A/N: Okay, here's the next chapter! Subsequent chapters should be shorter. There's a lot of flashbacks in this chapter as Judai tells the gang his past. Flashbacks are bold. Enjoy! We don't own Yugioh GX.


"Wait, you have a dad?" Kathleen asked. "I thought you were raised by Yubel?"

"Yeah, because I...wandered off on my own when my dad took me for a nature walk when I was a kid."

Judai didn't really want to think about that day. Looking back, he was certain that he was the stupidest five-year-old to ever walk the face of the earth.

The little boy walked along with his dad, taking in everything. Suddenly, he saw a baby deer. While he knew that his dad had told him to stay with him, he really wanted to play with that deer (not that he could tell you why—it just looked like it would be fun to play with).

He moved toward the deer, but it ran away from him.

"Hey! Come back! I'm not gonna hurt you!" Judai called, chasing after the frightened animal.

No, there was no way Judai was telling them why he wandered off.

"So, you got lost?" Amon asked.

"Yeah," Judai answered. "That's when Yubel found me."

Judai chased the deer for awhile before it finally got away from him. Looking around for it, he realized that he couldn't see his dad anymore, either.

"Uh-oh..." He looked around, trying to figure out where he was. Unable to find anything familiar, he burst into tears.

Not far away, a humanoid monster with dual-colored hair and eyes heard the sound of crying—a distinctly human sound.

Those lousy... When will they learn to stay out of my territory!?

The monster charged toward the sound, intending to attack and rid the world of one more human. However, as she burst through the brush and appeared before the child, she changed her mind.

He was adorable—not like the people who usually got lost in her territory. Likely, this was because he was so small. Upon seeing her, he stopped crying and stared, frightened. His brown eyes were wide with fear and still wet from crying.

Hmm... It does get a little lonely out here. I know! I'll take him home with me instead. He's young enough still that he can be trained, I'm sure.

"'Kay? Go on," Kathleen said, her tone showing her curiosity.

"She took me back to her place and stuck me in a cage, treating me like a pet for the first week."

"What!?" Johan exclaimed.

Akiko looked disturbed. "What the hell...?"

"Oh!" Haruko cried out, burying her face in Amon's arm. "Scary!"

The monster picked up the small boy and took him to a strange castle hidden deep in the woods. It looked as though this creature had built the place itself as a home, rather than just living in a cave or something.

Judai was taken through the place, down a long hallway into a really dark room—a dungeon, though this one wasn't underground. The monster tossed him into a small cage. Once it shut the door, he looked up at it, terrified.

Who or what is that!? he wondered. Looking at it, he guessed it was a girl. Why did she bring me here? What's going on!?

He was so scared that he was crying again, and he couldn't seem to stop. He also couldn't bring himself to say anything at all.

"That'll do for your new home," the monster said, sounding satisfied. Then she took him back out, as if she had only been checking to see if the cage was big enough.

She took him to a large room and played some games with him—like fetch, which would have been horribly humiliating if he wasn't so terrified. She pet him quite a bit, too.

"That's a good boy," she said, stroking his hair after he'd brought back the ball she'd thrown across the room.

Realizing that he was safe as long as he behaved, Judai stopped crying.

I-I guess she's not gonna hurt me... Better do what she says. I don't wanna make the big, scary monster mad.

Dinner that night came from a dog bowl, which was the last clue Judai needed to realize that he was her pet. He thought it was unfair how his parents wouldn't let him have a dog, and here this monster had just turned him into her own pet.

Over the next week, the monster took Judai on walks around a swamp that apparently was in these woods—with a rope tied around his neck as a leash, of course—and sat with him for hours, petting him and talking to him. All of his meals were served in a dog bowl on the floor, and he was locked in that cage when he wasn't with the monster. He never once said a word, still too scared to speak.

"Yeah, well, one day, she apologized and said that was just because she didn't have any friends, and she was lonely," Judai continued, pushing the memories aside.

Yubel made her way to the dungeon to get her pet. She had been thinking he could use some exercise—and that she should probably give him a name soon. She stopped when she heard voices.

"I'm so scared... I wanna go home," the voice of a young child—her pet—whined. "I wish you g-guys could help me somehow..."

Yubel peeked and saw that the boy was talking to...a deck of cards? So he was a duelist. To her surprise, spirits came out of the cards and started playing around with the kid, as though they were trying to cheer him up. Though, being from cards, they didn't have a solid form, of course. Her theory was confirmed when one of these spirits called the boy a "good friend."

