A/N: Here we are, the penultimate chapter! The final countdown! The climax with the final battle! The longest chapter! The... okay. I'm padding this out way too much, so let me get a few things out of the way. Texting was invented in 2003, not 1993, which is the time period of this fic, so sorry for that innacuracy. Moscow and San Diego are 11 hours apart... but who's to say San Campion's in California, I mean? I'm not that stupid, probably! Anyways, enjoy, and be on the lookout for an epilogue!
Over the past week, Hector himself had been learning a thing or two as well about Master Ezra and this Injured Order. Apparently, their end goal had been to find the gauntlet, which they had been searching covertly for, while using the hurt creatures as a decoy. The good lot of them were duelists and specialists themselves, rather than hired guns just haphazardly thrown into the world of Kaijudo. What seemed to shock him at first, but slowly became clearer, was Ezra's involvement in all of this.
She was their leader. How she'd managed to keep that from the watchful eyes of the Duel Masters – of her most trusted friend – seemed almost inconceivable. And not only that, but murdering Rojas on top of all that (which Hector was almost positive she'd done even if she wouldn't admit to it), only confused and tensed his nerves more.
In the meantime of all these thoughts, he'd been battling with Ezra, ironically. Her Mistivine Quartz was at his side, while she was using an Ancestor Bear. The Spirit Quartz was understandably difficult to master, but he'd think he'd gotten the hang of it, as he landed hits and dodged them fairly well. But, this wouldn't last for long, as the bear nearly pounced on him, and the gauntlet's mana shield ended up taking out both creatures.
"Sorry!" Hector said after the smoke had cleared, and Ezra started to walk towards him. "I… I still don't have it completely under control!" He smacked the side of the gauntlet, trying to think up excuses to lower her rage. But, instead of being angry, she merely grabbed the hand with the gauntlet and examined it.
"Does it hurt?" she asked, her hand brushing over the gems gently.
"A little bit," he said, pulling his hand away. He worked off the gauntlet, which came off with a soft, dull pop. He glanced at the dark red marks that had been rubbed into his arm for a second before looking up at Ezra and extending it to her.
"Oh no, that's yours now. I can't use it anymore," she said. "You were the first one to have activated it for so long, you know."
"Yeah… after its first master, Tobanobu."
"Well, there was also the Chronarch, you..." She paused, taking in what Chavez had just said. "How do you know his name?"
Hector froze, and quickly thought up a lie in order to evade any trouble. "It- it was Master Jaha! She's been around for a while, and she was just talking about things that had happened in the past, and…"
"It's alright, I don't need the full story." Master Ezra said. "But, what you should know is that this gauntlet is the most important thing in the world right now. And, it's yours to keep until the day you die."
"But, it's totally useless! I can hardly battle with it, I keep losing control of my creatures, and sometimes it's just too strong to even defend myself with." Master Ezra, not paying any mind to the boy's complaining, simply fit the gauntlet back on his hand with a quick shove. He grunted a bit from the small jab of pain, and she condescendingly patted it into place.
"Then I suggest that you try harder. You won't learn anything if you only keep up with your whining."
Aaron made his way to the book store, after telling his parents about wanting to calm the nerves of the kindly owner, which was somewhat of a half-lie but a lie nonetheless. Appearing at the door, however he saw an unusual sight. The antiquated sign on the door read "fermé" or "closed" in English, which it almost never had at mid-day. Nevertheless, the door was still open by some feat of luck, and he got into store without a second look from any bystanders.
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, once he was sure that he'd made it in without being spotted, and pulled out the antenna. Clearing his throat, he dialed Kimora's number and waited patiently for a response. When the soft click of Kimora's receiver could be heard, he took a deep breath and said "I'm in."
"Oh, great! That's great! Wait, hold on a second, alright?" Kimora and Nadia were currently holding up in the Light Civilization, the only real place that they seemed safest from both the Injured Order and the Duel Masters. Nadia had fallen asleep again, from all the stress and exertion, and was curled up on the ground, using her jacket as a pillow. This apparently was enough of a scene to cause a group of Stalker Spheres to huddle around her, which Kimora had taken notice of and was trying to shoo away from her and get back to the task at hand.
