Chapter 16: The Black Rose

"BASTIOOOOON!" my voice echoes down the hallway as I run, barefoot and dressed in little more than a blue and pink tie-dye shirt and short black shorts. The tile flooring is cold against my feet in the early morning, but I pay it no mind, the intense beating of my heart and the mix of abject terror and absolute bewilderment pushing every thought and instinct out of my mind aside from finding the old man.

"Huh? Ben?" I hear Leo's voice say as I near the end of the hall, heading toward the entry room. Soon enough, his floppy green ponytail is peeking into view, round green eyes widening in shock as he witnesses the mess that I must be rushing at him. "W-whoa! Ben! What's the matter? Look out!"

I don't have time to answer him, my body is in some sort of autopilot; I'm coming up on him fast, but perhaps three or four feet away from him I crouch low and launch myself into the air, the world around me spinning as I somersault over him. Where I found the agility to perform such a maneuver, I can't say, but before Leo can process what just happened I'm tearing off down the hallway again.

"Uhhh… he's in the kitchen!" Leo calls after me, already sounding distant as I dash through the house at speeds so fast that even one of my heroes might have trouble keeping up. It feels like I'm moving so quickly that I probably could have ran the Pipeline like this.

"Thank you!" I toss back, not sure if he can even hear me at this point.

It only feels like a few seconds have passed before I find myself in the same kitchen Bastion had cooked for us in yesterday. The old man is bent over the stove, making some sort of meal with lots and lots of eggs in it, humming to himself about how when all you've got to keep is strong, move along, move along like he knows you do.

"BASTION!" I howl, crossing the room in a few terrified steps and dropping to my knees, throwing my arms around the old man's waist.

He looks away from the oven and says rather casually, "Oh, good morning Ben. Did you sleep well?"

I look up at him in disbelief. I just ran through the house screaming his name, and he's asking if I slept well?!

"I'm making tacos for breakfast again, with fish this time," he says brightly. Only then does he seem to notice my apparent distress, as I kneel here, clinging onto his waist for dear life and panting like a maniac. "Something wrong?"

"S-something wrong?!" I splutter. "Y-YES, SOMETHING IS WRONG!"

"Well, would you care to tell me it? I'm your best friend, but that doesn't mean I can read your mind." The way he says it seems to suggest he isn't too bothered by this situation. Have I had freak-outs like this before? Or is he just naturally cool as a cucumber?

Whatever it is, I can't help but wonder how I haven't punched him before, though the fact that he was so prepared to toss me over his shoulder yesterday suggests I probably have.

"Oh, good morning Dr. Pepper. I'm making fish tacos for breakfast, would you care for some?" Bastion asks nonchalantly as the tortoise moseys on into the room.

"No thank you, old man!" he says in Magure's voice. "Though I will take some eggs with my fruit. Sunny side up, if you please."

"Very well. I thought you liked them fried, though?" Bastion replies, unfazed by the shelled reptile crawling across the floor and, well, talking.

"I do, but now that my voice is back, I want to use it as much as I can!"

"BASTION! THE TORTOISE IS TALKING! WHY ARE YOU ACTING LIKE THIS IS A NORMAL THING?!"

"It is a normal thing?" Bastion shrugs, using a spatula to push the eggs around some, scrambling them up for the tacos. "I told you he talked, didn't I?"

"NO!"

"Are you sure? I think that I did… Chapter 11, I believe? No, perhaps you were unconscious at that point, you've done that quite a bit since coming to live with me…" he ponders, tossing some fish into a sizzling skillet, the oil crackling and popping as the meat is added. "Well, anyway, Dr. Pepper can talk."

"I can do much more than talk, Young Master!" Dr. Pepper says proudly. "I can sing like an angel! I tried so hard, and got so faaaaa—"

"Please don't," Bastion cuts him off. "The last time you sang, Jesse wanted me to make you into a stew, do you remember that?"

My head starts spinning from all this absurdity. The tortoise talks. Bastion knows the tortoise talks. The tortoise apparently sings, too, but Bastion doesn't like that one bit. Bastion is making tacos again; he's made tacos every day, can he actually make anything else?

