Chapter 2.0 - The legend of the twenty million platinum manA Chapter by TOF_MattA trip to a local bar for their first meal in ages lands Noal and Ella right in the middle of a bounty hunter's clutches.
Previous Version This is a previous version of Chapter 2.0 - The legend of the twenty million platinum man. Chapter 2.0 The legend of the twenty million platinum man. “Noal?” Ella snapped her fingers in front of Noal’s face, waking him from his spellbound state. “Are you gonna just sit there and watch, or are you gonna help me here?” Noal’s words stumbled over each other as he shook off his daze. “Oh, right, sorry. I was just… I mean I get…” “Uh huh,” Ella said, turning to hide a small grin. He could say whatever he wanted, but she was used to her Fate manipulation dance manipulating a little more than just Fate. “Come on, let’s go sit down somewhere.” The pair quickly collected all of Ella’s scattered tarot cards and ducked into the nearest bar, a modest joint called Gracey’s. The inside was larger than it looked from the outside and was heavily populated with some less than upstanding clientele. A line of men sat at the bar and stared at them as they entered, ranging from skinny and sickly to grossly overweight. The bartender wasn’t exactly winning any prizes either; Ella could’ve sworn she saw something move from within his beard. It was hardly what one would call a five star establishment, but on the other hand they’d wandered The Fringe for so long that Ella hardly remembered what a five star establishment even looked like anymore. “Phew. Well, that was a nightmare. How are you feeling?” Ella asked as she and Noal sat down in the nearest open booth. Noal spoke quietly, his gaze still suspiciously locked on the men at the bar. “It’s getting stronger… I mean, usually I have some sense of when it’s coming, but this time there was just no warning.” Noal’s distrustful eyes were
darting around the room like a fly caught in a glass jar. Some great terror of the world he was growing
up to be. All that power wrapped up in his
arm and he was wary of a few petty thugs.
Weren’t they supposed to be
wary of him? “I don’t like it,” he whispered. “I think we should just find out why the golden thread led us here and get out, before anything else bad happens.” Ella leaned over the table,
pulling up Noal’s cloak before he even had a chance to flinch. “Hey relax! Look, see it’s closed again,” she said, pointing at the Providence Eye tattoo on his exposed left arm, which was indeed asleep once again. “No need to worry, Mr. Hu…” Noal reached over the table and put his hand over her mouth. “Are you crazy!? Don’t’ say it! Unless you want even more trouble, that is,” he hissed as he pulled his cloak back down. Ella pulled his hand off. “All I’m saying is, don’t worry so much! You have the greatest fortune teller in the western hemisphere backing you up, remember? Before we go rushing back into the desert again, what say we at least get some food in us first?” For once Noal had no retort,
instead picking up his menu and bowing to her good sense. They both sat for a precious few quiet
moments, perusing the specials: minced sand kiwi - twenty-four platinum pieces,
fried griffon-bird egg " thirty platinum pieces, armored lizard stew with
desert radishes " forty-five platinum pieces.
Yet even as she sat there, something even more salivating was already
knocking at the back of her mind. At first she thought she was just hearing things: a choir of cheers and laughter quickly silenced, then ringing bells and shuffling cards again silenced. She looked up from her menu to find Noal’s eyes wide with terror, and when she turned she instantly understood why. Behind her, a waiter was moving back and forth through a swinging door, which led to a casino on the other side! Slot machines, game tables, high rollers, and big spenders, she caught all of it in the blink of an eye. The door glowed like a portal, a dingy, dark-stained portal to prosperity. She was already salivating, but it was no longer at the thought of food. “Absolutely
not,” Noal said, out of the blue.
“Excuse me?” “Ella, tell me, do you even HAVE any money left to gamble away?” She frantically fingered
through her pockets and pouches, predictably coming up with only two copper
pieces.
“Just a few plats! A couple of notes! Copper pieces even!” she pleaded, going into full begging mode. “I’ll double it in fifteen minutes!” “Oh really? You’ll double it will you? And I suppose that’s what happened when you bet on that horse race in Gram City?” “I was getting forty-to-one odds!” “Ella, your horse DIED before reaching the finish line!” She opened her mouth to rebuttal, but then just shrugged. “Okay, I may have slightly misread Fate on that one. How was I supposed to know horses only live to be twenty-five?” “Then there was that little card game with the Sundance Society. How much did you lose there again?” “Hey, that wasn’t my fault. They were cheating!” “YOU were cheating!” Ella
recalled. “Oh yeah,” she said, with a
crooked grin. “Almost got away with that
one.” Noal just put his head in his hands. “Look, don’t go getting your threads in a knot just because I can control my spending. For once can we please just sit here and have a nice quiet meal. I’ll even buy you a nice lentil salad, how’s that?” Ella looked at the two measly copper pieces in front of her and deadpanned. “My, you’re so generous.” Noal rolled his eyes. “Look, let’s not forget the real reason we’re here.” Ella’s eyes instinctually darted to Noal’s right arm. “Ah yes, the cure.” Ella leaned across the table, her expression turning deadly serious. “About that… Noal, are you sure you won’t reconsider? I mean, this whole quest of yours to get rid of your… unique ability. Are you sure that’s for the best? Your power is unlike anyone’s ever seen. You and I, we could be pioneers...” “Ella, we’ve been over this. Yes, you were able to save the day today, but what about next time, or the time after that? You aren’t always going to be there every hour of every day, and even if you were, you know full-well that what happened out there was only a small fraction of what this thing’s truly capable of.” “Okay, but
then what about our agreement? I mean,
