Me: . . . ugh. . . yeah. . . I've had to deal with. . . stuff I'd rather not talk about. . . Let's just say it involved a hacker, Facebook, and extremely rude and inappropriate messages which I never want to talk about or see ever again. . . it was a bit hard for me to finish this after that. . .
Astral: I didn't know it was possible to get cyber bullied by a person you didn't even know.
Me: Apparently it is… plus it took me so long to finally be able to block the jerk. Gods… you have no idea how hard it is to work with someone like that bothering you to no end. I don't own Yugioh Zexal or Zexal II… still sad about it…
Astral: This chapter's a bit strange in the way she organized it, because she wanted to do something for everyone.
Sorta Prologue
"This isn't working. We need the Numbers now!"
"Send out more Barians then! Have them get the Numbers for us then!"
"Abusing the current alliance with them won't do us any good."
"Who cares! Even if Force is the strongest of us, he's not doing anything!"
"So we take matters into our own hands?"
"Yes. We will have to."
Chapter 12a: Kaito's Awkward Day
"Orbital. Any information about the Barians?" Kaito said as he walked into his temporary office at Sarah's house. Orbital was typing on some computers, and turned around in his seat when he heard his master come in.
"U-Um, Kaito-sama? The technology in this world is too slow and not advanced enough for me to track down the Barian signals…" Orbital said nervously.
Kaito glared at him, making him squeak slightly. When he didn't say anything and then turned away, Orbital let out a breath he was technically incapable of holding. Kaito began walking out of the door.
"K-Kaito-sama, where are you going?" Orbital asked.
"To go find the necessary technology so that I can track down the Barians." Kaito said. He walked to the garage of the house, where he had Orbital dismantle one of the cars Sarah had on the day he arrived and turn it into a motorcycle. He got on the motorcycle and drove out of the house.
-plays epic Kaito motorcycle music in the background-
"There should be the items I need in here." Kaito said as he pulled off his helmet and looked at the large building in front of him. "The mall back in our world sold all sorts of items. There's probably something here that can help track down the energy of the Barians."
He walked in and was greeted by the sight of electronics everywhere.
"Well, I guess this place will do." He said as he walked down the aisles. There were TV's, laptops, computers, and all sorts of iPhones. He wasn't really sure what an iPhone was, but it looked like a bulkier version of the d-gazer.
Kaito walked up the the customer help desk in his usual walking fashion, making the woman at the desk wary of him already. "I'm looking for any equipment capable of tracking energy from life forms of different worlds. Does your store have any?"
"W-What?" The woman said, completely baffled and not understanding what he was talking about.
"Do I need to repeat myself? I said—"
"I heard him." A seventeen year old girl with short brown hair said as she randomly walked up to him. "You're interested in searching for alternate life forms in different worlds?"
"Not interested. It's basically my job." Kaito said. The girl's eyes widened.
"That's so cool! I'm studying astronomy and alternate life at my college, and it'd be great if maybe we could talk about it a bit?" She asked, extending her hand for a handshake. "I'm Eliza Corrigan, by the way."
Kaito looked at the outstretched hand and debated his choices. He could ignore it and walk away now, but this girl might have known something useful. So, why not? "Kite Tenjo. Nice to meet you." Kaito said calmly, shaking her hand back. "So, is there a place we can talk?"
-linebreakofsomesort-
"So how did you get interested in aliens?" Eliza asked Kaito as they sat at a table in the mall's food court.
"My father's a scientist. I use his lab a lot." Kaito said. "He was studying gateways to other worlds."
"Gateways to other worlds? Sounds difficult. Did he ever find out anything?"
"I actually already know of two different worlds with life on it other than ours."
"T-Two?!" Eliza accidentally choked on her smoothie. She coughed a bit before regaining her posture. "Two different worlds?!"
"So you don't know anything about them then."
"This is news to me." Eliza shrugged. "I'm pretty sure this is news to everyone on Earth, since there's people who think there are aliens, but there's never been any real proof. How do you know for sure then?"
