You'll have a prize in your hand when you walk away

Nick was not impressed by Sylvia’s declaration.

“Strip poker?” He asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “Are you saying that we need to wager clothes in order to stand a chance at winning these games?”

Sylvia cleared her throat, and glanced around. “Boy, it sure is sunny out today, don’t you think, Daddy? A nice day to spend at the Amusement Park!”

“Sylvia…”

“Fine, fine,” Sylvia mumbled, sighing in resignation. “Yes, one of the rules of the carnival games is that you have to wager an article of clothing to have a fair shake of winning a prize. Sorry, but them’s the breaks.”

“Why would anyone do that?” Dawn asked incredulously. “The prizes are worthless. Sex toys and collector’s junk.”

“Hey!” Morgana frowned. “Anime figurines aren’t worthless!”

“They’re kinda worthless,” Rose said. “Now, if there was a Nick figurine, on the other hand…” She marveled at that idea, her eyes sparkling with delight.

Nick sighed and shook his head.

“Well, I don’t think any of us are going to bet any-”

“I’ll do it!” Rose said, untying the knot on her shirt and placing it on the counter. Her round boobs bounced a little, but remained high on her chest, emphasizing just how youthful and perky they were. She tucked her arm underneath them and leaned forward, almost offering them up to Nick.

Nick’s jaw dropped. He knew Rose could be flirty and a bit of a tease, but this was something else entirely.

“Rose, you, uh… what?!”

“W-well… I mean…” Rose, realizing what she was doing, began to turn a very deep red. She started to shake, and cleared her throat. “I just… uh… well…”

Like Mary before her, Rose quickly covered her chest after realizing that everyone was staring. Kim smiled in amusement. The Frenchwoman liked to pretend that she was some bold seductress who didn’t mind who checked her out, like Carly, but the only similarity between the two of them in this vein was their adventurousness- Rose’s came with immense shame and regret after the fact.

“J-just… just give me some balls!” She said, scooting over to the Milk Toss.

“That’s what she said!” Sylvia loudly proclaimed. She looked at Nick like she was asking for a cookie. “Was that right, Daddy?”

Nick sighed in exasperation. “…It was amusing,” he said, nodding to Kim who was having a hard time no laughing. Personally, he didn’t want to endorse stuff like that from Sylvia if he didn’t have to, especially considering how happy she seemed about it.

“Rose, are you sure you can do it?” Dawn asked. “I mean, frankly, I should have been the one to wager my clothes, since I know I’d be able to win.”

“It’s fine,” Rose huffed. “I starred in a baseball film a while back, where I played the plucky tomboy female lead who was allowed on the boys’ team because of a technicality. I know how to throw a pitch! Just back up.”

Nick was surprised to hear that. He tried to picture Rose as a sporty tomboy playing baseball with the boys, and found it an impossible task.

It must not have been a very famous movie, either, because he didn’t know it.

“…And yes, it was an 80’s movie being made in the 2020s, I am WELL aware,” Rose sniffed, rolling her eyes.

“As long as you can hit it,” Nick replied with a shrug.

She glanced back at him and smiled coyly, lowering her arm slightly to tease a peek at her nipple. “Well… maybe I want to throw the game, hmm?”

Nick wasn’t even sure why Rose had agreed to this in the first place. What did she wanted to gain out of it?

…Maybe she just wanted to show off.

“Okay! Let’s go!” Rose wound back her arm and flung the ball forward. Dawn whistled, impressed at her aim. The ball sailed through the air and crashed into the milk bottles, right in Mary’s smiling face. Rose smirked as they all fell over.

“Heh! Eat that, Mary!” She chortled.

“Well, nice game,” Kim said, applauding. “What would you like as a prize?”

Rose turned to Kim, and her smirk widened. “One Mary figure, please!”

Kim didn’t like the sound of that, and Nick didn’t, either. But she didn’t really have a choice, and took the Mary figure out of the case and handed it over to Rose.

“Mwahaha!” Rose cackled, holding up her prize like a trophy. “And now I have her in the palm of my hand!”

“…She’s going to tease Mary mercilessly with that thing, isn’t she?” Dawn asked dryly.

