Two Girls on the Town (Private)

Reyna fiddled with the little headset covering her left ear and risked a glance between the plants to peer at the other side of the restaurant’s main dining hall. Leivinia and her date were going to be arriving any moment, and that was when her role in the mission would truly begin. Until then, she really had very little to do, all things considered. She’d already eaten through a bowl of “endless” breadsticks and torn through a few glasses of water.

Once Daxby arrived with Leivinia, it was going to be her job to coach the younger girl through a date with the rather distinguished (and a little bit pratty) Daxby. They were to use the night in order to reform him or at least make him smile. Honestly, Reyna doubted that they were the specific women for doing such a thing, but it would offer her a chance at some excitement.

She’d been barred from combat operations for the rest of the week, so this was, apparently, the best she could do.

“Hey titties,” the obnoxious Daxby called out to a waitress as they arrived on scene. He was wearing a pair of sunglasses despite it being only moderately sunny outside. “Did you eat our breadsticks?” He then pointed to the empty bowl which was supposed to be endless. The waitress looked at him a bit confused but decided to rush over as the pair of Daxby and Leivinia took their seat.

“Sorry, I thought I filled that up… anyway, what can I get for you tonight?” she pulled out her pen and paper only to be stopped by the great Daxby. “You can get me and my date some breadsticks,” he suggested. The waitress left with the empty bowl and a reddened face. Several minutes had passed and it was clear the waitress wasn’t coming back.

“You kinda look like my dead mom,” he said while fiddling with his fingernails.

“T-thank you…..” Leivinia replied.

Reyna listened to the ongoing exchange through the speakers in her earpiece and stared blankly at the still-empty bowl of breadsticks at the center of her table. She nodded when Leivinia accepted the (probably) normal compliment and took a sip of her water. She had to think of how to proceed. Leivinia was a smart girl and she could probably have responded on her own, but that would’ve been less than fun for her.

”Tell him he looks like your dead uncle,” she said. ”And that you think that’s charming.”

Grinning from ear to ear, Reyna pictured her own deceased uncle. Fred was a fine uncle and a great man, so hopefully he didn’t mind the fact that she was using him as a mental example.

”If you don’t have an uncle, say his aunt. Oh, and uh...”

She paused and scratched at her cheek.

”Ask him how his mom died I guess. Guys love that. It shows you care. Or something. I don’t know, I don’t date people.”

Leivinia nodded furiously at the incoming information. The deaf poor teen mom was clearly an expert at talking to men and that is probably why she had two children despite her young age. Finally, it was time to speak up.

“My uncle isn’t dead,” she said. “But you look like your deceased aunt and I think that’s charming.” She gave him a thumbs up and another nod for confirmation of her compliment and it was at this time a new waitress came. She handed the breadsticks out with no explanation of why their previous waitress was gone, though the reason was pretty obvious. “How did your mom die?” Leivinia asked.

“I killed her.”

A full twelve seconds passed.

“Ha, I’m just joking. Somebody broke into our home and raped her to death. The police say based on the bruising of her body, it lasted several hours until she bled out. She looked like you before the brutal murder and rape, by the way.” He added that on as if it was something that needed clarification.

“S-sorry….”

Daxby picked up a breadstick and shoved it in his mouth whole.

Reyna reeled back in her seat and nibbled at the end of a fresh bread stick, her eyes glued to the soft looking red velvet of the table cloth. Serial killer/rapist or not, the kid opposite of Leivinia had definitely taken a few wrong turns throughout the course of his life. For one thing, he was like sixteen years old and on a date with a twelve year old. For another thing, he was distinctly keen on murder and rape. Neither of those things were particularly reassuring, and so Reyna pretty much just kept nibbling on her bread for a good twelve seconds.

"Tell him that his mom would probably hate him," she said, pausing a moment. "No, wait, don't say that. I'm just saying he's kinda stupid. And awkward. You're too good for this kid."

Reyna held up another bread stick and practically chugged a glass of water. She had to think out Leivinia's next move. The little magister was in a mite deeper than she'd expected her to be, what with Dagby or Dagchu or whatever his name was sharing such intimate details.

"Betcha won't tell him you're the ghost of his mom."

Leivinia thought about this for a moment.

She could just continue along with the date and get paid, or she could stoop down to Reyna's level and jeopardize the reward for some giggles that would last maybe around thirty seconds. The choice was obvious so she didn't even dignify it with a response. Her eyes sparkled under the lights of the restaurant as if to declare the challenge was accepted.

"How far away is your house from this exact location?" she interrogated Daxby. He looked up and blinked three times before going back to fiddling with his nails. "It's literally like, right there," he said while pointing somewhere to the left. Beneath the table, a medium-sized magic circle coalesced. Dozens of strings of an unknown, milky substance shot out in the direction that Daxby pointed. They hungrily licked the floor and devoured any remnants of data until they reached the house which his mother was killed. The strands danced around a specific spot before fusing together and lurching back towards their owner. Like a worm, it crawled up her arm and hid inside of her shirt.

"Your mom's name was Janette, she weighed 127 pounds, and she was murdered by three men whom broke into the house with the hopes of stealing. It was actually a knife which did the trick."

Daxby's attention was, for the first time this entire night, focused entirely on Leivinia. "How--"

"I told you my name was Leivinia," she began with a finger pointed up. "But your mom was Jewish, no? If you take the etymology of my name, you'll find that if you re-arrange the letters of the Jewish origin word, it actually spells 'Janette.'"

That was a lie.

"I'm your dead mom."

