Author's Note: I probably would've had this chapter done yesterday, but I had to attend the memorial service for a relative. It really hasn't been a good couple of weeks for me and my family. Still, writing this story helps a lot. Big thanks to K.I.T.T. RIDER and Lily Nadeshico for reviewing last time.
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL.
Chapter 5: They Live by Night
The sun had almost set completely as Yuma walked to his house with Kotori. Also with the couple was a young woman with long silver hair with points at the top like a pair of cat ears wearing a pair of dark glasses. This of course was Yuma's friend and Kotori's old romantic rival, Cathy. Earlier that evening, Yuma and Kotori had gone to a movie together and had bumped into Cathy in the theater. The three of them ended up watching the movie together, and when it ended Yuma had invited Cathy over for dinner, much to Kotori's annoyance.
"That really was a good movie." Cathy remarked as they walked. "Could've used a few more cats though."
"Don't you have something better to do tonight, Cathy?" Kotori asked.
"Actually, I had planned to watch that movie with my boyfriend, but he ended calling me and told me something had come up and he couldn't make it." Cathy replied.
"I see. And who is this 'boyfriend' of yours?" a very skeptical Kotori asked. "This is the first I've heard of him."
"I can't really say at the moment. He wants to keep our relationship a secret for now, which I'm totally fine with." Cathy answered. "Anyway, thanks again for inviting me over for dinner, Yuma."
"It's no problem. Kotori and I are happy to have you join us." Yuma replied. "Right Kotori?"
As Kotori tried to keep herself from biting Yuma's head off, the three of them turned a corner and found themselves confronted by two strange-looking men with chalk-white skin and white hair. When the two men spotted the trio, they opened their mouths to reveal sharp incisor fangs and slowly began to advance on them.
"What's going on here?" an unsettled Kotori asked.
"I don't know. But something tells me that these two aren't on their way to a costume party." Yuma assumed.
Kotori hid behind Yuma as the three of them backed away from the two creatures. As they did, four more of the creatures began to advance on them from behind. Another small group of the things showed up across the street, and Yuma and his companions found that they were surrounded. Suddenly a red sports car quickly drove up and pulled right next to the three. The driver of the car was a young man with bright orange hair wearing a brown jacket with a furred collar.
Yuma instantly recognized the driver. "Vector?"
"Get in!" Vector told them.
Not needing to be told twice, Yuma got into the front seat of Vector's car while Kotori and Cathy got in back. Vector sped off down the road, leaving the strange group of human-like creatures in the dust.
"Thanks for saving us back there." Yuma told Vector. "This is a pretty cool car. Where'd you get it?"
"I borrowed it." Vector answered.
"More likely you stole it." Kotori assumed.
"Hey, I'm just taking this baby for a test drive." Vector innocently told her. "One that's been going on for… oh, about three weeks now."
"How'd you know to come save us?" Yuma asked.
"The way things are right now, I had a pretty good hunch that you might be in trouble." Vector answered. "This whole city's probably gonna go to hell before the night's over."
"Do you know what those things that came after us are?" Cathy asked.
"Not really, but I know that they used to be human." Vector answered. "If I hadn't gotten to you guys in time, you'd all be one of them right now. Anyway, right now we have to get to Nasch's place. We're going to need all the help we can get if we want to stop things from getting worse."
"I'll call Kaito and Gauche to meet us there." Yuma decided. "We'll probably need their help too."
"I can tell you guys one thing for sure." Vector continued. "Whatever's going on, we're gonna be in for a long night."
Christopher sat in the lab, analyzing the data from the night of Droite's accident. He hoped that if he could somehow figure out what dimension the energy had come from he'd be closer to finding out just what had happened to Droite. Unfortunately, the only thing Christopher could determine was that the energy surge had not come from Astral World. He had been hitting dead ends all evening.
"Chris." A very familiar voice called.
Christopher instantly recognized the voice as Akari's and turned his chair toward the door. What Christopher saw next made his jaw drop and caused his pants to become uncomfortably tight. Akari was standing in the doorway wearing nothing but a smile. Rather than being in its usual ponytail, Akari's hair hung down wildly. Christopher noticed that Akari seemed a bit pale, but that just made her seem even more beautiful.
"Uh, A-Akari!" a blushing Christopher spoke as he rose to his feet. "What are you doing here? And why are you not dressed?"
"I thought I'd come by and surprise you." Akari answered as she walked in. "You work yourself way too hard sometimes. So I wanted to help you relax."
