Chapter 5

"Are you okay?" a voice asked Emma as she began to open her eyes. She saw Yugi and Yami looking down at her.

Rubbing her head as if she had bumped it she sat upright. "I think so." She looked around and found that they were no longer in the presentation room at Kaiba Corp. She also noticed that everybody was now wearing a strange looking collar.

"What kind of a lame answer is that?" Tristan's voice could be heard across the room as he shouted at Kaiba.

"It's your contraption, so you gotta know what's going on." Joey protested.

"I have nothing to do with this." Kaiba told them both. "If I had then do you really think that I'd have included you Wheeler?"

"You know he does have a point there." Duke said to Joey who was becoming angrier with Kaiba than what was usual.

"I've had enough of your attitude, Rich boy." Joey rolled up his sleeves and was ready tostrike out at Kaiba.

"Bring it on." Kaiba taunted in an amused tone.

"Stop it Joey, violence isn't the answer." Serenity had stepped between the two of them as Joey was about to lunge at Kaiba. Roland had also done the same thing.

"She's right, and besides he's not worth it." Tristan said as he pulled his friend back.

Kaiba found the whole thing amusing. "Being held back by your friends, that's pathetic."

"No." snapped Joey. "Pathetic would be hiding behind a paid bodyguard. At least I have people who care about me, unlike you."

Kaiba gritted his teeth and clenched his fists from Joey's words, and was about to strike out himself when he felt Mokuba grab hold of his arm. "You know that's not true Seto."

Emma sighed in disappointment as she watched the whole thing. She wondered if those two would ever be civilized towards each other.

"It's amazing at just how at little bit of confusion can turn people against each other." Yami said as he stood beside Yugi.

"Oh come off it." Emma laughed. "You're talking about Joey and Seto; they're always at each others throats."

"You do realize that talking to yourself is a sign of insanity?" Marcus told Emma, as he and everybody else apart from Yugi and Emma, was unable to see Yami. He stared at her coldly.

"And dressing up to look and act like someone else isn't?" Zene came to Emma's defence as she too wasn't very keen on Marcus.

"At least it's not as bad as knowing almost every detail about someone that you haven't even meet." Andrew joined in the disagreement only to receive a glare from Zene.

"See, I did tell you." Yami said as he and Emma watched as Bakura and Sarah tried their best to break up the argument between the three strangers.

"Hey guys look over there." Tea said as a robot with a TV screen for a head approached them.

"Welcome!" greeted the robot. "You have been chosen to help us in our research."

"Chosen, by whom?" Yugi was the quickest to ask the question that many of them were thinking.

Checkmate, flashed across the robots TV screen. Emma's stomach whirled as she felt that feeling of uneasiness return to her once more, whilst Kaiba demanded explanations.

"The fifteen of you are to participate in a little experiment of ours." The robot began to explain. "Knowing that you wouldn't agree to this normally we developed the technology to cause you all to have seizures and render you unconscious so that we were able to bring you all here. You have each been fitted with a collar that allows us to monitor your actions throughout the experiment."

"Oh yeah, well we'll soon see about that." Tristan said as he began to pull at his collar to remove it from his neck.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." the robot warned him.

Tristan ignored the warning and continued to pull the collar apart. The collar started to beep and Tristan let go unsure of what was going on. After several beeps there was a small explosion from the collar which tore open Tristan's throat sending his blood flying out covering Joey and Duke who were the closest to him.

"Tristan!" Joey screamed as he reached out and caught the falling limp body of his friend.

"Player, Tristan, has been eliminated. Fourteen players still remaining." a speaker voice told them.

They all looked horrified at what they had just seen. Serenity was crying hard in Tea's embrace as she herself fort hard to keep the tears back, Mokuba hid behind his brother, Sarah buried her face into Bakura's shoulder, and Duke struggled to keep the contents of his stomach. Everybody else was too much in shock to react to the incident as they stared down at Joey who held Tristan's dead body as he began to rock backwards and forwards and cry uncontrollably.

"As you have just witnessed, any tampering with the collars will cause them to self destruct." the robot casually explained. "This is just one of the ways that you could be eliminated from the game."

"A game?" Mokuba peered out from his hiding place.

"Our experiment, also referred to as the game." the TV screen cleared itself and then began to show a recording that supplied images to match what it was saying. "You will each be supplied with a bag, each of them containing; a map, compass and pen, bread and water, and a random useful item. One by one you will be sent out to explore the island that you are on. Along the way you may encounter other players who are your opponents. It is up to you if you decide to trust them or not to win the ultimate prize."

"What kind of prise?" Andrew asked.

"Your life." came the blunt reply. "There can only be one winner and to get that winner all other opponents must be eliminated. Every player elimination will be announced."

"This is sick." Bakura stated what everybody thought, Sarah still in his embrace. "What makes you think that any of us will play along with your twisted game?"

"As well as the threat from fellow players, there are also two eliminators on the island, but you will not be aware of their eliminations if any of you manage to overcome them. They are also a small number of traps scattered over the island which could be fatal to anyone who triggers them. And finally, they will be zones that you will not be allowed to access at certain times, so check your maps carefully; otherwise entering any of these zones will trigger your collar." The robot finished explaining everything that they would need to know.

The situation that they were in was taking its time sinking in to Emma's head. She still stared horrified at Tristan who was still being held by Joey as Yugi tried to comfort him.

"None of us will play this game so your plans have already failed." Tea said in a quivering voice. She looked round for support. "Who's with me on this?"

Emma looked round as everyone glanced from each other with suspicion in their eyes that told them that anyone of them could turn on each other. She herself wasn't worried about any of her friends turning against her but there were three strangers that she didn't know, and one of them she already didn't get along with. She stared at the three of them unable to make out what they were thinking from their blank expressions. She stared over to Kaiba who was quietly conversing with Roland, and stared back when he noticed that he was being watched. Slowly she raised her hand to show her support and watched as everybody else, including Kaiba and the three strangers, slowly did the same.