Stumbling into Victory 10
Thomas CalvertBrockton Bay, NH, USA
Konami was turning out to be a useful tool. He had his pride, but it was obvious what he was really looking for. In the ten days since we’d made contact, I pointed him at safehouses and fronts that I knew the gangs could afford to lose. They’d rattle their sabers, maybe the lesser lieutenants would see it as a chance to prove themselves, but the status quo would remain undisturbed.
This level of “moderate nuisance” was exactly where I wanted him. I could escalate his threat level as I pleased. He was a scapegoat, a piece I could deploy or leave hanging as it suited my purposes, perhaps once I got a full grasp of his summoning capabilities and could make an informed decision.
Other than Cricket, I’d ensured that he hadn’t had any encounters with villainous capes, not that the PRT considered him to be much better. He’d left several with serious injuries in the way of broken bones, burns, and lacerations. One man was missing a hand.
The fact that he’d been facing the Empire meant little, not when I could help nudge the narrative from all sides. It was a simple matter to make sure that my narrative, was seen first. The next time he encountered a Protectorate hero, he’d be treated as a dangerous vigilante, not unlike poor Shadow Stalker had been.
It helped that he was so financially motivated. Oh, he pretended otherwise, but Konami was a “good person” in the same way most people were: in a limited capacity, so long as it didn’t inconvenience them unduly. He didn’t want thankless patrols; he wanted acceptable targets he could rob blind without burdening his conscience. And men like that were easy to manage.
“You have two options. Rumor has it that the ABB has recruited a third cape. I don’t know anything about her and could use boots on the ground to investigate them,” I told him.
“What’s the second option?” he asked, as I thought he might.
“There is a Merchant safehouse you can hit. Don’t expect much, I have had little reason to care about what those bottomfeeders get up to.”
“I’ll take the second option. You know I’m always low on cash, Coil.”
“I figured you would. But tell me, Konami. Do you not feel as if you are wasting your talents?”
“Oh? How do you figure that?”
“The Merchants are the lowest of the low. You could be making a real difference.”
“A real difference, huh? I suppose you mean by hitting bigger targets? Or by formally joining up with you?”
“And why not? I can offer you more than the pittance you have been looting from these excursions.”
“I admit it’s tempting. I’ll think on it; you’re hardly the worst thing to happen to this city.”
I had him followed at a distance and closed and reopened the second timeline. There was additional information I had to review from Tattletale. It contained a dossier of just seventeen Asian American college students, all about Konami’s height and skin tone.
At first, I expected him to be a young man lashing out against the ABB and Empire, someone driven by reactionary idealism. In which case, I fully expected the ABB to hold his family hostage in short order. He’d hardly be the first to trigger under Lung’s thumb and the ABB was a highly insular group, as race-oriented gangs tended to be. They had their own means of ferreting out new parahumans.
Such an event would have driven him to me, giving him all the more reason to loathe the gangs. I’d help him rescue his family and get his civilian life back together, convincing him that I was on his side while alienating him from the Protectorate. It wouldn’t have taken much, just a case of violent vigilantism or involuntary manslaughter here and there. Conveniently, I’d also have his family if things came to that.
But no, that kind of tragic and convenient backstory never materialized. Combined with a handful of other context clues, Tattletale concluded that he was a student from out of the city. And given his lack of noticeable accent, she figured he was from the New England area, New York or New Jersey at the furthest.
Brockton Bay University was not a prestigious school. Not awful by any stretch, it had a competitive pharmacology program for graduates, but it was firmly a second-tier university. Given the rampant infestation of Nazis and the abundance of comparable if not better universities in the region, few minorities voluntarily studied here, not unless they were local and had little choice.
“Three from Manchester. One from Albany. One from Bridgeport. Six from Boston and New York respectively,” I mused. It was a manageable list, especially given we’d only run a demographic analysis.
I kept a loose eye on the raid. He was growing more powerful. Most parahumans only grew more comfortable with their powers, but he seemed to have a new summon every few days. He obviously had limitations, four or five summons at most, and I’d yet to see him use more than one or two “spells.”
