Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL.
Chapter 10: Underworld
Hikari and the others ran inside the house as the vampire hoard began to chase after them. As Hikari quickly locked and bolted the door, the others quickly began to gather objects to use as a barricade. As soon as Gilag and Alit set down the couch in front of the entrance, a hand of one of the vampires burst through the wooden door and began to blindly grab for anything it could touch. Hikari grabbed the creature's wrist, causing its flesh to burn. The hand pulled back, but two more punched through to take its place. The group ceased trying to build a barricade and backed away from the door.
"It's no use! There's no way we can keep these things out of the house!" Alit told the others.
"What do we do now?" Cathy asked.
"We go down to the lab!" Hikari answered. "It doubles as a panic room!"
"Then what the hell are we waiting for?" Gilag asked. "Let's move it!"
As the group ran through the living room towards the lab, a large object suddenly burst through the window and crashed to the floor, causing them to pause. The object in question was Orbital in his flight mode. The robot's camera-like eye flickered for a moment before going dark.
"Isn't that Kaito's robot?" Hikari asked.
"We have to help him!" Yuma told the others.
Gilag quickly grabbed Orbital and carried him in his arms as they continued down to the lab. As soon as everyone was safely inside, Hikari pressed a few keys on a control panel by the door. A large metal hatch slammed down and securely shut the group inside. They hoped that it would be enough to keep out the vampire legion. With the vampires no longer a threat for the moment, everyone took a moment to relax and process the current situation.
"Well… now what?" Shark asked.
"We have to get to the tower and save Kotori!" Yuma answered.
"I hate to say this, but I'm sure that Kotori has already been turned into a vampire by now." Durbe pointed out.
"Well there has to be a way to turn her back!" Yuma responded. "And not just her, but Kaito and Droite too!"
"I'm with Yuma!" Alit agreed. "We need to get to the tower, save Kotori, stop Kaito and Droite, and save the city."
"I think we can all agree that we need to get to the tower." Shark replied. "The problem is we don't know how the hell we're gonna do that. Right now, we're pretty much stuck in this room."
"If only I had finished of Tenjo in that duel. Then perhaps we wouldn't be in this situation." Mizael assumed.
"You probably might've been able to finish things if that Crimson Dragon hadn't shown up." Vector pointed out.
"Hey Hikari, why did the Crimson Dragon show up during Kaito and Mizael's duel?" Shark asked.
"I don't know. I've never fully understood the Crimson Dragon." Hikari answered. "I could just be because I was there. But… I get the feeling that it showed up because it didn't want Neo Tachyon and Neo Dead Star to clash. Like if they did, their fight would've destroyed the city."
"More like what's left of the city." Vector remarked. "Let's face it. Heartland's pretty much gone to hell. Those vampires are probably everywhere now."
"To hold back my Tachyon and Tenjo's false Galaxy-Eyes. Perhaps this Crimson Dragon is somehow related to the Numeron Dragon." Mizael theorized.
"There's something else that I think all of you should know." Hikari continued. "When the Crimson Dragon caused that explosion I had some kind of vision. I was floating above this completely blue world. In the sky with me a few feet away was this large black ship. It looked sort of like a whale with batwings. Anyway, there were these two people fighting in front of the ship. One was a woman with white hair. I think she was a vampire. The other was this guy made of blue light."
"Blue light? That sounds like Astral!" Yuma interjected.
"The place Hikari just described does sound like Astral World." Durbe spoke. "And Droite did say that her people had been sealed away by Astral in the past."
"You said Astral and this vampire woman were fighting?" Shark asked Hikari.
"Yeah, and your friend Astral seemed to be losing." Hikari answered. "But then the Crimson Dragon showed up and beat her back."
"Wait, you're saying that Astral and the Crimson Dragon worked together once?" Shark asked.
"Looks that way." Hikari replied. "That is if the blue guy I saw really was your friend, Astral."
"Even if Astral and the Crimson Dragon did work together to fight the vampires, that still doesn't help us get into the tower." Alit pointed out.
"So what do we do?" Gilag wondered.
"Well for starters, we should try and get Orbital 7 up and running again." Hikari replied. "If nothing else, he might be able to help us answer some questions."
"You think you can fix him?" Shark asked.
"I can give it a shot." Hikari answered. "Plus it'll give me a chance to see how he works. I've been a little curious about that ever since I started working with Kaito."
"Then I guess we'll let you get to it." Shark decided.
As Hikari set to work trying to repair Orbital, everyone else waited and tried their best to relax. For several minutes, Vector and Cathy did everything they could to try and cheer up Yuma, while Alit and Gilag were having some kind of marathon arm wrestling match. Durbe meanwhile was playing chess on Hikari's computer. After a bit, Shark got a little tired of watching Hikari work on Orbital and noticed Mizael standing alone in a corner of the lab. The water duelist decided that it was as good a time as any to talk to the dragon tamer about a couple of things.
"Hey Mizael." Shark spoke after walking over, getting the blonde's attention. "How're you doing?"
"I'm still a little angry that I didn't get Tenjo's hide, but otherwise fine." Mizael answered.
"Good." Shark replied. "So… you and Cathy. How long's that been going on?"
