Chapter 45- Straight to the Core

"Okay, we're not far from the headquarters of this invasion." Matt said. "That is, assuming that the core of the realm is where they're headquartered."

"It's gotta be." Brooklyn said. "We've been everywhere else."

"You haven't been to the torture chambers of the living." Matt pointed out.

"Where?" Julie asked.

"Oh, the areas where the wielders of the Millennium Items placed people in to torment them and then never cleaned up. There's a few. For example, the one Marik used to torment Mai Valentine near the middle of the Battle City Tournament. He never destroyed it, so it's still there, adding to the useless space. Oh well, it can't be helped. Now, the core of the Shadow Realm is very, very dark. It's almost impossible to see without an external source of light. It'll be hard to keep track of fiends and each other, though it will eventually get better because you'll get used to it."

"Well, it's called the Shadow Realm, I would expect it to be dark." Flynn said. "How are we going to negate this disadvantage?"

"Well, it doesn't bother me, because I can 'see' without using my eyes. I can feel the vibrations in the air and in the floor and walls to detect movement and where things are. So, I have no problems with the dark. It's you guys I'm more worried about. Now, let's think… does anyone have a flashlight?"

"Why would we have a flashlight?" Drake asked.

"No reason. But I might as well ask. Something as simple as a flashlight would be good. But since we don't have one, we could use anything that provides light. Any ideas?"

"Well, our duel disks light up." Julie pointed out.

"Not enough to be useful." Matt said.

"Oh."

"Well… we could burn something." Flynn suggested.

"Like what? I'm not burning my cards."

"Okay, never mind then. What else do we got?"

"Brooklyn, cook the barrel of the laser."

"Huh?"

"Push that button."

Brooklyn pushed a small button under his thumb. A little cylinder inside the barrel of his laser lit up and began to spin. "Won't this waste the power?"

"Not really. To generate the power to fire a laser requires much more power than causing the barrel to light up and spin. So, we could cook the barrel for a nearly unlimited time. How much have you been shooting?"

"Eh, I would guess about 1000 shots by now. You know I don't care about accuracy."

"Well, we should be okay. It doesn't give much light, but it'll help a little. Besides, it also reduces the energy needed to fire the laser, because it's already ready to shoot. We might be able to find something else deeper in. Until then, I'll try to keep you guys up to speed with the developments. I would teach you the technique but it took me nearly three years to get it right, and I don't think you'll get it in five minutes. Everyone ready?"

"Yes, we've been ready." Flynn said. "Just let me shoot something."

"Don't get thinking that way, or you might turn out like me." Matt said, smiling.

"In that case, I think I will keep acting like this." Flynn said. Matt just smiled again and gestured for them to follow. Everyone readied their weapons and followed. As they walked the light began to get dimmer and dimmer.

"Uh, Matt, how are you going to defend yourself?" Drake asked.

"I'll use these." Matt said, spinning two kunai knives around from his fingertips. He had his fingers through the little holes at the ends of the knives.

"Doesn't that make you a little vulnerable since you have to get up close to attack?"

Matt caught the spinning knives. With a flick of his wrist he threw them into the distant wall. They hit within an inch of each other. "Not really." He flicked his wrist back towards him and the kunai, attached to strings from his fingers, jumped back towards him. He lazily caught them. "See? I'm deadly at range even without a gun! And I've also got these, which were meant for range." He pulled a few shuriken out of a little pouch at his hip.

"Why did you never use those before?"

"I didn't have them on me, even though I should probably always carry some." He put the shuriken back and resumed spinning the kunai. They walked in silence for a little while, at least until it got pitch-black and the only light was the spinning barrel of Brooklyn's laser, which, though it was bright, couldn't penetrate much farther than five feet from Brooklyn. "Ah, nice and dark, just how I like it." Matt said.

"Why do you like it dark?" Julie asked.

"Oh, I have a problem with people. I hate being in a room with too many people; anymore than about 45, and it makes me uncomfortable. And people have a problem with my physical appearance."

"I wonder why." Flynn said facetiously.

Matt continued. "In the darkness people don't see me for my looks, they see me for my personality, which is nice. Of course, as soon as the lights come on they call me a freak and run. Kinda funny. Anyway, the darkness prevents most people from seeing me, which I like because then I don't have to meet and greet them."

"Oh… I didn't know you were antisocial… does that mean you don't like being around us?" Julie said.

Matt laughed. "Just remember this- almost nothing is absolute. There's an exception to almost everything. I suppose that you guys would fall amongst those. Oh, yes, and Drake? Duck."

Drake hit the ground hard. He felt bullets whizzing over his head. They suddenly stopped as the fiend died equally suddenly. "Can I get up now?"

"Yeah, go on. I killed him." Matt said. "I almost missed him. Sorry about that."

"It's okay." Drake said, getting to his feet.

