"Aah, I see," Kolminye leaned on one elbow as she watched the two men below. "So you went behind your partner's back, against his recommendations, and messed with one of the most dangerous men in Zaun." Her grin had Graves glaring daggers at her from his place on the floor. Twisted Fate was more withdrawn than ever, but she could feel his anger through the spell that connected her to his memories. "Let's add a little dramatic flair to this next series, shall we?"
Kolminye raised her right hand, and the pair below felt the spell shift with her movement, "Cause:"
The doors to a bar swung open. It was a ritzy establishment, usually only meant for Zaun's upper crust and their special escorts. Graves walked in, a sensually sublime lady in each arm. The first woman had long scarlet hair, and wore a short but matching strapless dress which struggled desperately to hold her bust in place. The other wore a black one piece, with stiletto high heels and a short, black bob hair cut. She was covered with various pieces of eye catching jewelry, all pieces of obsidian set in silver.
Everyone within the establishment knew who these women were, and knew better than to say anything to either of them. Both women carried briefcases. Graves marched on through with them, looking every bit like the scruffy dog he was, his shirt dirtied, cigar held squarely with his lips and sending out puffs of smoke with every step he took.
There was the slam of a briefcase on top of the bar counter, the clicks of its locks, and the abundance of cash and coin that almost spilled out when it was opened. Malcolm grinned at the stunned bartender and asked, "I was told that I can get m'self and th'ladies the vee-ay-pee quarters. Now, I'm assumin' that if I were t'ask you to send up drinks, food, cigars, hell, more women, y'wouldn't oppose, would ya?"
The man stared at the cash, fully realizing that while Malcolm was not a usual, he certainly did have a lot of money on him at the moment. He would do his best to see that fixed by the end of the night.
"Certainly not, sir," the bartender said with a smile.
Graves reached over, grabbed the first bottle of liquor he saw, slammed the briefcase closed and then dragged it off the countertop. He flicked his head towards the staircase, chirping at the women he was with. "C'mon girls, we got some business to...'attend' to, in th'hot tub."
He started to strut over to the staircase when he stopped mid step. A woman wearing blue caught the corner of his eye. With a grin, and a sharp whistle, he grabbed her attention. The woman looked over at him, and shuddered slightly. Graves looked sort of like a devil in this light, with his smile, and the smoke billowing from his mouth.
The danger was strangely enticing to her, and he knew this.
She walked over, leaving whatever poor man she was with, and saddled up next to Graves, pressing her breasts against the the scarlet woman's back.
"Nice," was all he had to say about the scene, and the four of them walked up the stairs. Graves took a swig from the bottle, took a puff of his cigar and let out a hearty laugh. This was the life.
"Effect:"
It was a beautiful morning on Conqueror's Beach, which was already bustling as visitors arrived for a day in the sun. Twisted Fate was just on his way out to the balcony of the suite that he and Kera were sharing, dressed in blue swim trunks and a loose green t-shirt, when he noticed someone seated at their table. The man was squat, piggish, well-dressed, and he sat in the chair as if he owned the place, a sentiment that he was very used to feeling in his home city of Zaun. He was flanked by two men in black suits who would have appeared unarmed to any normal person, but Twisted Fate immediately spotted that they carried concealed weapons.
Twisted Fate kept his face carefully blank, but the happy anticipation that filled his chest only a few moments before was instantly replaced with the sinking chill of fear and shock. What the hell was Priggs doing here? They made a point of staying away from him purely to avoid having this happen.
Priggs's beady eyes settled on Twisted Fate as the conman stopped, and he nodded at the seat across from him. "Care to take a seat, Mr. Fate? I have some business to discuss with you."
With two armed thugs in the room, there wasn't much else for Twisted Fate to do. There was Kera to worry about, too. She was be separated from any potential violence by a flimsy suite wall, and he didn't want to take any chances. Twisted Fate coughed quietly to release some of the tension in his chest and put on his best relaxed smile, "To what do I owe the honor, Mr. Priggs?"
"Cause:"
Graves was now shirtless, his pants draped across a towel rack along with two dresses and one woman's one piece suit, as he shared the hot tub with two of the women. The briefcases rested behind him, just out of sight but by no means out of mind. A revolver rested on the one closest to him, in easy reach in case the bartender decided to try anything funny.
He leaned back, settling himself more comfortably in the steaming water as he closed his eyes. His lips moved up and down, puffing at the remnants of his stogie. His brow furrowed over some annoyance, and he was about to complain aloud when the cigar was plucked out of his mouth by soft fingers, followed by a feminine giggle. Graves' eyes opened and he squinted at the perpetrator.
It was the redhead, course it was. They were always trying to push boundaries that weren't meant to be pushed. Graves laughed and snapped his fingers, a crisp click echoing over the sound of the heated water bubbling from the jets. A man poked his head in and asked in an overly polite tone, "Sir? What do you need?"
