disclaimer: I do not own Peeps or Yu-Gi-Oh.

author's note: Here's chapter two. It took a while to post because I tried to make this one longer than the first chapter. I hope you like it! Also, I'd like to thank irrelevantmaverick and yugioh rocks for their reviews.

irrelevantmaverick- Marik's not the evil one this time but I'm not going to make him go OOC either. ;-)

yugioh rocks- I know what video you're talking about, (love it!!!((Seto Kaiba Addresses...)) ) and next time I'll try to update sooner.


Through the Vortex

The tunnel did make his fall longer. Marik thought that the thing would take a few seconds tops to get through, but so far he had been in the shadowy vortex for ten minutes. This kind of was a good thing, now he knew that he wasn't going to the Shadow Realm because it wouldn't have taken very long to get there.

Everything in the tunnel was beginning to slow down. At the slowest-swirling part of the vortex a light appeared. It had to be the exit. Marik went over to it and began to fall, again. Except this time the fall was at normal speed and completely vertical.

Landing was pure agony. The moment he hit the ground he felt a burning, searing pain that he thought should've been a lot worse. He ignored it, concentrating on the warmth of the morning sun, letting the pain and his consciousness ebb away.

-----

"Ha! I got here before those annoying Indigos. This is something new."

"Harrison . . ."

"That was just me trying to be optimistic about something, Ishizura."

She sighed. "Next time try not to insult anyone when you're being –"

"—what's that over there?" Ishizura glared at him for interrupting her. "Don't you see that thing by the mango tree?"

"I am sure that it is nothing out of the ordinary." she said, figuring it was one of his jokes.

"Then why've I never seen something like it before?"

"Stop fooling around, Harrison."

"But I'm being serious! It's right next to that tree and it looks like it's still alive."

What her little brother said got Ishizura worried. The last time Harrison mentioned something was still alive, they took home a dragonfly that he thought would make a good pet. She really hoped this wasn't going to be a repeat of that fiasco especially since the dragonfly escaped and he complained about it for a month.

"Oh, all right. Let's take a look at the mango tree." She went closer to the spot her brother was staring at but kept her distance from the tree and whatever was near it.

"See? It kinda looks like it got hurt or something."

"He's human . . ." she said softly.

"You said it's a what?"

"Don't call other beings 'it' and I said that he's human."

"How do you know–" Harrison stopped himself from saying the word 'it'. "The person is a he?"

"I've seen others like him, like the leader of the Indigos."

"Are you saying that we were about to help one of them?!"

Ishizura shook her head. "No, besides Indigos don't wear gold. Remember?"

"It looked like brass to me." he mumbled.

-----

Marik woke up sometime around noon to the sound of two voices arguing. The part of the conversation he heard was:

"Are you sure you brought enough bruise balm?"

"Yes."

"Really?!"

"This is extra-strength healing ointment. Anything more than this would make him permanently smell like chamomile."

"I bet he wouldn't mind smelling like a teabag if he knew about weekly lavender bubble baths."

"Harrison, you know perfectly well that you would not have to take those if you voluntarily took a bath at least once a month."

The voices seemed to be getting closer to him. He could also hear a soft rustling around him. The noise was too constant to be from footsteps but at the same time too slow for running. It sounded almost like hopping . . .

Cracking open an eye he tried to find the spot where the voices were coming from. This didn't go very well mostly because he couldn't see past all of the two feet tall grass that was blocking his view. This left him with two options: stay lying down hoping that whoever was coming didn't mind him being there, or standing up and risk being seen. He chose the latter and got to his feet, feeling needles of pain shoot through his legs.

In the distance he saw two yellow bird-like creatures. One of them was about three and a half feet tall with small wings while the other looked more like a swan, standing at 5'6" wearing a thin silver necklace. Both of them could've passed as regular birds if they: had feet, had feathers instead of their yellow fluff, and were not talking.

Seeing two large yellow fluffy things talk, not to mention hop closer to him, was a bit too much for Marik. "What the heck IS this place?!"

"Look! He's standing!" said the shorter bird, stating the obvious.

"I know that, Harrison." Ishizura said with strained patience. "Now don't you think you should answer his question?"

"Um . . . okay." He flew over to the shocked teen and landed with a loud flop! "I'm guessing that you don't know what this place is because you've never been to this dimension before. Er . . . have you ever been to another dimension?"

Marik shook his head, more in disbelief than at the question. Things were just getting stranger. He took a step backwards, away from the bird, and bumped into the mango tree.

"Well, this is another dimension. If you want to be exact about it, it's the fifty-fourth dimension. . ."

The collision made a tremor go up the trunk of the tree and travel up its branches, causing one of the fruits to sway dangerously.

". . . also called the Dimension of Peeps." he finished.

Marik wasn't sure if he should pretend that he was having a dream or let that strange dizzy feeling take over. Twenty feet up a mango began to fall after swaying for a few seconds. When the fruit landed, it made Marik's decision for him. He had been hit on the pressure point at the back of his neck by an unusually heavy mango, knocking him unconscious.