All this and more cause me to steadily begin to lose my balance, until I'm falling…

Falling…

Falling…

…falling…

Ask if you can hear the sound, of my voice through the cold hard ground,

Our first sight is a shot of the Satellite and the City, a diagonal slash dividing the two. Ben and Bastion appear, Ben in the Satellite, Bastion in the City; they face away from one another, facing to the left and right respectively. They reach their hands in front of them, grasping for something off-screen, and close their eyes. The screen is constantly flashing black, and after their eyes shut the screen stops flashing and becomes solid black.

I lost it while searching for you, I screamed into the dark,

We open back up on a shot of Ben's eyes opening, before zooming out to find him overlooking the City at night, the lights of the buildings shining like thousands of tiny stars. He's all alone, until Shapeshift appears behind him, with several other Heroes joining in further behind.

If the world we're living in, has a single soul that you love,

Cut to Bastion's house, the living room. The old man and Dr. Pepper sit next to one another on a couch, a photo album propped open before them. We pan over the various pictures, most of the faces obscured by well-placed glare from lights—until coming to a stop on an image of Ben and Bastion in their younger years, dressed in Ra Yellow uniforms with their arms tossed around one another, both grinning.

If it holds a shred of meaning, well, then it's worth every fight!

A wrinkled hand glides across the photo, before the book is shut. We zoom up on Bastion's face, and for the briefest of moments, he appears youthful again, a flash of determination in his eyes.

And when all that we know comes to push and shove,

The other characters begin to appear in quick succession, appearing in various poses with their Signer dragons beside or behind them as we begin to pan across the sky. Starting with Yusei and Stardust Dragon, we go next to Jack and Red Dragon Archfiend,

Then we will pierce the heavens!

Next are Leo and Luna sharing the screen, Power Tool Dragon and Ancient Fairy Dragon behind them. Next is Akiza, her face obscured by her Black Rose Witch mask, Black Rose Dragon roaring and spreading thousands of red petals behind her.

The colors we see are new to you and me when we see the sky—

The Dragon Star shines brightly in center frame now, red and pulsating. Clouds swirl around it, gray and purple and black, before a sudden burst of red from the star blows them all away. The camera slams downward to see Rally staring up at the sky, and smiling.

As we began to run,

Jump cut to Ben and Bastion in a Duel Runner, the old man sitting in a side car as they rocket toward the camera, both of them grinning maniacally.

So we can finally feel the sun,

We zoom out a bit to find ourselves in the Kaiba Dome, with Goodwin watching on from his booth with his back turned.

Finally, you and I feel so alive, I feel your beating heart!

We now see Yusei and Jack riding alongside one another, Stardust and Red Dragon locked in combat as the pair speeds out of frame.

If you believe in me, we'll find where we were meant to be—

Ben and Akiza in a ground duel appears next, Elemental Hero Shapeshift somersaulting and cartwheeling around the field as Black Rose Dragon attempts to slash at him with its vines. Ben and Akiza's eyes meet, and the rage in Akiza's eyes softens a bit.

Now who cares about tomorrow, if today we are free?

Leo and Luna walk beside Bastion now, wandering through his immense garden. The old man says something, causing Leo to start laughing as Luna smiles brightly. She looks off to the side and sees Kuribon bouncing along with them.

My answer is always "Yes,"

The cast now stands assembled in front of Bastion's mansion in a freeze frame, centered around Ben; Bastion is to his immediate right, Akiza to his left, Yusei to Bastion's right, Jack to Akiza's left and so on. Rally, Leo and Luna are chasing Dr. Pepper in front, and over Rally's head Ben's face is just barely visible.

That I will always be with you.

One final cut puts our focus back on the old photo of Bastion and Ben. This time, however, it's elderly Bastion and Ben standing together, still smiling as bright as ever.

