Stumbling into Victory 8
Jonathan YukawaBrockton Bay, NH, USA
Saturday night, I headed out to be a cape again. I didn’t have much time before this city went to hell in a handbasket.
Taylor already triggered. She was probably nursing an army of spiders in her basement to weave her costume right this minute. Coil was urging the Undersiders into making a name for themselves. And, of course, there was Alice Matsuri, my childhood pain in the ass, here to light the literal fuse.
Left alone, this world would ride down the canon rails. Alice would get herself birdcage alongside Lung. Lung would kill her in prison. Leviathan. Slaughterhouse Nine. Echidna. I couldn’t deny it. I was feeling the pressure.
A part of it was that my savings wouldn’t keep me afloat forever now that I’d quit my part-time job at the campus library, but that couldn’t be helped. As Atem said, I needed to overcome challenges. If I wanted to grow powerful enough to make a difference, maybe even to kill Leviathan, I needed a cape life more than I needed a job.
Hopefully, I’d get to kill three birds with one stone today. I waited with bated breath as I called Coil on my burner phone. Not the one Chariot gave me, no way was I keeping anything Coil could have gotten his grubby mitts on, a spare that I’d purchased for fifty bucks from a guy named “Uncle Chen.”
“Hello? This is Konami. I was told to call this number if I wanted to be patched into Coil,” I began.
“Yes, this is one of mine,” Coil said. He didn’t sound at all like the kind of man who kept little girls in his basement. Then again, that was probably the goal. I wondered if he practiced his child predator voice in the mirror. “I remember you, Konami. I take it that you have considered my offer?”
“I have. I think you and I can help each other out. I am a hero. But, like you said, just because you happen to be one of many who benefit is no reason for me to not arrest villains. Inaction will only preserve the status quo.”
“Indeed, I’m glad you’ve come to the right conclusion. I assure you, you will find that I am a valuable source of information. Now, what did you have in mind?”
“Well, my goal remains taking down villains. I figured that receiving a bit of information from you will speed up my search. So, how about a test run?”
“You want to see how useful I can be. Very well, Konami; I can agree to that. Where are you right now?”
“I am at the corner of Fairview Avenue and Twelfth Street. Can you tell me where the nearest villain is?” I asked with an innocuous smile.
Right now, I sat roughly in the middle of various gang territories. There was the ABB and the Boat Graveyard to the east. The Empire was a bit further to the south, in the commercial districts and select residential neighborhoods. The old trainyard was to the north, which was where the Merchants, the biggest of the minor powers, skulked in the shadows.
I doubted he’d give me information about the Merchants. Not only were they barely worth mentioning, Coil had a man inside: Trainwreck. He probably didn’t want me fighting one of his own moles by accident.
And, given he was using the Undersiders to bait Lung already, I suspected he’d point me towards the Empire. If his goal was the destabilize the city, few things would kick that hornet’s nest faster than an Asian hero taking out one of their capes.
“Cricket would be the nearest cape,” he said, confirming my guess. “Are you familiar with the old industrial area of town?”
“I am,” I nodded. “It’s mostly Empire turf now, but I hear there are a handful of minor gangs around.”
“Nobody worth mentioning, mostly solo capes who pay taxes to the Empire anyway. Cricket is part of a more brutalist faction in the Empire. She isn’t good for delicate work, but she’s quite eager to show off her strength.”
“So Kaiser keeps her in the border territories as an enforcer.”
“That’s right. She uses a network of small businesses as bases and can be found nearby. I’m happy to provide the address.”
“Much obliged, Coil.”
“You are most welcome, Konami Happy hunting.”
I cut the call. Soon, a text message arrived with the address. A quick Google search told me that it was a gym, not unlike the Laborns’. I supposed it made sense, what with her being a former pit fighter.
By relying on Coil like this, I was allowing him to draw me in and wrap me up in his network, not unlike his namesake. But at the same time, I was setting his expectations, allowing him to think he’d already succeeded. It helped mitigate the possibility of him taking drastic action against me.
I also hadn’t lied. Brockton Bay was a city of over three hundred fifty thousand people. Finding villainous capes wasn’t easy. His assistance would make such encounters far more frequent, giving me the opportunity to grow stronger, arrest villains, and rob them blind while I was at it.
