People often ask me... "Is there a MRS. Sass-Bot?"

Of COURSE there is. YOU'RE her, and you're still as perfect as the day we met.

So, yeah, here I am with another chapter... I played Fallout New Vegas... and GOD it was glorious, but you're not here to hear about my life. Unless you are... ;)

Justfourmisfits: I, too, suffer bc you can't swear in the reviews, but I feel your swears, deep in my heart and I appreciate them. Honestly , I swoon too whenever Duke or Tristan do anything.


So I was in the duelist lounge. Did I finish watching the duel between Marik an Mai? Nope. In fact, it was still going on while I ate ice cream with a twelve year-old, his bodyguard, and the teen dream, Duke Devlin. And do you want to know why I was eating ice cream with a twelve year-old, his bodyguard, and the teen dream, Duke Devlin?

I burst into tears.

And I'm not talking like I teared up a little and had to pretend nothing was wrong; no, I'm talking full-on fetal position sobbing -right in front of Seto Kaiba. Way to make a first impression; am I right? Oh, and you should have seen the look on his face. If I wasn't hysterically sobbing, I would have enjoyed it much more than I did. He had this expression like he wasn't sure whether to laugh or burst into flames out of pure rage, and he kept twitching for as long as it took his brother and Duke to remove me from the vicinity.

Honestly, I couldn't really explain to you clearly what went on in my mind at that moment, because yeah, I know bursting into tears is neither the ideal nor the typical reaction to a homicidal sixteen year-old talking to you. All I could really remember was glancing at Marik's millennium rod and then at his face, followed by the once-over of shame as I looked around at Yugi and his friends, who seemed even more surprised than I was. Not to mention the fact that my good-ol' friend, Voice, decided to pester me at that exact moment, its words filling in the spots in my brain reserved for figuring shit out. It was like all these things were in my brain and I was trying to make sense of them. It was as though I was stacking up a giant tower of playing cards and having it collapse all around me, and there was itty bitty Lorna sitting in a pile of red, white and black looking like an idiot.

To put it concisely, it was a massive file sorting error in my brain, and with luck, I could probably keep that under control in the future. However, you of all people know my track record with this, so I wouldn't get my hopes up. The thing that pissed me off, though, was that I was certain something was about to click in my brain at that moment, not that I was prepared to go back to that demolition site and figure it out though. At least, not for another few hours.

"This ice cream is really good," I murmured, nibbling on a cone with two different flavored scoops stacked onto it: strawberry cheesecake and lazycake. "Where do you get it?"

Mokuba dug his face out of his own ice cream long enough to answer, albeit in a bit of an awkward tone. "Ah you like it? My big bro had it imported from Italy."

I nodded quietly. "I meant like a shop… but yeah, sure I'll just take my personal jet to Italy next time I want ice cream."

I heard a chuckle and turned to Duke. "Sorry you had to come with me," I told him. "You can just go back now. I mean, I'm okay here…"

Duke took a long deliberate lick of his ice cream and grinned. "What? And miss out on all the fun?" He winked. "It's freezing outside and there's ice cream in here."

"Oh, so you're not trying at all to be chivalrous?" I asked him, smiling in spite of myself.

Mokuba laughed. "It's a good enough reason for me!"

"Oh?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. "I'd imagine Mokuba Kaiba, brother to the CEO of KaibaCorp, would be super excited about his brother's super flashy duel tournament."

He looked down at his lap, the spark of excitement in his eyes replaced by something else in that moment. "Don't get me wrong; I am excited," he informed me, his voice betraying the opposite emotions, however. His eyes met mine once again. "It's just getting really intense… and kinda dangerous. And when my brother's serious about something, he sees it through, no matter what anyone else says."

"Maybe he shouldn't be so stubborn," I suggested, taking another lick of my ice cream and getting one of the delicious cake bits.

"Well, being stubborn is what got Seto to where he is now. He wouldn't be my brother if he wasn't so determined. It's really one of the best things about him…" He trailed off and glanced over at one of the small monitors on the wall to check on the progress of the duel.

"But…?" I probed, trying to drag his attention away from the duel, for his sake, and more importantly, for my own sake.

"But nothing," he replied stiffly. He sighed and brought his attention back to his dripping ice cream. "That Marik guy is bad news; I'm sure of it. I hope Mai makes it out okay. She doesn't look too good."

