Chapter 25: New Order Strikes!

Kite and Drake soon returned to the real world, just in time for them to receive their orders, a coffee with a chocolate muffin for Drake and a soda and cheese cake slice for Kite. From an outsiders perspective only a minute or two had passed.

They hadn't stayed long in Drakes mental world after Critias made his appearance. Drake didn't know just what Kite had thought about the dragon, whether he had realised that the dragon was an actual entity that had made its home in his head or if he thought that was just part of the mental world like the castle and forest itself.

After all he had already previously demonstrated to Kite the nature of that world to him by creating a rat.

But Kite had been intimidated by Critias's presence, Drake remembered how Critias had lowered his head down to get a good look at the Number Hunter before puffing an indifferent blast of smoke out of his nostrils which had blasted Kite onto his backside.

Drake had some trouble keeping himself from laughing himself silly at the look on Kites face at that time.

Drake did know that he didn't want Kite to become too interested in the dragon, at the moment they were but temporary allies. Two opposing sides facing a greater common enemy. So he needed to keep at least some of his secrets.

Finishing their meals the two left without saying another word, each going their separate ways. If anyone was spying on them, they were sure to be confused. They would have no idea that the two of them had come to an agreement of alliance.

Drake naturally understood that the agreement they had made was only worth so much, he knew Kite would always put the welfare of his family first and foremost.

So Drake made his way home with a heavy heart.

He would never have considered that Shark would have joined New Order if Kite hadn't told him. To think that he left that boy several Number cards. Now he wished he hadn't, but it was to late to change things now.

---

"How long do you expect this to take?" Wyvern irritably asked the sliver armoured General beside her.

She was upset, after the disaster last night her king had assigned to work under this shameless guy. She found his constant advances to be irritating but now she had no way of avoiding him. She cursed Shark in her head. This was all his fault.

The two of them were watching various monitors of a duel field in a small control room, of course they had the authority to use the larger meeting rooms for such a task but Silver insisted on using this small and cramp room. Wyvern knew it was just so he had an excuse to be closer to her, but under the orders of her king she had no choice but to grit and bear it.

The Silver General, whose name was Hal, was enjoying having the Black General under his thumb, even if it was just for the upcoming mission. He loved to push her buttons, with her beauty and cold aloof personality he really wished he could just take her, even if by force. She had ignited a flame of desire in him almost from the first moment he saw her those years ago.

However he was no fool, not only was this woman strong, but she also had her strange shadow magic and the favour of the Orichalcos King.

"It won't be too long my dear, a day or two more at the most. It's a bit of a rush but I am confident that my special training will prepare him for the task at hand." He replied to Wyvern with a faint smile on his lips.

Wyvern ignored him.

"So have you finished your preparations?" Hal asked the touché female.

"Yes, and you're sure I can have some fun with him?" a trace of eagerness was in her voice.

At least her task had some benefits that she would enjoy.

Hal felt a surge of jealously, it was fine that she was more interested in their king than in him, after all Hal could never compare himself to a god like being like their great king. But to have such obvious interest in an outsider and not him boiled his blood.

He turned his attention back to the monitors and his special student.

---

"You can't be serious! I don't believe it!"

"Calm down Yuma."

"No Astral, I won't. I don't believe it, Shark wouldn't do that!"

Drake felt a headache coming on. After Yuma got home from school Drake had obviously had to tell the boy the bad news, that Shark had joined New Order. That he was now their enemy and a stealer of souls.

"Look Yuma-"

"No Drake! I know Shark. He isn't that kind of person. What reason would he have to join New Order. You have to be wrong." Yuma refuted.

"I'm not wrong, Kite saw it for himself and I saw his memories. You can't fake something like that." Drake insisted.

"But why would he? In makes no sense!" Yuma angrily asked.

"For revenge, did you know Shark has a sister?" Drake questioned.

"He does?" All this time Yuma knew Shark, he had never known that he had a sister.

"Yes, she's in a coma at the Heartland General hospital long care wing. She's there because of what Dextra did to her under Dr Fakers orders."

"Dex-who for Dr who-now?"

"Dr Faker… Kites father, this city's puppet master and the one Kite is collecting Number Cards for. And Dextra is Kites friend who had her soul stolen by Shark. Please try to keep up."

In fact the way Kite had talked about Dextra he wondered if she was something more to the Number Hunter but that was besides the point at this moment.

"But even if Shark wants revenge why would he join New Order, they must be hurting a lot of innocent people with the Seal of Orihanos-"

"Orichalcos." Astral corrected Yuma.