"Gimme another cigar, yer finest. And three cigarellos fer the ladies."
The man looked around, used to seeing nude women, but was mildly surprised to find that he might have been hard of counting. He could only count three people, Graves included, in the hot tub room.
"As you wish, sir. Enjoy yourself."
His head disappeared, and Graves let out a relaxed sigh. From the water, the woman with the bob haircut burst up, gasping for air.
He was enjoying himself most thoroughly.
"Effect:"
"Take a guess."
Nothing good, then. Priggs wouldn't bother trying to toy with Twisted Fate otherwise. The conman gave Priggs a genuinely clueless smile and spread his hands, palms up to show he had nothing to hide. "Not a clue," he leaned forward slightly and relaxed his hands. "Though I would like to add that we've made a point to stay away from you and your business."
"Really?" Priggs gave Twisted Fate a look of polite, if false, interest. "Then I'm sure you'll be disappointed to hear that your partner did just that about a month ago," he clasped his hands before him on the table. "You must understand that I cannot just let this slide, since my reputation is on the line and all that."
Twisted Fate's expression did not change; he needed to calculate what he wanted Priggs to see before he allowed that. Inwardly, he reeled in shock at what he heard. Graves had done it, he'd gone and messed with the beast after Fate specifically warned him against it. Now they were going to end up just like every enemy Priggs had stepped on and made disappear before, only this time no one could be bothered to care. They were just two conmen, no one would miss them. Any who noticed would probably laugh over it and say it served them right.
Damn it. They were in deep for this, and now Fate would have to find a way to resolve things before Kera got hurt. "May I ask exactly what he did?" Twisted Fate was surprised at himself for sounding so calm, all things considered.
Priggs gave him a small, tense smile and barely managed to contain his anger over what he was about to tell Twisted Fate. "Well, not only did he steal several million from me, he also decided to take out two of my employees on my money!"
The way Priggs said "employees" was enough to tell Twisted Fate exactly what he meant: Graves had taken a couple of Priggs's hired mistresses on his wild ride, probably the two prettiest girls of the bunch. That went much farther than simply stealing. It would be seen as a declaration of war by a man like Priggs, a war that Fate wanted no part in. Rage bubbled behind Twisted Fate's calm exterior as he tried to think of a way out of this mess. He still couldn't believe Graves would go and endanger them like that, do something so monumentally stupid to someone who was even worse a character than the two of them put together.
"Did he now?" Fate allowed a small amount of tense anger to enter his voice, to show Priggs that he was seriously disappointed in what his partner had done. "I hope you understand that I had nothing to do with it, this is my first time even hearing about it."
The cold edge in Twisted Fate's voice was exactly what Priggs wanted to hear, and the man's rage subsided somewhat at the assurance that he would potentially gain a valuable new ally very soon. "Now I know you're on vacation and dealing with your partner will be an... Unpleasant distraction at best, so I'm willing to cut you a deal on top of letting you go without any punishment whatsoever," Priggs reached inside his jacket and retrieved a tan folder, which he set down on the table before him.
"Cause:"
Graves stumbled out of the bar with five women in tow. One of the briefcases was notably absent, as was his shirt, but Graves didn't seem to mind. He waved down a techarriage cab as he reached the curb and jumped in without a second thought. It was then that he noticed there would only be room for two more in the backseat. Graves looked behind him, attempted to find a way around the space issue, failed, then pointed at the two women who had initially come with him.
The group howled and shrieked like drunken lunatics as the carriage took off, leaving his three other floozies behind. They were fine with it, though, Graves thought to himself. He'd dealt with these kinds of women before and his motto for them was, "love 'em and leave 'em."
Within the carriage, Graves kicked his feet up and started to muse aloud. "Now... Where shoul'w'go?" he said in slurred speech. "Hrm...les'she...les'she...Ah!" Graves slapped his knee and leaned over. "Driver! Take ush t'th'Golden Shmog!"
"The Golden Smog, sir?"
"Yah!" Graves laughed. "Tha'sh wha'I'shaid! But firsht...how 'bout we get ourshelves a...a drink? Eh?"
The women agreed by enthusiastically rubbing his exposed chest. With a hard boot to the driver's seat, Graves hollered at him, "Git yer assh goin'!"
"Do you even have the fund—"
Graves ripped open the briefcase and threw a handful of cash at the driver, coins noisily clicking and ringing as they struck the back of his head.
"Now git!"
The driver took off, and Graves resettled himself after pelting the man with money. His eyes darted at the two women who were rubbing themselves on him, their bodies writhing like felines on catnip. "Yer handsh ain'bushy..." Another wolfish grin spread across his lips. "Get em bizzy."
