Chapter 12

Allie's Pov

Never have I ever wanted to summon a creature so badly before I met Kura. There is so much I want to ask him about the kitsune and about why the marks will never come off. Since I live in a pretty secluded area and the cliff nearby will hide him no problem, I've been wanting to summon him. But I have no idea how to.

I remembered how Nadia threw her titan ring to the ground and how it expanded to a size that was as big as Dilporo, but when I tried that, I nearly lost the golden ring in the sand. It's a good thing Maria promised to teach me how to use the ring today.

Even though it was a weekend, Gabe and I decided to go to the temple. I feel bad for Gabe. He really doesn't believe he's a good duelist, but he's probably better than I am when it comes to summoning and keeping his creature on the field for more than thirty seconds.

I invited Ray to come and join us as well, but he apparently has some plans with Raven today. Fun. I don't know why he hasn't realized yet. Is he just that dense? Or does he not…

"No! He's just stupid. He'll realize sooner or later." Even saying it out loud didn't help my doubts.

What if he doesn't feel the same?

I shook my head hard and gathered my things. Taking one last look in the mirror, I now noticed a small black star near the corner of my eye. How on earth am I going to hide that?

Mentally making a note to grab some new makeup on my home, I headed out.

I have never seen the Masters look so uncomfortable in my life. As soon as I walked through the doors of the dojo, Master Kimora nodded a quick greeting and whispered, "avoid Chavez" in my ear.

Even the students at the temple seemed thrown off by something. Assuming Gabe was already here, I quickly headed to the temple before the weirdness got to me. I regret that decision. The level of awkwardness was crazy high in the library. It took me all of two seconds to find Maria, Wade and Gabe sitting at one of the tables nearby.

"Okay, what in the world happened here?" I whispered. Afraid for whatever reason to be heard by someone else.

"Oh, it's nothing really. My sister just told the other masters that she is going to go and possibly kill herself to fix the ley lines and Chavez is mad that only one person can go with her and that person is Wade and Nadia doesn't even want to go with him either." Maria gushed.

"What?" I asked.

"The masters, especially Nadia, are wracking their brains on how to fix the ley lines, but there is no reason for them to not work. Maria found a scroll telling of an old water creature that might know how to fix the problem because it was alive when the ley lines were discovered." Wade explained.

"And how will asking an old as dirt creature going to get Nadia killed?" Now I was really confused.

Maria let out a big sigh, "Because the creature has been hibernating for centuries and there is only one way to wake it up."

After waiting a few moments for her to continue, I pressed them. "And that way is?"

"Mana walking." Wade and Maria said at the same time.

"What's that?" I looked to Gabe, hoping he would answer my questions better than these two.

"It's apparently a guard technique." Gabe began. "Someone can make a bridge of mana that their consciousness can exist on outside of their bodies."

"That's so awesome! What's the problem with it?"

Wade lowered his head. "Here, let me show you." He pulled out a piece of paper and a pen from his pocket. He drew an x and a circle, and then a line that connected the circle and x.

"The x is you, the circle is what you want your consciousness to go to." He explained. "once your consciousness is out of your body, you need to get whatever you're doing done before your mana burns out."

He suddenly ripped the paper in half. One half with the x, and the other with the circle. "If you don't, your consciousness could get stranded outside of your body. When that mana runs out entirely, your consciousness will disappear, and you will die."

"What? Why would she even try something like that?" I gasped.

"Because that's what a master does." Maria spat. "She makes sacrifices for the order. It's what she has to do."

She stood up and walked past me. "Come on, it's time you learned to use that ring."

"Wait, I have another question." I looked at Wade. "Why are you going if she doesn't want you to go?"

"Because I can help her if something goes wrong." He said grimly. Suddenly, he laughed. "It's so stupid, you know? I'm on the frontlines of life and death in the ER, but this is the scariest case I will probably ever have."

"Why are all of you so certain that she will fail? And why are you the only one?" Gabe finally spoke up after being so quiet.

"Because no one has ever succeeded," Wade replied.

Gabe's Pov

I can't believe I waited this long to say something. I feel comfortable around Master Nadia. I normally hang out in the library, so we're around each other a lot. But why I find it so hard to ask her for help is beyond me.

