Chapter 10- Back to the Shadow Realm

"Okay, now that the leader is gone…" Flynn said. "…we need to get the hell out of here. Sooner or later they're going to find out what happened, and when they do, I don't want to be unprepared when they come storming in here."

"Yeah, an army that size attacking us would probably be a bad thing." Keith said. "They don't seem to be doing much right now. They're just milling around out there… wonder what they would do if we tried to get out of here."

"They'd probably come after us." Brooklyn said. "They haven't figured out what happened here yet, but they will soon. They aren't completely stupid."

"Yeah." Drake checked his rifle. "So what's the plan?"

"Let's see…" Keith said. "What to do, what to do…there's a massive fiend army milling around outside, we're in here with very limited munitions and almost no weapon variety…then again… the fiends really aren't paying attention."

"Are you suggesting a direct frontal attack?" Yugi asked.

"Sure, why not?"

"We might as well try." Flynn said. "We know that they have snipers tactically positioned around the area. If we attempt to sneak out and around the back, chances are that those snipers will attempt to find us and shoot us. And chances are they'll suggest. There's very little ground cover outside."

"Only problem with Duel Academy." Keith said. "It's so new, they haven't even started doing the landscaping!"

"It also doesn't help the no work for any school gets done fast." Brooklyn said. "But back on topic. What are we going to do?"

"I thought we already decided that." Drake said. He was getting kind of impatient. While they were wasting time thinking on this, Julie was getting closer and closer to eternal damnation.

"Slow down there, loverboy, we haven't come to any decisions yet." Flynn said. "So is that all we've got? Go head on and hope for the best?"

"Yes, I suppose it is." Keith said. "I can't think of anything else."

"This isn't going to end well, you know." MacArthur said.

"I can tell. But is there a better way? You're the military man around here."

MacArthur scratched the gray hairs on his chin. "No. This is one of the worst situations possible. We have almost no manpower, whereas our opponent has virtually limitless numbers."

"Correction: truly limitless. Fiends don't die; they just kinda respawn at the core of the level they originate from." Brooklyn said.

"Okay, that makes things even worse. Granted, all of those numbers are not standing out there, but there seems to be enough to kill us all without much trouble. Also, they apparently have several sniper nests set up somewhere around here, which is another problem. We do not have a particularly tactical position, nor do we have much capacity for any kinds of tactics.

"Which leads to another problem- we have no weapon variety. We have sev- excuse me, five people equipped with assault weapons and another with a freakishly large laser rifle that looks like he got it from Star Trek. If one of us had, say, a grenade launcher or an RPG, this could be easier."

"He's right, of course." Brooklyn said. "It's not like we can just have Matt appear out of nowhere and kill everything with all his coolness and deadliness and stuff. It just doesn't work like that."

Something hit Drake. He couldn't describe it. Suddenly, somehow, the way wasn't hard anymore. In fact, the way seemed so simple that there was no way they could not make this run. "I have an idea." He said.

"What is it?" Flynn said. "At this point, I'll hear anything."

"We can go through the basement." Drake surprised himself. He didn't know that the academy had a basement.

"There is no basement." Keith said flatly. "I checked the schematics of this place when I came here. Nothing mentioned a basement. What makes you suggest such a thing?"

"It's not a basement, per se, it's more of a… bomb shelter." Drake didn't have a clue what he was talking about. Something was putting the words in his mouth, but he wasn't about to argue with it. This all made sense. "There's an exit tunnel. We can sneak around to the back of the army and then slip into the Shadows undetected."

"That's good in theory, but where is this bomb shelter?" Helen asked. "I've been all around this school, and I've never seen nor heard of it. What's gotten into you? You're probably going mad."

"It's… here…" Drake reached down, slipped his hand into an invisible crease in the carpet, and pulled it up. The brown floor underneath was incredibly dusty, and it had a silver handle sticking out of it. Drake seized this and pulled. The smell of a decades of abandonment came blowing out the tunnel. But there it was. Everyone was speechless.

"How did you know?" Keith asked. "That's not possible…"

"I… don't know how." Drake admitted. "It's… ridiculous." He stared down the pitch-black tunnel. "But how will we see down there?"

