Why is it that after I post a chapter I then find the minor mistakes in it? How could I miss them after reading it six different times?! Thank you to those who have read this and reviewed this story so far. You all are absolutely wonderful so please excuse the tears of joy (okay not really crying but eh.)

Disclaimer: Trust me I still do NOT own it.

Chapter 7

Interrogations

No one was exactly sure when the grey clouds in the sky opened up and spilled out their tears in a gentle fall. Birds stayed nestled in their tiny homes, squirrels poked their heads out of their tree holes, sniffed or got dripped on by a leaf, and retreated back inside. The only life that stirred outside were the leaves that drooped for a moment before returning to their positions as rain water collected upon them and spilled to the floor below.

Inside an uncared for cabin two people slept both plagued by two very different dreams. One, who was the youngest, tossed and turned her face contorting in unseen pain. The other muttered something his left hand clutching the white puffy soft object beneath his head. Neither knew the other was having a problem at that moment.

"You sick and twisted bastard!" Serenity screamed up at Yami Marik with a surprising amount of courage. Both were standing on the dueling platform ontop of Kaiba's Duel Tower."What have you done to my brother?"

"His mind has been sent to the shadow realm my dear. Your brother knew what would happen when he lost to me." Yami Marik sneered down at the auburn haired girl his arms crossed across his chest.

"Bring him back he's done nothing to you!" Serenity yelled fists clenched at her sides as she stood in front of her brother's prone form.

"Wrong! He tried stopping me from obtaining my goal and therefore he deserved what he got." The spikey haired male had an insane look in his eyes as he glared down at his prior opponent's sister. A sadistic smile spread across his face."Maybe you would like to join him to keep him company."

Serenity froze in horror at the thought. She couldn't go to the shadow realm she had her brother and Mai to take care of. Out of sheer adreline or sheer stupidty on her part she took the duel disk off her brother and put it on her own arm. Reaching into her own pocket she pulled out a dueling deck.

"No, I won't go without a fight. You'll duel me. If I win you bring back both Joey and Mai!" Serenity's angry tears never fell as she replaced her brother's deck with her own.

"Serenity no!" Yugi, Tea, Duke and Tristan shouted in unison.

"Well, this just got interesting." Kaiba stated with a trademark smirk on his face. "Looks like Wheeler's sister has some claws."

"You fool! You will never beat me in a duel!" Yami Marik laughed maniacally.

"We shall see or are you too scared to duel me." Serenity quipped back with a sneer. Yami Marik stopped laughing and glared daggers.

"I'm going to enjoy feeding you to the shadows." Yami Marik stated as he took position on his side of the dueling platform.

Meanwhile, in another dream realm a white haired male was overlooking a desert scene from atop of a cliff. The cool night air surrounded him as he gazed up at the millions of sparkling lights above him. His open red tunic revealed a very muscular torso and a pair of black shorts adorned his legs. The man turned at the sound of footsteps behind him. He smiled at the scene before him.

"Look how well Kira's learning to walk. She's going to be a handful very soon." A woman smiled as she looked down at a very small toddler who was making her wobbly way towards the man.

"She's going to be just like her mother. Kira looks so much like you Selana." The man knelt down to the sandy ground and held out his arms to the small child who giggled.

"Kira's got your hair color though Bakura and your attitude. She's going to be quite the trouble maker." Selana smiled as she watched her daughter walk into her father's arms and hug him. The woman's pale blonde hair blew in the light breeze despite being pulled up into a high ponytail.

Bakura chuckled as he stood lifting Kira as he did so. Taking the few strides to his wife he pulled her to his side with one arm and held her close. Kissing the top of her head he gazed down at her with violet eyes. Selana looked up at him her brown eyes locking with his. They shared a short kiss as Kira decided that her parents had turned their attention away from her long enough and tugged on her father's equally white hair.

"Okay, okay you little rascal. Let's put you to sleep. It's late and you tend to wake up my mornings with your crying." Bakura smiled at his daughter who giggled innocently and placed her tiny hand on her father's tanned face. He pretended to eat her fingers causing her to squeal and wiggle in his grasp.

