Survival Of The Fittest

((Lana Torres continued from Stars and Bucks))

The drama at the Starbucks was still very fresh in Lana's mind. Since then, she had been feeling more than a little stressed out. Really, she was still a little shaken up over what happened. Needless to say, things were going to be awkward between her and Dave for a while.

But things went on. Like work.

Lana worked the prize booth at The Castle, like every Saturday. She had tried to refocus her mind on readjusting the plush toys and games, rather than that incident, or the tests coming up, or... well, a lot of things.

The same plush unicorns were in store, as always, but there were new candies, toys, and stationary. In fact, they managed to get a hold of plush My Little Pony characters. There were a couple of each of the Mane Cast. Twilight, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie, Fluttershy, and yes, Rainbow Dash were all accounted for. Not just plushies either; there were a few stationary and other small toys involving ponies. And as one might expect, they went fairly quickly. She guess the brony thing was still going strong.

Not that she was complaining of course. Lana liked the new My Little Pony show. It was cute, dang it. She always in particular liked Twilight Sparkle. There was always something so adorable about her geeky bookishness.

But the plushies were going fast already. It was kind of amusing, really.

Lana had taken a box out of the storeroom, and was currently restocking. There were still plenty of plushies out back, luckily. The shipment had only come in this week. Within the next few minutes, new plush ponies were placed on the back of the booth, waiting for a young child or a brony to take them home. They were so cute. No wonder they were popular.

As she finished placing a Rainbow Dash on the back shelf, she turned to see a pair of children waiting at the other end of the counter. As she turned around, she said what had basically been drilled into her head ever since she started working here: "May I help you?"

The two children- brother and sister, she assumed- handed their ticket printouts to her, and began looking at the prizes. A few times, they asked what they could get, and Lana ended up showing them a few small toys they could have with the amount of tickets they had earned. In the end, one of them had decided on a sticky hand and a pair of silly shades, while another picked a few pencils and a pony toy.

After she handed their prizes to them, the two siblings ran off, gleefully already enjoying the prizes they had earned.

What could she say? Her job was exhausting, and there were certainly some of the more... unusual customers around. Heck, she recently heard a rumor on the grapevine that someone her age got thrown out of the Arcade a while back for harassing an employee. That had better not be one of her classmates, or else she would be disappointed. But in any case, there were times where it wasn't so bad.

Stephanie loved Saturdays. She walked happily along the sidewalk, bottle of water in hand since she planned on being out for most of the day and any time she wasn't drinking pop was better for her. The hot sun beat on down on her, but not even the heat of the day was going to get her mood down. As her destination came into view, Stephanie's pace increased, eager to get inside and play some games. Reaching the doors, she pushed them open, a wave of cool air from the air conditioned room within greeting her. Stephanie made a beeline for the token machine, depositing a $20 bill into it, collecting the tokens dispensed and slipping them into the coin purse she carried around specifically for this. There were still a few tokens from her last trip inside, but that was fine.

Her tokens taken care off, Stephanie began to wander towards the rewards booth. Normally she would go directly towards the fighting game cabinets, but she knew today that one of her good friends would be working today. She also had a small collection of ticket vouchers that she had been saving up for the last few months, which she intended on cashing in today. Sliding up to the counter, she placed her elbows on top, resting her head in her hands and smiling at the girl behind the counter.

"I've come to make your work day a pain in the butt." she said, giggling to herself over her lame joke.

Lana continued to work at her kiosk, handing out any prizes that someone wished to exchange for their ticket print-out. Really, Saturdays could get hectic sometimes, but she didn't mind. Sure, there was the obnoxious customer sometimes, but they weren't that often. Overall, come to think of it, she didn't mind working on Saturday at all.

After she briefly readjusted a large Rainbow Dash placed near the front, she turned her head and smiled. Stephanie was a good friend of hers, and it wasn't too unusual for them to run into each other when she was working. After all, Stephanie was the sort who liked games. But who didn't? Lana found games fun too, even if she didn't play them too often these days. But Stephanie preferred the fighting games. That didn't mean they didn't run into each other at work, though.

Like today.

"Hello Stephanie", she smiled more.

Really, she liked hanging out with Stephanie. They had known each other for a long time now, and it was always nice to see her and hang out with her.

Lana tried to stay professional and asked:

"How may I help you? Aside from making my workplace a pain in the butt."

Her professionalism didn't last long, though, as she had to suppress her own giggle.