Chapter IV

Mithril

Shadow yawned as she dropped the eggs into the pan. Kalin was stirring their grits on the other burner. Yusei, Jack, and Crow had yet to wake up.

"Shadow, you don't remember when your birthday is, do you?" Kalin asked. Shadow smiled.

"Actually, I've started remembering some stuff," she said. Kalin looked at her, as if surprised that she hadn't shared that bit of information. "It's little stuff, like the color of the wall in my room or the pattern of my bed sheets, and I barely remember it later, but I pretty sure my birthday is July 18th. Why?"

"July 18th is only a couple weeks away. But are you turning fifteen or fourteen? You never did figure that out, did you?" he asked. Shadow shrugged.

"Not really. I think I'm turning fifteen though. But why are you asking?" she inquired. Kalin smiled, but didn't say anything, so Shadow sighed.

"I guess I'll just have to wait and see, then, huh?" she asked.

Two hours later, Yusei came back from his patrol with bad news. "There's a new duel gang in Sector 8," he announced. Kalin looked up, startled.

"A new duel gang, or the old one?" he asked.

"New. And it looks like they intend to attack us within the week," Yusei replied. Shadow turned her head to the side and seemed to be talking to thin air, but then she turned back to the boys.

"Nova and Cosmo are headed out, and Ember's already patrolling Sector 7, so they'll pick her up on their way," she informed them.

"Your ability to work with duel monsters is really coming in handy," Kalin said. It had been almost a month since Yusei had been kidnapped. Two more gangs had been defeated, at the exact same pace that the Enforcers normally worked at, and no one had come after Shadow yet. However, since Shadow's Galactic monsters had been helping them out with recon, their attacks had been far more precise.

"You can say that again. Anyways, when are we going to attack the duel gang in Sector 7?" Crow asked, walking into the kitchen. Kalin sighed.

"If we're going to have this kind of a discussion, we'd better head upstairs," he said. "Jack!" he yelled as he started up the stairs. Jack popped his head out of his door, then headed up the stairs when he noticed that Kalin was headed up. The five of them gathered around the table on the top floor.

The map that Kalin placed on the table had black lines marking the different sectors. Many of them were blacked out, marking sectors that the Enforcers had already conquered.

"Alright. With the new duel gang in Sector 8, we're going to have to be careful. I want to attack Sector 7 this Thursday, instead of next week," Kalin said. Then he turned to Shadow, who pulled out a map of the sector in question.

"Unfortunately, I'm getting my information on their hideout from two different sources. Nova says their base is here," Shadow explained, pointing to an abandoned theater. "But Tear claims that their base is over here," she added, pointing to what had been a store of some kind once. "Unfortunately, when I sent them to investigate the two places in question, except sending them to the other, they both said that the place they had gone had been empty. Of course, Tear and Nova don't get along anyways, so they very well could have been lying, but I highly doubt it. It's hard to lie in their language."

"So we don't even know where their base is yet?" Crow asked.

"That's kind of disappointing, Shadow," Kalin said quietly. Shadow scowled.

"Shush, I ain't done yet! While I can't make heads or tails of the information Nova and Tear have been giving me on their bases, I can still fill you in on their battle styles. And by the way, there are seven members in this gang, not five," Shadow told him. Kalin's head snapped up from where he had been examining the map.

"What? Since when?" he asked.

"Since a long time, that's when. There is a set of identical twin girls in this gang. And the black-haired boy we keep seeing that's really feminine? There's a girl that looks an awful lot like him. In fact, they wear their hair exactly the same in order to fool people. That's why we thought there were only five; there are always two people hiding in their headquarters," Shadow explained.

"So two of us will have to be prepared to duel two opponents," Jack guessed. But Shadow shook her head.

"No, actually. The twins didn't have decks or duel disks to begin with, so one of them is borrowing the black-haired girl's stuff. If it comes down to a fight, the twins will likely be left out while the black-haired girl duels alongside her teammates. I sent Ember to make sure that that was still the case, just to be sure. Although since Nova and Cosmo are taking her along while they check out the situation with our new neighbors, it may be a little while before I'm sure about that," she said.

"Alright. I guess there's no reason in asking about the escape routes and such until we know more about these guys," Kalin said.

"Sorry, Kalin. We're working as hard as we can without pushing ourselves too much. However, before you get all doom-and-gloom on me, Venus is back. It looks like we got ourselves another group of move-abouts."

Yuri was cautious as she moved about the streets. Of course, she had her Duel Board with her in case of an emergency, but she was hoping that she wouldn't have to use it. She, Aikibo, Kuro, and Chinaku had found an uninhabited part of the area and moved in, hoping that they could find Sora quickly. However, they didn't want to be attacked by surprise by a duel gang, so they had decided to send out patrols regularly. If anyone were to ask Yuri about her family, she would have replied that she was a part of Team Mithril. Chinaku, in one of her bursts of boredom, had named them and decided that they should pretend to be a duel gang.

She couldn't help but scowl, however, when her thoughts came across Chinaku's plan to attack the surrounding duel gangs for information about their missing friend. She had already chosen a target, it seemed, and Yuri wasn't sure whether she wanted to simply go along with Chinaku's plan or if she wanted to kill the redhead.

Yuri was so lost in thought that she didn't notice when a small, purple fairy flew right past her with a white fairy and a red-orange fairy behind her.

Nova, Cosmo, and Ember knew exactly who the new duel gang was.

Shadow looked over the map quietly. The boys had gone to bed a while ago, but she wasn't sure she wanted to sleep. After all, she really didn't want her subconscious to remind her of the things it had already shown her. They scared her, and she really didn't want them to be true, or at least, not some of them. But, as midnight approached, she gave in and headed downstairs.

She stepped into her room to find all nine of her Galactic Fairies floating around. She raised an eyebrow. "Okay, this is new. I don't think I've seen everyone here at the same time. Do I want to know what's happened?" she asked. A green fairy, the largest of them and the only one who happened to be a Syncro monster, flew forward.

"I heard that you had Ember, Nova, and Cosmo checking on the new duel gang, so I sent Shine and Luna to do what you had originally assigned Ember to do. But I also went with Tear, Star, and Sky," she explained. Shadow sighed.

"Let me guess; I'm not going to like it," she mumbled. The green fairy shook her head sadly. "Well, thanks for the warning, Nebula. So, what did you find out about them?"

Nebula looked over at a black fairy. "Your old friends are no longer in Neo Domino City. They've gone missing," Galactic Fairy – Tear explained. The girl sitting on her bed raised an eyebrow, but before she could speak, a purple fairy, Nova, flew up to her.

"Well, technically they're not really missing… Not to us at least," she said. Shadow looked down at her, shock and confusion etched across her face.

"Wait, you mean to tell me that the new duel gang is…?"

"Yes, your old friends," Cosmo, the white fairy, chimed in. Shadow looked down at her hands in her lap quietly. Then, after many moments of silence, she spoke.

"The gang in Sector 7 takes priority. Double all recon parties. I want to be ready to attack the day after tomorrow. I'll keep them out of the way," Shadow ordered. Nebula looked at the black-haired girl worriedly.

"How?" she asked. Shadow looked her in the eye.

"I plan to go talk to them in the morning," she said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. And, being totally honest to herself, Shadow decided that it probably was.

Kairi: So, you're starting to get a bit of the underlying plot here. Not much, mind you. Oh, and I forgot to mention this last chapter, but I've typed up to Chapter 13. If you guys want more than that, then you're gonna have to say something about it, because otherwise my muses will continue to avoid this story, as they have for the last few weeks since I got to that point. Anyway, I'll shut up now. Reviews are nice... (hint, hint)