The hasty steps caused the tanned woman’s hair to bounce as she approached John. Unequally parted, the larger half was held in its place by a jewel encrusted barrette, keeping the thoroughly combed, raven-black tide orderly. She was gorgeous, as gorgeous as John’s girls, with dark lips and brown eyes. She would have looked better, however, if she hadn’t been scowling.

“Marie,” John greeted her with a friendly bow of his head first and a kiss to her hand once she was close enough. She let it happen, but it felt more formal than usual. Something was definitely off about this current situation. She may have been the one of them that openly showed that she was dissatisfied, but John had his own problems with how she had just approached. He didn’t appreciate having his loving moments interrupted. “What brings you to me?” He tried to keep his question neutral.

“A lack of action on your part.” Marie’s answer was a lot more hostile, and John looked around. They still had everyone’s attention. The shopkeepers weren’t openly staring or anything, but any confrontation would be noticed. The Illuminati’s ambassador must have had the same train of thought. “Let’s get some privacy,” she more stated than suggested.

“Yes,” John’s tone was getting frosty now. This had gone from an interruption of a tender moment to an interruption of the date at large. He couldn’t tell her off without causing the very scene he was trying to avoid, however, so he looked around and simply nodded in the direction of a pre-built Storefront that was currently vacant. “Let’s talk in there,” he stated and took the lead. A few interactions with the Guild Hall menu later, he had unlocked the door.

There was only some basic furniture. A counter, some shelves along the wall and a couple of stools designed to help reach the upper areas of those shelves. Nothing around was really to sit on and nobody was willing to put their butt on the black carpet. John refused to think the stay would be long enough to even warrant sitting. Shutters prevented people to spy through the large store window, but also kept the entire room in a dusky twilight.

“I liked it better outside,” Sylph commented, as she curiously flew through the room. She clearly had more to say, but kept most of it to herself. Once upon a time, it had been so difficult to keep Sylph silent for ten minutes it had counted as a Class Challenge. Since then, she had made some strides. “It’s stuffy in here. Not the fun, fluffy kind of stuffy, just kinda dusty and hot stuffy.” She was still a babbler at heart.

“We’ll get back out in a minute,” John promised, his tone a lot warmer when addressing her than it was when he turned back to Marie. “Explain to me exactly what you mean with there has been a lack of action on my part,” he demanded from the raven-haired noble. It took him quite a bit of effort to keep his body language from betraying the depth of his current annoyance. Before he got mad, he wanted to see if he could de-escalate this.

“Is it not obvious? Since you returned from Florida, you have only come to zee me for one shared meal.” Marie crossed her arms and shifted her weight. Little bits of light reflected in the silver ornaments on her black dress. “Do you think zhat suffices to court me?”

“I have been busy,” he responded with the simple truth. “I’m administrating the creation of a nation. There’s not a lot of time left for courting.”

“You seem to have the time to spend with other women,” Marie pointed out.

“I have time to spend with MY women.” John now crossed his arms as well. “Are you saying I should spend as much time with you as I do with my harem?”

“It is only right that you give some of that time to me, is it not?” the pushback came swiftly. “If you want me to join zhis harem of yours, you will have to court me, zhis is the agreement we have, is it not?”

“When I came to visit you this week, that was what I could carve out of my schedule.”

“If you can take zhe time for a date with a chattering gust, zhen I can demand…”

“You can demand nothing,” John interrupted in a grim tone, staring at her with barely held back fury. His patience was now drained and he wouldn’t take any more of this interruption with a forgiving attitude. “Have you learned absolutely nothing from what I told you during our last date? Other people aren’t obligated to give you anything. This snobby attitude of yours will get you nowhere.”

“You call it snobby to demand that a man spends more zhan an hour a week with his woman?” Marie responded.

“You aren’t ‘my woman’ yet, Marie. We have a mutual interest, but I have a harem already. A harem full of women that I love. They support me as I support them and they don’t demand my time at the cost of each other.”

“Yeah!” Sylph chimed in, flying around John. “We’re super supportive and we agree and it’s not always easy, but we don’t barge into other girls’ dates. That’s super, duper rude. Like, putting sour cream on top of cakes levels of rude! You got to be more patient, lady, you can’t be with big man John otherwise.”

“I don’t need to be lectured in patience by one of your ever-childish kind,” Marie snapped back. “I’m an aristocrat, I’ve stood my vigil at the Arc of Triumph, while you struggle to stay your hands from a sweet jar.”

“I can stay my hands from the sweet jar, most of the time!” Sylph babbled back in defense.

“Marie,” John was now irked beyond any interest in keeping the mood cool, “apologize to Sylph. Immediately.”

“I have not said anyzhing that is untrue,” the aristocrat responded.

“Have you absolutely forgotten what I told you on our last date?” the Gamer growled. “Or are you just so pampered that it refuses to stick? You don’t get to put down everyone around you whenever they tell you that you aren’t perfect.” Marie opened her mouth, but the defiant look made clear that it wasn’t for an apology and so John refused to even hear it. “The only petulant child around right this moment is you, Marie. You wanted to be courted – rein in your greed.”

Marie pressed her lips together at that. “We will talk again when you have calmed down,” she stated and headed for the door.

That was the kind of final word John hated to take, but he let her go in silence. He had so many better things to do with this day than lose even minutes in such a petty argument. The way Marie handled the door on her way out, it would have slammed shut were it not for the mechanics around the hinges.

“So, have to say,” the thunderstorm elemental babbled before the silence could settle in completely, “Sylph with the professional concubine opinion, I think she might not be cut out for the harem life. What with complaining so much and not being able to take jabs or low dedicated time and all that and all this and all the other sacrifices.”