Yami Bakura woke taking in a sharp breath as he stared up at the wooden panels above him. Closing his eyes he took several deep breaths trying to erase the images he had seen. The memories he had just relived he didn't want to see. The pain that followed them wasn't pleasant and he didn't want to look back on them. As the last of the images disappeared a soft moan had him look over at the girl sharing the bed with him. Serenity was tossing violently at this point and a pale hand touched her shoulder.

"Serenity. Serenity." Yami Bakura shook Joey's sister's shoulder gently trying to arouse the girl from her nightmare. "Serenity wake up you're having a nightmare."

Neither of the two knew which was more comical. The fact that Serenity's fist flew up and bopped Yami Bakura in the nose, causing him to grunt in agony, or Serenity falling off the bed and onto the floor shortly after. The female groaned as she picked herself up and peeked over the side of the bed. Yami Bakura was checking his hand for any sign of blood before glancing at her.

"Nice punch." The male smirked as he watched a face turn pink. "Did I really deserve that though?"

"I dunno, did you do anything to me in my sleep?" Serenity asked standing while straightening her outfit from the day before.

"Not that I'm aware of. I don't believe I have wandering hands." Yami Bakura nearly laughed as he watched his hiking companion blush at what he meant. "So, what shall we do about breakfast. I see the rain has started so we can't exactly go looking for berries."

Serenity turned to look out the window where pale light flooded in. Rain water was beating at a steady pace against the glass and the droplets were racing one another to the sill. A sigh escaped her lips as she thought of how this would set back anyone looking for them.

"I guess the only thing really to eat are cold poptarts and instant oatmeal. Neither of which sound very appetizing." Serenity made a face of displeasure while trying to distangle herself from the blankets that had come along for the ride off the bed.

"My thoughts exactly." Yami Bakura stretched his arms out before leaving the room the girl following quickly behind him.

As they entered the kitchen they realized just how small the room was. The two of them had a decent amount of room to manuever but they still had to brush past the other to get around. Serenity had taken to sitting on the counter, swinging her legs slightly, while nibbling on strawberry poptart that she had heated after finding the toaster. Yami Bakura was scowling down at a pan before him as he tried to make instant oatmeal. The food was refusing to cook in a timely fashion so he cranked the heat up.

"Is something burning?" Serenity sniffed as she set down her poptart. Looking over to the pot on the stove she managed to see what was going on before jumping. Yami Bakura and Serenity both threw their hands up in front of their faces as the oatmeal bubbled so much it sent out a burst of wet hot oats in various directions.

"Fuck that's hot!" Yami Bakura shouted as he quickly turned off the stove. Peering into the pot he saw black bits surfacing confirming that something had indeed been burnt. "Damn."

"Huh, so is this like the other kitchen disaster Ryou had?" Serenity giggled as she wiped her arms off with a paper towel. The spirit didn't look at her or responded but the look on his face confirmed it. "Well considering you can't do anything until the mess is cleaned up you can have my other poptart. I'm really not feeling that hungry."

"Hn, thanks." Yami Bakura grumbled as he dumped the burnt oats into the trash. The smell of burnt food radiated throughout the cabin. A half hour later, and a lot of prying and pushing, all of the windows were open in hopes of letting the smell escape.

"You're really not that good of a cook are you?" Serenity laughed as she wiped down the counters while Yami Bakura scrubbed oatmeal off the ceiling.

"Anything involving meat is my forte. For the love of Ra this crap will not come off! Who knew burnt oatmeal could become impossible to remove!" Yami Bakura was scowling up at the ceiling while standing on a counter Serenity hadn't cleaned yet.

"I think that's mold." Serenity gazed up at the tiny brown spots that refused to budge.

"Gross."

A large room was filled with surprisingly loud students at such an early hour that they were awaken. All of those that were attending the field trip had been woken up by the teachers and told to meet in the dining hall. One of the teachers had already come and gone after telling them that several rangers would be coming to speak to each of them about their missing classmates. After the teacher left each student took this opportunity to try and remember when they last saw the white haired teen and the auburn haired girl.