Like a giant middle finger to my current mental state, I decided to take a gander at the monitor that was displaying the duel, feeling my thoughts cloud up and bristle like a security system powering up. My entire body was on red alert and it occurred to me that I might have needed to get some sleep; real sleep, not just a loss of consciousness and a lovely trip to the ever picturesque Inbetween.

"Hey, she has the Winged Dragon of Ra!" Duke exclaimed, a hesitant smile on his face. "That's good, right?"

"Y-Yeah!" Mokuba cried with the same hesitation. "It should be. That card was Marik's gambit and now it's in Mai's hands."

I cleared my throat and took another lick of ice cream to calm myself down. "That's actually… not good. Not good at all."

My three companions all turned to face me simultaneously, but it was the bodyguard (the one whose name I still hadn't gotten) who spoke. "What do you mean?"

I bit the inside of my cheek and felt myself shiver. Damn ice cream…

"I mean that she can't summon it. The Winged Dragon of Ra can only be summoned by certain people. It's like the card is alive and it decides who can summon it and who can't. You have to recite this ancient text written on the card, and it's damn near indecipherable if you're not meant to be summoning it," I explained sullenly, watching their reactions to my words.

"You don't look surprised," Duke noted, his words directed towards Mokuba.

Mokuba closed his eyes and nodded. "I'm not. Seto has me translating that text. It hasn't been easy… How do you know all this?" he asked me.

My heart jumped. Fuck, he was right; I wasn't supposed to know that. "Long story," I replied swiftly, hoping he wouldn't push it any further. I mean, yeah, I was fine with telling people where I was really from, but I figured four people (and whoever they may have told) were enough for now.

"Should we get out there and warn her?" Duke asked, leaning forward in his seat and boring his eyes into the tiny screen, which, in my humble opinion (and I'm no optometrist), couldn't have been too healthy.

I shook my head, pointing to the screen where Marik was giving his most sadistic smile to both Mai and the spectators. He laughed and looked as though he was explaining the very thing I had just told my companions, only much more gleefully. We had the sound muted, so I couldn't say for sure, but if the Winged Dragon hologram blinking into existence around him was any indication, my guess wasn't too far off. "Too late."

As we spoke, the door clicked and two people made their way into the lounge: one I recognized very well as one of the hellspawn who nearly killed me a little while ago, and the other I didn't recognize as well. They both had long black hair, though Sun was still rocking her femme fatale red lipstick, while the other seemed a bit more on the natural side.

"Who's that?" I whispered to Duke, trying not to stare at the women to conspicuously.

"The eighth duelist," he replied.

The eighth duelist. Ishizu Ishtar. Yeah… I think I remembered her… if vaguely. Her white, billowing dress was prettier in real life, and it almost looked like she was the one from another world, not me. What was she doing with Sun? She may have been Marik's sister, but she was one of the good guys as far as I knew. I'm not sure what the policy is on holding people down and forcing them into a state of unconsciousness where you guys are from, but to me, it was strictly bad guy behaviour.

"That woman with her," I told him hushedly. "She's..." I trailed off, trying to find the right words to use.

"Have you met her?" he asked, trying to keep his voice just as low as mine.

I nodded and turned around to look at the screen again. "For like five minutes, but just enough time for her to show her true colors." I scowled just in case they needed any clarification as to what these "true colors" were.

I glanced at the two women again. They had taken a seat at a table on the other side of the room as us, right beside a different monitor. It didn't look like they were talking; Ishizu was transfixed with her brother's face. Sun reached out and put her hand over the other woman's, her lips moving briefly. For a minute, I could have sworn something was wrong with Sun's face; blackness oozed from her eyes, came out through her lips like small wisps, and for a moment, even her alabaster skin seemed to blister and break before my eyes, mutating into a state very similar to the broken leathery texture of a corpse.

"Did you just see that?" I breathed, feeling my entire body clench and fall back into my seat.

"Lorna, are you okay?" he asked me.

Something cold and clammy was on my wrist. I shrieked, snatching my arm away and shrinking further into the seat cushion behind me. Not right now. Not right now. Not here…

"Lorna!" Duke? "It's just me. You're okay. It's just me."

And when the fog cleared, there he was, his jade eyes full of concern and his hand positioned awkwardly over his chest. He watched me cautiously as I slowly remembered how to breathe, my heart beating faster than Superman on steroids. It was just him. I was okay.

