Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal
Series: Order of the Outcasts #1
Title: Origins: Chapter 1: Into The Underground
Characters: Nasch, Merag, Durbe, Mizael, Gilag, Alit, Vector, Don Thousand
Word Count: chapter: 2,542||story: 2,542
Genre: Fantasy, Drama||Rated: PG-13
Notes: This series takes place in a quasi-medieval fantasy world originally inspired by the concepts set forth in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying, but is not restricted by those concepts. They simply give it some of the foundation. Also, there's a reason I'm using 'Ryouga' and 'Rio' as opposed to 'Nasch' and 'Merag'. That will come into play in the sequel. There will also be pairings in the future, of the male x male, female x male, and female x female types.
Summary: [1/20; Seven Barian Emperors; au: fantasy] A bard. A priestess. A mage-knight. A druid. A gladiator. A ranger. A man of mystery. A quest to find a stolen item brings them all together. And thus a legend begins.

"You expect me to believe this is it?" Alit folded his arms over his chest and stared at the vine and moss covered entryway half-hidden in the embrace of a small rise that didn't quite deserve the name of a hill. "We are being paid to get back this amazing wonderful magical artifact from these extremely skilled thieves and you think they're hiding out here?"

The blond ranger shot a cool look toward him, one lip curled with disdain. "Are you questioning my skills?" One graceful elven eyebrow lifted, as if he could not believe someone would do that.

"Yes." The ex-gladiator didn't so much as blink at Mizael's reaction. "If they're as skilled as this guy says they are, then why are they hiding here?" He waved one hand abruptly toward the so-called hideout. "Shouldn't they be in some kind of a fortress? Or in the city?"

"I followed them here when they first stole the treasure." Their guide didn't take his eyes off the opening for a moment. "There are traps inside, designed to keep anyone from getting to their inner lair with all of their body parts intact." Something that could've been a hint of amusement laced through his words.

Sea-blue eyes contemplated the situation before them before the putative leader of the group spoke a single sentence. "We go inside."

Silence fell for the first few seconds before Alit shook his head. "What kind of traps are you talking about, Vector?"

The guide shrugged, a quick ripple of motion across his shoulders. "I didn't get very far before I decided it was better to get more talented help."

"The sooner we get this done, the better." A quiet, determined nod accompanied the young priestess's words as she began to shift forward.

Before she could take more than a few steps, a hand closed itself around her shoulder. "Let me check to make certain there aren't any booby-traps out here, Rio."

Rio stepped backwards at once as the young man next to her moved upward, taking each step with caution. He waved the others back as well, with only the ranger Mizael and the bard Ryouga paying attention right away.

"Don't get in his way." Ryouga shot a look at the others. "He knows what he's doing."

Alit rolled his eyes but took another step back. The last of the seven, a tall burly man whose features gave an impression of having been halfway carved and halfway smushed together by someone who had only the vaguest thoughts on what a human face should look like, didn't move at all. He was too busy looking more intently at the trees and bushes all around them.

"Gilag?" Alit started to reach for his friend's shoulder, only for the other to move forward. His thick fingers moved in a pattern Alit recognized from having seen more than once over the last few months and he froze where he stood. "Gilag?" The second speaking of the name held more than the curiosity of the first. Now Alit worried what his druid friend had seen that the rest of them, even the supposed skilled fighter-mage Durbe, hadn't.

Without saying a word, Gilag reached up to one trailing vine, took firm hold of it, and yanked it down and away from everyone else. The other six skipped back, some –Alit in particular- with the kind of language on their lips that many mothers would've threatened to wash their children's mouths out with soap had they heard.

In the same moment, half a dozen sharp-edged darts flew from the same tree, zooming right where the group had stood only moments earlier. Silence reigned for a few breaths, before Vector carefully moved over to find where the darts had plowed into a tree.

"These are poisoned," he announced after staring at them for nearly a solid minute. "I'm not sure what kind it is, but there is something smeared on them."

"We can worry about that later." Ryouga kept the bulk of his attention on the doorway before them. "We have other things to do right now. Durbe?"

