Chapter 38 - Race Of The Orichalcos

Yami stood down in the circle of spirits, as Rose and Tea watched from up on the cliffs with relief. He had defeated Yugi, and that hopefully meant he had defeated his inner darkness. This had only made him more determined to get Yugi back. Unfortunately, the battle wasn't over yet however. The earth suddenly started shaking and section was pulled apart, and to Yami's surprise an Orichalcos soldier emerged, same as those who fought in the great battle over 10,000 years ago. The soldier challenged Yami to a duel, but he seemed to have no choice as the Seal of Orichalcos instantly came down over the field. With a determined look upon his face, Yami prepared himself for a second battle. As the duel began it seemed that the soldier's only monster could not be destroyed, as each time Yami defeated the beast, it came back with more attack points than before. This invincible monster tore away at Yami's life points, until he was just one attack away from defeat.

"There's only one card that can save him," Ironheart said, pulling it out of his pocket.

"The card he gave you?" Kris asked. He nodded, before running down into the valley, with Kris following after him. Rose and Tea watched as it appeared that the Oricalcose soldier did not want them to get to the Pharaoh. Bolts of lightning suddenly rained down from the sky, striking down Ironheart. Kris managed to reach him as he collapsed on the ground, and he handed her the card. With a determined nod, Kris continued the quest to deliver the card to Yami. She only just made it to the edge of the field before she was struck as well, unfortunately. Yami just managed to take the card from her before she disappeared.

"Kris!" Tea called out in alarm, "And Ironheart! They're both gone!"

"But now the Pharaoh has Timaeus," Rose assured.

The duel continued and the pharaoh summoned the legendary dragon, merging him with his dark magician girl. With one attack, he was able to destroy the undefeated monster, defeating the oricalcose soldier in the process.

...

After all of the drama of the past hour or so, Yami, Rose and Tea were relieved when they found their way back to the train tracks, having climbed back up the cliffs that they fell off.

"We're back where we left off," Tea said, looking down the tracks.

"Now all we have to do is follow these," Rose said with a hopeful smile.

"And if all goes well they should lead us straight to Tristan and Joey," Yami said, nodding at her.

"Assuming they haven't wandered off that is," Rose added. Knowing those two, they could have gone off in the completely wrong direction. They set off down the tracks to find Tristan and Joey, hoping that they would soon be reunited with their friends.

"Hey Rose," Tea said, grabbing her attention, "That thing you did way back when we were surrounded by that biker gang, what was that?" Rose thought for a moment, trying to figure out what she meant.

"I think she means when the Millennium Heart created that protective shield," Yami mentioned.

"Oh, that!" Rose said, "Well I'm not entirely sure, but it happened back in that abandoned warehouse where Joey got hurt, and I just knew that it would happen again when they tried to attack us," she shrugged.

"Does that mean you can control it?" Yami asked curiously.

"Well, no." Rose scratched the back of her head, "I was kind of just hoping with all my might that it would do that," Rose gave them a hopeful grin.

"Wait a minute," Tea said, stepping in front of Rose, causing the girl to stop dead in her tracks. "You mean to say that you had no idea if the Heart would actually save you?"

"Maybe...?" Rose said with a nervous laugh. Tea suddenly looked serious.

"You could have gotten yourself seriously hurt!" she said, raising her voice. "Did you not think about that?"

"But I didn't get hurt," Rose added, "and that's what matters. I trusted my gut feeling and it pulled through," she grinned again.

Tea sighed, turning to continue walking again. "You're damn lucky, you know that?"

Rose just laughed, "Well despite the fact that you're yelling at me, I take it as a compliment cause it means you care!" She grabbed Tea and hugged her sideways. Tea just laughed and rolled her eyes.

"We all care," Yami said, before chuckling as Tea tried to pull Rose off of her.

"Hold on," Tea said, her tone changing as she looked up at the sky.

Rose let go of her and followed her gaze. "...Uh oh," she said. "That can't be good."

"Those weird lights are back," Tea said, sounding worried. "They creep me out," she admitted.

