B is for "Bet"

Rated K

On a Friday afternoon, Lynn was minding her own business in the dining room, ready to chow down on an entire plate of extra spicy buffalo wings from Wild, Wild, Wings. That's right, partner, extra spicy—anything less meant you liked to take the easy route, and Lynn wasn't about to have a reputation of someone who couldn't hack it with some hot wings. Besides, she loved the taste, anyway—don't make the mistake of assuming that the sweat-drenched forehead, red face, and heavy breathing meant that she was anywhere close to having enough.

But besides that, it always filled her with pride (and loads and loads of gas) whenever she scarfed down on her spicy meal and watched as passerby gave her looks of disgust, obviously from putting themselves in her shoes and knowing that they wouldn't be able to handle a paltry two wings without calling it quits, let alone an entire plate.

And then, just as she was about to enjoy her lunch and prove how unmatched her tolerance for spiciness was, Clyde McBride showed up. From what she had cared to hear from him as he greeted her, he was on his way to the kitchen to grab some chips so that he and Lincoln could have something to snack on after they were finished LARPing (pfft, nerds).

Presently, she was about three wings deep into her lunch when he came back and couldn't help himself from taking interest in what she as doing. With the opportunity to show off (and get another repulsed look; those were always fun), she began to wolf down her food like there was no tomorrow. It didn't take long before she felt her tongue begin swell and throat dry up, not to mention the tears watering in her eyes, but she kept it up while she gauged Clyde's reaction.

…

…

Okay, maybe the wings were melting her brain and making her go loopy because there was no way that she was seeing this right. Instead of turning all green and looking like he was on the verge of retching, Clyde was just...staring at her. And not just the ordinary kind of staring, either— it was the kind where it looked like he had something to say and was waiting for the right time to say it.

Whatever. She'd be courteous enough to give him the floor and speak his mind—it wasn't like she gave a hoot about what he thought about her spicy wing eating prowess, anyway.

She cleaned off the last wing and tossed the bones on her plate and looked at Clyde expectantly. "What? You got something to say?"

Her question, perhaps, came off more as an aggressive confrontation—it was a good guess, in her opinion, based on how Clyde kinda shrunk back.

"Oh, n-nothing," he said. "I was just thinking that...well, I usually don't eat my buffalo wings like that."

Lynn's sauce-stained lips formed a proud smirk. Ah, so he was just giving her a compliment on how awesome she was at scarfing down the spiciest wings in Royal Woods. Okay. Cool. She could totally accept that.

He was probably used to the mild variety and had to take his time so he wouldn't upset his widdle tum-tum. Psh, he probably had to drink milk in between wings, too. Ha! Ah, poor kid. Maybe when she was done with her food, she'd show him the ropes and get him to be almost as awesome as she was in the spicy wing eating department. It'd take time, practice, and plenty of tears (on his end, of course), but she was sure she could−

"I like the savor the spice, y'know? It'd be a waste to just eat them all at once."

Thankfully, she wasn't the kind of person who had to drink milk to handle spicy wings. Otherwise, she would've shocked into a spit take and made a mess.

"W-what?!" Lynn spluttered, her eyes as wide as her plate of wings. "You're telling me that you can handle Wild, Wild, Wings' extra spicy wings?!"

It wasn't as if she had the opinion that she was literally the only person who could eat them, but there was a difference between casually having a few nibbles before calling it quits and savoring them, implying that he could stomach them without a problem. And as much as it was wrong to judge a book by its cover, Clyde didn't look like the kind of person who could take as much as three wings without getting sick.

"Yeah," he dared to say without hesitation. "What makes you think that I can't?"

He...he had to be bluffing! Yeah, that was it! He was just trying to show off and impress her by acting like some wing-eating big shot! He had no stats or feats to back up his claim, yet he thought it was smart to show up on her turf and (unwittingly or otherwise) make her fortitude less impressive.

And for that, Clyde was going to pay! As far as Lynn was concerned, it was on! So on! In fact, it was so on, that if the situation was a light switch, there would be no such thing as an "off" setting. Why? Because it'd be too on for such a setting to even exist! Whether Clyde McBride knew it or not, he had crossed a line, and Lynn had no qualms about letting him know that.

"Is that so?" she asked, eyes squinted.

Clyde shrugged. "Again, I don't see why you think that I can't, but yeah."

"If that's the case, then you wanna make a little bet?"

"What kind of bet?"

She got out of her chair and pointed her wings. "As it turns out, I've got six wings left. If you can eat all six of them in a minute or less, without puking or drinking anything, then I'll...I'll..." She paused to mull it over for a few seconds, then snapped her fingers when an idea came to her. "I'll join your little LARPing session. And if you can't hack it, you have to be my karate sparing partner the next time I ask you."

Instead of backing down immediately like she thought, he would Clyde had the nerve to take her up on her bet—why else would he have moseyed over and sat down in her chair without a care in the world?!

But then, her indignation formed into sinister satisfaction. All of a sudden, Clyde's actions made sense. He thought that he could handle half a dozen wings in under a minute without a problem because of the small number. Well, he was about to learn that big things came in small packages. He'd be crying uncle in no time—not even Lana could eat six in a minute, and that was when she wasn't under the pressure of a strict time limit.

Lynn chuckled wickedly. Oh, this was gonna be great. She'd get to knock Clyde down a notch and prove her superiority all at once. That would show him to never to boast at her expense ever again. Now then, where was her stopwatch?

Twelve seconds.

It took all but twelve seconds for Clyde to show Lynn up. Not only that, but he made sure to punctuate his victory by licking the bones and plate free of any of the hot sauce.

The only silver lining she could find in her defeat was that she had about thirty minutes to prepare herself before she had to parade around in a dorky costume. That gave her plenty of time to make sure that she'd get herself some kind of mask or hood—the last thing she needed was anyone recognizing her.