Warnings: Mystery! Intrigue! Questions! How long can I possibly spin this plot point out?~ (Answer: A long time)

Disclaimer: I don't own Yugioh GX

Year Three Part One: Journeys

The research didn't go as well as expect but, fortunately, none of them had expected very much. Jaden and the rest knew that things were rarely handed to them on a silver platter, and if they were, it was probably a trap. Two years of being forced into one life-threatening situation after another after another had taught them the lessons that most teenagers didn't start grasping until their post-secondary years: if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself, and 'no pain, no gain' really was a fundamental truth of the universe.

Still, no one, not even the ridiculously hard to impress Crowler, could accuse them of not trying.

Jaden scoured the Internet while Alexis haunted databases the web over trying to dig up something. Chazz invaded his family's own personal databases with such a vengeance that it was a miracle his brothers didn't call to tell him to lay off. Lia dragged Syrus off to the library once they'd been informed, pleading and bargaining with the librarian to let them in the Rare Texts Section where the scrolls and books that were practically falling apart were housed, but in the end, Lia could only covertly take pictures of the glass-encased objects with Syrus on watch, and hope that she could blow up the photos digitally on her computer.

Hassleberry, who had already admitted to not being particularly good at research, was happy to run around fetching things for them, or else running interference. He distracted Mindy by bringing up her fashion class, he gossiped with Jasmine about who had disappeared out of class with who, and he made Atticus lose his trains of thought by bringing up cars and other vehicles for the older boy to gush about. Of that group, only Jessica, Miriam and Brier seemed to understand that the Slacker Club was on a mission of sorts and they were best left to themselves. Abeni could often be found hanging around wherever Syrus happened to be at the time, waiting for her boyfriend to finish but not badgering him about what he was doing with his time. He and the rest were grateful.

Had he been around, Lia thought that they might have recruited Axel, who appeared to have insider knowledge about Viper and what he did. They may also have asked Adrian Gecko for help, had Lia not given them a look that said she would raise hell if she had to be in the same room as the boy who'd sent her the flowers.

As it was, they had an eager Jim and a reluctant, wary Jesse who agreed to help them. Jesse's desire to keep away from the issue didn't seem so much to come from any kind of laziness or denial, but from an unease around Jaden that had been growing ever since things had started going downhill at such a rapid pace. He was jumpy around Jaden, constantly looking at him like he expected the other boy to jump up and announce that he was the final boss of the year. It didn't make sense, but then, Lia could hardly remember anything from the duel with the Light, so maybe Jesse's fears were grounded in some way.

Either way, Lia was grateful for the help (because Jim actually had some training with researching, having been in and out of dig sites his entire life), and as long as someone else was there to help her get those pictures of the scrolls, it was all good.

That didn't make being around Jim any easier though.

"And this is Lia Shanner." Alexis finished the introductions. When they'd called Jesse to see if he could come over and help them with their 'symbol research', he'd been with Jim and , after a quick debate between Alexis, Jaden and Chazz (who seemed to form the decision-making committee), they'd asked him to come too. They'd kept their explanation to the bare minimum: Bad things happen at Duel Academy, something bad is happening now, it's got to do with the Bio Bands, and we need to find out what this symbols means. He'd listened, nodded, and given his two cents, which consisted of pointing out that the vibrations that had messed up Shirley and Hassleberry were probably linked, but Chazz was almost definitely right about them interfering with the bands.

So Alexis had realized that Jim and Lia had never officially met, and hurried to introduce them.

Jim grinned.

" We've met."

Lia blinked in surprise. She didn't remember the man very well, although she could recall him dropping unconscious at the drop of a hat, along with Hassleberry, after a duel. That was another worrying thing. Students were dropping off left, right and center. The gymnasium had been converted into a make-shift hospital, and Miss Fontaine was at the end of her rope trying to help everyone. She'd been complaining about not having enough room to work, and not having more than one assistant to help.

Still, that didn't mean Lia remembered meeting the man who'd been under for a couple of days.

" We have?"

He grinned at her and, to her shock, reached out and patted her on her curly head.

" Y' were uppa tree, Sheila."

Lia squeaked, going a little red. Jim laughed, and gestured with his thumb over his shoulder.

" An' this 'ere's moi best girl, Shirley. Come an' say 'ello, girl."

A large green shape waddled around Jim to look at where he was pointing. Alexis seemed fascinated.

" And you have her legally? What kind of paperwork did you have to fill out to get her? Does she require a permit, or something? How did you get her over international borders?"

