When Atem came through the gateway the first time, he collapsed immediately. Going from having his own body to being a spirit again was a shock to his system. Thankfully, his friends and family were waiting for him on the other side to take him to his paradise. He never had a reason to think about such a gate again when he came out of his paradise to be the next leader. Now though, it was their only chance. They could try and travel to the channel the Zero Reverse made, but that was in another part of the afterlife. Friendship was apparently strong enough to pull Yugi through three parts of the afterlife when he first came here. Atem wasn't sure Yugi would make it through that long trek back on foot. Making the Ceremonial Gate their closest option.
"You can lay down Yugi, I will keep you from falling off." Atem insisted. The group was racing across the trial lands on two horse-drawn chariots. They did not have time to find better transportation. Despite Yugi's insistence he was fine, Atem saw how the color was draining from his partner's eyes. While Yugi was now strong enough to stand on his own, that was about all he could do. He had to hold tightly to the chariot edges just to stay standing.
"I'll manage. Honestly, I feel like if I sit down, I won't get back up." Yugi croaked. Mana and Mahad looked worriedly over from their chariots. Seto stayed back to protect and run the land while Atem dealt with this. Pegasus wanted to come but he had his own journey he had to return to.
Before the group raced off, Pegasus warned Yugi about their gaming companies. The cartoonist knew with his death KaibaCorp would most likely buy his entire company. It wasn't a far stretch to see Kaiba doing the same to Yugi's.
"Kaiba's probably bought my company too by now. It was relatively small so it wouldn't have been much trouble for him. Then again, I'm sure my wife wouldn't have let go of it so easily. That war will certainly be a nice welcome back to the world of the living." Yugi noted.
"I'm sure you'll deal with it when you get there. It will be hard to say no to a dead man." Mahad smiled back.
The entire time Yugi had kept up this easy demeanor, he never showed even a hint of pessimism. Atem knew this act all too well. Yugi never wanted to be a burden on anyone, so he hid his fears with positivity as a child. This seemed to have grown into a somewhat sarcastic edge as an adult, but it still hid the same fears.
They were currently surrounded by miles and miles of pink sand. Atem had no idea where they were going but trusted that the two magicians did. The tentative plan so far was to find the gate and try and recreate the ceremonially battle. The original battle had everything needed to bring Atem into the afterlife. The Millennium items had the Power to open the gateway to the afterlife, and the battle caused enough of a Force to allow Atem through. This time though, they did not know if the Millennium Items were still there, or even if they could still use them on the gate. Atem quickly shook his head. He did not have time to think like that now.
He looked ahead towards the mountain that was now barely coming over on the horizon. It was the marker that ended the desert afterlife and led to the next part. Hopefully, the gate would still be at its base. Along with the mountain's summit barely peeking over, other silhouettes were starting to come into view.
"Shadow creatures!" Mana yelled as the two chariots' reigns were pulled back. The horses slid to a dusty stop as the creatures started to gain colored outlines.
They were only about the size of large dogs, but there were many of them. Each looking like different animals, a lizard, a monkey, a condor and many others. As soon as they saw the group, they all attacked.
Mahad and Mana quickly used their magic to put up a shield. Bouncing the fastest ones back. Many still managed to get past this and headed straight for Atem and Yugi. Atem jumped off his chariot and stood in front of the oncoming creatures. He reached out his arm and light surrounded it. A strange duel disk-like devise appeared on his arm. It opened up and odd symbols appeared where the card could have gone.
"You still have that stuff here?!" Yugi gasped. Atem looked back with a crooked smile.
"What can I say? It's the thing that made us famous." With that Atem turned back to the creatures and summoned monster Yugi had never seen before.
Just as the leader had said, the beast went down fairly quickly, but more kept coming. They were being surrounded despite their best efforts. Yugi looked frantically around. He had to do something. But something was hard to do when you could barely move. He looked up into the sky to see a strange green line. It shot out from behind the mountain and ended above the group. Yugi looked back to the mountain to see more silhouettes coming towards them. He squinted his eyes, he had to be hallucinating. It looked like two motorcycles and a car was driving across the sand, straight at them.
"Look out!" Yugi yelled as the car rammed into a group of creatures attacking the two magicians. The monsters went flying and disappeared before they hit the sand. The female motorcycle rider pulled out what looked like cards and used it to attack the creatures as she drove by. They disappeared to after every attack. The other motorcycle rider stopped by the two and pulled off his helmet.
"Tristan?" Atem stammered at the spiky-haired man. Tristan smiled
"Yep, we were just coming out of our last trial in this big metro city when this line shot past us. We followed it to you guys. Need some help?" He said. Yugi and Atem quickly turned to each other, then nodded to Tristan.
"Then get in the car!" They looked to the car to see Duke fighting off some of the creatures with his dice. Inside the car was Serenity fighting right along.
"We aren't exactly equipped to fight monsters at the moment!" She yelled. The other rider circled around the group. She gave Atem enough time to help Yugi off the chariot and into the car. As Atem did that Mahad and Mana turned and unlatched the horses. The animals immediately started racing back to Atem's city. The monsters were too focused on the duelists to give chase.
Serenity helped pull Yugi into the car as the others defended him. Once inside Atem and the magicians jumped inside as well.
"Time to go!" yelled the women. It was Mai.
"Head for the mountain!" Atem commanded. Duke cranked the wheel and sped back towards the mountain, soon followed by the two motorcyclists. Some of the creatures held on to the vehicles. They were soon shot off by either the magicians or Atem's monster. The monster followed for a while but soon disappeared, leaving only the group.