Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-gi-oh!
Takeover
Chapter Four
Merpeps?
*~*~*~*~*
'What now,' Shizuka thought, 'I can't go up to the surface, but we can't stay down here forever… I can only hold the bubble up for so long. I wish Yugi was awake, he'd know what to do, he always does.' Shizuka was beginning to get very down hearted as she realized how hopeless the situation was. If she went up to the surface the birds would get them; if she stayed down here she'd use up all her energy and wouldn't be able to hold up the bubble any more. 'I'll just continue going down for now, I'll have better chances down here than up their.'
Hours passed and Yugi still didn't wake up and Shizuka was beginning to feel weak as she held the bubble up as long as she could. The light that the surface gave was decreasing rapidly as they traveled deeper into the water, soon there was no light at all… The only thing left to do was hope… But what could she hope for as the bubble began to get smaller and smaller until Shizuka had to curl up on the floor next to Yugi in order to fit in it. She was so drained of her energy that she barely noticed when the bubble disappeared and she and Yugi began falling into the lake depths.
*~*~*~*~*
"Well here's the clearing," Yami said as they reached the intersection of the two most common paths. There was one tree in the middle of this cleared while other trees scattered around it in a rough circle.
"Yeah but no one's here," Otogi said stating the obvious.
"Maybe we should wait," Rebecca said, "Someone might be slower than us."
"If they were attacked too, than yeah they might be," Honda commented.
"Speaking of being attacked…" Amaya said as she looked beyond all of them. The others turned around and saw a gigantic Dark Dragon. It had huge black wings with silver lining along the edges as well as silver eyes and nails. White scales ran along its back and red puffs of fire came out of its nose. Its teeth were very large and sharp, ready to break the bones of all of them.
"What do you say we do?" Honda whispered shakily to no one in particular.
"Run," Mitsu whispered. No one needed to be told a second time so they started running as fast as they could, but they weren't fast enough. The dragon gathered up his energy and shot it at them. It didn't hit any of them, but when it made contact with the ground there was a big explosion. Anyone within a mile of it was knocked out… that was all of them. Not only that, but they were also blown very far in many different directions because they were so close to the blast.
*~*~*~*~*
Honda opened his eyes to see that he was not in the same place he was before. He was in the swampy regions which were to the north of the forest. He found that he was sitting in murky swamp water that looked more like mud than water. He looked around and saw that, other than a few large rocks here and there, there was only muddy water as far as his eyes could see.
As he looked around he found that he was not the only one who flew into the swamp, Otogi did too. Otogi was a little freaked out about being in the swamp. When he was a little boy a Crocerwat, a creature that looked a lot like a crocodile a crocodile except with a longer neck and a barbed tail, attacked him.
"Honda?" He asked nervously, "Which direction is the forest in?" It was then that Honda realized that he had no idea how they were going to get back to the forest because neither of them knew which direction was south, the direction they knew the forest would be in.
"Umm… I don't know… Which way do you think is south?"
"I don't know, I was never taught how to tell which direction is which."
"Just great… what do you suppose we do?"
"Go away from those Crocerwats," Otogi said pointing terrified to something behind Honda. Obviously the things he was pointing to were the Crocerwats.
"That would be a good idea," Honda said before starting to run away with Otogi at his heels.
*~*~*~*~*
"Stay away us flamed freak!" Jou shouted as he and Rebecca ran away from a warrior with hair of flames and a sword of fire. He had an orange breastplate with matching boots. He and Rebecca had woken up in a different part of the forest, they didn't know where, with the flame warrior right in front of them ready to attack. They had jumped out of the way and Rebecca tried to use her Water Gun attack on him, but it didn't work.
"I don't understand why my water didn't work on it," Rebecca said, "fire is supposed to be weak against water."
"It's supposed to be, that doesn't mean it is."
"It has to have some point of weakness."
"Who says?"
"Yami taught me that when I was a first year."
"Oh… well than what's this guy's weakness?"
"I'm trying to figure that out!" Rebecca said amazed a Jou's stupidity.
"Well while you're at it, I'm gonna try slowing dis guy down a bit," Jou said. He noticed that the warrior was gaining on them.
"Well than do that!" Rebecca exclaimed.
"I am doing that," Jou said. He already had the warrior surrounded by a wall of fire. Much to his dismay the warrior ran right through the wall and continued to charge at them. However, Jou wasn't about to give up. He created a Flame Warrior to go against the other one. It bought him and Rebecca some time, but not so much of it. Five minutes after the two warriors started in head to head combat Jou's was defeated. Rebecca had to figure something out fast if either of them hoped to get out of this unscathed.
*~*~*~*~*
"What do you say we do now that we beat that Water Demon?" Yami asked Mitsu. They had been blown to the edge of a small lake. It was a large lake at the southern edge of the forest… they could not even see the northern side where the trees formed a semicircle around it. A Water Demon had come from the lake, but it was easily destroyed. Both of them were very strong mages and water is weak against air.
"I should have known from the beginning," Mitsu said angrily kicking a stone into the lake creating ripples.
"Known what?" Yami asked confused.
"I should have known who was behind this," Mitsu continued, "I thought that it couldn't be though… But he taught her how to do the mirror… How could she betray me though?"
"I'm confused… Who are you talking about?"
"We have to find Yugi," Mitsu said ignoring Yami's question, "He's the only one who can do it now."
"He's the only one who can do what?"
"Beat him… I can't anymore, but he can… He's the only one with enough power… He just needs… But who would do that, I can't and she wouldn't."