"I've found proof. And met one of the beings on the planet, along with samples as well." Kaito responded. "I'm looking for any sort of device that will be able to track down their exact location by sensing the energy signals."
"Hmm…" Eliza thought about it. "Well, I know about tracking devices, except most of them aren't very exact, and I'm pretty sure you need to attach a tracking device to the person, well, other life form I guess, to be able to find it."
"Would it work on other planets?"
"That I don't know. They need satellite to track down the tracking device, and the satellite signals might not work if it's too far away."
"I see." Kaito said. "Well, thank you for your time anyway. I'll be—"
Something buzzed inside his jacket, and he reached into his pocket to pull out a special d-gazer. He didn't really need one, since he had his photon mode, but in case anything ever happened, and if Orbital wasn't around to receive messages, he could use it. "Sorry, give me a second." He said to her as he turned away and pressed accept on the incoming call. A picture of Orbital appeared on the screen. Anne, Sarah's little sister, was sitting on top of his head.
"Kaito-sama! There's a Numbers sensed in your area!" Orbital said, panicking.
"Numbers! Numbers!" Anne repeated happily.
"The signal's fuzzy since we don't have the proper equipment, but it's somewhere near you!"
"Near you! Near you!"
"And it's a really irregular Numbers too! Be careful, Kaito-sama!"
"Kaity Kaito!"
Kaito nodded, trying to ignore the strange comments from the little girl. The line cut off, and Kaito put the d-gazer back into his jacket. He walked back to Eliza, then sat down. "Sorry. Just a report from back at my base."
"Oh, that's not too bad." Eliza smiled. "Anyway, I thought about it, and I think some science labs have equipment that can track energy waves like earthquakes or strange occurrences around the globe."
"Well, thanks for the information. I'll be going now." Kaito said.
"Wait!" Eliza said, then stopped. She blushed slightly. "Um…"
"What is it?" Kaito said as he got up.
"Before you go, can I have your Number?"
Kaito paused. "What?"
"You know, your Number. Or Numbers if you have more than one. Just in case. So, can—"
"So you're a Number Hunter then?!" Kaito jumped back, an angry look on his face. This must have been what Orbital was talking about. "I'm the Number Hunter, and you're not getting anything from me! So let's duel now!"
Eliza stared at him in shock. By now, half of the people in the food court were staring at him. She slung her purse over her shoulder. "Um, this probably isn't going to work out… So I'll just go now…"
Then she ran out of the mall, with Kaito staring after her, wondering what the hell had just happened.
"So then, she wasn't a Number Hunter…" Kaito said to himself. "Oh."
He really wasn't good with girls. But at least he wasn't as bad as Yuma was.
So where did the Number signal come from then?
Then a paper airplane hit him in the head, interrupting his thoughts. He grabbed it, then looked around for who threw angrily. It looked like nobody had done it, so he opened the paper. There was a note on it.
Roof. Come quickly, Tenjo Kaito.
What is it with people and roofs? The duel between Yuma and Kotori had happened there, and it was pretty dangerous there too. Plus Orbital wasn't there. This note was weird, but it somehow knew his name. He read the note again, then sighed. He might as well go check it out. Kaito threw the note over his shoulder as he walked away.
As he walked, the note fluttered to the ground, flipping around in midair. On the back of the note was the Barian symbol.
Me: I'm sorry, I've always wanted to do that to Kaito! Mistaking flirting for Numbers hunting!
Astral: That was just you having fun.
Me: I know!
Chapter 12b: Never Call Shark 'Reggie'
"U-U-Um…" The girl stuttered. Shark crossed his arms, looking at her with an expression of pure boredom.
"Yes? What is it?" Shark said for what had to be the fifth time.
"W-W-Will you go to the d-dance on Friday night with m-me?"
Shark sighed. This was the fourteenth invitation he got to go to the dance from girls this week. What was this, ask Shark out day? And he had seen at least thirty girls whispering and eyeing him in the hallways, figuring out whether or not to try asking. Plus there was that time were even a few boys tried coming up him to ask the question. If Sarah was here, she'd probably go on and on about Sharkbaitshipping and Challengeshipping at those moments. He wasn't exactly sure what it was, but she continued to rant and fangirl about it.
