Susan: I'm really sorry about how long I take between updates. I've just been caught up in my life, and haven't had time to write. I'm going to try to update at least twice a month starting in July, but it all depends on my schedule and if I have the privacy and peace that I need to write. Corrections now go through Chapter 9!

Alara: Susan doesn't own Yu-Gi-Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh GX, or anything like that. She only owns her OC's. Enjoy the new chapter.

Susan: AND JUST SO YOU KNOW, I DON'T HAVE ANY PROBLEM WITH AUSTRALIAN PEOPLE! I THINK THAT THEY ARE WONDERFUL, JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE AROUND THE WORLD!

D.M.G.'s POV

I woke up as the sun shone through one of the broken windows. For the first few moments, I didn't understand why I was laying on a couch in a run-down building, before what Jim had said echoed through my head. "I hate males," my voice was choked, but I managed to hold in the sobs that I felt bubbling to get out. "You're all cruel. You toy with us." Curling up on my side, I started crying, both at Jim's words and my own stupidity at thinking that he might like me.

Hassleberry's POV

I was up before the sun had completely risen, anxious to find Dark Magician Girl after yesterday. After dressing and grabbing my things, I hurried from my room. Dark woke up as I was opening the door, and so I told him to grab Jaden and Syrus after he was ready. Alara was waiting at the door leading outside of our dorm. "When did you finally stop searching last night?" I asked as we walked towards the forest.

"Sometime around eleven probably. It got so dark that I couldn't see in front of me. You?"

"I don't know. It was black outside by the time I came back to the dorm." We continued on, calling out for the young magician as we did. "Dark Magician Boy!" the abandon dorm was off to our left, but I doubted that she would have gone in. It wasn't the best place to stay since there were holes throughout the walls and roof. Alara and I searched until we had to leave or else be late for class. Even once I was in physical education, I was still thinking about Dark Magician Girl. Jim was in my class, and I shot him a dirty look as we ran laps.

D.M.G.'s POV

I heard Hassleberry and Alara calling my alias, but I ignored them. Once their voices had disappeared, I used my magic to transport home. Mystical Elf was just about to leave for her school when I appeared in front of her.

"What's up D?" she asked, smiling, but then the smile turned to a frown. "Why aren't you at school?"

"I'm not feeling too great."

"Do you want me to heal you?" I couldn't help but grin slightly at my sister's reaction.

She's ready to drop everything at a moments notice just to help me, yet she insists on being a total pill the rest of the time. What did I ever do that was so great to make her like that? "No, don't worry about it. I think I'll just stick around the house today and talk with Mom when she comes home." I walked up and kissed Mystical Elf on the forehead while giving her a hug. "Have a good day at school."

"Alright. Love you D!" she waved while she cast the spell and disappeared.

After Mystical Elf left, I made my way to the kitchen, pulling out a carton of eggs for breakfast. I ended up cooking four up and once the dishes were all clean, I went to my bedroom. It's weird being back here. Even though it hasn't been long, I'm already used to waking up to plain walls and the sound of water. I wonder, what will happen to my room if I really do end up leaving? Will Father destroy all of my things and pretend that I never existed rather than face the "shame" of having a daughter who resides within the human world at all times? How did Winged Kuriboh and Ruby Carbuncle, and all of the other Crystal Beast decide? I ran my hand along the wood of my bed frame, then my bookshelf, and finally across the rough stone of the mirror that leaned against the wall next to my dresser.

Father will break this apart without a second thought. Old ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs were inscribed across the frame, telling a story I knew by heart. "Shadow magic was used to summon spirits to fight for entertainment. Some of these spirits that were too powerful to control, and threatened Egypt once they had entered the Living Realm were called monsters." I whispered to myself as my fingertips traced the familiar carvings. "One spirit was a young girl, a magician, who stood her ground against the monsters that plagued Egypt. The magician was only called by a single person, a prince named Atem, who desperately tried to seal away the monsters. The Prince used all of his power and ended the shadow games with the help of the female magician and an older magician. But it came at a cost, and Atem was trapped inside of an artifact. The magicians were sent to the Spirit World, and the three lost their memories of the lives they had had up until the shadow magic was sealed away." The stone was worn where I had touched the mirror's frame so many times.

"You do realize that it probably isn't healthy to obsess over that story as much as you do." A kidding voice told me from my doorway. I turned to see Dark Red Enchanter leaning against my doorframe.

