It'll slip through your fingers and you'll never know

“Hey, Kim,” Nick said, turning to the impromptu carnie. “This is a scam, right? Like, the ladder game, nobody wins this one. You know that, right?”

Kim just shrugged.

“I mean… I’ve only been to this Amusement Park,” Kim pointed out. “And this game wasn’t opened yet when we went.”

“Because Mimi hadn’t emerged yet,” Sylvia pointed out. “I didn’t open this game then, because I didn’t want to spoil things.”

Kim shrugged, bringing her other arm up over to cross the other one on her chest. “I don’t know, is this game a scam?”

“It’s a scam!” Morgana said, nodding frantically. “I went to an amusement park once, and I don’t think anybody ever won this one!”

Nick nodded. That lined up with his experience, too.

“I might be willing to try…” Rose mused, tapping her chin. “But I’m not the biggest fan of getting slimed…”

“You’d almost definitely lose, you know that, right?” Nick reminded her. “And then you’d have to go shirtless. Or bottomless, I guess.”

“I am wearing panties,” Rose tittered. “You should remember that, no?”

Nick blushed. “Okay, but… that wasn’t really the point…”

“I know, I know! I’m just teasing you.” Rose patted him on the shoulder and winked. “It would be nice to make a show of things, but… I’m not like Kim. I don’t want to spend the whole day walking around without my shirt on.”

“H-hey, it’s not like that,” Kim mumbled, turning red. “I just… well, it was for Mary’s sake, so… I didn’t really have a choice.”

“You took the bra off, though,” Sylvia pointed out. “You didn’t have to do that, my girl.”

Kim leered at her and tightened her grip over her chest to cover more skin. “It… it’s not like I LIKE being topless or anything!” She stammered.

Nick honestly wasn’t sure at this point.

“Aargh, this is so frustrating!” Sylvia whined, stomping her foot. “I just want my Mimi Merch! Why does it have to be locked behind the hardest game here?! This is just Dakota trying to screw me over again, darn it!”

Nick sighed. It really did seem that way. “Sylvia… I know you and Dakota have your issues, but do you really think that she-”

“Nick, hold on a moment,” Dawn cut him off, stepping up to Sylvia. “That doesn’t track. It goes against what you said before.”

“H-huh?” Sylvia was thrown off. She looked at Dawn with wide eyes. “What, um, what do you mean? What I said before?”

Suddenly, her expression started taking on a shifty quality that Nick recognized from all the times Sylvia tried to play with him.

Dawn narrowed her eyes. “You said just now that you ‘didn’t want to open this game yet’ because you didn’t want to spoil Mimi’s appearance,” she reminded everyone. “That means you were the one who set the prizes for this game, not Dakota.”

“Oh, hey, yeah!” Rose nodded. That had completely slipped her mind.

“Sylvia?” Morgana stared at her, confused about what that meant.

Nick was less confused. “So it isn’t Dakota’s fault,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re the one who put all the Mimi prizes behind an impossible game.”

Sylvia stared at them, and her lip started quivering.

“But… it’s not fair!” She began to bawl. “I didn’t want anybody to win my Mimi Merch! It’s mine! All mine! And then Dakota kicked me out, and now I don’t have it anymore! No fair, it’s no fair! No faaaaiiirr…”

Nick sighed. It was all making sense. Back when Sylvia was the host, she had locked the Mimi Merch behind a game she expected nobody would be able to win, so on the off chance that someone came to the Amusement Park to play the games, she could continue hoarding it all to herself. But then Dakota took over and gave Sylvia the boot, and now she didn’t have any of it.

It was sad… if you ignored the fact that her pettiness brought this outcome on herself.

“I don’t think we can blame Dakota for this one,” Kim said dryly. “This is all on you, cheater.”

Kim had zero sympathy for when “the house” decided to screw over its customers, or its employees. Sylvia brought this on herself.

...Even if she was “the house” in this case. It still applied.

“Come on! It’s not like it’s impossible! It’s just really, really hard!” Sylvia’s eyes started to water and she looked up at Nick with a pathetic expression. “Please, Daddy! I know you can win this one for me… please?”

Nick glanced at the ladder, shaking precariously on the single rope line.

Then he glanced at the pool of slime underneath it.

“…Sorry, Sylvia, I don’t think I can do it,” he said, shaking his head.

“B-but Daddy…”

“I tried this game all the time when I was a kid, and I never got close,” Nick said, shaking his head. “It’s impossible. And I weigh a whole lot more now. Sorry, but it’s just not going to happen.”

