In retrospect, we were very lucky that Gair and Simon had come to find me while Rosa was still here

On our way back from the Academy, after Rosa's bout of sparkle attacks had died down and I saw them off with enormous relief, we had turned ultra serious as we faced our next dilemma: what we would do the next time Simon and Gair came to collect my wages.

The initial payment mom and I had agreed to was 30 Velawins¹each Velawin is approx. $5, which comes out to be $150 per month. Then Simon and Gair, the horrible duo, had raised the payment by 40 Velawins²approx. $200, which was more than double our agreement. It was crazy, but since we had no paperwork, we couldn't say anything to the authorities.

I had somehow managed through the last few months thanks to Sheriff's help, practically doubling work at the restaurant, the raise Cook gave me, and from working at Gramps's fruit stand in the mornings. Which meant that my shoulders were always on the verge of giving up on me and dying, and my knees were starting to throb. Even worse, I had less to eat. We already saved a lot on food, so having even less? That had been a bigger hit than anything. If it wasn't for Cook's gruff goodwill, we might have been close to downright starving.

Which was why, when Rosa told me, "This is the prime time for payback, Filly," I felt that. In my bones. And I was more than prepared to do anything to get any kind of revenge on them, as petty as it could be.

So began our plans for retribution. Since we could never be sure when they would come, we had to think of all and every possibility to account for, such as:

1. If Rosa was there with me when they came (best case scenario, but unfortunately unlikely)
2. If I was alone
3. If it was during work hours
4. If it was not during work hours (and if then, when)
5. If they tried to come up to see my mom
6. If they suddenly fell in love with Rosa and tried to ask her out (Rosa insisted this was a possibility, and while I didn't want to admit it, something close to that had happened in the past, so)
7. If I met them outside of the restaurant (and if so, where)
8. If they told me that they had raised the loan repayment amounts again

...so on and so forth.

So we prepared accordingly. In the few hours or so after I began working for the night, Rosa made all preparations necessary in case they came that night. She made the tools. She brought the accessories. She converted the money. We were ready.

Now, there is something else that needs to be noted-- Velawins are not the biggest bills in the market. There are also Belids, worth twice as much³so $10, and Belidians, worth ten Velawins⁴so $50. As a commoner, I had personally never seen them before-- we never had a use for them-- but they existed. Probably for the higher-ups.

Rosa got her allowance in Belidians, which meant that we could've just given the pair four flimsy Belidian bills and called it a day.

But, as Rosa had pointed out, where would the fun in that be?

...Which brings us to the current situation, in which countless Vels⁵approx. $2.50 worth (actually, exactly 140 of them) were floating around us, landing softly and soundlessly onto the ground.

I had just thrown them into the air, of course. It was an incredible feeling, but watching them float down was even greater. I brought out the darkened glasses that Rosa called sun-glasses out of my apron pocket and put it on. Crossing my arms in my best impersonation of Cook, I barked at the bewildered duo. "Pick it up."

They only blinked back.

"Y'heard the girl," sneered Rosa beside me, also wearing those sun-glasses. I didn't know why we needed it, but apparently it was crucial. She had made these sun-glasses herself, taking spectacles and coloring them in, and she'd also had the blacksmith make a weird machine for her, which she called a 'gun'. She cocked that weird machine in her hand towards them now, nodding towards the ground. "Pick it up!"

"Ya want the money, ya pick it up!" 

"That's right! You heard her! Pick it up!"

Simon frowned first, his lips twisting into a sneer of his own. "Who d'you think you are?" he snarled, his body hunched over.

"We aren't accepting this," Gair added, his shoulders tense. He whammed his hand against the wall, and I barely held back a flinch. "You think you can order us around?"

Before I could reply, Rosa laughed. Her responding laugh was low and guttural, and I could almost see the flames behind her. It was probably just my imagination, but the room felt hotter, too. "This is the problem with you low-lives."

Simon sputtered. "Low-lives?!"

"You don't know how this system runs, do you?" A dangerous smile crawled up on her face. "You forget that you're the dogs of the system, and yet you try to be all high and mighty."

Gair bristled, opening his mouth to retort, but she pinned them down with her stare. They gulped before they could help it.

"Crawl, my dogs," she said softly, her voice laced with poison. I gulped next to her. "Crawl like the dogs you are and pick them up, then go scrambling back to your masters."

"We don't listen to you," Simon managed to say, and I silently applauded him. Wow, he had guts. Even I was trying not to step back from Rosa at the moment. "We won't accept--"

In a sudden movement, Rosa whipped her weird machine overhead towards them, as if she was trying to throw it at them.

Bang!

"Agh!" Simon snarled, throwing his hands up over his face.

"Then maybe it's about time you figured out what this does," Rosa cooed. A wisp of smoke slithered out of the hole on the top of the machine, and the faint smell of ashes spread in the restaurant.

Though on the surface I was very calm and collected, my heart was beating furiously in my chest. That was louder than I had expected it to be, and-- even scarier-- Rosa was better at acting evil than I could have ever expected. If I hadn't known her for my entire life, I would have suspected that she had actually been evil all along and was only now showing her true colors. I repressed a shudder at the thought and returned my attention back to the loan sharks.

Right, this wasn't time to be scared. I had to be scary myself.