"Red!" I tackled him, hugging his larger frame as tightly as I could.

"Hello to you too D." He laughed and ruffled my hair, which at first made me smile before the expression on my face turned depressing. Dark Red Enchanter saw my face and immediately thought that I was looking like that because of the duel. "I'm really sorry that I ended up hitting you with that blast instead of that other dude." My face fell even more, and he started to freak out. "What? What's wrong! What did I say?"

"It's not something that you did. It has something to do with the Australian I was dueling."

Dark Red Enchanter hummed while he led me to my bed. We sat down and I leaned on him. "What did he do?"

"Stupid Australian said that he wanted nothing to do with me!" my breath hitched.

"Ahh. It's alright, D. Don't worry too much. He's just a stupid dude who doesn't know what he's gonna be missing." Red smirked, and I giggled.

"You always know what to say." I moved down on my bed, resting my head on Red's legs like I always did when we were discussing something serious. "I feel like a complete idiot, cause I only knew him for a week, but I just really liked him for once. And guess what the worst part is?"

"What? He's a total stud? He's got a piercing? Cause I know how you like guys with metal."

"No. We aren't talking about one of your human friends or toys." I smirked at my life-long friend. "Though he is a 'stud' as you say, and I don't know if he has any piercing."

"So what's the problem? He duels using Mystical Elf? Your mom is his favorite card? Your Father once kicked his ass?" Dark Red Enchanter was having a real blast, and I grimaced at the last question. "That's it, isn't it? Your Father kicked his ass." The magician crowed a laugh.

"THAT'S NOT IT!" my yelling turned to a near whisper. "That did almost happen, but not during a duel like you think. The Aussie was one of the students who found out I was a girl."

"Oh-ha!" Red grinned. "That must've gotten Daddy-dearest into a foul mood."

"You're telling me? I was the one who had to deal with it when I called him up for advice." I blew out heavily, and the air made my bangs flutter.

Dark Red Enchanter started laughing, gasping for breath at my expression. When he finally settled down enough to speak, Red rested his hand on my forehead. "You never told me what the worst part was, if I'm correct in assuming that you Father wasn't the worst part."

"Unfortunately, you're right." I sighed, looking up at Red's face. It was the first time I realized that he wasn't wearing his battle armor. I could see his long blond hair and dark eyes. He wore a red button down shirt and I could feel the rough texture of his jeans against the back of my neck. "He's my roommate."

"Well crap."

Red and I spent the rest of the day talking about what I should do, but nothing sounded like a good idea. Mom came home late, long after Mystical Elf had come back from school and gone to bed. Dark Red Enchanter stayed till my mother returned from work to comfort me, smiling as Mom walked in the door. "Hello Magicians Valkyria. How was work today?" Red asked my mother as she set down her staff and took off her boots.

"Good evening Red. Actually, today was splendid." Mother was used to Red stopping by. He even had his own set of house keys. "The duelists knew how to play me, and I was only sent to the graveyard twice today." Mom didn't notice me until after she had made herself a cup of Queen Ann tea and was sitting down at the kitchen table. "Oh, Dark Magician Girl. I wasn't expecting to see you. How's school going, Sweetheart?" Mother smiled, though it was easy to see that she was exhausted.

"Not so great, to tell you the truth." I brought over a plate of lemon cookies that I'd made earlier when Mystical Elf came home. Mom picked up one, breaking it in half so that she could nibble on the softer center.

"So what's up?" my mother seemed much younger than she was, despite the fact that she was young for a mother to begin with.

"In short? Her roommate is extremely hot, knows D is a chick, and has crushed her little heart all in the span of less than two weeks." Red answered for me, leaning against the wall of the kitchen. Mom looked at me incredulously, her eyebrows raised high on her face.

"Is that true?" Mother asked, taking another nibble and a sip of tea.

"Yeah."

"This boy sounds very impressive, and not in a necessarily good way. You understand that your father isn't going to be happy that someone has found out."

"He already knows." I tugged at the sleeve of my Ra yellow jacket while a look of realization crossed my mom's face. "And it's not only "

"That's why he has been in such a bad mood lately." Mother sighed, pushing away her snack. "This isn't good. You know that your father isn't the most stable when things like this happen. He doesn't like it when you make mistakes."