Well, she thought, watching this, this boy's a bit odd, isn't he? Apparently he's a friend to duel spirits. Hmm... I wonder if this could extend to wild spirits...

She approached and, as she did, the spirits retreated back into their cards and the boy fell silent. She took him out of his cage.

"You know, little one, I've been thinking about what I've been doing. And I've decided that it's just not right. I'm sorry for the way I've been treating you," she said gently. "I guess it's because I don't have any friends, so I'm lonely."

"I told her I'd be her friend if she let me go home."

Upon hearing that the monster had no friends, Judai felt sorry for her. "I'll be your friend if you'll be a good girl and let me go home," he offered.

The monster smiled. "I'm Yubel. What's your name?" she asked.

"Judai. Judai Yuki," he answered timidly—she still hadn't said whether he could go home or not. "Can I go home, please? I'm sure my parents are worried, especially Mommy."

"I told her my parents were probably worried, but she said they'd probably forgotten about me."

"Crikey..." Jim said, stunned.

"That's a laugh," Yubel said. "Sorry, kid, but your parents have probably already forgotten all about you. Sadly, that's how it is with humans. Out of sight, out of mind, as they say."

Judai's eyes widened slightly. "Is that true?" he asked, hoping Yubel would say that it wasn't and she was just telling a mean lie.

She nodded. "I'm afraid it is, Judai."

Being naïve, he believed her. For probably the thousandth time that week, he started crying, thinking he'd been abandoned.

"Oh, it's all right," Yubel said soothingly, pulling him into her arms. "I'll look after you, I promise. I'm not like those humans, so I'll never leave you."

"So, I take it she kept you?" Amon asked, drawing Judai back from his memories yet again.

"Yeah," he answered. "But she didn't keep me in a cage anymore. She gave me my own room, toys and games."

Judai squirmed around a bit at these words. She was still scary, regardless of whether he had anywhere else to go.

"But—"

"No buts," Yubel said, picking him up.

She took him out of the dungeon to an upper level of her castle and tossed him into a room with a bunch of boxes.

"She said I wasn't like other humans, and she wanted to protect me from them."

"This is for your own good, Judai. You're not like those other, evil humans. You're much kinder. You shouldn't be anywhere near them, so I'll protect you from them, even if it means protecting you from yourself."

With that, she closed the door. A click told Judai that she had locked him in, leaving the scared boy with nothing to do but think about what she had said.

Soon, she cleared the boxes from the room, adding a comfortable bed, toys, coloring books, and games for him. When he wasn't locked in his room, he was playing with Yubel. She sealed off all of the exits before letting him out of his room, though.

"No human out there is as kind as you, Judai," she told him one day. "I want to protect your innocence."

"Innocence?" he asked.

Yubel rubbed his head but didn't explain the foreign word.

Soon, Judai found himself believing her.

Maybe other humans are mean. I don't know. I don't really know any other humans except my parents...

He thought better of ever thinking about this again as he remembered that his parents had abandoned him. Believing Yubel wasn't too hard, with that in mind. He was still a little scared, but he came to accept that this was how things were.

"Eventually, she came to trust me, and she let me wander around her territory on my own," Judai said, pulling himself from his memories yet again.

"So, what happened? Why do you keep running away?" Kathleen asked. "Is it just for the fun of it?"

Judai shook his head. "No. I did come to think of her as a friend, and I still do. It's just..." He looked away. "It gets a bit lonely out there, you know? Yubel's the only friend I've ever had."

"Really? Then why not just make some?" Kathleen said it as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I mean, you've got plenty of opportunities. You just keep tricking people, myself included. Like right now." Her tone changed, becoming suspicious. "How do I know this isn't all just another one?"

"I'm getting to that," Judai answered, not liking her tone. "After a few years, I decided I wanted to make some more friends. Human friends. See, Yubel thinks that humans are evil, so I thought, maybe, if I could make some more friends, then I could convince Yubel that she was wrong. So I sneaked out and tried to find someone to make friends with." He looked at Kathleen as he added, "That's the first time I saw you."

Judai waited until he knew Yubel would be asleep before creeping over to the door to his room. He knew it wouldn't be locked—she hadn't locked him in since he was seven and she had taught him the boundaries of her territory. Recently, the ten-year-old had decided that Yubel couldn't be right about all other humans being evil. After all, he had to get it from somewhere, didn't he?