The mage-fighter nodded, turning his attention back to his original efforts. He did glance for a moment at Gilag, questions dancing through his eyes, but said nothing. Instead, he started working a spell of his own, searching for any other traps or troubles their enemies could've set to delay them, or worse.

"There's nothing else here," he said at last, having surveyed the territory with eyes both magical and mundane. "We can go in safely."

Alit snorted briefly. "We've already had poison darts being kind of thrown at us. What are they going to have in there?"

"Whatever it is, we're going to get through it." Ryouga stepped forward, taking each movement with the kind of skill that said he knew how to use the rapier at his side as well as he did the lute on his back.

One by one they crossed the short stretch of grass that led to the doorway. None of them relaxed; relaxing going into the enemy stronghold, no matter how unlikely such a stronghold was, would be asking to die, or worse. Each one of them knew intimately there were fates far worse than death.

Past the entrance loomed a room, cool and dark, with faint sounds as of water trickling down the packed earth walls. Underneath their feet large flagstones stretched out, and torches hung from the walls, some guttering and low, others bright and flaming.

Mizael sniffed, nose wrinkling. "Don't they ever wash around here? This place reeks of unwashed humans."

Alit turned to stare at the elf, shaking his head a fraction. "Did you actually just say that?"

"And if I did?" Mizael barely gave the ex-gladiator a glance, still looking around the entryway itself. "It's only the truth."

Ryouga ignored them both to look at Vector, the only one of them who had ever been here before. "Which way do we go?"

The guide jerked his head toward the farther wall. "There's another room down that way. You'll see why I stopped once we get there."

Accompanied by Alit's mutterings and Mizael's murmurs of displeasure, the group followed Vector into the darker regions. The farther they went, the fewer torches they saw, until they spied a slightly darker shadow that reminded one of a doorway. No torches at all adorned the walls that way, and the door seemed more of a suggestion than anything else.

"Are you sure this is the way to go?" Rio wanted to know, eyeing Vector.

"This is the way that I came when I was here." Vector gestured to what lay ahead of them. "This is the only way out of here that I could find."

"If there are other ways, we could've found them." Durbe suggested, glancing back over his shoulder. "Enough of us know enough different magics."

Vector's teeth clenched for a moment, but he said nothing contrary, only motioned again to the way before them. "This is what I know. If you want to waste time, go right ahead. Be my guest."

Ryouga, Durbe, and Rio exchanged quick glances of their own, while Alit shrugged and started for the door.

"Let's just get this over with." He liked the idea of getting paid for this, but even more, he liked the idea of actually doing something, instead of standing around talking about what they might possibly do.

Gilag sighed for a moment, casting his eyes upward in a silent prayer before he followed. He didn't like being down here underneath the earth instead of outside in the clean air and growing life, but whether he liked it or not, this was necessary.

No sooner had all seven of them crossed into whatever lay beyond, a thick slab of rock slammed down where the doorway had been, and brilliant light burst out all around them, shining from the floor, ceiling, and walls. Mizael said a word in his native language that none of them understood, but everyone grasped the meaning of just by his tone.

"Yeah, what he said," Alit muttered, looking around, hands clenched into tight fists. "Someone around here has a lousy sense of humor." He rubbed at his eyes with one hand as they adjusted, trying to see what was around them.

Instead of the soft earth and rocks of the previous room, metal gleamed all around them, the work of civilized hands. No torches or lanterns lit the way, nor were they needed. The light took care of it all.

Soft whuff-whuffs swished somewhere ahead of them, on the other side of the narrow corridor they found themselves in. No one needed to talk about moving now; there wasn't anywhere else they could go.

"Vector." Durbe made the name a question as they walked. "How did you get out of here?"

Vector shook his head. "The same way we just got in. That didn't happen when I was here before." He sounded more than a little put out about that as well.

Durbe cast a glance at Ryouga and Rio, but there was no time to question anything, as the short passage widened in front of them, revealing even more metallic walls and light reflecting all around them.

Now they could see what caused the swishing sounds. From the ceiling and walls extended oversized scythes, the edge of the blades gleaming in the magical light, moving back and forth over a large, deep pit. Alit moved closer to the edge of it, peering downward before he stepped away from it.

