Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL.
Chapter 2: Spell Over Heartland
The rain continued to come down hard as Kotori sat in the passenger seat of Droite's car, which at that moment was driving towards Heartland Tower. There had been silence in the car for the whole trip. When they left the school, Kotori had of course asked Droite what she knew about what was happening, but the butterfly duelist had told Kotori to wait until they got to the tower to explain everything. Unfortunately this silence was not helping Kotori's state of mind. She kept worrying about if there was any way to change things back to normal, and if not, where did that leave her and Yuma?
Within only a few minutes, Kotori and Droite arrived at Heartland Tower, which among other things was the residence of Droite's boyfriend, Kaito Tenjo. The ladies found said blonde waiting for them in his lab, and Kaito was not alone. Also with Kaito was his robot minion, Orbital 7. Besides Orbital though, there were two young men waiting in the lab. One of the young men had tan skin and dark hair, and was wearing a black leather jacket over a red buttoned-up shirt, and white slacks. Kotori instantly recognized this young man as Alit. The other young man in the room had bright orange hair and was wearing a brown jacket with an off-white fur collar. Kotori of course recognized this young man as Vector.
"So, I take it Kotori remembers what happened?" Kaito asked Droite.
"Definitely." Droite confirmed. "She was even dueling the one who did all this, and with Utopia no less."
"Utopia?" a surprised Kaito repeated. "So Astral gave her a Number as well?"
"It looks that way." Droite confirmed.
"Excuse me, but will you guys tell me what's going on?" Kotori requested with a hint of impatience in her voice.
"Yeah, sorry." Kaito replied, turning to Kotori. "I'm guessing that even though you remember what happened, there are some things you're confused about."
"Just hold on a sec." Vector cut in. "How do we know that Kotori here remembers everything that happened?"
"As much as I hate to admit it, Vector has a point." Alit agreed. "It would probably save us some time if we knew we didn't have to explain stuff she probably already knew."
"Fair enough." Kaito nodded. "Okay Kotori, what do you remember about the incident from yesterday?"
"Pretty much everything, I think." Kotori answered. "It was kind of late in the afternoon, and I was in the park with Yuma. Come to think of it, you and Droite were there too…"
The sun had climbed low in the sky as Kotori and Yuma walked hand in hand through the park. The two of them were about to decide to head for home when Kotori glanced around and saw Kaito and Droite by a park bench deep in conversation. From the grave expressions Kotori saw on their faces, it seemed like whatever they were talking about was quite serious.
"Hey Yuma, has something been bothering Kaito lately?" Kotori asked.
"Not that I know of. Why?" Yuma replied.
"Well he and Droite are over there, and it seems like whatever they're talking about is pretty serious." Kotori answered. "I hope nothing's wrong."
"Let's go find out." Yuma decided before heading in the other couple's direction.
Before Kotori could stop Yuma, a vortex in the form of a galaxy appeared in front of him and Kotori. Kaito and Droite had noticed the appearance of the vortex as well. Samantha emerged from Kotori and Yuma's side of the phenomenon wearing a red top with two thin shoulder straps that showed off her cleavage, along with a short denim skirt and a pair of black sneakers with white socks. A pair of gold bracelets adorned the redhead's wrists.
"Well hi there." Samantha greeted as the vortex closed behind her. "You must be Yuma."
"Who are you?" Yuma demanded to know.
"I'm sure even someone as dense as you has figured out what I am, at least." Samantha answered. "After all, you did duel Ani not too long ago."
"You're one of those Barian Death Queens, aren't you?" Yuma realized.
"Good boy. Now here's a little reward for figuring that out." Samantha responded.
With that, Samantha fired a beam of red light from the palm of her hand that hit Yuma in the chest. The beam left a strange mark that glowed with a red light from underneath his shirt. Yuma fell onto his back and seemed to be in pain. A worried Kotori hurried to his side and got on her knees to hold his hand. Meanwhile, Kaito and Droite ran over to the scene.
"What did you do to Yuma?" Kotori demanded to know.
"Just gave him a little curse." Samantha answered. "Pretty soon the Numeron Code will be as good as mine."
"We're not going to let that happen!" Kaito declared.
"Oh of course you will." Samantha told him with a grin. "Because in a moment, you aren't even going to remember who your friend is. The same goes for his little girlfriend. In fact by the time I'm through, everyone in this city will remember things as I wish them too!"