Quietly, he opened the door and crept out of the castle, intending to find at least one person to befriend so that he could convince Yubel that she was wrong—after all, they could both benefit from that realization.

"You mean that day in her woods?" Kathleen asked, crossing her arms, referring to an unpleasant encounter two years ago—the day she met him.

"It was close to dawn," Judai continued as though she hadn't spoken. "You were talking to some baby rabbits, taking care of them. They were hurt, and lost, I guess. You told them that it would be okay, asked them where their burrow was. They guided you back to their home." He got lost in the memory again.

Judai watched as the red-head, the only person he'd seen that night, tended to some baby rabbits.

Is she...talking to them? he wondered.

"It'll be okay," the girl said. She sounded friendly. "Don't worry. Where's your burrow?"

As Judai watched, the rabbits seemed to guide the girl back to their burrow.

Okay, talking to animals is one thing. I mean, even when Yubel was treating me like a pet, she talked to me. But having them talk back and understanding what they're saying is a totally different thing! Is this even possible, or am I imagining it?

He took a step forward, intending to talk to the girl.

Kathleen's gasp pulled him back to the present just in time. "Back then!? When I was checking out our new woodland home!?"

"I knew it," Amon muttered. "Country girl."

"I wanted to go talk to you, ask what you were doing, but Yubel found me," Judai went on quickly, before he lost his nerve. "She was angry... I'd never seen her that mad."

"Judai...?" an angry and familiar voice hissed behind him.

He froze. Then, slowly, he turned to see a fuming Yubel glaring at him threateningly. He had never seen that look on her face before.

"I apologized, telling her I was just trying to make a new friend, and she started yelling at me."

"I-I'm sorry," he said, realizing that he was in deep trouble. "I-I was just trying t-to make a new f-friend."

Yubel growled slightly. "What!? Aren't I good enough for you!? Why do you think you have to be with someone else!?"

Automatically, Judai said, "She asked if she wasn't good enough. Why did I think I needed more friends? I had her!"

"So, what happened?" Kathleen asked, her curiosity growing stronger the more he said. Still, she wasn't letting down her guard. Hmm. Wonder if this one's real. He's got so many different acts and stories, after all. Better to be safe than sorry.

"I told her you could never have too many friends and said that maybe humans aren't evil."

Though that wasn't exactly how he'd said it: "W-well, you can never have too many friends. Besides, maybe, just maybe, you're wrong about humans being evil...?" he ventured timidly—she was furious, and it was terrifying.

"She dragged me home, yelling the whole time, and locked me in the dungeon. She called me a traitor, said I'd been siding with the enemy, and reminded me that I'd belonged to her since I was five. She said I had to do what she said, or else."

"You little traitor! Siding with the enemy! How dare you! I own you, Judai, and I have since you were five! You listen to me! Do as I say, or else!"

"So, that's why you keep running away," Johan said. "Told you, Kathleen!"

"Oh, yeah!?" Kathleen said defensively. "Well, that still doesn't explain why he keeps going back!"

"I figured, if I was gonna survive, I had to get out of there, so I spent the next week digging a hole in my cell, trying to get through the back wall. If I could just get outside, I'd be home free! But Yubel came back with an evil grin before I could finish. She told me she had something...that would help us stay together forever."

Judai climbed out of his hole and covered it over quickly, hearing someone coming down the hallway to the dungeon. The smile on Yubel's face was scary.

Has she figured out how she's gonna punish me? I'm out of time!

She grinned at him. "I've found something that will help us stay together forever, Judai," she said.

Judai fidgeted, worried. "What do you mean?" he asked, not sure he really wanted to know.

In answer, Yubel opened the cell and grabbed him.

Kathleen turned back to Judai. "Huh?" she asked, slightly stunned.

"And what was that?" Jim asked.

Judai didn't answer right away, causing some of the group to lean forward curiously while others cocked their heads or raised their eyebrows.

"A bomb," he finally said.

Kathleen and Haruko gasped.

"A what!?" Johan asked, effectively startled.

"She stuck a bomb on my leg. She told me that, if I ever thought of running away or betraying her, she'd blow me sky high."

Yubel stuck something on his right ankle—a black, metal object with a blinking red light. He stared at it, horrified. When he tried to pull it off, it wouldn't budge.

