Disclaimer: I don't own anything but Phoenix
The four friends were currently on the streets a few blocks away from their hotel room. Leorio planned to have an arm wrestling street completion where Gon will be the one to do all the arm wrestling while Phoenix supervised.
"Come on down!" Leorio announced to everyone who was walking past, a few stopped and came over to listen surprisingly, "Let's have some conditional auctioning fun! Here's what's up for bid!" Here he pointed to Killua who was holding a box that held a large diamond, "A diamond worth three million. Comes with the appraisal of the store where I just bought it. Arm wrestling will decide the winning bid. The first person to beat this boy wins the diamond. You must pay 10,000 Jenny entry fee. Now let's start the auction!" He shouted to the excited crowd.
Straight away men started to yell out that they wanted to have a go at the auction. Phoenix was pleasantly surprised with how well Leorio's plan was working, she thought that it might take awhile to get things started.
Gon's first opponent was a tanned muscular man. Gon won easily, the four knew he could have won within seconds but they needed to make this stunt look real or else they'd be in trouble.
Once the first man lost he went off muttering about losing to a kid. The auction went right into the night. Phoenix was getting really bored so she decided to text Kurapika gain to see if he'd answer up, she didn't bother to call because if he did get a job he might get into trouble if he was caught on the phone to her.
P: Hey Kura, where are you? Haven't heard from you all day and starting to get worried.
Phoenix was surprised when her phone went off a few minutes later. She quickly went to her messages and was happy to see that it was from Kurapika.
K: Sorry I haven't been able to answer Nix I've been busy. I got a job as a body guard for a someone who is going to be participating in the auction. I don't think I'll be able to see you until the auction is finished but I'll try and get some time off to come see you all.
Phoenix smiled to herself before going over to Killua and showing him the message.
"Told you" He said smirking at the girl who shoved him with her shoulder gently making him chuckle to himself before joining her as she went back to leaning against the wall.
The two just watch the auction in silence, both bored and wanting to just go back to the hotel but they knew that they needed to stay here to help gather the money they needed for Greed Island.
Both of them straightened up slightly when a short black-haired girl came forward to compete for the diamond.
"Well, we have our first female challenger!" Leorio announced to the large crowd who started to called out their encouragement to the girl.
Phoenix rolled her eyes as Leorio tried to flirt with her but was only ignored.
The girl bowed to Gon which surprised him, "Let's have a fair contest" She said kindly.
Gon bowed back to the girl, "Oh, yes" He said before the two started to arm wrestle.
Straight away Phoenix knew that Gon really was struggling this time. Stepping forward she stood a few steps behind Gon to get a better view of what was going to happen.
Once Gon was finally able to pin the girls hand down with struggle. Phoenix went over to Gon and put her hand on his shoulder to check he was ok, when he nodded that he was she looked up as the girl stood up after thanking Gon for the match before disappearing into the crowd. Phoenix didn't take her eyes off of the girl before she stopped at what seemed to be her friends.
Phoenix's eyes widened when she spotted who the unknown girl was with. Feitan was standing right there talking to the girl. He looked over at her having felt her stare and paused when he locked eyes with Phoenix. He smirked at her before going off with his friends.
'What is Feitan doing here?" Phoenix asked in her mind.
'I don't know kid but I don't have a very good feeling about it. Keep your guard up' Tarkar warned his heir.
Phoenix nodded her agreement before going back to the auction and playing the part of security in case someone decided to get a little violent.
The next morning the four were sitting in their hotel room with the diamond and yesterdays winnings that Leorio had counted.
"Currently, we have a 3,000,000 diamond and 2,400,00 Jenny leftover cash and Phoenix's 50,000,000. And we also have the 7,750,000 jenny from the arm wrestling. That gives us a total of around 58 million. We need to turn that into at least 9 billion, the minimum opening bid for Greed Island… I don't see how we can manage that through legitimate channels" Leorio explained to the four young teens.