"I'll think about it." He responded, like he had done to all the other requests. The girl looked satisfied with herself, relieved, and happy, so she left. When she left, Shark groaned. This was getting out of hand. Back at Heartland, most kids were too scared to ask him to this sort of thing. After he had gotten nicer after befriending Yuma and the others, it had gotten slightly better, but something like this had never happened.
"Well, let's just get class over with." Shark muttered, getting out his textbook.
-linebreakofsomesort-
"So Reginald, have you decided?" A girl asked him when he walked out of the classroom.
"Decided what?" Shark asked.
"Will you go to the dance with me?"
"I'll get back to you." Shark said and attempted to walk by her, but she blocked his way.
"The dance is next Tuesday so I need to know now!" She whined.
"I said I'll get back to you." Shark tried to get past her again but more girls appeared in his way. What was this, bother Ryoga day?
"He's going with me!"
"No he's going with me!"
"I asked way before you did!"
"Reginald! You're going with me right!"
"No you're going with me!"
The crowd of girls all turned to look at Shark, or rather, look at where Shark was. The all stared at the empty spot that WAS Shark a minute ago.
-linebreakofsomesort-
"Get him!"
"Where is he!"
Shark hid behind a corner as another crowd of girls ran past him. He breathed out. Too close for comfort. He had a pretty good idea of what would happen to him if they caught him. Rio had taught him that the many times he accidentally made her mad.
But still, what was he supposed to do with this? He couldn't get to his next class (that didn't bother him too much), he would have to sneak around everywhere, and eventually someone would find him and that would result in chaos.
"Hey! You're that dude hogging all the girls!" He heard a voice from behind yell and stiffened. He stopped when he realized the voice was a guys, then turned around and put on his regular face.
"What is it?" Shark asked.
"I'm Buff Beafy the most popular guy at this school, but ever since you came I've been getting ignored by more and more girls!" A large boy (or man) stood there angrily shouting at him. He was buff, shaggy haired, and sweaty. He annoyed Shark.
"That name fits too much." He mumpled. "And so what? It's not like I care."
"I challenge you! I'll win and then you have to admit to everyone that I'm better than you!"
Shark looked at him with contempt. "Not interested." He began to walk away.
"And if you win I'll go around the school acting like a chicken for the entire day!"
Shark stopped. He turned around and smirked. "Seriously?"
"If I win you have to do it though!"
"You just said that if, and only if, you win, I would have to just admit that you were better, although that would never happen."
"Well I'm adding that on as well!"
Shark sighed. "This is annoying and a waste of my time."
"Are you scared of losing?!" The guy yelled.
"Of course not. This is just a waste of my time."
"Chicken!" He yelled. "Chicken chicken chicken!"
By now, a crowd had gathered to watch them. This was getting out of hand.
"Chicken! Chicken! Reggie's a chicken!"
Shark froze. "What did you call me?"
"Aww wittle Weggie's a wittle chicken…" The guy said in a voice that made Shark want to punch him in his smug little face.
"Never…call…me…Reggie…" Shark grabbed him by the collar and growled. "You're on."
The guy tried to laugh, although it was pretty hard since Shark was holding onto him pretty hard. "You're on!"
-linebreakofsomesort-
"The first contest is one on one soccer!" Buff yelled. He and Shark stood face to face on the empty soccer field in the center, with a soccer ball between them. "First one to score wins!"
"You'll need an army to stop me from getting to that net." Shark said. Some kid on the side blew the whistle, and the contest was on.
It was over hardly before it began. In almost an instant, Shark had gotten the ball, dribbled it expertly past Buff, and kicked it so hard the ball slammed into the net. The boys stared in shock, while the girls squealed in happiness as Shark stood at the goal triumphantly.
"Are we done yet? I'd like to be able to eat lunch today." Shark said indifferently.
"We're not done yet!" Buff yelled. "Next is the wrestling match!"
Shark flipped Buff onto his back so hard the mat ripped under the weight of it.