"I thought I saw them stop right before we went around that one turn." "They probably got lost on purpose." "Do you think they'll cut the trip short?" "It's raining outside that's gotta suck for them." "They're probably hiding in the hotel to get out of walking." "If they are in the hotel do you think they're doing it?"

An angry older brother's eye twitched at hearing just a few of the tidbits of conversations. As far as he was aware his sister didn't know what "it" was nor had she ever had that talk. What Joey didn't know was that she had learned what "it" was in health class earlier that year. Poor naive Joey didn't want to let his sister grow up too quickly. Just before the blonde could explode on everyone in the room Mr. Lectur walked in with five men and women all wearing matching green and brown outfits.

"Alright students, we thank you for your patience in this matter. The more you all cooperate with the rangers the faster you all can get back to enjoying the hotel. Now, I need anyone who is close friends with either Ryou Bakura or Serenity Wheeler to please stand up and follow ranger Dean out into a private location. The rest of you will be questioned by the others. Please do not give them problems or you'll be seeing home faster than you thought."

Six people stood up and pushed in their chairs before walking up to their teacher. Four people looked at one of the members of the group with questioning looks. This person glared back before looking away. Ranger Dean turned out to be a younger man with jet black hair and vivid brown eyes. He smiled at them before turning away from them.

"Follow me please. I have questions for all of you that you'll be able to answer better than your classmates." Dean led them into the lounge room they all had been in the night before. The six students sucked in a breath remembering the fight that had occurred several hours before taking seats around the table. "Alright, let's start with names starting from my left."

"Clarissa Martin." "Yugi Motou." "Tristan Taylor." "Tea Gardner." "Duke Devlin" "Joey Wheeler."

"Well, unless Wheeler is a common name, then you must be the big brother." Dean turned his gaze to the male sitting to his right as he removed his green jacket revealing a black button up shirt underneath. "Okay, who was the first to notice that your two friends went missing?"

"That would be me." Clarissa stated holding up her hand a little. "I noticed it when we were doing a class assignment. We were all spread out so I couldn't tell for certain if they were gone or not. I told Mr. Lectur that I hadn't seen them in a while and we did a muster right after the assignment was completed. That's when everyone knew Ryou and Serenity were gone. In fact the last time I laid eyes on them was about maybe a half hour to an hour into the hike? I didn't bring my watch so I'm guessing on this."

"That's actually a good start. This science assignment, how far out were you all allowed to go?" Dean asked while he took notes on a yellow steno pad.

"We were only to stay within earshot. It could be possible that maybe they went a little further and didn't hear the whistle when it was blown." Duke mentioned as he studied the officer.

"Possible, but we need to wait on the rest of the classes' statements. Surely someone would have said something to them. Now, did either of these two talk about running away?" Dean looked at all of them whom all returned their own look of disbelief at the question.

"No, neither of them said anything like that. They didn't have any issues with anyone here." Tea stated simply.

"You sure about that because Serenity seems to have an issue with all of you sheltering her like a four year old." Clarissa stated as she looked at her fingernails in boredom and to keep from glaring across the table at the others. One of Dean's eyebrows rose in question before turning to Joey.

"That's a damn lie and you know it Clarissa. If she had roomed with Tea like she was supposed to none of this would've happened! It's your fault you filled her head with nonsense and what's worse is you seemed to have gotten into Bakura's head as well!" Joey stood up pushing back his chair in the process. Clarissa was about to snap back in anger until the officer stood up.

"Alright, all of you back to your corners and retract the claws. I don't know what was said or done but it's not going to help if you all are fighting with one another. Now, to my next question. Is there any possible chance that either one of them could hurt the other?"

Yugi's leg twitched under the table. This was the question he feared would come up. He just hoped that he was right in assuming that the evil spirit wouldn't show. From the looks of the others they were thinking the same thing, except Clarissa who didn't know a thing about it. Crossing his fingers he looked over at the handsome ranger and let out a slow breath.