"Effect:"
"At this point, you have only two options," Priggs set his hands on either side of the folder as he regarded Twisted Fate. "Go down with your partner and suffer as much as he will, or join me and get the chance at the thing you've been searching for," he opened the file, which was filled with various documents and forms. "I have here with me the papers necessary to enroll you in the procedure that may give you the ability to use magic. You're still searching, aren't you?"
That was certainly interesting, but Fate wasn't near stupid enough to take all of what Priggs said as the truth. He wouldn't be surprised to find that the offer was a double-edged sword somewhere down the road, and he wasn't so eager to risk his life since he had Kera... But still, magic... This might be the best lead he'd gotten on acquiring it in quite a long time.
"Fate?" The very woman he'd been thinking of just moments before walked into the room, clad in a fetching green bikini with a sheer cloth tied around her hips. She'd picked up a slight tan in the time they'd spent in Demacia, and her face radiated with a constant content happiness. Kera stopped short when she saw the stranger seated at their table, and the two smartly-dressed men standing behind him. "Oh, who are our guests?" she was aware of what Twisted Fate and Graves did for a living, and the worst case scenario was never very far from her mind.
"Just a little business," Twisted Fate gave Kera a reassuring smile, which she returned almost immediately. "You go on ahead, I'll be out in a little while."
Priggs appeared to ignore Kera until she left the room, at which point his eyes snapped back to Twisted Fate. He smiled. "That's a fine woman you have there, Mr. Fate. It would be a shame if something were to happen to her."
"Cause:"
The days seemed to blur into each other like the shapes of Zaun's skyline on particularly smoggy days. The Golden Smog was one of the ritziest casino resorts in all of Zaun. Graves had rented himself a penthouse suite and spent nearly a week throwing his money away on gambling, cigars, and booze.
One scene had him hunched over at a Craps table with Priggs' women on either side of him, along with a crowd that had gathered to watch the spectacle. A glazed look in his eyes showed how intoxicated he was, along with the visible strain of him trying to stand upright, teetering to and fro. A cry of enthusiasm rang out. A giant pile of chips was quickly raked to him and Graves made a feeble sweep at them. He completely missed the stack and fell over. No one moved, unsure how to react when Graves shot back to his feet and burst out in laughter.
The day blurred, it showed Graves back at his suite with a bottle of expensive Zaun vodka. The two women from before were now resting on the king sized bed while wearing the frilliest silk lingerie Graves had ever laid eyes on. Soft croons from them beckoned to the Outlaw like a siren song. He had been lost in thought, staring out the window and absentmindedly drinking. He remembered why he was here and wobbled over to the bed. Graves felt like the king for once.
For once, he was the winner.
The next few days showed him working the poker tables, no one able to catch on to his tactics or his cheating ways. That night he won big enough to fill his bathtub with bills and coins. He remembered reading an old comic once of a rich goose who swam in a pool full of money.
Besides, after a few shots of Neon Hexsinthe, brewed from a variety of fermented hallucinogenic herbs that were boiled by magic, anything sounded like a good idea. Unfortunately for Graves and his money, he assumed in his state that in order to swim in something, it would have to be wet or some sort of liquid to be able to swim in it at all. Though normally true, the thrashings of a drunken man in a bath full of wet money did not bode well for his funds.
The next day, green dye marked patches of skin he'd been unable to scrub clean, and he was dotted with a few coin-sized bruises and lumps on his face. It didn't matter, he could win it all back easily.
On the seventh day the casino finally gave him the boot. He was far too disruptive, winning far too much money, and frankly they just couldn't take his ego anymore either.
Graves scratched the side of his face, his vision still blurred. Where Priggs' two women were, he didn't really care. The conman staggered away from the Golden Smog casino and waved down a taxi. He thrust his hands into his pockets, slowly counting aloud how much money he had left. Enough to get him home. He'd just go, sleep it off, and then come back and get the winnings that they unrightfully "withheld" from him. It didn't matter anyway, he got what he wanted. It was one hell of a week in his mind.
Both Kolminye and Twisted Fate noticed that at no point, save for the beginning of this entire escapade, had Graves been sober, and even now at its end he seemed to be blitzed out of his mind.
"Bes'h week ever," he mumbled aloud.
"Effect:"
It took nearly every ounce of Twisted Fate's self control to keep himself from showing his fear. Priggs was threatening Kera, and who knew what he would do to her if things went south... He could certainly guess, and the thought was enough to make his stomach turn.
"I can see that it may take a while for you to make your decision," Priggs slid the file over to Twisted Fate and got to his feet, which made him noticeably shorter than he had been while seated. The fact would have been funny had the man not been threatening Kera just moments before. "We'll finish our conversation in a week once you've made your decision. And don't worry about a meeting place, I'll find you."
