Two

There were no houses on the hill leading up to Lighthouse Point. Local legend say it was out of reverence to the old lighthouse, a structure that some people honestly believe predates even the oldest house of the nearby town by a great many years. Some people said that one only approached the lighthouse when one was lost, and that spending too long in its presence would result in becoming far too keenly aware of one's course in life, learning all the times they would fail and even, in some cases, the exact time and place they would die. Athena didn't take these stories too seriously; after all, some people also said that certain species of fish could control the weather if you gave them peanut butter sandwiches.

For the festival on Longday, it was customary for people to take advantage of the free space on the hill as well as possible. Stalls sprang up by the old dirt road, perpendicular to the slope and facing downhill, allowing anyone approaching the lighthouse to see all the various snacks, souvenirs and curio that the enterprising decided to sell. Off to the sides, kids and adults were playing. Over on one patch, a couple of elementary school kids were playing tag. On another, a few slightly older boys had broken out the Struggle bats and were diligently attempting to smack each other upside the heads with the cushy blue foam toys. Somewhere in the growing mass of people, somebody was playing a guitar. That somebody was probably Nils, the neighborhood "kid who is really good at guitar but otherwise isn't all that interesting."

Artemis scanned the faces wandering around, finally settling on one she recognized, and began animatedly waving. "Hey, Orion!" she shouted, "Orion, over here!"

A bleached blonde head stopped moving, turned around, and its owner began to wave back. Orion was no stranger to the outdoors, with his mostly healthy tan and his summer clothes that had seen no shortage of adventures on the beach and in the woods. "Hey, Artemis!" he shouted back, before jogging over to a more conversation friendly distance. "You're just in time; we're just about done with the preparations."

"They've been working you hard?" Athena asked.

"Like you wouldn't believe," Orion replied, with a rueful chuckle. "Mr. Highwind is making me earn every Munny he's giving."

"Well, good." Artemis nodded in sagacious approval. "A little hard work never hurt anybody. It'll help toughen you up."

Orion sighed. "At least they'll let me loose soon, so I can enjoy the festival, too. Actually that reminds me, Artemis. Didn't you say you'd be signing up for the committee, too?"

Artemis's eyes had long since started to wander, lighting up when they passed over a stall a ways up the hill. "Hey, is that Sea-Salt Ice Cream? Oh, man, I didn't think they'd have that again, this year. Come on, guys!" Before Athena or Orion could respond, Artemis was off at a dash and about a stride and a half from her destination.

Athena took a step beside Orion and leaned in conspiratorially. "Something tells me she might have forgot to sign up."

"Yeah..." There was a demi-tone in Orion's voice, hidden behind the expected resignation, of some mixture of disappointment and distraction as he watched Artemis go.

Athena could only roll her eyes. "Come on, champ." She gave him an affectionate little punch to the arm as she started to walk uphill. "Let's go get her before she goes on a sugar rush, like she did last time."

"R-right..." Orion had to fight back the inevitable memories that statement conjured up of tire swings and ill conceived bets.

Up the hill, Artemis had already managed to cajole the shopkeep into opening his stall early enough for her to get her hands on the prize, a bright blue popsicle that smelled faintly of the ocean and sugar. The look on her face as she turned to her friends and began to eat it was the textbook definition of "victorious." Athena shook her head, saying "So, it's that good, huh?" Artemis nodded, emphatically, to which Athena responded "You know, I still don't get what you like about that stuff. Salty and sweet don't go together."

"Stuffing your face already, I see," called a voice suddenly from down the hill.

A change came over Artemis, immediate and total, as those patronizing, vaguely posh sounding words entered her ear. Her muscles tensed. Her eyes snapped open in a mixture of anger and disbelief. Her teeth snapped over her ice cream like a mother shielding her baby from an approaching bear. Which was good, because with it safely out of the way, she was free to fix the bottom of the hill with a glare that surely would have melted it and any other ice cream that happened to be in the immediate vicinity.

