A/N: Not much to say this time. This chapter is again dedicated to jasmine.
Chapter Eleven—We Are The Gladiators
The long, moist hallway underneath the monastery that was Saint Francis Folly led us to what used to be the entrance of the marvelous Coliseum protected by the King of the Beasts. Now there was just a crumbling room and a blocked doorway guarded by two bats that looked like it was the end of our journey.
"You can't tell me we came all this way for this new game to screw us over," Yusuke scowled.
"No, no, there's gotta be a way," I said. "There's always a way. You just give up too easily."
No doubt he was about to comment on my episode in the last level but Kurama interrupted that with the command of, "Shh! Listen! Do you hear that?"
We all fell silent, trying to decipher what the fox wanted us to listen for. It took me a minute but finally my ears caught the faint Sploosh! of a piece of the wall hitting deep water. Dusty and Christy's ears swiveled toward the right and Lalo left Tiara's shoulder, flying up toward the ceiling.
"It's disguised by the debris," he called down to us.
"It's too loose to climb," said Kuwabara since he had gone to investigate and slid back down the wreckage.
"The doorway is still in tact," said Tiara. "If we could climb those chunks of wall on the left, we could climb over the doorway to the right."
As is usual with both Tiara and Kurama, she was right and we were soon behind the wall fragments that had blocked our view of the water. Apparently the Coliseum was flooded underneath and the caving in of the monestary above had knocked in an entrance for us.
I bet you're wondering, Who would be crazy enough to just go swimming in a flooded hole in the ground where there could be no exit? I know, I was wondering the same thing so I sent Kurama down to check it out and he reported back that there were actually halls down there. Obviously if there was a way in, there had to be a way out, too, so we all took a dip, challenging ourselves with navigating the halls that had fallen in on themselves over time.
Luckily for us, there really was another way out and when we surfaced, we were graced with the presence of two rats and a bat. A needless detail until you take note of what the little critters were feeding on.
Upon noticing the skeletons laying in various large cages around the room, Christy began doing her ucky dance while Kurama casually noted, "Oh good, we're under the Coliseum now."
"How do ya know?" Tayg asked.
"The Greeks kept their animals for the games in tunnels under the Coliseum. They would have stored prisoners or possibly the losing gladiators under here also. After all, the animals had to be fed."
"Lovely images. Thanks, Kurama," I grumbled. There was a fence separating us from the way out, tall enough that the victims of the vicious animals couldn't escape by climbing over. Fortunately someone or something had broke a hole near the top and with the aid of a nearby cage, we were able to climb over.
A dirt path of sorts rose up out of the prisons and bright light shone down signaling our way out. Once we stepped out into the arena at the top, we were momentarily blinded from the sunlight blazing down through the domed roof.
My vision cleared and two black shapes that had been swimming in my vision formed the definite shapes of gorilla's sniffing around the arena, obviously only recently released from captivity. Now who could have done that?
One spotted us and roared angrily, moving to pick up a broken piece of the arena wall. And boy were they some big apes, too!
"Holy sh—!" cried Yusuke and shoved his mentally challenged friend aside along with Tiara when the brick came sailing over my head and rolled down the path behind us. Then he called, "Hey, Hiei, we're gonna play decoy this time. Kat, get everyone else up to the stands."
I didn't argue and found another portion of the wall that had fallen that could easily serve as a ramp up to the stands. While Yusuke and Hiei distracted the apes, we hurried to the upper level and then the two boys followed us where we could pick off the beasts from a safe distance.
"Better pick up the pace," called a distinct French voice.
I huffed and placed my hands on my hips. "Oh no, he did not just tell me to hurry up! I'd like to see him lead a bunch of greenhorns through a series of tombs!"
"Duck!" screamed Christy.
We all hit the deck (Well, actually, Hiei sort of threw me to the floor since I had been distracted) just as another brick was thrown our way. One gorilla ventured close enough that Kurama could dismember it with is Rose Whip and Dusty chased the other a quarter of the way around the arena with her shotgun before it keeled over.
When that was taken care of, we took note of our surroundings and tried to figure out where our next objective would be. There was a door on either side of where we had entered as gladiators but both were closed so my guess was that we were supposed to find a switch somewhere. There was a set of what would be called box seats nowadays and portions of the ceiling had fallen dangerously close to these spots but they were still being supported by the pillars. And yet other parts of the ceiling had fallen off entirely and inflicted varying degrees of damage on the Grecian pillars. It was one of these pillars behind us that looked the most promising.
I stepped up the benches to get to the pillar, killing bats while my team trooped after me demanding where I was going.
