Judgement of the World
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
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Something that was rather unknown to Jacks' fan base was the fact that Jack enjoyed painting, which given his love of white made the interest understandable. After all, it was hard to believe that someone who enjoyed 'painting' could wear as much white and blue as Jack did and not have paint smears. Especially since his 'paint' was of the can variety that was used for painting large pieces like vehicles and such. So Jack's curiosity to watch Carly go about painting one of these pieces was above average, when they left the Cafe.
But he never had the patience or skill to use such tiny brushes to paint figurines of the scale that he found in Carly apartment. As such when he realized that a good number of them were 'hand' painted by her, he had been privately interested in seeing her at work. Of course, there had been this small feeling in the back of his mind considering her clumsy nature. That this might be rather, an 'interesting' experience since, again, she was clumsy.
So finding out that Carly was a figurine painting artist on Yusei's level of fixation and detail left him floored and nervous. He actually found himself unsure if it was safe to even 'approach' the work space for him. From the moment she stepped into her apartment, she put away 'everything' on her, from her purse to the groceries. Which had been ok, save that she had stopped being her usual social chatty self.
She disappeared into one room and came out in a completely different outfit, with long sleeves that were bound and tied to her back. Jack wanted to say she looked like some type of Shinto Priestess actually, and with that thick corded strip that bound her hair out of her face, and out of the way? It 'really' reinforced the feeling that she treated the art of painting as a type of serious ritual.
Out came a wine red colored wooden table with fold out legs, that she placed with predesignated precision, after she checked to make sure each leg had perfect stability. The chair that had been off to the side and never touched in all the times Jack had been to the apartment was brought out and placed at the designated 'spot'. While Jack wondered if he should try to find a place to sit that was near the bathroom, just in case.
When next came out a large tool box, that she opened with expert care and pulled out a small, pure, white tray. Next was a small, clean, clear container that she left to fill with water before returning to the table. From within the tool box there was a large roll of cloth that didn't look half as wide as it did long. Which turned out to be from it holding her brushes, all rolled out like how Yusei's tools were laid out.
'I'm dating the Artist version of Yusei. Ok, now is the time to drive off the land and to my death.' Jack thought as Carly, 'then' pulled out a laptop and placed it on the table. Thus from her seat, she had the brushes laid out before her midway on the table. Behind that was the tool box, while on the upper right of the table was the container for water and on the lower left of the table was the small paint tray.
He hedged himself so he was south west of her and close to the rest room and the kitchen, while his mind pointed out things like. Hey, she painted all those pieces so how is all her stuff 'pristine white'?! This also wasn't her normal laptop, he had never seen it before, but he watched as she dug through folders and began pulling up what seemed 'hundreds' of Dark Magician pictures.
"So... what is all of this?" Why did his voice break when he tried to ask a simple question? And no it wasn't because he was intimidated by his clumsy girlfriend! He was intimidated by his 'driven' girlfriend.
"Huh?" She turned and looked at him blinking owlishly behind her glasses, as though she completely forgot that he was even 'there'. "Oh Jack you're still here! Well see!"
Because Jack didn't need his ego apparently, she pointed to the laptop screen before speaking, "I'm doing a color cross reference on the Dark Magician. This being his final incarnation, but with camera tech not being always the best to rely on. I have to take notes and figure out which color 'exactly' matches his robes, hair and skin. So I use the program to check the gradient on all these pictures and make notations. Don't want to use the wrong shade after all, and when Pegasus created these cards in the first place he may have had to do what is considered a color lock. Basically he had to get a patent on the 'exact' color for each of his monsters because when a business creates its logo it gets an exact color for that logo. But even if Pegasus did or didn't lock in the colors, Dark Magician 'has' multiple color palettes, you don't want a piece to stick out amid a perfect collection." She rattled off turning back to her laptop.
"Well, I'm going to put my faith that you know what you're talking about. You're not the type to disappoint me," Jack answered grandly. And cowered internally because he had found a NEW layer of his girlfriend and wow.
He began to look around at the apartment, since she had yet to produce the desired figurine amid all her set up. But from his elevated gaze he couldn't make out any new uncolored figurine, but what he 'could' hear was the buzzer as it went off out of nowhere. The sound blaring out above and beyond the quiet clicks of Carly's keyboard made Jack start back. He knocked into display case and caused the case to rattle.
There was no way to avoid the color draining from his face the moment he saw Carly shoot him a death glare. He turned a quick eye to the case and opened it as quickly as he could while scanning for every fallen piece and both righting it and praying he wasn't on a murder list. It was all he could do not to confirm with Carly that she still loved him despite his transgression. And if he 'had' to die, find out where his sweet, clumsy, clueless girlfriend was.
