Luci's Dive and Other Descents

[Nico Cinder]

The name of the bar Nico just exited escapes him at the moment, and he wasn't the "turning around" type. It's far more preferable to just rename the bar every time he has to go inside it. Never letting Alexei have a pick at a name again though; last time the bastard hung a sign, a ruddy sign. It was still there too! What good is renaming a place if there's a sign outside telling any old drunk schmuck what the name of their poor decision was? Bystanders need that sense of discovery in their lives. God, he could hear his bartender's voice then, every bit as gentle as the Kremlin itself.
"We have very different understandings of business and establishments, Nico," He'd say.
GOD! You'd have to change the sign every- whatever, Nico was done thinking about this and done walking. Walking is for losers. Destinations are for Gods.

There's an abnormally medium-sized building in Markov covered head to door in obnoxious, hot topic themed graffiti. Broken, bleeding hearts, obscure pop culture references, bands and their holy scriptures, signatures and pseudonyms: you could catch anything in that sea of high delinquent art if you looked for long enough. Nico promptly kicked the door open to the Cindie's public house. Lately, he had been struggling with an odd desire to call the place Titan Tower, but we already know how naming things worked for Nico Cinder.

"Hey you silly fucks, we have a silly job to do." Well, that's not true. He had a job to do. The Cindies' job was to feel important and included by performing the resurrection ritual whenever their hero inevitably met an unfortunate, combustible end. Admittedly, a very useful and important task. No one answered his call though, so with a groan of exasperation he gently unloads his guitar in the sparse, mostly rocky foyer before wandering around into a den/living area of sorts. Most if not all of the Cindies in town were sitting crowded around a TV that seems to be just a few inches or so small for the uh...sheer amount of bro that was going on here. And, on the TV, to no one in particular's surprise, was a fuck ton of people lining up to die.

 

[Nico Cinder]

Nico kicked the door open and walked a jaunty walk into the Bar With Many Names. In one hand dangled an already damaged six pack of Syntech's special energy brew, in the other was an open can. He'd take a bath in this stuff if he could and he's only half joking about that. His benefactor, Alexei, stares at him from across the long, long bar. His spooky yellow-eyed friend was nowhere to be found. That lady gave Nico the creeps, and being a creep himself attested to the...invasive aura she had.

"You look rather happy for someone who died in fifteenth place," the bartender began. "I expected a return cloaked in wrath."

Nico shrugged, an uncharacteristically soft smile on his elfish features. "It's the long con, my fine, feathered friend. Lose the battle, win the War...Well, not that war I just died in. But like, big "W" War. I admittedly probably coulda tried to plug the bar a little more," he said with a sweeping gesture. The bar was, indeed, very empty. "Can I get a drink? I did just fight and die in a war. It's only fair. America had a whole thing about it or something."

Alexei blinked. "I do not have any feathers." He poured the kid something shiny, bubbly, in a pretty glass.

"Ah well. Look, we got this sick action figure to put up in the display case," he showed off the little Nico figma, skated it around on the bar. Alexei's eyes followed it with moderate interest. He was a casual enjoyer of little novelties such as this, the massive floor to ceiling, wall to wall display case on the far end of the bar a monolithic testament to that.

"And more than anything," Nico said, sliding the toy and its accessories across the bar to Alexei. "This was a payday."

Nothing made such sweet notes like a leather pouch of coins hitting a hard surface. Nico sat there with a big ass expectant grin. Alexei did not.

"What is this I am looking at here, little soul?" he said with a measured tone.

"What? What do you mean? Rent, dude, prize money. The gobbledygook, bro. The Gold Standard. The roof over our heads. Lives don't come cheap but that Karl Jak asshole sure can buy 'em," the little punk said, "I'll fucking give the guy that."

"Clearly. Sin sells. But this is simply not what I mean. Nico," the man very deliberately poured the sack of gold and shinies out onto the table for the two of them to see. "Do you think anyone in Cevanti, or Hell, for that matter, would deal in this physical tender?"

"What!? I see people in hell using coins all the time!" he retorts.

"Not these coins, Nico. Not these." The big burly Russian picks an especially large, especially golden coin up and lets it shine in the moonlight invading their windows.

"Wh-" Nico squinted at it. Decorated on the golden chip was the cheerful, sneerful face of none other than General God-King Gilgamesh.

"SON OF A B-"

 

[Nico Cinder]

The door to the Bar with Many Names swings open with a vengeance once again, another disgruntled rockstar of the Nico variety passing the threshold. Alexei is behind the bar, polishing an already shining mug with a spotless rag. Very barkeep of him, Nico decided. A solitary patron, sits at the end of the long bar, but if they noticed Nico, they gave no sign of it.