"Whatever, the point is why would Shark be involve with hurting innocent people. He might be angry and a bit of a jerk but he's not that kind of guy. Maybe they did something to him?"

Yuma might have a point. It wouldn't be the first time for Drake to have heard that Sharks thirst for revenge led to him being manipulated by another power. Vetrix in the anime had managed to do it. But Drake wouldn't be able to determine that for himself unless he met Shark again.

"Fine, maybe they did something to him or maybe they didn't. It doesn't change the fact that he is a part of New Order and he is very dangerous now. You need to be careful if you meet him, do you understand Yuma?" Drake asked.

"I understand, but he's my friend. I have to save him, even if it's from himself."

Drake gave up trying to convince Yuma any different.

"Well I got to Jet, See ya!" Yuma rushed out on his own while Drake was distracted.

No doubt he was going to try and find Shark by himself and was ditching his chaperone. Drake gave Astral a nod hoping the alien would be able to keep Yuma out of too much trouble. Instead of chasing after the boy Drake thought his best option was to look for Shark himself.

---

"Go Blue-Eyes White Dragon! White Lightning!"

*BOOM*

<<Drake Wins>>

With another victory under his belt Drake continued to comb the city looking for signs of New Order or Shark. It was late afternoon and the thick clouds overhead promised rain at anytime.

It had been two days since his meeting with Kite and the only progress he had made was to fill up his Heart Light to the level of 5 Blue layers. Meaning he was just 5 more wins from achieving the Golden Heart state of his Heart Key and there was still three whole days left in the preliminaries.

More than enough time.

Ever since their talk about Shark, Yuma had been ducking Drakes company. Drake had promised to look after the boy to his sister but that was difficult to do if Yuma wanted to ditch him. He had hoped Yuma would blow off his steam the first afternoon, but the next day after their talk the boy had simple gone looking for Shark on his own after school, not coming back to the house until late evening. Then today Drake had waited outside the school for him, but the kid lost Drake in a crowded shopping street on the way home.

Thankfully Yuma hadn't run into any trouble or Akari would have had his head.

In fact, duel wise he was doing rather well, having reached level 4 of the Green light layer. But his increasing recklessness was worrying. Speaking of the Devil…

Drake saw a familiar floating blue figure as he turned a corner.

Yuma and Astral had their backs to him and Tori was by their side. It was almost too easy as Drake snuck up and grabbed Yuma by his hood.

"Got you!"

"Ahh! Err Drake, there you are… I… was just looking for you…yeah that's right! Where'd you disappear too?" Yuma stammered as he struggled in Drakes grip, as if Drake would fall for a story like that.

"Home now." Drake said with an air of finality.

"But...but.."

"It's getting late and it could start to rain any minute. Just come home, you can start looking again tomorrow."

"Fine…"

The three of them (four counting Astral) made their way back to the house, Drake planned to drop Yuma off before continuing to escort Tori home. It would be the gentlemanly thing to do.

But things would not go to plan. About a mile from Yuma's house, trouble found them.

New Order.

Even given the time and the bleak weather the streets were unnaturally empty when the group found their path blocked by a masked man. Drake recognised the outfit from the memories Kite had showed him as being the same as what was used by New Order in their assault on Fakers Black Elite base.

Black robes, shirt, trousers and a featureless black mask whose only adornment was the Seal of Orichalcos. His duel disk was a crescent blade shape, its colours were mixture of dark blue and black with numerous arcane runes carved into its surface, each of them glowing a neon green.

"Is that New Order? Hey you! Where's Shark, what did you do to him!?" Shouted Yuma as Drake pushed him and Tori behind his back.

"…" The masked man just stood there in silence like he was waiting for something.

"Hey-!"

Drake silenced Yuma with a look before he could carry on. For one moment Drake considered if this masked man might be Shark himself, but immediately discarded the notion. He was too tall to be Shark.

"Did you come to duel?" Drake asked as he prepared his duel disk.

"…No, I am here… to kill you!"

With a fast draw the masked man slapped down a monster onto his duel disk and materialised the monster in front of Drake. Orichalcos Gigas. Without a word the monster smashed down at Drake with his fist, forcing Drake to jump backwards pulling the kids along with him.

He was just in time as the street suffered the punishing impact and shattered into pieces.

"Whoa… that thing looks so real…" Yuma said, not realising the danger they were in.

"Yuma you are not wearing your duel gazer." Astral point out to the oblivious boy.

