Shine in the Light (Land Below)
The usual ferry horn blared in the distance, people frolicking past one another to hurry towards their departure. Birds of all kinds fluttered here and there, scavenging for left over kiosk meals carelessly thrown by little kids happily laughing over their feeding sessions while a plethora of bells tinkled to chime in with the friendly atmosphere.
The Talonclaws and Rickers grouped together, feeling confident enough that none in the group would get left behind. However, Melanie and Theresa parted ways from her family, their snobby attitude gaining them freedom to venture across the city left Zera's parents along with Marianne and Heinz to tour around with Falco's family.
Boarding off of the ferry, Sam almost collided against the safety chains, almost scarring a pigeon out of view.
"Dudu! That's not how we exit bwoats." Esther softly scolded, slapping the back of his head in a playful manner.
Sam scoffed as he retaliated back with a counter, "You little skit!"
"Look, there are some people selling trinketries." Nagi pointed out, grabbing the groups attention.
Perched on the narrow cobblestones were endless stations of talented artists, showcasing their unique ability in either art, music, literature or.... magic.
Since Elena had a huge heart for pets, she could not resist blushing in kindness towards a life size sculpted sand canine. The elderly mother and her 10 year old daughter returned the gesture, blessing her customer for lobbing a euro in the glass jar.
Waving farewell, she joined by her husband's side, nodding in sheer interest towards a street performer "magically" levitating in the air while deploying out common poses everyone knew.
Quietly eyeing Zera's aunt pouring over a rack of make up while pestering his uncle to purchase it, she distinctively thought back towards their son, feeling highly concerned over his progress at the Championships. Though his parents felt out of place without their 'biological' brown haired boy, they most certainly engrossed themselves into vacation and enjoyment, less certain whether he lost the tourney or not. Then again, they were the type of parents that swung around in weird moods. One day, they care about Zera with high prosperity and kindness. The next day they ravishly ignore his presence and act as if he does not exist at all.
Elena whined up a frosty exhale, bringing up her Galaxy S5 into view, Google Maps currently displaying their location. A festive park was not too long away from the tiny bustling walkways, scent of delicious croissants panning towards them.
Jeralt inched a tad closer to his wife, for the very first time mentioning their son during their vacation.
"Do you think he's ok?" he timidly asked in pure concern, joining gazes on the What's App conversation between mother and son.
"I wrote him a follow up message about the Festive Park event along with the performers. Sent 15 minutes ago, no response."
Sighing flawlessly, Jeralt paced around beside a rack display full of precious stones. He absentmindedly picked a ruby topaz, feebling it in his hand before giving up with an exhausted sigh. "If I recall correctly, he mentioned about getting autographs from the cartoon creator."
Elena shook her head out of disbelief, "I wonder where he is right now."
They both averted their gazes hot on the TV screen, the female reporter blabbering in rapid french while the heli hovered over the concrete outlines of the mysterious building.
The air around the massive empty lot howled into deep silence.
The structural edifence to the Kid Expo Hall 7 vanished away from the surface of the earth.
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Soil jutted into hard silver rock, powdering remnants of crystal dust, plundering 50 ft. through the cold winds before seeping into the dark hearted lake.
Under the cold stone floors of the Kid Expo Hall 7, spirals into a vivid plummet of a 32 ft. deep crystal salt mine, tracked with pinpointing bridges hued with blizzard white halogen lights.
Endless tunnels, cascaded in geographical fossil rock, layered an extendable canopy over steel constructed stairs and railings, each step lighted in crystal white.
It was as if the catacombs were oddly powered on by earth's numbering resource: lunar white crystals projecting a divine mist over a mysterious pool, backed up by a plethora of abandoned boats lazily bobbing here and there.
Whenever underground or unearthing soil came into mind, it was always imagined that intense heat would blaze skins of anyone who dug into the underground.
A mental picture of encountering Earth's flaming core.