"I wouldn't call that arm wrestling legitimate" Gon admitted feeling slightly guilty for tricking so many people.
"All the challengers towards the end were half desperate losers trying for revenge" Killua added.
"That's fine. That was my goal" Leorio confessed.
"What goal?" Phoenix asked confused.
"We want as many people as possible to embellish the tale" Leorio commented but that didn't help the three understand his motives at all.
"What do you mean?" Gon asked curious.
"The arm wrestling was meant as bait" The bespectacled male told his younger friends.
"Bait for what exactly?" Phoenix asked with a raised eyebrow from beside the older man.
"To draw out the moles" Leorio said.
"Moles? Why do we want moles?" Gon asked.
Phoenix paused for a moment before sighing, "I get it…" The young girl said before explaining it to Gon and Killua who haven't caught on just yet. Leorio was next to her nodding proudly like he was her father or something making her move away from him slightly.
"Come on down!" Leorio announced. The four were once again out on the streets with the arm wrestling stand set up, hoping to attract some 'moles'. "Let's have some conditional auctioning fun! We have a diamond worth 3 million. The winner will be determined through arm wrestling. The first person to beat this boy wins the diamond. You must pay a 10,000 Jenny entry fee"
"What?" A man in the crowd said, "He's just a kid, I'll give it a shot"
But just before he could even move the person yesterday stopped him, "Don't bother, that kid beat five hundred people yesterday. Over twenty ended up with broken arms"
Phoenix watched as the crowd listened to the man, 'Hmm, guess Leorio's idea is working, if the stories have already started to circulate then we'll attract the right people fast Phoenix thought to herself.
'Your friend is quite clever, kid" Tarkar said to his heir.
Phoenix smirked to herself as she thought back to all the stupid things Leorio did during the hunter's exam. Sending her memories to Tarkar she listened as he cracked up laughing. It was only recently that she learnt that she could send more then just her thoughts to the dragon king and the two have been experimenting whether it be their emotions, memories or even entering each other's mind so they can meet face to face but they have only been able to do the last one whenever Phoenix is asleep.
Phoenix had been trying to widen the mental link the two shared but it was turning out to be trickier then she had expected it to be.
The young toxic green-eyed girl was broken out of her thoughts when a large man in a black suit pushed his way through the crowd, "Move" He demanded in a deep voice. Following him was a short man also in a black suit with an unpleasant glint in his eye.
"Oh, do we have our first challenger?" Leorio asked acting ignorant.
"No" The short man said making sure that Leorio's attention was on him, "I already know that my man can't beat your kid. I was watching yesterday"
"Then what do you want, mister?" Phoenix asked sweetly before Leorio could. The two had agreed to let Phoenix do the talking because she was innocent looking, especially with her new haircut, and that will help the moles to lower their guard.
"Interested in making some real money?" He asked smugly.
"Really?" She asked faking her excited.
"Yeah, I know where you and your friends can make some big bucks, little lady, instead of the pocket change you're getting here. You can make hundreds… no thousand of times more" He explained thinking that he caught a bunch of suckers when really he was the sucker getting caught.
The four followed the man as he leads them to a building nearing the edge of the city where the buildings were more run down.
"Are they moles?" Gon whispered quietly.
"Yeah, looks like we landed a big fish" Leorio whispered back.
"Huh? Fish? Don't you mean moles?" Gon asked confused.
"Stop talking, it doesn't matter" Leorio mutter annoyed.
The four friends finally arrived at the building the two men in suits were leading them to. They followed them inside to an elevator that took them down to the basement. When the doors opened the four were assaulted by the loud cheering that was going on in the room.
The room was full of mostly men who were cheering on two burly men in the middle of a wrestling ring as they arm wrestled.
"Oh! I can feel the bloodlust" Killua exclaimed excited. Phoenix nodded her head in agreement being able to feel the thick tension in the air. She moved closer to Killua when they came to the railing that looked down at the wrestling ring.
