Author's Note: Just to give everyone a heads up, I have a special announcement to make at the end of this chapter. It's nothing too big though. In the meantime, I apologize if Mizael was a little OOC in the last chapter, and I apologize in advance if he's a bit OOC in this one too. That said, onto the epic conclusion of Mizael's duel with Lucy.
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL.
Chapter 10: The Shining Number
"Um, I guess you could still attack my Cosmic Dragon Hunter using Neo Tachyon." Lucy suggested. "Oh, but my Dragon Hunter gains 1000 ATK when battling a dragon, so… I guess that's not such a good idea."
Mizael scowled. "I set one card on the field and end my turn."
"M-Mizael sure lost his temper there for a moment." Oribtal 7 observed.
"I guess I can't blame him. I'd probably lose it too if it was Droite chained to that bomb." Kaito admitted. "But Mizael has to keep it together, or else he's finished."
Lucy drew her next card. "Cosmic Dragon Hunter, attack Neo Tachyon! Dragon Death Blade!"
The dragon slayer charged forward and jumped in the air, leaving a large gash in Neo Tachyon's chest as he went down. The three-headed dragon exploded in a flash of fire and smoke. Mizael's life points took a drop to 1000.
"I now activate my Cosmic Dragon Hunter's effect!" Lucy announced. "By detaching his last overlay unit, I can equip him with Neo Tachyon!"
The remaining ball of light orbiting around the dragon slayer entered the gem in his sword. In moments his armor transformed to include parts of Neo Tachyon. The gold dragon's center head became part of his helmet while the remaining two heads became the pieces of his shoulder armor. Gold plates from the dragon's body became attached to his chest at the sides of the small galaxy from Galaxy Kaiser Dragon. The Dragon Hunter's lower legs had gained golden armor as well, and the new armor around his waist looked as though they had been made from Neo Tachyon's wings.
"Because Neo Tachyon is now a part of my Dragon Hunter's armor, his ATK goes up to 6250." Lucy continued.
"I activate my Trap, Xyz Reborn!" Mizael announced. "With this card I revive Number 107: Galaxy-Eyes Tachyon Dragon!"
A large black metal object with blue and red lights resembling a top appeared on Mizael's side of the field. The top expended and unfolded to become a black mechanical dragon. The number 107 glowed on the dragon's large head crest. But as soon as Tachyon Dragon appeared on the field, all the color drained from its body. A single ball of grey light orbited around it.
"But darling, what good is it for you to summon Tachyon Dragon's original form?" Lucy asked. "Because of 10X Disruption Zone, its effects are negated and its ATK is now only 2600."
"Maybe so, but I have absolute faith that Tachyon and I shall defeat you!" Mizael declared.
"I like how devoted you are to your dragon." Lucy remarked. "I'll set one card on the field and end my turn."
Mizael drew his next card. "I activate the Spell, Mystical Space Typhoon! Using this card's power I destroy Galaxy Kaiser Dragon!"
A twister of wind appeared around Cosmic Dragon Hunter. As the wind blew, the parts of armor that had been made from Galaxy Kaiser Dragon shattered. The small galaxy in the center of the dragon slayer's chest also vanished.
"Because your Dragon Hunter has lost the parts of its armor it made from my Kaiser Dragon, its ATK falls to 4850." Mizael announced.
"But that still makes my Dragon Hunter far stronger than your Tachyon Dragon." Lucy pointed out. "You've put up a valiant fight, Mizael darling. But you should just make things easy on yourself and give up."
"I'll never give up! Not while Cathy is in danger!" Mizael declared.
At this, Lucy's left eye twitched. "Is that all you care about? That tramp? What the hell makes her so special?"
"…Believe me, Cathy is very special to me." Mizael admitted. "A few years ago, I wanted nothing to do with the human race, even after I had become one myself. But there was just something about Cathy that changed that. She cares for cats just as I had cared for dragons in my former life. I never thought that could love a human until Cathy, and if necessary I will give my life to protect her!"
Just them, Tachyon Dragon roared and its body gave off a brilliant while light. The same kind of light began to shine from Mizael.
"What's going on?" a surprised Kaito wondered.
"M-Master Kaito! It looks as though Mizael's Number is changing." Orbital 7 determined.
"Using Tachyon Dragon I rebuild the overlay network!" Mizael announced. "Arise, Number S107: Galaxy-Eyes Shining Tachyon Dragon!"
Tachyon Dragon folded back into the same top-like object it first appeared as and receded into a large galaxy-like vortex that had appeared on the ground. Moments later, a similar top made out of white metal with two balls of golden light orbiting around it. The object unfolded and expanded into a white mechanical dragon very similar to Tachyon Dragon's original form. One of the major differences though was that it had two large pairs of golden sail-like wings on its back, with the bottom pair being smaller than the top pair. The dragon had gained two small arms, and on the tip of its snout was a small golden horn.