That said, I had to be careful. As Atem was eager to remind me, Coil was using me just as much as I was using him. His biggest advantage was his thinker power. Mine was that my own abilities were beyond the comprehension of Shards. We were caught in a game of information cat and mouse.
Therefore, I could expect to be watched. Coil was almost certainly planning to use this encounter to gather information about me. He was feeling me out still, making a plan that would allow him to extract the most use out of me with the least amount of effort. After all, even if he could create a forked simulation, his attention was limited and he had so many pans in the oven.
The gym had a large, open concept layout, with lots of mirrors and windows to give the place an airy vibe. It looked like James’ gym fucked a Planet Fitness, but somehow even tackier. People could look inside if they were interested and walked across the parking lot, but I doubted any cops would answer a call here.
Immediately, I called Man-Eater Bug and sent it up the building. It could break a skylight at my signal. Frenzied Panda and Kagemusha joined Silver Fang at my side as I scoped out the place. The Furious Sea King, I held in reserve. I wanted a monster to throw at a problem, just in case this ended up being bait.
I circled the building, looking for a good place to crash in from. I was hoping that I could hit them from multiple angles, with Man-Eater Bug dropping in from the sky and my other monsters encircling them.
Inside was Cricket and eight men surrounding a black man. Well, some were barely more than boys,, probably still in high school. Others looked like they wouldn’t mind firebombing up an orphanage for hosting brown kids. A lynching, then. I remembered that Hookwolf, Cricket, and Stormtiger liked to host fight nights; this must have been the peewee initiation.
One in particular stood across from the black man as the others circled them. He was a scrawny, pimply kid who didn’t know fuck-all about fighting. I could tell because he had a bike chain wrapped around each fist like a fucking idiot. He was as likely to break his own hands as he was his opponent’s face.
I wondered why Cricket hadn’t bothered to teach him to wrap his hands. Then, I remembered this was Cricket. She probably thought it’d be hilarious. Either that, or this was supposed to be some kind of tough love, “Prove thyself,” thing.
In contrast, the black man was half a head taller. Not much older, but I would have bet money on him had the circumstances been different. As it was, his fearful eyes darted back and forth, locked most often on the pair of kama that Cricket twirled lazily in the background.
The two began to fight. The white man, emboldened by his friends, took some test swings. I couldn’t hear them, but the black man must have figured that if he was going to die, he may as well get a few licks in. He punched the white kid with a desperate hook, sending him stumbling.
One of his pals shoved him back towards the would-be victim. Cricket must have said something because I saw his shoulders set and his movements get a little sharper. That was when Man-Eater Bug arrived at the skylight.
I gave it the mental signal to descend, marking the cape as the priority target. Despite the name, nonlethal force was thankfully well within its abilities, so long as I made sure to specify my objectives.
A lot of things happened all at once.
Glass shattered, forming a cloud of shards that briefly sparkled in the light. My bug descended with an ungodly screech that tickled my lizard brain. Frenzied Panda smashed through a side window with his oversized bamboo staff as Kagemusha and Silver Fang followed behind.
Cricket reacted immediately. Spinning in place, one kama left her hand in an overhand throw that was too smooth to not have been practiced. Even as it sailed through the air, she was already in motion, diving aside to make some distance and keep an eye on all of us.
The rest of them weren't nearly so composed. Shouts of surprise and fear filled the air as my monsters rushed them. Still, they kept their shit mostly together, scattering to make distance and putting the gym equipment between them and the oncoming monsters.
The sickle would have struck Man-Eater Bug’s face had it not shielded its face with its forelimbs. As it was, the blade bounced off its forelarm. It landed and went after Cricket. My logic was that it had natural armor. Cricket’s sonar bullshit could be used to give her a combat thinker rating, but she didn’t have a way to hit harder than any other person.
“Fuck, who is tha–Is that a fucking panda?” I heard one of the gangsters shout. He fumbled with a gun as my monster’s bamboo staff slammed into his gut. It sent him rolling and I was pretty sure I heard a rib crack. Maybe out for the count, maybe not.
It wasn’t very funny, but I cracked up anyway. It reminded me of something out of a Three Stooges skit.
The others quickly rallied. Maybe it was because being a gangster in Brockton Bay wasn’t for the faint of heart, but they drew their weapons. A pair of them immediately locked onto me. Always kill the master.
