oddsandends | 76th ♫ | magical fizzy drink

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.]

Hell yes. I'll do the recon. I haven't checked my mail in for fucking ever, I bet there's a ton of junkmail in there we can use for signing up to dumb bullshit for Zuri.

That's great! We can check for anything important you got at the same time. Multi-tasking!

You really think I actually ever get anything important in the mail?

[ you might if you ever fucking CHECKED IT, ERINA ]

76th ♫ | magical fizzy drink

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