"Duke… I'm so…" My eyes traveled across his face and down to his closed fist; it was red and I could see crescent marks on his wrist. I didn't… Shit. I did. "I'm so sorry… I thought you were…" Well, to be quite honest, I wasn't sure what I thought he was, but I could recall the same feeling of dread clamping over that stupid beating organ in my chest from before.

Mokuba and his guard had noticed this exchange and were giving us inquisitive looks, making me feel more and more like a freakshow with every passing second. "Is everything okay?" Mokuba asked with an expression on his face that was less concerned and more frightened.

"Y-Yeah…" I told him, sheathing my hand into my lap and trying to be calmer and less prone to violent outbursts. "You guys… You didn't just see that?" I asked, my eyes travelling once more to the two women conversing.

"See what?" came Duke's inquiry.

I bit my lip and looked over the women again. Sun's face was back to normal and the two of them looked like they came out of fucking Vogue for this stupid card game tournament. Not wanting to get into it, I simply shook my head and diverted my gaze towards the television to check on Mai. "N-nothing… It's nothing," I stammered. Mai wasn't looking too good; she was strapped to a large stone tablet by golden chains. I could have said something to stop this… I should have…

You can't change anything, Lorna. Worry about yourself.

Easy for you to say. You're a disembodied voice.

It chuckled, but I wasn't in the mood for its complete lack of empathy and total disregard for any human life that wasn't mine. I'm sorry.

Yeah, just because I'm in a bad mood.

No… There was almost a hint of reluctance in its tone. I'm really sorry… for everything, Lorna.

Unless you're the one putting Mai in a coma right now, I'm so not in the mood for your apologies.

The Voice didn't reply to me this time, but it seemed like it wasn't completely gone, and I could feel its presence in the back of my mind, waiting for a chance to speak up again.

My heart beat erratically in my chest, like a broken car engine, sputtering and letting out smoke, causing me to tear up. I twitched my nose, trying to keep it all down, and no one's surprise was greater than mine when I succeeded.

"We have to go back out there, Duke," I urged frantically, stumbling to my feet and tossing my half-eaten cone into a styrofoam tray on the table. I grabbed his arm and began pulling him up. "Come on!" Duke rose and allowed me to drag him across the lounge and towards the stairwell leading to the dueling arena, while Mokuba and his bodyguard tailed us.

Halfway up the stairwell, I was met with a familiar face, sweaty, panting, and desperate. Joey was carrying an unconscious Mai in his arms bridal style, her long legs dangling over his forearm like the lifeless limbs of a doll, her head lolling around in the crook of his elbow.

"Out of the way, Lorna!" he snapped, pushing past me in the narrow space, and within the span of one minute, the rest of the group pushed past me, leaving me pressed against the wall, barely keeping my balance.

Once the commotion was over, I was alone; not even Duke, Mokuba and the bodyguard were with me. There was a soft tapping of shoes on metal and the sound of fabric brushing against fabric indicating that I wasn't completely alone. No, towering above me, his shadow long, dramatic, and incredibly true to his character, was Seto Kaiba.

"Why aren't you with the geek squad?" he asked icily with that condescending grin of his decorating his face. "Afraid you'll start crying again?" He began to chuckle… no, not chuckle. He cackled like an evil genius. It wasn't even a really sick burn either. I mean, wow, I cry a lot -like that's brand new information?

As he passed me, his ridiculously exaggerated coat brushed against my legs. "I'll have you know I suffer from chronic anxiety!" I called after him. "And you're an ableist sack of shit for making fun of my panic attack!"

His walking slowed to a stop just before reaching the end of the stairs and his head turned ninety degrees left. "What are you to Marik?"

My heart leapt into my throat and I was feeling the unfortunately familiar sensation of goosebumps on my arm. "What do you mean?" I asked, tacking on an "I don't even know him." for clarification.

"His face when you left… I almost thought he was going to cry, too," he spoke pensively then returned to his typical piggish tone with a scoff. "Maybe we should give you panic attacks more often."

I frowned. "Go shove your stupid Blue-Eyes jet up your ass."

He laughed again. "You're like a miniature Wheeler. It seems that loser's more bearable when he's travel size."