"The cracks in this pillar are deep enough that we can climb them." I gestured to the left. "When that section of the wall collapsed, it buried the direct entrance to the box seats but if we use this pillar, we'll be able to climb over and use what's left of the pillar on the other side to get into the box seats."
"Why are we going to the box seats?" wondered Tiara.
"Important things were kept in the box seats in the old version," I simply stated and acted in accordance with my idea. It worked smoothly and my knowledge of the old version had been correct again. Where royalty or wealthy guests would have been seated was a lever and in a hall behind the seating area was a gate with a keyhole beside it.
"You're kidding," said Dusty. "After all the keys we had to go around getting in the last level, we don't have the one that fits this lock?"
"'Course not," said Tayg. "'S a sure bet th' switch takes us t' th' key."
Hiei had entered the special seating area and was staring intently at the box seats opposite the one we were standing in.
"There's an open hall in that one," he told me as I took hold of the lever in the floor.
"It's just open?" I asked.
"Hn."
"And there's no way for us to climb up there from the bleachers….That's gotta be the exit."
I pulled back on the lever and we felt a door opening below us. Christy stepped over to the edge and looked down into the arena.
"It let out two lions and two gorillas," she announced.
"Oh, that means that this wasn't just a random lever like I thought," said Tiara. "It's the lever that the wealthy people used to release the animals on the gladiators."
"Uh oh," said Christy and then turned to run away. At the same time, a brick from down below (no doubt thrown by a gorilla when it caught sight of her) crashed just below where she was standing and caused the ledge to fall apart beneath her. One foot slipped off and she twisted her body away from the dangerous fall. I cringed at the sound of ligaments popping from the foot that was still on safe ground. Kurama caught her and we all backed into the hall where the bricks being hurled couldn't reach us.
"Holy jeez, Christy!" I cried. "That's the sixth time!"
"Yeah, I know, Kat." She sighed. "It doesn't really hurt anymore."
"But it wouldn't be very good for you to walk on it right away," Kurama advised.
I leaned against a wall in thought and then spoke to the fox, "Kurama, you and Christy can stay here. We'll have to come back to unlock that gate anyway." I tossed him a medi-pack and then ushered the rest of the team back out so we could climb back down to the floor.
~KURAMA'S POV~
"The sixth time?" I asked as I wrapped Christy's ankle. She laughed gently, still being cautious of sending pain to her injury.
"Yeah, the first real time I was running dumbly in the drama room at school and I tripped over myself and twisted my ankle. The second real time I tripped and fell down the stairs in our house. The other three times were just random accidents when I was walking or something." She smiled. "Kat says whenever I get hurt, I do it in style."
"You need to take better care of yourself," I scolded, shaking my head.
"That's what you're here for," she told me and then fell silent. A moment later, out of the blue came, "I kinda want some mac 'n' cheese." I chuckled; her unexpected outbursts were quite amusing. "Or maybe some grilled cheese and ranch dressing. We "
I kinda want some jewels and shiny trinkets, Youko spoke from the back of my mind.
"Who's Youko?" Christy asked.
Odd timing, I thought.
Ouch! Dagger to the heart! he yelped.
"I mean, Kat keeps talking about him, but who is he?"
The guy that loves you!
I tied a knot in the bandage wrap. "He's the fox spirit that was reincarnated into me."
"What's he look like?" she asked next.
"Believe it or not, he does look a lot like Kat," I replied.
Do not! Youko yelled.
"Only he has golden eyes and is much taller—about seven feet."
"Jeez, he's a giant!" Christy cried.
Don't forget the nine tails, my alter ego reminded me.
"Oh yes, and he has nine tails."
"Do I get to meet him someday?" she questioned me excitedly.
Yes, said Youko.
"I don't know if that's such a good idea. You see, he's—" I began but was cut off.
You tell her anything negative and I swear I'll take you over in your sleep, Youko threatened. I didn't want that. Who knew what he would do?
"He's rarely seen. I only let him out once and a while," I corrected myself.
Christy pouted. "Well you should let him out when we get back. How come he can't come out more often? Are you a fun sucker, Kurama?"
Yes, answered Youko.
"I like to have fun, but Youko's—" I was cut off again.
Remember, you do sleep more often than I do."
"My mother doesn't know about Youko," I altered my response again. "And I'm afraid that if she sees him, she won't accept me as her son anymore. She'll be ashamed."
"Why would you think that?" Christy asked me. "She's your mom; she'll always love you!" She paused. "And if she won't then I will!"
….Kiss her now! ordered Youko.
Be quiet! I was going to anyway, I told him.
~CHRISTY'S POV~
Why? Why did I say that? Now our relationship might be ruined. Rubbing heads and saying he loves me is completely different from actually meaning it.