"Anyways," Kimora said, after he'd gotten a majority of them to fly off. "You sure nobody's seen you?"
"Nope!" Aaron said, as he walked down the steps leading to the temple. "I'm home free, so far! Hey, quick question, did you tell your parents we were hanging out or something? Because they're kinda freaking out, not knowing where you are."
"It… slipped my mind." Kimora said, gently face palming at being so absent-minded. "I think maybe our gauntlets are somewhere in Toji's keep. I didn't really get to see exactly where, though."
"Y'know, I think I'll have a lot of time to find out where they are." Aaron said, looking around the temple. It was completely silent, aside from the Light Creatures zipping around as they usually did. "Because it looks like the masters took a day off."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, nobody's here! I'm pretty sure even Toji's out." He looked up at the War Room, thinking that maybe he'd get a clue as to what was going on. "Hold on, too." Aaron marched up the stairs into the room, and sure enough, there was Argus, with an image of another abandoned Water Civilization base.
"Oh, man! Kimora, they've beat you guys to it! They're at the base."
"What?!" Kimora yelled. This awoke Nadia, who rolled over and rose her head a bit, wondering what was going on. "Where- where is it?"
"Uh, Water Civ, I think? It's definitely one of their bases. Look, you summon Argus to where you are, get to the base, I'll get your gauntlets, and then I'll be over there soon as I can. Be safe, man."
"You too!" Kimora said, and then hung up. Nadia stretched as she got up, yawning a little bit. "Hopefully, I didn't miss much," she said sleepily.
"Nope, I'd say you're just in time for the main event!"
One look-see and another bumpy ride on Guardian Akhal-Tekk later, Kimora and Nadia had unceremoniously made it to the base, where they could pretty clearly see that there was a massive battle going on. All five of the Masters and Toji were armed to the teeth, with their partner creatures steadfast by their side and defending them furiously as thy attempted to cut in deeper past the lab's own defenses. In order not to face harsh judgment, the two kids quickly directed their creature away from the battle and towards the more remote places.
Helping Nadia off of the creature and banishing it back, Kimora could see that there was a massive labyrinth of passageways ahead of them, reminding him of the former underwater lab. He shuddered a bit, and then turned to Nadia. "Okay, here's the plan. We split up, and when one of us finds Hector first, we go back here and wait for the other to come back. Then, we leave as fast as we can before anyone finds out we're gone!"
"What about Hawkins?" Nadia asked. "What's he going to do when he gets here?"
"Backup, maybe? We've just gotta do this fast, okay?" He gave her a quick hug, and bolted down the farthest left hallway. Nadia, a smidge taken back by the hug, quickly glanced down each hallway before she noticed a white flash coming from one of the ones second from right. Assuming that was her best bet, she dashed down that hallway as fast as she could.
As those two proceeded on their way, Hawkins had arrived at the base with Twin-Cannon Maelstrom at his side. He held both Nadia and Kimora's gauntlets in his coat pocket, and quickly scanned the area to assess what was happening. He could already feel the ground vibrating from the occurring battle, and assumed it would be best to hide in plain sight. He commanded the Attack Raptor to blast full forward at the opening of the base, shattering the roof and creating a pretty massive opening for him to enter.
"Okay… that sort of worked." He muttered, as he moved forward, darting around duelists, debris, and creatures as quick as he could. Unfortunately, he caught the attention of a rather confused and annoyed Master August. "Adept Hawkins! What are you doing here?" he asked.
"Well, you see…" Aaron started. "Bye!" And then he rushed off deeper into the building. While August had been the only one to spot him, this didn't stop the Water Master to drag Aqua Seneschal away from the chaos and down the hallway.
Hector remained in his room, sitting on the bed in deep meditation. The door to the room clacked loudly as it attempted to open, but to no avail. He ignored this, assuming it was vibrations from Ezra or another one of the duelists fighting. But, a loud THUD as well as Nadia's voice crying out in pain and swearing loudly in Russian proved otherwise.