"Ping pong!"
The ping pong ball hit the table and bounced past Buff's racket every time.
"Tennis!"
Shark yelled as he hit the tennis ball and it fly across the net, hitting the pavement and slamming into the wall behind.
"Basketball!"
The ball fell into the Guest's hoop over and over, from afar and from close up.
"Archery!"
The arrow shot into the middle of the bull's-eye of the target, narrowly missing Buff's getting-less-smug-by-the-minute face.
"Tag!"
"Tag?"
"Uh, no tag! I meant hockey!"
The puck slid across the ice neatly into the net as Buff stared. He backed up until he was leaning on a wall, then slid down it.
"I-I-I… give up…"
"It's about time." Shark said. He sighed. "And that was all during school hours too. Now, have fun in the chicken suit tomorrow."
Buff kept staring at him. Then he began crying.
Me: Ahehe… hey if Rio can do it Sharky can do it too!
Astral: Sharky?
Me: Sharky! Anyways, Shark's just not gonna go to the dance. Not his style. Was originally gonna have Gilag show up, but then realized. Gilag's not the most inconspicuous of people. He's a huge buff dude with little fairy wings.
Chapter 12c: Rumors, Rumors Everywhere
"Hey look, its Yuma Tsukumo!"
"Do you think it's real?"
"Who knows! I think it's possible though!"
"What's everyone whispering about today?" Yuma wondered as he walked down the hallway of school. When he looked at a group of girls, they immediately turned away from him and began whispering more and more.
"Maybe there's some big news going around?" Rei said. He and Kotori didn't know why they were whispering either. Sarah had a bit of a guilty look on her face.
"Maybe." Yuma shrugged. He tapped on the shoulder of a random girl in the hallway. "Hey, do you know why people are—"
The girl squealed and jumped away, running to her friends who started giggling like crazy.
"Um, okay then…" Yuma stepped away, then went up to some boys. "Do you guys know what everyone's—"
Then the guy squealed like a girl and ran away. Sarah facepalmed. "Idiots…" She mumbled.
"This is really getting weird." Yuma said as he sat down in his seat in the classroom. He looked at the girl sitting next to him. "Hey, can I borrow an eraser?"
The girl stared at him. "Um, I'm sorry! I didn't do anything! Please don't do anything to me!"
"I wasn't going to do—"
"Here! Take it! Just don't do anything to me!" She threw her eraser at Yuma, then began cowering in her chair.
Yuma stared. "What?"
"Here, Yuma-kun!" Rei passed Yuma his eraser.
"Oh, thank you. I think…"
Meanwhile, Kotori was also having a weird time, although hers was the opposite of Yuma's. She sat down in her seat and many girls all came over to her at once.
"Oh my gosh Tori I'm so sorry!" One of them said.
"I can't believe that that could happen!"
"Don't worry, we're here for you!"
"Is Kotori Mizuki some sort of other name of yours?"
"You'll be just fine!"
"W-What are all of you talking about?" Kotori said, holding up her hands.
"It's okay, we know!"
"We'll help you!"
"H-Huh..?" Kotori was getting more and more confused.
"We found this!" A girl held out her phone. Open on it was a facebook page, and it had a picture of that day where her and Yuma had fallen asleep together on Orbital transformed into a bed. "I can't believe Yuma would do something like that!"
"Yuma did what?"
"Hey! Tori!" Sarah skipped over, grabbed Kotori's arm, then pulled her away. "Let's talk for a bit!"
She dragged Kotori over to where Yuma and Rei were, then grabbed Yuma's arm as well. "Hey! Yuma! Why don't you come with us for a second!"
"What? What what what?! Ow!" Yuma yelled as they left the classroom, Rei following them. Sarah lead then all into the first floor's girls washroom and pushed them in.
"Why is it I'm always in girl washrooms when something happens…" Yuma muttered.
"I don't think boys should be allowed in the girl's washroom." Rei said. "What if someone comes in."