I hadn't even realized it, but I must have passed out at some point after the tortoise began talking about eggs, as when I wake up in one of the sitting rooms, a different one from last time, a digital clock on the wall reads "11:30," almost noon. I hope. Looking out the window, I can confirm it's still daytime, the sun now shining brightly down on New Domino.

Slowly, I sit up on the couch I've been placed on, looking around at the empty room. Deep orange walls the color of sunset, light brown carpet, plush brown chairs and couches, and a curved window jutting out into the cityscape; if it weren't for the color differences, it would be impossible to tell the difference between it and the room we had eaten breakfast in the day before.

Sun slants in through the window, casting a lattice of shadows across the room like the bars of a dark jail cell, crawling across carpet and couch and chair and up my legs ending at my waist. Jail… I think, reflecting to my initial incarceration when I first arrived in New Domino. I got freed, but Yusei…

Yusei… I can't remember the last time I thought of him, but for some reason as I stare down at the shadows covering the room, he comes to mind. I haven't seen or heard hide nor hair of him or about him since coming here; I suppose he wasn't quite so lucky to have an eighty-seven-year-old best friend fully prepared to spring him from police custody.

"I see you're awake, Young Master," comes the quiet voice of Magure from just out of my line of sight. "You gave us quite a scare when you passed out like that."

I can't help but tense as I hear his voice, and it all comes flooding back. The dreams and memories of Bastion and I's youth; the nightmare of the blonde girl with no face, and the woman's voice screaming about not letting me be taken from her, and her crushing grip; the blank card, Don Zaloog; the fact that he's speaking to me from inside a tortoise…

Hesitantly, I move my legs from the reclining position and pivot around to face his voice. Deep down, I'm hoping that I'm just hearing things; surely hearing voices is less crazy than hearing those voices coming from the mouth of a tortoise, right?

No, Boss. Either way you're going mad, Shapeshift chimes in. But you can just ask the old man—we're all mad here.

Hush you. As a voice in my head that isn't mine, you're not exactly helping the case for my sanity either, I shoot back as I turn my head to look upon what I hope to be… well… I'm not really sure what I'm hoping I'll see. Considering my first meeting with Magure came from my dreams, it wouldn't be any less worrying to see a muscular man with shining daggers and a gleaming golden eyepatch manifested in the middle of a high-class New Domino apartment.

At first, I don't see anything out of the ordinary aside from a plate of half-finished scrambled eggs and fruit resting on the footstool of a chair in the back left corner of the room. But then, as my nervous eyes walk the length of the floor, they settle upon the small greenish head of Dr. Pepper, his right eye swollen shut with age, the other an intelligent green, closer to an emerald than the color of his own skin.

Green left eye… right eye closed, I observe, recalling the image of Magure in my mind, with an eyepatch over his right eye, and his left eye… Weren't his eyes black? It all has to be a coincidence, for sure. I can't seriously be making connections between a reptile and some guy I dreamed of…

After I stare at Dr. Pepper without a single word passing between us for perhaps two, maybe three minutes, or what feels like two or three minutes, I finally breathe out, half-relieved, half-even more nervous, "I… just imagined it. Yeah. I'm not losing it. Maybe it's just the… stress. Yeah. The stress of finding out that I'm almost ninety years old even though I look and feel like a teenager. That's it. Yeah…"

And just as I'm sure I haven't convinced you of this, I promise I haven't even convinced myself of this.

A few seconds after I say this, Dr. Pepper begins to open and close his mouth silently, as if he's chewing something. My eyes quickly flash back to the eggs and fruit and wonder if he had been chowing down on those… do tortoises eat eggs?

But before I can ponder the diets of shelled reptiles further, my stress theory is disproved as the creature begins to speak.

"Let me assure you, Young Master, that no matter what that fool Shapeshift may tell you, you are not going mad," he announces in a bold voice, his green eye moving to stare at my forehead with such intensity that he may as well be trying to bore a hole through it. "If you had even a fraction of the memories from your teenage years unlocked, you would not even question your sanity."

