Shadgirl2: Okay, so this chapter has a fun surprise in it.

Midna: Well, not so fun for Judai.

Shadgirl2: Hush! You'll spoil it!

Midna: So, on that note, enjoy!

Disclaimer: We don't own Yugioh GX.

Judai's POV

Manjoume was so in character that I was really starting to question the wisdom of this plan. Maybe asking him for help was a bad idea. Maybe, somehow, I hadn't managed to purify him before, and this was all some sort of a trick. Hey, given that I hadn't had the Neo-Spacian deck at the time, it was possible that I'd missed. Especially since Asuka had been the one really fighting that duel.

Either way, it was too late to worry about that now (unless I was going to tell Yubel that I thought he was still a drone—which, oddly enough, I was considering). Manjoume led us out of town and into the woods, taking us deeper and deeper into them until we found ourselves in front of a huge white mansion.

It was three stories high, with balconies on the second and third floors. As I looked at those balconies, I couldn't help but wonder which one was the one I'd trapped myself on like an idiot the last time I'd been there. There was a spacious front porch, with an awning held up by twin pillars. If it hadn't been so white, I might actually have liked it.

Johan and Sho stared at the building in awe. Me, I was more concerned about saving Asuka—which is one reason why I didn't point out to Yubel that I thought Manjoume might still be a drone.

"Whoa," Johan said. "I had no idea the Light's main base would be so classy."

"Yeah, no kidding," Sho said. Apparently he hadn't yet gotten the point that he should be getting into character soon. "Now I wish I was a member. I mean, I'd—"

Uh, what had he just said? Was he seriously just interested in fancy housing!? Maybe I needed to reevaluate my friendship with him—if he wanted to join the Light to have a nice house, there was clearly something wrong with his brain. I know I was staring at him funny, like he'd just said that he was a female leprechaun with a unicorn horn who could fly, but he deserved it.

"Can we focus here!?" Manjoume snapped. "We're here to rescue Tenjoin-kun, remember!?"

And that's the other reason I didn't tell Yubel I thought Manjoume was really a drone—he was still on about saving Asuka.

"Right..." Sho said, then he gave an awkward laugh—as well he should have!

"Pull yourselves together, everyone!" Yubel said. "If we're gonna make this work, you're gonna have to act like you belong! Well, most of you will, anyway."

"Right!" the other three fake Light Drones said.

"And we need to act like we don't wanna be here!" Johan said to me. "Simple enough, since I really don't." He grinned.

Well, that made two of us.

"Yeah, not like I ever liked Yubel," I said. "And I like her less as a Light Drone."

With that in mind, acting like I didn't want to be here would be easier than blinking.

She tightened her grip on me, and I winced slightly. Man, I hated it when she did that! "You forget, boy, that right now, I've got the upper hand around here," she said, her tone threatening, like always when we were in these sorts of situations—me being arrested by her, I mean. "Watch your tone or things could get messy."

Yeah, like I hadn't heard that one before. As if she'd ever really hurt me. My dad would kill her if she ever did—literally, if I was lucky.

"Wow. She's real good at this Light thing. Almost like she rehearsed for it," Johan observed.

"I'm not afraid of you, Yubel!" I told her, getting into character as well. Hey, we were right outside their base, so what better time to start acting?

"Yeah, yeah," she said lamely, pushing me forward with a tight grip on my shoulders. "I've heard that before. Let's go, you idiot. You've got a date with destiny."

Since there seemed to be people outside, I struggled some on the way to make the act more believable.

Johan's POV

I just stared after Yubel and Judai, stunned. They were really good actors. That, or they were always like this. Given how they were when we were trying to get into the castle and get that Neo-Spacian deck, I figured that was a possibility, too. But Yubel did make a comment that sounded more like what the Light would say, so I was going to just assume they were good actors.

"You, too!" Misawa said, pushing me along and suddenly reminding me that I was also a "prisoner" for this little rescue mission. "Get a move-on! The master's waiting!"

Judai's POV

The false Light Drones took Johan and me straight up to the front door, where there were two guards stationed. Apparently these guys knew Misawa and Manjoume because they smiled.

"Ah. Manjoume and Misawa," one of them said. "So that's where you've been. Picking up some new recruits and rounding up some trouble-makers?"

