Pairing: Bribeshipping
Prompt: Yugioh Fanfiction Contest Season 10, Round 4
Word Count: 2,270
Warnings: I haven't slept. A Pokémon crossover sounded awesome before I started writing it. If you haven't played Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, the Underground might not make much sense. It's an area you can go in to dig up fossils, Evolution Stones, some hold items, and play capture the flag with your friends, and decorate a Secret Base. I'm not sure if it ever made it into the anime.
Lady Luck hadn't been on her side in months.
Kujaku Mai brought her pickaxe down viciously to meet the lower wall and was satisfied when a large hunk of stone broke away. This kind of unladylike grunt work was hardly her style, but there really wasn't any possible way to let off her anger otherwise-and if she did manage to mine something more valuable than, say, the Fire Stone she'd been hunting for weeks, it might make up for running into that stupid, cheeky upstart, with his stupid, over-leveled golden Charmeleon.
The woman paused her assault on the unsuspecting wall, bending at the knees to tug at something promising; a glint of yellow, translucent stone that just might have been attached to something worthwhile, wedged deep in the crack she'd just made. It was just out of reach; the tips of her gloved fingers only barely came in contact with the stone, and she doubted taking the miner's gloves off would make up the difference.
"Stupid rock…" Mai grumbled, pushing herself back up to consider her options and using her axe as leverage. She could just hack away at the wall a little more; at worst, the stone could break, leaving her with nothing, and at best, she'd have what she was after.
Under normal circumstances, on better days, Mai might've risked it. But she wasn't the type to tempt fate twice in one day, not when the chips were already stacked against her.
"Do you need help?"
It was the kind of question Mai heard a thousand times a year, from men nearly everywhere she went. Kanto, Johto, Sinnoh; it didn't matter what region she visited; men were all the same. All looking for the same things, and more often than not, those things weren't a fair Pokémon battle.
Still, it was finally a good stroke of luck, after a dry, miserable streak that Mai didn't want to admit had been under her skin. A woman of her caliber was supposed to be unflappable, and she wasn't about to let something like sixty-some days worth of setbacks stop her from reaching her goal.
The smile that tugged at the edges of her lips had to go, Mai realized, but she had to indulge in it for only a moment. Perfect. She turned with deliberate slowness, as much for effect as to size up whoever was addressing her-
And her gaze settled a good half head above his face, nearly giving her reason to jump. She hadn't expected a shrimp. Violet eyes traveled downward quickly, sizing up the other Trainer, or researcher, or whichever he was. She'd encountered both on her past trips to the Underground, and between the ripping khakis, cuffed just below his knees, the tacky as sin cowboy vest, and the cheesy red beanie that peeked out underneath his orange helmet, she thought it was safe to assume the kid fell into the first category. One glance at his out of control hair told her he belonged down here much more than she did, and the massive backpack, stuffed to the brim with loot, or tools, or both, meant he was exactly the sort of person she was looking for.
Which usually meant falling into old habits, if she wanted to get anything out of the boy. Not that he'd likely ever seen a real woman, crawling around in the Underground like a Sandshrew. Mai completed her turn with a much sweeter smile, as perfectly applied as her makeup would have been if she were anywhere else. "Oh! I don't seem to have the right equipment for what I'm trying to do," she lamented, pushing some of her hair over her shoulder. "Do you think you could help, hun? I don't want to break anything… I'm a little out of my element."
To her private horror, the almond-eyed youth didn't seem impressed. Not that it mattered very much; he shrugged his bag off one shoulder with ease, which meant he wouldn't likely complain too much if she got a few more walls out of him.
"Ryuuzaki's fine. Whatcha need?" the boy asked, and Mai couldn't place his accent, but it was impossible to miss. It sounded like a southern type of 'somewhere', but whether that placed him somewhere in Houenn, or maybe as far off as the Orange Islands was anyone's guess.
The woman stepped away diagonally, gesturing with her pickaxe. "There's a yellow stone in there, but I'm afraid I'll shatter it with this big thing," she explained too easily; too readily for the Ryuuzaki's liking, but beyond one eyebrow hiking up, he didn't seem to have anything to say about that. Good.
"You look more like you belong in one of those Super Contests in Hearthome." He spoke with the type of contempt that most classless male Trainers often had, and Mai tried not to let the urge to challenge him overtake her common sense. In a tiny space like this, her battle team would probably bring the walls down on top of them; there was just no fitting a twenty-foot Milotic into a mine like this, where Mai had to sacrifice fashionable boots in the interest of not scraping the ceiling with the flashlight mounted on her helmet as she walked.
"I battle, too," she said proudly, even if the little snot was right. The inclusion of Super Contests as a legitimate way to make money and integrate Pokémon training with fashion had earned her more money than stalking other Trainers around ever could, and money was everything, once a Trainer's team was set in stone. With the exception of her soon-to-be-Ninetales, she was just a few weeks shy of being ready for the next Pokémon League. "You don't look like you've ever seen the inside of the contest arena. No offense."
The teen definitely sneered then, and the hand that had been rifling through his backpack, presumably looking for a smaller pick, stilled. "Y'know, lady, I'm feeling way less generous, now that you're showing that personality," he said dully, flipping the canvas flap back over the top of his bag.
Lady Luck was back again, trying to thwart her.
"You can't just-Hey!" Mai protested, stepping into his path as he rose to leave. "Look," she tried again, feigning desperation. Men liked that. They all wanted to be needed. "It's been a bad… couple days." No Evolution Stone was worth admitting her bad rut to a total stranger, and she shook her head, tossing wavy blonde hair out of her line of vision. "But I'll make it up to you. I could… give you spheres. I'm swimming in them. I just need that Fire Stone, and you're probably the only one down here with the right tools."