Well, that was fast, Athena thought as she turned around and readied herself for preventing the inevitable shouting match. Seems like Leblanc's actively seeking her out, these days.

There was something about Leblanc, or at least the way Leblanc acted nowadays, that struck entirely the wrong chord with Artemis. Maybe it was the unessecarily tight clothes, the heart motifs, and the general swagger of "boys want this, but they can't get this." Maybe it was the fact that, at some point during middle school, she had decided to play up her accent and mannerisms and suddenly become so much more sophisticated than everyone else. Or maybe it was because she walked around everywhere with her two friends hanging a step behind her like she was some stereotypical teen movie mean girl and everyone else but her seemed to realize that. Athena remembered a time, way back when, when Leblanc and Artemis were friends. It was a bit before she personally knew Artemis, so she had no idea what caused the eventual falling out, but once it did, it did so catastrophically. Artemis was still not allowed at that boy's house after that incident with the pinata.

Athena folded her arms and sighed. "Morning, you guys. Happy Longday."

The raven haired girl in the back waved a hoodie sleeve that presumably had a hand somewhere in it. "You, too." Lulu was probably Athena's greatest ally in keeping things from getting pinata-inclined. She never seemed to acknowledge the politics going on, much less take a side. In fact, she wasn't so much anybody's friend so much as she just sort of hung out with them. She was by no means a yes-man; rather, she simply wasn't invested enough in the situation to really gravitate to anything other than the path of least resistance. Athena could admire that sort of lazy rationality.

Leblanc shrugged with theatrical flair, shaking her head like she were trying to converse with peasants. "Athena, Athena, Athena... I see you're still hanging out with that girl back there. Don't you know she's bad news?"

Artemis's teeth dug a half a millimeter into her ice cream as she tried to hold her tongue.

"Yup," Athena refused to give the situation anything more than mild indifference. "That's entirely why I'm hanging out with her."

"That's a pity..." Leblanc recognized, as smart bullies often do, that she wasn't going to get past such an attitude without some sort of effort, and so she decided to move on over to someone she knew she could rattle. Unfortunately for him, Orion happened to be within easy striking distance. "I was hoping to invite a few more people to this party I'm having." She ran a finger down Orion's arm and gave him a look like a cat gives a cornered bird. "I'd love for you to come, if you've got the time."

Orion could only stammer, caught in between maybe five or six different responses and completely unable to determine which, if any, would

Another millimeter in. A sound came out of the back of Artemis's throat not dissimilar to an angry terrirer.

"Well, that's too bad," Athena decided to jump to Orion's rescue. "But hey, it's a big hill. I'm sure there's people all over the place who'd flip to go to a genuine Leblanc party."

Leblanc didn't move from her position threatening Orion; instead she just slid her gaze over ever so slightly. "I'm sensing a hint of negativity from you."

"Yup. That's me. I'm just a negative person. Now, why don't..." a sound came to Athena's ear. The sound of a set of teeth breaking through an ice cream bar. "...oh, great..."

Poor Orion happened to be in the way; Artemis shouldered past him with surprising force, shouting over a mouthful of ice cream and waving the rest direcly in Leblanc's face. "So, why don't you just go jump off a cliff or something and let all the normal people enjoy their holiday, you... you..."

Leblanc took a step back, carefully and meticulously wiping off her face. "I'd be careful, if I were you," she warned. "You almost stained a two hundred Munny designer shirt. Not that I'm surprised; you always were a complete klutz."

"Klutz? Klutz?!" In the long and storied history of these two, "klutz" was actually a relatively harmless name, but coming out of the mouth it was coming out of, it might as well have been an accusation of genocide. "Why, you little... I'm gonna...!"

"...do nothing at all!" Athena pushed herself in between the two of them, glaring back at Artemis. "We're all going to go off to separate corners, and we're going to have a nice, happy Long..."