Jim laughed, not noticing that Lia had gone stiff as a board, her eyes huge in her suddenly ashen face.

" Easy, Future Girl." Jim had started calling Alexis that when he found out about all the Cyber Girls in her deck. " Yeah, there was a bitta t' do 'bout Shirley. Lotsa papers t' sign. Still, Oi got 'er wit' me, an' that's all that matters, yeah?"

Lia whimpered.

It wasn't a comical sound, like the one she made when her brain had been broken by something idiotic her friends had done, or something stupid and crazy a villain had said. It was a whimper of pure fear.

Lia started shakily walking backwards, her gaze transfixed on where Shirley was lazily watching her move. Her back hit the wall and she tried to keep going, never once taking her petrified eyes off of the crocodile. Shirley, apparently sensing her fear and feeling a little playful, started towards her. Lia looked ready to cry. She groped her hand out, searching for something, and when she found the desk next to her, she wasted no time scrambling on top of it, sending books and papers flying to the floor in a mess of disarray.

" Lia?" Alexis asked worriedly, making her way over. But Shirley beat her there. The massive reptile stood up on her stubby hind legs, lay her upper torso along the desk, and playfully bumped her snout against Lia's bare calf.

Lia screamed.

She shot backwards, almost falling off of the desk in her hast to get away. She was slurring between English and French, an incomprehensible blur of language that amounted to one thing:

Get it away from me.

Jim moved faster than any of them noticed. He was hauling Shirley down off the desk and trying to sooth her as Lia broke into sobs, curling up on the desk, rocking back and forth. The high-pitched sounds of her distress made Shirley growl, putting her head down to try and block out the noise. Alexis and Jaden, who'd also sprung into action, wrapped their arms around the almost hysterical girl, who still hadn't stopped crying.

Jim sat up, looking at her.

" Sheila?"

" Kitten, c'mon, it's okay?" Alexis whispered, rubbing a hand up and down her back. Lia had her eyes squeezed shut, her hands buried in her curls.

" Il me mangera, il me mangera." She chanted, rocking back and forth. Across the small space of Jaden's dorm room, Chazz scoffed.

" She is not going to eat you." He said, rolling his eyes.

" Shirley ain't gonna 'urt ya, love. Oi promise." Jim tried to reason, but Lia started shaking her head, her breathing erratic as a fresh bout of tears escaped her eyes.

" Ils mangeront les choses toujours." She whimpered. Jim just stared.

" Oi don' know what you're tryin' t' say, but Shirley wouldn't 'urt'cha, Oi promise."

Lia took several deep breaths through her nose.

" I d-don't...I don't...like those...those...things." She croaked at last.

" Shirley ain't a thin', Kitty-Cat."

" Yes she is!" Lia exploded, pointing to the reptile. " She's one of those things and she's got big teeth and she'll snap me in half just like that gazelle!"

As it turned out, it was not Lia's first encounter with a crocodile.

And her first hadn't been the best of meetings.

She'd been six and in Africa to visit her father on the game reserve where he worked. While driving around with him and a few other workers, they'd stopped by a river to relax and enjoy the view, telling Lia a little about the wild animals she'd seen going for a drink. Clutching her camera, the six-year-old had very carefully tottered forward to take a picture of a gazelle. She'd managed about three before her father, who was keeping a hawk's eye on her from an arm's length, had told her it was time to go back to the jeep. Lia had asked to take one more picture.

And then the crocodile had risen from the murky water, snapped its jaws, and all little, six-year-old Lia had seen before her father had grabbed her and covered her eyes was blood flying everywhere and the flashing teeth of the reptile cutting through flesh and bone.

The encounter, naturally, had instilled an almost crippling fear of the animals in Lia.

Alexis thought that it was also rather telling that Lia didn't say a word of it herself. She was too busy not looking at Jim and half crying into Jaden's shoulder as Jim hustled Shirley outside, a little upset, but understanding that to some, Shirley really didn't seem all that friendly and appealing.

No, Alexis had had her ear chewed off by an enraged Aster Phoenix, who called while Lia was still indisposed, and Alexis was answering her calls. The pro star was livid, explaining in cutting detail exactly why letting Lia be in a room with a crocodile was quite possibly the stupidest thing anyone could have done, and he had half a mind to ditch the charity event and come back there and protect her.

Alexis sighed, and wondered out loud if maybe, he should.

" If nothing else," she muttered, " you might get Adrian Gecko off of her back."

" Gecko?"