Mizael sighed. "If you must know, Cathy and I have been seeing each other for a little over six months."
"And you haven't told any of us about this because…" Shark inquired.
"We decided to keep our relationship a secret for now because of Merag." Mizael answered. "She doesn't like Cathy because of her irrational fear of cats. I can't possibly understand how anyone could be afraid of such noble creatures."
"Okay, I get the picture." Shark replied as he rolled his eyes. "I'll have a little talk with Rio when she gets back from her trip."
"Since you've asked about my love life, I think it's only fair of me to ask how things are going between you and Hikari." Mizael responded.
"…You could say we're in a pretty good place." Shark answered after a moment, his face turning a bit red.
"I should think so, considering what the two of you were probably doing in this lab earlier." Mizael replied with a small smirk. "She's a fine young woman, Nasch. The two of you seem to make a good couple."
"Thanks." Shark replied.
Meanwhile as Hikari patched another circuit in Orbital, the robot sprang back to life and changed back to his normal robot mode. The others quickly gathered around as soon as they heard Orbital's voice.
"W-w-where am I?" Orbital asked as he looked around.
"You're in the lab at my house." Hikari explained.
"Orbital, what happened to Kaito?" Yuma asked. "Why did you and he just take off like that?"
"M-Master Kaito left for the tower to slay Droite." Orbital explained. "He c-couldn't stand just w-w-waiting around the house where her calling out to him. I don't know if he succeeded or not though. When I tried to follow him into the tower I was b-blocked by some kind of energy field."
"Well Kaito didn't go through with slaying Droite." Shark informed the robot. "Instead he gave in and joined her."
"W-W-W-WHAT?" Orbital exclaimed in a very animated manner. "T-this is t-t-terrible! What are we supposed to do now?"
"Orbital, we need to get into Heartland Tower." Hikari told him. "The problem is that we'd have to go through a whole army of vampires to get in through the front. Do you know of any other way in?"
"W-we could try to get in through the underground access hatch." Orbital answered. "It connects directly to the sewer system."
"But how are we supposed to get into the sewers?" Alit asked. "We can't even get out of this house right now."
"Wait a minute… maybe we can." Hikari replied.
Hikari walked over to the far wall of the lab and felt around it until she found a small hidden panel. She pressed the panel in, and part of the wall opened up to reveal a small room with a large round hatch built into the floor.
"That's been here the whole time?" Cathy asked.
"Yeah. I forgot about it because my family and I have never had to use the lab's panic room mode before." Hikari answered. "That feature was put in mostly as a precaution. But this hatch should lead us directly into the sewers. Orbital, can you lead us to the access hatch to the tower once we're down there?"
"Y-yes ma'am!" Orbital replied with his trademark salute.
"Then let's go!" Hikari decided.
With that, Gilag opened the hatch and dropped Orbital in first. The little robot cried out as he fell through the opening but landed on his wheels. Once Orbital was through, the rest of the group climbed in, shutting the hatch behind them. They had indeed arrived in the sewer system beneath Heartland City. The group followed behind Orbital down the path that would take them up into the tower. They walked in silence for several minutes, encountering nothing. Not even the occasional rat.
After awhile they came to a point where the sewer walls were covered in the same sort of crystal they had seen covering Heartland Tower. The crystal seemed to give a dull eerie light to the darkness of the sewers. It wasn't long before the group came before a sight that caused them all to pause. Lining the crystal were several transparent coffins that contained slumbering vampires.
"Holy crap!" Alit exclaimed as quietly as possible. "We just walked straight into a nest full of vampires!"
"This must be where they've been hiding out during the day." Vector whispered.
"Maybe we should go back." Cathy suggested, holding tightly onto Mizael's arm. "They could wake up at any time."
"We've come too far to turn back now." Hikari told them. "Orbital, how much further to the access hatch?"
"N-n-not very far." Orbital quietly answered. "It's just down that last corner up ahead."
"Then let's keep going." Shark decided. "We'll walk quietly and hope the things in those coffins don't wake up."
The group continued silently through the crystalline crypt past several of the sleeping vampires. Many of the creatures sleeping inside the coffins were the white-haired inhuman ghouls that they had become all too familiar with earlier that night, but there were at least a few that actually still looked human. Yuma and some of the others occasionally did a double take when they saw a vampire that had once been someone that they knew from school. After what almost seemed like an eternity, Orbital led the group to a ladder built into the wall that led up to a circular hatch in the ceiling.
"Guess this is it." Shark observed. "We all ready to do this?"
"You bet!" Yuma confirmed.
"I think we're all as ready as we'll ever be." Durbe replied.
"Then let's go!" Hikari told them. "We have a city and an entire world to save."
Author's Note: Sorry if this chapter was a bit lame. I needed to do a part that showed our heroes getting to the tower, and this was the best I could come up with. Writing this chapter, I felt that it was probably a little too convenient for there to be a hatch into the sewers that Hikari and the others could use to get out of the lab, but I had kind of written myself into a corner. So I apologize for not being able to come up with something a little more creative. I did use a little of this chapter to reveal more about Mizael and Cathy's relationship. I'm toying with the idea of doing a story showing how those two got together in the first place.
Please review and let me know what you think.