"What did you do!? What is this thing!? Yubel!?" he demanded, scared to death.

"What I've done, Judai, is ensure your loyalty. That is a bomb; and, should you even think of betraying me or running away, I'll blow you sky high!" She held the controller up menacingly to emphasize her point.

"So that's why you were so nervous every time I saw you in my part of the woods," Kathleen said, mercifully pulling him away from those memories yet again with the sound of her voice.

Amon asked, "A bomb, huh? And you still like her? Why?"

"I tried to reason with her, telling her that I'd never planned on leaving or betraying her, that I just wanted another friend," Judai said, finishing that bit up before answering the boy's question. "That's...when she told me her story."

"How does that answer my question?" Amon asked, sounding irritated. "You listen about as well as Johan does sometimes."

"Her story's what kept me from hating her."

Amon raised an eyebrow as Judai debated whether he should tell these humans Yubel's past, especially Kathleen.

Kathleen solved that problem for him rather quickly. "You mean the one about the man who turned the princess into a monster?" she asked.

"That's part of it," Judai admitted grudgingly.

"Wait," O'Brien said. "I don't get it. Isn't that story just a myth?"

"I'm sorry, I'm confused," Akiko said. "What story are you people talking about?"

"I'm lost, too," Haruko admitted. "What's this story about a princess getting turned into a monster?" In a mutter, she added, "No that I want to know, but..."

"That's what I've been trying to tell you!" Kathleen said. "Yubel's that witch I mentioned! Tell 'em, Judai!"

"Well, what Yubel told me was that she was abandoned by her parents when she was little, so she was raised by the royal adviser," he started, still not sure he should be doing this. "He treated her really bad. When she was older, she ran away, not wanting to be queen. She didn't think she'd make a very good one. So she left to find her true self.

"She wandered into some woods and was nearly killed at every turn. Finally, she found a house and knocked on the door, hoping that whoever lived there would help her. A man answered and said he would help her by giving her the strength she needed. She agreed, and he turned her into a monster. After that, the man disappeared. That's when Yubel decided that humans were evil, and she's been attacking any foolish enough to get too close to this day."

"So, what? You feel sorry for your kidnapper?" Amon asked, incredulous. He's really beginning to remind me of another certain clown I know.

"She actually considers me a friend," Judai defended himself. "And, with what she's been through, that's a first. She trusted me, even though she had no reason to."

"So, if you're so happy with her, why leave? Just 'cause you want more friends? That's a dumb reason," Amon said.

"I never said I was happy with her. She's crazy, no doubt about that. I never wanted to live with her in the first place. And who are you, anyway?" he asked, irritated with this guy.

"Okay. Now I'm confused," O'Brien said. "And I don't get confused easily. Are you friends with her or not?"

"Yes. Though she's gotten crazier lately, if that's possible."

"So, are you looking for your family now because of that?"

"I'm...just trying to get away from her," Judai answered carefully. "It doesn't matter if I find my family or not. Just so long as I get away from that crazy Yubel."

Akiko crossed her arms. "So, in other words, yes."

"But is this really smart?" O'Brien asked. "Doesn't she have a controller for that bomb? Should you really be running away without removing it? Or did you already remove it?"

"I can't remove it," Judai answered. "If I try to break it off, it'll blow." He held up the controller—the tiny device he had stolen twice in one day. "But I got the control, at least."

"What!?" O'Brien asked, seemingly stunned.

"I tried to escape again a few years ago, when Yubel started acting really weird. She caught me trying to saw off the bomb, so she locked me in the dungeon again until she could get a new one made that blows up if I'm not careful."

He flashed back for the hundredth time today...

"Almost there..." he muttered.

"What are you doing!?"

Judai's attention snapped to the doorway of the kitchen—Yubel stood there, her expression a mixture of anger and concern, watching as he tried to saw the bomb off with a knife.

"Uh..."

She glared and held up the controller. "I'm warning you, Judai. If you don't stop right now, I will do it."

The thirteen-year-old dropped the knife. "Please, have mercy!" he begged, scared to death as he wondered what she'd do to punish him this time.

She slapped him a couple dozen times before throwing him in the dungeon again. After that, she stormed off, presumably to find a new, more horrible punishment for him. Fortunately for him, when Yubel was mad, she often forgot important things...like that she should search him before locking him up.

When he was sure she was gone, he slipped a screwdriver out of the pocket of his jacket. He used it to remove the bottom hinge on the cell door, which allowed him to squeeze out.