“Weight has nothing to do with it.”

Everyone turned to Dawn, who was staring lazily at the ladder. But Nick could see her ears and tail both twitching, and he knew her pensive thinking face.

“Huh? What do you mean? It’s all about weight,” Rose said. “If you’re too heavy, then you’ll fall right off.”

Dawn shook her head. “It doesn’t matter if you weight a hundred pounds, or five hundred. It’s all about physics.”

She turned back to the others with a proud look on her face.

“You’re letting the ladder part fool you. You’re not balancing on a ladder. The game just wants you to think about it that way, because that’s how they fool you into thinking that it’s an easy game. But it’s significantly harder than balancing on a ladder.”

“What? You’re balancing on a ladder,” Rose protested. “Dawn, I know you need glasses, but even you aren’t THAT blind.”

Dawn rolled her eyes. But then she remembered who she was talking to, and reined her thoughts in a little. Lower expectations. This is Rose.

She sighed. “The ladder connects to a single point, see?” She asked, pointing at the suspended rope hanging just under the bell. “If it was connected to two points, then you’d basically be climbing a rope bridge. But you’re not. It’s more like you’re trying to walk a tightrope.”

“Is… is that right?” Nick asked. He’d never thought of it that way, and he didn’t have enough of a physics background to know the truth.

“That’s right,” Dawn nodded. Like she could ever be wrong about something like this! “Walking a tightrope is incredibly difficult, as I’m sure you all can guess. Now, for those of you who don’t know anything about balance, the key to a balance beam or a tightrope is to keep your center of mass on the pivot point. The wider the balancing object, the easier it is to do. Keeping your center of mass within the edges of a rope bridge? Easy. Balance beam? A little trickier. A tightrope? You’ve gotta have some real training to do THAT. But weight? Weight doesn’t matter. No matter how heavy you are, as long as you can keep your center of mass aligned with the pivoting support points. For a game like this, though, it’s incredibly difficult- probably even harder than walking a tightrope, because you have to engage your arms AND your legs.”

When Dawn put it like that, it seemed so simple and obvious.

“So it is a scam,” Nick sighed, hanging his head. He thought back to all his childhood dreams being brutally crushed.

“That’s lame,” Morgana muttered.

“Sorry, guys,” Kim apologized. Her expression turned guilty. She didn’t like screwing them over either. “I guess sometimes the house wins.”

“So… no Mimi Merch then…” Sylvia was the most heartbroken of all. She’d locked the merchandise of her daughter behind the hardest game of the Amusement Park, but she didn’t expect that it would be THIS impossible.

But Dawn was smiling.

“Okay, let’s go,” she said, taking off her shirt.

“Hey, Dawn, what-?” Nick stared at her in shock.

“Seriously?” Sylvia’s eyes widened.

“Who do you guys think you’re talking to?” Dawn scoffed, rolling her eyes. “I just told you, the issue with this game is keeping your center of mass aligned with the support point. Do you really think someone like me wouldn’t be able to do that?”

Then, before anyone could stop her, she climbed onto the rope ladder.

Everyone watched in amazement as Dawn scaled the rope ladder with it hardly even shaking at all. She climbed it like a natural, and in a matter of seconds the ringing bell chimed out across the courtyard of the game center.

BRIIIIIIINNNNG!

“She did it!” Sylvia cheered.

“Wow!” Nick was amazed. “Way to go, Dawn!”

“Wooo! Nice work!” Rose applauded her.

“Thanks!” Dawn called back. She was positioned very awkwardly, with her arms stabilizing her against the wall as she maintained her balance with her legs on the ladder. “But, um… how do I get down from here?”

She hadn’t really physics’d that part out yet. Not even she could keep her balance while turning around on this unstable thing.

“Uh… you’re not supposed to,” Kim said. “You have to fall.”

That took a second to sink in.

“…But there’s SLIME down there!” Dawn screeched.

Kim shrugged. What did Dawn want her to do about that?

Rose smirked. “At least you won’t get your shirt all wet and sticky!” She called to the other girl. “Could be worse, right?”

Dawn really wanted to flip off Rose right now, but that would probably send her plunging into the slime immediately.

…Then again, if Kim was to be believed, that was happening anyway. So she might as well get it over with.

Dawn turned back to Rose and turned up her middle finger as the ladder gave out beneath her and plunged her into the muck.

“Dawn!” Nick exclaimed.

“Are you okay?!” Morgana wailed.

Dawn’s hand emerged from the pit of slime, and clung desperately to the edge. She managed to hoist herself out, and stumbled towards the others looking like she’d been on the receiving end of a hundred-man bukakke.