John audibly inhaled and then answered with a sighed, “Yeah, maybe,” trying to exorcise all the frustration from his mind. He partially succeeded. “I’ll have a talk with her tomorrow and see where exactly things should go.” He started to mentally go through several courses that future conversation could go through. A habit he had that was seldomly useful and, given the subject matter, one of the few instances where his Intellect was an active detriment. Several dozen versions of the conversation played out in parallel and, with the original affair just having concluded, almost all of them were negatively tilted. At the exact same time, other parts of his mind pulled back to past encounters with Marie.

There were always problems with her, problems of the rather large variety. When he was alone with her, he had been able to convince her mostly of trying to improve herself. Especially during the date he had thought he had managed to make her see what the issue was. Of course, the encounter with Metra they had while clearing out that little slavers’ den was a lot less positive. In general, Marie being around people other than himself led to issues. Every last encounter she had with one of his girls, even her mentions of them, had been dismissive at best and hostile at worst. As much as he wanted her in his harem, perhaps…

“Chi-pa-pa!” Sylph suddenly shouted and stabbed his forehead with her finger. A tiny shock went through John, forcing his jaw to relax. Surprised, he took a step backwards. “Chi-pa-pa, sho-sho, shi-ma-ma!” the thunderstorm elemental continued to make weird noises and moved in comedically jagged ways.

“What are you doing?” John asked.

“Casting a spell to take your mind off serious stuff! You were serious all week, orgies aside, those were fun times, those are always fun times, no need to think too big on relationships now,” Sylph twirled and struck a wide armed pose with a smile. “Is it working? Tell me it’s working. It looks like it’s working. A lot less of pondering, grim, grimdark look on your face, John Johnny Johnson.”

“I think it really is working,” the Gamer chuckled; the negative thoughts had been blown away for the moment. Sweeping in, Sylph made sure it stayed that way by embracing him tightly. Her soft lips and chest pressed against his. Before their tongues met, she pressed a single breath into his lungs. The taste of honey filled his mouth, strong and sweet, and a little wakening tingle spread through him like an inside out massage.

‘You can follow your gut, yes?’ she babbled on inside his mind. ‘No need to overthink all of this. It’s your love life, a future concubine, a playmate, you shouldn’t have to think all that much about your relationship to just start it. You should feel it if you like her enough to put up with it, and if you have to think, think if you maintain that feeling forever. Maybe do think. Just don’t think too much. Acting is important, acting is fun, acting brings you to the next thing after all the thinking.’ Their lips parted with an emphasized wet sound. “Am I right or am I beautiful? No, wait, uhhhhh…”

“You’re both,” John told her and squeezed her round little bottom with the usual enthusiasm. “Not sure if you give the best relationship advice, but I know what you’re getting at. Thank you.” He leaned his head forward until their foreheads touched. They stayed connected like that for a few seconds, then John whirled around.

Sylph laughed, loudly and whole-heartedly, as she was spun and spun and spun around John. Continuing to turn on the spot for as long as he could, John inevitably toppled over. There was a limit to how much even a superhuman could confuse their sense of balance. Holding onto Sylph, he managed to just barely keep himself from falling over completely.

They both laughed when the thunderstorm elemental then continued the dance they had so suddenly been interrupted in. Unsurprisingly, John moved as if he was dancing while doing a handstand. The world was a spin and Sylph dragged him along. The mighty Gamer, ruler of Fusion and leader of Collide, was nothing more than a fool stumbling around in an empty shop. His true identity and his behaviour didn’t seem to match and that was exactly why John felt so much like himself in that moment.

The Innate Ability he had awoken hadn’t just allowed him to make true all of the perversions he had dreamt of realizing. It also allowed him to find those friends to fool around with that a bullied childhood had robbed from him. He could act out in reality the little stupid ideas that he previously had only gotten to vent in stupid things he did in MMOs. Even over a year later, he was still amazed at just how much more alive he felt.

“Alright, alright,” John eventually cried for mercy. Holding onto the empty counter for support, he waited for the swirling of the world to come to an end. “Enough cheering me up, this is our date. We should do things that are fun for both of us.”

Sylph sat down on the counter next to him and crossed her legs. Giving him a reserved smile and gazing with her amber eyes, she looked simply sexy. The wild bangs of her green hair partly covered her beautiful features. Cute nose and pale red lips, with pointy ears. In her large form, she could have passed for a really small elf instead of the usual fairy impression. When she spoke again, it was slower than usual. “Perhaps we should go to a place of music and stories?” she suggested. When she wasn’t palavering at extreme speeds, her tone had a surprising similarity to Undine’s. There was something naturally singing in it.

“Hmmm, I think an opera opened over in the Hudson Barrier recently,” John told her. It was a piece of development that had entered his perception thanks to being a cultural milestone of sorts. For art to rise and cultivate to such a degree that an opera felt safe to open on his turf was testimony that people trusted the stability of his government. It could also be developed into a prestigious institution, although John was currently letting the free market sort that out.

“Yes, yes!” Sylph exclaimed, right back to her usual babbling. “Let’s do that, that sounds fun! Well, maybe the play will be depressing and all, and then I will maybe bawl and that’d be sad, but it could be fun as well! Before that, however…” she licked her lips and smiled more broadly in an openly seductive way, “…I can think of something else that we both will find fun.”

“It’s not even been half an hour since we last did it,” John pointed out in an amused tone.

“When was that ever a problem for any of us? Let’s just have fun, sex, fuck, yes, that last one!” Sylph declared, already peeling out of her summer dress. “Fuck me really hard! You like doing that, I like getting done like that!” Her perky tits came into view, complete with the light pink nipples that so beautifully topped them. “I’m not a prude, I’m a nymphomaniac! Total nymph! Being a nymph is fun, being a nymph that’s always with you is funner!”

“I don’t think that’s a word,” John pointed out with a giggle.