Jean slid over to Phil before he’d made it even ten feet away from the battle box. A wordless conversation flew between their eyes, the topics of which were few, but grim in nature. Despite their suspicions, nothing could be confirmed yet. Not until Chet could say his piece. Both men were in agreement with that.
“Phil! Baby! And Jean too. It gladdens my heart that our two hotshot newbies can spare some time to meet.” Chet said once they were within earshot from where he stood, leaning against a rather unremarkable steel door set into the concrete wall.
Phil opened his mouth to respond, but before any words could come tumbling out of his mouth, Chet held up a finger to forestall him.
“Naw, not out here. Too noisy, ya’ get me? In here, so I can hear myself think for once.” Chet opened the door and gestured for them to enter.
Behind the door was a short hallway with one sputtering fluorescent light on the ceiling that, like the main arena room, seemed to struggle to keep the area lit. Scattered along the walls of the hallway were several more closed steel doors. There were six in total that Phil could see, though there was no telling what could be behind the doors.
The door closed behind them, Chet ushering them down the hall to a small room at the end. Like the rest of the underground, this room fully embodied a style of utilitarian brutalism that wouldn’t have looked out of place in some Soviet housing block. The walls, ceiling, and the majority of the floor were all solid unpainted concrete. The concrete room, as blocky in shape as it was, appeared almost to be like a cube. By Phil’s rough estimation, the room was perhaps no larger than seven feet by seven feet in size.
Near the edge of the room opposite the entrance where Phil currently stood was the only anomaly that defied the sheer blandness of the space. Carved into the concrete was a smooth channel, perhaps four to six feet deep, three feet wide, and as long as the room itself was. On each end of the channel there was a hole in the wall, through which rushed countless gallons of clear water from one hole, through the channel, and out the other hole to disappear from Phil’s sight.
Inside the room there were three pieces of furniture – two chairs placed around a table. The table was close to the rushing channel of water, close enough that Phil knew if he sat at one of the chairs and leaned too far to one side, he would fall in and be left to the mercy of the water’s freezing cold clutches. Next to the table was an odd sight, however. A steel drum sat there on the ground as plain as could be. It was the type that would normally hold oil, like the drum under the bridge that Phil and the other homeless men had filled with flammables to warm their hands against. Its lid was tossed aside on the ground near the barrel, but from where Phil stood, he was unable to see the contents of the barrel.
“Here now, squeeze in.” Chet’s voice interrupted Phil’s musings, and he shuffled forward to stand next to the table so that Jean and Chet could enter the room. Jean moved over to the wall, leaning against it and casting a wary eye around the room. No one sat at the table, not even Chet. Finally, one more yakuza slipped into the room, closely followed by Lumina, who went unseen as usual. The nameless yakuza wordlessly watched Phil and Jean with eyes that resembled those of a dead fish.
Once more Phil opened his mouth to begin interrogating Chet, and once more the man held up a finger to stop him in his tracks.
“Sorry fella, but chores first.” Chet said. He gestured toward the oil drum. Then, beckoning for Phil and Jean to lean in and take in the contents of the drum, he began to speak in that oily voice of his, though partially hidden under his tones was a hint of snakelike malice.
“This channel here, it’s all river water, ya’ know? One end connects to the upstream, and the other sends the water downstream. I wouldn’t go swimming in it, mind you. The current is something wicked. It’ll snatch a grown man away like he’s a babe tossed in the rapids. Spends a while underground, too. You’ll drown before you ever reach the river itself. I’ve seen it happen before, ya’ know. Nasty stuff. Boss Guriko caught a traitor… five years ago I think? Wait, six actually. Didn’t even bother weighing the poor bastard down. The boss just picked him up and tossed him in. We found his body, ya’ know. A few weeks later, came up on the riverside. It’s crazy.”
Chet paused momentarily in his rambling speech, his eyes distant as he fell back into his memories.
“It’s crazy,” He repeated. “I never knew water could bloat a corpse like that. He burst like a fat ol' slug when the cops pulled him out. Only time I've lost my lunch on the job. Boss Guriko, though, he stayed as cool as a cucumber the whole time."
