Not Yourself

“She’ll have the-“

“I’ll- um, have the Powder Snow Pizza. Thanks, Katie, but you don’t have to order for me anymore.”

The waitress went on to the next table inside of Winter Wonderpan, the premier lunch stop in Snowfall. The sisters knew they couldn’t keep going without food on a day that was likely going to be the most exterting of the whole competition. Inside its light-blue painted walls speckled with white, they swiftly began to strategize again, picking right back up with the new info they’d gotten from their foe’s stupidity.

“So… we’ll probably be dealing with the whole Bozo squad this time.”

“Do you think they’ll play fair?” Wondered Katie, who was waiting on a chicken sandwich.

“…Not after all the lip I gave ‘em. Worst case scenario, they’ll already be trying to stop us right now as we speak.”

Frankie didn’t know this, but she’d hit the nail on the head. Anti almost looked up from behind his newspaper just a few tables over from their wallside booth. The microphone-wearing stalkers from outside perked up too, worrying their operation wasn’t quite discreet enough. That said, they didn’t have a Plan C.

“Maybe we should’ve taken their deal…”

“No.” Frankie put her fist down. “Everything the enemy does is either to help them win or get us to lose. Don’t listen to them for a second.”

“Table 3? Here you are!”

They licked their lips as the delicious park food was placed before them by the waitress. Nobody did it like Kidney did. Frankie gave a tip as the footsteps of someone besides the employee suddenly grew near.

“Oh, sorry sir.” The waitress backed into the boy approaching their table. She left him to walk up to the sisters.

“Do we know you?” Sparked Frankie.

“Uh, no?” He was just a kid, and he looked nervous… but maybe not nervous enough. “I’m just looking to make a bet, you in?” He set down a decent bag of tokens on the table. “I can do thirty.”

Katie turned to her little sis, but she only rolled her eyes.

“No.”

“Really? I have more-“ he dug into his pockets.

“No.”

“I tried.” He sighed, leaving them without much more insistence. Frankie took a bite of her parmesan-cheese sprinkled pizza.

“Why pass up thirty tokens?” The chicken sandwich-eater was bewildered.

“S’not worth risking it. The Moonfall Event will dwarf that amount without half the risk.”

Katie nodded, returning to her food. Frankie did the same. Kind of a weird interaction, but it was no big deal. Just a one-off incident in this crazy life of theirs.

“Hey! Spare a minute?”

Another teenager came up to their table not two seconds later. They had a bit more confidence and a hell of a lot more charisma in their voice just from the greeting, but it didn’t help when you were the second challenger to get rejected.

“Don’t tell me you’re betting, too.”

“…This place is a hotspot for token bets!” They improvv’d. “Don’t tell me you’re too busy eating.” They brought out a more tempting handbag of at least sixty silver coins. “Say, how about I buy you dessert? Then will you play with me?”

“Forget it, Romeo.” Frankie shut down firmly, though not without feeling a little embarrassed at her own choice of words. The kid looked like they were right about to leave, but they still seemed determined for some reason.

“…You sure? You look like you could use some gloves.” They looked at Frankie’s wet and flared-up hands. “Do you want some gloves? Lemme buy you two some gloves.”

“Screw off!” She tried to hamper her volume for the restaurant, but the conversation was attracting attention anyway. Notably, the marketing team was becoming pretty worried that this plan was not going to work.

The teen retreated without another word, failing to earn their reward. Anti crumpled the edges of his paper inside his palms. This wasn’t his style. He wished he could just knock the girls out and swipe everything they had. They’d deserve it, after everything they’d done.

“Ugh.” Frankie was finally allowed to continue eating her meal. “Now that that's over with, can I ask you something? I’ve been thinking.”

“What?”

“Do you think we could… build a net? Like yeah, there’s no place selling something like that here, and even if there was, it probably wouldn’t be tight or big enough- or usable by just two people holding it… but maybe we could make our own?”

“I love the idea… but…” Katie ran her fingers through her hair. “I mean, isn’t it childish? Can that work? How do you even make a net?”

“Why are you of all people worried about something sounding childish?”

“I… something tells me it’s unrealistic, that's all. Er- cartoonish.”

“You need to get your confidence back, sis. I think I siphoned it all from you while we were asleep. Where’s the girl that took down that weirdo in a virtual sword fight?”

“I felt… different then. My head was at ease, you know? I guess that happens for anybody when you’re behind a sword… this Moonfall thing is all so intense.”

“You head was at ease? That sure didn’t happen for me.” Frankie sipped a soda. Her usual drink was water, but she was feeling adventurous today. “Not that I had much time behind it…”

“I dunno, just something I was thinking.”

“Sounds like the kinda thing Cheryl would say, doesn’t it? Maybe swords are your spirit weapon.”

“You geek.” Katie teased.

“Can we do the net idea or not? I’m not going through with something you’re not into…”

“Okay, let’s do it.” The sword-swinging sister smiled. “From now on, I only wanna do what’s fun anyway! That’s my whole life motto.”

“Glad to get that settled. You worry me sometimes.” Nervous as always, Frankie looked down beside them to check that their bag was still in the same place. Thankfully, it was gone.

It’s gone?!

Frankie’s eyes shot up to see the marketing team member carrying it away, catching him red-handed.

“Hey!”

Anti turned back around, trying to smile as the sweat dripped off his face. What was with him today? He wasn’t usually like this.

“O-oh…” He stuttered. “Is this… your bag? I’m so sorry, it looked just like mine…”

“Gimmie that!” She marched up and snatched it from his hands, groaning. “You’d better not pull any shit like this during Moonfall, so help me-“

“My apologies.” He left, gritting his teeth. Life was so much harder when you couldn’t tranquilize someone in the neck. Walking outside, he joined his comrades, announcing their failure in person.

Frankie bit at the remaining crust of her pizza in aggravation. Never a dull moment, she stewed.

“You wanna go build that net now?” Katie tried cheering her up, tilting her head.

“Let’s go build that net now.”

The marketing team made sure to scatter before the girls left the building to finish their preparations before the main event began.