Yu-Gi-Oh LUCKS

Chapter 1: The Crime of Prometheus

Yuu loved the light, even when it did not belong to him. Clavis had taught him to spot the pinprick glint of duradine crystals, magnified through the needle-eyes of mica and quartz and diffused all across the cave wall, making it glitter with false stars. Yuu brought back his pickaxe and swung as if he were piercing the night sky.

"Give it a rest, Yuu." The squeal of metal wheels on rails approached as a headlamp washed away the dark and stars. Yuu tipped his goggles up and shielded his eyes as the blinding light extended an arm to the top of its helmet and shut it off, leaving them in near total darkness again.

"Hey, Clav," Yuu said, turning back to the wall. "Is it lunchtime already?"

"Not for another hour," Clavis said, "but rest anyway." In the dark, his most prominent feature was the great cloud of his beard, which trapped a heap of dust over the course of their day. He'd make a show out of dusting it at lunchtime, drawing laughs from the other miners. A sheaf of low-grade duradine glowed softly at his belt. It was enough to make a full deck, which he and Yuu split to play Duel Monsters at their lunch table. The other miners would scoff at this, calling it a waste of their already meager pay. Yuu, however, admired Clavis for holding on to it. It was as if his deck of duradine cards could be completed by the right find.

Yuu pushed his goggles back down. "I'm still feeling one hundred percent, though! Well, eighty-seven percent. Point five." He grinned, hefting his pickaxe.

He could just barely make out Clav's annoyed scowl. "Take a break so I can pick up all of this waste rock, you dunce. I leave you alone for twenty minutes and I have to dig you out."

"Oh." Yuu suddenly realized that there was a waist-high wall of rubble between him and Clavis. "My bad, Clav. I'll help you out."

Clavis huffed, but didn't object as Yuu clambered over the pile and started shoveling it into the minecart with his hands. "We get paid the same thing, kid. No need to overextend yourself."

Yuu dumped an armful of rock into the cart. "Wait, you haven't gotten a raise in twenty years? Ow." He winced as Clavis's fist came down on his hard hat, rattling his spine.

"Shut up, you brat. That's just how the mines work. The only way things really get better is if you score a commission." If a miner found high-grade duradine, Heart Excavation would give them a bonus once it was sold.

"Then it's fine if I'm trying hard to find high-grades, right? Today's my lucky day, I can feel it." Excavating a high-grade duradine was something that Yuu had dreamed of ever since he came to the mines. There was little else to dream for.

Clavis shook his head. "Chief Oga will just cheat you out of it. No way he'll pass up a chance to skim some money."

Yuu glanced down to Clavis's belt. "Is that why you bought all of yours back?"

Clavis patted his deck. "Nah. These are all low-grade. Barely fit to duel with. But hey, they belong to me. Even if I myself belong to Heart Excavation." There was an invisible weight around Clavis's shoulders as he heaved up stones to take away. "Stop changing the subject, Yuu. Don't let them work you to death."

Yuu smiled and hoped Clavis could see it in the dark. "I'll be alright, Clav. Really."

Clavis harrumphed, but said nothing else. Soon, they'd eliminated the rubble on the tunnel floor. Clavis sighed and sat down, wiping the sweat from underneath his hard hat. "Air tastes like cement today," he grumbled.

"You can sit right there and check this dig," Yuu said, swinging his pickaxe up. "Courtesy of Yuu Tokari."

His first swing chipped the rock at an angle, the first line of the wedges he aimed to break from the wall. Swinging from the other side was clumsier, but soon, he'd made a V-shaped crack. Yuu could feel the faint lights of duradine watching him, waiting for him to dig through and greet them. As he broke the layers of translucent rock, the lights converged and grew brighter.