"Well… I supposed I could use a little break." Christopher admitted.
Akari wrapped her arms around Christopher and the two of them began to kiss. As soon as they did though, Christopher began to glow with a purple aura as the redhead began to drain the energy from him.
As Vector pulled his car up by the Kamishiro mansion, Kaito landed nearby using Orbital. Gauche pulled up behind Vector's car on a motorcycle soon after. After Orbital changed back to his robot mode, the seven of them went up to the door. Shark answered, and after Yuma had explained a little of what was going on, he let them inside. The water duelist led the group to the living room, where the rest of the former Barians and Hikari were still discussing what to do about the disappearances.
"Looks like we've got more problems." Shark informed them as they walked in. "Yuma, Kotori and Cathy were just attacked by creatures that Vector says were once human."
"Are you alright Cathy?" Mizael asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Cathy assured him. "I probably wouldn't be though if Vector hadn't shown up."
"Vector, what makes you think that these creatures you speak of were once human?" Durbe asked.
"Because I've seen a few of them get changed with my own eyes." Vector answered. "And if you don't believe me, I've got proof." With that, he pulled out a case with a DVD in it from his jacket.
"What's that?" Alit asked, pointing to the disc.
"Surveillance video from the city morgue that I managed to get my hands on." Vector explained. "I was going to bring this by to show you all earlier, but I got caught up with something else."
Skeptical, Shark went over and took the DVD from Vector. He then turned the T.V. on and inserted the disc into the player. Everyone watched closely as the team of medical examiners on the screen were about to perform an autopsy on seven shriveled corpses, only for those corpses to come to life and drain them of energy, reducing them to the same state. A few moments after this happened the screen went to static.
"I can tell you that those autopsy guys we just saw came back to life later and drained a few other poor suckers." Vector informed them. "By morning, they and every other one of those creatures went off somewhere to hide. It seems that they're only active at night. Right now the number of those things is growing. A lot of the new ones like the ones that attacked Yuma and the girls don't quite look human. I guess it's because they're third or fourth generation or something."
"But what the hell are they?" Gauche wondered.
"I think I might know." Hikari spoke, getting everyone else's attention. "Or at least I know what we could consider these things to be. I'm not really sure I should say though because you'll probably think it's weird."
"Hikari, we're pretty used to seeing a lot of weird stuff." Shark assured her. "Just go ahead and tell us."
"Okay then… I think the creatures we're dealing with are vampires." Hikari told them. The rest of the group simply looked at her quizzically for a moment.
"She's right. That is weird." Alit declared. Shark slapped Alit on the back of the head.
"Look, obviously these aren't the traditional vampires we hear about in stories." Hikari continued. "Instead of drinking blood, these things seem to drain the actual life energy from a person's body. But every person that gets drained ends up becoming another one of the creatures. Plus there's the fact that these things are only active at night."
"Okay, so let's say these things are really vampires. That still doesn't answer the question of where these things came from." Kaito pointed out.
"I think I might be able to help with that too." Vector cut in. "I was there when one of those seven original corpses from the video we just saw was drained. The one who did it was that butterfly woman that Kaito seems so fond of."
"Wait, you're saying Droite drained one of those early victims?" a surprised Kaito asked.
"Yep. Saw it with my own eyes." Vector confirmed. "As far as I can tell, she's the very first one of these creatures to show up."
"M-Master Kaito, maybe that accident from a couple of nights ago has something to do with this." Orbital suggested.
"Quiet, Orbital!" Kaito angrily ordered.
"Wait, what accident?" Gauche asked. "You never said anything about an accident to me."
"Is this the same accident you told me about when I first started working with you and Christopher?" Hikari asked.
"I'm sure that it has nothing to do with what's going on." Kaito told them.
"Kaito, if there's a chance that whatever you and Chris have been working on has something to do with what's happening, you should let us in on it." Yuma told him.
"I'm sure it has nothing to do with this!" Kaito insisted.
"Kaito and Christopher called me in to help with a project that uses a Momentum Reactor to open portals to other dimensions." Hikari informed them. "Apparently the night before I showed up, Kaito's friend was in the lab during their first attempt to create a portal and was hit by a power serge."
"You son of a bitch!" Gauche cursed as he stormed towards Kaito. Gilag and Alit quickly moved in and held him back. "How the hell could you keep something like this from me?"
"T-t-this afternoon, Christopher found that the portal from the accident was stable." Orbital revealed. "It seems that the energy surge that hit Droite had come from the dimension on the other side."