With that, Samantha raised her hands in the air and began chanting in a strange language. As she did so, her body began to give off a red aura and the sky above rumbled and became covered in thick dark clouds. The wind began to pick up, and suddenly a light shined from the Emperor's Key and a feint image of Astral appeared over it. The dimensional being was already in pain and changing from blue to red. Then, on some odd instinct that she couldn't understand, Kotori grasped the Emperor's Key. Samantha shot a beam of crimson light into the air, and at the same time Astral gave off a flash that caused a few glowing cards to scatter. Soon after, the sky gave a blinding flash and everything seemed to go dark.
"…The next thing I remember after having this weird dream I had was waking up in bed with the Emperor's Key." Kotori continued. "I didn't remember what happened until my duel with Samantha… or I guess I should say Mitaka, when Astral appeared and gave me Utopia."
"Then it sounds like you're up to speed on what's going on." Kaito observed. "As you're probably figured out, this Mitaka has somehow altered the memories of almost everyone in the city. Until recently, you didn't remember who Yuma was, just like how doesn't seem to remember you or anything about Astral or the Emperor's Key. He also doesn't seem to even remember me, Droite or any of the former Barians."
"Are you serious?" a stunned Kotori asked.
Kaito nodded. "Shortly after this happened, Droite and I went and found Yuma. He didn't recall who either of us was."
"The same happened with me." Alit confirmed. "When I found Yuma, he acted like it was the first time we met."
"So how come all of you seem to remember what's happened?" Kotori asked.
"Do you remember how Astral seemed to appear just before that Mitaka girl cast the spell over the city?" Kaito asked. "When he showed up, he was somehow able to give me some of his Numbers."
"Somehow Astral gave me and Alit a few of the Numbers too." Vector revealed. "The two of us happened to be in the park right when this whole thing happened."
"Of course we probably didn't need any of the Numbers, since we already had our 10X Numbers." Alit interjected. "Still, it seems like Astral wants our help in stopping this."
"So then Droite, I guess this means you have some of the Numbers too?" Kotori assumed.
"Actually, no." Droite revealed as she put her hand over her stomach. "There seems to be another reason why I wasn't affected by this spell."
"In any case," Kaito spoke before Kotori could ask what Droite meant, "it seems like Mitaka has waited until we were short handed to make this move."
"That's right! Shark and the other former Barians are out of town right now." Kotori recalled. "So are Hikari and Cleo."
"That's right. They got special permission to leave town for a couple of weeks." Alit confirmed. "Right now Gilag is on what he called a training journey, though he wouldn't tell me what the heck it was about. Meanwhile, Nasch and Merag are in Neo Domino visiting Hikari and Cleo's parents. Durbe went with them because he has the hots for Hikari's sister, not that he'd admit it."
"That's right. And Mizael's with Cathy at that wedding of her cousin's." Kotori recalled.
"None of them are coming back for a few days." Alit replied. "Which means the six of us in this room are the only ones who know what's really happening."
"Can't we call for help?" Kotori asked.
"I've already tried." Kaito revealed. "Whatever this spell is seems to be preventing us from communicating with anyone outside the city."
"Okay then, so how do we break this spell?" Kotori asked.
"On that, I'm afraid I have no clue right now." Kaito answered. "It looks like the only way might be to defeat Mitaka."
"Well, I managed to beat her when we dueled, so it might not be that hard." Kotori optimistically replied.
"I wouldn't be so sure about that." Droite told her. "I saw that whole duel, and it seems to me if you hadn't summoned Utopia or Utopia Ray, you wouldn't have won. Plus I could tell from the moves Mitaka made that she was going easy on you, like she didn't think you were a serious threat."
"You know… you might be right about that." Kotori admitted. "The truth is, I probably couldn't have used Utopia Ray if Astral hadn't sort of talked me through it."
"So you communicated with Astral during the duel?" Kaito asked.
"Yeah. I even saw him when he gave me Utopia." Kotori confirmed. "He looked like he was in pain."
"So whatever Mitaka did to Yuma before casting that spell has effected Astral too." Kaito observed.
"Then it looks like we need to put a stop to all this soon." Alit decided. "Otherwise Yuma and Astral might not last for much longer."