It was a pity. I still couldn’t be very far from my monsters. The further I got, the more tenuous their connection to me became. As it was, I ducked behind a wall as bullets sailed by.
“Fuck,” I swore, my heart pounding in my ears.
I still wasn’t used to this. Getting shot at was a relatively new phenomenon to me and I really wasn’t bulletproof. I couldn’t wait until I drew an equip spell I could wear.
Thinking fast, I summoned the Mystical Moon. It only buffed beast-warrior types, not beasts, but it was still a fuck-massive moon at my back. I used its silvery shimmer as a spotlight, directing it away from my position.
As I’d hoped, they followed the distraction. That gave Silver Fang enough time to close the distance. Shouts of pain and terror filled the air, alongside more gunshots and a yip of pain. Whatever else could be said of my goodest boy, he wasn’t bulletproof.
I leaned in to look. Things weren’t going as well as I’d hoped. I was learning that while high-level monsters could be godlike, my current crop were distinctly lacking in that regard.
Three of the men had Frenzied Panda surrounded. He swung his bamboo staff in wild arcs, but there wasn’t as much room to maneuver as I’d first expected. The gym equipment kept getting in the way, and though he could sweep them aside, they destroyed any momentum he built up. The goons were using that to good effect.
I tried to direct him mentally. I failed. The “frenzied” in his name was apt. Though I could give him broad strokes orders like “Don’t kill,” I had zero control over the beast on a tactical level.
Silver Fang wasn’t doing so hot, either. He wasn’t entirely out of the fight, but rivulets of blood matted his fur and he was obviously limping. He tried to flank a man, but couldn’t pick up enough speed to catch him off guard. I’d have to desummon him to recover later. As it was, he was mostly a distraction at this point.
On the plus side, the potential hostage situation had resolved itself for now. A fourth gangster had reached the would-be lynching victim. He chucked one of the deadlift plates at his back, sending the man tumbling to the ground with a cry of pain. He had a knife and was about to take him hostage when Kagemusha reached him.
“Fight with honor, cur!” Kagemusha shouted in old-timey Japanese. It was the kind of accent I only saw in period dramas about the Sengoku period, which I supposed was appropriate given he followed Shien.
A swift slice followed. The gangster’s hand, and the knife held within, flew across the room as bone and flesh were severed alike. I had a feeling I’d be hearing from the PRT about that one, however “nonlethal” it technically was.
When I last summoned him, he claimed that he was no master swordsman, merely the attendant of one, but I had my doubts. Maybe he held himself to a higher standard, but that cut looked perfect to my amateur kendoka eyes.
My intentions flowed into the human-like monster. He placed the black man at his back and held his sword before him, daring any to draw near.
Then, I felt a persistent ringing in my ears. It was high-pitched, so high that it was only just shy of being completely inaudible for humans. I wished it was, because listening to it made my head throb.
My monsters had it worse. Pandas, wolves, and whatever the fuck Man-Eater Bug was obviously had better hearing than me. They cringed in pain and four men took the chance to gun down Silver Fang.
I saw red. I knew intellectually that he’d be back, but there was something viscerally enraging about watching someone shoot my dog.
Before I was fully conscious of my actions, I pointed towards Cricket and shouted, “Hinotama!”
Four fireballs flew from my hand. Each was twice as large as my hand and sent the men diving for cover. I had enough presence of mind to strike the ground or gym equipment.
A set of explosions rocked the gym as broken equipment flew across the room. Two men took it the worst, both from the initial blast and a barbell that slammed into a knee and ribs respectively. They went down screaming and didn’t get up.
Frenzied Panda reacted likewise. By now, he had more space to maneuver thanks to the sheer destruction and swung his staff at the source of the ringing. She dodged and the blow crashed into the gym floor, shattering the ground as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to it.
Cricket took the chance with quiet glee. She used his staff as a step-ladder, nimbly leaping up to slam her second kama into his eye.
A roar of agony filled the air as my monster shattered into spirit energy. That was two of my four monsters down.
She could not keep Man-Eater Bug from clawing her, though. There was a flicker of surprise there, probably because she had to choose between echolocation and that dog whistle. She was literally whistling, after all.