Now all I've gotta do is finish getting this thing off, he thought. And get out of here and find help. I mean, if I don't get out of here this time, she'll probably turn me into a mindless drone or something!

Unfortunately, Yubel had been thinking clearly enough to remove all sharp objects before she left—or anything he could potentially use as a saw. There wasn't anything in the castle anywhere that he could use.

Man, she moves fast, Judai thought in frustration as he continued his desperate search.

As it got later, Judai worried what would happen when Yubel came back to feed him that night and found his cell empty.

"Maybe I should just slip back in and try to fix it," he muttered before running to the dungeon to do just that.

He ran in just in time to see Yubel. She looked ready to strangle him, so he dropped to his knees.

"Oh, please, whatever you're thinking of doing, don't do it!" he begged.

Yubel laughed a bit. "I thought you'd try something like this. Knowing you, you think I'm going to kill you, right? Don't worry. I'm not mad, just disappointed that you're so scared of me. You should know by now that I'm not going to do anything too bad to you. I love you, after all. But, for your previous actions, you must be punished. Two weeks in the dungeon and no dinner tonight."

She held up the controller. "Now, give me your leg," she demanded.

Judai sat down, rolled up the leg of his jeans, and extended his leg toward her, getting a bad feeling. Yubel put something else on his leg before taking off the bomb. The new object looked exactly like the bomb he'd nearly gotten off.

"This is like the old bomb, but more...fragile," Yubel explained, grinning as she said the last word. "If it receives even the tiniest nick, it will blow up instantly."

O'Brien's words drew Judai back to the present. "That has to be a bluff. Bombs like that don't exist."

"How do you know?" Kathleen asked.

"O'Brien's what you might call an expert on weaponry," Jim answered.

"I admire that about him," Akiko said.

"Oh, a mercenary, then? Or was he in the army?" Kathleen waved it aside and added, "Anyway, Akiko, nice to know you have the perfect boyfriend." Muttering, she added, "You two were just made for each other."

Haruko went nuts at this innocent statement. "NO, NO, NO! AUSTIN'S MINE! MINE, I TELL YOU! NOT HERS! MINE!"

"Really?" Kathleen asked. "Why? You like soulless stiffs?"

"She just likes guys period," Akiko answered. "That is, if they're strong."

"Anyway," Johan said. "O'Brien's got a point. That's straight out of science fiction. How are you sure it an't just a bluff?"

"I'm not, but I don't really want to find out."

"May I see this bomb?" O'Brien asked.

Judai looked at him suspiciously.

"It's okay. You can trust me. I've got plenty of experience with this stuff."

Judai wasn't sure he really wanted to know; he just pulled up the leg of his pants to show the bomb. O'Brien walked over and knelt down, getting a better look. Glancing at Kathleen's face, Judai felt a sense of triumph.

"Hmm. So, it's one of those. Then you need a key to remove it safely. Any idea where she put it?"

Recovering from the shock, Kathleen went ballistic. "Oh, my gosh!" she exclaimed. "It's true! It's really true! You're actually telling the truth for once!"

Judai ignored this rude and unfair comment. "No, I don't have a clue where she put it," he told O'Brien.

"Hmm." O'Brien thought for a second. "Then I'll have to resort to Plan B. Yubel should come looking for you soon, and just having that controller isn't enough to get you away from her. So I'll have to use my tools to carefully pick that lock. Hold still."

He pulled out some doodad Judai had no name for and started fiddling around with the lock, making Judai slightly nervous. After a couple minutes, a click announced the success of the lock-picking, and O'Brien removed the bomb. Judai added that to his list of things to learn.

"There," he said. "You're free now."

Judai looked at his leg for a moment, slightly stunned. "Thanks," he said after a moment.

"Three cheers for O'Brien!" Johan said. "He's done it again! Nice work, pal!"

"Wow. Soulless or not, that was super nice," Kathleen observed.

"My darling Austin isn't soulless!" Haruko said proudly. "He's just stoic."

"Again, I thought you loved Amon today?"

O'Brien chose to ignore the girls. "Now, about your parents, I'll do my best to find them for you."

"Again, thanks," Judai said. "I'd really appreciate the help."

"ARG!" a frustrated and angry female voice said. "You're crazy! You know that!?"

Everyone turned, wondering who exactly the crazy person was, and why the whole town needed to know.