Her hair was drenched and stuck to her neck. Her clothes were soaked through, and her glasses were completely covered in opaque slime. What parts of her face that could be made out did not look amused.

“…It’s done,” she growled, taking off her glasses to reveal her glaring eyes. She wanted to clean them, but every inch of her was soaked.

“Hey, uh… you want your shirt back?” Kim offered awkwardly, holding it out to the slime-drenched woman.

Dawn slowly turned to her and muttered something under her breath that did not sound nice at all.

“…So, uh, that’s a no, then?” Kim put it aside and turned to Sylvia. “Well, Dawn managed to ring the bell, so it sounds like you get a prize! What would you like?”

“MIMI FIGURE!” Sylvia stomped her foot impatiently.

“…Right, of course,” Kim nodded, reaching under the counter and returning with an anime figure of Mimi.

Nick took a second to stare at it- he’d gotten so used to Marley, that he’d almost forgotten what she’d looked like, once upon a time. That familiar white sweater clung to the girl’s curvaceous body, practically glued to it by the slime. He admired the craftsmanship that made the clothes seem transparent, and the sculpture captured the empty look in the slime girl’s eyes.

Whoever made this had done it with love. And that was clearer than ever when Nick was Sylvia cuddle it to her cheek.

“So… what now?” Rose asked. “We got the Mimi figure. Other games? Or-”

“We’re not done!” Sylvia said, shaking her head. “I still need the limited edition Mimi plushy, too! Please, Dawn?”

She turned to the soaked cat girl, giving her the biggest puppydog eyes ever. Dawn, who was in the process of squeezing slime out of her ponytail, just stared incredulously at her through her wiped-down glasses.

“…You’ve gotta be kidding me…” She shook her head in disbelief.

“Please? You’re already covered in slime,” Sylvia pointed out.

“She does have a point, Dawn,” Nick admitted.

“I-I don’t know…” Morgana shook her head. “That stuff doesn’t look fun to fall into, if you ask me… like really nasty jello.”

“Please? The only pieces of Mimi Merch are the figure and the stuffed toy, I know you can win me a stuffed toy too!” Sylvia begged. “I-I know you already made it up to me before, winning me a Marley figure, then a Mimi one, but-”

“Fine, fine, I’ll do it,” Dawn said, cutting her off before she started groveling. “It’ll be fine… I can handle it again.”

“Of course, now you’re covered in slime,” Rose pointed out. “So there’s a chance you’ll just slip right off the ladder. We might be saying bye-bye to that shirt of yours.”

Dawn just grunted and glared at her. Then she turned on her heel, smacking Rose with her tail as she did so, and stormed back to the ladders.

BRIIIIIIINNNNG!

A few seconds later, another bell rang out, followed by a groan and a loud, jello-y “SPLASH!” of something hitting slime.

Dawn trudged back to the group, looking like **** warmed over and leaking frustrated malevolence aimed at Sylvia, while the blonde cheered and cuddled her stuffed daughter.

“Aww! Dawn, you’re just the best! Okay, next-”

“You want more!?” Dawn sputtered, her jaw dropping in shock.

Sylvia looked at her like that was the most obvious question in the world.

“I mean… yeah? We only have one figure and one plushy. I used to own ALL of them. We need to win them all back! For Mimi! And Marley!” Sylvia proclaimed boldly.

Dawn’s eye twitched. “You expect me to do this all day?” She looked just about ready to strangle the ungrateful blonde.

“Sylvia…” Nick cleared his throat. “How about a ‘thank you’?”

“Huh? Didn’t I say thanks already?” Sylvia looked confused. But only for a second. She gently set down her winnings, and then flung herself onto Dawn, ignoring the sticky slime that covered the cat girl’s body. Or maybe that made it better, given her daughter.

“Oh, thank you, my girl!” Sylvia cooed, nuzzling her sticky cheek lovingly. “Thank you so much! You’re just the best! Mwah! Mwah!” She planted kisses all over the other girl’s slimy cheek, squeezing her so hard it looked like she might squeeze the slime right off her like a tube of toothpaste.

Dawn sighed in exasperation. It was really hard to be mad at someone who was being this affectionate with her gratitude, even if she WAS the reason for Dawn’s double sliming.

“…You’re welcome,” Dawn said begrudgingly, smiling a little bit. She really was happy to have helped the other woman out, given how hurt Sylvia had been by the loss of Mimi. “But this was the last time, you got that? No more games.”

“Right, yep, no more games,” Sylvia nodded, letting her go.

