued. Amelia froze, stunned by Dakota’s answer, as if she never expected such a response from the other woman.

And Sylvia’s mouth hung open as her creator’s words kept playing through her ears.

“I don’t want her to go.”

It didn’t make any sense. She must have misheard it. They ALL must have, hence the looks of surprise on all their faces!

But the person who looked most shocked by Dakota’s answer was Dakota herself.

“I… wha… what?” Dakota staggered back like she’d just been struck by a mighty blow. A dazed expression flickered across her pale features and she let go of her cane. The clattering sound it made as it skittered to Sylvia’s feet snapped the both of them out of their reverie, and their eyes dropped to it at the same exact time.

Sylvia didn’t even think about it, her body was already moving. She picked up the cane and held it out to her creator, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do.

In Dakota’s eyes was a look that she’d never seen before. An emotion unlike any she’d ever witnessed, something that was beyond anything Sylvia knew.

In that instant Dakota snatched back her cane. And like a wire stretched to its breaking point, the tension between them snapped.

“Ha… haaah…” Dakota clutched her cane to her chest, her cheeks flushed and her pale features doused in sweat. Her eyes wavered and she shuddered in horror, like just being in Sylvia’s presence was causing her physical pain.

Sylvia had no idea what she should do. Those golden eyes of Dakota’s left her paralyzed, like a deer caught in the headlights or a child seeing their favorite animal at the zoo for the very first time. Or some bizarre mixture of both emotions that Sylvia couldn’t even begin to unravel.

She never had the opportunity because by this point Amelia had recovered as well, and the older woman lacked any of the same hesitation.

“Dakota!” She stepped briskly forward, her voice aching with compassion. For once her emotions blazed across her face as her expression twisted into a look of concern. “What you said just now-”

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT I SAID JUST NOW!” And suddenly all the venom that had been so lacking in Dakota’s personage these past faint seconds flooded out of her with more fervor than ever before, her eyes flashing wildly as she jerked away from Amelia like a wounded feral cat. Her teeth were clenched tightly together and her eyes bulged out of their sockets. Veins were throbbing on her forehead.

Ranting, Dakota yanked furiously at the fringe of hair framing her face, practically tearing it out at the roots as she gnashed her teeth together. “How could I… how… how could I say that… how…”

Sylvia could only make out every couple of words as the host ranted too fast for anyone to decipher, digging her sharp nails into the side of her skull as her mouth gnashed open and shut. Sylvia was worried that Dakota might bite her tongue off she was in such a frenzied state!

“I don’t want her to go.”

How could the madness in front of her have said something like that? The thing before Sylvia’s eyes was no mother, she hardly looked human. In that moment Sylvia saw just how ravaged and wasted Dakota truly was, like the decaying shell of a corpse she knew the woman to truly be behind the sneer and the power and the beauty.

Sylvia saw that… and she almost cried.

Then it just slipped out of her. A word she tried so hard to avoid using, but couldn’t help herself from saying in secret, when she didn’t think Dakota would care.

“Mom…” her voice cracked, tears welling up in her eyes.

It was as if a bolt of lightning struck the abomination in front of her. Dakota’s head jerked up and her maddened gold eyes met Sylvia’s once again. Only this time, Sylvia knew that look from Dakota all too well.

“Don’t call me that…” the host hissed, curling her lips into a snarl. “Don’t call me that! I’m no one’s mother! I’m not! Don’t you call me that word! Don’t you DARE!” She shrieked, collapsing to her knees and pulling frantically at her hair again as she shuddered and howled and moaned like every bone in her body was trying to tear itself away from her skeleton.

And all the while those hideous, wretched eyes filled with contempt never left Sylvia.

But for the first time, Sylvia didn’t feel pain from what she saw in that gaze. It was like something had shifted. Like hearing someone else’s inside joke you’d been told all through your childhood for the first time after you were let in on the context.

Like the final piece of a puzzle that made the whole thing make sense.

That contempt in her eyes… it’s not about me at all! She’s not even looking at me right now. Then… then who is she looking at?

If Sylvia could tear her eyes away from Dakota’s she would have looked over her shoulder, even though she knew there was no one there. But she couldn’t move.

Amelia was saying something. There was a distant clatter, maybe Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin pushing over a chair, and the clack of her heels. And was that Emmy who cried out just then?

Sylvia couldn’t be sure about any of it, because none of it mattered. The only thing she heard were the inaudible screeches and mutters of the monster wearing her mother’s face, and the only thing she saw was the haunted look of a broken woman in front of her.

Sylvia’s heart broke for her, too.

“Why would I say that…” The final thing Sylvia heard from Dakota was the clearest. “Why would I say that I wanted her to stay?”

It should have hurt to hear her say that. As if she were taking back her previous words. But Dakota wasn’t even looking at Sylvia now, her eyes had sunk to join the rest of her on the floor, and Sylvia could tell that the woman in front of her was truly lost.

“I don’t want her to go.”

That was the truth. A truth that Dakota herself had not even been aware of until she said it. But what did those words mean? Did they mean her creator loved her? Could that even be possible? Sylvia had always hoped that to be the case, but recently she had come to realize that, no, Dakota was not capable of that, no more than her own mother had been capable of loving her.

But that’s not true, is it? Didn’t Dakota’s mother love her? That one time, at least?

Sylvia didn’t know what to do. She was lost and scared and alone and confused and she just wanted someone to tell her that what she was feeling was okay… whatever she was feeling.

She didn’t know.

In a moment of emotional catharsis Sylvia had learned so much about her creator, and yet what she learned just left her more confused than ever before. What did Dakota see when she looked into Sylvia’s eyes? What did her words for Sylvia mean, spoken so sincerely they shattered even Dakota’s own perception of reality?

And what did it mean for Sylvia’s future, that deep down, her mother didn’t want her to leave? That a part of her even she was unaware of, a part of her that she evidently was trying to consciously and violently reject, wanted Sylvia to stay with her?

Sylvia could not get the answer to any of those questions, because a heartbeat later and Dakota was gone.