I looked up, not expecting him to still be facing me but he was with nothing different about his expression except for a slight blush on his cheeks.
He bent down to me and his lips connected with mine. The smell of roses filled my senses and I felt warm and weightless. My ears laid back in contentment and the pain in my ankle diminished.
He bit down on my lip and I brought a hand behind his head, attempting to pull him closer and deepen the kiss. His arms wrapped around my waist and I wound my hands into his soft red hair. We stayed kissing like that for quite some time….until his tongue slid down my throat and I choked. He pulled away with a mildly surprised expression on his face.
"Getting a little too eager there, buddy?" I laughed.
"That was Youko," he insisted.
"Suuuuuurrre," I laughed again for a while and then pointed to my shoe. "My footsie is cold." He smiled, shaking his head and then picked it up and helped me put it back on.
~KAT'S POV~
After showing our gladiator sides again, we traveled underneath the arena again and into another tunnel where the losers and animals were kept. This room, like the last one, had been separated by a fence but it looked like the gorillas that had previously been in here had done a number on it because it was now just firewood on the ground.
There wasn't anything of interest in the other section of the room, in fact, there wasn't anything of interest down here at all. We checked all of the cages and raided all of the corpses but there was nothing of use to us in this room—namely: a key.
"Where else would it be?" Dusty asked.
I shrugged. "I don't know. Let's go back to the bleachers. Maybe we missed something."
As we were walking out, though, we discovered a corpse that we had forgotten. The reason for this was because he was on top of a very tall cage and we wouldn't have found him at all had his arm not been hanging over the edge. Why he was up there was a mystery to me. I could only guess he might have been trying to escape the man-eating animals down here.
"Oy, Urameshi, gimme a boost," Tayg said since his wings were still wet from our swim into here.
With Tayg standing on Yusuke's shoulders, they were just barely tall enough for him to crawl onto the top of the cage and search the body. From the guy's tattered clothes he pulled a silver key with a white stone set in it and then we got the heck out of there. It smelled awful.
But wouldn't you know it? Some other big kitties had been released once we arrived back in the arena and we also had to take care of those before we could even think about climbing back up to the box seats where Kurama and Christy were waiting.
It wasn't until we had finished our battle that I whiffed the large amounts of compassion and some embarrassment radiating from the box seats. Christy has become Kissy, I thought and couldn't help but grin.
~KURAMA'S POV~
I looked up as the rest of our friends climbed back up to us. Tayg unlocked the gate across from us while Kat merely leaned against the wall and smirked at us.
"Quit lookin' at me!" Christy eventually ordered.
Kat's smirk grew into a smile and she asked, "You two weren't too naughty while we were gone, were you?" I immediately felt my face heat up.
"Kat!" cried Christy.
"Oh come on," Kat spoke. "We could all smell it. With how strong it was, I'm surprised you didn't attract the animals."
If possible, my blush deepened. Christy's face was scarlet. Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Tayg doubled over laughing, using each other for support. Dusty shrugged and then sighed at Tiara who stood by dumbfounded since she could not smell the emotions in the air. Once the boys calmed themselves, I helped Christy to her feet and looked through the gate. There was a long ladder inside, leading up to the roof of this seating area. This would be a challenge.
~KAT'S POV~
From the roof of the box seats, we could see a clear path of falling ceiling pieces that would take us around to the other set of box seats. The first section of ceiling was within jumping distance from where we were so Christy had to jog her sore ankle but, fortunately for her, the next piece of ceiling required the use of a grapple to reach. I tied off to some rocks on the next section and helped the others across.
We were about to enlist the aid of another crushed pillar to get to the third section when I spotted something shiny hidden among the rocks. I carefully climbed over some debris and found it to be a set of dual pistols in leather holsters. Holding them up so they caught the reflection of the sunlight coming through the dome, I read .50 caliber carved into the barrel.
Jumping up, I gave a "Woot!" and then pranced over to Tayg, relinquishing my claim on my pistols and giving them to him. We both strapped on our weapons, beaming with excitement and then we continued our trek over to the roof of the second set of box seats. Some more rubble from the ceiling was piled just high enough that we could use it to get inside and reach the hall that Hiei had seen earlier.
The long hall inside was less damp and only contained one bat as a restraint from the next level. From the doorway of the next level, we could see a large statue of a man sitting on a throne with both of his arms broken off, one hand still laying on his armrest and the other lying at his feet. The golden letters on his throne read MIDAS.
A/N: Yes, there was some fluff in this chapter. My fellow authoress, KissyNae, told me exactly what she wanted to read for that scene so I'm sorry if some of you didn't like it. I tried to keep Kurama and Youko in character as much as possible. Tell me what you think! At least one review before I update again. Thanks!
~Kateracks