Chapter 8: Trouble! Attack the Signers!
A line of light runs across the dark world and begins to break away the darkness. With his eyes fully open, Akira finds himself looking at an unfamiliar ceiling in an unfamiliar room. It was fairly plain, probably used for guest, with nothing but a television, a bed, and a night stand decorating the room.
He lifts his heavy body up to find himself in someone's bed. Throwing the sheets back and bringing his hand up to his face, memories from earlier rush into his head. He could recall finding Tyson among the blaze and shortly after…
"You know, you're pretty heavy." A voice interrupts Akira's train of thought.
Snapping to attention, Akira jumps up and finds Tyson standing up against the doorway.
"You black-out after your little stunt." Tyson walks into the room and sits on the floor across from the bed. "The doctors and stuff wanted to take a look at you and everything but I managed to bring you here instead. I figured that would be best anyways." Tyson ends with a sigh and a shrug.
Akira recalls how he used his psychic powers to their fullest and remains silent.
"Jeez, I guess I don't really have anything to do now. The tournament's been postponed until further notice; thanks to all the recent accidents in the city and all." Tyson rambles on to break the silence. "Sorry I couldn't drag you to your pad man. I was sure you'd understand. It's not like I know where you're crashing ya know."
Akira only stares at Tyson with little interest. It was as if he was asking how long Tyson could keep this up. Just the same, Tyson briefly returns the stare before throwing his hands behind his head and continuing with the one-sided conversation.
"This is kinda different though," Tyson starts to tap his foot against the TV stand, "For someone I've just met, I sure am seeing a lot of you. Maybe this is what some people would call fate or something right?" Tyson takes his deck from his coat pocket and begins to look through it card by card. "It's almost like a game huh?"
Akira was finally fed up with Tyson's talk, "What exactly are you getting at?"
Tyson shoots Akira a cold glare causing him to tense up instantly.
"I've almost been killed twice in the time that I've known you Akira. What I wanna know is just who or what the hell you are."
***
"Another Signer…?" Yusei restates the phrase within utter confusion.
Aki nods her head to Yusei to confirm that what she said was correct.
After, the fire at the hospital was declared as being resolved, Aki insisted on remaining at the scene for a little while longer to see if Akira was alright. In the end however, the mysterious boy did not return to her and she would have assumed the worst if not for the fact that neither his body nor his friend's turned up amongst the dead. With nothing else to do, the two left the scene and eventually ended up at Yusei's garage where they began a discussion on the events of the day.
"Hey now, I may still be new to this whole thing but that just doesn't sit right with me." Crow leans back in his chair and lifts an eyebrow to think over the suggestion. "Hey Yusei, is that even possible? I'm pretty sure that there are only supposed to be five Signers in all."
"You idiot, of course there are only five Signers!" Jack declares before Yusei can answer, "Look, if this Akira kid really does have a mark, then it's obviously a fake!"
Aki narrows her eyes and clenches her fist at the remark; even though she doesn't fully understand why herself.
"Jack, calm down. Even if that's true we can't ignore the fact that he made Aki's mark react." Yusei thinks through the information logically. "What's more is that ever since we've started sensing what feels like another mark more and more incidents have started to occur inside the city. This could very well have something to do with that guy."
Jack growls under his breath and turns the other cheek as Crow begins to grumble and scratch his head. Aki on the other hand could only smile slightly to know that she could always count on Yusei to handle a situation like this. That's probably why she admired him so much.
"OH!" Aki yells out making everyone jump out of their seats.
"Aki! What is it!? What's wrong!?" Yusei asks
"Oh, it's just that, I almost forgot about something else."
Crow takes a big sigh as the other two relax and listen for what Aki has to say.
"When the hospital was set on fire, there were these two people riding this orange duel runner. I'm not entirely sure, but I faintly recall seeing the girl in the same room Akira's friend was in. On top of that, Akira seemed to know the guy from somewhere. I think he called him Bring…" Aki brings her hand up to her chin and tries to recall what the two looked like.
"My my, it would seem that that hothead can't do anything right."
Everyone turns their attention upwards towards the entrance. There, sitting down on the steps, was a girl peering down at them with devilish eyes. She was in her late teens, dressed in a white shirt, blue jacket, and blue skirt. Her long black hair flowed down her back and spread across the floor that she sat on.
"And just who are you!? Don't you know it's impolite to eavesdrop!?" Jack yells out.
The girl doesn't give a response. She only smiles as she lifts her hand and reaches into her shirt to pull out what appeared to be a stone tied around her neck. Yusei instantly recognized the stone as the girl he carried to the hospital the day before had one just like it.
"Are you responsible for all the damage that's been happening in this city!?" Yusei demands an answer from the girl.
"I'm sorry, but you'll have to force that information out of me in a duel." The girl states as she lifts the stone up to her lips and kisses it. The stone begins to glow a faint green. The room is then quickly engulfed in a violent green light causing everyone to shield their eyes.
Once the light dies down, the group find themselves in what appeared to be outer space. There was no ground beneath them; the only thing beneath their feet was a type of glowing seal.
Naturally, Crow panics and decides to hold his breath but soon finds that doing so isn't necessary.