"Whatever you guys decide to do, I'm helping out too." Kotori told them. "Astral gave me Utopia for a reason. So I'm going to help you guys fight with everything I've got."
"Okay then." Kaito agreed. "But from the sound of it, you might want to start by giving your deck a tune-up."
"I'll get started on that right away." Kotori replied. "Next time if I end up dueling Mitaka again, I won't be so easy to beat."
Night was beginning to fall as Samantha sat at a large round table with four chairs in a room in the basement of Heartland Academy wearing her street clothes. She glanced at the clock in the wall and saw that the people she was waiting for were running a little bit late. After a moment she heard steps coming down the stairs, but saw that it was only Chitose. She had on what looked like a school uniform consisting of a pink jacket with a short blue skirt and a sort of blue tie around her neck that was tied in a sort of a bow.
"Am I intruding on you?" Chitose asked as she came down the stairs.
"Nah, I'm just waiting on the little coven I formed to help me do this job." Samantha answered.
"Your coven?" Chitose repeated with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah, I decided to get a little backup and maybe let someone else nail Yuma for me." Samantha revealed. "I mean he's not bad-looking except for that weird haircut of his, but it wouldn't hurt to let someone else do the job for me."
"Perfectly understandable." Chitose replied. "Though I would've thought that you would've avoided using the term, coven, considering your history."
"Hey, that was the rep I got stuck with towards the end of my tragically short past life. I might as well use it." Samantha replied.
Before the conversation could get any further, the two Barians heard the sound of footsteps and looked to see a young woman who looked to be about seventeen coming down to join them. She had fair skin and long white hair, along with a pair of striking royal purple eyes. Her outfit consisted of a pink jacket over a white t-shirt, along with a short yellow skirt and white shoes.
"Ah, Ani I'd like you to meet the first member of my little club, Alice Kono." Samantha introduced. "Alice, this a friend of mine, Anitak. Though if you see her on the school grounds, call her Chitose."
"Charmed." Alice replied as she briefly shook Chitose's hand. "So Sammy, do you intend to bring your friend here into the coven as well?"
"No, she's just here to provide backup." Samantha answered. "Not that I really need it, of course."
The sound of more footsteps could soon be heard, and walking down the stairs was another young woman of about sixteen. She had pale skin with red eyes, and black hair with a streak of green on one of her locks at the front. Her eyes had black mascara, and her outfit consisted of a black hooded sweatshirt with a short red skirt.
"Sorry I'm late." The hooded girl spoke as she sat in one of the provided chairs. "I was putting a curse on this airheaded cheerleader who made a crack about my outfit. Let's hope she enjoys having all her hair fall out."
"It's okay Fujisaki, Alice just got here herself." Samantha assured her. "Ani, this is the second member of my little coven, Fujisaki Hotsuda."
At that moment, another young woman came down the steps. This one had short dark-blue hair and yellow eyes that were behind a pair of thick round glasses. Unlike the rest of the group, she still had her Heartland Academy uniform on.
"Oh dear, am I late?" the bluenette asked.
"No later than the rest of us." Alice told her.
"Come and sit down, Moe." Samantha told her. "Ani, this is the last member of the group, Moe Chiba. Well, now that we're all here, I think we can begin."
With that, Moe and Alice sat down at the round table. Chitose meanwhile remained standing in a corner of the room to listen.
"Okay then, so I'm guessing that by now we have this school pretty much wrapped around our fingers." Samantha began. "Now we can focus on our main objective, making Yuma Tsukumo ours."
"What about that girlfriend of his, Mezuki?" Fujisaki asked. "Is she gonna cause us problems?"
"Actually, she might be a tiny bit of a problem." Samantha admitted. "But she's nothing I can't handle. In the meantime, I want all of you to focus on Yuma. At least one of you has to take him so we can use him to get the Numeron Code."
"Don't worry Sammy, we won't let you down." Alice assured her. "There's no way that Yuma Tsukumo can resist any of us. That Numeron Code or whatever you call it is as good as yours."
Author's Note: Big thanks to K.I.T.T. RIDER for helping me come up with the members of Samantha/Mitaka's little coven. Anyway, my spring break is unfortunately pretty much over now, so it'll probably be a few days before the next chapter. Hopefully I won't be keeping everyone waiting for too long though.
Please review and let me know what you think.