" He sent her flowers and keeps flirting with her in the halls. It's freaking her out."

There was a pause, during which Alexis swore she heard Aster's teeth start to grind.

" ...What kind of flowers?"

" I don't know. Why does it matter?"

" It just does, okay?"

" Uh...I think she said...hibiscus?"

Aster snorted.

" Idiot."

And then he hung up, telling Alexis to tell Lia to feel better. Lia had watched the conversation through teary eyes.

She didn't find it any easier to be in the same room with Jim.

Even when Shirley was riding around in that weird backpack and was incapable of escaping without Jim's help, it didn't calm Lia's nerves. She just kept seeing the bloody water and the snapping jaws and no matter how much Jim assured her that Shirley would never attack, she couldn't bring herself to calm down.

Shirley wasn't the only thing she was worried about, either.

Everything was moving so fast. Far too fast. Lia could remember the panic of last year, slowly building up over time, one tiny event leading into another leading into another. There had been a swelling, slow and steady as the tides, despite the growing panic. The fear and paranoia inspired by Chazz's possession had been slow to come and carefully prodded towards fruition. The Light hadn't been impatient. It had had all the time in the world to bring about the climax it wanted, and it hadn't rushed in head first.

But here they were, barely over a week into school, and things accelerating.

Students were dropping like flies; suspicions ran high, and the one at the center of it was already missing; Sheppard had left, maybe to get help. Everything was starting to fall apart into tiny little pieces and they hadn't even hit the two week mark yet.

It made Lia's stomach churn. The speed at which things were happening was too fast for her. It felt like the summer had been nothing; just a mere blink, and then they'd been hurled right back into the thick of it. There was n build-up, no swell. The tide wasn't retreating and coming in anymore; it was in, full-throttle. The waves were crashing against them and all they could do was hang on to the pier and hope for the best.

' It's like there was no gathering, just the storm. Just this massive, terrible storm that we have to weather.'

" Stay and watch as this storm – over an age in the making- finally breaks."

Lia shook her head, feeling depressed. The sentence was starting to make more and more sense as time went by. Unfortunately, it was about the only thing that made sense. The Bio Bands' technology stumped them. The symbol was still a mystery. Viper was nowhere to be found and Axel had disappeared as well. Atticus was getting suspicious, and the storm, whatever it was, was hitting them with slicing rain and gale-force winds.

Lia stopped in front of her dorm room. The hall was empty – too many students had collapsed; most of her hall mates were lying in the gym-, and she took a moment to lean her head against the cool wall.

" What are we doing?" She whispered to the universe at large. " How do we do it?"

Her foot bumped against something.

She looked down. There, right in front of her door, was a small vase with a single, white flower in it. There was a card slipped under the vase, and she crouched down to pick it up.

If you wanted flowers, all you had to do was ask. The cheeky note said in a familiar script. Lia felt her cheeks warm, and a small smile came up on her face as she reached out to delicately touch the petals.

Twenty minutes later, Chazz looked up as Lia entered the Red Dorm.

" What, no library crawl today?" He asked, putting on a nasty tone that they both knew meant nothing. Lia scoffed and made her away over to a large armchair, disdaining to sit on the same couch as him. His laptop was open in front of him, and he was cross-referencing a scan of the symbol with every alphabet his family's database had.

" The librarian is getting suspicious of me."

" That's because you have all the grace and subtly of a train wreck."

" Clearly, I've been hanging around you too much." She countered neatly, and set her books in front of her to begin reading. Her face grew hot as she felt Chazz's gaze on her, and she knew without looking at he was staring at the white flower tucked behind her left ear.

" You do know what that is, right?" He pointed to her ear.

" Uh, a flower?" She said, the 'duh' in her voice. Chazz, surprisingly, didn't rise to the bait.

" It's a camellia." She stared blankly at him. " It means 'my destiny is in your hands'."

Lia was too embarrassed and flattered to even tease Chazz about knowing flower language.

There was a great ocean of sand stretched out before him, running miles and miles away from where he stood. The dunes rose and fell like the waves of an ocean, but instead of the steady, soothing motion the tide, there was a stillness that stole the breath from him.

There was no noise; not one single thing sounded in the vastness. The sky hung a sickly shade of deep green, black clouds crawling across it like worms burrowing their way through dirt. Against the pale pallor of the sand, the sky appeared to be darker than it actually once. He squinted his eyes as he looked over the dunes, their paleness reflecting a brightness back at him that hurt. The wind picked up, for a moment, kicking up a dust storm. His arms came to shield his face, the tiny grains leaving stinging marks as they hit his skin.