That was also a lie.

"And you're kind of a douche bag." 100% truth.

Spells Used: Residual death (-10% MP)

Reyna was honestly surprised at how quickly Leivinia pinpointed the boy's weak spot. She leaned forward and bent her elbows on the table, doing her best to capture every detail that the little girl blasted her would-be beau with. Some of it was so accurate sounding that it was almost surreal, and the husky confidence in Leivinia's voice as she came to her ultimate conclusion was thrilling. It was almost like they were in some kind of detective play in a grand theater.

That feeling only mildly subsided when she went into a rant about the etymology of certain names and their rearranging into her own name, but that was more because Reyna'd never been a person to pay attention to name choice. Her own name wasn't particularly fitting. Henrietta, her middle name, would've been a better choice for her first name.

Perhaps she would tell people to start calling her that.

"Is he buying it? You should tell him that he needs to clean up his act," she said, riding the coattails of Leivinia's last statement.

"I mean, they never said we had to clean him up the right way. They just said we needed to do it. He already thinks you're his dead mom, so I mean, he'd probably listen to you."

When her tummy growled a second later, a second idea quickly came to life.

"And have him send me some spaghetti or something. To... uh, prove his dedication to his mother, or to good deeds, something like that. Charity's good, right?"

"M-mom!?"

He was overcome with many emotions, but was taken aback by being called a douche bag probably. Which was understandable. "Avenge me, Daxby," came Leivinia's instructions. "Somewhere in this room, somebody has eaten all of our breadsticks." She lifted up a single index finger. "Ghosts can only survive in the mortal realm if they have an endless supply of herb-buttered breadsticks. Why do you think I planned to meet you here?"

Reyna didn't need spaghetti. She had eaten their breadsticks and was now sitting on her lethargic rear end barking out instructions. If they were both being paid equally, shouldn't they have done equal work?

"Y-yes mom!" Daxby shouted out, taking off his sunglasses. "Where is she? I'll get us the breadsticks!!" Leivinia curled her extended finger in the direction of Reyna and watched as the hipster dashed forward with his bowl of clam chowder, ready to... dish out some justice.

Reyna sighed when Leivinia pointed Daxby in her direction. Clearly, the poor young deaf woman was under the impression that a hipster with a bad attitude would be enough to thwart her authoritative attitude and dapper outfit. Reyna wiped her hands on the table cloth as the young man approached, fury in his eyes and love for his mother burgeoning in his heart. She could tell that he really did believe that Leivinia was his mother, Janette.

That wasn't going to save him though.

Reyna put her left hand on the rim of the table and flipped it hard just as Daxby closed the gap. The edge slammed into his nose and stumbled him, but he held the table itself up with one hand and tried his best to peer around it at the aggressive looking woman that'd just smashed his face in with a table.

Unfortunately, she was already gone.

Like a missile from the heavens, she dropped low and blew out his knee cap with a well placed boot, only to wrap an arm around his neck and pull him to the ground hard.

Once she had him in a headlock, she grunted into her ear piece.

"SAY YOU TAP OUT," she grunted. Daxby, unaware that he wasn't talking to her, was already tapping her arm furiously.

Leivinia slapped both arms on the table in an angry fit.

"You cheated!" she accused. "That isn't how the game works. Sigh." Not caring about the facade anymore, Leivinia literally flipped the table over and spilled food and water everywhere. Everybody was now staring at the trio, yet nobody asked them to leave. They were stuck in a surreal glare of disbelief.

"Nyah!!"

With a firm roar Leivinia leaped forward and kicked Daxby in the testicles while Reyna held him in the headlock. "You're a jerk! And don't call people titties!" Immediately, she covered her mouth with both hands and tried to hide her reddened face. She had said a bad word. Would Eliot find out?

"Your mom is dead and girls are beating you up! You literally can't afford to be a jerk too or else nobody will ever love you!" She cried that out as she repeatedly stomped on his toes, hoping to drive the message home.

Daxby, crying and sobbing, finally seemed to realize the error of his ways. With two girls beating the ever-living crap out of him, it must've sunken in. He'd been a rude, terrible little child, incapable of caring for anyone but himself... and that wasn't what his mother (or her rude, headlocking friend) would have wanted. Perhaps impossibly, he didn't see beyond the already crumpled walls of Leivinia's facade, instead choosing to believe that the spirit of his mother was simply teaching him a valuable and intrinsic life lesson.

"I'll stop, I promise!"

Tears streamed down from his eyes and broke onto the fabric of Reyna's cape, which clung tightly to her shoulder as she strengthened the hold on her headlock for good measure. She wanted to make sure that the guy wasn't just lying to them to get what he wanted.

"Do you think he - ugh! D'you think he means it?!"

Every word was punctuated by a flex of her arm muscles and a grunt. She wasn't about to let him go just because he was crying like a baby.

"I think so," Leivinia gave her honest answer. "We should probably leave either way." The shock of the sudden situation was beginning to wear off and people were murmuring in the background.The young man hopefully learned his lesson after dating his dead mom and would become more tolerable in general. He'd never be able to fill the void of his mother, but he could forge new bonds. The pain wouldn't lessen, but it would distract him from it.

Or maybe he'd continue being a prick.

Either way, their job was done. "Can you use any magic?" Leivinia bluntly wondered aloud. Reyna didn't use any magic, and instead focused on punching the hooligan. The job was still complete, too. "I request that in addition to the ultra-rare purple cotton candy, you also teach me how to punch people like a man."

And so the poor, deaf, teen mom was also manly and another job was done.