"I know. Father just about blew up my roommate when he found out." I giggled, thinking about how things would have been if I had just let Father kill Jim. Stupid Jim. Damn Aussie and his stupid crocodile.

"I keep hearing about this roommate of yours. First from Mystical Elf, and then from Red just now. Is he as handsome as he sounds?" Mom asked, switching the topic off of my father since we never really got along, and every conversation involving him ended with the feeling that something had just died.

I blushed. "See for yourself." I concentrated on gathering my magic in my hands and then on my dorm room. A smoky ball formed before the middle cleared to show a picture of my room. Jim was standing in the middle of the room, changing for bed. I flushed in embarrassment. "Maybe we should look later." I mumbled, starting to get rid of the image, but Red and Mom stopped me.

"We haven't even seen his face. Leave the image to play." Red commanded, gripping my arm.

"He's right, Dark Magician Girl. You wouldn't be trying to hide anything, would you?" Mom asked, her tone lecturing though she was obviously teasing me, the grin on her face evidence enough.

"Of course not! I just thought we should respect his privacy!"

I could feel my blush becoming darker by the second, and my mom tsked. "It's your room too. Besides, you were the one who decided to show us an image of your room. It is late, and you could have probably guessed that he would be changing."

"Awwww, are you uncomfortable looking at such a hot guy?" Red teased, smirking to his heart's content as I felt my cheeks burn.

"Come on guys. We should give him some privacy." I pleaded, ignoring Red's comment, while Shirley ambled up to Jim and he turned around to look at her. His shirt was in his hands, his vest thrown onto his bed, and I heard my mother and friend gasp.

"Says the chick who most likely stares at that each night before going to bed." Red whistled. "How do you sleep at night, D, knowing someone like that is sleeping in the same room?" We continued to watch as Hassleberry and Dark Magician entered and began to talk with Jim. Alara came barging in a few moments later, looking quite irritated, though it was clear that she was apologizing to Jim for something.

"I don't know. Now you've seen him and we can stop watching my roommate!"

"Nuh-uh-uh. I still haven't gotten to see his face, though I like the look he's got going on. Tight black pants, a bandana and a cowboy hat. With a body like that, he can definitely pull it off." Mom said, winking. I buried my face in my hands, though I continued to watch Jim from between my fingers.

How could my mother say that? She's so much older than him! That's just wrong! WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG!

"Is that an alligator?" Dark Red Enchanter asked.

"No," I groaned, "That's Shirley, Jim's pet crocodile. She is freaking crazy. And temperamental. She's completely temperamental."

"Really? She seems to be perfectly calm." Red smirked. "Oh look, he finally took off his hat. Damn, he's got a nice face too, at least what's able to be seen of it. Why does this guy get all the good stuff?"

"And what happened to his eye?" Mother asked, pointing to Jim's right eye.

"Don't know and don't care." I glared at the image though I knew that I was still blushing.

Dark Red Enchanter's POV

"Hmmm," I hummed, watching my friend. You don't really mean that, do you? She seemed so hurt and small. Dark Magician Girl had always been imposing, though her size contradicted the statement. It was mostly that if she had something to say, she'd make it known, but now D appeared child-like in my eyes. My glance flickered to the picture of her roommate. He really is hot. And I guess if he wasn't a jackass, D could've fallen hard for a guy like that.

"What?" D turned her scowl on me, obvious antagonism evident in her eyes, though dejection was partially visible behind it.

"It's nothing." I was done teasing. Before, I'd been hoping that my joking would make her crack a smile, but it wasn't working, and had only appeared to make her ire grow. "I think my mom will want me home soon. She'll probably have a fun time chewing me out for skipping today." I waved as I started to walk out the door.

"Say hi to your mother for me." Magician's Valkyria called.

"Bye-bye Red!" D. yelled at me, her voice strained.

"Be quieter, Dark Magician Girl! Your sister is trying to sleep!" the older magician shouted at her daughter, louder than before.

"YOU BE QUIET!"

Those two are so similar. I can barely believe that they are only mother-daughter, and not twins. I grinned before turning down a street in the Spirit World towards the firing range. If duels were calming for me, then practicing spells for hours on end was like having a therapist appointment on command. It wasn't long before I was set up in front of a target that would only show marks where the most powerful attacks hit. So far, I'd only left a few black marks on previous occasions, all of which were when I'd had Dark Magician Girl behind me.

