Raven(Dark!Ember) vs Launch [Forum/Earth Spar] (Complete)

“Yeah, I was thinking about making a quick dinner for my friends,” Launch replied, giggling. She lifted her hands up to cover her mouth as she laughed, making her perfect cerulean curls bounce lightly against her shoulders. The person she was speaking to, a fairly flamboyant young bank teller, half rolled his eyes while smiling warmly at her.

“I wish I was built like you, girly; the last thing I tried cooking, I think I’m like, legally required to describe as a poison!” He suddenly turned away, trying to hide his obnoxious laughs at his own joke. Launch chuckled further, struggling to reach into her purse to grab her debit card.

“Honestly, I probably only need like 40 Zeni; I have most of what I need already at the house.” She managed to find her wallet, pulling it triumphantly from her bag and unclasping the wallet to slide her card out. As she did so, however, a massive explosion caught her attention, making the human spin around in confusion.

She didn’t fully understand what had happened, though it appeared that some kind of bomb had gone off in the ceiling behind her; pieces of rock, wood, paint, and various other particles all floated down to the ground around them - and at the center of all the commotion stood a pale, curvy woman with fiery hair, apparently sticking up the bank.

“...not killing you...!”

“Oh, my!” Launch whimpered a bit, trying to melt into the shadows and not be seen by the robber, when a couple of the particles from the ceiling got under her nose, tickling it fiercely. “Ah... ah.... Ah... ah choo!” A fairly aggressive sneeze from the young woman, causing her to jump into the air slightly. The sneeze seemed to do more than draw unwanted attention, however.

When her feet touched the ground, she had changed. Her hair, before a glossy blue that perfectly matched her eyes, had transformed into a standard blonde, with glowing green irises instead. She huffed impatiently, giving the robber a once over that showed little actual interest in what she was looking at. A moment later, she scrounged through her purse, before revealing a gun that seemed comically large for fitting inside such a relatively small bag.

She raised the machine gun and pointed it directly at the newcomer. In a much deeper, cockier, and far more dominant tone of voice, Launch shouted at the thief, “Whatever you’re stealin’, hon, keep in mind I’mma take all of that - and I’mma probably jack you for whatever you came in here with, too; momma needs herself some new clothes, you feel me?” To show she meant business, Launch let off a couple spare shots at the ground between the two ladies.

“I ain’t got all day, now!”

Despite the speed with which the woman rushed forward and pressed herself into the firearm, Launch wasn’t concerned. She had met her fair share of people who felt invincible around bullets - and honestly, a couple of them were. She stared back into the red-haired woman’s eyes, listening carefully to her proposition and thinking it over. At the mention of a manicure, Launch couldn’t help herself from glancing down at her fingers.

Her nails had been done much more recently - only two weeks ago, in fact - but they’d been done by the Other Launch. Even with the quick glance she afforded herself, she got annoyed at the white nails, painted in the design of smiling panda bears. It made her feel positively childish to be holding her piece with that being her nail design.

She didn’t need it to be a cliche black or red, but the overly effeminate, sappy look her cuticles currently had was almost offensively in the other direction. She glanced back up when the red-haired woman began to address the teller, instructing him to fill up bags with money. “I don’t think he even has any bags,” Launch pointed out. True to form, the teller nervously nodded at that point. After all, why would banks have burlap sacks to make it easier for someone to rob them?

“No worries, though,” she said in her confidently gruff voice. It seemed that she had somehow just morphed into accepting the plan of them working together without even thinking about it. Was Launch making... a friend? She decided not to think about it - they hadn’t even gotten any money yet, and if she started to get sentimental, they’d still be giggling and swapping stories when the police got there.

“I always keep a couple on me in case I need to go shopping,” she said, pulling a capsule out of her pocket and pressing the button. Tossing it into the air, a puff of smoke was the result, before four massive potato sacks began flapping to the ground. Lowering her gun into the line of her waist, she turned to catch the bags and passed them all to the teller. “They charge for bags here, did you know that?”

It was part of East City’s attempt to be more globally friendly and ‘sustainable,’ but Launch didn’t care about that; she followed the recommendations because she had no intentions on spending extra money just for shopping. If it was up to her, she wouldn’t spend ANY money shopping, but because of her condition, she knew that at any point, Other Launch might take charge of the grocery shopping, and keeping those bags on her meant even more money wouldn’t be wasted.

“You know a good spot to get manicures around here?” she asked nonchalantly as the teller filled the first bag with cash. “I uh, can’t fly, so it’s gotta be close by unless you got a ride out front.”

“Posh Nail, huh? A’ight.” Launch had never heard the name, but that wasn’t surprising. She didn’t tend to care about the name of the place where she walked in to get her nails done. A lot of people complained about the variance in skill level between nail techs, but Launch hadn’t noticed. In her experience, if one waves a gun around, everybody suddenly becomes world-class at making them look exactly how she wanted it to.