"Not that we would believe. Both are very nice people. Ryou's a bit fragile and accident prone and Serenity is too pure hearted to do hurt anyone." Yugi replied sincerily.

"Alright, that leads me to my next question. Do you know of anyone that would try to harm them? As in kidnap them off the trails or lure them away?"

"No." Everyone at the table responded. They all began to shift around wondering why all these questions were being asked. Surely it had to be routine.

"Alright. Well that wraps up my end of questions. Do any of you have any for me? I know all of those questions sounded strange but it's routine to cover our bases on everything." Dean closed up the yellow pad of paper and stuck the black ball point pen through the spiral on top.

"When will the search begin?" Tristan asked worriedly as he glanced outside.

"Well, we have to get the dogs out here but with the way the rain started its onslaught earlier than expected any trace of scent may have washed away. Also, this is supposed to turn into a storm by the evening. Something no one really predicted. After the storm clears we should be able to start up right away." Dean folded his hands and leaned forward. When no other questions came along he leaned back and stood. "You're all free to go and hopefully once the storm is done we can get the choppers up and in the air as well. This isn't the first time people have gotten lost on the trails but it would be the first that it's been an overnight ordeal. Normally we have a chopper in the air monitoring the trails and the woods but lately we've been caught up in something else."

"Like what?" Joey couldn't stop himself from asking as he turned his attention to the man who would help find his sister.

"There have been reports that there's a few drifters in this area that are helping smuggle illegal items throughout the country. Sending choppers up would scare them off and we need to find these bastards before they hurt more people. They've already attacked a few innocent people in a town not too far from here months back but since then we haven't found anything."

"So my sister could be lost in the woods were she could be attacked?" Joey hollered as he stood up in rage.

"Calm down son. If you were listening I said no one has spotted them in months. As far as we can tell they moved on and left this area. Possibly because it's too public with everyone that comes hiking around here. Now, I need to go help my other coworkers with questioning your other classmates. The sooner we can pinpoint a last known sighting we can figure out which way to start the search." Dean started to make his way towards the door taking his jacket with him.

"Sir, one last thing. Can we help in the search? I know we should leave it to you but Serenity and Ryou are our friends. I don't want to be sitting here in the hotel room or on a trail when I can be there when we find them." Clarissa pleaded looking unusually small and weak. The other five looked at her in suprise but were even more shocked at what the lead ranger had to say.

"Well, I'll see what I can clear with your teachers and the other rangers. It shouldn't be a problem. However, if you do got searching with us I'm afraid I may not able to provide you with a ranger of your own to lead you around. We can provide you with radios to communicate with us should you locate them and a GPS tracker so we can locate you if need be."

"Thank you." Clarissa looked relieved as she watched the ranger nodded his head once with a smile before walking away. The blue and black haired girl stood up and made her way towards the door before turning her head to state with a bitter tone. "You're welcome."

Joey's mouth dropped in shock and bewilderment. Why would someone they all disliked help them? It was if Seto Kaiba was hugging out free hugs. It just didn't make sense. She barely knew the two they had all been friends with. Turning to look back at the others he found that they had quizzical expressions on there face along with a mix of shame.

"Maybe we were a bit to harsh to judge her so quickly." Duke muttered as he looked down at his lap. "I mean, none of us thought of asking the guy that. Maybe it is time that Serenity spreads her wings a little. She's not going to be a kid forever."

"I'd rather have her grow up at a slower pace than this." Joey grumbled as he felt the control on his sister's life slip a little. He did have to agree with Duke and Clarissa. Serenity's life was her own and he couldn't be there to protect her all the time but he'd be damned if didn't try.

"I'm going to head up to the room and play a few video games. Anyone care to join me?" Tristan asked as he pushed in his chair. The rest nodded not knowing what else to do to pass the time away.

"After a few rounds we can all go to the indoor pool?" Tea asked with a small smile. The others agreed before they all headed up to Joey and Tristan's room.