Did he just make fun of my height? There were a select few things that stirred my chowder, and jokes about my height made the top ten. "Hey!" I exclaimed against my better judgement. "How 'bout you get that big-ass head of yours to climb down its seven foot ladder and fucking fight me?" I wanted to mention that his head was bigger than his bank account, but I figured it didn't fit within the context, so it was a jab for another day.

For a moment, he was silently staring at me over his shoulder, his hands in his pockets, looking like a fucking model or a movie star -I couldn't decide -and then he turned his head and nodded, letting out an amused scoff. "You're funny, Beck."

Taken aback, I widened my eyes. "How do you know my name?" I asked, feeling really stupid and trying not to think about how I must have been a joke to this man.

"It's my business to know," he replied simply. "Now aren't your friends waiting for you? Or do you just enjoy standing by yourself in dark hallways like a psychopath waiting for her next victim?"

I inched down the stairs slowly, feeling half-offended and, surprisingly, half-giddy. "And what if you're my next victim. I don't see any bodyguards around."

I heard a soft chuckle and he began to continue his descent down the stairs. "You think I can't take you in a fight, Beck? You must really be delusional."

"I'm surprisingly durable, you know. I've literally come back from the dead, or so I've heard," I told him, grinning and walking behind him. I couldn't see much over his giant body, so I was really just blindly following him.

"Oh ho," he exclaimed sarcastically, "That must make you worth my time."

"You're still talking to me, aren't you?" I informed him with a lopsided grin of my own. He didn't reply this time, however, opting to simply raise a dismissive hand and go through the door, letting it shut behind him.

Rude-ass bitch. All that aside, though, the exchange made me feel more refreshed than I had been in quite a while. I decided that for all that cockiness and attitude, I liked Seto Kaiba.

It was only when I was at the infirmary door that I remembered something very important from my conversation with the multi-billionaire. It almost attacked me like a windstorm, giving me the chills and nearly petrifying me, and the refreshing feeling from a moment ago was completely gone now, replaced by the cool sweat and stomach cramps of anxiety.

"What are you to Marik?"

"I don't even know him!"

What if… What if I did? Kaiba said Marik looked like he was about to cry after he made me panic. I didn't get a good look at his face when he spoke to me during the duel, too preoccupied with myself, but Kaiba noticed something in him, enough to make some kind of connection between us. I'd be lying if it didn't make me sick to my stomach. I was having a bad enough time as it was without being connected to Marik.

And then there was that thing that I figured out during the duel -the thing that worsened my sensory overload… the thing that my brain won't let me think about. Keeping the thought to itself was no doubt a defense mechanism, but I didn't have time for my brain to play "mom" and do things "for my own good"

"Lorna, get in here," a sweet voice called out, startling me out of my thoughts. I saw Yugi standing before me, with concern on his face and perhaps a dash of caution, which came across as more suspicion than anything else.

I smiled slightly. "Ah… okay." I suppose my revelation would have to wait a few minutes. It was at the corner of my mind, though; I just had to reach for it. "H-How is she doing?" I stuttered, trying to keep my distance as I took small, tentative steps towards the large group hunching over someone who was probably an unconscious Mai.

"Not very good," Yugi mumbled solemnly, looking over at the rest of the group. He was quiet as he explained the situation to me, trying not to distress everyone further. "Her soul is trapped in an eternal prison… so she's not dead, but…"

I nodded quietly and tried not to look at Joey, whose shoulders were shuddering while he held his friend's cold hand. It was so weird seeing him like this -hopeless, powerless, lifeless -when I was so accustomed to seeing him grinning, ruffling my hair and joking around. It felt like we hadn't really been reunited and Joey was still far away from me, which was such a selfish thought to have when his close friend (maybe even the woman he loved) was in a life-or-death situation. So maybe I really wasn't any better than Zorc…

Trying to expel the thought from my mind, I backed away into one of the guest sofas, taking a seat and making myself more invisible than I already was. None of them had time for me, so it would be awful to make them have to deal with me.

Going back to my train of thought earlier, however…

The only way Marik could know me prior to that duel would have to be when I woke up in his room, and I still didn't know why that was. Just before that I was in the Inbetween with Malik, who admittedly did have a passing resemblance to Marik. I had dismissed it earlier because they didn't really look at all alike. Malik's face was more angular and rugged, his jaw strong, and his eyes sharp, while Marik's face was the face of a young boy, round and soft, sallow and unassuming. There was no way in hell they were the same person -of that I was sure (even if they had similar names). Going by the logic that Marik and Malik were one and the same, however, it would follow that, for some reason, Malik, who I had only just met, would have to know me much better than he had originally let on, and I couldn't think of any way he could know me that well.