This time, none of my attacks left any marks, and about half the time I didn't even hit the target. Why can't I do it? Why isn't this helping me? In an angry attempt, I just randomly flung my staff in the general direction of the target, releasing my pent-up frustration at the situation of D and her roommate, and the part Dark Magician played in the whole thing. And who is that boy? The one that was following Dark Magician? Damn it! I told myself I wouldn't be like this after what happened with Breaker!

"Nice shot Red." A proud voice came from my left, and I looked over to see my current girlfriend Familiar-Possessed Eria watching me.

"Huh?"

She pointed to the target, and there was a black smudge on the edge of the magical target. "That's the first mark you've left all night. Do you even realize just how late it is? Everyone else has gone home for some rest. It must be nearly midnight by now."

"Oh." I put away my staff, walking from the practice area to stand beside Eria. She pecked me on the cheek, and switched places with me so that she was now the one in the practice area. One twirl of her staff, a concentrated look on her face, and a light blue area appeared on the top edge of the target, symbolizing that she'd used a powerful water attack, where my black streak indicated a dark attack.

I gave her a small congratulatory kiss and then we started towards my home. My girlfriend knew something was up and it must have had to do with my lifelong friend because she soon was asking questions, hunting for answers. "She's okay?"

"Yes, no. At this point I don't have a clue. She's upset, and I can understand why, but I don't know what to do about it. It has to do with a lot of humans, and Dark Magician, and D's father, so everything is just much more complicated than it should be." I leaned down to rest my head against her shoulder, even though she was a good half a foot shorter than me at least.

"Dark Magician got himself dragged into it?"

"It appears that he's buddies with the dude who's causing Dark Magician Girl problems." I rubbed my hands over my face quickly.

"You are going to put yourself right in the middle of this."

"Yep."

She sighed, her hand softly resting on the top of my head. "Just don't go and ruin any of your friendships over this. From what I've seen, you couldn't live without Dark Magician or Dark Magician Girl for long."

"I've got you!" I tried to tell her that they weren't the only ones that I needed, but she saw through it, knowing that they were the only two that were really necessary for my mental survival.

"Yeah, you've got me. But don't lose anyone soon though, kay?"

"Alright. I love you." I said before kissing Eria's cheek.

"Love you too." She waved, walking away while I headed into my house. Once inside, I checked to make sure that my mother wasn't home before transporting myself to Duel Academy Island, and into D's dorm room. To say that Jim was surprised would have been up there in the top 50 understatements of the millennia, and I was immediately met with a crocodile waddling quickly towards me.

Jim started screaming and throwing random crap that was on his bedside table in my direction, so I decided that then would be a good time to make an exit. Running out the door, I was delighted when I found Dark Magician coming up the stairs. I grabbed his wrist, pulling him down to the ground floor where I paused, ducking behind a corner in case the alligator was following me. Wait, crocodile, it's a crocodile.

"What are you doing here Red?" Dark Magician asked incredulously.

"Nothing much, just running from a crazy alligator, errr, crocodile, and a terrified Aussie. What about you?" I smirked, watching as his eyes danced with laughter.

"I was just about to go ask Jim about some of the homework." He groaned slightly.

"At this hour? Seriously? Wow, I can't believe that you're up this late doing crap like that."

"We actually have to get good grades in the Human World, unlike you guys in the Spirit World."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Poor you, you've got it sooooooo hard." Dark just stared at me, a dead-panned expression plastered to his face.

"Anyway, how'd you manage to get Jim scared? He's one of the most fearless guys I know." Dark tugged on my hand, leading me to a door, and then into the room. It was quite evident that it was his room, a few pieces of his armor littered around on the ground. The boy who'd followed Dark Magician in the image D had shown me was lying on the bed opposite the one Dark sat on.

"Popped into his room while he was sleeping and freaked him out."

"So you're looking for Dark Magician Girl?" the dino-bandanna boy blinked, his head tilting towards us.

"Naw, I was just talking to her a few hours ago. Speaking of D though, care to tell me about the fiasco that happened recently?" I stared at Dark, still near the entrance to the room.

"Um...not really?"

Susan: TA-DA! Finally! Dark and Jim are in the doghouse. :D This story will return shortly...probably...if my life actually doesn't take some really random turn of events... Until then, I love getting little reviews!