I'm not a fool! Are you hearing this guy?! Shapeshift complains, and I can practically feel him standing on my shoulder glaring at the cold-blooded creature like an angel—or devil—from a cartoon. Take him out, Ben!

You take him out! I respond in a mental tone meant to silence him, finding myself looking back into the bright green eye of Dr. Pepper.

"Ignore our feuding if you would, Young Master. He defeated me once many years ago, and insists that he will always be better. Very childish of him," Dr. Pepper says admonishingly.

Just as he had before he started to talk, I open and close my mouth several times, suddenly dry lips smacking together as I try to string together a sentence in my mind, or even implore my vocal chords to produce some sort of noise. Eventually, I'm able to let out a simple, "How are you…?"

"I'm fine, thank you for asking. Though I do not think that's what you meant to ask, is it? You are probably more curious as to how I'm speaking to you from the body of a tortoise."

Rather than give him an answer one way or the other, I gape at him silently, eventually able to give him a dumb nod as some sort of response, though whether I really want to know or if I'd prefer to continue blissfully believing none of this is happening, I can't say.

Heedless to my actual response, he continues as if I'd given him an affirmative reply. "Well, the long of it is… perhaps a bit too complicated to reveal at this point. The short of it—you showed me a great deal of mercy long ago, when you and the old man were still young." He coughs—the idea of a tortoise coughing seems somehow even more ludicrous to me than a tortoise talking—and corrects himself, "When the old man was still young, I mean. You showed me mercy, and I've owed you a debt ever since."

"…And you were already a tortoise?"

"No. I was… much like Shapeshift, and the rest of your team of Heroes," Dr. Pepper… Magure… responds.

"In my head…?"

"No, Ben. I was real. Well, a human, at least." He pauses. "Well, that's not quite right either. You recall the girl Luna—what she said to you about your deck missing you? The spirits of the cards were reaching out to her to tell her to tell you that; I was a card spirit. Forgive me, this is difficult to explain, as this is something you once knew."

"Uh-huh," I reply, trying to process even the slightest bit of information. So he was a ghost of some sort?

No, Boss. Not a ghost. A card spirit. All of us cards have spirits, but it takes someone really special to converse with them, like you do with us, Shapeshift says, his tone suggesting he actually wants to be helpful now. Peppy here was a card spirit, but he was able to manifest in the real world.

"Real as you or the old man, Young Master. Or Godzilla, for that matter," Dr. Pepper confirms. "But come along—the old man is making some lunch just down the hall, you must be hungry."

My stomach grumbles in response. He's right, I am hungry. At a loss for words, but hungry.

But something sticks out in my mind… "Wait, Godzilla is real?"

"Yes, very. How do you think the Satellite got to be that way?" Dr. Pepper responds, moseying on out of the room as I go whiter than a ghost in a white paint factory.

"Good God…"

Despite this… somewhat civil talk with Dr. Pepper, I haven't been able to feel any way other than uneasy through lunch and to now, as we spill out of the elevator and make toward Bastion's car.

There's six of us—Bastion, Dr. Pepper and myself, as well as Leo and Luna, and a new arrival in the form of their friend Dexter.

He's an inch or two shorter than the twins, with brown hair spread out over his head and styled to form what looks like an M in the front, with a lightning bolt-shaped section hanging down on the left side. A pair of curious brown eyes stick out from behind a set of thick square glasses, and he wears a white collared shirt with navy blue shorts held up by red suspenders, matched by an equally red bowtie.

"B, are you sure this is a good idea…?" I ask, tugging on the old man's sleeve as the kids pile into the back seat, Leo pulling Dr. Pepper in to sit between them. "This 'Black Rose' character… she sounds kind of dangerous, especially for kids their age."

Bastion, however, doesn't seem to pay it any mind. "She's of no concern to us, Ben. She's an urban legend. We'll take them around the city and let them have their fun, and when we turn home disappointed we'll get them ice cream and they'll forget this ever even happened."

As this plan registers in my mind, I can't help but comment, "You sound like a dad."

"Not only a dad, a granddad," Bastion points out, a wry smile on his face. "Come on, let's get going. We're wasting daylight!"

