Sweet Felony

A Second First Meeting

"Subterfuge is dangerous. Give the enemy one opening, and it could all be over."

Aru sluggishly listened to Urvashi as she struggled to keep from slumping over.

Urvashi was usually an entertaining teacher, all wide gestures and and practiced ease, but today Aru couldn't muster up the will to listen to a spiel she'd heard a million times.

Aru drowsily looked around her.

To her right, there was the pair of identical twins from that lesson with Brynne a few weeks back, and to her left, the boy who had been wearing a denim jacket on the night of the fateful raid sat.

A sharp noise interrupted Aru's observations.

Aru blinked. 

She realized Urvashi had clapped.

"So, onto today's exercise. You'll have to work in a group, together, to lie your way through a game of Uno-"

Aru raised a brow. "Uno?"

Urvashi sighed. "Yes, Uno. Lie to keep your cards from being revealed. Use your expressions to fool your fellow players. Understand?"

Aru nodded.

Urvashi handed Aru a stack of cards. "Alright. Now go!"

Aru turned to her right. "So..?"

One of the identical twins, who was wearing a tiara turned to her. "Alright, introductions first, I'm Nikita."

The other identical twin, waved shyly. "I'm Sheela, Nikita's sister."

The boy in the denim jacket cleared his throat. 

"I'm Rudy!" he declared grandly.

Nikita rolled her eyes.

Aru narrowed hers. "Hey, I remember you! You're that guy who knocked himself out-"

"AND YOU ARE?" the boy- Rudy - interrupted.

Aru sighed. "I'm Aru."

Nikita clapped her hands together. "Alright, that's out of the way. Aru, can you deal the cards?"

Aru shuffled the cards in her hands. "Sure."

Quickly, Aru shifted and mixed the cards in the stack, and dealt them to each player.

Rudy smiled at his deck, before quickly resetting his expression to stony-faced. He must've had something good then.

Nikita's face was absolutely neutral, and Sheela's expression looked slightly disappointed before turning blank.

So far, Aru could tell that Rudy probably had a good card, Sheela probably had a couple of unfavorable ones. Nikita was the only one she couldn't determine.

Aru took a peak at her cards. Aru had a couple of number cards, two reverses, and a plus four wild card. She also noticed that each card had a color label, helping players to know which color the card was.

Perfect.

Aru drew a starter card from the deck.

Yellow 3.

"Nikita, start," Aru said.

Nikita took a pause, and placed down a yellow 6.

Sheela was next in their circle. After an indeterminate amount of time and a few frowns later, Sheela placed down a blue 6.

Rudy went after Sheela. He placed down a blue 2.

Now it was Aru's turn. One of her reverses was blue, but she had a blue number card too. Aru quickly decided to place down her number card, instead of her reverse.