Echo: Well, A Rose in the Stars is over, so here's the sequel! Through the Cosmos!

Goldfish: Yes. It is. The sequel. How interesting. I'm going back to plotting world domination.

Echo: I'm not even going to bother to tell you otherwise. It's hopeless. You go plot world domination then.

Goldfish: I will.

Echo: I need to get another cat.

Goldfish: Don't you dare!

Echo: Whatever. Just do the disclaimer.

Goldfish: EchoGirl319 does not own Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's.

Through the Cosmos

Prologue

~ What Travels Across Time ~

Destiny yawned loudly and glanced at the clock. It was well past midnight. She glanced at her four friends – Jake Atlas, Chris Kessler, Mark Kessler and Vanessa Hogan – who were all lying spread out across her bedroom.

"It's late," she told them, "maybe we should pack it in."

"You kidding, Queenie?" Chris groaned, rolling over onto his stomach and flicking his bluish silver out of his eyes. "It's not even two o'clock yet!"

"Yeah," Vanessa agreed, lifting her head and running her hand through her short, messy orange locks. Mark nodded his head in agreement and Jake merely grunted.

The room was silent for a few moments; only the sound of the rain loudly pelting against the window could be heard. Destiny sat up on the bed and drew her knees up to her chest. "Fine," she muttered.

Life had been fairly boring during the nine months that had followed Sayer's defeat. Destiny's birthday had passed, as well as Chris and Mark's. Her duel runner had been completed – it was a dark magenta colour with distinctive black and white markings and a red dragon in flight painted down one side. Her parents, much to Destiny's glee, had gotten married only a few months ago. There had been no new threats from old or new enemies and Destiny's newfound powers hadn't bothered her. Not in the waking world at least.

Lightning flashed, momentarily flooding the room with a harsh white light. Instinctively, everyone drew back, away from the window.

"Storm," Jake murmured. The others nodded. Vanessa stood up and went to close the curtains.

"Can't bother us now," she announced.

"Storms always remind me of the stories our parents told us," Mark said, "the ones about the Dark Signers. Apparently when they duelled the sky was always dark and when the Earthbound Immortals were summoned..."

"It felt like it would never be light again," Destiny finished for him.

Chris snorted. "Who cares? The Dark Signers are gone now. One little thunder storm isn't going to bring them back."

"I never said they would," Mark replied, his voice even. "The Signers and the Crimson Dragon defeated them. They can't, won't, come back."

Destiny smiled sadly at the twin's conviction. Their father – Kalin Kessler – was her honorary uncle and a former Dark Signer. One who had retained his memories after the miniature war. He was good now though, back to who he had been when he was younger, but when she looked deep into his eyes Destiny could see that he was still haunted by the times that he had fought on the side of evil. Chris and Mark's faith in him was touching, inspiring even.

"How're you, anyway?" Vanessa asked, changing the subject. "I take it your almighty Crimson Vessel powers are still intact? Not out of practice after nine months?" she laughed.

Destiny shook her head. "Perfectly intact," she told them. "They don't just disappear, Nessie. Everything's fine."

Jake snorted. "Unlikely. You talk in your sleep. Sometimes you scream. I know they bother you."

So someone did know that her powers, her memories of her past lives, affected her dreams. Damn Jake and his subtle observations.

"I relive things that happened to my other lives," she admitted quietly, "or things that happened in my true form. Battles I've fought in and such. Some of my lives were evil or just completely misunderstood for my powers. One of my lives, I think I living in the eighteen/nineteen hundreds or something, spent years in an asylum," she shuddered. "I've had more access to my powers, and to my memories, since my soul was judged. Sometimes I feel that's not always a good thing."

She trailed off, her eyes taking on a blank, glassy sort of look as she stared unseeingly at the wall. She was jolted out of her trance as Chris leapt up onto the bed beside her.

"Ever see any battles our folks were involved in?" he questioned. "The Dark Signers? Ylliaster? The Fortune Cup, even?"