And so begins our search for the mysterious Black Rose.

When I had come out of the sitting room after my initial fainting spell earlier, Leo had been talking in a rather animated fashion to Bastion about some female duelist known only as the Black Rose. According to rumor, she's a cloaked figure with a mask and apparent psychic powers who goes around in the Underground circuit dueling and causing immense damage.

Dr. Pepper claimed that she had reportedly killed someone before, but since he tried to dupe me by saying Godzilla was real, I'm not inclined to trust a thing that comes out of his mouth from here on.

The engine of Bastion's car roars to life at once, its low grumbling resounding through the parking garage in a manner that reminded me of my now-destroyed Duel Runner, causing my thoughts to stray back to Yusei for a moment. How will I tell him that I just ditched my Duel Runner like that…? He'll understand that it was either that, or get crushed by garbage, right?

No, probably not. He'll be extremely angry, I bet, Shapeshift says sarcastically. Ben, don't worry about it so much. He's your friend—he'll just be glad you're okay.

I stare out the window as we drive, oblivious to the conversation going on in the back between the kids. I'm sure it's more rumors about the Black Rose, but if she's as mythical as Bastion claims she is, I wouldn't be surprised if they were going to claim she's a vampire.

As I watch the buildings pass us by, I notice that the massive luxury skyscrapers of the inner city start disappearing, becoming replaced with architecture that probably would have been commonplace in the Satellite before its destruction. Squat blocky buildings made of cement with whitewashed walls and square windows stand side by side with old brick garages that probably haven't been opened in years; the pristine pale gray streets age into crumbling asphalt, the lush trees that line the sidewalks dead or dying the further we get into this area.

Feeling a bit nervous, I speak up for the first time on the ride—"B… where are we?"

"The Daimon Area," Bastion replies, pressing a button on his door and engaging the lock system with a mechanical click. "A wretched hive of scum and villainy, they say that the Black Rose likes to frequent this area."

"…Is that so," I say, again questioning the old man's logic at bringing kids here.

As we approach the ruins of a decaying amusement park, the state of the buildings starts to worsen even further. Ancient paint chips away to reveal the bricks underneath; dirty windows shattered long ago peer into dark buildings; here and there, beat-up looking men in tattered clothing mill about, giving our car dirty looks as we pass.

"This place… is even worse than the Satellite," I mutter, hearing the words slipping from my mouth before I can even think. A harsh, and likely incorrect accusation, I'm sure, but it's all just so… broken.

"Oh, you haven't even seen the half of it Ben," Bastion comments, pulling our car down an alley and parking it. "Alright, everybody out! The hunt for the Black Rose begins!"

I shoot him a look. "I thought you said we were just going to drive around?" I ask slowly, hoping that he had just forgotten he said it.

"We were… before I caught site of that," Bastion says, pointing further down the street where a large crowd is gathered… and towering above them, a gray orc and a blue wolf, glaring furiously at one another.

"Holy cow, a real Underground duel!" Leo says excitedly, unbuckling his seatbelt and nearly vaulting from the car. As he dashes out in front of the hood and peeks out at the duel unfolding, I can practically see every muscle in his body tense with anticipation.

And when I see the spryness with which Bastion exits the car as well, I can't help but feel like he had no intention to just drive around after all.

Looking around cautiously at our surroundings, I step out, soles of my tennis shoes kicking away gravel and rubble. For a split second as I watch the rays of the sun slicing down alleyways as the great yellow orb starts to duck behind skyscrapers in the west of the city, I almost feel like I'm back in the Satellite, except with slightly different, slightly weirder smells.

Luna sticks by my side as she and Dr. Pepper climb out of the vehicle, clearly just as ill at ease as myself. "I don't like the looks of this place," she admits softly, her eyes cast downward as we walk to join the others. "I'm… getting a really bad feeling about this."

Feeling an impulse of protectiveness toward the girl, I reach over and place a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry so much, Luna… Bastion wouldn't put us in any situation that he wasn't himself fully confident in," I say reassuringly.