Priggs and his guards made their way to the door, and as he set his hand on the doorknob, the official turned back to Twisted Fate with an expression of false recollection. "By the way, did you ever hear what happened to Selene Atwald and Eugenie Meric?"
"No... I didn't."
"Well if you're lucky," Priggs gave Fate a small, wicked smile as he opened the door. The expression gave him the look of a short, piggish demon. "You never will find out."
The snap of the closing door made Twisted Fate flinch. Selene and Eugenie... They must've been the mistresses Graves "borrowed" for his little fun week. Fate decided to look into what happened, though the foreboding pain in the pit of his stomach told him whatever there was to discover would not be pleasant in the least.
"Well, that was certainly enlightening," Kolminye leaned back in her chair and observed the two champions. Graves was red in the face with embarrassment and looked angry as usual, but Twisted Fate was downright livid. It had been one thing to hear about what Graves had done from Priggs, but quite another to actually see for himself. The Card Master took an aggressive step toward Graves, who actually seemed a bit dazed by what he'd seen, but Kolminye tossed them into another series of memories before he could throw a punch.
Moonlight poured in through the open curtains, painting the room stark black and white. Twisted Fate sat on his side of the bed he shared with Kera, head in his hands as he agonized over what he was going to do. Priggs's punishment for the both of them would only be limited by the piggish little man's imagination once he got his hands on them, and there was no telling what he would do to Kera just to make Fate miserable. He couldn't bear to have anything so horrible happen to Kera, he couldn't let her pay for Graves's mistake.
Dammit Malcolm, you just had to do it. After I warned you not to and everything, you went and messed with the beast.
The deadline for his decision was coming up, and fast. He would have to make up his mind within two days. Twisted Fate let out a loud, frustrated sigh and lifted his head. There was no way they would be able to outpace Priggs forever, not with the resources he had at his disposal, as well as his friends in dark places. Priggs wouldn't forget the insult Graves paid to him, and there was no way two mere conmen would be able to kill someone with so much influence in the underworld. The pair would be blacklisted by many of their former contacts too, since no one was dumb enough to even consider messing with Priggs these days. Well, almost no one.
Kera shifted where she lay behind Twisted Fate and let out a quiet sigh as she dreamed, the sound temporarily distracting Fate from his dark ponderings. He turned to find her laying with her back to him, one shoulder bared to the pale moonlight and cool evening air. Fate reached over and settled the sheets back on her shoulder, then turned back to the window.
Even a life on the run would be undesirable. Constantly moving, changing their identities, living in fear every day as long as Priggs was still alive. That wasn't a life he wanted for Kera, she didn't deserve to lead such a miserable existence. But Priggs had seen her face. If she returned home and they separated, Priggs would be on her within the month, and he would use her to get at Twisted Fate and Graves if they hadn't been caught already. And once they had been...
Twisted Fate shook his head, trying to dislodge the awful images that sprang into his mind, and combed his long hair back from his face with his fingers. He was backed into a corner. Either hand Graves over to Priggs, or condemn the three of them to an eventual torturous existence in one of Priggs's secret prisons.
Then there was that offer made by Priggs, the chance at magic... If they were on the run there would be no time to pursue that goal, and any new lead might turn out to be a trap set by Priggs, now that the man knew Twisted Fate's weakness in that respect. Going against Priggs would end in ruin for Fate in more than one way, but here the man was, offering him a way out and a chance at his dream besides. It was certainly an attractive bargain.
Should I tell Malcolm...?
The thought was shot down almost as quickly as it popped into Twisted Fate's head. No, Graves had already betrayed Fate's trust by messing with Priggs in the first place, and taking the man's two mistresses to boot. Why? Why did he have to spit in Priggs's face on top of stealing from him? There was no way he could trust Graves to do the right thing now, and Priggs would figure it out if Fate tipped his partner off. If Graves disappeared, Priggs would come after Twisted Fate and Kera for letting him slip away.
At least he wouldn't be leaving empty-handed if he gave Graves to Priggs. While it was true that he didn't trust the official's "gift" just yet, he would have to do some research to find out if working with Dr. Rath would be worthwhile. If it was too dangerous he would have to turn it down, of course. There was no way he would throw his life away on some slim hope when he had Kera there for him, and handing Graves over just meant he would be able to pursue other leads in the future if this didn't work out.
And Kera... Should I tell her?
The question lingered for a few moments as Twisted Fate mulled it over. No, she would be devastated if she had to knowingly betray the man she regarded as a brother. It would be hard enough when Graves was eventually taken away, she didn't need to bear the burden of handing him over on top of that. Fate would that weight alone, Kera didn't need to dwell on it. He just wanted her to be as happy as possible, despite what was going to happen.
Even though Graves had gotten them into deep trouble with this whole ordeal, it still hurt to do this to him. After all, Graves was the closest thing Twisted Fate had to a brother these days, they'd been through so much together...