I wanted to test him further so I’d led him to Mush. The literal trash man lived a lonely existence, an outcast even from fellow Merchants when they didn’t need him. I considered ordering Trainwreck to provide backup, then decided against it when I saw Konami’s summons for the night. I’d only lose my plant in the gang.
Konami swept down on the Merchant safehouse atop dragonback. His mount was a monstrous creature, thrice the size of a minivan with pinkish-red scales and a prominent beak. Flanking it was a second dragon whose face was covered in hardened, squarish scales, almost like a helmet or mask. Compared to those two, the bat-winged head didn’t seem too dangerous.
They made short work of Mush and his few minions. The winged head fired cannonballs from its tubular snout. Each exploded with great force, sending blasts of air in every direction. I judged that the cannonballs would only kill if they struck directly, but the air they released was enough to blow men off their feet. For druggies and dealers, that show of force was more than enough to dissuade them.
As for Mush himself, Konami’s second dragon simply grabbed the trash-man and took off. It then slammed the cape into the ground. When Mush thought about fighting back, it breathed a gout of flames that taught him better. All the while, Konami happily looted the safehouse and torched the drugs before dialing the police.
Strong. He was too strong. It hadn’t been three weeks since he debuted. It wouldn’t be long before Lung heard about tonight.
Just in case, I had a sniper shoot one of his dragons. To my relief, it died instantly, shattering into millions of fragments, not unlike glass. Though Konami boasted incredible power and versatility, it seemed his creations could be managed. He was not beyond my ability to control.
He wanted the best for this city, provided he himself had to sacrifice little. He was overly cautious, perhaps out of a fear of Lung or Kaiser. He liked to tell himself that he was heroic, but that risk-avoidant behavior would keep him from making any real impact on the city until trouble found him. In other words, Konami was a passive, and therefore predictable, person.
“Well done, Konami,” I said smoothly as I shut off that timeline. I’d long since mastered the fine art of smiling at people while I contemplated murder.
“Not bad, if I do say so myself,” he said with an overly casual drawl. He counted the bills even as one of my men kept his head in his crosshairs. “Just shy of two grand. I was hoping for a little more.”
“You know my answer to that.”
“I do. And you know what? Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m ready for bigger and better things than raiding the odd safehouse.”
I closed my timelines and refreshed my power. This sounded like a conversation I wanted to navigate carefully. “Oh? What convinced you?”
He gestured around him. “Come on, it’s obvious. I know you’ve been watching. My projections are growing stronger. I can upkeep more of them, and each of a higher quality, too.”
“You are more powerful than I expected,” I admitted. “I was serious, you know. If you work for me, I can pay you what you’re worth. This would mean you can go after bigger targets without worrying about money.”
“True. It’s not that I don’t understand the principle of opportunity cost, Coil, but I do have some reservations.”
“Hasn’t my intel been accurate?”
“It has. I don’t know what your power is, but it’s clearly effective. My problem with our arrangement is that this tells me nothing about you, the man I will be serving.”
“I’m afraid a face-to-face meeting is difficult. There is trust, and then there is folly, Konami. Perhaps one day, but not now.”
“This isn’t a corporate job; I’m not interested in an in-person interview. No, what I mean is that I don’t know how to distinguish between you and your power.”
“My power is mine. Is there a difference?” I asked, curious in spite of myself.
“Of course there is. A thinker can pull information out of nowhere, but that doesn’t make them a good decision-maker. If I am to follow you, I want to know that you are a man who can make smart decisions, not just be led around by the nose by his own power.”
“And everything I have given you is just that, information.”
“That’s right. I’m more than my dragons. You need to show me that you’re more than your power, Coil,” he said.
Arrogant shit. He hadn’t been like this when we first met. Then again, he’d been much weaker then. Did he feel more comfortable now that he had some exposure to the cape life? Or, was it because he had two dragons and felt invincible? There was also the possibility that his summons influenced his mental state, giving him a distinct, draconic personality.