Yugi slipped a lighter out of his pocket. "It's not much, but this will do." He flipped it open and lit it, then proceeded down into the tunnel. Drake was right behind him.

For almost ten minutes, Drake followed Yugi's bobbing light in front of him, down the twisting corridor and around bends, around foundation spikes that seemed to be part of something built years after the tunnel, and under support beams that looked like they were pretty worn away.

"This has to be from sometime during World War II…" Keith said from somewhere behind Drake. His voice echoed down the tunnel. "…but why?"

"Good question." Helen said. "I never knew this was here… I doubt anyone did. We knew this was used before we built the academy, but we never knew what for. We bought the island from the government."

"It was probably a military base." Brooklyn said. "This place would make a pretty good naval base. It has a natural harbor, and the water around it is shallow enough that a submersed attack has no effect. It's not easy to get here from anywhere; the only place that's close is Hawaii, and it's America owned. The only way to get here is to go from there. And a naval attack is hard too, because chances are the ships will run aground. The original builders dug a canal so that single ships could get in, but multiple ships will get caught up in the reefs and sandbanks. So it's too hard to do a naval attack."

"Yes, this island would be a perfect naval stronghold." MacArthur said. "Except for the fact that you can just parachute onto it."

"Well, if there are actually military people here, they would have AA guns set up and other stuff." Keith said. "They probably had their own air force and everything. So that was really not a threat. Besides, I doubt that they could send planes this far."

"True."

"Shh…" Yugi said. "I can see the end of the tunnel." Everyone fell silent. Yugi crawled a little farther forward and then vanished. Light streamed into the tunnel. Drake crawled out and straightened up. Yugi was standing a few feet away, looking up. "That worked quite well." He was looking at the back of the gate, which was a few feet higher than them. Keith slid out of the tunnel next.

"Ow…" He groaned as he straightened up. "I'm glad I never worked in a submarine or something like that. I'll never stand up perfectly straight again." Flynn was right behind him with similar complaints. MacArthur army crawled out behind them, apparently less stiff than any of them as he had been laying down the whole way. Helen and Brooklyn followed him, apparently none the worse for the wear due to being shorter than the rest of them.

"Okay, so now what?" Keith asked, surveying the situation. "The gate still up there, and we're down here. How are we to get to it? This was your idea, Drake."

"I don't know." Drake pressed the heels of his hands to his forehead. He usually didn't think this much. "I can't think of anything."

"At least we're outside." Helen said. "There's something to be said for that."

"Actually, that's probably a bad thing." MacArthur said. "We're exposed. If there are any snipers scanning the area, we have no chance of avoiding a shot."

"Only one thing." Flynn said. "They won't be. They still think we're in there, if only for the moment. But I do agree with Keith. There is still no clear way to get to the gate." For a moment no one said anything.

"We have to go up the hillside." Helen suddenly said.

"What?" Brooklyn said. "That's stupid. Even I know that. We'll be advancing on an enemy that has higher ground, more men, better weapons, everything. And we'll be doing it in plain sight."

"Trust me." Something about Helen's eyes was strangely blank. It was as if her iris had enlarged inward to cover her pupil. Either that or the pupil had shrunk to invisibility. "We have to do this. Something just tells me this is the best way."

"You're mad." Keith said. "That's suicide."

"But it's also completely unexpected." Yugi said quietly. "They think we're still in the building. They think we'll try something tactical. What if we go with this? It's insanity, to be sure, but some of the best offenses ever have been insanely impossible."

"That only happens in bad movies and fantasy stories." Keith said. "This is reality!"

Drake didn't know what to think. He didn't trust Helen. He didn't like her that much after the way she had treated Matt and then Ashley and then the rest of them. But somehow, someway, she had mysteriously changed. She wasn't acting as hostile anymore. And that strange look in her eyes. Drake could only remember one thing with which that had had ever been associated- being possessed. That was what disturbed him most. If she was being possessed, then they had huge problems. For all they knew, she was actually captured by a shadow during the long journey and it had assumed her form. His head told him that wasn't likely, but that he shouldn't trust her anyway. But there was this other voice.

