[color=ffa800]"Hmm phmm mm mm. Phhmm mm hmm. Hmmm hm!"[/color]

Rica continued to stuff her face with chia bagels and attempted to maintain a conversation with Richard Spuraway, the owner of Spuraway's Baked Goods™, at the same time. She did not succeed.

[color=6ecff6]"Rica, I have no idea how you manage to eat so much of my stock and never gain a single pound.[/color] He flashed Rica a smile. [color=6ecff6]"I'd give you free donuts for a year if you could somehow teach me that trick."[/color]

Rica licked the last of the cream cheese off of her thumb. [color=ffa800]"Well it's simple, Mister Rick! Come to the gym with me and find out!"[/color] Rica closed her eyes and leaned back with a contented sigh. [color=ffa800]"You've known me long enough to learn that I really really [i]really[/i] hate exercise. But the more I work out, the more I get to eat! So in a way, it kinda ends up being worth it in the end!"[/color] Rica paused. [color=ffa800]"Now, about those donuts..."[/color]

Rica never received her free donuts. Instead, she hopped on her bike and peddled back toward her apartment, hesitating as she approached Charmy's, but decided that three meals worth of bagels at SBG made getting fast food at this time of day a little silly. Arriving at her home of three years, she slipped the key into the ancient brass lock and creaked open the apartment door by two inches. It was stuck! Rica groaned and shoved the entirety of her one hundred thirty five pounds against the door. It didn't budge. [i][color=ffa800]Okay... time for my secret technique.[/color][/i] Rica took three and a half steps backward and charged at the door with the heart of a thousand elephants. Sure enough, the door swung to the side, gouging an elliptical gash into her hardwood floor in the process. [color=ffa800]"Aww ma—wooahuughhh!"[/color] Rica was thrust by her momentum face-first into her floor, crushing beneath her whatever dignity she had left.

Rica picked herself up and stumbled toward the flour-coated kitchen to wash up, but paused when she noticed a flash of red and blue in her periphery. She glanced toward her left arm and was met with a chromaticity diagram's worth of colored sparks spewing from her shoulder. [color=ffa800]"Huh?"[/color] Her confusion was answered by a smeared trail of blood across the oak wood floor, forming a wide red streak where she had fallen. Rica curiously approached the door, analyzing it more closely than she had before. The wooden rectangle was off-center, tilted, which is what had caused it to dig into the floor and jam when she tried to open it. But that wasn't surprising—there had been an unusual number of minor earthquakes in Academy City recently, which could easily explain why why the door wouldn't be balanced. Instead, what drew her attention was the rusty metal latch of the door, which had now been painted dazzling red. In fact, it was roughly the same size and shape as the patch of sparks that now faded from her newly-healed shoulder.

[color=ffa800]"Agh!"[/color] Rica thrust her palm firmly into her forehead. [color=ffa800]"I'm going to get tetanus again!"[/color]