Good god it's been a while. I hit some pretty severe writers block in trying to figure out just how to get Aki out the goddamn door. Honestly, I intended or this chapter to come out on Christmas Day, but I fell asleep. so, fun times. also, if someone could inform me on how to check my PM's, that would be great. So, without further ado, here is Chapter 3 of the Undying Signer. Enjoy.
'ooooooooooo' will represent a scene change, since my other scene changes never made it onto my story.
The group had been staking out the Arcadia Movements hideout for a few days now, and so far, nothing had happened. Sure, you had the lower level psychic duelists coming and going pretty often, and even Divine made a daily trek over to the café where he was first sighted by Yanagi to get a cup of coffee and do some reading, but there was still no sign of Aki. And that was troubling to Yusei.
Speaking of Yusei, our hero is currently sitting next to a ledge on the third level of a parking garage within sight of the entrance of the Arcadia Movement. Bored out of his mind, his mind began to drift, reflecting on the events of the last few days.
The group, upon finding Divines lookout, decided that the most efficient course of action was to stake the place out one at a time. It would allow them to take shifts and get adequate rest. It would also make it much easier to move about undetected, especially when they managed to find Aki. Going about in disguise also helped to mask their movements. From simple hats and shades to something much more elaborate such as what Yusei was wearing, which was a thick leather biker jacket and blue jeans and a cap placed on backwards. But what was vital to Yusei's disguise was the bandages that covered the left side of his face and his left eye, covering his marker.
It was also decided that only Jack, Yusei, and Himuro would trade eight hour shifts while Yanagi and Mikage would stay at Tops and manage the household and the twins.
"Hey. Yusei. Time for the changing of the guards."
Yusei turned around to see Jack wearing a hat, shades, a dark red shirt and khakis, wheeling a bicycle beside him.
"Have fun Jack. It's been a whole lot of nothing pretty much the entire time," said Yusei, mounting the bike that Jack had ridden to the parking garage.
"Well, you know, maybe we'll get lucky. Can't lose hope can we?"
"True. Well, I'll see you back at Tops Jack," said Yusei as he peddled away.
ooooooooooooooooooooo
Aki was pacing about her room, trying to clear her mind. Ever since that dream with the vampire, she felt like she needed to get out of there more and more with each passing day. But she needed to leave for good without attracting the attention of Divine. That was proving to be the tricky part. Despite her dislike for clutter, she was still a young woman, and she enjoyed having more than a few outfits. How was she going to escape being weighed down by three suitcases full of clothes, her duel disk and her cards?
Sighing in frustration, she sat down in a chair in her room and held her head in her hands. There was no choice, in order to get away, she would have to leave almost everything she possessed behind. As she sat there, a plan began to form in her mind.
ooooooooooooooooooooo
Yusei sighed, resting in the seat on Saiga's D-Wheel, looking over the barrier of the parking garage. They had been forced to switch to using the D-Wheel because the bicycle they had all been sharing had met with a rather unfortunate end. Or, more accurately, Jack had tossed it off the third floor of the parking garage when he and Mikage had gotten into a bit of an argument one morning several days ago.
As tended to happen during his long eight hour shifts, Yusei's began to wander. Soon enough, he began to doze and he shut his eyes, but only for a minute he told himself.
ooooooooooooooooooooo
Yusei walked about in the darkness. This darkness felt familiar to him, though he couldn't quite place it. It looked like the same darkness that had enveloped him when he was dueling the shadow, but the atmosphere was quite different. The malice and evil intent that had enveloped him during that duel was gone now. It was just a warm comfortable darkness.
As Yusei continued to walk, his signer birthmark began to glow rather dimly, but in that light he could make out a figure sitting on a rock, looking up into the sky of never ending darkness. The figure had pale lavender skin and turquoise hair. It was the Vampire Lord.
"Vampire Lord," started Yusei. "How did I get here?"
Vampire Lord tilted his head to study Yusei for a moment before finally speaking in his heavy Transylvanian accent.
"My master drew your subconscious into this realm so I could speak with you. I have come to tell you that my master will reveal himself soon. Preparations are almost complete, and the Signers will be soon united," said Vampire Lord.
"Preparations? What kind of preparations?" asked Yusei.
"My master is almost fully ready to meet with you in person. His abilities drain him, and due to… certain events, it has made it difficult for him to recover like he once was able to. But in short order, we-"
Vampire Lord's head tilted, and his eyes moved as if he was trying to hear something far away.
"Yusei, I am sorry to cut our time short, but it seems that Aki will be appearing before you quite soon. But I have a warning for you. Handle your rescue very carefully. The Arcadia Movement is known to exterminate anything that they see as a problem, especially Divine. Divine is the most dangerous of them all, he will not hesitate to kill anyone."