“Yep. Yes, I do think that’s what she’s planning to do, yes,” Nick nodded.

Still, knowing Rose, her “teasing” would just amount to a third grader showing off the brand new toy they got and letting her friends play with it.

“I want to go next!” Sylvia said, stripping off her vest as Rose put her shirt back on. “I want to win a Mimi figure! …No, wait! A Mimi plush! And a Marley plush! A matching set!”

She had stars in her eyes, and she stretched, showing off her midriff. Nick had to admit, without her vest, her clothes really WERE rather skimpy. The vest didn’t do very much to cover exposed skin, but without it, it was obvious that her white shirt was semi-transparent.

He could see her black bra underneath it, and she wasn’t doing anything to hide that fact, either. She seemed to almost be showing it off, with the way she turned to him.

“Okay!” Sylvia grabbed a ball, and threw it at the milk bottles.

It sailed past them without even getting close.

“Oh, drat!” Sylvia pouted, grabbing another one.

“Sylvia, do you know what you’re doing?” Nick asked.

“Have you even thrown a ball before?” Dawn wondered.

Sylvia shook her head. Was she responding to Nick? Or to Dawn?

…Both. Probably to both.

She flung the second ball, and managed to hit, but it was a glancing blow, and the soft rubber ball bounced off the rim of the top bottle, causing the pyramid to shake, but remain stable. Two shots down, only one to go.

“Aww, come on!” Sylvia whined. “That’s no fair!”

“Let me throw this next one,” Dawn said, reaching for the ball. But Kim pulled it away from her.

“Sorry, we can’t do that,” she said, shaking her head. “Only the person wagering the clothing can throw the ball, otherwise it’s cheating.”

She had an apologetic look on her face even as she offered a smile that would make a customer service representative blush.

Dawn wasn’t exactly impressed. “Hearing that from the attendant of a rigged game isn’t exactly convincing,” she muttered, but she backed off anyway and let Sylvia take her last shot.

Needless to say, it was another total miss.

“Oh, no!” Sylvia groaned. “I lost!”

She didn’t exactly seem that disappointed, in spite of what she said, and she didn’t seem bummed out when Kim took her vest, either.

In fact, if one was a suspicious sort, they might even think Sylvia had thrown the game in order to have an excuse to go topless.

Not that Rose was a bad influence, or anything.

“Anyway, let’s go again!” Sylvia said, reaching up to undo what few buttons remained up on her cropped shirt.

“No, no, enough of this,” Dawn said, shaking her head. “Let me do this, okay? I at least know what I’m doing.”

“Really?” Sylvia’s eyes sparkled. “You’d do that for me?”

“Yeah,” Dawn said, smiling a little. “Think of it as an apology for spinning you too fast on the bra cups earlier. That was kind of mean. I was trying to have some fun while giving you a bit of payback for teasing Morgana earlier… and I was trying to make you feel like one of the girls. You know, by just playing around. But it was wrong, and I’m sorry.” Dawn still wasn’t used to really being “friends” with other people.

“Aww! Dawn!” Sylvia hugged the cat girl into her chest.

“Lemme go,” Dawn mumbled into Sylvia’s exposed cleavage. It pissed her off that a girl designed to look like jailbait still had bigger boobs than she did, and rubbing that in her face (literally) didn’t help matters any.

Sylvia quickly let her go.

“I’m sorry too,” Rose said. “But you can’t have my Mary. She’s mine.” She held the little figure defensively and stuck out her tongue.

Nick decided that this was a good learning opportunity. “Sylvia, how do you feel after these two apologized to you?” He asked.

“Hmm?” Sylvia blinked, confused. “What do you mean?”

“They apologized, because they felt bad about making you sick, right?” Nick asked the girls, and they both nodded.

“See? And they mean it, too, they’re not just saying it to make you not feel bad,” he said gently. He turned back to them. “Right?”

“Obviously,” Dawn said. She wouldn’t have apologized if she didn’t mean it.

“No,” Rose automatically replied. Nick gave her a look. “…Okay, yes.”

“That’s what an apology should be like,” Nick said. “You do something bad, and you apologize because you feel sorry for what you did. Does that make sense?” He looked at Sylvia, hoping that some of this could get through.

