He been tryin' it, but not today

“How are your arms feeling?” Dani asked Nick as they got off the bench.

Nick paused and focused on his joints. “…My shoulders are still a little sore,” he informed her. He felt a lot better, but he still wasn’t at 100% yet.

Dani sighed. “Yeah, I figured,” she said, playing with a couple strands of her hair as she gave him a sympathetic look. “Nothing we can do about that, I suppose. We’ll have to come up with something else then.”

“Oh?” Nick looked at Dani in surprise. “Well, yeah, I guess not. No princess carry.” He didn’t expect Dani to be so enthusiastic about it; she seemed genuinely disappointed. Then again, I guess in a situation like this every last Victory Point matters, huh?

“Well, not necessarily.”

Dani and Nick turned to Kim.

“What do you mean?” Dani asked, frowning. “If Nick’s arms are sore, then there’s no way he can give me a princess carry. That’s just asking for trouble.

Kim shrugged. “Well yeah, of course not, but that’s not what I meant. The lap pillow went both ways, right, Dani?” She pointed out. “You got points for receiving a lap pillow from Nick, AND giving him one. So maybe a princess carry might work the same way. What if you gave Nick a princess carry yourself? Worth a shot, don’t you think?”

Dani’s mouth dropped open and she looked at Nick, surprised. Nick looked just as stunned.

“Do… do you think that would work?” Nick asked. Obviously Dani was more than physically capable of giving him a princess carry with her enhanced strength, but would that be something Dakota would actually give points for?

“Well, that confirms one thing at least,” Kim said, grinning. “If you don’t know, then nobody’s tried it, right, Nick?”

Dani looked at Nick again. Kim raised a good point. If Nick didn’t know whether or not a girl carrying him like a princess was worth Victory Points, that meant nobody had ever done it before. So if Dani did it first, she could potentially get double the points, couldn’t she?

It was worth a shot.

“…Actually, maybe Amelia’s already given you one,” Kim continued her line of thinking, stroking her chin. “You know, picking you up to take you to bed when you were a little kid?”

“Hey!” Nick’s face reddened. “She… I was old enough to not need that sort of thing by the time she moved in with us!”

“Oh, well. Worth a shot anyway!” Kim shrugged. “Sorry I was just caught up in how adorable it would be, Amelia carrying baby you around and swaddling you? Feeding you a bottle? Wouldn’t that be the most precious thing ever?”

Dani had to admit, the mental image of stern and stoic Amelia Campbell cradling a baby in her arms and doting over him was quite adorable. “Yes, you’re exactly right,” she agreed, nodding in approval. “It’s the perfect gap moe! The cool, professional woman is secretly the doting mother!”

“Right, you get it!” Kim pointed at her. “…I don’t know what ‘gap moe’ is, but that sounds pretty much right.”

Dani looked at her. “…You don’t watch anime? Seriously? This stuff’s super fricking common.”

Kim gave her a frosty look. “What, because I’m Japanese? That’s a stereotype. Are you gonna ask if I have a samurai sword back home next? I grew up in section 8 housing, Dani, I barely ever left my home city.”

“It’s not about that!” Dani’s face turned red. “This is… gap moe… it’s… it’s gap moe! It’s not some obscure Japanese thing! Come on, you’ve never watched a single episode of anime before?!”

Kim shrugged. “Sure I have. Morgana’s always pitching one thing or another. But it’s not like I ever watched any back home. I was working. I didn’t have time for stuff like that.”

Dani couldn’t believe what she was hearing right now. “Kim, come on, you couldn’t make even a little bit of time to watch some crap on YouTube or whatever?”

Kim crossed her arms over her chest. “…I couldn’t afford a computer.”

“Well… old broadcast releases on cable, then!” Dani sputtered.

Kim just raised her eyebrow and gave her the same “What do you think?” look.

Nick winced. “Yikes, you couldn’t even afford a TV? Geez Kim, that’s…”

“We had a TV!” Kim griped at him, rolling her eyes. “…No cable, though.”

Dani decided that it was about time to bail out of this conversation and check her privilege moving forward.

“…Sorry, that was insensitive of me,” she apologized, hanging her head.

