"Two White Russians, coming right up!"
The bar was packed, absolutely bustling with clattering utensils, jovial conversation, laughter and of course, orders for new drinks.
Yuuki was the one that took the order, quickly putting it into the customer's tab in the POS system while Rachael effortlessly got the pair of drinks ready right behind her.
With fluid ease, Rachael slid one over to her twin as Yuuki turned back to the bar, already putting the last touches on the drink in perfect sync with her sister. In seconds, they were ready, and in the customer's hands.
"Another round, ladies!"
Once again, a new drink order came in, and this time it was just bottles of beer, so Yuuki grabbed them from the cooling fridge while Rachael flawlessly slid behind her to put it into the POS.
"Cheers, guys!" Yuuki grinned at the group of college students as she deposited the bottles' caps into a bin under the bar. "These are going to the Fallout funds!"
The guys laughed, knowing that the ever-present collection of beer bottle caps generated by the bar was affectionately nicknamed the Fallout funds, in reference to a post-apocalyptic video game series with the same name that used bottle caps as currency.
"Evening ladies! Busy tonight, eh?" A regular customer came into the bar, noticing the din of noise even from outside.
"Hey Ted, crazy busy tonight!" Rachael was already grabbing his usual drink while Yuuki placed his tab and favourite food order.
"Table six is free, Ted. Food's already in the system." Yuuki waved and smiled at the older man, who nodded in reply with his own warm smile before taking a seat at the proper table.
"So, ladies, what's it like working here?" One of the college guys was leaning his forearms on the edge of the bar, a burger and fries sitting partially eaten lay atop and a bottle of beer beside his hand. "Must be really hectic with just the two of you handling the bar, right?"
"Definitely better than our last job. I swear to god that woman was just trying to start World War Four." Yuuki frowned at the memory of their first job, six months earlier. "And to think when we found the ad, we both said the damn job wasn't worth our damn time."
"A most eloquent 'Fuck that' was our choice of wording." Rachael added with a smirk.
"What happened?" The guy asked, munching on a couple of his fries. "Doesn't sound like it was good."
"Some batty old bitch didn't like how I was doing my job, so she demands my manager..." Yuuki explained, indicating Rachael with her thumb, who had indeed been the assistant manager at the time. "And almost immediately lost her shit when she saw my sister, so she started screaming at the top of her lungs that we were hurting her."
"What was your job?" He asked, his eyebrows knitting together in thought.
"Cashier, Rachael got up to assistant manager because she's the more polite twin. I was fine with cashier until that broad got us both up against the wall like that." Yuuki explained. "She threatened to sue the store and have us thrown in jail. Neither of us touched her. At all."
"So did you two quit, or were you fired?"
"We both quit." Rachael chuckled knowingly, and Yuuki smiled. "And then we followed her back home with her free groceries and we ate her. Right down to the bone. CCG knocked on our front door the next day, holding the note we'd left stuck to the bitch's skull."
"Wait, what?" The guy was confused, and of course, the twins knew why. Sure, their eyes were easily mistaken for contacts - and they sometimes went along with that lie, for convenience - but the fact remained that this guy wasn't local, probably from a small town just outside of LA to come in for his education.
"You don't know our full names, the nametags only say the first letter and our first names. We're the Darkwood sisters... We're T-Ghouls." Yuuki laughed at the shocked expression on his face. All of the regulars knew, but the non-locals or newcomers had no clue in the slightest, unless they were members of their Spiderling fanbase.
"It's alright, that's not our jurisdiction. You're eating cow, not human." Rachael teasingly pointed at his burger. "We just pour the drinks and look sexy, food's not our problem."
At the end of the night, as the last few stragglers were finishing their drinks, Yuuki and Rachael were cleaning up the bar when their boss came out of the kitchen at the back with a warm smile at his two youngest employee's.
"Ladies, how'd things go up front tonight? Those college kids just got out of their finals, so it makes for good business."
"Saw your daughter come in about two hours ago, she had a couple of her girlfriends with her." Yuuki replied as she jotted down her inventory. "Had fun messing with one guy, he was a fresh face, asked about our last job... So we told him the whole story and he went almost as white as paper."
"How about behaviour? Were there anyone that had to be tossed out?" Their boss smiled, remembering his own first time hearing the story of their last job. He also went pale when they told him, but now it was an amusement.
"Not really, bunch of them were just having fun, no fights tonight." Rachael was collecting cutlery and plates from the bar and putting them into a plastic bin in her arms. "I still gotta ask... It's just the two of us behind the bar, sir, do we really need a baseball bat under the bar? We're literally living weapons, that stick's useless compared to our Kagune and all our powers, not to mention all of the training we've got from our dad."