She had gotten up from her seat and though she kept her eyes on him, daring him to screw up again, she backed up to her door. He heard the door click while he was busy checking each shelf and nearly flung himself into the shelf.
"I'm sorry I meant to be here sooner, but school things happened," Aki's voice floated from the front of the door. Of course Carly would invite Aki, like Jack didn't tell her what he and Yusei had 'discussed' before and that he was a bit skittish about being around her at the moment.
He didn't tell Carly about the conversation.
"Its fine, you haven't missed much, just rese... Say would 'you' know the 'exact' color of the Dark Magician's final incarnation?" Carly answered, her eyes shinning at the recollection that Aki could talk to the Spirits.
Aki for her part, looked taken aback and a bit nervous as she turned her gaze to the side to check with her Witch, only to catch a glimpse of Jack further in the room. "Oh, hello Jack!" She called out while her Witch floated into the room.
"She wants to know what?" The Black Rose Witch asked as she floated about the room and took in the new table and set up.
"Um she's painting a figurine of the Dark Magician and wants to know the colors of his form," Aki explained to her Witch as she worried if she was going to have to split her conversations between two groups again.
Black Rose gave Aki this baffled look before rubbing the side of her head with her wand then giving a shrug, "Which one? There are variations to how the Dark Magician looks after all."
Aki gave a slightly awkward expression as she sought the clarification that her Witch needed before answering. For which Carly answered by escorting the duelist to her laptop and showing the literal wall of Dark Magician images. Black Rose followed obediently behind her, hovering over the shoulder and looking at the screen.
"Wow that's a lot of pictures of one being," Black Witch noted after a long whistle. "But I can't help her, 'that' Dark Magician is still in the service of the one he partnered with. He never stayed in the Spirit World and I wasn't around back then either." Black Rose explained, hovering over Aki's shoulder as she studied him. "But I'll say he's built, all the other Magicians normally hide their bodies under long tunics and you only really get a good look at their thighs. But he is ripped..."
Aki quietly reached up and pressed her index finger against her witches' lips as the Witch seemed all too happy to go on discussing the Dark Magicians' 'assets'. "I'm sorry, my Witch never met that Dark Magician, and apparently he doesn't live in the Spirit World with the other Duel Spirits, he's still traveling with Yugi."
"Like you don't look at Yusei's 'assets' when you were on his D-Wheel," Witch retorted as she settled down in a mild huff on open lid of the tool box. Her lack of physical weight allowing her to sit there without affecting anything.
While Carly sat there her eyebrow looking like a fuzzy caterpillar resting atop one of her glasses as she pondered why Aki was... well blushing more red than an actual rose.
Jack finally managed to stand up and rolled back his shoulders of the tension he got from carefully righting each and every piece. Not fun when one was as tall as Jack and had to lay out on the floor to reach the bottom shelf. Though it had given him an excuse to avoid having to stand up and face Aki, for a bit, now...
He stood up, dusting himself off to find that Aki was sitting there with her head in her hands, and Carly looking a bit confused as she returned to color checking the Dark Magician pictures on her laptop. "Well now that I am not busy, hello Aki," Jack bellowed, despite his apprehension of being around Aki due to guilt. At least he had someone to talk to and less reason to feel like he was walking on egg shells.
"Hello Jack," Aki answered, though she didn't lift up her head from her hands. "Excited to see Carly paint this piece, too?"
He gave a wordless sound of affirmation, realizing what had brought the rose duelist to the apartment. As he stood there he realized how good this would work out for him, as he could work out his feeling of guilt without actively having to talk. Because it was quite clear that if there was any socializing during the painting process someone was getting ejected or stabbed with a paint brush.
Carly gave no sign she noticed or cared about the pair in her apartment, as she worked, allowing Jack to sit down, before asking Aki quietly. "How long do you think this will take? I don't know about you, but a King needs his dinner and all this cross checking..." He let his words hang while Aki managed to look up at him with a half smile.
"You might be right, though Carly said it doesn't take long to paint," she whispered in reply before looking about a bit. "I wonder where the figurine 'is'?"
"I washed it before I went to my lunch with Jack," Carly explained while glued to her laptop. "I wrapped it up to dry and will bring it out when I'm ready."
