Embrace Your Fate

Part 3: Hisoka's Quest for Camelot

Illumi surreptitiously leaned closer to the fire. He didn't like the Artic, it was too cold. Being a top assassin, Illumi could stand extremes in temperature, but that didn't mean he enjoyed them. But Hisoka was paying obscene amounts of money to be here. In fact, Illumi was going to have so much money after this job; he would be able to buy a small country. Not that he wanted to, but he still could. That was the entire point.

Meanwhile, Hisoka was leaning towards a short old lady carrying a stick with lots of swirly things carved on to it. Illumi normally didn't believe in soothsayers or medicine women or anything like that, but Hisoka did and she had a nice fire so he hadn't said anything. He looked over at his companion. Hisoka was listening to the lady's words with rapt attention. She was telling some crackpot story about a whale. Hisoka was eating it up.

"So, where can I find this whale?"

The lady smacked her stick on the ground. "It's not a whale!" she howled. "It's the reincarnation of an evil sorcerer who tried to enslave the earth! He's now trying to gather up the world into his belly and rule it from there."

This old lady is bat-shit insane, thought Illumi.

"Right, right. But I can kill it?" Hisoka in his desperation had chosen to ignore the physical impossibilities of the medicine woman's story.

"Aye. Ye can kill it. But ye may die trying."

Hisoka smirked. "My dear lady, I think that I'm more than capable of killing this wh- I mean evil sorcerer."

The woman shrugged. "It's your life ye be gamblin', not mine."

Hisoka stood and motioned for Illumi to follow. "Thank you, dear lady, for all your help."

"Wait!" she cried as they began to walk out of the tent.

Illumi looked back. "Yes?"

"If ye wants to hunt the sorcerer, then ye should know his name."

Illumi considered pointing out that killing something didn't necessarily require a name, but Hisoka spoke before he could say anything.
"And what would this name be?"

"Camelot." There was a dramatic clap of thunder in the background. Illumi looked outside. It was sunny out, with a few small children running gaily through the snow.

"Thank you," said Hisoka. "For everything. Then they left.

"The whale must be really evil, to have such a dramatic announcement of his name." Illumi tactfully decided not to burst Hisoka's shiny bubble and point out the boom box outside the tent with the CD in it that said "1001 Different Sound Effects for the Dramatic Announcing of Names".

"So, what to we do now?"

Hisoka grinned at the question. "We quest for Camelot!"

Illumi paused. "Isn't that a movie?"

"Yes, yes, whatever. COME ILLUMI!" With that he grabbed Illumi's wrist and dragged him off to the beach where the alleged "Camelot" was said to be.

LATER . . .

"You needa go fight Jabu-Jabu!" echoed across the land.

Hisoka and Illumi walked across the frigid tundra. Illumi made the decision that he was going to go somewhere warm later. Preferably somewhere without snow, whales, and insane Hisokas. His thoughts of the peaceful bliss were rudely interrupted by Hisoka's voice.

"Illumi?"

"What?'

"Just out of curiosity, have you ever considered how much people would pay for something of yours?"

"You mean like a piece of hair for DNA testing?"

"No . . . I mean like . . . maybe your pants."

Illumi stopped at stared at Hisoka. "What?"

"Oh, come on. You know as well as I do that there are girls out there who find you downright sexy. They'd pay millions in order to get a hold of your pants. I remember this one time I found a pair of Kurapika's pants on E-bay . . ."

"No."

"But you could make so much!"

"Hisoka, I like my pants."

Hisoka sighed, dejectedly. "Fine. But I still think you could have made a fortune."

Illumi shook his head and began walking again, already blocking the conversation out of his memory.

Stay tuned for Part 4: Into the Belly of the Beast