Manjoume crossed his arms and humphed. "Well, of course. I said I wouldn't return until I got them, didn't I?"

And all of a sudden, I was less sure about Manjoume. After all, he'd said he couldn't remember anything about being a Light Drone before, yet those two guys were buying everything he was saying, as if he actually had said that! Most of the time, Light Drones didn't remember much of what happened when they were in the Society of Light once they're saved, which just made Manjoume all the more suspicious. Man, I really couldn't tell whose side he was on! Oh, well. It was definitely too late to worry about that now.

Johan glared fiercely at the guards, gritting his teeth. He let out a growl. "For the last time, you creeps! I'm not joining you!" he told them, struggling to get out of Misawa's grip.

"Let us go right now!" I said, joining in as I continued struggling against Yubel. "You know I'll get away eventually, Yubel!" I added, glaring over my shoulder at her.

"Oh, really? Then why haven't you done it yet?" she taunted. "We're at the base now, stupid. So, if you're gonna get away, you better do it while you still can."

I growled.

"Well, in that case," the same guard said, "then hurry up and get in here! Everything's ready for the prince's arrival. Right this way, please." Smiling, he led the way inside, while his partner stayed at the door.

Our group followed him, Johan and me still being dragged along.

Johan leaned over and whispered to me, "H-hey, what gives? I thought they were gonna take us to wait for the boss?"

I could tell he was worried, and I honestly couldn't blame him. I mean, after Manjoume's little revelation about his words before leaving—if that's what that was—I was worried, too. I had this nasty feeling we'd been tricked, and it was my fault for asking Manjoume for help. If anything happened to any of us, it would be my fault.

"I...I don't know," I whispered back. Not very reassuring, I know, but I really didn't know what was going on.

"Then maybe we should try to escape?"

I was about to agree when the guard stopped in front of a door to the right. "Put him right in there, miss," he told Yubel, making it clear that this was my stop. "The guard in there will handle the rest."

"Tch..."

Great. Just what I needed. To be separated from the others: the three that I knew I could trust and the two I wasn't so sure I wanted to leave the others alone with. And, from the sound of things, whoever was in that room was going to try to induct me into the Society of Light, probably with another one of those dumb lasers like my dad had, knowing my luck.

Even worse, Yubel had no choice but to obey or blow our entire operation.

Yubel's POV

Well, this was just great. I had to leave my charge locked in with a Light Drone. Wouldn't his father be just thrilled to know that I'd let him get away with this insanity in the first place? Ah, well, there wasn't anything else I could do besides blow our cover, and that sure wouldn't help anyone, least of all him.

So I removed the shackles. "You heard the man!" I told him. "Get in there!" Then I shoved him through the door, figuring he could take care of himself for a bit. I'd come back and save him later. Hey, it wasn't like I'd be gone that long. I just had to wait for this Light Drone to stop leading us all over the place and leave us alone.

The guard slammed the door behind him and locked it, then led us off to wherever we were taking Prince Johan.

Judai's POV

Inside that room, I noticed two things immediately that were wrong. Things that just didn't belong there. The first: a laser hanging from the ceiling, just as I'd feared. The second: my worst nightmare.

If you're thinking that my worst nightmare is Yubel or something, you're sorely mistaken. My worst nightmare is a certain blonde-haired duelist with hazel eyes wearing a very revealing white outfit. Yes, that's right. Asuka was standing in the back of the room, dressed all in white. She was wearing a white tube top, a very short white skirt with light blue trim at the bottom, and white high heeled boots.

She also had a smile that could freeze Hell.

"Welcome, Prince Judai," she told me. "I've been waiting for you." She snickered.

No way. No way, no way! This couldn't be happening. This had to be a joke, a bad dream, something other than the truth! Maybe I was hallucinating, maybe I was dead, maybe anything but what it looked like!

"A-Asuka?" I stammered.

"Why, of course," she said, moving forward slowly. "The one and only. What's wrong? Don't you recognize me?" She laughed. Her tone was just as cold as that sub-zero smile.

"I... You're one of them." I stepped back.

This was my fault. She was dragged into this because she knew me, because she meant something to me! And the worst part was neither of us had known at the time that her getting to know me could cause this! If I'd known it had, I never would have said anything to her that first day!