"You're really confusing me Mitsu, please speak straight."
"It doesn't matter right now, you'll know eventually though."
"When?"
"When we find Yugi"
"Where should we start looking?"
"I don't know, but there's something that tells me he was around here." Mitsu looked at the shining lake thinking. "They were attacked by a fire creature, right?"
"That's what it seems to be. I don't know why there would be scorch marks on the ground if it wasn't a fire creature"
"Maybe they found there way to a water source because water beats fire… They may have ended up here."
"How would they have gotten here? I mean it's kinda far"
"They may have flown"
"Shizuka doesn't know how to do that yet. She only just started level four; you learn how to fly near the middle of that level."
"Yugi could have flown."
"I don't think he would have enough power to do that."
"You underestimate him. He probably did end up using it up, but he is strong and if he's in danger he's not going to give up. I may have only known him for a day, but I do know that about him."
"You're right, I'm being stereotypical again. Yugi is very strong, I should never doubt him."
"Now that we both agree on what he did, let's figure out what happened after that…"
*~*~*~*~*
Shizuka opened her eyes to see that she was still underwater. The blue water swam before her eyes surrounding her. Than she realized she was breathing and she didn't feel the water soaking her. 'How come I can breath? Why am I not wet? Where am I? Where's Yugi? What happened?' Hundreds of questions went through her mind.
"I see you've finally woken up," a voice said snapping Shizuka out of here thoughts. She sat bolt upright, which she found made her extremely dizzy but didn't care so much at the moment, and looked around for the owner of the voice. She found the person behind her, but it wasn't a person. It was a mermaid. She was blue with golden blonde hair and looked royal. She had a long green dress on and a silver necklace and bracelet. The weird part was that she had legs, not a tail. The mermaid seemed to notice Shizuka's confusion and answered the question that had not been said yet. "Merpeps can switch from tail to feet as they wish… Our magic allows us to."
Suddenly the hundreds of questions that she had thought of before came through her mouth before she even realized she was saying anything.
"One question at a time please," the mermaid laughed stopping Shizuka from asking any more questions.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Mariel. I am the queen of the merpeps"
"Merpeps?"
"Humans call us mermaids and mermen, but we are really merpeps"
"What happened?"
"After you bubble popped?"
"Yeah"
"You were close to the city and so the guards saw your bubble pop and brought you here."
"Where's here?"
"It's one of the Air domes. Merpeps must know how to survive in the water and out so we created these so that we could get used to breathing normal air."
"It really seems like I'm still in the water."
"Yes, it was made that way to make it a little easier for beginners.
"Why do you have to be out of the water sometimes?"
"We want to stay in touch with the surface so we send someone up to see what's happening. Many times they must pretend to be humans and sometimes they do not come back because they are thought to be lost humans."
"Where's Yugi?"
"Your friend woke up some time ago. He is in a different dome talking with an old friend of his."
"Is he okay?"
"When he woke his was weak from a spell placed on him, but it was removed and he will be completely healed by afternoon tomorrow."
"Can I go see him?" Shizuka asked hopefully.
"Of course you can. Would you like to see the city first?"
"Sure," Shizuka said after thinking for a moment. She really wanted to see Yugi, but she knew it wouldn't hurt to look around first.
"Would you be able to put your own bubble up or should I put one up for you?"
"I think I'll be able to use my own," Shizuka answered.
"All right then, follow me"
Mariel led Shizuka through the city. The first thing Shizuka saw was the palace. It was the biggest building Shizuka ever saw. It's white walls where tinted blue from the color of the lake and had patterns of shells along the top and bottom. The roof was made of pure silver and the windows where lined with gold. There was no glass on the windows and there where no doors. Shizuka guessed this was so that the water would be able to get everywhere in the palace. Mariel brought her to the palace garden, which Shizuka was surprised even existed. She didn't think there were so many different kinds of underwater plants.
After Shizuka had enough time in the garden Mariel led her to the rest of the city. Shizuka had not realized before that the light in the city was not natural light, it came from an orb in the center of the city flying high above so that its light could reach every part of the city. In the entire city that was the only light, no home had any individual lighting at all. Each house looked almost exactly alike, They were all one floored circular houses with five circular windows… two right next to the door, one on the opposite side of the circle, one ninety degrees from the door and the other across from that one. Each house had a flat roof and were the exact same color blue. The market was a little different, the stores were all different shapes and sizes, sold many different kinds of things and most did not have windows.
Shizuka and Mariel exited the city on the opposite side from where they had come in. It wasn't long before Shizuka saw another dome in the distance. She guessed that was where Yugi was so she sped up towards it. Soon she had reached the bubble and was going through it to see Yugi.
*~*~*~*~*
"So you made it…"
"Yes, and just on time"
"They met each other?"
"Yes the merpeps found them, but are you sure that's what you wanted?"
"Yes, that's exactly what I wanted."
"Why is that?"
"The merpeps will go with him when they hear of his troubles. You know very well that the merpeps are magical. I will be able to get them as well. Not only that, but there is a half merpep. His magic will be another kind. After all the more kinds of magic I have the easier this will be."
"Yes, it will be a reward for both of us."
*~*~*~*~*
Thank you to all reviewers, I hope you like this chapter. Next chapter romance starts, and I suck at it.
Hillary you guessed right for one person, congratulation!!! ^_^ The biggest clue for finding who that is is in chapter 3 "Underwater"
As always one review to continue