if you just gave it a little more time, you could probably learn to…” “Six years isn’t enough time? This kind of thing has been happening to me ever since I was ten! Do you know how hard it is to make friends growing up when Fate is constantly trying to smash them under boulders or drown them in lakes? Do you know how hard it is to get a girlfriend when it starts to rain every time you hold hands?” Noal leaned in to make absolutely sure no one could hear their conversation. “Look Ella, I’ll still honor our business arrangement. But that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna do all I can to get rid of this thing, once and for all.” “But…” “No buts. Not this time. This is all there is.” Ella shook her head disapprovingly, stood up from the booth, and grabbed her two copper coins. “Hey, where are you going?” “Well, apparently you have your business to sort out, and so I have mine.” * * * A part of him felt bad as he watched her walk off, although not too bad since it saved him buying an extra salad. Still, he wrestled with his conscience all throughout his meal; after all, just what would’ve happened to that little boy in the street today if Ella hadn’t been there? On the other hand, that little boy should never have been in danger in the first place. Ella’s protests aside, The Power was a curse and it needed to go. Besides, what did he really owe her? In the end, she was getting what she really wanted after all… “Got your eye on that one, eh? She’s got a lot of spunk, that’s for sure.” A voice from the bar interrupted his train of thought. Noal looked over and found the bartender leaning across it, staring intently at him, the last of his patrons putting down some loose change and stumbling off to the doors. “My eye" on her? Ha. She’s more trouble that she’s worth.” “Trouble’s what makes-em worth it,” the bartender responded with a sly grin and a lick of his lips. Noal shuddered
involuntarily. He could smell the man’s
breathe all the way from the booth " a rotten combination of bad olives and
whisky. He wore a pressed black vest and
bowtie, yet somehow was still absolutely filthy. His thick black beard looked as if it were
painted onto his face, which itself was a cracked wasteland of wrinkle valleys
and oily lakes with one mountainous black wart anchoring it all on his left
cheek. He must have been at least fifty
years old, but that didn’t stop him from ogling Ella and licking his lips. “Trust me,”
Noal said. “We’re travelling together
and I’m telling you now, whatever you’re thinking, she’s not worth it.” “Heh, a travel companion like that, eh? What she cost you?” “Oh I got a real bargain. All she cost me was my dignity.” Noal returned his attention to
the menu, hoping the bartender would get bored and go away. His choking musk was overpowering even the
smell of food the next booth over. “So what’s yer story kid?” he asked, still looking at Ella. “Runaway? Con artist? Refugee?” He leaned in and leered. “Convict?” “W-What makes
you say that?” Noal squeaked. “Dunno kid, you look tense. Only two kinds of people come to Fortune Town. Those lookin’ to get rich, and those lookin’ to get away. And, well, if you’d made it rich, you wouldn’t be sittin’ in a dump like this, would’ya?” Noal had dealt with enough bounty hunters in his time to know that grin. Discreetly, he grabbed the butter knife from the table. The bartender bellowed a deep laugh that shook him. “Haha, don’t worry kid. Whatever you’re worth, it can’t even be close to what I’m worth!” he laughed, spitting into a glass and giving it a shine with his washcloth. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’m wanted in every nation on this planet. I’m a horrible man who done horrible things. I caused so much chaos they got a real special name for me. The Human Hurricane.” Noal lowered the menu and gave the bartender a sideways glance. “The Human Hurricane? Right.” He rolled his eyes, dipped the knife in a package of butter, and started spreading it over a piece of bread. “What? Ain’t you ever heard of the Human Hurricane? I’m the scourge of the seven nations! The Great Destroyer himself! I’m the most wanted man in the world!” “The Human Hurricane is just a myth,” Noal said, not even looking up. “You aren’t him.” The bartender grunted. “A myth!? Would the nations be offerin’ a joint twenty-million platinum reward for a myth!? They want me ‘cause of all the stuff I done: bustin’ up whole cities, puttin’ whole droves of their people in the hospital!” “Right, and I’m sure that was all you.” “You better believe it was! You really ought t’be afraid o’me. I even wiped out my entire home town!” Noal suddenly stopped dead, his mocking expression turning gravely serious. “I remember it like it was yesterday… sittin’ around
in that boring fart of a town. How can I
start my legacy, I thought to myself one day.”
Like a wild animal, Noal
suddenly leapt the distance between the booth and the bar, grabbing the
bartender’s collar and pulling him face-to-face. “That’s not how it happened!” The bartender, stunned by the sudden outburst, stammered stupidly for a few seconds before finally comporting himself with a raised eyebrow. “Really? What would you know o’that?” Oh how he’d like to show him, Noal thought, but infuriating as this man was, even he didn’t deserve that. At least, this was what Noal thought until his eyes stumbled upon the black streaks on the bartender’s forearm. Noal tilted his head and his whole body froze. “Where… where did you get that tattoo!?” Noal stammered. “My tattoo? What’s it to you?” The sight of those black marks made all Noal’s reservations forfeit. For the first time in a long time, he purposely rolled up his cloak and held up his left arm, revealing a cage of belts and buckles encased around a jet-black tattoo of sinister tendrils. The bartender’s eyes grew wide with fear. “Now, like I said before, where did you get your tattoo!?” Noal demanded. “You little cheater!” an unfamiliar voice shouted from the casino floor. Noal’s expression melted into utter horror. The bearded bartender just smiled. “Well would you listen to that? Guess you were right. Your friend really is more trouble than she’s worth.” © 2011 TOF_MattAuthor's Note
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StatsAuthorTOF_MattCanadaAboutMatthew Chan grew up in the harsh Tundra of Ontario, Canada, braving freezing temperatures, taming wandering polar bears, and helping the local populace battle the occasional giant ice spider - in ot.. more..Writing
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