I thought about asking Wade. He seems to be a strong duelist and I know him better. But we are completely different. He is super outgoing and aggressive in dueling, and that's not how I want to duel. Nadia, on the other hand, is very decisive and precise with dueling. She doesn't charge in full force like Ray and Allie.

Ray and Allie. That's it. I love my friends, but I don't want to duel like them. I can't be as good as them dueling like that. I don't necessarily want to duel better than them, but I want to be noticed alongside them. Not be reprimanded for not trying to stop them.

Gathering up some courage, I made my way to Nadia's lab. She held herself up in there ever since she announced her plans to fix the ley lines. Probably hiding from Chavez and her sister. Maria has been fuming all morning and she only calmed down when Wade took her aside for a moment.

There was obviously something between the three of them. Wade, Maria, and Nadia. Something that none of them would say out loud. I wonder if it has something to do with what Wade and my mom spoke about a while ago. I might ask Nadia about it later… If she lives long enough for me to gather courage again.

"Master Nadia?" I called through the door.

The door opened, and Nadia was there. "Gabriel, is something wrong?"

"No!" I said quickly. "I just wanted to ask you something."

"What is it?" I could see how tired she was. I didn't have to ask Wade how badly the other masters took this. Now I didn't need to ask how hard they tried to convince her to not do it.

"I was wondering- I mean, I was kind of thinking that… Well…" I stumbled.

"Gabriel," Her sharp words snapped me out of it. "Take a breath."

"Right, sorry." I scratched the back of my head. Taking a breath, I gathered my thoughts. " I was wondering if you could tutor me in dueling."

Wow was that not as hard as I thought it would be.

She seemed a bit startled. "Why do you need tutoring?"

"Because I'm really not a good dueler. I'm always left behind the others and I just want to be better and more helpful." I explained.

"But you are a fine duelist for your age."

"Not around my friends," I mumbled.

She sighed and beckoned me to follow her into the lab. She pulled up a chair and motions for me to sit. She then sits across from me. "Let me guess. You feel left behind."

"Yeah!" I never thought I would admit it out loud. "They're always ahead, and I just seem to get left behind."

"I hope you don't want to cause as much trouble as the two of them." I was taken back by the joke.

"No! I just want to be as strong as them. Then I might get them out of trouble every once in a while."

She thought for a moment, and then let out a sigh. "I will help you under one condition."

"Yeah?" I unconsciously leaned in.

"You will only use the creature Switch Scale Dragon."

Ray's Pov

I was super excited to hang out with Raven today. Since her school runs longer than mine and is heavily involved in the art club at her school, we haven't found the time to hang out during the week. Every time we do find some time, something creature related comes up and I have to take a raincheck.

I feel really bad for blowing her off, so today, I'm going to make it up to her.

We had planned to meet up at the park and go from there, so I was surprised to get a call from her.

"Raven?"

"Hi, is this Ray?" The voice that answered me was definitely not Raven.

"Yeah… Who is this?"

"I'm Orion, Raven's brother. She asked me to tell you that she needs a raincheck today. She told you about her eye right?"

"Yeah…" Now I was getting a bit worried.

"Well, it got really bad last night and her surgery was moved from next Friday to today. She feels really bad about it and just wanted me to let you know." He explained.

"Is she okay?" I asked, now really worried.

"Yeah, the infection just made her super sick all of the sudden. This is kind of the routine with her. Her eye gets infected, she gets sick, she gets surgery, and then everything's fine for a month or so. Don't worry, she'll be fine. I'm sure she will text you as soon as she's up and running again."

"Okay, thanks." I couldn't think of anything else to say.

He hung up quickly and I was left there, standing on the sidewalk, completely dumbfounded.

After a few moments, I decided to go to the park anyways. I was in no mood to hang out at the temple, or with Gabe and Allie for that matter. I didn't want to go home and be questioned by my family. The only thing I could think of doing at the moment was just sitting and thinking.

When I got to the park, I sat down under one of the big trees and did nothing. Absolutely nothing. When I don't know what to do, I normally try and draw something, but I didn't feel in the mood to do that either. So I settled on looking through my sketch book.

As I flipped through the many drawings of my small book, I paused for a moment. I had my sketchbook memorized by now. I knew what was drawn where, and which drawings were close to each other. So I immediately recognized that I was one page away from Raven's eyepatch.

After a few seconds ticked by, I skipped over it and a few other drawings. Not at all willing to see something that was a part of her and face the tightness in my chest.