The strongest powers tended to influence the mind, or made existing neuroses worse. Burnscar’s obsessive pyromania and the Faerie Queen’s alien mentality were good examples. In the Bay, Lung could lose control if he grew too much and I was well-aware of Armsmaster’s neurotic fixation on efficiency. If this was true, Konami himself might be unaware of this aspect of his powers, something to keep an eye on.
Regardless of the reason, he was proving to be a prideful fool. I made a note to accelerate any research into his past; that leverage would be needed soon. He was from out of town. That made retaliation against his friends and family more difficult, but the reverse was true as well: Once I found them, I could secure them for myself before he even knew to move.
For now, I chose to play along. “Prove that I am more than my power? How do you propose I do that? Alas, Konami, I have no intention of telling you what my power is.”
“True, you’d be a fool to tell me and any information you give me could be derived from your power, a contact you’ve cultivated within the gangs, or your personal analysis and I would have no way to tell the difference.”
“So what is it you are asking for? Is there someone specific you want information on?”
“Nah, like I said, that doesn’t tell me what kind of man you are,” he said. “Hmm… Play a game with me, Coil. How do you feel about chess?”
“A game… of chess,” I repeated out of sheer bafflement. My estimation of his intelligence was dropping like a rock. “You must be a fan of movie tropes. You understand that being good at chess doesn’t prove your intelligence?”
“Of course I know that. That said, chess is a closed system. We both know all the pieces on the board. Prove to me that you can think better than me. No powers, just us and a board game.”
“This is ridiculous. And how will you know that I am not cheating with my power?”
“I suppose I’ll just have to rely on your sense of honor, as we all must at some point. That’s part of the fun, no? If I call you out, and can tell you how you’ve been cheating, then I hope you will be honest enough to accept a penalty.”
I chuckled darkly. “I think I see your play. You really believe you can discern my power just through a single game of chess?”
“I think it’s worth a shot. If nothing else, I’m confident in my skills.”
“You will lose, and you will have no way to tell what my power is by the time the game is over.” Of that, I was sure. I said I was a thinker. I wasn’t. I split timelines. If anything, I personally believed I was a shaker with a thinker component.
“Then I’ll accept defeat with grace. After all, if your power can help you plan several steps ahead of me, that’s also an answer. What this game will prove, is that you are a better commander than me even when we have access to the same information.”
I allowed myself a thoughtful hum. In my second timeline, I had him shot by a sniper from four blocks away. This level of stupidity deserved to be punished. “You… You really believe that a game of chess should decide who you follow?”
“I do. It might seem silly, but this really is all I want. If you beat me, I will join your organization without reservations. In fact, I will unmask before you. However, if I win, the reverse will be true. You will serve me. You will provide me information to use as I deem fit,” he said, voice steady.
“I admit, this is the most unique condition anyone has ever proposed before joining me.”
“And? Do we have a deal, Coil?”
“As you wish, Konami. How should we do this?”
X
Jonathan Yukawa
So began my first shadow game. Atem could not take over my body, but that didn’t mean the Millennium Puzzle was a fancy paperweight. At the end of the day, it was a pseudo-divine artifact meant to be used in contests of the spirit.
The terms were simple. If Coil cheated, and I caught him cheating, he would receive a proportional penalty. If I won, he would serve me. Unfortunately, there was a price to be paid in turn: If I lost, I would serve him without complaint. I’d give him my everything, represented by the loss of my mask.
Atem or Bakura could have come up with better terms. Seto would have crushed him like the dragon incarnate he was. Ishizu would have run circles around Coil and Marik would have brainwashed the idiots who’d been following me. But I wasn’t them. I was but an acolyte in sorcery. I had to offer an equal price to initiate a shadow game.
‘Well played,’ Atem said. ‘You are well-spoken when you want to be.’
‘It helps that he thinks I’m a greedy idiot putting on airs. Can I count on you?’ I asked as we set up in a park.
In front of us was a stone chess board that some of the elderly liked to play at on the weekends. One of Coil’s mercs had arrived with a chess set. He’d sit and move the pieces in his boss’ place. A video chat would prove his instructions were his own.