He became aware of a terrible heat from somewhere up above. Looking towards the sky again, wincing as he got sand in his eyes, he located the source.

Three glowing suns beat down on him where he stood, forming a triangle high, high above him.

Memory exploded over him in a rush of images: A man, a woman, a dagger and a price. The gleam of a medallion, broken in two. A promise. The woman's sad eyes. People down on one knee, bowing to him.

The threat of monsters looming overhead.

A hissed warning, and the quiet death of a noble warrior.

Regret and sacrifice.

He'd been here before. Years ago, but the landscape had not changed and the heat of the suns beat down as hard as ever.

This was-

" Jaden?"

A voice scattered his thoughts.

" Jaden, why would you play with me?"

It was childish, bell-like. The high pitched whine of an ignored child who had yet to learn patience.

It set his teeth grinding.

" Don't you like me anymore?"

The sweat that trickled down the side of his face was cold, despite the heat of the suns overhead.

" Don't you want to be with me anymore?"

That voice, that awful, wonderful voice! He knew it, he knew like he would have known his own reflection! But what was the name?

" I've missed you so much, Jaden. Why did you go away?"

It was on the tip of his tongue, gummed up with flashing images. The table, the cards, the silver-and-purple thing –

" Why did you leave me?"

He hadn't, had he? Because to leave the owner of that voice would be a crime, wouldn't it? There had been a promise, there must've been, because he remembered the vaguest hint of sunset and the peak of a mountain, and vibrant, dual coloured eyes that looked right through to the heart of him.

" Why did you abandon me, Jaden?"

" Who are you?!" He screamed at last, his voice almost lost to the wind that was whipping up around them. The suns had vanished behind a cloak of black clouds. The air was heavy. Low thunder rumbled in the distance, and the storm began to gather.

Again.

" You don't remember me? You don't even remember that much?"

" Show me your face!" His frustration made him bold, and he took a step forward. There were shadows of figures just beyond his vision, outside of the swirl of sand that had kicked up around him.

" You might've forgotten me, but I haven't forgotten you."

" Please!" He begged, hoarse at the throat. " Please, show yourself!"

But the only answer he received was the scream of the winds as the storm grew closer.

Jaden's eyes flew open.

He sat up in his bed, panting like he'd run a marathon. A cold trickle of sweat dripped down the side of his face. For a moment, he stared into the semi-darkness of the room, at the desk and the chair and the pulled curtain, but none of it made any sense to him. He was lost, back in the rolling sand dunes and beneath the churning green sky, begging for that unfamiliar and yet achingly familiar voice to answer him.

He knew it and he knew he knew it, but he just couldn't seem to remember what he knew.

Quietly, Jaden kicked the sheets off and wiped as hand across his sweaty brow.

" What is going on?" He muttered. " I thought I was done with dreams."

Apparently, he hadn't been working himself hard enough.

Glancing around in a daze, he spotted the computer lying still and quiet on his desk. Gulping, he took a step forward.

" There's nothing for it." He said to himself. His finger hovered over the power button. It shook a little.

" You want answers, don't you?" He snapped to himself. The room was far too quiet. Even the voices of his monsters had been silenced for a time.

" Just do it." He snapped, and pressed the button. As the computer booted up, Jaden opened the curtains and went about making himself look presentable. There was no point in calling to ask questions if they never got past him explaining that yes, he was getting enough sleep and yes, he was eating right.

The moment his background was displayed, Jaden double clicked a small icon on the side.

" Here goes nothing." He whispered, his heart pounding. He put on a headset that was lying, mostly discarded, just to the side of the machine. A screen opened up. On it, a pretty brunette with orange streaks in her hair and dog tags around her neck grinned gently.

" Juudai-kun." She said. Jaden nodded, hoping against hope that he would be able to pull it off without alerting her to the danger he was in.

" Good evening, 'Kaa-san."

Lia has always been a afraid of crocs. She just never had the opportunity to meet one and let all of her friends know.

But she told Aster. Well, isn't that interesting? *smiles*

There's not much I think I need to clear up for you guys, because you're smart enough to figure things out on your own.

And the camellia is now the Slapshipping flower, because one of its meanings really is 'my destiny is in your hands'. Isn't that awesome? I's like it was made for them!

Chazz knows flower language!

And Jaden's mom! She will feature more later, I promise!

See you all tomorrow,

MoS