"Wait a minute, if they've been killing people, then shouldn't Security have taken them down by now? I mean, they hate each other. Why would Security pass up such an opportunity?" asked Yusei.
"That is a long story for another time Yusei, but the long and short of it is that Divine knows Rex's weakness, which he uses to keep Rex and Security at bay. Now go, before you miss your chance!" said Vampire Lord as he waved Yusei off and returned to watching the black sky.
Yusei felt as though he was being pulled backwards away from the scene where Vampire Lord grew smaller and smaller in the distance and the darkness began to give way to bright whiteness until…
ooooooooooooooooooooo
Yusei woke with a start. He quickly surveyed his surroundings as his memories caught up with him. He was slightly surprised to find himself back at the parking garage sitting somewhat uncomfortably on Saiga's D-Wheel.
Sighing to himself, he turned his attention back to the entrance of the Arcadia Movements building. If his dream was any indication, then things would become very interesting very quickly.
'Whenever you're ready Aki,' thought Yusei as he turned the key and the D-Wheel roared to life.
ooooooooooooooooooooo
Aki had finally figured out how she was going to escape. She would wear her normal outfit, her duel disk with her deck and to avoid suspicion, she would wear her Witch's mask as well. After all, Divine was insane, not stupid. If he or anyone loyal to him caught her trying to leave with even one item more than necessary, her escape plan being foiled would be the least of her worries.
As she walked towards the door, she passed by the common room, the room where the psychic army that Divine was making could socialize with their peers in a non-dueling setting. Currently, there were only a very people in there, seeing as everyone still liked to go out and do things that made them feel normal. But the problem was that Divine was one of those very few people, and he happened to be sitting at a table right in front of the doorway.
"Ah. Aki, where are you heading off to today?" asked Divine, not even looking up from reading the newspaper and sipping his coffee.
'OK Aki, moment of truth, just play it cool,' thought Aki.
"I'm bored of being cooped up in here. I haven't had a chance to duel since the Fortune Cup, so that's where I'm heading," replied Aki, doing her best to act normal.
"Hmm, very well. I expect you back here before seven tonight. Do you understand me?" asked Divine, thoroughly uninterested.
"Of course," said Aki continuing down the hall.
'Of course you would expect me back, but too bad for you, I'm not coming back,' thought Aki to herself as she pushed open the door into the bright sunlit day. A perfect day for freedom.
ooooooooooooooooooooo
Yusei was gripping the handlebars of the D-Wheel pretty tightly, anxiously awaiting for something to happen. He didn't know what he was waiting for, but he knew he'd know it when he saw it. And that's when he saw it.
Aki had stepped out of the front door, turning as if she were going to her old stomping grounds.
Reacting quickly, Yusei pulled up the kickstand and turned the accelerator and sped for the street. At the same time, he was reaching for the radio receiver in his ear.
"Base! Base! This is Stardust! I've found her!" said Yusei.
"Stardust, this is Base, We hear you. Grab her quickly and get here as soon as possible. Security is trying to meet their end-of-month quota so there are more patrols out than usual. Be careful," came Mikage's voice.
"Roger that!"
Yusei turned out of the parking garage as quickly as he could, but D-Wheels with sidecars weren't exactly the most nimble of vehicles. Still, he made it out of the garage and onto the street as Aki had made it to the far end of the block.
Yusei got into the closest lane he could and drove relatively slowly, so as not to startle the woman whose monsters had given him such a beating during the Fortune Cup. Aki though had barely taken notice, even with him right beside her, matching her speed.
"Aki."
Aki jumped, obviously startled that someone had gotten so close to her without her taking notice.
"Can I help you? Or are you looking to die?" asked Aki, her words said in such a cold tone that it almost froze Yusei AND the D-Wheel to the ground.
"Ac- Actually, I think I can help you," mumbled Yusei as he pulled the gauze bandages off his face enough that she could see the unique marker adorning his face.
Aki stumbled, shocked that the one person she was looking for had pulled up to her only about seven minutes after she left the Arcadia Movements lair.
"Yusei…," was all she could say.
Yusei regarded the shocked woman for a moment before finally saying "Come on, let's get you out of here," Yusei then pulled a small back pack from the sidecar of the D-Wheel, making room for her to climb in. "I've got some clothes in here that you can put on for a disguise. We would prefer to not be caught by Security or, no offense, the Arcadia Movement either, and especially not any Dark Signers."