"Nadia? Is that you? What's going on?" he asked as he hopped off the bed and rushed to the door. From the other side of the door, he could hear her breathing heavily as she rubbed her boot in attempt to alleviate the pain. After a deep inhale and exhale, she responded.
"I'm going to try and rescue you! Can you try and get the door open from your side?" she asked. She then proceeded to shove all of her body weight on the door and push, as signified by the gentle thump he heard. There wasn't really much in the room that could be used as a sort of fulcrum or lever to pry it open, but there was once thing he could use.
Placing on the gauntlet, he called out to her "Stand back! I don't know if this is going to work or not, but just be safe!" And then, he activated the shield directly in front of him, causing the door to buckle and bend outwards, creating just a big enough gap for her to pry it open. Straining gently, she pulled it back and stepped into the room, rushing directly to him and pulling him into a warm embrace.
"She didn't hurt you, did she?" She asked, still holding him tight. Hector returned the embrace and said "No, no, I'm good." Just then, Kimora came down the hallway with Aaron in tow, and looked upon the scene, with the busted door and the two hugging. Nadia pulled out of the hug and gently tugged on Hector's arm to bring him out the door with her.
"I see you've brought the backup!" She said cheerily. Aaron grinned and handed her gauntlet back, but it faded into confusion when he saw the first gauntlet still tightly clamped onto Hector's arm. "You still have that?" He asked. "Can you even get it off?"
"Well, yes. But I'm going to need it on right now! Something big is about to go down, and I think we're the only ones that can stop it." Hector responded, clenching the gauntlet into a fist.
August had lost Hawkins a while back, but he'd come across something else a bit more concerning in his chase, as alerted by Aqua Seneschal. After getting dragged into a corridor almost forcefully, he know found himself walking up a massive set of stairs that seemed to spiral and ascend into infinity. But, after quite a bit of climbing, he made it to the top, where he found Master Ezra, standing at the end of a long walkway looking over a massive room.
On the front wall of the room were 5 veil breaches, each one being artificially held open into the separate 5 different Civilizations. At the bottom, which she was positioned directly over, was a portal which led into a strange, unknown realm which had a foreboding silver tint. It wasn't nearly as big as all the other ones, but it was rapidly growing in size and hissing.
"Ezra, what do you think you're doing?" He demanded. She glanced over her shoulder, gave a quick nod and went back to observing the breach widening. She then responded with "I'm just waiting for this to end, that's all. Don't worry, you'll get to see it soon."
"See what, exactly?" He asked, grabbing her arm and turning her to stare him in the eyes. She glanced at him coolly, almost as if she was at peace. She wrenched her arm out of his grasp and stepped back, still maintaining eye contact. After she'd rubbed the red marks from her arm, she proceeded to tell her tale.
"I'm getting rid of the creature realm once and for all. I'm going to bring him back. You've heard the stories of the Chronarch, haven't you?"
"Stories!" August yelled at her. "That's all they are. Stories to warn duelists to not let their power get to their heads."
"Then, pray tell, how was Master Rojas able to find the gauntlet used in this little 'story', as you so call it?" she asked, throwing up an eyebrow. "Like it or not, sometimes things aren't that deep. There's not 'greater meaning' to that story, it was a veritable news report. And so, I'm going to find him and return the gauntlet, so that he might continue what he was destined to do."
"What he was- he was a murderer! He killed both duelists and creatures alike!" He stopped after that sentence, noting that not only was Hawkins in the building, but the other three acolytes, beyond all semblance of rationality. He could see what they were doing, closing the breaches manually to stop the biggest one from expanding any more. He realized that they would be severely injured if she was to discover them – or worse. So, he proceeded to do what he did best: mock, jeer, and overall worsen her mood in order to keep her from discovering them. "You think he'd make an exception for the likes of you? You're not special."
Without skipping a beat, Master Ezra stated "Why else do you think I had to drown Rojas? I wanted it sorely to be Takahashi, but time was short and he needed a sacrifice." As she spoke, three of the veil breaches behind her snapped shut.
This infuriated August. "She was your best friend! You offed her for the sake of some convoluted plan about some horror story that hardly anyone remembers?!"