Kim waved her hand. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal. Besides, even if I had all that stuff, I don’t even watch regular shows. I wouldn’t have wasted my time on anime anyway. Some of that shit is creepy as hell.”

Dani couldn’t argue there.

“Plus the whole medium gives me the willies,” Kim continued, shivering. “Back when I was working at the comic book store, it was always the dudes wearing those anime shirts who gave me the skeeviest looks. They didn’t even shower, and the way they were looking at me, it was obvious where their minds were going. Like, just because I’m Japanese I’m gonna be their little cosplaying-!”

Kim coughed and cleared her throat. “…Sorry about that, I went down a rabbit hole there a little… anyway. Can we get back to the point at hand? Princess carry!” She slapped the back of her hand into her palm a couple of times. “Chop chop, you two!”

Dani jerked back to reality and nodded. “Right, uh… for the record, sorry Carly suggested that you dress up like that before, then.”

Kim blinked. “Dress up like what? You mean those workout clothes? What was wrong with those?” She asked, confused.

Dani averted her eyes. Kim looked over at Nick, shooting him a questioning glance, but he couldn’t look her in the eyes, either.

Kim frowned. “Okay, what aren’t you telling me?”

“Don’t… don’t worry about it,” Dani and Nick said basically together, both looking at the confused girl with expressions of sympathy.

Kim just felt more confused than ever.

“…Anyway, princess carry!” Dani said loudly, turning to Nick. “No harm in testing it out, right?”

“Sure, works for me,” Nick said, nodding.

Kim’s smile returned. “Great! Then when we’re done, Nick, do you mind giving me a lap pillow, too? I haven’t done that one, either.”

“Yeah, sure,” Nick agreed. He was still focusing on Dani, though, since she was the priority. “Okay, so how should we…?”

Dani decided that talking wouldn’t help. Better to just scoop him up right now and be done with it. So that was precisely what she did. With her hand against his back and her other arm tucked under his legs, she hoisted him up into a princess carry like he was lighter than air.

With Dani’s enhanced muscles it wasn’t difficult at all.

“So is this it?” Dani asked, looking down at him. She was a little embarrassed; this wasn’t exactly easy for her, either. “Or do we need to get even closer together?”

It was possible that she might need to hug him close, or let him drape his arm over her shoulders. Nick wasn’t sure. But before he could say anything, the question was answered for him.

Gave the Master a Princess Carry! +2 VP

First! x2 Multiplier

“Oh hey!” Dani’s face brightened as she received a nice chunk of Victory Points. “I guess that answers that question, then!”

“Interesting that you got more VP for giving him one than the other girls got for receiving one,” Kim noted curiously. “While that makes sense for other actions, I would think the expectation would be for the guy to be doing the princess carrying.”

“I don’t know,” Dani admitted, adjusting her grip. “Maybe it’s because something like this isn’t gonna be easy for everyone to do, and that’s why it’s worth more?”

Kim nodded, considering that. “Yeah, I don’t think I could handle it,” she agreed. She might have been in decent shape, but carrying Nick was probably something she couldn’t handle for more than a couple seconds.

“Ahem.”

Nick looked up at Dani. “Could you, uh…”

“Right, right,” Dani said, setting Nick down. She laughed and scratched her head. “Sorry about that! Got kinda caught up in the moment there.”

“No, it’s fine,” Nick said as Dani set him down on the ground. He was feeling a strange sense of déjà vu, like he’d been through this before…

Then he gasped. “Hey, wait!”

“Huh?” Kim raised her eyebrow.

“Something wrong?” Dani asked, concerned.

Nick turned to Dani with a frown on his face. “Dani, how much VP did you get from that just now?” He asked.

Dani showed him her hand. “2 VP,” she answered. “But I got a double multiplier since I was the first one to do it.”

Nick shook his head. “You weren’t though,” he said.

Dani blinked. “Huh? Yeah I was. See?” She shook her hand for emphasis, rustling the feathers on her arm.

But Nick was adamant. “You weren’t the first one to give me a princess carry,” he repeated. “Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin was. On our very first meeting, when I went into Dream Alley with her. I forgot about it until just now because I have four sets of overlapping memories from that time, and some of that stuff slipped through the cracks. But it definitely happened.”