"Number S107? What's going on?" Kaito wondered.
"That dragon… it's so pretty." Lucy spoke. "But… what is it?"
"This new form of Tachyon was formed for the love I have for Cathy and my desire to protect her." Mizael explained, still shining with a white light. "And because this form is a Shining Number, Tachyon's now unaffected by the power of your Field Spell."
"O-of course! 10X Disruption Zone only affects 10X Numbers in their regular and Chaos forms. But it wouldn't affect a Shining Number." Orbital 7 realized.
"I get that this monster was formed the same way Utopia Ray and Shark Drake Veiss were, but a Shining Number?" Kaito asked.
"I activate Shining Tachyon Dragon's effect, Temporal Reversion!" Mizael announced. "Since I now have only 1000 life points left, I can detach on of Shining Tachyon's overlay units, and every card that was not on my opponent's side of the field at the beginning of their last turn is returned to the deck! Not only that, the effect of every monster still on my opponent's side of the field when this effect resolves is negated until the end of the turn!"
One of the balls of light orbiting around Shining Tachyon entered the horn on its snout. The dragon roared and particles of light from its wings bombarded Lucy's side of the battlefield. Cosmic Dragon Hunter returned to his original form and the large facedown card Lucy had out vanished. The dragon slayer had become completely motionless almost as though he had been frozen in time.
"For each card returned to the deck, Shining Tachyon gains 1000 ATK points until the end of the turn." Mizael announced. "And since two cards have been returned to the deck, Shining Tachyon's ATK rises from 3000 to 5000!"
"Oh… wow!" Lucy cheered. "You're so amazing, my darling!"
"Shining Tachyon, obliterate Cosmic Dragon Hunter!" Mizael commanded. "Shining Tachyon Blast!"
The mechanical dragon opened its mouth and fired out a blast of golden light. Cosmic Dragon Hunter was vaporized by the attack in an instant. The blast kept on going and struck Lucy, brining her life points down to zero. With the duel over, Mizael's dragon vanished. A beam of grey light came up from the ground around Lucy, fading only a few seconds later. When the light faded, Lucy collapsed to the ground unconscious. At the same time, the numbers on the bomb chained to Cathy flashed green and turned off.
Immediately Mizael ran over to Cathy's side and began to shake her. "Cathy! Cathy, are you okay?"
After a moment, Cathy opened her eyes and blinked. "Huh? Mizael, what's going on?"
"I'll explain in a moment, but I need to know if you're all right." Mizael told her.
"Well, I have a little bit of a headache, but other than that I'm fine." Cathy assured him.
"Orbital, go and cut Cathy's chains." Kaito ordered. "I'm going to call someone to come get Mizael's opponent."
"Y-yes sir!" Orbital 7 replied with his trademark salute.
Kaito stood before the comatose Lucy in her hospital bed with Orbital 7 at his side. He had been standing there for less than five minutes when Hikari and Shark entered the room with Hana and Durbe.
"We came as quick as we could." Hikari told Kaito. "So that's the girl Mizael dueled?"
"Yeah, and she was pretty dangerous." Kaito replied. "I just spoke with a police detective. It turns out this girl is responsible for the disappearances of quite a few duelists who use dragon decks."
"You also mentioned that she was nuts over the phone." Shark recalled.
"That's putting it mildly." Kaito replied. "This girl thought Mizael was in love with her. That's probably how it was with all of her victims."
"S-she also mentioned that her parents abused her." Orbital 7 recalled. "That could have something to do with her psychotic behavior."
"She was probably abused because of her powers." Hikari darkly replied. "Her parents must've thought of her as a freak."
Before Shark could say anything to comfort his girlfriend, his D-Gazer began to ring. After seeing that it was Yuma who was calling, he put the device over his eye. "Yuma, what's up?"
"Hi Shark. Can you and maybe Hikari drop by my place real quick?" Yuma requested. "My sister found something we think you should see. It's about the psychic duelists."
"Right, we'll be right over." Shark answered before hanging up. "Yuma thinks his sister might've found something that could help us with what's going on."
"Then let's go see him." Hikari decided.
With that, Shark and the others went over to the Tsukumo residence. When they got to the door, Yuma's older sister, Akari, greeted them. Akari led them into the living room where Yuma was sitting on the couch.
"Yuma told me a little about what's going on with these psychic assassins you're dealing with." Akari told them. "So I decided to do a little digging of my own on these guys."
"Thanks for the help." Hikari told her.
"It's no problem. Since I'm guessing my brother here is already caught up in this mess, I figure it's the least I can do to help." Akari told them as she began typing some things into her laptop on the coffee table. "Anyway, I managed to get in touch with a friend of mine at the government and he sent me some files he managed to get his hands on. He said not to ask how he got them, but I think you should all take a look at what he sent me."