"I fear it's the great beast," Yami said, "The same thing happened when it emerged the first time."

"That's not good," Rose said, turning to the two of them. "We're running out of time..." That's when Yami's deck started glowing brightly.

"What's this?" he said, looking down at it. He then looked up, "Rose, Tea, up there!" They all looked up and saw the three legendary dragons guiding a plane that was about to crash.

"Whoa," Tea said as the plane reached the ground, "Those dragons just saved that aeroplane!"

"Now there's something you don't see every day," a familiar voice said from nearby. The three of them turned to see who it was.

"Joey!" Rose called out in relief, smiling over at them.

"And Tristan!" Tea said cheerfully.

"Hey guys," Joey said with a grin, "Hows it going?" Their reunion was cut short by their curiosity about the plane, so they walked down to where it had crashed to see if the passengers were alright.

"Hey, that's one of Kaiba's planes," Tea said with surprise as they approached it.

"Hey, you're right," Tristan said, gazing up at the KC symbol on the wing of the plane. Right on queue, Kaiba opened the hatch and jumped down, carrying a man in his arms.

Upon seeing the five of them, Kaiba gave his usual greeting, "Oh great," he said. "If it isn't the dweeb patrol." He looked at all of them with his scrutinising eyes, before adding in his head, plus Rose.

"Don't you have any other creative names for us?" Rose asked, indicating it was all he ever said. "Apart from nerd herd and geek squad," she added with a sarcastic smirk. Seto tried to hide it but she noticed the hint of an amused smirk on his face, before it disappeared and his usual demeanour returned. Joey simply glared daggers at him as usual.

"What happened up there?" Tea asked, pointing to the plane. Seto explained how he had duelled against Allister on top of the plane, after having come across him before when he was disguised as Pegasus.

"Don't you geeks have someone else to annoy?" Seto asked when he finished.

"Kaiba we can't do this without you and you know it," Yami said to him, "So please, help us to stop this evil." Seto simply made a smart remark before they were approached by Roland. He said he had some terrible news, and Kaiba simply told him to explain on the way back to his headquarters. So much to Seto's dismay, he allowed the gang to jump in the KC helicopter as they did not have any other means of transportation. Once they were on their way, Roland explained how Dartz had taken over Kaiba Corp. Seto certainly wasn't happy about that, but Roland and the other KC men in the helicopter said they would stay by Kaiba's side until he had won his company back.

"Now we need to get to the museum and decipher those ruins," Yami mentioned.

"My research team is already there," Seto pointed out, "And my security force will handle any unexpected guests." The pilot then announced that Kaiba had an emergency message, and he opened up his laptop, ready to receive the images of the ruins. While they were uploading, Dartz's men attacked Kaiba's research team, but luckily the images had already been transferred over. He sent them off to Rebecca for Professor Hawkins to decipher, and the gang were relieved that Seto had decided to help them, though it was mainly so he could win his company back, it was still something. However, the professor said that unless the images were cleared up they would not be able to decipher them. Kaiba announced that they should go to KC headquarters and use his high speed computer system. It was a good idea, apart from the fact that it was being run by Dartz currently. Despite protests from Joey and Tea, they decided that it was the only way, even if it was a risky move, they had to give it a try.

...

Once they reached their destination, they met up with Duke, Rebecca and Arthur near KC headquarters, and Duke explained how they had run into Mai and Valon. Soon, Kaiba was getting impatient and announced that whoever was coming with him to Kaiba corp better hurry up, and he started walking. Yami followed after him as Tristan and Tea said they would go find the police. As Kaiba and Yami headed down into an underground entrance to Kaiba Corp, Rebecca managed to hack into the KC computer system, as Joey, Duke, Rose and Arthur watched over her shoulder.

"Wow, you really are a child genius," Rose said with a laugh.

"Good thing Kaiba let me tag along on his field trip," Rebecca said smugly, as she managed to save Kaiba and Yami from being trapped inside. The two men managed to get to the main computer to analyse the images, and Professor Hawkins was able to decipher their meaning. Unfortunately though, Rebecca's computer lost the link to Kaiba's system, but not before they found out who Dartz was, and that he was the president of a large financial company called Paradius.