To the Evergrande G - Tubers, it was the opposite.
The group groggily woke up from the chaotic indecent, lucky enough to have survived the whole teleportation caused by Luinra.
Ryuk was the first to stir herself awake, blinded by her vision before focusing again on her surroundings.
Shinigami's initial reaction where her short sleeved arms were into dead contact against extremely cold stone flooring.
"Holy shit." a whisper of jolting attention succumbed the F3 tamer, nursing her frozen bare arms back to warmth.
Kneeling down again, she speculated at the cold rocky floors before investigating it's texture.
Smooth as a rock, rough as a crystal.
'Where the hell are we?'
Her quizzical thoughts spiraled around her head, thankfully spotting out two familiar shapes slumped over in one of the buckets of an abandoned mid size Ferris Wheel, painted creamish white while spotting all of the reflections from the hovering string of lights. Apparently, Light and Storm were knocked out unconscious, relaxing in opposite directions while leaving their mouths agape.
'Gotta get them down in alert for their arrival.' Shinigami pranced over in huffing exhales, her ears taking in the majority of the ferris wheel's obscure creaking and unstable moaning. The winds that powered the crystals alive were occasionally tending to grow stronger and stronger every week. She noted in mind not to loose her footing while attempting to reach their proximity.
Steel bar by Steel bar, she utilized her blading strength to thankfully approach the roof of one of booths stationed below.
Knowing that her Dual Threat launcher's internal gears can crack violently at the minute, Ryuk created some minor modifications, deeply pondering on the modded ability to use the Draguz launcher as a grappling hook device.
Stretching out the string, she held the end of the retraction point and classically swung the string towards the highest level of the wheel.
The handle neatly wrapped around a metal support bar, her curiosity of tugging the nylon thread surprisingly caught her overboard.
No vicious tears and plundering screams.
The prongs to the launcher rotated slowly as Shinigami continued to climb.
Placing out her potential effort to scale the very top of the Ferris Wheel, she gasped in realization as to what was hindering her escalation.
A cuddle surfaced body dressed in liliac purple, black (slightly sagging) pants and hackneyed Fila sneakers, slumped over the middle bars, passively knocked out while miraculously his glasses and fedora hat stuck to him like glue.
"Zera?" Ryuk tentatively shook him awake. The more pressure Shinigami applied with sheer force, the louder the Ferris Wheel began to groan in intense difficulty.
"Mrrrhhhhmmmm...." the brown haired tamer slurred absentmindedly, feeling his stomach and rib cage uncomfortable from the weight applied against the bars. "Cheese Muffins and Glitter Farts....."
Shinigami hesitated to make a split decision. She had to snap Zera from his lucid thoughts before he shockingly freaks out on his napping perch.
"Holy Galahad! Balkesh Breath!" Zera gave out an ear piercing yelp, clinging for dear life to the wobbling bars while getting haywind from the crystal air. "Where the heck am I!?"
The creepy creaking from the Wheel caused Rickers to excessively shiver and nervously gulp at the thought of this mysterious place raided by ghosts.
Ryuk hushed him in a hurry and objectively pointed to her destination. "No time. We have to wake the others up."
"Wake the others up?" Zera perplexingly repeated the words to himself, careful enough to join Shinigami's climb. "Wait. So Where are we? My biggest worry. Where's Falco?"
"You'll see her in a minute. As for now, we need to slap our DJ's from their weird romantic slumber." Ryuk swooped over several crisscrossing bars, glad to have gripped on the edge of an empty bucket carriage.
The slow swaying carriage in front of her held the two named guys, the wind moving both Storm and Light towards each other unnoticeably.
Their breaths drew close. Shoulder to Shoulder. Best friends from Childhood.
Nose to nose. Lips to -
"AHHHHH!" Both of them unleashed a terrified yelp, their bodies jolting awake while hyperventilating from the sudden surprise.