"The arm wrestling competition here accepts all comers, and it pays out" The short-suited guy explained to the four hunters. "The spectators bet on each match, and the winner receives ten percent of all bets placed. We're talking billions bet on each match"
"That could mean millions with each win" Leorio uttered with pure joy.
"You could even win more… I'll be taking fifty percent of your earnings as my commission" The suit guy explained making Phoenix narrow her eyes slightly.
"Fifty percent? Isn't that a little high?" Leorio stuttered.
"You can't participate unless I enter your name. Besides you can bet your own money. You'll get great odds with that kid, and earn back your stake a hundred times over" The suit guy said trying to get money out the four.
Before Leorio could agree Phoenix walked up to the guy with a begging look, "Mister, can you please lower the percentage? We really need all the money we can get! It's my mother you see, she's going to die if we don't get enough money for her surgery!" At this point tears started to form in Phoenix's eyes, "I already lost my father because we couldn't afford his medication anymore, I can't lose my mother as well!" She sobbed.
The three boys behind her were trying to not look confused or surprised at this. They all understood what she was doing so Leorio put a hand on her should in an act to comfort her.
The lie must have struck something in the man because it looked like there was a war going on in his head before he sighed in defeat, "Fine, little lady, I'll take 25 percent of your winnings. I hope you get the money for your mother" He said hesitantly.
Phoenix gave the man a big watery grin as she thanked him and went back to Killua's side who put an arm around her to keep up the act. The action caused a bright blush to appear on both teens cheeks but neither said anything because they both enjoyed the closeness of the other.
"Well? Any other challengers?" The ref in the ring called out.
"Got one right here" The suit guy said as he walked Gon to the ring with the others followed closely behind, "This kid is up for the challenge"
The ref looked surprised but just went with it, "Very well"
Before anyone could move, all the lights turned on and a very weird looking man jumped into the middle of the ring, "Sorry, but the arm wrestling is cancelled. We'll be doing some conditional auctioning now!"
Leorio ran in front of the suit guy as Phoenix and Killua went to Gon's side just in case something happened, "Why was it cancelled?" Leorio asked but the man had no idea what was going on.
"To win, you must play hide-and-seek! We'll start by passing out flyers!" A number of ladies with a purple eye mask were handing out a bunch of fliers.
Taking one Phoenix looked at all the people on the sheet before holding in a gasp. She stared at the paper with shocked eyes not wanting to believe what she saw. 'Feitan!'
"Examine the pictures on the flyer. Those seven people are your targets!" The weird guy announced.
"Hey, that girl with glasses was…" Leorio started.
"Yep… she arm wrestled me" Gon finished.
"Hey, are they the ones responsible for what happened last night?" Someone asked from behind the group of friends.
"Yeah, you mean the attack on the auction?" Another asked.
Once Phoenix heard that she torn her eyes away from the sheet that she was clenching in her hands and looked at them with a worried expression. Kurapika was working for a group who was buying at the auction! What if something bad happened to him? She turned to Killua who was surprised at what they over heard and looked at Phoenix with worried eyes knowing that she would worry about Kurapika until they heard from him.
"In order to win the bid, you must capture and deliver a target to us. For each target brought in, you will receive a sum of 2 billion Jenny!" This of course caused an excited chatter to travel around the room. "There is no time limit. It doesn't matter if the target it dead or alive. Please contact us once you've captured one!"
"2 billion each?" Gon asked unbelieving while Phoenix just looked at Feitan's picture with worry growing inside her, maybe when she gets back to the hotel she should call him to see if he's alright. She doesn't care what he did, just that he's important to her.
"If we catch them all, we'd have 14 billion!" Leorio said excitedly.
"It'll cost you 5 million Jenny to participate" The weird guy explained to everyone as they all rushed to pay.
"We're joining in, right?" Leorio asked and went to signed the four up when Gon agreed.