Leblanc wouldn't let her miniature victory, however, go incomplete. "I propose we have ourselves a little contest, to settle our problems once and for all."

"You're on!" Artemis shouted, over Athena's shoulder.

Athena groaned. Artemis always fell for this. Always. And it never settled anything once and for all, like Leblanc was wont to claim. "All right, fine," Athena said. "Contest. Good. What do you have in mind?"

From the back, the pink-haired girl with the stare like diamonds laced with even harder diamonds finally spoke up. "I can go back home. Get about six or seven Struggle bats."

The group, on both sides, took a moment to stare at the pink-haired girl. Lulu was the first to pipe up. "Lightning," she said, "that's your answer to everything."

Orion added. "I'm still bruised up from the last time you wanted to have a Struggle match."

Lightning folded her arms and huffed. "Well, that's not my fault, now is it? You should have blocked better."

Athena shook her head. "Nobody's beating each other with foam bats, all right? We'll find something else. Orion, do you know if there's anything planned, today?"

Orion thought for a moment. "Well... Mr. Highwind had a scavenger hunt planned. There are lists set up over on the stall three up from here."

Athena couldn't help a bit of a smirk; it was hardly by accident that Orion suggested an event Artemis was really good at. "Okay. Perfect. We'll do three against three. If we win, you guys leave us alone."

"And if we win..." Leblanc reached into her back pocket and produced a white hood, covered in artificial fur, with pointy ears and some kind of pom-pom on a stalk on the forehead. "...then Artemis has to spend the entire rest of the day wearing this."

"You're on!" Athena couldn't help but groan again. It was obvious, blatantly obvious, that this had all been part of Leblanc's plan. And thanks to Artemis and her impulsive nature, they were all falling right into it.

"Great," Leblanc marched past, seemingly already triumphant. "We'll all meet back here when we're done. First one to get back with all the items wins. You'd better move quickly, assuming you're not weighed down by all that ice cream." Leblanc started to laugh, which turned into a yelp as a half eaten popsicle sailed by her head like an angry blue frozen hornet.

Athena took the liberty of getting the lists from the stall worker while Artemis was busy fuming and Orion was busy still trying to figure out what he should be doing in this situation. Leblanc and company left together, seeming to immediately defer to Lulu's expertise on the clues, despite her continued reluctance to take anything seriously.

Athena came back with papers, which she handed off to her friends. "Right, so Leblanc's clearly not smart enough to think to grab one list each, so we've got a three to one advantage on her."

"Um, actually..." Orion folded up his paper and looked back at the stalls reluctantly. "...they've still got me on the clock, so I can't really help you guys, right now."

"Oh, right," Athena said, "sorry about that."

"That's all right," Orion replied. "If anything, I'm sorry."

"It's fine, you guys." Artemis scanned over the list, her free hand clenched into a fist in front of her with suitable dramatic flair. "I think I'm going to take them on fair."

"Are you sure about that?" Athena asked. "It's not like it'd be strictly one-on-one if you went alone. She's got Lulu interpreting the clues for her; that girl's on the honor roll."

"I'm sure." Artemis began scanning the town downhill, already planning out a route. "I know the town like the back of my hand. Scavenger hunts are, like, my best event."

"That's what you said about the hundred yard dash," Athena interjected.

"Also the egg toss," Orion added.

"Those, too!" Artemis put the list in her pocket and began to stretch herself out. "You guys watch; I'm going to set a world record for finding things."

Athena and Orion exchanged glances, both of them convinced she was serious and could probably make true on that promise. Athena shrugged. "Well, when you put it that way, I'm sure I'd only slow you down." She patted Artemis on the shoulder. "Go nuts, Art. We'll be waiting on the hill for you."

Artemis shook out the imaginary stiffness in her joints and took a stance, down on one knee, fingers on the ground. She got ready, set herself, and then she was off down the hill like a shot.