There was only one individual with a giant question mark in my list of acquaintances and that was the Voice. It was the only person (was it even human) whose identity was a complete mystery to me. I was positive my revelation was about it, and even as I recalled these thoughts, I could almost physically feel the pieces fit together in my head. Something was coming together and the darkness that surrounded me was getting a little less suffocating.

So could Marik have been the voice in my head? He had his Millennium Rod, so he was certainly capable of telepathically communicating with me if he wanted to, but why would he want to? I sighed and shook my head. I didn't have to worry about the "why" yet so long as I still had the "who" and the "how" to worry about.

If Marik was the Voice, then everything he said was a lie -everything he told me, every time he tried to help me… It was all leading towards his secret agenda, which would, in that case, seem to be more than just killing the Pharaoh and taking his power. He told me I was in a coma… was even that a lie?

I couldn't completely remember the moment before I came here… wherever "here" is. I woke up. I was exhausted, sleep-deprived. I'd always been sleep-deprived, trudging my way through life drunk and unaware. That day was no different. I never wanted to sleep because, when they weren't nightmares, my dreams were infinitely more interesting than my life, and I hated it. I hated my dreams, and I liked to be disgustingly aware of how dull my life was, but you don't care about that. I don't care about that. We just wanted to know what was going on.

It was almost dreamlike as I danced down the stairs, half-carrying my backpack and half-dropping it, not even paying attention to the swaying stair steps and the impending doom, and it came with a loud ear-splitting snap.

Most stories I've read called it "time standing still" as I collided and fell, each movement completely discernible from the last and each millisecond containing a thought. I was too drunk for that. My death happened in a split second, with no last thoughts, no mounting pressure, no fear. I stumbled into the light like a last place runner falling face-first into the finish line.

I knew I was dead; I always did. I never forgot that nightmare I had last night; I just said I did, when I really filed it away, pretended to forget. Most importantly. There was no coma. That was a lie, and I think I knew that all along. It was a fact that was hard to miss and… a coma? That was the kind of lie only I would believe, even when Zephyr tried to tell me otherwise. So maybe he wasn't the bad guy all along. Or maybe I was just getting ahead of myself.

The last question was: why would Marik tell me that? He wasn't dead, and therefore Malik wasn't dead. He wasn't "in a coma" either… He lied about that, too. What were his motives?

I tried to separate my thoughts from my emotions because I wasn't ready to deal with this shit -not yet. I wasn't strong enough. My eyes stung, shut tight; my head blocked out my surroundings -I couldn't deal with everything all at once. Would it be stupid to say that I thought that the Voice was actually my friend? That it actually wanted to help me?

"Hey! Lorna!"

I almost suffered whiplash at the speed I moved my head up, trying to identify the angry voice that called out my name. "J-Joey?" I whispered, losing my voice in my throat, feeling it try to climb over the lump that had formed.

He was still shaking, his hair disheveled and his brown eyes glaring a hole into my skull. It took less than a second for my heartbeat to accelerate to one thousand times its original speed. I wasn't good at making eye contact to begin with, but staring into his intense eyes was even harder, more painful.

"You knew!" he hollered, clenching and unclenching his fist at his side as he tried to regain his composure. "You knew this would happen to her the entire time, didn't you?" His question was a quiet statement rather than a loud remark.

"Joey," Téa pleaded. "A lot of things have changed. She said so herself. What if she didn't -"

"No, she knew," Joey interrupted, sounding more sure of himself than he ever had before. "You can see it all over her face."

His words slapped me in the face, and I probably deserved it. "I… I knew."

"When were you going to tell us you and Marik knew each other?" he asked.

"I don't know."

I felt so small, barely even hearing my own voice as it came out of my mouth. It didn't stop there, though. He shot out statement after scalding statement. Joey was no fool and he had pieced together more than I could ever have given him credit for. Everyone else was hauntingly quiet, so there was no white noise surrounding his statements, just his loud, confident rage, unfiltered and unbridled.

I was wrong. I was wrong. I was wrong.

"You lied about everything!"

I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry, Lorna.


[maniacal laughter]