Her scream sounded strange thanks to the voicebox she used. A splatter of red dripped across the room as she rolled away, cradling her mangled arm. My bug started to go after Cricket, but I directed it to target the remaining three goons. Things could get messy if they rushed Kagemusha to try to secure their hostage.
As Cricket grabbed the first sickle she’d thrown with her remaining good arm, I ran into the room.
“Coward,” she growled out, voice filled with static.
Rather than banter with her, I held out a hand again. “Hinotama!”
She leapt to the side, tossing herself with all the desperation of a woman fleeing a burning building. And, why wouldn’t she?
I shot fireballs. Logic dictated that I could continue to shoot fireballs. Sure, I only had one copy of the spell, and it could only be used once per day, but she didn’t know that.
Instead, a Trap Hole emerged precisely where she was about to land. She was too fast for me. In any normal circumstance, she could run circles around me before gutting me from behind. But if she was already in the air, there was only one place she could land.
“Ah, just kidding. Trap Hole,” I said blithely.
A squawk of surprise came from the hole. There was a dull thud, followed by the sound of something breaking. Her cry of pain and rage filled the air.
Ten feet didn’t sound like a lot. It was barely enough for some of the bigger monsters to twist an ankle. But for people, that was about one story in depth, and she’d gracefully swan-dived into it.
I looked into the hole with a smug grin. She glared up at me with white-hot wrath and I knew I’d made a nemesis this day. Maybe it was the spirit of the gamer-pharaoh in me, but there was something inordinately satisfying about fucking with people.
‘Please don’t blame me for your personality quirks,’ Atem said dryly. ‘I assure you, your sadism is entirely your own.’
‘Hehe, fair enough. Is summoning always going to be this tiring?’ I asked as a wave of exhaustion washed over me. I’d summoned four monsters, lost two, and used two spells.
‘You are improving. When you first began, you could not summon a single monster without feeling winded.’
‘True. I’m pretty tapped out, though.’
‘Patience, my friend. Strength comes with time.’
‘You’re right, Atem. I’d better not linger, though.’
I pulled out a rolled up bandage and tossed it to Kagemusha. “Wrap ol’ stumpy, please. We don’t want him bleeding out.”
“As you say, heika,” my samurai said. Ever since he learned I spoke fluent Japanese, he refused to speak anything else. He also called me “emperor,” which I supposed wasn’t too different from “pharaoh.”
While he did that, I began looting the place. I figured that an Empire front could stand to lose some cash, guilt-free target and whatnot. I only found a couple hundred bucks in the back office before I had to bail.
The police and PRT were undoubtedly on their way. The fight hadn’t lasted long, but someone surely heard the commotion by now. I didn’t want to gamble on whether they or the Empire reinforcements would arrive first by sticking around.
Actually, looking around, I doubted the PRT would give me a better reception than Kaiser. Several men had broken bones from Frenzied Panda, lacerations from Man-Eater Bug and Silver Fang, and burns from my Hinotama. One was missing a hand. Cricket looked like she’d broken her one good arm by landing on it wrong.
The PRT liked things to be neat and clean. They wanted their heroes to be unblemished paragons of justice, and that meant limiting their use of force to things that looked good in photographs. This gym, utterly trashed as it was, was most certainly not it. Depending on which hero accompanied the black vans, an attempt at forced recruitment wasn’t off the table.
Tonight was a little close for comfort. Kagemusha was relatively fresh, but Man-Eater Bug had taken some hits from Cricket and the odd stray bullet. I did still have Furious Sea King in reserve. On the spells side, I had Umi, Fissure, and Remove Trap. In a pinch, I supposed I could start a small flood or pull another surprise tactic with the hole, but once I used those, I’d be out, and they weren’t exactly damaging spells.
It wasn’t very brave of me, but better safe than sorry. Dismissing the Mystical Moon, I slunk away into the darkness.
‘You seem dissatisfied,’ Atem noted.
‘I am. I wanted to beat Cricket more definitively and give her to the PRT, actually take her off the field instead of leaving her for whoever arrives first,’ I said.
‘Withdrawing for tonight is the right option. Caution is the better part of wisdom. That, and you confirmed Coil’s willingness to assist you, however temporary the arrangement may be.’
‘So I have. Just the fact that I used his help is good. I’m probably going to be called a villain or a violent vigilante for this.’
‘You are a violent vigilante.’
