Mischievous Function

A New Start

One scene later...

Bubble sighed contentedly as she took another sip of her tea and gazed outside at the snowfall. She'd seen the view plenty of times at this point, but something about seeing the majestic Yoyle Mountain towering over the snow-topped forest while flocks of birds sailed overhead just seemed to calm all of her nerves. She took a deep breath and leaned into her hand, resting her elbow on the table with another quiet sigh.

"Hey, Bubble."

Upon hearing her name suddenly, she glanced behind her and found Fanny walking up to her with a nod, her hands in her pockets and her face flat. "Oh. Hey, Fanny," Bubble greeted back with a smile.

Fanny nodded once more and stared out the window for a few moments. "How you doing?"

"I'm doing well, thank you," she replied cheerily. Soon, however, her voice grew worried. "But how about you? How's your shoulder?"

"Ah, it'll be fine," Fanny dismissed. "Don't worry about me. It doesn't even hurt that much anymore. Hey, uh...you wanna take a walk?"

Bubble raised her eyebrow at Fanny in confusion and tilted her head. "A walk?"

"Yeah," she answered. "I'm feeling a little too cooped up in the hotel. Need to get out and stretch my legs. And, uh...well, you're good company. I like talking to you. Plus, there are some things I kinda need to get off my chest."

"What chest?" Bubble joked with a smirk as she finished the last of her tea and stood up.

Fanny rolled her eyes but grinned back at her. "Heh-heh...aren't you getting braver."

"Well, when you survive a face-to-face encounter against five guys with guns," she replied, "you tend not to get fazed as easily."

When Fanny only froze in response, she giggled, turned around, and strutted toward the trash can near the giant glass wall to throw her cup away. Then, she turned around again to shoot Fanny another mischievous smirk.

What she wasn't expecting, however—

Thump!

—was for Fanny to quietly follow behind her and press her to the glass as soon as she turned around. Fanny's left hand was pressing against the glass wall, her arm hovering just over Bubble's shoulder as she looked down at the girl with a dull expression. Before Bubble could blink, Fanny's right hand had whipped her gun out and was holding the muzzle to the bottom of Bubble's chin, her right finger twitching on the trigger. Bubble whimpered and instantly raised her hands in surrender while Fanny scoffed.

"Try a girl with a gun," she whispered huskily in Bubble's face, her forehead nearly pressing against Bubble's as her brow furrowed. After a moment of tension between the two, her tight frown started to upturn into a smirk, and she slowly backed up while pushing herself away from the glass. She spun her pistol on her finger a few times before holstering it with ease and turning around, giving Bubble some room to breathe as Fanny gestured for her to follow her. "Come on, hotshot. You could use some fresh air yourself," she called behind her.

Bubble was frozen in place from the sheer shock. After a few seconds, she eventually made herself move and blinked several times as she slowly shuffled forward past the table she had been sitting at.

"Oh, Bubble," Lollipop called out from a nearby table while tapping Bubble's arm. When Bubble turned around, she held up a straw still in its paper wrapping out to her. "You left this on your table."

Bubble stared at the straw for several moments, not paying attention to Lollipop's increasingly concerned and awkward expression. She glanced back over her shoulder at Fanny for a bit before shaking her head. "Keep it. I don't need it," she muttered with a dismissive wave.