Finding no argument against those points, Aki climbed into the sidecar and opened up the bag. Inside were simply a hoodie and some sunglasses. Shrugging, she pulled the hoodie above her head and put the hood over her head as she put on the sunglasses.
Yusei tilted his head as he turned the engine back on. "If you're hungry, there is some snacks in there as well. I'm going to have to move kinda slowly to avoid suspicion."
Aki only nodded as she pulled a granola bar out of the bag. Though she didn't want to admit it, she was starving. In her hurry to get away from Divine, she had completely forgotten to eat that day.
Yusei reached up to his radio again and said "Base, this is Stardust, I've got her. We're heading back now."
"Roger that Stardust. Hurry back, there'll be a party waiting for you!" crackled Mikage's voice. Yusei could also hear everybody back at Tops cheering and celebrating.
Chuckling, Yusei revved the engine on the D-Wheel and began the journey back to Tops, with the beautiful girl once known as the Black Rose Witch riding shotgun beside him.
ooooooooooooooooooooo
Back on the uppermost floor of Tops, everybody was already celebrating the arrival of Aki.
"Yattah! Big Sis is coming back with Yusei! Maybe we can tag duel against them, right Ruka?!"
"Idiot, they would flatten us in about two turns."
"Well Mikage, it looks like you'll have someone to talk big girl stuff with now, eh?"
"Ha ha, Missy, Yusei, Ruka and Jack. Things are looking up now that we have four of the Signers with us!"
Everybody was psyched and having a great time. Too bad none of them heard the voices that came over the police scanner.
"Dispatch, this is unit sixteen, we have confirmed sighting of an illegal D-Wheel. It has a side car, with two riders, one male and one female. Permission to pursue?"
"Permission granted unit sixteen. Bring them in."
ooooooooooooooooooooo
Yusei and Aki rode on in a comfortable silence, neither one wanting to distract the other since they weren't entirely out of the woods yet. Soon enough though, they both heard sirens coming up behind them.
"You! In the D-Wheel! You are operating an illegal motor vehicle! Pull over! You are under arrest!" came a voice from the sirens.
"Damn! Security! Yusei, we have to get away!" said Aki, her voice a tad fearful. After all, she was not a well loved member of society.
"Don't worry Aki, we'll shake 'em!"
Yusei turned the accelerator as far as it would go, kicking the speed up. The D-Wheel roared through the streets of Neo Domino City as Security chased after them.
In between cars and pedestrians they weaved, Yusei a good distance ahead of the Security dueling paddy wagon, but they were slowly but surely catching up.
"Damn! I'm going to have to keep going past Tops for now; we don't want to give them an excuse to go get a search warrant for Rua and Ruka's place," growled Yusei.
"Yusei, why don't we duel them, and when we beat them, they won't be able to chase us anymore," said Aki.
"No, that's not a good idea. Security officers have decks designed to slow us down, and they can stall long enough to get back up. Then we'd be in trouble," replied Yusei.
Aki couldn't help but agree with that point.
Meanwhile in the paddy wagon, the two officers were catching up to the two on the D-Wheel, little by little.
"Argh! We're never gonna catch them at this rate!" yelled the passenger.
"Don't worry, they are only just out of Solid Vision range, as soon as they slow down to go through a turn, we'll have them," said the driver.
And right the driver was. Yusei came upon a sharp turn and had to drastically slow down to keep from crashing.
"Oh hell," said Aki, looking over her shoulder as Security finally came in range.
"And here we go!" said the driver. "Initiate forced riding duel!" The driver reached for the button to activate the system.
But just as he was about to press it, the ground right in front of the paddy wagon exploded as a giant dragon with rotting gray skin, two large curved demon horns adorning its head and a huge exposed glowing heart burst up from the ground. The Dragon gave a tremendous roar as it spread its gigantic wings which were riddled with holes. It lowered its head to look at the oncoming paddy wagon, and shot out a violet inferno of hell fire, causing the paddy wagon to burst into flame. The officers jumped out of the vehicle, only to be blown back and knocked out by the wind emitted by the dragon and knocked out.
Yusei and Aki stared at amazement as the dragon folded its wings back up, giving them a view of the purple flames dancing in the street. The dragon turned its head, gazing at them with blood red eyes. And before their eyes, a familiar silhouette materialized in front of them and floated towards the two. As it got closer, they could make out its lavender skin and turquoise hair. It was the Vampire Lord.
"Ah Yusei, I thought that we would meet again today. What a pleasure it is to finally meet in the real world. Aki, you are more beautiful than I had originally thought," he said as he kissed Aki's hand. "I would like for you two to meet my master, the Fifth Signer, also known as the Undying Signer."