Phil was only half listening. The rest of his attention was taken up by what was inside the oil drum.
It was a man’s body.
More specifically, it was the body of a man Phil belatedly recognized. Taka. The older man clutched a cigarette between yellowed nails no more. Instead, his lifeless body was curled up. Several of his limbs looked to have been broken or bent in unnatural ways so that his body could fit inside the oil drum. No longer did Taka’s face look careworn and beaten down. Death had taken that from the man, leaving nothing but the empty expression of a lifeless corpse in its place.
“He couldn’t pay, ya’ know. That’s not the end of the world, for sure. Can’t pay? We’ll take your kidney. Still can’t pay? We’ll take the other one. For the right sum, any part of your flesh can be turned into money. What are eyes but cash? Your liver? Your balls? Your skin? Somewhere, someone out there will pay a good price. Then after that we can put you to work. We can rent you out to a black company, and if that doesn’t make things right, there’s always a diamond mine in South Africa that needs more warm bodies to throw underground! Cash is king and those without it are lower than the worms in the dirt!”
The malice in Chet’s voice increased to fill every word he spoke. “But then we have the party poopers. He was planning on going to the cops about our operation here to try and get out of his debt. Can’t have that, ya’ know. No, no, no. It’s unforgivable.”
Phil took one last look at poor Taka’s body before he placed his eyes back on Chet. The man was watching his face, and upon seeing the lack of reaction from Phil, a snakelike grin flickered across his lips.
The sound of a striking match heralded Jean lighting up a cigarette. Other than that, the room was silent. In the corner of his eyes, Taka’s body was still partially in view. Half the dead man’s face was visible, and the longer it stayed in Phil’s peripheral vision, the more Taka’s features seemed to blur together. It was not like his face was blurring together to create some formless mess, but instead, other faces seemed to poke out from the blurry parts.
First it was Taka’s face, and then Titan’s face leered out at Phil. Then Titan’s face was replaced by Bernardello’s, which melted away to show Dimitri’s boyish features. Dimitri’s face was gone before long, switching to the face of the gambler he killed in Reno, and then into the face of Tragoedia’s human host.
Phil blinked and Taka’s face came back into focus. Then, without a word, Chet walked up to the drum. He leaned down to grab the lid and popped it on with practiced ease. His foot came up, his shoe resting on the side of the drum.
One heave with his foot was enough to send the drum tumbling into the channel, where it was whisked out of view by the rushing current of water in seconds.
“Anyway,” Chet said. The silence was broken. “Good work out there. You two are strong duelists. The crowd likes ya’.”
“Your point?” Phil said. The words were doubtlessly more than simple flattery. The drum was an implied threat. The electricity during the duel probably was as well. Now, what would the threat lead to?
“That’s what I like about you,” Chet grinned wolfishly, “You’re a smart guy. I can tell you know the little voltage increase was my way of getting your attention. Damn near didn’t work, I tell ya’. My boys had to crank that sucker up to just one tick under the lethal amount for you to actually notice it. That's one hell of a pain tolerance you've got, that's for sure. Hella impressive.”
Chet slapped a palm against his head in a mocking gesture. “Whoops, that’s me rambling again. Phil, we need you to lose the next game, if you would.”
“We?” Phil questioned.
“The management.” Chet clarified. “The management wants you to lose the next game. Make it convincing, but lose in the end. Jean, we need you to lose your next game too. Then after that you’ll win against all odds.”
There it was. A request for a dive.
“Are all the matches fixed?” Jean spoke for the first time through a cloud of cigarette smoke. For Phil’s sake, the Frenchman made sure to blow the smoke away from Phil’s direction, toward the entrance to the room. The unnamed yakuza near that entrance coughed a little and glowered in Jean’s direction as the cloud made its way over to surround his head.
"No," Chet said. "Most of them aren't. We wouldn't have any credibility at all if they were. A fix here, a fix there is all we need. Enough to keep the boss and the high-rollers happy. Always keep the money men happy, that's what I've learned. Life lesson."