Go with it. The voice said. She's trustworthy now. Go for it.

Who are you? Drake asked. He recognized the voice as the one that had goaded him while he was falling. What do you want? How do I know I can trust you?

The question is not so much as who am I as who was I…

You're not alive?!?

No. I am quite dead. But I am here to help you.

Who were you?

You cannot know. You will not know if I told you.

What are you talking about?!? That makes no sense!

Later… go with it. Even if they do not, follow Helen. Goodbye.

Wait! But Drake felt the presence leave, and he was back with the others. They were all thinking hard. "Look." Drake said. "The longer we sit here musing about this, the greater the chance that the fiends will sniff us out. I have no doubt that the shadow hounds have great noses. We need to move now or die."

"He's got a point." Keith said. "But we have no plan!"

"We have Helen's."

"We already agreed that was no good!"

"Well, I'm not staying here any longer. I'm going up that hill and into the shadow realm, and I'll be damned if I don't save Julie even if I have to do it by myself."

"You've totally lost it." Flynn said. "Do you actually think you can take out the entire fiend army?"

"No, but I'll do what I can. At least I will die knowing I tried, rather than knowing I died while discussing a plan of action instead of executing one." Drake tried to walk past MacArthur to the side of the hill, but MacArthur stopped him. "Get off me! You can't stop me from doing this."

"I can. You are insane if you think you can do this." The general said.

"Well, then call me insane, but it hurts me more to just stand here than death ever will." Drake tried to break MacArthur's grips, but the old man was still strong. "Let go!" For some reason MacArthur did. He himself looked surprised at this. "Come on, Helen. If these guys aren't going to come…"

"Yeah. They can stay here and die." She moved toward Drake.

This is odd. Drake thought. Only a little while ago she was resistant to anything we tried to get her to do. Now, I say one completely mad thing, and here we are, cooperating. This is quite strange. Drake pulled out his rifle and made sure the clip was full. He doubted he would last long enough to empty it, but there was always a chance. He turned to look at the others, as if giving them one last chance.

"You're really going to do something this stupid?" Keith said.

"Yes. And you can't stop me."

"Fine then. I'll come with you." Keith said.

"What?"

"I'm going to defy all rational thought and do this. If we're going to die, we may as well fight it out. So here we go."

"Fine, fine." Brooklyn said. He moved over to them, quietly followed by Yugi. MacArthur and Flynn shook their heads and joined them.

"This is insanity." Flynn said.

"This is madness." MacArthur said.

"This is madness? This is madness?" Drake said, and he turned toward the hill. "THIS - IS – SPARTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" And with that, he charged up the hill, firing wildly at the fiend clump. It was impossible to miss. Ten of the fiends went down, leaving a small crease for Drake to enter into. He dropped the old clip and locked in a new one. Immediately fiends swarmed at him. None of them had a gun. But they did have spears. Drake shot several more. He had lost the others.

One of the fiends jabbed at him but missed. Drake swung the butt of his rifle into the fiend's jaw, snapping its neck. Anther fiend came closer, but Brooklyn shot it in the head from a distance.

"You owe me one for that!!!" He shouted. Drake swung his rifle in a wide arc, knocking a few more fiends over but doing little overall. There was a sudden explosion to his left. A few dozen fiends had gone flying. Keith had evidently remembered that he had found a rocket launcher in Cuba, and now he planned on using it. The first rocket had punched a huge hole in the fiend army, and Keith was sliding another one into the tube.

Drake returned to his business- cutting a hole into the fiend army straight to the gate. Another fiend came at him, and this time its jab was on target. The head of the spear hit Drake just below his ribcage, tearing through the flesh on his left side and probably cutting through his liver and kidney. Drake cried out in pain but managed to bring his rifle around, press it up against the fiend's skull, and pull the trigger. The fiend's head exploded and it fell away. But by now Drake was losing blood at an alarming rate. The fiends around him left him, apparently certain he was going to die.

Drake ripped the spear from his side and fell onto his back. Blood was leaking from his side. He tried to stop the flow with his hand but the wound was too wide. He felt faint; he could barely retain consciousness. He could hear shouts and screams (mostly fiends, at least he hoped) but he wasn't a part of it. He was dying. No one could save him.

