Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! GX

Chapter 9

After a careful deliberation, Jesse, Jim and Axel had decided to look around together in order to locate their friends, but after at least an hour's searching, they hadn't so much as found a trace of neither Chazz nor Alexis, and they were beginning to become not only worried, but truly scared. Their friends were not with them and now two of their group seemed to have just vanished.

People didn't just disappear. Something must have happened to them.

"Chazz? Alexis? Guys, where'd you go?" Jesse called, peering into every ruined house they passed – and by this point, they had passed well over a hundred abandoned, semi-ruined homes.

"It's no use, Jess" Jim said sadly, appearing behind his friend with an unhappy look on his face. "They're not here."

"But where else could they be?"

"If they were around here, they'd have heard us calling and come found us" Axel put in. "I say we move out and do some further searching elsewhere."

Jesse frowned, initially unwilling to leave here without Chazz or Alexis. What if they'd been knocked unconscious or something; that would prevent them from answering...

But they had looked everywhere, behind and around and even underneath whatever objects they came across, invading abandoned houses along the way. They hadn't found them, or even any footprints. Damn it, they had to be moving, there was no other explanation!

And so, with the constant support of his spirit friends – who were trying to remember more details but so far being desperately unsuccessful – Jesse followed Jim and Axel through the last few yards of the abandoned village, and out into the sparse, bare fields of dirt.

/

"Are you sure this was the way your friends came?"

"No, I'm not" Bastian sighed. "And from the looks of things, they could be anywhere."

Once the two had filled one another in on the details of how they each came to be in this world, Tania had offered to help Bastian locate his friends – friends being Hasselberry and Atticus. Grateful for any sort of help, of course he had accepted.

But so far their attempts to find anyone were not rewarding. All they had found was wreckage and damage and the lingering scent of despair, and nothing more. It got to the point where the two were desperate to find anyone or anything, friend or foe...

Of course, when the first thing they actually found turned out to be a foe, they regretted even thinking as much. For the first thing they came into contact with was a large beast, a duel monster of some description; they recognised it as such even though neither could properly identify it.

It carried a duel disk, which it raised offensively, backing the two into a corner so that duelling really was their only option – it was far too big and fierce-looking to even consider trying to push past it.

Bastian gulped as he activated his own duel disk, watching as Tania activated hers – with a tad more confidence than he himself did, with the practiced technique of someone who knew what was coming.

Unfortunately, that was Bastian's whole problem: he did not want to duel at all, not after hearing all that Tania had told him about people being 'sent to the stars', which he imagined meant to be killed or thrown into limbo or something equally undesirable.

But this really was the only way to get past this thing, and so, regardless of his inner fears, Bastian drew his first card, realising idly that he and Tania were partnering up to take this beast down.

/

"Hey, great, let's just walk through the giant scary door and into another dimension. Who came up with that wonderful idea again?" Atticus was muttering as he looked around this new world, completely at a loss and worrying for his friends and his sister. "Found anything, Hasselberry?"

"That's a negative" Hasselberry reported, appearing from the doorway of one of the ruined houses. "From the looks of things, nobody's lived here for a while."

"That doesn't mean that the others didn't come through here" Atticus said thoughtfully, gently pushing past the other to wander into the abandoned little house himself, momentarily frowning at the obvious squalor and upturned items that told him the people here had either had to flee quickly or had been forcibly removed from their homes.

What exactly had happened here? If only he had the answer.

Not to mention that it was just him and Hasselberry now; Bastian was gone, their other friends and Jaden were nowhere to be seen, and it was very dark save for a comet that was lighting up the sky in an unnatural blue blaze. Indeed it was a strange world, and not one that exactly screamed friendliness.

While Atticus searched the home – a fruitless search, as it turned out – Hasselberry went scouting outside. They had been apart for perhaps three or four minutes before Atticus heard the scream belonging to the other, so loud that it startled him before he turned and ran straight out the door and in the direction of the voice.

However, the endless horrible scenarios which had been plaguing his imagination didn't come to pass; Hasselberry was standing still, straight, with a thoughtful expression on his face when Atticus found him. He had never looked so serious, and he had spoken before the other could even ask what the shout had been about – a shout of shock, not terror, he now realised.

Atticus let out a small cry of his own upon witnessing Hasselberry's discovery: lying upon a spike amongst a small group of jagged rocks was a torn piece of blue material, utterly identical to the blue of the Obelisk uniform. Further inspection proved to both Hasselberry and Atticus that there were one or two left behind blonde hairs on the rocks as well; the same colour as Alexis' hair.

It was no coincidence, of that they were certain. Whatever had happened here – and it couldn't have been good – had involved Alexis.

Hasselberry observed his companion for a few moments, mentally preparing himself for a breakdown into tears or, more likely, anger, but none were forthcoming. Atticus was doing very well in not letting his emotions get the best of him, it seemed, but that didn't mean that those emotions weren't there: inside, Atticus was seething with fury. Whoever had dared to so much as touch his sister was going to pay dearly!

He turned around to tell this to Hasselberry, but was frozen with shock when he saw that, unbeknownst to his companion, there was a dark figure looming over Hasselberry from behind...

Please R&R