"Wait Leorio! Please don't sign me up" Phoenix asked him. She got some funny looks from her friends but Leorio shrugged and went to sign himself and the two boys up.
Once the three were signed up the four left. Outside the sun was started to sun so it gave a pretty glow to everything around them.
"We need to hurry" Leorio said to the three oozing with confidence.
"There's no rush" Killua counted, "They won't be able to catch our targets. After all the mafia's having trouble handling them"
"What do you mean?" Leorio asked.
"This conditional auction is nothing but a bounty hunt. In other words, the mafia is admitting that, alone, it can't capture these targets" Killua explained further.
"You have a point" Leorio admitted, "They were willing to suspend everything to track them down"
"I just heard that the underground auction was attacked last night" The white-haired boy added.
"The underground auction" Leorio asked surprised, "Was it them? That's why there's a reward for their heads"
"They must be nuts for to steal from the mafia. And we already know who would be crazy enough for that" Killua said smirking.
The three boys stopped but Phoenix just kept going not wanting to hear what the boys were saying, because she knew that Feitan wasn't the nicest person but he couldn't be in the Troupe, he just couldn't!
"The Phantom Troupe!" Leorio asked not wanted to be correct but frowned when Killua nodded seriously.
"Oh, right… Phoenix is everything okay? You looked like you saw a ghost when you got your sheet?" Gon asked making the young girl stop.
Phoenix didn't say anything for a moment before sighing but not turning to her friends, "I haven't told you everything about my training with Netero-sensei" She admitted and she knew that got their attention but still she didn't turn to look at them. "Whenever sensei had to go away to take care of the Hunter Association I was visited by someone, his name was Feitan. He helped me with my nen whenever he came around and we'd spar a lot too. Whenever we weren't training we were talking or just enjoying each other's company. He became someone really important to me in those six months… I never knew that he was in the Phantom Troupe though!" She explained, whispered the last part still in denial.
None of the boys said anything before Gon walked over to her, "It's okay, you didn't know Phoenix" He said comforting, "He lied to you, it's not your fault"
"Actually, it kind of is. I never asked what he did, I never even asked if he was a Hunter, and to be honest with you I don't care. I don't care that he's in the Troupe because all he ever was to me was kind and helpful!" She admitted and tears started to fall down her cheeks to the ground. "But I feel like I'm betraying Kurapika because I'm friends with one of the members!" She sobbed.
The young girl was spun around and given a hug, a hand started to stroke her hair. "Kurapika doesn't need to know" The person holding her whispered. Phoenix then knew that it was Killua holding her making her put her arms around the ex-assassin. "None of us will tell him okay?" He said looked at Leorio and Gon who nodded their agreement.
"Killua's right Phoenix. If your friends with him then he can't be that bad" Leorio reassured the young girl, "I know Kurapika wants the get rid of the spiders completely but we won't let him kill your friend" He said with a gentle smile.
Phoenix nodded before wiping her tears away, happy that she has such amazing friends. "Gon, you should call Kurapika to see if he's okay, he has a job as a body guard for someone participating in the auction" She told her brown eyed friend who nodded.
Gon did as he was told and called their blonde friend but he never answer. This made all four friends nervous and very worried. They quickly went back to their hotel so they could call him again, hoping that he'll answer them.
A/N: I really didn't know how to end this but this will have to do! So, I changed a few things as you can tell, what do you all think of Phoenix's acting skills?
If anyone was to beta my story or knows someone who will please let me know, it'll mean a lot to me.
Phoenix has told her friends about Feitan, wonder what will happen when Kurapika finds out?
Answer from last chapter: I'm not going to be telling anyone what's going to happen between Kurapika and Phoenix because that will spoil it wouldn't it?
Question of the chapter: Any fire based attacks for Phoenix that would like in the story? I have a few ideas for her attacks, which we won't see until Greed Island but would like a few more so if anyone has any let me know.
Thank you for reading my fanfiction love you guys.
Please follow, favourite and review I would really appreciate it.