I reached the last sketch of mine when I remembered something. Flipping to the very end of my sketchbook, I found the name and address Celeste Chavez wrote down for me.

"Wait a sec… I know where this is." The address written was for an infamous gentleman's club not too far from the park.

Why on earth would a Kaijudo Guard work at a place like that? The only reason I knew what the place was at all was because some kid at the school bragged that her father owned the place.

"Kadaver's Getaway, shouldn't be too hard to find with a name like that," I said, pushing myself to my feet.

If I couldn't hang out with Raven today, I might as well find this Mai person. I wonder if it's the same Mai from that book of names. But I doubt Master Kimora's mother. I just can't see him coming from that kind of a family.

I was right about how easy it was to find. I would have to be blind to miss the huge neon sign with the name of the club in bright Pink. Remembering what Celeste told me, I walked up to one of the big guys standing at the door.

"This isn't a place for kids, kid, now scram." The guy said, gruffly.

"Celeste sent me here for Mai," I repeated the woman's words.

The two men exchanged a glance, and one of them disappeared through the tinted doors.

"Go wait in the alleyway," The other said suddenly. "She'll come out the back to meet you,"

I nodded without a word and headed around the building. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a familiar face. Carny. I tried to get out of sight without him noticing, but I think he saw me. I quickly walked down the alley and found a door.

Assuming that this would be the door that Mai would come out of, I waited, resting against the wall across from the door.

"Whatcha ya doing outside of a club, mutt?" I groaned at the sound of Carny's voice.

"It's really none of your business." I snapped. Surprising myself at how little patience I had for him.

"Trying to have some fun, huh? Didn't think you would ever do something like that, especially with an actual stripper." He taunted. "Can't wait to tell everyone at school that the mutt needs to pay to get some."

"You know, maybe I'm not here for that?" I glared at him. I was too angry to even be embarrassed.

"Oh, really, punk?" I guess he was as low on patience as I am because he immediately got in my face.

"Really."

He pushed me and I pushed back without thinking. That was a mistake. He pushed me back again and sucker punched me in the jaw. I kicked his leg out from under him and he fell flat on his back. Rolling on my side, I jumped to my feet and took up a defensive pose. Carny stood up and started to charge me.

"What the hell is going on out here?!" Someone shouted.

Carny froze in his tracks and we whipped around to see a woman standing in front of the door. Her eyes bore into me and into Carny. Whether he was a tough guy or not, neither of us dared to move under her glare.

"Maybe you two didn't hear me. What the hell is going on?" She said evenly. Slowly, she stalked up to us.

"He attacked me!" Carny said suddenly.

"What? You followed me here to fight!" I cried, angry that he said something before I did.

"Yeah right!" Carny spat, turning to the woman. "Please, I was just walking down the road when he shoved me into the alley."

"Oh really? Are you sure that's what happened?" The woman asked.

"Yes!" He replied.

"Liar."

The single word seemed to knock the wind out of him. He stared at her questioningly. Not sure whether to get angry or try appealing to her again.

"But-"

"No buts, brat. This boy asked for me before he headed into the alley. Also, you aren't the one with a bloody nose." She cut him off. "Now scram."

He didn't say anything. He just turned and stalked off. I guess he wasn't leaving fast enough for her, the woman broke out into a run. At the sound of fast footsteps, Carny turned, saw the woman coming for him, and sprinted away.

She stopped, laughing. "Run, kid, run!"

She turned back to me, and without the glare, her face seemed completely different. And her eyes… familiar.

"So, Celeste sent you? Can I ask why?" She asked.

"She told me that you could tell me about the Kaijudo Guard. You're Mai, right" I replied. Suddenly very aware of who was standing in front of me.

"Yes, I can." She said. "But can you handle the truth?"

So many cliffhangers! So sorry I haven't been consistent with updating any of my stories lately. I've been busy with some stuff and find it hard to really get into writing now and again.

Now I know the story is a bit slow at the moment, but for the sake of research and curiosity, I want to know which new character is your guy's favorite and what you think of each kid's problem along with the major conflict as a whole. I would love to hear what your thoughts are and use that info to make this story the best it can be and maybe delve a little more into the backgrounds of your favorites.

I shall get the next chapter started as soon as I can, but there will be no promises as to when it will come out.

Thanks a ton!

-Echo