"Welcome back," Alexei began at the sight of him.

"I feel very welcomed," Nico muttered back.

The burly man behind the bar regarded his charge with an almost-smile. "And the gold?"

"Working on it," he said back, not bothering to hide his exasperation. He spills into a stool a few down from the bar's only other customer.

"From home? Interesting tactic," the bartender mused. The mug did not squeak, it only shined. "I see you've learned so much from your time fighting to the death in the silly little tournaments scattered throughout this world."

"Maybe we can talk tactics over a pint, eh Alexei? Surely you have some big ideas in that big blocky head of yours."

He nodded. "I do."

Nico looked up expectantly. Without a word, the demon Alexei filled the pint glass he was polishing from one of the many, many taps on the wall before sliding it to the boy's spot. The brew inside is the color of bronze. He lifts the drink to his lips with a sigh, but before he even set the beverage down, he can't help but notice that Alexei had disappeared into the depths of the bar. All there was now was Nico, his drink, and the quiet creep sitting off vaguely to his left.

"Mind if I smoke in here?" came a tinny voice, swaddled from robes.

"Fuck, if you got 'em pal," the young man drawled back. "Cigarette smoke smells better than the inside of this place, that's for sure."

"I didn't notice any smell when I walked in," the stranger warbled. The fuck was going on with this guy's voice? Too many cigarettes, Nico supposed.

"Exactly," said Nico. "What brings you to the bar, stranger? Most folks don't even know its a bar."

"Well, there's no sign outside saying it's a bar."

"Exactly," said Nico.

A chortle that could only be described as robotic erupted from the pile of robes currently occupying bar space in Nico's not-bar. The stranger peels back his hood, revealing an absolute mane of black hair and a sharp face, partially obscured by a bandage wrapping. A smoke already dangled between the man's lips, but Nico never saw him put it there. The man holds the tip of his thumb up to the stogie. The appendage flips back at the nail, a little lighter's worth of flame dancing to life from the thumb stump.

"It's true what they say. Two men running a bar with no name down in the depths of Markov, a bartender with not much to say and a punk kid who's always away from home. But you're not just some punk kid, are you Nico Cinder? People know your name around here, and that little gang of reject-"

"Wait," Nico said, holding a hand up to press pause. This wasn't his first rodeo. He knew where this was going, and that whatever information was coming next was probably incredibly personal and uncomfortable to hear from a random stranger. To that end, he took a drink. Or two. Or maybe it was more like one really long swig. "Okay, I'm good. You can go ahead with the sales pitch."

Another coarse chorus of laughter filled the empty bar. "Seems like your handler knows you well."

"Alexei is not my handler, ew, the way you said that just... sounded awful," Nico groaned. "He's more of a business partner if anything. A really shitty one."

"He seems to do well tending the bar in your absence," the android said, to which Nico nodded.

"That he does. Look, can we skip the part you're about to go into? I get it. You and your people've been keeping tabs. Probably since the first death show I signed up for-"

"You made quite a name for yourself," the tin man cut in. "Even though you didn't make it very far. Your performance, at the very least, was inspiring to more than just the handful of misfits that follow you around Cevanti, and do the dirty work of summoning you back to this plane whenever your life goes awry."

"Wasn't supposed to be. Not supposed to be here in the first place," Nico said back.

"No, no you're not are you?" the stranger chuckled again. It was starting to wear on Nico's nerves. "But you've got to serve your sentence, eh? A sentence with no end in sight. What if, in exchange for your participation in our game-"

Nico throws his hands up in the air, almost spilling his beer. "Oh for fuck's sake, not another one-"

"-we could offer you some currency you could actually use to pay the bills on this place-"

"-I JUST got back from the last one-"

"-and, go far enough, we could even perhaps offer you....grounds to stand on. In your legal battle."

That one shut the boy up.

"...if you could call it that," the robot finished, a serious look on his face. Do robots get serious? Or are they always serious? Nico hoped this one was serious. What the fuck do robots know about devils anyways?

"How do I know you're not running me around on this?" the punk said, with his own serious look on his face.

"How could Joey and Jack know you weren't running them around when you told them you were going off to make a deal with the devil?" The robot asked, taking a drag from his cigarette. Nico's knuckles whiten around the handle of his mug, and for a moment the android wondered if the beverage might be smashed against his head. The rockstar's eyes looked like they belonged to someone who was running out of road, or air. No one knew about his bandmates in this world. Other than Alexei, maybe, but Nico wasn't even sure of that much.

"Looks to me like you're about to make a deal with another one," The robot said in a low hum.