“So wait, Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin gave you a princess carry?” Kim frowned. “And she didn’t get any Victory Points for it? That’s weird.”

“Could it be because she gave you one before the show started, maybe?” Dani asked. “She wouldn’t get any VP for something she already did with Nick before the show began, right? That’s why Gina didn’t get any VP for kissing you.”

Nick shook his head. “Trust me, that’s not possible.” He had only met Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin once before she arrived on the show. And given her appearance back then, a princess carry wouldn’t have been possible, even if he had somehow forgotten it.

…Right?

Boy did he hope there wasn’t some missing memory of his that involved that small little waif of a girl carrying teenage him around like that.

“Something’s definitely up, then,” Kim said, frowning. Helping Dani get more Victory Points was the furthest thing from her mind with this new information to work with, not to mention her own lap pillow.

“Well, only one way to find out,” Dani said, shrugging. Then to Nick and Kim’s confusion, she turned and walked down the street.

“Uh…”

“What?”

Kim and Nick were equally confused by what Dani was doing. Until she went around the corner, and then they both figured it out.

“Yowch! Hey!”

A second later Dani walked back around the corner, dragging a squirming Nola behind her.

“It’s not what you think!” Nola wailed. “I was just, um, going for a brisk afternoon jog! I definitely wasn’t spying on anybody! I wouldn’t even do that! I’m the worst at spying! I mean, I assume I’m the worst at spying, because I’ve never spied before, and they always say you suck at things you’ve never done before unless you’re really talented, and I doubt I’d have a talent for spying so I’ve gotta be terrible, because I’ve never-”

“Nola, shut up, we don’t care about you spying on us,” Dani interrupted her.

The leprechaun’s face relaxed into a smile and she stopped struggling. “Oh, you don’t? Well, okay then! …But I wasn’t spying.”

Nick sighed and shook his head. Kim giggled in amusement.

Dani turned to the two of them and let Nola go. “I figure if anybody knows what’s going on here, it would be the gremlin, right?”

Nola brushed herself up and smiled cheerfully at the other girl. “Um, actually, I’m a leprechaun, not a gremlin, so-”

“Nola, we had a question for you about Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin,” Nick said, interrupting her before she could go on another tangent.

“Uh… her? Why…?” Nola flinched, biting her lip. Apparently even with all Nola’s privileges as a member of the staff, Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin still bothered her.

Nobody could really blame her for that, to be honest.

“Dani just got some VP for being the first contestant to give Nick a princess carry,” Kim informed her, jutting her thumb at the blue-haired girl.

“Oh, I know!” Nola gushed. “You looked so dashing, Dani! Just like a prince! You know, except not a boy. But not a princess, either. A female prince. Look it up, it’s a thing, and if you say it’s not then you’re just a bigot!”

Dani raised her eyebrow. “…I thought you weren’t spying.”

“Right, I wasn’t.” Nola had such a shit-eating grin on her face Dani had half a mind to bury her fist in it on principle, but she didn’t. This was just how Nola was, after all.

Instead, she decided to sigh.

“We’re just confused,” Nick said, getting back to the main point. “Because Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin gave me a princess carry back when we had our dream together, remember?”

Nola nodded slowly. “O-o-o-o-oh yeah… that did happen, didn’t it…” she murmured, tapping her chin thoughtfully.

“What, so was this all just one big mistake, then?” Kim asked, raising her eyebrow. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d seen someone running things make an oversight. “Shouldn’t Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin be given some Victory Points too, retroactively? And the first time bonus as well, then?”

“Hey, whose side are you on?” Dani protested.

“The side of fairness!” Kim replied defensively.

Dani frowned. But she couldn’t really argue with the other girl, either.

Nola laughed and waved her hand. “Nonononono! No need to worry about that! She wasn’t cheated out of anything! You see, those first dates happened before the girls were technically members of the harem, so they wouldn’t get any VP for things they did with the master! That’s how Dakota works, after all!”

“Wait, they wouldn’t?” Kim frowned.