"Stop dreaming bro stuff!" Light yelped in frustration, pushing Storm away from his personal space.
"Hey! I'm not the one who planned a romantic shonen service between us!" The gray haired DJ retaliated in return, feeling diffident about how they met each other in this scenario.
"Hmpf!" Both DJs faced away from each other with crossed arms, until both Ryuk and Zera popped between them with a bright greeting.
The Ferris Wheel groaned as if it was having a hard time attuning to their awful weights.
"No, no, no, no! Heights not acceptable!" Light immediately yelped like a little girl and jumped into Storm's arms for mere protection, the suttle act of immaturity flowing into the air.
"Where are we btw?" Storm pondered outloud, breathtaking at the view of crystal white lights populating above his head.
"Good question. I have no clue." Ryuk felt as if she started to pride as team leader of the EVG G - tubers, feeling cautious about Falco's presence just incase they swapped leadership. "As far as I know, we ended up waking from our bizarre statis, absolutely stunned by the crystal lights and visibly perplexed by our arrival here."
"I'm positive that something happened while Marco froze you people in Sepia and I was crushed unconscious by that dragon jerk's foot." Rickers continued with a slight snare lacing his somber tone, the group currently meandering their way down the crystal tunnels brightly hued by lunar blue. "I just wish that dumb poopeypants of a demon dragon would leave Marco alone. Why him?"
A sigh resounded in echoes from the brownhaired boy, his mind backtracking to the feral imagery of Seidlitz keeping Falco close to him as a slaving hostage. Knuckles fisted pale as Rickers sheltered his anger welling deep within his mind.
'Falco, wherever you are. I just hope that you are left alone on the clouds skating through space.'
"Dragon boy has a lot to learn." Shinigami chuckled while Storm and Light were trailing behind them, tracing their fingers over the hued luminescent crystals. The red headed DJ even sprinkled crystal dust on R3's layer, the golden blade responding with a gleaming glow.
Storm experimented the same, the red ruby orbs to Leoleaus growling in return.
The narrow tunnel thinned into a gaping hole, the staircase rails ended into a drastic signal and warning for them to turn back.
Tiny pebbles scraped from the circular rim, plunging into the deep dark abyss until faint splashes echoed from their death trap.
"Ryuk! Watch out!" Zera drastically warned, dashing forward to grip her sleeve. A chain reaction of careless bumps caused the girl to easily lose her footing, wind rushing past her ears while screaming in distress.
"Zera! Are you blind as Triglave!? What was that for?" Light frantically scolded, feeling miserable at the boy's upmost mistake.
"Hey! She clearly forgot to warn us with a red flag if we hadn't been such idiotic to rush through a narrow straw!" Rickers retaliated in return, trying his best to shift blames on either of the two DJ's.
"Best not to pave into trouble." Storm muttered with a dejected sigh, feeling flustered that he was the only patient tamer around.
"Anyone looking for a Metal Chip?" the trio turned around to face a raven haired girl clad in her signature blue tamer attire fit with a trendy blue bandanna sporting three blue crystal hearts, coughing in difficulty while re-surfacing from the challenging climb.
"Falco!" Zera dropped his rush of anger and immediately clasped his girlfriend into a tight hug, rambling in tears of joy, "Oh how I missed you so much! It's great to have you back! I can't finally believe I'm with you!"
"Enough with the exuberant reunions. Anyone seen Shinigami most importantly?" Light huffed in deep impatience, feeling albeit about the important icon of the group.
"She's currently hidden deep within the shadow lake!" the ghastly call rumbled deep below, the EVG G - tubers craning their necks towards the source of the sound.
"Looks like she needs some help. Any suggestions?" Zera timidly gazed at Falco, hoping for some expert advice on a missing tamer plummeting deep within an eerie dark lake.
"Why don't we jump in and find out?" Falco smirked as she gave way to her boyfriend with a welcoming smile and a gesture, "After you."