"What is this?" Yusei glares at the girl standing a couple of feet away.
"Our playing field." The girl gives a cryptic answer and holds out her arm. Green light begins to spiral around it until it disperses leaving a duel disk behind.
The same soon happens to Yusei, as the same light that transported him there suddenly forms his duel disk with his deck already set for battle. Figuring there was no backing down, Yusei stares at his opponent and decides to accept her challenge.
"Duel!"
Yusei: 4000
Kairi: 4000
"My turn! Draw!" Yusei takes the first turn and draws the top card off of his deck. "And I'll start by playing my Shield Warrior (DEF 1600) in defense mode!" Yusei's defender appears on his side of the field. "Nest I'll place one face-down and then I'll activate the spell card Double Summon. With this, I'm allowed one more normal summon this turn. So now I think I'll summon my Zero Gardna (DEF 0) to the field." A little machine like monster carrying a giant zero appears on Yusei's side of the field. "That's it for now."
"Wha? Why's Yusei going straight defense on the first turn?" Crow asked stupidly.
"Defense or offense, it won't matter in the end." The mysterious girl states plainly as she draws her card and begins her turn. "From my hand, I play the spell card Terraforming." Kairi's spell card appears on the field. "This handy little card allows me to take one field spell card from my deck and add it to my hand." Kairi's duel disk shuffles her deck and stops allowing her to draw the top card off of her deck. "And now I think I'll play the field spell I just drew. I activate the field spell card; A Legendary Ocean!"
As Kairi's Terraforming card begins to vanish, a whirlpool began to form on her side of the field. The whirlpool would soon erupt and flood the entire field. Yusei and the others braced themselves as the wave washed over them to submerge the area. When everything was done, the duelists all found themselves at the bottom of the ocean in what appeared to be a sunken city.
"Much better." The girl's voice echoed through the water. "Now that A Legendary Ocean is activated, all water monsters in my hand and on my field are downgraded 1 level; making it easier for me to summon them. So now I summon my Terrorking Salmon (ATK 2400) in attack mode."
The giant fish appears on the field, causing Yusei to grind his teeth at the beast's attack strength.
"And that's not all, because of my field spell card, my Terrorking Salmon gains an extra 200 attack and defense points. That raises his strength to 2600."
Aki and the others look on in suspense. The fact that this girl was able to summon such a powerful monster on the first turn could only spell trouble for Yusei.
"Now attack, Terrorking Salmon! Destroy his Zero Gardna!" Kairi commands her monster into battle.
"I don't think so! I activate my trap card, Scrap Iron Scarecrow!"
Kairi's monster swims with incredible speed to destroy Zero Gardna only to be intercepted by Yusei's trap.
"Hmph" Kairi turns her chin up at her opponent.
Unable to fulfill its attack, her monster returns to her side of the field and Yusei's trap is reset on his field.
"That was close." Aki takes a sigh of relief on the sidelines.
"Perhaps…" Jack cuts Aki's relief short, "But if that girl's deck is anything like what I think it is, Yusei better hurry up and wrap this duel up quick."
Aki hears Jack's words well and understands completely what he means. She redirects her attention two the two duelists before her. Nothing made sense. She'd already figured that this girl had something to do with the two from the hospital. But what she didn't understand was what these people wanted with them. Even more so, she wanted to know what they wanted to do with Akira.
***
So that's how it is huh?" Tyson leans up against the wall as he reflects on all the information he'd just received.
It wasn't anything really elaborate. Akira simply told Tyson everything from square one. He started with the weird dreams he had of Aki and the dragon up to the point where he saved Tyson from the burning hospital. Of course he had to explain to Tyson that he had psychic abilities; however, that was about all he said on that subject for his own personal reasons.
"Anyways, I appreciate what you did Tyson but now I've got to get home. If Bring had my deck then he must have been able to get into my house somehow. I need to check and see if I can figure out what they were doing there."
Tyson grumbles as he is still unable to comprehend the whole situation.
Akira gets up out of the guest bed only to be paralyzed by a sharp pain surging throughout his body. Tyson hopes up able to see the pain on Akira's face and holds him up to see if anything was wrong.
"Dude, you okay?"
Akira manages to nod, as he now knew the source of the pain. His arm was pulsating like it did when he met Aki at the hospital. The pain was centered around an odd mark that had appeared on his arm at some point in time. It wasn't clear, but as the pain grew stronger, so did the image of the oddly shaped mark on his arm.
"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"
Despite Tyson's help, the pain was so great that it brought Akira to his knees in no time. He didn't know how he'd received the mark or even why, but now, within all the pain, it was screaming at him that someone was in trouble.
***
"I'll get it!" Ruka announces as she runs to the front door.
She steps lively and even finds herself skipping part of the way expecting someone like Yusei or Aki to meet her at the door.
She stops at the door and reaches out to grab the doorknob. She turns it and as she opens the door a feeling of dread and burning despair washes over her. Before her is someone who could only be described as overwhelming; a wild looking blonde with a scar across his nose. Ruka steps back away from the door as he enters and smiles at her with evil eyes.
"Hey kid. Wanna play?"