"Hey, what's this on the wall?" Flynn asked.

"That's a torch. But what are we going to lit it with?" Matt said.

"Don't you have some kind of ninja art which allows you to make fire or something?" Drake heard Flynn remove the torch from its wall bracket.

"Not really. But I could probably make a fire another way." Drake heard the sounds of metal scraping together, then saw a shower of sparks. He heard the metal again, and this time the sparks turned into a blazing flame. Matt was standing next to Flynn, holding two kunai and scraping them against each other. Flynn was holding the torch. "There, that helps. Now we can all see!"

"Yeah, but what if it burns out?" Drake asked. "Then we're screwed."

"It shouldn't for a while. Unless a fiend comes up to us and blows it out. But I assure you, he will die long before he gets anywhere near us."

"Let's go." Flynn said, and, holding the torch up, moved farther into the dark core of the Shadow Realm. Everyone followed.

"How much farther is it?" Julie asked. "I'm tired…"

"It's still pretty far to the core. As for being tired, I cannot help you, that is a side effect of the extreme darkness here. It makes you kind of tired if you're not used to it." Matt said. "But hey, don't fall asleep on me, we all still need you!" For some reason Matt seemed to be in a very good mood. Drake was curious.

"Matt, I've never seen you in such a good mood, what's up?" He asked.

"Oh, we're just getting real close to finishing this, and it always makes me happy to be getting closer to eradicating some sinister evil. And, at the moment, there are no fiends anywhere near us. It makes me happy to not have to kill every two seconds."

"I thought you enjoyed that."

"Oh, I do, just not all the time. No matter how much fun anything is, it does get boring with repetition. Besides, these fiends don't bleed like normal people! That's no fun."

"You like the blood? For me, that's got to be the worst part."

"Well, I suppose that when I touched the key, it had some long term effects as well as the short-term berserking effects, namely giving me an almost insatiable bloodlust."

"Yeah, you should see him when he gets mad." Brooklyn whispered in Drake's ear. "There's not a clean wall in the house left."

"I heard that, Brooklyn, even if it is true." Matt said.

"Speaking of the key, why is it that Julie has to carry it all the time?" Drake asked.

"Yeah, why can't I get a break from being ridiculously responsible and important?" Julie asked. She pulled out the key. "Why can't Drake handle it for a while?"

"Firstly, put it back in your pocket." Matt said. Julie (somewhat reluctantly) put the little coin back into her pocket. "Secondly, it is because she is not as susceptible to despair as the rest of us, at least not to the point of rage."

"What do you mean by that?" Drake asked. "As fair as I've seen she's almost always the first of us to start crying when someone's getting hurt."

"That's just emotion, concern. However, have you ever seen her get violent when she's sad?"

"No… I don't think I've ever seen her violent at all."

"I don't like to get violent… then other people get hurt and it makes me even more sad." Julie said.

"See what I mean? She can hold it because even under the incredible despair it causes, she will not become enraged, like the rest of us are prone to do. Most people, you see, respond to despair and sadness with rage and violence. Don't ask me why, that just seems to be the way it is. Julie, however, is different from the norm. She does not, hence how she is immune to it. Actually, because she will not respond to despair in this way, it actually won't cause her any despair at all. Don't know why that is."

"Oh, okay. I was wondering for a while. I though maybe I could save her a little pain by relieving her of that responsibility." Drake said. Julie gave him a curious look. A little smile began to tug at the corner of Matt's mouth. "What? Is it something I said?"

Matt began to shake with suppressed laughter. "Oh, nothing." He turned away and began to laugh silently. Drake was confused. "Oh, hang on! DUCK!" Everyone hit the ground as bullets whizzed over their heads. Drake opened fire from the prone position and hit a couple fiends in the head. He frowned and aimed lower.

"There's a lot of them!" Flynn said.

"Doesn't matter! They're not coming very fast! Let's push them back!" Matt said from right up in front of the fiend horde. He seemed to be able to dodge the bullets even at close range. "Come on!" Brooklyn and Flynn jumped up and followed Matt as they began to push the fiend army back. Drake began to get up when Julie called him back.

"Drake." She called after him.

"Yes Julie?" He said, and ran back towards her. "Do you need something?"

"I just wanted to thank you for your concern about my welfare. I really appreciate that you care about my wellbeing." She leaned closer and gave him a little kiss on the cheek. Drake blushed.

"Uh, thanks." Drake said. He did like the kiss, but he was also a little embarrassed that she was being so intimate on a battlefield. "Right, let's go!" They ran up to join the others. All the fiends were already dead.

"Oh, you guys are okay. I was a little worried." Flynn said.

"Of course they're okay. Now that the happy couple has joined us, we can move on." Matt said. He was smiling a knowing smile, and somehow Drake didn't doubt that he knew what had happened back there.