Seconds later, Rickers almost trembled with a heart attack. Melting into a rocky wall behind him while scaling down the steep tiny ledge was not the comfortable idea he had in mind. Lest said alone to the other DJs, Light practically maintaining his balance while Storm carefully utilized his precautionary senses, steadying his linear steps while concentrating hard not to foolishly tip over.
A foggy thicket blanketed over the dark black waters, still as frozen time. Ryuk stirred awake, a demeaning splash of gasping air while wading through to reach the teal colored dock splintered into complicated spikes.
Nearing the edge, she coughed twice before boarding the dock, eyes narrowed in slight hiss of realization. Heart leaped in loops of shocking awe, struck down with a bolt of blue.
One of the boats creaked aimlessly away from the ticket booths, two remaining G tubers still slumbered clumsily on their backs against the boats.
Shinigami possessed no choice but to notify about their arrival. She pursued to dispatch her swimming abilities, reaching the creaking boat just in time.
A Pherean and Irisian tamer were deep into sleep, completely unaware of the mysterious place. Ryuk chose her better approach rather than slapping them awake.
"You two, wake up!" With all her blading strength, she flipped the wood over, panicking yells from the two said G - tubers frightened their hearts. Spitting out water while meandering towards the dock, both of them shook themselves a shower of water droplets before Zankye began to complain in an annoyed tone.
"Hey, we were busy establishing the next QR code video!" the pherean tamer spat back, unfazed about the mysterious source of power that the Catacombs were beginning to draw forth a slumbering pill.
"The Graphite colored Rexcalius was the best part all along!" Cyprus added after that, adding a spice to the complaint.
Shinigami merely nodded in disapproving sighs and clutched both of their shoulders as if they were hot handed criminals, "Dreams aside, we have attuned to an important duty. The rest of the Evergrande team is planning to expedite around the Sel de Grotto. I have no clear information on this place but I sense Tamer Ken's appearance along with the rest of the staff."
"Sel de Grotto. Sounds like a famous tropical forest I visited once with my little sister." Cyprus pondered out loud, visibly in awe towards the caves' string of glistening lights suspended from above. The ceiling to the massive underground shelter was a mystery to every tourist.
Spankye suppressed a tiring sigh as he gripped V3 in the palms of his hands. "I just hope that I'm able to catch up with my dad back in Fera instead of walking through a heavenly underground bunker."
Shinigami simply kept herself to the point, the trio traversing through the rim of the Grotto, deepening her luck in sighting the rest of the G - tubers again.
The cool air around them refreshed to a strong point of tinging, a definite sign of awkwardness.
"Heard anything suspicious yet?" Zankye wildly glanced around in search of the mysterious source of scraping rock.
Cyprus shrugged solemly as he walked up to his friend, "No clue. Didn't spot any wildlife lately."
"Calm the scything down. Probably just our puzzled teammates in search of us. Then again, I'm sure it's our mice scuttling around. C'mon. No time to waste." Ryuk hopped over a low stooping ledge, the other two bravely leaping over it before Cyprus imagined himself with a craned neck.
The majority of the Grotto possessed a shape shifting structure, an array of jutted rocks transfluxing here and there. No possibility on how their jumping gaps frequently change by random intervals, Shinigami and the trio trekked west of the main tube, surrounding themselves in shroud of halogen blue. With the spring blade attack shimmering blue, the reflective light from the cave made it look as if Fellscyther equipped the correct color coded scythe.
Digital Purple.
The color of cats, darkness, and the distant yells cornered them off in superficial surprise.
"Ryuk! Where have you beeen to!" Light slammed himself against Shinigami's arrival, maintaining her breathing composure after being strangled by the red head's childish hug.
Storm frankly rolled his eyes in an uncaring way, tired of seeing his buddy's inner child flaring in again as if he gained pumped up Draguz spirit in matter of seconds.
"These two were the remaining clues to this place. Couldn't have left them behind. Now, to drop it off here. What in the world are we doing here?"