"What!! That means- Omph.."

Yuma did have time to finish his sentence as Drake pushed the boy out of the way of the next punch, taking the fist with his own body.

Fortunately Drake was stronger than a normal human, but he could not take too many more hits like that.

"Go Blue-Eyes! White Lightning!"

Calling forth his own beast, Drakes dragon blasted the Orichalcos Gigas to pieces with its powerful breath attack. But within seconds the beast returned, reborn from a ring of mystical light, growing even stronger than before.

But for now it was still to weak to face off against the power of Drakes Blue-Eyes.

As it tried to grapple the white dragon, Blue-Eyes simply smashed it into a near by wall with a slap of its tail before biting down at the stunned monster with its powerful teeth, shattering the monster once again.

As Drake allowed his Blue-Eyes to handle the Gigas which kept reviving with each defeat, he kept his eye on the one who had summoned it.

He was worried this guy might have something else up his sleeve. But he just stood there. In fact it seemed that he was getting weaker and weaker each second, especially whenever his monster returned to life.

It didn't take genius to workout what was going on. In that case…

Drakes dragon and the Orichalcos Gigas were now wrestling each other, one with its sharp claws that ripped and tore, the other with massive fists of power that crushed and smashed. Even in this short time the Orichalcos beast had managed to become powerful enough to fight Blue-Eyes on equal terms.

Yuma was trying to protect Tori with his body as the two of them backed against a wall and Astral just watched on in fascination, a stray shock wave actually cut his incorporeal face.

Drake considered telling the three of them to run but didn't know if there were others waiting nearby.

This fight was dangerous, but Drake had an advantage over the masked man.

He could tell he had a lot more power than that guy, enough to summon multiple monsters.

"Time for a helping hand, so come out Blue-Eyes White Dragon!"

Drake summoned a second Blue-Eyes to join the fray. Together the two of them easily threw their opponent away before unleashing a double white lightning blast. This was no duel where monsters could only fight one on one. But no matter how hard the two dragons attack, no matter how many times they took the beast down. It wouldn't stay down.

Before things got anymore out of hand Drake had to stop this beast. He could of course summon Critias. As a legendary dragon its power could easily erase the power of the Orichalcos that summoned this monster into reality. But that would mean exposing Critias's power, he would rather try outlasting his opponent first. But before he did that Drake wanted to try one more thing.

"I activate polymerization, fuse my dragons together to become the Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon!"

At this point the Orichalcos Gigas was stronger than either of Drakes Blue-Eyes individually which meant its ATK value in duel terms must be over 3000 by now. Fusing his two dragons together would actually make them overall weaker than the Gigas, but in a duel Twin Burst had special abilities which Drake hoped would carry over to this fight.

Spaced seemed to warp around them as the two dragons fused into one single two headed dragon. But before it could take its bearing the Orichalcos Gigas smashed into the dragon, knocking it clear across the street and wrecking several parked cars. But although that blow hurt it, it didn't destroy it. And in retaliation it blasted out with a double shot of its lightning breath.

The monster stood strong against the fierce energy streams, blocking it with its crossed arms, but it failed to notice the creeping threads of energy that began to wrap around its figure. And by the time it did, it was too late as the power collapsed in on itself, vanishing from the world and taking the Orichalcos beast with it.

This was Twin Burst Dragons power to banish a monster it battled with that was not destroyed. And because the Orichalcos Gigas was now banished, it could not be revived.

The masked man staggered with the loss of his monster. Drake could feel that this guy's energy had dropped to a very low level, while his own had only drop by a quarter at most.

Looking around the street had been transformed into something one would see in a war zone. Smashed walls, crushed cars, deep claw marks gouged into the road and scorch marks from his dragons lightning attacks littered the place. Just where were all the people? Surely someone must have heard, and seen, the fight. Maybe they just had the good sense to run away but Drake feared something more sinister.

"Bring him to me." Drake ordered his dragon. It would be a shame to waste the opportunity to capture a New Order operative, especially since he had gone through so much trouble to materialise his monster into reality.

But before Drakes monster could make a move it was pierced by a black bolt of energy and disintegrated into dust before Drakes eyes. Following the path the bolt took, Drake saw a figure standing atop the roof of a nearby building.

It was a female dress all in black with a draconic half mask concealing her face, like a female version of Nightshroud from GX. A figure Drake was familiar with from Kites memories. Her lips curved in a faint smile before speaking in a voice that perfectly match her stunning figure.

"So Drake Atlas, we meet at last."