"Nobody comes to the first floor washroom. If anyone ever uses it, it overfloods. Also, there's rumors of it being haunted, since there's always a dripping sound in here, even though kids and janitors and teachers have searched for days, but never found where the dripping came from. They even searched the pipes and the nearby taps and found nothing!" Sarah said. "Listen."
They all went quiet. There was a dripping sound coming from somewhere, although it was impossible to tell where it was. It was quiet, but just loud enough so that it could still be heard clearly.
"Creepy." Kotori said.
"I know, right! But that's not the point. Um…" Sarah looked away. "How do I put this…"
"Put what?" Yuma asked.
"Um… I figured out why everyone's acting so weird…"
"Really!" Rei shouted.
"Tell me!" Yuma added.
"Can we do anything about it?" Kotori said.
"Uh…" Sarah reached into her pocket and took out a phone. She texted something on it, then showed them a picture of Yuma and Kotori sleeping together on the Orbital bed. Underneath was the caption 'Skyshipping'.
"This went from this to this…" She slidded across the screen, and the same picture came up again, this time with the caption 'Yuma Tsukumo and Kotori Mizuki', "and went to this…" The next picture's caption said 'Yuma Tsukumo and Tori Meadows', "and went to this…" the next caption said 'What are they doing together?!', "and then at some point along the way it went to this…" 'What did Yuma do to Tori?!'.
"So…" The three of them, and Astral who decided to appear, looked at the picture's caption and stared. "This happened because of bad messaging passing?" Rei asked.
"Yeah…just about." Sarah said.
"So how'd the picture get on the internet in the first place?" Yuma asked. "There was nobody with me and Kotori that day!"
"Yeah." Kotori nodded. "You guys were busy doing something else, so we went by ourselves."
Rei looked at the two of them. Then he looked at Sarah with a 'Really?' look, who immediately panicked. Astral also looked at her curiously.
"I didn't know it would turn out like this!" Sarah yelled. "I was just posting some Skyshipping pictures on my blog! I didn't know the picture would go viral!"
Now Yuma and Kotori also stared at Sarah.
"You're the one who posted the picture online?" Kotori asked.
"It's not my fault! Okay, it sorta was, but I didn't know! Plus it was just hard to resist taking a picture of you two like that…" Sarah trailed off, realizing another secret she gave away.
"You were spying on us?" Yuma asked.
"Yes! No! Well, maybe! In a way! It wasn't really spying, more like making sure things went right, and they sorta did, but they also didn't, and…"
"You're just making things worse for yourself." Rei said. Sarah hung her head.
"Yeah…"
-linebreakofsomesort-
"I'M SORRY!" Sarah screamed as she ran down the hallway.
"GET BACK HERE!" Yuma yelled, running after her angrily.
"I SAID SORRY!"
"THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT BETTER!"
"Are they really going to be okay?" Rei asked.
Kotori sighed. "I don't know."
"I wonder how Shark and Kaito-san are doing? They can't be worse than this." Rei said, watching Yuma still chase Sarah around.
"Yeah… it'll probably be fine." Kotori said. "Probably…"
She looked at a poster on the wall. "Yugioh tournament? Isn't that the name which Sarah said the tv show we were in."
"So that would be the equivalent of a duel tournament back in our world." Rei said. "But Sarah said it wasn't very popular here."
"Well there's a pretty big prize. It says the winner gets a trip to Japan with all expenses paid, as well as this new card which hasn't been seen in either the anime or manga." Kotori said. "We have a manga? That's cool!"
"That would make anyone want to enter." Rei said. "Should we tell Yuma-kun?"
They both looked at the still running Yuma and Sarah and sweat-dropped.
"Yeah, he'll find out by himself even if we don't tell him." Kotori sighed.
Me: Sorry about the wait again, these are getting slower to get out, but this time I had a legit reason. But anyways, I'll be at Disneyland for a week! It'll be a while, since Disneyland is, well, Disneyland!
Astral: And of course, it's predictable what she'll be like at Disneyland.
Me: RIDE THE ROLLARCOASTER ALREADY!
Astral: (sighs) Well, review and we'll be back next chapter.