“So what do we do with these, anyway?” Rose asked, holding up her Mary figure. “We aren’t just going to walk around with them, right? They could get lost, or broken.”

“There are lockers,” Sylvia pointed out with a shrug. “We can always put them there.”

She turned to Nick. “Um… on that topic, Daddy, can you carry my stuff for me, please? I don’t want to get slime all over my prizes…”

Sylvia leaned forward and gestured at her shirt, and Nick turned red. Just as he’d predicted, her semi-transparent clothes, now that they’d been drenched in slime, had turned completely transparent, showing off her black bra and the tease of cleavage that her couldn’t already see through her unbuttoned collar.

“F-fine,” he muttered, picking up her figures and the stuffed slime girl.

“Careful!” Sylvia pleaded. “Those are my precious collectibles!”

“Yeah, you need to be careful with them!” Morgana nodded in agreement. “They’re more fragile than they look!”

Being a collector of figurines herself, she knew quite a bit about that topic.

Dawn just sighed. “Nick, could you… could you grab my blouse, too?” She asked, nodding to the counter. “I’d carry it myself, but…”

She could only offer a slimy shrug of resignation. Sylvia wasn’t even close to being in her league when it came to the probability of messing up her belongings.

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Nick said, picking up her shirt.

He had to admit, Dawn was having a pretty rough day. She’d gotten slimed, twice, and she didn’t even have any prizes to show for it. Just mussed hair, glazed glasses, ruined clothes, and a blouse that was pretty much dry, but if she put it on would instantly be mucked up.

As they started walking towards the lockers, Morgana glanced longingly at the Milk Toss game as they passed it.

“Um…”

“Hmm?” Nick turned back to her.

“I, uh… oh, never mind,” the goth stammered, shaking her head. But her face fell in disappointment. Nick realized immediately what she was getting at, though.

“Do you want your own figure?” He asked.

Morgana bit her lip and nodded her head shyly. She glanced at Dawn.

“…Fine,” the exhausted cat girl muttered, trudging towards the booth, and the apologetic Kim standing in front of it. “At least there’s no slime this time. Nick, gimme my shirt back.”

“Nah, I got this,” Rose said, stepping ahead of her. “You’ve worn yourself out enough for today.” She cracked her knuckles and stretched up her arms, before untying her shirt.

“Really?” Dawn’s eyes widened. “You’d do that for me? For Morgana?”

“Sure!” Rose grinned. “…And unlike you, I can knock over the bottles on the first try.”

Dawn’s grateful expression immediately soured.

Nick sighed. Rose just had to go one step too far. Everything she did would be so sweet if she learned to keep her worse impulses in check.

Still, her actions spoke for themselves. One collapsed pile of milk bottles later, and Morgana had a lovely figure of her own.

“Whoa… I look so cool like this!” Her red eyes shined in admiration as she stared at the scaled-down version of herself. “It’s like a voodoo doll!”

“Can we please stop at the bathroom next, so I can wash all this gunk off me?” Dawn pleaded. “It’s starting to set in, like glue!” Then she felt a chill down her spine. “…Wait, this slime… it’s not… it’s not an aphrodisiac, is it!? Oh, tell me it’s not! That would be horrid!”

She wouldn’t put it past Dakota to do something like that. And it wouldn’t be the first time on this show that slime made people horny.

“Don’t worry my girl, even Dakota wouldn’t do something like that,” Sylvia assured her.

Dawn wasn’t exactly convinced. “…Did you do it, then?”

Sylvia blinked. “…My girl, let us not quibble about actions and responsibilities,” she said, clearing her throat. “It’s a beautiful day outside! Can we not enjoy ourselves on that merit alone?”

She offered a sweet smile as a peace offering.

“Damn it! Sylvia!” Dawn wailed, already feeling herself starting to heat up. She dashed away, frantically scraping slime off of her as she looked for a bathroom to wipe it off.

“Wait, Dawn, I was kidding!” Sylvia called after her, but the cat girl was too far away to hear. Sighing, Sylvia turned back to the others and shrugged. “Some people just can’t take a joke.”

“Sylvia…” Nick sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “…Don’t do stuff like that. I know she messed with you on the teacup ride-”

“Bra cup,” Sylvia corrected him automatically.

“…Whatever. Teasing her back doesn’t make it better, though,” Nick replied.

“I disagree,” Rose said automatically.

“See? Rose said it’s okay!” Sylvia said, pointing to Rose as an excuse for her actions.

Nick just gave both blondes an exasperated look, and shook his head.