Margin

Ignoring her growing panic, Frankie made her champion stand and retreat.

I can’t beat him through raw strength, that’s obvious.

Mini-Bozo was hurtling towards her, and she wasn't sure what to do.

But I convinced myself I could beat Bozo ‘cause I thought I was more creative than some old rich guy who’s past his prime.

Bozo’s hero reached her fighter in seconds, despite his complex design.

I think I still believe that.

Frankie’s stickman stabbed a sharp, needle-like arm straight into Bozo Jr.’s stomach, stopping him in his tracks.

“WHAT IN-“ The real Bozo became a lot louder than you were supposed to inside the establishment. “Hey! You didn’t design your character with a freaking spear arm!”

“Did you forget? A small margin for error is provided.”

With the leverage of the arm, Frankie swung Bozo into the ropes, his health depleted down to 86%.

“Whoops. I guess I made my character’s arms just a little too pointy that time.”

Frankie followed through by running up to Bozo, imagining a more believable movement cycle that the game actually allowed to increase her movement speed. This trivial detail let her reach Bozo before he could react.

“No!”

She stabbed him plenty more times, shrinking his endurance all the way down to a clean 70%, putting his bar much closer to her own.

“Two can play at that game, you stupid kid…”

Bozo fudged his competitor’s arm into being just a tad bigger before swinging it right towards Frankie’s frail circular head.

“Don’t screw with the master, old man.”

Frankie turned her character’s neck, letting the swing enter the hole he had for a face.

“You’re joking-“

With how big his arm was, she could redraw her stickman’ head to be a sliver tighter in diameter, seizing his entire limb.

“Shit.”

Stabbing in both arms for extra leverage, she tossed him over the side.

“Yeah! How’d ya like that, old man?!” Without her own identity to be at stake, Frankie didn’t feel embarrassed to shout ludicrously in front of a whole attraction’s worth of the public.

“Not yet…!”

Bozo’s fighter seized the edge of the ring, throwing himself back over at the last moment to capture Frankie’s stick figure under his massive weight, squeezing and pinning the sharp-edged lad.

“Dammit!”

Mini-Bozo was down to just 52% on his rapidly-shrinking health bar, but he now had the stick fighter on the ground in a tight hold that not even a character as spindly as he was could escape.

Professional referee Ron Raccoon began calling out numbers.

“One!”

Strength wasn’t an option. Frankie could struggle all she liked, she wasn’t getting anywhere. Speed couldn’t be used either when she was stuck under a fat sack of meat, and her slight shape didn’t even let her slip out.

I can’t give up now…!

She could try to make her champion’s sharp hands go into Bozo Jr., but couldn’t move enough to position them as they were. As determined as she was, it seemed helpless to resist.

“Two!”

Bozo looked up from the match as he heard the familiar sob-like gulp of a girl who was truly desperate in a way he’d only ever seen once.