“Why not?” Nick asked. “I mean, they were here on the island, weren’t they? And they were doing stuff with me…”

“Yeah, that doesn’t seem fair,” Dani agreed.

Nola shrugged. “I dunno. ‘Cause they weren’t, I guess? I mean, there was that whole thing about dividing up the VP the girls would get, and the BP, and all that. Remember the audience votes? It would be kinda impossible to divide the VP evenly when some of the girls won some on the side, so Dakota decided to just not let anybody get anything until the votes were cast. Plus, that way the audience’s votes wouldn’t be unfairly colored by the amount of VP that the girls had saved up!

She turned to Nick. “That’s why Vivian didn’t get any VP when you touched her breasts that one time, remember?”

“I didn’t touch her breasts,” Nick replied snappishly.

Nola shrugged.

“I guess that makes sense,” Kim admitted, scratching her head. “I’m not gonna be the one to tell Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin that, though.”

“Yep, me neither,” Dani agreed, shaking her head. “Something tells me that girl isn’t going to accept ‘Well at least you got a lot of votes for VP from the audience’ as a justification for why she’s not getting any VP if she carries him again.”

Nola blanched. “W-why are you guys making it sound like it’s my fault!? I didn’t make the rules!” She wailed.

“Nola, it’s fine,” Nick said gently. “Thanks for telling us. That straightens everything out.”

“You’re welcome!” Nola relaxed a little and wiped the sweat from her brow. “Anything I can do to help! …Well, except reveal all the things you can do to get VP. Not allowed to do that,” she added, holding up her arms in an “X” shape.

“Oh! Thanks for reminding me!” Kim gasped. She turned to Nick, her eyes shining. “I still need my lap pillow!”

She rushed back to the bench and patted the spot beside her, staring adamantly at Nick.

Dani held her hand over her mouth and snickered as Nick went to go help Kim get the extra Victory Point she’d been denied that morning.

“So, doing stuff to get VP, huh?”

Dani jumped, not realizing that Nola was still talking to her. She turned to the short little gremlin and frowned.

“Yeah, I guess,” she mumbled, nodding. “It’s not that big a deal or anything…”

“Oh, it’s a VERY big deal!” Nola said, shaking her head. “A super big deal!”

Dani raised her eyebrow. “…Really?” She wasn’t convinced.

Nola nodded her head adamantly. “It must be so tough for you, not having many ways to get VP without getting really intimate with Nick! But don’t worry, I’m here to help!”

Dani sighed and rubbed her temples. “You know what the nine scariest words in the world are, Nola? ‘I’m from Dakota and I’m here to help’.”

“…That’s only eight words…”

“Whatever! Look, the point is, I’m not gonna just blindly trust the advice from a showrunner, okay?” Dani insisted, crossing her arms over her chest. “Sorry, but I’m not.”

“Mary sent me, though,” Nola pointed out. “Dakota didn’t.”

That was better, yeah. But only slightly.

Dani shook her head.

“Weeeellll, if you say so,” Nola sighed, stretching her arms over her head. “I could be a lot of help, though… a lot!”

Dani had to admit, her curiosity was piqued. But she didn’t take the other girl’s bait.

“Nola…”

“There’s something else you can do,” Nola said, making a rare determined expression. “You know how Nick got Victory Points for touching your boobs?”

“Yeah,” Dani replied, instinctively covering her chest.

Nola grinned. “Well, just like with the princess carry and the lap pillow, what if you touched his boobs? That’s good for a couple VP!”

Dani stared at the other girl. “…Nick doesn’t have boobs,” she pointed out.

Nola nodded slowly. “Right, but what if he did? Whoooaaaa…”

She looked like she’d just said something very profound, instead of something profoundly stupid. But insanity aside, Dani remembered when Nick had been accidentally turned into a girl using the mirror, and how Rose had immediately seized the opportunity to touch “her” breasts and get an easy chunk of VP for it.

“Wait… you aren’t seriously suggesting…?” Dani looked at Nola in disbelief, and the leprechaun just smirked and wiggled her eyebrows.

“It’s worth considering!” She chirped, skipping off. And definitely not ducking behind another street corner to keep spying on them, because she hadn’t been spying on them in the first place. Obviously.