"Wait! I know! Maybe there's another Dragoma tournament underway! Ohhh!!!! I can't wait to pown other tamers into this amazing tourney. Yahoo!" Rickers pre-maturely exclaimed in deep joy, his overfired heart for taming scaled him into a deeper level. Rajaion rumbled a low growl, his partner goma chipping in his agreement.
Falco immediately disputed herself to calm the younger down, "Hold your Galahad reins, Zera. Even if we jump into another tournament, your dragon cheater combo would just lay back with a sandwich while all of the other opponents are an easy knock out. I suffice that won't happen buddy."
The brown haired boy frowned in deep childish sorrow, moaning a tiny squeak before nodding in depravity.
"Sorry, for interruption. But me and Storm have been raising voices for decades, we can't afford to break our voice box." Light signaled as he took out his water bottle, in process of rasping uncomfortably as if he was crudely stabbed under Rexcalius's betrayal.
* "Zero Gravity goma. Zero Gravity Launcher" the redhead calmly presented both Forneus and its starter launcher before making Falco gleam in glee. *
"Stressed out and deflated from your possessed friend won't help us anywhere back in training." Falco straightforwardly objected as she gripped determination and started to gaze at the team as if she was leader. "Look, in order for us to track down Seidlitz and his dirty work, we have to unlock the secrets of this place. It's a salt catacomb alright, but it harnesses a vivid bizarre power to influence us all in a weakening statis. That means sucking out our Draguz spirit. Only the creator of the realm is not affected by the suspended overhead crystals above us. As above, so below. Even if Marco wanted to be prized over Rickers, his strong sense of revenge cannot weaken us by the time we scour out for the disgusting dragon. There's only one way to solve this."
"It's gonna take us a billion goma years to scavenge hunt for Zera's friend." Storm wearily sighed as he and Light exchanged notorious glances, a definite sign of something new mentioned. "I highly doubt we would encounter the Tenaki Tenzura staff along with -"
"Rei Morita!" Zera's usurp realization snapped him awake as he worriedly began to whine over the special event that was happening today.
Ryuk felt as if yesterday's incident timelapsed to the current time. Not possible. Did we just portal through 16 hours of day and night?
"Guys?" Shinigami tried hurling their attention but Rickers grasped childish worry.
"I heard he was coming along with the rest of the Tenaki Tenzura Staff to visit the convention and hand out autographs with his signature on it! Marco, why at the very last moment do you have to ruin the fun? " Zera kept the last of his words into immutable sorrow, lacing his mixed feelings rapidly switching around.
"Never mind Morita for now. I have a feeling we're being watched." Shinigami cautiously whispered as the team stooped low from being easily discovered.
Only Falco and the others remained silent, keen to have sensed a mysterious visitor around their shady surroundings. It took several eyes to track the darting shadow, their top tier detection for the figure immediately disputed into launchers deployed as an ideal warning.
"Halt right there!" Falco began as the team started to fix their gaze on one of the tunnel entrances oddly dimmed to hide the visitor's identity. "Fair warning I tell ya. Evergrande G - tubers here. And we are of no harm. Step out, whether you're a friend or foe."
"Mind if I step in, friends? This odd realm drove me deeper to the voices bickering below. Now tell me, who would like to battle while I referee the combat?"
The Evergrande G - tubers tensed in a somber fashion, inhaling their breath while time ticked closer to a curtain call close.
The usual black and white striped outfit along with black pants and boots. A purple wyvern wristband laced around his muscular arm. His honey blonde hair tied into a ponytail as if he was windswept by a tornado. This was the legendary dragon.
Immediately upon recognition, Shinigami dropped her launcher in deep acoustic gasps, heart pounding excitement flowing through her staggering body. She kneeled down while embracing his waist in light hearted sobs.
The team could only speculate at the ever interesting commotion between F3 and the wyvern.