I sauntered over to them. Once I was close enough to feel how tense they were, I drawled, "You know what that does, my dears?" I brought out the same machine I had strapped to my back the entire time, waving it close to their faces. They gulped, and the corners of my lips went up, feeling satisfied at their response. "Trust me," I whispered. "You don't want to know."

They eyed the machine warily. As they should-- it was something that they had never seen before.

When we had been planning inside the carriage, Rosa had explained it all to me. "In this world--"

"In this world?" I murmured back in confusion, which she promptly ignored.

"--we don't have guns. Or any kind of advanced artillery."

"Guns? Artillery?"

"But that doesn't mean that we can't scare them into thinking we have guns."

"Guns?"

"All we need," she had continued, though I was very lost about this whole thing, "is a loud sound and something that can look dangerous."

And it was scary. I didn't know how she had made it, but she had gotten a bunch of metal pieces welded together to create this bulky, well, thing, that had a handle and a sort of barrel thing that you could point with. It was heavy, but the insides were empty and had a sort of lid to it, and she had put in what she called a 'paper popper' into it. If you pretended to throw it, it would make a loud sound.

"How does that work?" I had asked when she showed it to me once she came in.

"Paper popper. I made it so this part of the paper is pinched, the air goes through the open barrel and enters these little tunnels in the paper, and when I do this--" she whipped it over her head, and a loud bang rang out-- "it makes a sound."

I had crouched down the moment I had heard the bang. I smelled the air-- "Ashes?"

"Yeah, I put that in there," Rosa said, showing me the bits of ash that she had inserted. "It's a low-budget gun," Rosa explained, then (of course) cackled in delight.

I still didn't know what a gun was, or why Rosa laughed at it, but hey, it worked. Only once, apparently, since you had to re-fold the paper in the inside ("reload," Rosa called it, before laughing again, but the joke was lost on me again) every time you did it, but once would hopefully be enough to convince other people of how scary this was.

Simon and Gair glared at me, but I didn't miss how beads of sweat were starting to form on their foreheads. I took that to mean that it was working.

Pleased, I backed away with a gloating sneer. I used the 'gun' to point at them and jerked my chin towards the floor. "What are you waiting for, you low-level dogs? Pick it up."

"We're not scared," Gair spat out, his fists clenched.

Rosa sighed, putting her hand on her hip. She held her 'gun' up. "I didn't want to tell you this, but if you don't do as we say in the next ten minutes, these bad boys are going to shoot you."

Simon furrowed his brows. "Shoot us?" he repeated. He scoffed. "With what, mini arrows?"

The smile that lit up Rosa's face in response was deliciously bright. "Wanna find out?"

From then on, every time either of the two started to say something, Rosa and I would hold up our guns, our eyebrows raised in a silent threat question, and they would stop. We went on like this for maybe four or five more minutes, until Simon finally snapped.

"Oh, screw it all. Gair, pick them up."

Gair jerked around to glare up at Simon. He swore. "You're not the boss of me, Simon."

"Yeah? You wanna ask the boss?" Simon narrowed his eyes, looming over Gair the best he could. "You need to be reminded of who got you here in the first place?"

Gair swore again, muttering under his breath this time, and I exchanged a smug look with Rosa.

"Tick tock," Rosa sang, "time's a-going. And I'm very good at counting."

I resisted a snort-- that was an understatement.

"C'mon, Gair!"

"Fine!" Gair grumbled. Glaring at us, and at Simon, he dropped to his knees as gracelessly as he could and began snatching up the Vels scattered on the ground.

"Uh-uh," I said, pointing my gun at Simon. He took a step back, and I relished the sweet taste of power and revenge in my mouth. "Both of you have to pick it up."

"What?!"

I shrugged. "Them's the rules. What can I say?"

"You fools, you'll--"

"Pay for this?" A grin edged up into my face, and I gestured to the floor. "I thought we already did."

His gaunt face reddened. When Gair added "Serves you right" in a mutter from the floor, his already-pink face turned even redder.

After glowering at us for a moment more, he grudgingly stooped down, too.

Rosa and I watched as they crawled around us on their knees, picking up Vels, and stood taller than ever. "Yess," Rosa hissed, her voice booming in the silent restaurant. "Crawl, you dogs. Good-for-nothing servants of overlords who would behead you the moment they are in danger. You are finally where you belong: on the floor!"

She began cackling, throwing her head back, and sparkles began appearing once again. I was a bit put off again by how good she was at this, but shrugged it off. Hey, as long as I was on Rosa's team, I told myself, I would be fine. So I threw my head back and began laughing as evilly as I could as well.

"Crawl!" Rosa crowed. "Crawl! Like the dogs you are!"

"Yes!" I shrieked, waving my machine 'gun' at them, a malicious grin on my face. "Exactly where you belong!"

Aahahahahaha! Muahahaha! Kyahahahaha!

Rosa threw another handful of Vels, her cackles growing louder, and I threw my handful of extra Vels as well.

And in the middle of our crazed cackles, as Vels fluttered around as they fell to the ground, as we waved our 'gun's around and leered at them through the sun-glasses on our faces, and as the two loan sharks, gritting their teeth and on their knees, snatched up more Vels from the floor below us, I just happened to raise my eyes towards the restaurant door. I just happened to, and therefore also just happened to notice Lindent, standing frozen at the doorway and staring right at me.

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A/N: Second update is coming soon! :D (Happy Lunar New Year, folks!)