Out of courtesy, I dismissed all my monsters save one. Silver Fang sat curled around my feet. Coil allowed it, probably thinking that the wolf was no threat to a fire team he was likely moving into position this very minute.
‘Of course. Do you think he will keep his word?’
‘Coil? Not a snowball’s chance in hell. Actually, I’m counting on it. He lost the moment he agreed to play our game, but it’d be nice if he makes things worse for himself.’
“Why don’t you take white and move first?” Coil said magnanimously as his representative sat behind the black king. He sat at his desk, a looming, shadowy figure in a snake-themed costume.
“Oh? Giving me a handicap? Then I’ll humbly accept,” I replied. I moved my pawn to E-4, a classic opening move that freed my queen and bishop.
“Pawn to C-6,” Coil said in response.
I… had no idea why he did that. It looked like a passive move that blocked his own knight. His queen was free, but that was all.
Seeing how he wasn’t going to contest me for the central four squares, I moved a second pawn to D-4. Immediately after, Coil placed his pawn in D-5, offering it to my opening pawn as a trade.
‘Uh… What do I do now?’ I asked the all-knowing King of Games.
‘You know, this might be a bad time to mention that I never played much chess,’ he said solemnly.
‘You’re fucking with me.’
‘Yes, I am. Take the pawn.’
‘Don’t scare me like that, Atem.’
‘Don’t ever say I don’t pay rent,’ he said dryly.
We made the trade, one pawn each. After Coil took my pawn in retaliation, Atem had me move my bishop to D-3.
Did I understand why? No, no I did not. I chose to trust Atem-sensei and admire his wisdom. I sympathized with the merc sitting across from me. We were but two vessels for the whims of wiser men.
The game progressed like this. Black knight to F-6. White pawn to C-3. Bishop, G-3. Knight, E-2. I only vaguely knew what was happening, and that, just enough to know I was out of my depth. It was only on the tenth exchange that Atem’s bishop took Coil’s at D-6.
“You… are better than expected,” Coil said as his queen finally made her move. He seemed surprised, which probably meant I’d succeeded in convincing him of my idiocy.
More importantly, it meant Coil was almost certainly using his power on me. He was the type of person who’d feel petty enough to win a chess game, no matter what he intended after.
“Thank you. Did you think I’d try for a gimmicky, early gambit and hope for the best?” I asked as Atem castled our king.
“Truthfully, yes. I expected this to be over by the tenth move.”
“You’re better than I expected as well. I’d almost say you’re cheating.”
“Almost, but not quite?”
“No. You could have a program open in front of you, but the time you take to think is very human. If you’re cheating, it’s with your power.”
“Or, perhaps I am naturally good at this game. I do fancy myself something of a mastermind,” he mused. After a few seconds of thought, he castled his own king as well.
“That’s possible, yes.”
The game continued for another twenty moves. Coil played well. To my surprise, he matched Atem point for point. Until, Coil lost two pawns in succession and he slowly began to fall behind.
This was the real reason I’d chosen chess. Coil thought he was splitting the timeline. He wasn’t. It was common knowledge within the Worm fandom that he was actually just running two simulations while being piloted by his own power.
Except, he wasn’t Contessa. His power wasn’t the Path to Victory. It did not make decisions that Coil himself wouldn’t make, nor could it give him conclusions he could not reach had he made slightly different choices. Even if Coil tried to simulate every move, the result wasn’t victory. At best, he’d be facing Atem twice, which sounded absolutely exhausting.
“You’re losing,” I observed plainly. He had not moved for several minutes, no doubt nursing a hell of a headache from restarting his simulations so many times. “You’re cheating and you’re losing.”
“Is that right? Prove it,” Coil said through gritted teeth.
“I’m certain. You believe that your power permits you to fork the timeline, following multiple decisions at once, don’t you?”
“You–I am a thinker, not a shaker.”
“You are a liar, a good one. It’s funnier because you’re right. You are indeed a thinker, regardless of what you think your power is. Well? Do you admit that you are cheating?”
“And so what if you know what my power is? You must have stumbled on that information somewhere else. You cannot tell when it is being used.”