She shook her head. "No, never seen any of them."

"But you would like to," Mark said as he also crawled onto the bed. Jake and Vanessa followed his example.

"I guess I would," Destiny admitted. "Especially the Dark Signers and the Fortune Cup."

The Fortune Cup was where the Signers discovered who they were, Destiny thought, and where dad met mom. And the Dark Signer war was where Sayer got eaten by Ccarayhua. I wish I'd seen that; it must have freaking hilarious.

"She just wants to see Sayer become lunch for a giant lizard."

"Oh, Jakey, you know me too well."

"Don't call me that!" Jake snapped, folding his arms across his chest.

Vanessa laughed loudly. "Doesn't your mother still call you that?"

Jake scowled and muttered something incoherent about his mother and her stupid nicknames.

Lightning flashed again and this time a rumble of thunder followed. Destiny fell back against the pillows. "We really should get some sleep."

The others eventually mumbled reluctant agreements and one by one they also lay their heads down on pillows and drifted to sleep. Soon, Destiny was the only one left awake on the now incredibly cramped bed.

She relived memories in her dreams; something which could be more of a burden than a gift but she had never seen the battles her parents and the other Signers had fought in, the ones she had only ever heard stories of yet longed to see with her own eyes. What would it be like to be there and witness what happened. The war against the Dark Signers and the Fortune Cup? Of course, she'd want Jake, Chris, Mark and Nessie there as well.

"I wish I could see what happened," she whispered, "experience it."

Truly, mistress? A familiar voice echoed within her mind. You wish to experience those times?

Yes, Red Destiny, she replied mentally, I do. With the others, of course. They want to see it as much as I do. You too, you're the other half of me, so you'd have to come as well.

Yes. I would. Is this what you truly wish for?

Yes, it is. And with that, Destiny drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.

She did not feel the soul, heart, of her other half, her ace monster, combine with the half of the Crimson Dragon that was her soul, nor did she notice the faint burning on her back as one of her marks – the one on her back, the full body mark that represented her, the Crimson Vessel – as it lit up with a mysterious, all too familiar red glow. Or that the same red glow was faintly visible beneath her closed eyelids. She did not notice as that red glow grew to encompass her entire body, or as it expanded even further to surround the sleeping bodies of her four friends.

No one noticed the glow that surrounded them mould into the coiled form of a huge red dragon; the combined souls of Destiny and her signature beast. The Crimson Dragon lifted its majestic head in a silent roar and spread its wings before flashing through the dimensions of time, the body of its human form and her friends – it's friends from this mortal life – carried with it. Then it left, vaporising into thin air, splitting its soul in two once more and letting the halves return to their separate forms.

Destiny had forgotten one of her abilities as the Crimson Dragon. She was able to travel across the boundaries of space and time.

Not very far away, in the middle of New Domino City, a young man worked on his duel runner alone in a garage readying himself for the Fortune Cup, taking no notice of the storm that raged outside. He paused for a moment and lifted a single card from his deck holder and turned it over.

Stardust Dragon.

Holding the card at eye level, the man's eyes narrowed and hardened in determination and he clenched his free fist. He had to defeat Jack and save his friends; Rally, Blitz, Tank and Nervin were relying on him. He had to find out what was so important about that strange mark that sometimes appeared on his arm, and that mysterious red dragon that appeared while he and Jack were duelling. And, most of all, he had to find out exactly what Goodwin was up to.

Echo: Well, that's the prologue. The next chapter will be up soon. I promise.

Goldfish: *holds minature dynamite in one fin* Review. Or else.

Echo: I thought we already had the 'threatening people is bad' conversation.

Goldfish: You spout that to me all the time. I just don't listen.

Echo: You're a psychopath, you know that?

Goldfish: An all powerful, soon to control the entire world psychopath.

Echo: Dream on.

Goldfish: Review.

Echo: *glares*

Goldfish: ... Please.

Echo: Finally! Something we agree on!