A Fleeting Hint of Freedom

After a reprimanding from Bozo for their incompetence, the marketing team was called off for good this time. The operation to get the Pop sisters off the leaderboard had officially proven more harm than it was good. Now all they could do was hope their own enourmous pile of tokens would be bigger than theirs by the end of the day.

“I am not excited to count these.” Katie took her turn holding the goliath bag, the thing sounding like a giant piggy bank as they marched.

“Why bother? We’ll find out tomorrow if we win or not. We’d better just go ahead and get ‘em to one of those submission boxes…”

Katie nodded. It was an intense final battle, but by now, the game was… over. Even though it was only one week out of her life, it felt weird to be saying goodbye to it. While Frankie searched the map on her phone for the nearest box, the elder sister took a look up at all the rides here and the ice castle they hadn’t so much as gotten to go inside. She was sure she’d get to explore it one day, but the fact that she had to wait still stung. She wondered… if all she wanted was to visit one park- at a time, at least- if she was just a normal kid, who throughout her life got to see a handful places to their absolute extent but never all of the parks in the world… Could she be happy?

No, Katie thought. That was the very thing that defined her. Not to mention, she didn’t plan on settling for either. She’d see everything, and she’d see all of it. Even if it killed her.

Frankie finally located their last destination. The small bank, hooked into the ground and likely the secret tunnels by extent, was litterally just around the corner, mere steps away. And with it, her own dream as well.

She’d become used to the noise… the people… having met so many friends and so many enemies alike, her paranoia was slowly melting into a genuine understanding of the world, even if that world was, admittedly, still quite awful at times. More than anything, she just wanted to be alone on the waves… only, with the absolute condition that it had to be with her sister. Because Frankie didn’t like being alone. Frankie liked being comfortable.

And right now… even after such an intense skirmish… comfortable, she was. In some small part, though shivering and soaked in melted snow, Frankie was feeling the calmest she had in all this terrible series of trials. The games had ended. The fear subsided. Win or lose, the challenge was over. Whatever they did from now until Christmas Eve wouldn’t help anything, nor would it hurt anything. The end.

Katie gasped when the black shadow leapt down from the rooftops.

As they were just feet away from the end of their journey, the rogue Anti stood in their way, drawing his tranquilizer in direct disobedience of his leader.

“Tokens.”

Frankie groaned.

“Sorry, bud, I’m kinda done making bets.”

“Oh no, this isn’t a bet I’m making. I’m taking them by force. This is a robbery.”

“…Oh.”

Frankie looked to her left and right, finding no clear route of escape as the guests around her ran away in fear.

“And you’re sure you don’t just wanna play a game…?”