Guess this is it. He thought. I'm sorry Julie, I failed you… The pain was enormous. Drake closed his eyes.

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"Is he alive?" Drake heard.

"I think so." Said another voice.

"How's Helen?"

"Still out. She's in better condition than he is. But she'll never see out of that eye."

"Yeah. Keith? How are you?"

"Still some pain. But it's okay. I'll live."

"Good. It didn't look too bad." The voice paused. "We were lucky. There's no way we should have gotten out of that this easily."

"I'm surprised we got out of it at all." Said another voice. "But we all were injured. Besides Yugi… where did he go?"

"He's watching our front. Granted, he has no weapon, but after he made it through that unscathed… I don't know how he did it. It's remarkable."

"Quite."

Drake opened his eyes. Everything was swimming. The colors above him were a blur. But somehow he was alive. He could still feel pain in his side and he moved his hand there. Someone had wrapped a long, formerly white bandage around the wound. The bandage had been heavily stained. But the blood flow seemed to have stopped. Drake tried to sit up but couldn't. Keith was sitting next to him, his entire leg wrapped in white strips of cloth.

"So you decided to stay with us." He said, grinning painfully. "That's good."

"Yeah." Flynn said. There was a red line on his cheek, and it seemed to be dripping blood slowly. "For a moment I thought you were dead. You were just laying there in a small pool of blood, quite still. But we managed to get in here."

"What happened to Helen? I heard her name…"

Flynn looked sad, which, Drake thought, he had never seen before. "I'm sorry for her. I hate her, but I'm sorry for her. She caught a spear in her left eye. She'll never see out of it again, and she's in a lot of pain right now." Flynn paused, and Drake thought he heard Helen whimpering a short distance away. "It's too bad. You and her were the only ones who thought this would work, and you ended up getting hurt the worst. But it worked. I can't believe it, but it worked."

"What happened to the others?" Drake asked.

"Keith's leg get shredded by some guy with a SAW, but it's not too bad. MacArthur took a couple pokes in the arm, but he avoided the brunt of the blows. Yugi's unharmed, and Brooklyn is just a little scraped up. I just got this…" He gestured at the gash on his cheek. "…that's the extent of it."

"Okay." Drake tried to sit up but Flynn pushed him back down.

"You shouldn't try to move for a while. I'm not doctor, not like Matt or Julie, but I know enough to know that moving will open the wound up again. Just relax. We'll get moving in time. As soon as we entered the gate, the fiends ignored us. Apparently they don't think we can do much down here."

"Well, they're wrong there." Yugi said. "We just need to get deeper in, and we can do a whole lot of things to their operation."

"When are we going to start?" Drake asked.

"As soon as you and Helen are healthy." MacArthur said. "Or at least ready to go."

"Can someone move me so I can talk to Helen?" Drake asked. MacArthur bent over and lifted Drake off the ground. He swung around and set Drake down next to Helen. She had one hand pressed to her left eye, which was already covered in white bandages, and tears were streaming out of her other eye. She was whimpering in pain. Drake couldn't help but feel pity for her.

"How do you feel?" He asked. She turned to look at him with her good eye and removed her hand from her other eye. The bandage was stained heavily with blood.

"What do you think?" she asked. "I've lost an eye. And it hurts a lot… I've never been in this much pain. And I feel terrible…"

"Why?" Drake asked.

"There's this voice in my head… it keeps berating me… it was nice once when it told me how to get in here. But it just keeps telling me how nasty I've been… I see it now. I've been terrible to you guys, and for no reason. I'm sorry…"

"It's… okay." Drake said. He placed his hand on her shoulder. "It's alright…" And without warning, she buried her face in his shoulder and began to cry. Drake could feel the wet tears and the warm blood from her destroyed eye sliding down his shoulder. He didn't know what to do. So he just patted her on the shoulder. After a while she stopped, rolled over, and stared at the wall opposite Drake.

"How long has it been since we got in here?" Drake asked.

"About an hour." Flynn said. "You'll have to be ready. We need to move."

Drake suddenly felt a hundred times stronger. He jumped up. "Let's go."