Phil nodded in understanding. “So we’re two newbies with a strong record right off the bat. Everyone will be betting on us winning next time, which lets your ‘high-rollers’ win serious cash when they bet on our loss.”
“Exactly!” Chet snapped his fingers, pleased that Phil had understood so quickly. “Everyone believes you'll win next, so the betting table will give crazy odds to anyone who bets on the loss instead. We’re looking at tens – no, hundreds of millions of yen for the taking.”
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“Which also means this can’t happen often otherwise people will start expecting it.” Phil concluded.
The attention-grabber. The implied threat. The request. It was all coming together, and Phil hated every second of it. He could see Jean, as casually as possible, rolling up the sleeves of his purple suit in preparation for a fight.
That was good. They were on the same wavelength. The very idea of taking a dive filled Phil with a type of disgust that felt like black slime coating his stomach. Even if they stood to gain more money than either of them had ever held in their entire lifetime, or in Phil's case, multiple lifetimes. Jean appeared to agree.
The question was, how to get out of this without ending up like Taka? Never mind any talk of fighting – a struggle in a small room like this would run a serious risk of someone falling into the channel, getting swept underground, and washing up on the shore of the river as a bloated, drowned corpse. He didn’t give a shit if Chet or the other yakuza dude went that way, but him or Jean?
Yeah, no.
They needed to get out of the room without any issues popping up, regroup somewhere else, and figure out a plan to deal with the slimy yakuza fuckwads.
Phil put on a self-assured grin.
“Look mate, I’m picking up what you’re putting down. Since you haven’t mentioned it at all, I also understand that you don’t mind if we bet on our own loss here as well. Everyone makes money with it. It’s just… well, this is all a bit abrupt. My mom, bless her heart, told me ‘Phil, you rascal, you ruffian, you lovable cad, don’t go making any important business or life decisions until you’ve slept on it, you mark my words’. So, if you don't mind, I think you have a point but I'd like to give you an answer tomorrow if that'll work."
If Phil was any less experienced than he was in the ugly side of the world, he would have missed the flicker of emotion in Chet’s eyes. It lasted no longer than a heartbeat, but the dude was not happy.
Thankfully that unhappiness did not translate to his words or actions.
"Never say I'm not a generous man," Chet sleazily grinned. "8am sharp tomorrow, I'll be expecting your answer. Don't be late."
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Phil and Jean did not stay much longer in the arena after that. There was too much to discuss and too many eyes and ears around to discuss it there. With a curious Tilla in tow, they walked over to Burger World, grabbed their usual booth, and pondered their choices.
“So, it was the Mori Family behind it.” Tilla let out a deep breath. While her face was as composed as ever, one of her hands was busy crumpling a napkin to the point that Phil had to wonder if it had personally wronged her. However, she did not seem particularly surprised at the conclusion. More of she was angry her boyfriend was being targeted.
Phil fell silent long enough for Tea to pass out cups of steaming coffee with her usual cheerful smile. Once she bustled away to help the other customers in the shop, he took a deep sip of his drink and began to think aloud.
“Chet showed us poor Taka’s body as a warning – say yes or you’re next.”
Jean’s eyes looked like chips of granite as he scowled. “Yakuza. Nothing but thugs, no different no matter what country you’re in.”
“Aye.” Phil agreed. He took another sip of coffee. The liquid was blazing hot, only a level below scalding, but the temperature was perfect for combating the winter winds from the outside. “Our pride or our lives. Heh, feels like we just had this conversation.”
That realization caused Jean to laugh loudly. “Oui Monsieur! I seem to remember our decision as well!”
Phil raised his coffee cup into the air. Jean did the same, and the two men clinked their cups together while Tilla looked on with a bemused, if not slightly exasperated expression (an expression also mirrored on Lumina’s face as well).
“Fuck Chet.” Phil began with a sharklike grin.
“Niquer les yakuzas.” Jean continued with a cocky smile to match.
