Yugioh: The Hope of Six

Chapter 26: Kaiba Arc- Part 16

Once the elevator came to a stop again, the trio of Yuzu, Aqua, and Mai hesitated a moment before opening the door. A huge, brightly lit room lay before them. "Is this it?" Yuzu asked as she gazed around.

"Yes. According to the tower database I examined before I lost my connection, the central core is in this chamber." Aqua told her.

"And you can reestablish your connection to the tower's systems from here?" Mai asked. The Ignis nodded.

"I believe so. We just need to find the main interface. It should be located somewhere on the core itself."

"Alright. Let's do it." Yuzu said determinedly. Quietly and cautiously, the girls stepped out of the elevator and headed towards the central core. At this point, Aqua retreated into Yuzu's Duel Disk so only her eyeball form was shown. She mentioned that she would re-emerge once they find the interface.

It didn't take them long to find what they were looking for. As they reached the other end of the room, they found a glowing green tower with a control panel attached. "That must be it." Mai said, amazed by the sight.

"So now what...?" Yuzu started to ask, but didn't finish.

"Stop! Don't move!" Yuzu and Mai turned behind them and saw an armored blonde woman holding what looked like a laser weapon. It was the missing mercenary, Blue, from the team that fought Yugi's group. She was pointing it right at them.

"Who are you?" Yuzu demanded. Blue smirked.

"Call me Blue. I got orders from Noah to guard this from intruders like you. Bad move coming down here."

"So you got stuck with guard duty all by your lonesome?" Mai questioned. The enemy woman chuckled.

"Course not. I have a feisty little friend that might want to play." With a whistle, something small leaped from behind Blue and started assaulting Yuzu's head.

"Yuzu!" Mai yelled in shock. Before her eyes, Yuzu was being attacked by a small, vicious monkey. It was pulling her hair, trying to bite and scratch her.

"Ah! Ow! Mai, I can't see! Get it off! Get it off!" Yelled the younger girl. She tried to grab what was trying to maul her, but the animal would not budge.

"Hang on!" Mai attempted to yank the primate off, but it tried to bite her when she got too close. Blue was laughing her ass off as she watched.

"Oh this is a riot! Ricky sure is having a ball! He tried to knife two of your friends in a little game, but they escaped! He was not happy about that, and now he's making up for lost time!" Blue declared, still enjoying Yuzu's suffering.

During the struggle, from inside Yuzu's Duel Disk, Aqua detected a new signal. The source was very close, like it was right in front of her. The Ignis also discovered that this signal was made to control and influence another's brainwaves. She realized that it was coming from the very animal trying to maul Yuzu. Aqua knew then what was going on and was appalled by the situation. Without delay, she sent out a counter signal from the Disk to the source of the problem. A second later, the brain altering signal had ceased.

At the same time, the monkey, Ricky, stopped it's attack on Yuzu. She, Mai, and Blue were then surprised to see it examine the little scratches on Yuzu's head, making a small sorrowful moan. "Uh... good monkey?" Yuzu said, not sure what to make of that.

"What the hell? Why did that chimp stop?" Blue asked, totally bewildered by the sudden change in behavior.

As confused as Mai was, she saw an opening and went for it. While Blue was distracted, Mai tackled her, knocking her down and making her drop her blaster. Mai then went for the weapon, but the other blonde grabbed her legs and pulled, making Mai fall as well. The two women then wrestled furiously for a bit until Blue was on top and began chocking Mai to death.