Aki nodded, she recalled a simpler piece that Carly had painted before Carly and Jack had reunited. Carly was pretty intense with that little Dancing Fairy figurine, though she hadn't brought out the laptop. Or the change in attire, or the headband, but she had been focused and dedicated to the craft of painting. But it made Aki decide that she knew why Carly was so clumsy with everything else, as she was apparently bending the universe to get this 'perfect'. There 'had' to be a balance to it and if Carly was this talented with figurines, it made sense she would be a wreck with a lot of other things.
Black Rose was peering down, examining the contents inside the tool box with idle interest now that the Dark Magician pictures were zoomed in on his clothes. While Jack wondered why Aki would allow herself to sit where the tool box was in the way.
"Isn't that tool box going to be in the way?" He asked quietly, looking down at the top of Aki's head and comparing it to the size of the large box.
"She'll put it under the table when she's got the colors she needs," Aki explained in a soft, hushed tone.
Jack nodded, while Carly worked the numbers on her screen comparing a long row of letters and numbers until she finally settled on something. For as he sat there, she went to her tool box and began extracting various paints and making Jack wonder. Was she going to cross check the paints after they were mixed as well? Since, the probability of making a paint in the proper pigment needed and having that already been purchased was astronomical. Odds were that she would have to start mixing and combining colors to get the right shade. Even then she would have to cross check a 'lot' to make it reach that color.
The bottles were picked up, their labels read and returned to the tool box while cross checking the work on the laptop with a color wheel in an empty hand. The last thing she pulled out was a thick stack of thin white cardboard, and as she sat there narrowing those colors even further, Jack felt a slight tug on his sleeve.
"Say, I never got into figurines, how rare are these?" Aki asked in a hushed whisper only to see Carly lift her head up from the other side of the table.
"How rare are these? These are 'super' rare! They 'literally' stand as the figurine version of the legendary Blue Eyes White Dragon! There were only 10 sets ever made and this is the absolute 'last' set. The only things that can go above this are the figurines of the Gods Cards that the Original Duel King 'himself' used! And 'those' are so rare that they aren't even 'listed', its a literal 'one of a kind' set!" Carly proclaimed with the die hard pride of a collector. "They were made a decade after Yugi became the First Duel King, to celebrate the game!"
"Well then they must be super expensive," Aki commented as her gaze shifted towards the already painted figurines that rested in the display case next to the couch. There were soo many and the life of a reporter couldn't pay that well. At least, for Carly considering her luck at getting good scoops.
"OH they are," Carly agreed as her head sank behind the tool box like the sun at dusk. "I have to save a half my pay checks each month to afford one, and it has taken 'years' to get this far."
"Wait.. WHAT?!" Aki jumped to her feet as did Jack, their combined confused outrage seemingly causing them to fill the air of the room.
Carly didn't even look up from what she was now invested in doing as she answered their outrage with a simple, "sure, dedication requires sacrifice some times."
Jack was fairly vibrating at the realization of what Carly invested with these figurines, regardless. The card game 'alone' was expensive, the very idea that she was investing 'half' her pay check just to collect something she couldn't even use? At least with a duel deck she could win some money back in a duel if she won, but just figurines?
While Aki developed a more thoughtful expression as she looked about and began running numbers in her mind. Even if it wasn't something she was great at doing, the apartment was clean, warm, and served its function. Carly herself was healthy and not in any way desperate for money that would imply bankruptcy. "You must be doing great for yourself then, that's a relief!" Aki beamed before smoothing out her dress and settling back down to her seat.
Jack, on the other hand, looked down at her in shock unable to figure out how Aki could just be 'fine' with this. Yet the moment he would normally snap at her, he remembered his words before to Yusei and what was about to be a torrent of outrage became a barely self contained grumbling growling sound.
"Yeah, granted I'm a reporter, but there's this group in Egypt that 'love' my landscape pictures that I take. I get a good price for those pictures and that's how I pay for everything... Save when I haven't been able to take pictures... or there's been no scoops." Carly sounded a bit normal as she spoke, but the way she said that...
Aki frowned, and pulled out her cellphone from her small purse, but she didn't crunch numbers. And she felt Jack sit down and shift in his seat as though he was trying to see what she was doing, which didn't bother her. She held the phone in such a way so he could see as she began searching for the figurines on the market. Trying to get an idea of 'how much' Carly had to save up to buy just 'one' of these. That way she could figure out how much Carly was spending.
Once she saw the screen with the amount, she held up her hand to still any outrage out of Jack. Stood up from her seat, and walked around the table to escort Carly's unwilling form from 'her' seat to the middle of the room. Safely away from the table and potentially damage as the pair blurted out in their stunned disbelief.
"ONE BILLION YEN?!"