"And fuck their mothers!" Phil finished. As one, the men downed their coffee in one gulp and then leaned off to the side with equally pained expressions as the insides of their mouths were seared quite handily by the hot liquid.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
“Seriously Phil, what do you actually plan to do?” Lumina asked. They were still at the Burger World, but Jean and Tilla had wandered off to go play at a pinball machine in the corner of the restaurant. Phil picked out another fry from the basket. The basket was average size, but Tea had so kindly informed them the fries were bottomless here. That meant for the equivalent of three dollars, Phil could munch on delicious fried potatoes for as long as he cared to.
“The way I see it,” Phil said once he’d washed the fries down with some coffee, “If we go down there and say no, at best Chet will have some lads beat the shit out of us until we reconsider. At worse we go like Taka went.”
All three of them (Phil, Jean, and Tilla) had agreed on that. Moreover, Tilla was of the opinion that this would not be a one-time thing. She had, of course, explained the deal her group had struck with the Mori Family, but neither Phil nor Jean had that kind of backing. Nor could Tilla give it. She could back them herself, but the rest of her group would never agree. It would just be her. No weighty ‘Duel Professor’ title attached.
Frankly, Phil was impressed she was willing to go that far. Or perhaps he should have seen it coming, the way she and Jean acted together. A regular pair of lovebirds, those two were. He had half a mind to start planning the wedding now to save on time.
“However,” Phil said through a mouthful of fries, “We go down there and say yes, we’ll be like rats in the gutter. Plus those types of people always ask for more, more, and more, until one day you’re in a car park during the middle of a blizzard busting out windows to look for forgotten purses or easy cars to jack.”
A particularly long fry, one that was about a full foot long, momentarily occupied Phil’s attention. Lumina stayed silent, watching him with considering eyes. She was used to his occasional moments of distraction. She knew Phil would pick the topic back up soon enough.
“I think I’ve been fucking around long enough. Tomorrow we’ll deliver our answer, for sure. But as a condition, which I imagine Chet would accept since it’s harmless on paper, is that I need a regular non-rigged duel against Chet. I’ll feed him some bullshit like I won’t accept working this closely with anyone unless I know their strength as a duelist. You know, real prideful Kaiba-type shit. We’ll do it in that creepy backroom of his so there won’t be prying eyes and there won’t be much backup.”
Phil’s eyes hardened with his next words.
“I’ll do some wordplay. I’ll say, ‘Hey Chet, how about we make this a betting game?’ Betting games are fun. He’ll say yes, or I’ll figure out something to say to make him say yes. I’ll sweeten the pot. I’ll put every last penny we have on it. I’ll make a joke. He can bet what he wants, but I’ll joke that we’ll bet our souls too. And then I’ll beat his ass like a drum.”
Lumina’s eyes widened in understanding. “Both parties knowingly placing their soul on the line makes it close enough to a shadow game that you can assign a penalty, even with how weakened the big guy is right now. It won’t be a real shadow game, no real monsters or real damage, but the wording… it might be enough to satisfy any spirit that’s as much of a stickler to the rules as the big guy is.”
“That’s my thinking.” Phil hummed in agreement. “The question will be if it works in practice. If it doesn’t work, I’ll treat it like a weird joke and then Jean and I will be on the first train out of this place. If it works, I feed him alive to D.3.S. Frog. Ain't that right, buddy?" Phil directed the last couple of words toward his pocket. A deep croak issued out in response, one filled with an ageless hunger and a sleepless malice. It didn't seem like there was an objection contained in that croak, and Phil considered himself a guy who was good at translating things from frog to human by now. Either that or D.3.S. wanted a handful of fries shoved in his pocket to munch on. To cover his bases, Phil sent a few down there.
“And you didn’t mention this to Jean because…”
“He knows I’ve got something, and when he sees it with his own eyes, I think he’ll be chill. We’re brothers, ya’ know. I have a feel for this kind of stuff. It’s just right now I don’t want to complicate things.”
