oddsandends | 76th ♫ | magical fizzy drink

[Yeah, she's not letting go yet. But she will roll over so Erina is not literally being crushed underneath her.]

I'm sorry! It's for your own good!

It is?! Why? What the hell happened?!

[ in the face of Being Tackled By Penny, she's forgotten about their dumb text conversation. Attagirl, Erina. ]

You said you were turning evil because you had to write a lot.

[Said much more calmly, but Penny's still not letting go.]

I said we were gonna fight, but that sounded like it was making it worse?

I w–

[ Erina takes two seconds to mentally rewind the last five minutes and realize the enormous error in judgment she's made. ]

Penny. Penny.

I was kidding.

[She's quiet for a moment.]

Are you sure? Because that sounds like something evil-you might say if you wanted to keep being evil. A ruse.

Do you seriously think I'm smart enough to come up with something like that on the fly, when I'm being crushed by your beefy arms?

[ Beefy?? Iron-y??? Who knows. ]

...Yes?

[Probably. It's a pretty basic lie, or would be.]

I should probably hang onto you a while just to be safe.

[And she's just gonna. Kind of awkwardly get up. And take Erina with her.]

[Is being carried over Penny's shoulder enough to make up for being suspected of cartoonish villainy? Cause that's what's happening.]

[Unless Erina manages to struggle free, obviously. But come on. Cute redhead robot deadlifting her in both arms.]

[ Erina opens her mouth to protest this, but then Penny deadlifts her like she weighs less than a couple of grapes and suddenly every emotion in her brain is replaced with Being A Lesbian.

Being evil is so worth it. ]

Oh god. Is this how I die? Being hauled around by a cute robot? My heart can't take it.

Oh, do you need me to hold you differently? I don't want to hurt you!

[since when the heck have you had a weak heart Erina]

Hang on-

[Boom. Princess carry.]

[She could also do piggy-back if this weren't about restraining you for the safety of yourself and others.]

Penny.

[ In a mildly strangled "trying to act like she is cool and unaffected and tragically failing" tone of voice ]

I– am not. Going to turn evil. I promise you, you can knock me the fuck out if I do.

Hm.

[suspicious.]

Okay. I believe in you as a friend and a good person. You wouldn't actually lie to me. ...But if you ever actually do turn evil for some reason I absolutely will knock you out until it can be fixed.

[This is serious business.]

...Do you want me to put you down now?

[ It takes Erina, like, half a second longer than it probably should to respond. ]

Uh– yeah! Yes! Of course! It's not like I can go be evil with you around to beat some sense into me.

I mean, I don't WANT to beat you up. Unless we're training. But that's different than actually trying to BEAT you beat you? Or- trying to hurt you, I guess.

[She is letting Erina down but still keeping a supportive arm around one shoulder.]

And you're pretty strong, so I don't know how well I could stop you without actually hurting you? So- it's good you're staying good. I'm glad. Or were never turning evil to begin with.

[ She's at once relieved but also intensely disappointed to be on her own two feet again. Being gay and friends with Penny is so bad for her heart. ]

I mean– for what it's worth, if I became evil, I probably wouldn't advertise it? And definitely not to you, because as we've just established, you could easily get my ass. So like, maybe don't be too worried if I talk about doing evil shit, but if I actually start, you know, DOING doing it, maybe then you should fight me.

Hm. You're definitely clever like that.

[penny please]

...Are you particularly worried about turning evil? Should I keep more of an eye out than usual?

Not really? I don't feel any more evil than usual, anyway. Aside from the whole simmering resentment over having to do lines thing but I don't think I'm any more likely to commit crimes than usual over it.

[ Coming from Erina, this is less than reassuring. ]

So we should do something to defuse that before it festers into true evil.

[Penny goes silent for a moment, staring at a blank spot on the floor.]

Do you want to prank her? Something harmless, I mean, nothing that would actually hurt anyone.

[ Immediately: ]

I want to prank Zuri every single waking moment of the day. Hell yes.

[ Local Sword Lesbian Signs Her Own Death Warrant ]

[No, no, naw, no, it'll obviously be fine and have no negative repercussions ever.]

Sensational! ...what should we do, I've never helped prank anyone before.

Oh shit. Penny, do I get to introduce you to the gilded halls of pranking? Hell yes.

[ Erina looks entirely too gleeful about this. ]

Okay, first off, do you know pranking rule zero? The golden rule. You never pull a prank on someone who's not gonna get it, or one that's gonna really fuck with them. If it gets someone hurt or makes them cry or whatever, it's not a prank, you're just being an asshole.

That is an excellent rule.

[She'd kind of assumed the last part, at least, was taken as read, but it was probably good having it in writing. Sort of.]

So something that will be confusing but not hurt her.

[think think think]

Oh! Oh. Idea! ....What if. We signed her up for one of those pie of the month clubs. BUT DON'T TELL HER WHO THEY'RE FROM.

[This is a stroke of genius, clearly.]

Baked goods from nowhere! That will be super confusing, right?

[ Thoughtfully: ]

That's not a bad start... but Zuri's, like, super anal. I feel like that would mildly concern her but not really get her riled up, you know? It has to inconvenience her a little. Maybe we'll sign her up to a bunch of subscription things but like, stagger them out so even if she cancels one? There's always more coming.

That is absolutely brilliant.

[Spoken with exactly zero irony.]

We could find a bunch of those free newsletter subscriptions, that kind of thing?

Perfect.

[ Erina gives her a grin and then reaches out and gives her shoulder a friendly little bop. ]

You're a genius, Polendina. We'll set her up with so much junk mail she won't be able to fucking move for paper.

Ooh, that's a lot of paper. Filling out that many forms could take a while, I should probably handle most of that party.

[Prank machine needs no rest.]

76th ♫ | magical fizzy drink

Okay but is this not exactly how she would've wanted to go

do NOT call her out like this

this is, in fact, a callout post

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