“I guess,” Sylvia said, nodding. She shrugged. “I didn’t really care, though. About the whole getting sick thing. That’s just what you do with those kinds of rides, right?”

Nick wasn’t sure that was a good way to see it. But at least she acknowledged the apology, right? That was progress.

“Anyway, Dawn, I’m just happy you’re going to get me a figure!” Sylvia said, her eyes shining with delight.

“Yeah, no problem,” Dawn nodded. She cracked her knuckles. “I can knock those bottles down easily.”

“Dawn, you know you have to wager a some clothing, right?” Nick asked. “Are you sure you’re up for that?”

“Yeah, why?” Dawn asked indignantly. Her ears flared up and her tail swished behind her. “Are you saying you’re fine with Rose and Kim going topless, but you draw the line at me? I’ll have you know, at least I’m wearing a bra!”

“Really? Why? What’s there to hold up?” Rose asked gleefully.

Dawn didn’t even look at her, but jammed a finger into her face regardless. “Don’t start. Don’t EVEN start,” she hissed.

Rose just smirked in amusement.

Dawn took off her blouse, revealing her modest, beige bra. It was practically glued to her slim chest, covering what it needed to cover.

“This good?” She asked, handing the shirt over to Kim.

Kim nodded, and took the blouse in exchange for three balls.

Dawn took a deep breath, wound back her arm, and threw it right at the center of the milk bottles.

The bottles all shook, but to Dawn’s surprise, they didn’t fall over.

“What?!” She exclaimed, her jaw dropping. “But I hit it right in the center!”

Sylvia shook her head and clicked her tongue. “And she was talking down to me so much…”

“I know, I know,” Rose sighed, shaking her head in disappointment. “Frankly, I expected better from her…”

“You two, shut it,” Dawn said, her eye twitching. “I just need to use a little more strength next time, and I’ve got this.”

She was seething. Her calculations said that she should have knocked down all the bottles; she’d hit at the perfect spot!

They must have been sturdier than the ones at the other amusement parks she’d been to. Or she was somehow weaker than she was when she was in fifth grade.

Which was frankly ridiculous. She’d actually grown taller since then, in fact!

Taking a deep breath, Dawn adjusted her posture, and threw the ball a little harder, putting even more **** into it than before. And once again, she aimed right for the center.

The pyramid wobbled a little more, and a single bottle, the top one, fell off and clattered on the ground. But the other two remained standing.

Dawn’s jaw dropped.

“What?!” She couldn’t believe it. “I-I knocked one off, though!”

“Sorry,” Kim said apologetically, putting the milk bottle back on top. “But you have to knock down all three or it doesn’t count.”

“Good try, Dawn!” Morgana said, trying to be encouraging. But Dawn wasn’t feeling very encouraged. Just the opposite, in fact- she was feeling a sinking helplessness!

“Remember, Dawn,” Sylvia called out to her. “If you don’t knock them all down with this next throw, then you’re going to have to spend the rest of the day without your top!”

Dawn turned pale. No way. That was absolutely out of the question. The only reason she’d so brazenly bet her blouse was because she was absolutely confident that her calculations would win the game for her, and that there wasn’t any risk.

“This,” she hissed, clenching the last ball so tightly her knuckles turned white. “Is exactly why I don’t believe in gambling!”

It would be just fitting that the first time Dawn really gambled, she was going to lose. It felt like that kind of day. And unlike Rose, she didn’t have the assets to show off in a bra. Going topless wasn’t just embarrassing- for Dawn, and her modest bust, it was downright humiliating.

“I have to do this,” she hissed,” taking up another stance. Her tail was standing on end, and her ears were flat against her head.

“Dawn, just imagine that it’s Sylvia’s smirking face on those milk bottles, mocking you for having to go topless!” Rose advised.

“Yeah, Dawn!” Sylvia nodded. “Just- hey, wait a minute!”

“Or imagine it’s Gina,” Nick suggested. “She can be a little irritating, right?” He didn’t like the fact that Dawn and Gina didn’t get along well, but he understood it. And at this point, he was willing to do a lot to keep Dawn from losing her blouse.

Dawn took a deep breath and exhaled.