The woman then introduced herself as ‘Raven,’ before asking a peculiar question.

“Goody two shoes? Iono nothing about the Other Launch,” the blonde admitted, accepting the first two bags from the teller graciously as she spoke. “All I know about her for sure is we got different fashion sense, and we both got a lotta likable characteristics.”

Launch paused, laying the two bags between her feet. The bank was so silent while the two ladies talked, it was starting to get a little strange. Normally there was a lot more screaming and crying; The human figured it must have been something about the fact that she hadn’t shot her gun yet. “Oh, and she pops out when I sneeze, which is kinda often. Doctor says I gotta ‘medically sensitive nasal passage,” she said, sarcastically doing air quotes.

“Hey, but what do you mean ‘too,’ though? You got some Other Raven in there? And you know what she’s all about and stuff?”

“Alright, whatever,” Launch replied breezily. She wasn’t a therapist, and didn’t really care what was going on in Raven’s head; she just liked the money, and liked having someone to spend it with. “Actually--” she began, holding up a finger to her lips; a thought had crossed her mind. “Actually, I’m kinda feeling like a coffee right now, anyway. What do you say we ‘relieve’ that establishment of a couple extra cups, in honor of ya sis, Ember?”

She gathered up as many of the bags as she could, recognizing that the teller had finished emptying all the drawers, and said, “How about you show me the way, and we can grab a drink as we head towards that nail place?” Launch started stumbling towards the front door, the heft from the bags of money surprising even her for a moment. “I bet them new winter drinks are on the market, and I could use one of those chocolate peppermint coffee type drinks; it’d put a nice pep in my step!”

She smiled, her blonde curls bouncing as she continued moving, assuming Raven was at least in the process of catching up to her. “Yeah, we stick together, and I bet we could run some little shanty town in no time... just come back up to the city when we need to feel the finer things or get a new stash of cash.” Her mind was racing; she’d been doing incredible just as herself by herself only half the time; having another person who acted like her at least half the time? She figured they might be able to quadruple the money!

“You first, doll.”

Launch grinned, her golden locks bouncing as she sauntered into the shop. The room immediately smelled of caramel macchiato - not a drink Launch preferred, but a scent that she found positively heavenly. She took a big whiff, her nose making slightly more noise than was necessary, and sashayed the rest of the way to the front of the line. Surprisingly, there weren’t any customers waiting to order at the time they got there.

The cashier blinked, glanced at her hand, and grinned as she approached. Launch rolled her eyes; the kid couldn’t have been older than 20, but yet he thought he had a chance with her? It was almost cute, in a way. As long as he didn’t say anything funny, she could let him look. “Good afternoon, ma’am,” he politely intoned, nodding his head at her. “May I inter--”

“Ma’am?!” Launch’s face burned at the indication she was old enough to be called ‘ma’am.’ “What, you think I’m ancient or something?” She was so thrown off by the passing insult the young man had offered her that she had already forgotten the drink she had been planning on ordering. She honestly didn’t even know fully how to react, and instead turned back to Raven for assistance. “Am I a ma’am now?!”

The cashier wasn’t a moron and could tell he’d messed up, but clearly didn’t have the words to fix his mistake, and merely tapped his fingers awkwardly against the register and tried to have an apologetic look on his face.

The kid’s eyes - as boy’s eyes always seemed to do - slid down as Raven approached the counter, scanning her flesh hungrily as it pressed against the glass. His cheeks grew hot, and he straightened up after a moment, putting on a nonchalant smile. Clearly, he thought he’d been subtle. Somehow, the kid thought nobody had seen him practically drooling over himself at that moment.

Sometimes, it paid to look like she did - because while bullying people to get her way was fun, sometimes she was tired - the disgust that she felt also made it almost not worth it. Whatever. She just wanted a drink. The kid didn’t deserve to get shot over not having proper manners. Eventually, he pulled his jaw off the floor and managed to rediscover the power of speech.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I mean-- I’m sorry miss! Proud, independent single woman! Are you single?” This was getting embarrassing. Launch decided to pretend he hadn’t spoken past ‘sorry’.

“Lemme get the, uh... chocolate... peppermint... drink thingie - medium. I want it hot.”

She waved her hand as she was speaking. It wasn’t that she didn’t know the name of the drink - it was advertised on a little card placard on top of the counter. She just didn’t want to say the phrase ‘Chocolate Drop Peppermint Swirl Extravaganza!’ It sounded like a mouthful. “And whatever my friend here wants... if you can manage to focus on her face long enough to get her order down.”

Launch wasn’t positive, and she definitely wasn’t going to ask, but she was fairly sure she heard the cashier nervously fart after being abruptly called out for his voyeurism.