Ryuuzaki's eyebrow seemed permanently affixed a centimeter higher than it needed to be, and the woman sucked her lower lip between her teeth for effect. Sure enough, his gaze followed the motion. "A Fire Stone?" he asked, "That's it?"
"That's all I'm after right now, so anything else in the wall can be yours," Mai bargained, "Those silly plate things, shards, fossils-I don't need any of that."
"You got crap odds, lady," Ryuuzaki said finally, but he was back on one knee, and his bag made a heavy clinking sound as he set it back down. He didn't look directly at her, and Mai settled her hands on her hips, only barely visibly impatient. "But I… Eh, I could look with you. If they're not in this spot. I don't need anythin' from down here in exchange, though."
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Mai had been afraid he would say something like that.
"What do you have in mind?" she asked, and what was left of the pleasantness in her voice was quickly ebbing.
Ryuuzaki's hand closed around the handle of what he was looking for; an old, green-painted mini-pick, which he twirled effortlessly in one hand as he moved to glance into the cavity in the rock wall. "Nothin' much," he drawled lazily, leaning in close to the wall to inspect the great, gaping cracks Mai's angry assault had left. "I'll probably get hungry, helping you with this stupid hunt, though. Dinner wouldn't go amiss, with the time of mine you'd be takin' up."
"You're way too young for me, kid." Whether he was magically eighteen, or closer to the fourteen he looked, he was bound to be too young on principle. Mai frowned as he expertly tapped a series of points on the wall that looked random, but produced results that proved they were anything but. "You don't even know my name."
He shrugged, apparently content to work at the wall nowhere near the stone she'd been going for, but Mai didn't bother pointing it out. "So give it to me," he said, "I don't need your name to eat out with you."
That had been dangerously close to an entirely different phrase that Mai, somehow, wouldn't put past the brat. She frowned behind his back. "Maybe you'll get my name out of me," she said slowly, "If you manage to find what I want. Then you get what you want, and everyone goes home happy."
Ryuuzaki chanced a grin over his shoulder, and Mai wondered, briefly, how far off her assessment of his age was. A lecherous look like that didn't belong on a kid's face. "One Fire Stone gets me your name? What if there're two?"
"You get me two Fire Stones, and you get your date," Mai affirmed. "Three, and I might even pay for it."
The boy chuckled, a nasal sound that reminded the woman just how little she missed spending time with teenage boys. As if the oaf with the shiny Charmeleon wasn't bad enough. Mai wondered what far off region the real men had moved off to; the crafty ones that were at least challenging, be it intellectually, or in battle. Even if that stupid, obnoxious Jyounouchi Katsuya had somehow managed to defeat her precious Lopunny. Luck didn't count for a proper battle strategy.
A few taps later, and Ryuuzaki stood, despite the fact that the wall still stood. "Ready?" he asked, "You better be a woman of your word."
"Of course I am." She wasn't always, but he hardly needed to know that.
Ryuuzaki shrugged and slammed his fist hard, just above the crumbling wall-and sure enough, the outer layer of rock fell away to reveal treasure behind it.
But there was no Fire Stone to be seen.
"Another Smooth Rock? You're kidding me!" Mai wailed, furious that she'd gone to all that effort for nothing. Not that Ryuuzaki hadn't ultimately unearthed her prizes-which otherwise included some Light Clay and a Heart Scale that could've passed for a broken earring piece. "What is so difficult about something worthwhile being in here, huh?"
She wasn't entirely surprised when Ryuuzaki started laughing. Like this couldn't get any worse. "I don't want to hear that from you!" she snapped, and he only howled louder.
"You're the unluckiest chick I've ever met!" he laughed, "Mother Earth doesn't like you at all!"
Mai didn't quite snarl, but she wanted to. "Well then, looks like you're out of a dinner date," she snapped back huffily. "Unless you've got at least five on you right now, you're SOL, kid!"
Ryuuzaki's laughter ebbed a little, but didn't stop. Not immediately. It wound down slowly, replaced with an ear-to-ear grin. "You got it," he said, too easily, and Mai froze. She couldn't have heard that right, and she stared as he slipped past her with ease, tugging off his digging gloves with his teeth and fishing into his pack again. "Just five? You're a cheap date," he drawled, pulling a smaller cloth bag, tied with string, out from one of the inside pockets. "I shouldn't expect much better from a babe in a corset, but…"
Some part of her, the part that had spent the past two months searching high and low for the evolution stones without success, was impressed; but that feeling was quickly overwhelmed with annoyance as he fished in and started pulling out stones one after another.
Five didn't seem to be a problem; in point of fact, he passed five, sorting the occasional Sun Stone out to the side as he rifled through the bag. Mai caught a glimpse of a few Water Stones to boot, and wondered, distantly, just how long this little snot had been digging down here. "Are you serious?" she asked once he was finished. Ryuuzaki sat cross-legged, a good twelve Fire Stones spread out in front of him.
"I always thought I'd trade 'em someday," he said smoothly-too smoothly-but that devilish grin looked awfully practiced, coming from a half-sized twerp. Ryuuzaki spread his hands in a gesture of appeal. "What d'you say? Is this enough for an… extended date? Eh?" He wiggled his eyebrows just ridiculously enough for effect; just enough to shake Mai's certainty that the color that rose to her cheeks was anger, and nothing else.
Mai knew, even before drawing her hand back, that his helmet would take the brunt of the impact, but at close range, she reasoned, a well-aimed rock wouldn't hurt. "You'll get one dinner, and be happy about it!" she snapped.
But with the money she knew she could get for the eleven Fire Stones she didn't need, she could definitely afford the spa time she'd need to recover her dignity. Especially when Ryuuzaki took the rock to the head without complaint; he winced, barely, but that annoying grin popped right back up.