There was someone else she was targeting with this next ball.

She pretended that the person whose face was on the milk bottles was her mother.

Now, Dawn loved her mom, she really did. But there were things about her family that frustrated her to no end.

“I’m doing the best I can!” She shouted, throwing the ball with everything she had. “Stop trying to pressure me into getting married already!”

The ball flew through the air like a meteor, smashing into the milk bottles and scattering them across the ground.

“Yes!” Dawn punched the air in triumph. “I did it!”

“Way to go!” Morgana cheered. “I knew you could do it!”

“Okay, what do you want for a prize, then?” Kim asked, offering her a good-natured smile.

There was only one thing Dawn actually wanted for her prize. And she grabbed it from the counter and put it back on in the blink of an eye.

“Mi. Mi. Merch. Mi. Mi. Merch!” Sylvia chanted.

Dawn rolled her eyes. “Do you have… I can’t believe I’m asking this, do you have any… Mimi Merch? Like a figure?”

She noted that none of the figures here were Mimi figures.

Kim shook her head. “Sorry, we don’t have any Mimi figures. They don’t carry those here, I guess. Don’t ask me why…”

“Because it’s limited-edition merch,” Sylvia informed her.

Dawn’s eye twitched in frustration. “Then why did you want to play this game in the first place, then?” She demanded.

“Because Marley figure, that why!” She replied, offering Dawn a shit-eating grin that Dawn just wanted to punch right off of her face.

But she didn’t do that. She took a deep breath, then she exhaled, and turned to Kim.

“…One Marley figure then,” she said, sounding incredibly tired.

Kim nodded, and handed the figure over to Dawn. It was barely in her hands for a second before she handed it over to Sylvia.

“Would you like a Carly figure to round out the matching set?” Kim asked, flashing a smile.

“Yes!” Sylvia said enthusiastically.

“Absolutely fucking not,” Dawn replied, narrowing her eyes. Over her dead body.

Kim sighed and shrugged.

“Where can we get… ‘Mimi Merch’ then?” Nick asked, trying to bridge the gap between the two of them. Plus, as much as he knew Sylvia would love her Marley figure, it would be just as sweet to have a figure of Mimi before she transformed.

“Uh… yeah, we do have one game you can play to win it,” Kim said, looking a little uncertain. Nick was surprised to see her smile falter.

“Well, what is it?” He asked.

Kim shook her head. “Trust me… you aren’t going to like it.”

She walked out from behind the counter, and led him down through the carnival games towards one game in particular.

Nick could tell why Kim wasn’t exactly thrilled by what this next game entailed.

Things were simple enough, but it was more like a ride than a game. It was the kind of stand Nick recognized. A single rope ladder was extended at an angle up to a wall, suspended over the ground. The ends came together in a single pivot point, which shook slightly and threatened to turn over should anyone get on it. Beneath it? A pit of slime.

“This is the Slime Climb,” Kim said, gesturing to the ladder. It looked structurally-unsound just in the wind. The ladder shook slightly, mimicking the jiggling of the slime. “The goal of the game is to climb the ladder and ring that bell without falling in the slime.”

A bell was affixed next to the ladder, for someone to ring. In theory, anyway. Nick doubted that anyone would actually be able to do it.

He’d tried the game once, when he was a kid. He assumed it would be easy. Then the ladder flipped him over and he fell in about a second. He hadn’t landed in slime, at least; he’d landed on the rubbery bounce house surface those ladders had normally been strung over.

“Well, I know I’m not going on this one,” Nick said, shaking his head.

“Are you sure?” Rose cooed. “You could wager your shirt…” She licked her lips suggestively, even though Nick’s body wasn’t the thing that attracted her to him most.

“Yeah, Daddy, I think that’s a great idea!” Sylvia nodded in agreement. “Or maybe I could do it!”

Nick glanced at her, and immediately shook his head. Sylvia’s clothes were already basically see-through. Soaking her in slime would only make that even more apparent.

“Rose,” he said, turning to the blonde, “I don’t suppose you ever filmed a movie where you climbed a ladder like this?”

Rose blinked. “Uh… that would be a no, sorry,” she apologized, shaking her head.