“So what? We agreed that you would suffer a penalty. Knight to A-5,” I said, as my own cheat code instructed.
Then, something changed. The chess piece seemed to take on a life of its own. Our white knight reared up on legs it definitely did not have two seconds ago. Neither did the stallion have a rider. Yet, here he was, a perfect miniature of Gaia the Fierce Knight.
Not-quite-Gaia galloped across the board as the mercenary watched in fascination. Lance pointed straight, he pierced Coil’s rook with a tourney-worthy thrust. The castle, still just a piece of plastic, was run through and now hung on our knight’s lance.
“Aaargh!” Coil screamed through the video call. His left arm was no longer visible, as if a sentient shadow had swallowed it.
“Your move, Coil,” I said calmly. It was more effective than if I’d mocked him outright.
“Kill him! Kill him now!”
The mercenary sitting before me obeyed immediately. He drew his gun and took aim. For a moment, all I saw was the blackness of the depths of the barrel before a loud bang filled the air.
A shimmering golden barrier took the bullet. It remained suspended right above my brow, spinning slowly as it lost momentum.
“Thank Horakhty’s shimmering tits for Spirit Barrier, eh?” I chuckled, half for vibes, half out of nerves. “That was an illegal move, Coil.”
Had I not left Silver Fang out with me, the trap would not have activated. I didn’t know if the shadow game would have protected me in that case. As it was, I felt my reserves plummet as my spirit took the blow meant for my body.
I forced myself to stand with a confidence I didn’t feel. It was a terrible thing, what I was about to do. And yet, I saw no other way to remove him from the board.
“That was an illegal move,” I repeated as I reached out to tap the black king, “and cheating will incur a proportional penalty. You have broken the rules of the shadow game as had been explained to you. Your punishment is thus: From now until I tire of you, all that you are is mine. Your soul, your life, and all that you possess is mine alone.”
The moment I finished speaking, the magic that fueled the shadow game took hold. Time seemed to freeze. Reality glitched as fate itself was rewritten to enforce the outcome. Even from the perspective of the victor, it was a terrifying experience.
There was a final, anguished scream as Coil’s soul left his body. Pegasus was especially fond of this. He took Yugi’s grandfather’s soul to ensure Yugi would attend Duelist Kingdom. He did the same to Mukuba to goad Seto.
Rather than a playing card, Coil’s soul settled into the soul of the black king. The piece contorted itself until I had in my hand a black, lanky figure whose arms wrapped around itself in terror. A single, white serpent curled around his form, grasping at a fractured crown.
The world reasserted itself, almost like a movie that someone had finished editing mid-playthrough. I picked up the pieces and placed them back in the box the mercenary had brought.
“You know, I think I’ll keep this set,” I told the mercenary who’d been playing across from me. “Gather everyone back at the base. We’ve got work to do.”
Author’s Note
The monsters Coil described are Element Dragon, Masked Dragon, and Tyhone respectively. Jonathan rolled the former two in the previous chapter.
I hope I wrote Coil right. He’s always tricky. On a basic level, I think Coil’s right about Jonathan. He’s just failing to account for a millennia-old master tactician and sorcerer talking him through his decisions. Not his fault.
There. Jonathan is the Coil now. What exactly that means, I don’t honestly know, either. YGO shadow games isn’t a well-defined system. I have a few ideas, but feel free to leave suggestions.
Animal Fact: Sea otters are some of the smartest mammals alive. They’re smart enough to use tools, have complex social dynamics, learn patterns and commands from human trainers, etc. But, intelligence isn’t always a good thing.
Sea otters feed by diving to the seafloor or through kelp forests. They bring back clams, mussels, and crabs, which they crack open with rocks. Kits cannot dive as deep as their mothers and so often wait on the surface.
In times of scarcity, male sea otters will use this to extort food from mothers. They will kidnap waiting kits and refuse to give them to the surfacing mothers unless said mothers relinquish the food they’d just hunted. So yes, sea otters are smart enough to have a concept of kidnapping, blackmail, and ransom.