"So this energy you're talking about might've mutated Droite into some kind of energy draining vampire." Hikari theorized.
"We don't know that's what happened!" Kaito pointed out. "For all we know, another one of these creatures got to Droite that same night and changed her into one of these things. She could be just another victim."
"I suppose that is possible." Hikari admitted. "But if you're right, where did that first creature come from? Right now that accident is our only clear lead. Until we find evidence to the contrary, we have to assume for now that Droite is our patient zero for these things."
"Look, whether or not Droite is the first one of these vampires, it doesn't answer how we're supposed to change these people back." Kotori pointed out. "There has to be some way to do that."
"Well, in some of the old stories, it was possible to turn a vampire back into a human by slaying the original vampire that turned him or her." Hikari recalled. "But if we're right about the accident, the first vampire in this case would be Droite."
"I'm not going to let any of you kill Droite!" Kaito declared.
"I'm with Kaito on this! Even though it looks like this whole thing's his fault!" Gauche agreed.
"Even if we are right, killing Droite might not be the answer anyway." Hikari informed them. "In some of those old stories, killing the head vampire also causes every other vampire it created to die. Or it doesn't do anything at all. We need more information."
"Uh, guys?" Yuma spoke after glancing out the window. "We might have bigger problems right now."
The rest of the group looked out the window and saw a pillar of blue light shooting up into the sky in the distance. A mass of swirling dark clouds had begun to form at the top of the beam.
"What the hell's going on out there?" Gilag wondered.
"M-Master Kaito!" Orbital exclaimed. "The portal generator's been activated! It's opening up a portal right over the city!"
"You mean that thing's working?" Gauche asked.
"Yeah, because I fixed it earlier today." Hikari answered with a scowl. "Damn!"
"Then this could mean that Kaito might be right." Shark spoke. "It's possible whatever happened to Droite might not be an accident at all."
"What do you mean?" Alit asked.
"If that energy blast that hit Droite really did come from another dimension, then it's possible that someone or something in that dimension hit her with it deliberately." Shark theorized. "And right now, that thing is using Droite as a pawn to open up a gateway to its world so it can pass through."
"That does seem very possible." Durbe agreed. "We did the same thing Tron and Dr. Faker in order to gather the Numbers."
"If you're right and something dangerous really is trying to come through to our world, then we need to shut that portal down now!" Kaito told them.
"Then let's get to Heartland Tower!" Hikari decided.
With that, everyone left the house and headed into the city towards the tower. Hikari, Shark and Gauche led the way on their motorcycles while Yuma and Kotori rode with Vector in his car. Kaito followed from the air using Orbital, and the rest followed from an old beat-up white van that Gilag was driving. As they made their way through the city, they saw several of the more inhuman vampires like the ones that had gone after Yuma earlier roaming the streets like wild beasts. A few times they saw some of the things attack some poor soul that happened to be out and drain that person of energy. During those times, they had to resist the urge to pull over and help those people out. There was nothing they could really do to help.
After a few minutes, they finally reached the tower and found the place covered in a strange crystalline substance. They quickly parked their vehicles and headed for the tower door. But before they could get very far, a bright ball of purple light suddenly came down from the sky and stuck the ground to block their path. The light faded, and standing before them was Droite wearing a low-cut violet dress with long loose sleeves. She was barefoot, and hanging from her neck was a silver butterfly-shaped medallion with a red stone on the center.
"Droite!" a stunned Kaito called.
"If you've come to shut down the gateway, I cannot let any of you pass." Droite told them. "Instead, you should make things easy on yourselves and join with me."
"Droite, what the hell are you doing?" Gauche demanded to know. "What is all this?"
"I have opened the doorway to allow the rest of my people to cross over to this world." Droite answered. "It will not be very long before they come."
"Your people?" a confused Kaito asked. "Droite, what are you talking about?"
"I've awakened to who and what I truly am." Droite told them. "If you truly intend to shut down the gate, then you'll all have to go through me. I will do everything in my power to stop you."
Author's Note: I hadn't originally planned for Cathy to show up at all in this story. I did it as kind of a spur of the moment thing to set up this weird idea I had for a character relationship. If you look closely, there's kind of a small hint to who Cathy's mystery boyfriend is in this chapter. By the way, the necklace Droite was wearing in the final scene is shown in the cover art I made for this story. It's also going to be the illustration of a card that Droite is going to use in the next chapter. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself.
Please review and let me know what you think.