"I understand, Rachael, but it's been there since I opened the place. So it's partly sentimental, partly contingency. By all means, use what you've got. Me personally, on the other hand, I'm going for ol' faithful if trouble brews."
"Ray, to be fair, a bat can still hurt even us." Yuuki piped up as the last customer bade them goodnight and left the bar. "Not a lot, but definitely enough to get our attention."
"Which is exactly why I use it, ha ha!" Their boss laughed at the commentary, and Rachael sighed in defeat.
"At least do me a favour and get an aluminium one at some point. 'Two girls, one Bat' sounds like a fucked up porn title." Rachael took the loaded bin back to the kitchen as Yuuki likewise finished up her inventory and closed the binder.
"I've seen and heard worse!" She called over her shoulder in English, but Rachael's reply through the kitchen's door was in Russian.
"Knowing you, I'm not surprised!"
"LAPD, state your emergency." The police operator on the line spoke with a clear voice.
"I'm reporting a murder, I was just told the details... They ate some old woman!" The college boy from earlier that evening was waiting across the street from the bar, where Yuuki and Rachael were still finishing up their tasks of closing the bar.
With an audible sigh, the police operator spoke again, clearly from a prepared statement. "Sir, if the person that told you this has glittering silver hair and solid glowing eyes, then you are referring to either Yuuki or Rachael Darkwood, pertaining to an incident from six months ago. That is not a police matter, nor for the CCG. The family has special diplomatic immunity regarding their Ghoul predatory and or bioweapon aggressive habits. Thank you, and goodnight."
The line went dead, and the guy's shock took a while to wear off. When he did come back to his senses, he spotted the twins leaving the bar, both walking towards their nearby bikes, both of which were black 2008 Kawasaki Ninja ZX6R's. To set them apart from each other, the frame of the wheels were red and blue, plus the small windshield's were likewise tinted to match.
Making a snap decision, he marched across the street, reaching into his pocket to grab his butterfly knife. But, as he withdrew the weapon and twirled it open, his drunk mind completely went black.
Yuuki and Rachael heard the screech of the truck's tires right before a loud thump and crunching of bones forced them to see the accident. Rachael immediately gasped, having recognized the guy from earlier that asked about their last job.
Yuuki however, ran up to the truck and latched onto the door, having spotted the panicking driver putting the vehicle into reverse to drive away.
"Park it or I'll do it for you." Yuuki snarled, and the driver immediately complied, stepping out while Rachael called 911.
"I didn't even see him, it was just... so sudden!" The driver was distraught, and Yuuki had noticed the fear in his eyes. "I swear!"
"Sit on the curb, shut up, and stay put." Yuuki grabbed him by the shoulders, inhaling through her nose to check if he had been drinking, but couldn't smell any. He smelled of cheap coffee and - what she now recognized the scent of - fast food.
With that, Yuuki crouched down to check the college guy for vitals. As she pressed her fingers under his jaw, she noticed he had a butterfly knife laying a couple inches from his hand... with a Quinque Steel blade.
Knowing the risks, she swiped the knife and tucked it between her cleavage as she stood up and made a cutting motion with her hand at her neck towards Rachael. He was dead.
"Thank you, ladies. Are you sure you didn't see him walking out into the street?" The cop that had been taking theirs and the driver's statements asked one last time.
"I had my back turned." Yuuki repeated her words, and Rachael nodded.
"I was looking at my phone, we just heard the crash and went to help."
"Alright, thank you. You can head home now." The cop clicked his pen and nodded for them to go back to their bikes. Of course, their boss had also been questioned, and he admitted to have seen the guy in passing when he was seated at the bar. The girls had given them the guy's receipts, and he was clearly drunk off his ass when he'd walked out of the bar ten minutes before closing time.
Once they were headed home, Rachael spoke up over the intercom in their helmets. "Fucked up as it sounds... Being near his corpse got me hungry."
"Took you long enough!" Yuuki sighed, having been rather proud of how well she contained her hungry drooling the entire time. "I'm the one drooling and it took you until now to speak up!? You fuckin' pay for the food!"
"Nineteen years of research, and we've finally succeeded. With this, they don't stand a chance." An accented voice spoke from the shadows just beyond the faint glow of the stasis capsule that contained thick blue liquid encompassing a young tenager with glittering silver hair. "Isn't that right... Valentine?"