"Spikes. Thick ones, too, and sharp. Anyone falls down there, they're going to die." He reported, focusing on the moving scythes again. He tried to see what could lie beyond them, but the light and the continual swish and slice of the blades made that difficult. No matter how he squinted, he couldn't make out much more than a vague shape that could've been anything from a torch to a pole to a very thin tree.

"Someone has to get across these." Durbe declared. "If this is the path they use to their innermost lair, then there has to be a way through."

"So where is it?" Mizael cocked one eyebrow, examining the area with his own sharp eyes. He answered his own question a moment later. "There! There's some sort of lever on the far side." Apparently elven eyes saw more clearly than humans. Alit decided to ignore that for now.

Ryouga glanced at them all. "Any volunteers?" His gaze flicked past Vector briefly, who didn't even look at him.

Alit stepped forward, rolling his shoulders, a hint of a grin on his lips. "If I may have the honor?" It wasn't a question, not really.

Gilag set a hand on his shoulder before he got any closer. "Ponta could make it across there."

"Probably could, but I want to." Alit eyed the display before them. "This isn't so bad."

"Did you have a preference for where we should send any of your remains? Assuming we could collect enough of you for any burial rites," Mizael asked, one lip twitching upward.

"Sure. Send them home to Emperor Leonius in Spartan City." Alit flashed a smirk before he crouched down and leaped forward with all of his strength.

"Whoa, there are people there!" Coyote prodded at the reflection in the magical mirror. Was he really seeing what he thought he saw or was it just some kind of illusion? "I didn't think anyone was really going to come." A smile slashed across his lips and he laughed. "Wonder how long it'll take for them to get squished." It would happen. No one could get through all of the traps that they'd set. And even if somehow they managed –which they wouldn't-, the three of them had their final trick to play on them, the one that no one could beat, no matter how hard they tried.

Jackal lounged on his favored couch, sharpening one of his daggers until it could cut the wind. "Not soon enough. How'd they get by the first trap, anyway?"

"I dunno, I wasn't looking." Coyote shrugged, still staring into the mirror. He almost wished there could be a way to show past events on it, but the spell only reflected what was going on in the chosen areas, not what had happened before. Maybe they should look into setting one of the spells on the outside of the lair in case another batch of intruders turned up before they abandoned the area.

Both of them turned at the sound of firm footsteps as the third of their group entered the chamber. The only reason Wolf's steps sounded in the first place was because he wanted them to know he was there. Otherwise one would have had better luck seeing the wind.

"One of them knows something of nature magic, I believe. He detected the dart trap and destroyed it." Wolf said, taking his place in his usual ornate chair, a magnificent creation woven of vines and treeroots. He clarified a little more at his companions' curious looks. "I was watching from outside. They never even saw me."

"Of course they didn't." Jackal rolled his eyes at the very thought of anyone being able to detect Wolf when he didn't want to be. Like his namesake, he was a part of the woods around them. That was why their lair was here, and not in some far-off city. Not to mention that it was much easier to guess if someone was there for them in particular out here than in a crowded city street. "So, when are we going to send out the ransom demand?" That would have to be done sooner or later. He could just begin to imagine what it would be like to have all the money they wanted delivered to them. And he didn't doubt at all that it would be. Wolf said it would, and his plans always worked.

Wolf said nothing right away, his fingers steepled under his chin. Jackal and Coyote watched, knowing that their leader knew far more about running this kind of scheme than either of them did. They trusted him with their lives; that was their strength and always had been.

"Let's see how far they can get." Wolf spoke at last, lips curving upward into a wicked smirk. "I doubt it will be very far, but they interest me. Don Thousand wouldn't have sent them if they were complete incompetents."

Coyote tilted his head back and laughed. Oh, he loved the way that his leader thought. That was why Wolf was the leader in the first place. He always had the best ideas. "You're right, of course. And it should be funny to watch them anyway."

"Right." Wolf smiled, the tips of his teeth gleaming in the light that glowed around them. They'd all gone too far and done too much to give up entertaining themselves with whatever offered itself as amusement, and the efforts of this group of fools who thought they could get through the traps set up specifically to interfere with people trying to come get their precious treasure would be worth waiting to see. "Let's enjoy the show."

To Be Continued