Okay, I had to calm myself down. Blaming myself wasn't going to help anything. It wasn't like I could have predicted this would happen, and I could still fix this. I just had to duel her and win. That was all. I could get her back. There was no reason to be freaking out like this.

Asuka laughed coldly as she kept coming at me. "That's right. I've been shown the light, just as everyone else has. And as you soon will, once I'm through with you." She laughed through her lips.

She was almost in my face now, and there wasn't very far that I could go. My first option would have been back through that stupid door, but I'd heard it lock behind me—the Light knew better than to stick me in an unlocked room, after all.

But her words were...almost flirtatious. And, coupled with her icy tone, it was pretty unnerving.

When I found my voice, I backed up a bit more, asking, "Through with me...?"

She was relentless—she just kept coming closer, and I was starting to think that I really didn't want to know what she meant by that. I kept backing up, sort of afraid to let her get any closer to me.

"Yes, Judai," she said. "Through with you. Soon all your problems will just fade away, like they never even existed. Soon you'll see the light, have your eyes opened for the first time. Soon you'll be one of us, just as you always should have." She paused, and her smirk turned wicked. That's the only word that could possibly describe that look. "And soon you and I can be together forever," she flirted in that icy tone of hers. "Now doesn't that sound nice?"

It was about this moment that I started wondering if there was some way she could kiss me or something and poison me that way. Was that laser just for show, to get me worried more about that than about the predatory girl who suddenly seemed to have a romantic interest in me? I mean, in different circumstances, I might have appreciated that. But this wasn't at all what I wanted! There was no way that was Asuka!

She giggled, and I swear, I never knew a giggle could sound so cold. Then she stopped walking. She started laughing, and I felt something wrap around my left ankle, heard something click.

"Huh!?"

I looked down to see a short metal cuff, its chain going into a hole in the floor that hadn't been there before. The cuff was wrapped around my ankle, keeping me from going anywhere. I could only lift my foot a couple inches off the ground, that's how short the chain was. Then I glanced at the laser.

Crap. I'd backed myself right into its range, hadn't I?

Asuka just stood there, musing, apparently. That stupid cold laugh of hers was getting old, and so was the Hell-Freezes-Over smile that never left her face.

Man, how the hell do I get myself into these messes!? Now I had to try and talk her into playing fair, something Light Drones didn't typically do—my dad wasn't unusual in his desire to just get finished with me as soon as possible.

"Alright, Asuka!" I exclaimed, my attention snapping back to her. "I know you can't be as big of a coward as some of these idiot Lights! So duel me!"

Maybe if I insulted her teammates, she'd fight me. Yeah, that was a great idea, Judai! Stupid, stupid, stupid! Well, maybe, if I was lucky—which I usually wasn't—she'd duel me just so that she wouldn't be lumped in with those "cowardly" teammates of hers.

She gave another cold laugh, closing her eyes for a second. "Silly boy," she said. "Did you think I was just going to zap you, just like that?" She laughed through her lips again.

Hesitant to actually believe, I asked, "So...you saying...?"

"Of course," she answered my unfinished question. "That wouldn't be any fun."

Still smiling a smile so cold it made Pluto look like a ball of fire, she walked away, far enough for the two of us to actually duel. A pedestal rose out of the floor on the other side of the room as she was walking over there. On top of the pedestal, I could see what looked like Asuka's real duel disk—just based off the fact that it wasn't snow white.

When she got to the pedestal, she turned to face me. "Of course I was going to give you a chance to save yourself. And of course I was going to ask you to duel. What do you think? That this room's just for show?"

She picked her duel disk up off the pedestal, which started sinking back into the floor. She put her duel disk on and activated it. I activated mine as well, hugely relieved that she'd said she'd duel me. I mean, in theory, I could have summoned a monster to destroy the laser or the chain, but she could have stopped me before I'd even had a chance to activate my duel disk. So, really, this was my only way out. I had to win this duel—not just to save myself, but to save her, too!

"You ready?" she asked.

"Bring it on, Asuka!"

"Oh, I plan to."

Can't say I liked her tone there, but, hey, she was an icy cold Light Drone. Honestly, this had to be one of the most dramatic personality changes I'd ever seen from a Light Drone, right up there with my father turning more violent and hot-tempered. I had to get her back to normal!

"Duel!"