With one final keystroke from Akari, nine windows containing pictures and paragraphs of information appeared on the screen. Shark and the others instantly recognized who a few of the people pictured on the screen were.
"That's the girl who just dueled Mizael." Kaito told them, pointing at one of the pictures. "So her name's Lucy."
"That one guy looks like the guy who went after Gilag." Yuma spoke, pointing at another one of the pictures. "I mean it's kinda hard to recognize him without the face paint, but I'm pretty sure that's him."
"It looks like we have files on the group that's coming after us." Durbe observed.
"Hey Akari, where did this stuff come from?" Hana asked.
"My friend told me that these are files salvaged from a destroyed secret facility that turned out to be an operation of that old Arcadia Movement group." Akari revealed.
"It must be the one that Brimstone and Splicer destroyed." Hikari realized.
"There's a whole lot more than just the files you're seeing here." Akari told them. "A few of them seem to be corrupted, probably because they were salvaged from a damaged computer. But there's a whole bunch of stuff that I haven't even had time to go through yet."
"Why don't you send what you have over to me and Hikari and I can help you analyze all of it?" Kaito suggested.
"Sounds good to me." Akari agreed.
"Well, at least we now have a better idea of who we're up against." Shark observed.
"True, but we still don't know who's sent these people after us." Durbe pointed out.
"Maybe so, but this is a lot more than what we had before." Hikari pointed out. "At least with this info we have a better idea about who might come after us next. Hopefully when the next attack comes, we'll be ready."
Mizael and Cathy were both naked on the bed in Cathy's room. The blonde dragon tamer was on top, pumping his hardened rod into the silver-haired catgirl beneath him. Cathy reached up and ran her fingers down Mizael's back, leaving scratch marks. Before long, Mizael could feel Cathy's inner walls tightening around him. They looked into one another's eyes as they both came close to the edge. Then in one blissful moment they came to a hard climax. Mizael withdrew and rolled onto his back, prompting Cathy to cuddle up close to him.
"You were amazing." Cathy told him. "Not that you ever aren't, of course."
"Cathy… I'm sorry about what happened today." Mizael spoke. "That mad girl almost killed you because she was coming after me."
"Mizael, this is like the tenth time you've apologized now." Cathy told him. "Look, everything turned out okay in the end. Besides, I've been in situations like that lots of times before during the Number War."
"Still, you almost lost your life today." Mizael pointed out. "I don't what I'd do if I ever lost you."
Cathy kissed Mizael on the cheek. "You're not going to lose me. And I know that if I'm ever in danger, you'll always be there to protect me."
Mizael looked back into Cathy's eyes, and in moments they became locked in another deep kiss. They rolled on the bed and Cathy ended up on top of the blonde dragon tamer. She sat up and moaned a bit when Mizael's re-hardened manhood entered her again. Slowly she began to rock her hips. Mizael reached up and began to massage the catgirl's breasts, earning more moans of pleasure from her. After a moment, Cathy took hold of Mizael's wrists and pinned his hands back onto the bed.
Cathy picked up the pace of her hips and ran her fingers down Mizael's bare chest. Mizael groaned as Cathy's sharp nails left scratch marks. Before long, Cathy could feel herself coming close to the edge again, prompting her to move faster. Then in one sweet moment they both climaxed, with Cathy letting out a meow at the top of her lungs. Exhausted, Cathy collapsed onto Mizael. Mizael put an arm around her and kissed her on the forehead before they both drifted off to sleep.
Author's Note: I decided to borrow the whole Shining Number concept from the ZEXAL manga as a way for Mizael to win using a loophole in the Field Spell effect. The main reason for this was because I was kind of stuck on other ways for Mizael to win. I can't really say at this moment if all of the former Barain Emperors will get Shining Numbers though. For one thing, I can't quite picture Vector using one. What I can say with certainty though is that Number S107 is the only Shining Number that will appear in this story.
Anyway, now for the special announcement I said I'd make at the end of this chapter. The announcement is that I won't be doing any updates to this story at all next week. The two big reasons are of course the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend and my online class, but I've also decided that I just need to take a break for awhile. The fact is I've been under a lot of stress over the past few days. In fact I'm still under a little bit of stress. So I feel that it's necessary for me to just step away from this story and try and relax, maybe do some thinking.
I also confess that I'm seriously thinking about working on a different story, and I need to decide whether or not to work on that story after I get done with this one or to just go ahead and start work on it week after next. If I decide on the latter, then I'll probably just end up working on this story maybe once a week, but nothing is decided. So for now, I'll be signing off as far as this story is concerned. Until next time, I hope you enjoy what I've written so far.
Please review and let me know what you think.