"Where's their headquarters?" Joey demanded, scrunching his hand into a fist. Rebecca managed to find it, and Joey jumped up, determined to take him down. "Here I come you creeps!" he called out.

"Joey wait," Rose urged.

"Get back here!" Duke called out, but he didn't listen and ran off in the direction of Paradius.

"Well this is just great," Rose sighed, before getting up and running after him. She couldn't let Joey go alone, no matter how bad his idea was. "Hold up Joey!" Rose called after him, "Wait for me!" She then saw Tristan and Tea in the distance, but Joey ran straight past them.

"Hey wait, you're going the wrong way!" Tristan called out to him as he bolted past.

Rose reached them and Tea stopped her, "Wait, you'll run straight into the zombie patrol!" she warned.

"The zombie what?" Rose asked, watching as Joey kept running .

"Tea go warn the others, I'm going after Joey," Tristan said, before running off after his friend.

"Hey wait!" Rose said, leaving Tea to catch up to Tristan, "You don't know where he's going!" she called out.

"What do you mean?" Tristan called back to her.

"I mean, he's going straight to Dartz! We know where his company's headquarters are!"

"What?!" Tristan stopped to let her catch up, "Is he nuts?!"

"It appears so," Rose said, now breathless from all of the running.

"Joey come back!" Tristan said, bolting off to try and catch up to him, "I'm wearing the wrong shoes for this," he muttered.

"Joey stop!" Rose called out. As if on queue, Joey skidded to a stop. Not because Rose told him to however, but because something had blocked their path.

"What's that?" Joey asked, looking up at the Oricalcose soldier that was towering above them.

"It's bad news," Rose warned, staring up at it with wide eyes.

"Maybe we should start running again," Tristan said as it turned towards them.

"Good idea," Joey said, before the three of them took off in the other direction. They heard a screeching of tyres and turned to see two kids on motorbikes skid to a stop in front of them.

"Haven't you learned to look both ways?" one of them spat, before they both rode past the trio.

"Wait! You're going the wrong way!" Tristan called out to them, but it was too late, for the two bikers were already heading straight for the Oricalcose soldier. They wailed as they ran into the monster, their bikes skidding aside. It took them no time however, to run in the opposite direction. The soldier took one look at the bikes before continuing to pursue Joey, Rose and Tristan. They stopped in surprise however, when the soldier disappeared, having ceased chasing them.

"Hey where'd he go?" Tristan asked looking around. A bright headlight then blinded them, and they saw Valon sitting on his bike behind where the soldier was moments ago, a smug smirk on his face.

"Hey, I know you!" Joey said, pointing at him. Valon turned and sped off, and Joey ran after him, picking up one of the abandoned bikes on his way.

"Joey wait!" Rose called after him, "What are you doing?" Joey jumped on the bike and sped off after Valon.

"Oh for goodness sake," Rose groaned, picking up the other one.

"What am i supposed to do?" Tristan asked.

Rose jumped on the bike, "Go get the others so we can help Joey."

"But how will we know where to find you guys?"

"Follow the Oricalcose!" and with that, Rose sped off, trying to catch up to Joey and Valon. they had gained a lot of distance already, and Rose was only barely keeping up. Valon was trying to either test Joey or lose him, and although Rose had managed to follow them around the twists and turns that Valon took, she soon could not continue when they reached the river. Valon made the jump easy, and Joey only just managed to clear it, while Rose grinded her teeth together watching him. With a groan, Rose skidded to a stop at the edge of the river. She watched as the two men sped off on the other side; as much as she wanted to help Joey and stop him from being captured by the Oricalcose, she didn't have the guts to jump a river on a bike as crappy as this. With a sigh, she turned and followed alongside the river, hoping she could cross another way and still find them before it was too late.

I had lots of fun writing the next few chapters xD i just have to edit them all and i can post them, so get ready! :D

Wow i sound so lame in my authors notes -.- i apologise, I'm cool, i swear! :P

anyway, let me know what you think!

PharaohsThrone :)