"I did what I had to! You would have done the same, had the cost been too great for your plans. I'm sure she'd forgive me."
"Well, the only way to be sure is to ask her yourself." And with that, Aqua Seneschal proceeded to knock Master Ezra straight into the portal, paying no mind for her response. Without even screaming, she plummeted off the edge, staring in horror at the Water Master. Mere seconds before she'd hit the center, her expression calmed, and she shut her eyes tightly. And then, she was gone, disintegrating into mana upon impact.
But, that wasn't the only thing to happen, no. The second that Ezra's body had completely vanished, the portal shot upwards, sending a geyser of raw mana blasting upwards. It knocked the children back onto the walls, as well as shoving Master August and Seneschal from it. Aqua Seneschal was banished almost instantly from the sheer magnitude, and the duelists were all dazed and quite terrified at what had just happened.
The mana 'geyser' then shot back down into the breach with a loud hissing. At once, it began to howl and blow, as it started to drag all of them closer, nearer to a similar fate as Ezra's. Nadia, and Aaron were barely able to hold onto the guide bars that had been holding the other breaches open, but not such luck for Hector and August.
Hector, with the gauntlet now flickering and the gems on the cuff spinning faster than ever, was desperately trying to dig his feet into the ground, but to no avail. August, who'd still been a bit stunned by the blast, was now being dragged feet first into the breach, and could only desperately grasp at the walkway for his own life. It was at this point, with a dawning horror, that she'd wanted this to happen, that her death was the key to causing whatever this abomination was doing.
Hector fell to his knees, the pull of the portal straining everything in him. But, he had to close it, for everyone's sake. Attempting to get up, he wobbled up into a crouching position and tried to pull himself up. Blinking back into consciousness, Kimora groaned and rubbed his head, before taking in what was happening, and gasped. Nadia, noticing that he'd come to grabbed his arm to prevent him from being dragged forward.
"You okay?" she asked loudly, trying to yell over the loud rumbling and howling of the breach.
"I've been better!" Kimora called back, yanking his arm out of Nadia's grasp. "C'mon, we've got to do something!"
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me right now!" Aaron responded. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I appreciate how nice you are, but what can we do right now?!"
"S-something! There's got to be something!" Kimora's eyes darted around the room, as he took everything in. Chavez was dangerously close to the portal, and was struggling to get up on his two feet. Master August was hanging on for dear life on the end of a platform above the portal, as the wind threw him around. "Uh… Chavez!"
Against his better judgement, Kimora let go of the bars and trudged towards Hector, careful not to get too close to the portal. He fell in a heap, nearly knocking him over as he grabbed one of his legs. Hector yelped in surprise and then looked down at Kimora. "Hey! Get off of me, I'm trying to-!"
"Close the breach, yeah!" Kimora yelled, over the wind. "And I'm helping you. If we can all pool our mana together, we can take this thing out!" Nadia and Aaron stared at the two for a second, before guessing that they'd no more to lose even if he was wrong and released their bars as well. They extended their arms as their hands in their gauntlets began to glow, giving off mana, and Kimora grabbed Hector's wrist with his glove as his began to glow as well.
As the building began to shake violently, Master Takahashi had found his way up the stairs and onto the walkway to see one massive nightmare of a scene. Master August was now barely hanging on with one arm, and he'd been looking straight down into the portal, mesmerized with terror and unable to do much of anything. Takahashi grabbed his arms and yanked him upwards, bringing him to the safety of solid ground and held on tight.
And, with the final amount of mana seeping into the first gauntlet, Kimora released Hector's leg and Hector began to perform the spell kata to close the veil, with only a few feet left of solid ground before him. At the second it closed, a brilliant flash of blue light crackled in front of everyone's eyes, and the other two portals slammed shut as well. The First Gauntlet, which had finally seemed to have taken a beating, slipped off of Hector's arm with a metallic thud.
The four kids stood around, not knowing what to make of what just happened. This was quickly broken when Hector, of all people began to laugh. A squeaky, sort of broken and ridiculous laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. They all joined in and got up and cheered and hugged each other, glad that this was all finally over, and that they'd won.