“The truth?” Lumina quirked an eyebrow.
Phil giggled, taking another sip before answering. “Okay, you got me. I don’t think this would complicate things at all. I just want to see the surprise on his face tomorrow morning.”
Lumina pumped a fist of victory into the air. “I Knew it. Knew it! What a drama queen!”
“Yeah, yeah.” Phil acknowledged, and then a wistful note entered his voice. “Still, part of me wishes I could just fry Chet with some magic to the head and be done with it all. Shame, really. Turn him into a fry. Like this fry.” He popped another fry into his mouth to accentuate his point.
Lumina shrugged in a ‘what can ya’ do’ gesture. “I mean, you are a human. Most of you lot need a powerful artifact or the backing of a strong spirit to do anything even close to that. In your case, the big guy is a big fan of not interfering, and you've got jack squat in terms of artifacts. Besides, magical talent has a certain… feeling to it. A buzz to the air, almost. Even for humans without a lick of training. I don't get that feeling from you."
Phil sighed in casual acceptance. He’d had a feeling since day one that would be the case.
“This is why a children’s card game takes the world by storm, I guess. Don’t gotta have magical talent if you’re good at throwing down some cardboard. Ah well, here’s to that magical Geneva convention putting in the good work! Makes it so scrubs like me don’t have their ass turned into grass.”
“Yes, and without it you would be dead several times over by now!” Lumina laughed.
That was the catch. The 'magical Geneva convention', as Phil liked to call it for lack of a better name, was the general unspoken agreement between mages to settle grievances within the bounds of a shadow game instead of taking potshots at each other in the streets with fireballs, or worse, testicular torsion spells. Enforced by whatever existence made up the shadows, along with high-ranked spirits like D.3.S. Frog, it was the way things had been for countless eons, all serving to keep the world from devolving into utter chaos (instead of the partial chaos it was).
Frankly, the whole shebang was quite in favor of Phil. Having no magic of his own other than the backing of a powerful duel spirit, the agreement leveled the playing field, or perhaps even tipped it slightly in his favor if one considered the potential skill gap.
“Do you think it will end with Chet?” Lumina wondered.
Phil shook his head uncertainly. “Knowing my luck? No. But Chet was our liaison. No one else worked directly with us. With him out of the picture we’ll probably have more time. Time to figure out how to avoid taking a dive. Who knows? It could give us a position of power to negotiate something like what the Card Professors have. Or they’ll be so pissed off at his death that I’ll be able to put D.3.S. back to full strength earlier than expected.”
“Or,” Phil said in consideration after a moment of silence, “They’ll catch me by surprise, gut me, and leave me to bleed out in a back alley.”
“Like you would ever die that easily.” Lumina smirked. She took a sip of tea from her thermos, glancing at Phil’s breast pocket.
“Twice now.” Phil reminded her. “Shot in the head and run over with a truck. I call that pretty easy.”
“Sure, but in your world, you didn’t have me or D.3.S. to watch your back.” Lumina countered.
“You know, you’re right.” Phil drained his coffee cup. “It does make a hell of a difference. The chance to see you beat some yakuza dumbass to death? The attempt on my life might be worth it.”
Soon enough the fry basket was empty once more, and as Tea shot him a knowing look from across the room and began to make her way back to the kitchen for some more, Phil heaved himself out from the booth to walk toward the pinball machine with Lumina in tow. Somehow Jean had maneuvered the machine so that it would accept a quarter to play, and then it would spit the quarter back out through the return slot while still putting the pinball in place for use. Tilla and Jean both were taking turns valiantly attempting to break the high score on the machine. Judging by the fact that Yugi Muto’s initials were next to the current high score, it would be a while. Perhaps they would need assistance.
That was how the rest of the day flew by. Countless cups of coffee, countless baskets of fries, and a high score that could never be beaten unless one was the King of Games. Phil knew for sure tomorrow had its concerns, but tomorrow was still tomorrow.
Today was a day for fries, coffee, and pinball with friends.
https://discord.gg/jfRn8j5GaE!