‘Thanks, Atem. I can always count on you for the truth.’
‘You can, and your sarcasm is noted,’ he said dryly. ‘If you wish for good news, then I will have you know that we can pull for a new booster pack tonight.’
That got me to perk up immediately. My inner gambler did the happy dance. ‘We can? That’s awesome; it charged faster than I expected.’
‘Your soul is not a cell phone that needs charging… That said, you have been quite active. Would you like to pull from a different booster pack?
‘Will it give me a larger variety of monsters? You said that binding a ka would help me filter my searches in the future.’
‘It would help, yes. I also warned you that attempting to bind a powerful ka when you are not ready can be dangerous. A more powerful monster is not always the answer.’
‘That’s true, but I’m not looking for the strongest monster. I’m looking for a monster from an archetype I like. What’s the booster available?’
‘The pack available is called Soul of the Duelist.’
There was a problem. I had no clue what was in that booster pack. ‘Ah… No clue. At least with Legend of Blue Eyes White Dragon, the star card is in the name. Since it’s the first booster pack, I can also assume Exodia and Dark Magician are there as well.’
‘Quite. This next booster pack seems like a risk. I remember children searching for “chase cards” from Industrial Illusions in such a fashion.’
I changed out of my costume, dismissed the puzzle and my monsters, and reached my flat. My friends were already asleep so I gingerly tiptoed into the bathroom and took a shower before grabbing a midnight snack.
Setting myself on the bed, I considered my options. Blue-Eyes would have been amazing. But, it was also the monster most likely to have an ego, both because of Kisara and because Kaiba was Kaiba. There was a solid chance that such a powerful dragon would outright refuse to be my bound ka.
Dark Magician was better, but I was not Atem. Mahad wasn’t likely to serve another. I didn’t know if his or Mana’s souls would come with their counterparts, but I had a feeling they wouldn’t want to be summoned by me.
I decided to take the gamble. As cool as calling out Exodia would have been, I didn’t think continuing to pull Legend of Blue Eyes just for that chase card was worthwhile, especially since I’d have to look for all the pieces to unseal the legendary guardian.
‘Let’s do it,’ I said as I tucked myself into bed. Experience taught me that pulling a pack would send me to dreamland.
‘As you wish,’ Atem agreed.
I felt a sudden drain of my ba. Every last drop I had left got sucked away, leaving me with a profound hollowness and bone-deep exhaustion.
As my vision swam, nine cards appeared before me. I let out a quiet chuckle.
‘Heh, looks like my gamble paid off.’
‘So it has, Jonathan. So it has.’
Element Soldier, Masked Dragon, Rafflesia Seduction, Red-Eyes Black Chick, Dark Mimic LV1
Abyssal Designator, Fusion Weapon
Taunt, Spirit Barrier
Author’s Note
I was looking through the oldest TCG booster packs released. I admit it, I chose Soul of the Duelist because Red-Eyes Black Chick is a common. That, and SotD came out in 2004. It seemed like a nice jump in power without getting ridiculous about it.
As far as highly versatile archetypes spread across many boosters go, I feel like REBD is pretty close to the top of that list. I used to play a Slash Dragon deck and remember loving it. It’s probably shit now, though.
He won’t strictly be a REBD player. Rather, this is just the deck that he’s mindfully putting together, if that makes any sense. It’s mostly a way for me to filter through the booster packs.
Anyway, here’s his fourth pull. No, Spirit Barrier doesn’t make Jonathan invincible so long as a monster is “on the field.” That’s bullshit card game logic, guys. In the same way Trap Hole doesn’t immediately execute someone, Spirit Barrier is just that, a barrier that lets Jonathan tank physical hits with his ba instead of his body.
I have no idea what a “real world” Abyssal Designator would do, though. Feel free to throw in ideas.
Animal Fact: Orcas are contextual learners with incredible vocal plasticity. In layman’s terms, that means orcas can learn to speak dolphin, provided they’re put in close proximity for long enough.
A 2014 study by Musser et. al., published in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, studied this exact thing. They found that an orca began to exhibit click trains and whistles that were typical of bottlenose dolphins.
The researchers posited that even orcas could feel the need to fit in with a social group, but that’s probably projecting. Still, I suppose that every form of whalesong is like a different dialect in the end.