Dr. Pepper starts to laugh, and I can't help but jump slightly. After shooting the reptile a glare, I understand why he laughed… well, probably why he laughed.

"Well, he probably would put me in a situation like that, but not you guys. He'd never want to see you get hurt," I say, correcting my previous statement.

She looks at me oddly for a moment. "But you're his ward, aren't you? Why would he do that to you?"

I find myself pausing, realizing that whether or not it was true, I probably shouldn't say stuff like that around someone who looks up to him like a grandfather. "Just a little joke, he'd never do that to anyone."

Dr. Pepper laughs again. I open my mouth to ask Luna if she's used to the tortoise talking, but I change my mind after a moment when I hear the voice of one of the duelists from this Underground ring.

"Do betta next time!" the man shouts as the holograms fade away, blue wolf and gray ogre disappearing. His voice bears a heavy accent the origin of which I cannot place. But… it sounds familiar in my mind.

"Is that Joey Wheeler?!" someone says excitedly.

"Nah, that's his cousin Jesse! Joey died like twenty years ago!" another voice responds.

Joey Wheeler… why does that name ring so many bells to me? I look to Bastion, but he shakes his head and mouths, "Later," and then points to Leo and Dexter, and I feel my heart leap into my throat as I watch them plunge into a gap in the crowd.

"Leo!" Luna calls out as the mass of bodies surges and the gap closes behind them.

Releasing my careful grasp from her shoulder, I nudge her over to Bastion. Adrenaline starts flooding through me, and I can almost hear my Heroes urging me onward. Above the shouting and swearing of people who bet on the winner or the loser, I know that this isn't a place for kids. As Luna bumps into the old man, he looks to me, and a familiar look is on his face.

Determination. Trust. Heroics. Go get them, Ben.

Using my elbow as a wedge, I dive into the crowd, pushing and weaving my way through the throng as I try to spot a glimpse of that ridiculous ponytail of Leo's, or Dexter's big red bowtie.

Dodging under the swinging arm of someone who didn't seem too keen on getting nudged out of the way, I catch sight of Leo's Duel Disk, loose and floppy on his arm. Naturally, the rest of Leo's body is attached to that arm, his body bent over as he stares directly into the eyes of an equally bent Dexter, the two seeming to be mid-argument.

"We can't go home now, Leo! All my sources say she'll be here, and I've got the perfect deck to take her out!" Dexter is saying, waving his arms animatedly.

"Think, Dex! You say that her monsters are real—how is that even possible?!" Leo responds, poking his friend's shoulder. "Besides, I'm not seeing Grandpa B anywhere, and—"

—And that's when the ground begins to shake. A sharp pain runs through my right arm, causing sharp jolts of lightning to surge up and down the limb, and forcing me to one knee as I bite my lip to keep from shouting.

"R-run! It's the Black Rose!" another person screams as the quaking increases.

Leo and Dexter quit their staring match and look in the direction of the person's voice, and following their gaze I see a vortex beginning to form deeper into the crowd—which is now beginning to disperse, all the ragged men breaking and running with terrified expressions. Moving against the current, I lurch into action, shoving my way in between running people to get to the two boys.

"Leo! Dexter!" I shout, causing them to turn their heads to meet my eyes, the wide round circles suggesting they might very well be in over their heads. Halfway from them, a sudden gust rippling outward pushes me off my balance, causing me to stumble. Dust obscures my vision for a brief moment, kicked up by the wind from nowhere; after wiping my eyes, I find that Leo and Dexter are gone, the bricks that were beneath their feet tossed about like the crumbs of smashed crackers, left in the wake of the track of something long and thick dragging through, or perhaps shooting out from under, the ground.

"BEN!" I hear Leo scream. Swiveling my head about like an owl, I finally spot the two of them clinging onto each other as they tumble through the air, on their way down toward the hard ground.

"I've got you!" I shout back, pushing myself back to my feet and rushing after them. More wind gusts slash at me, seeming to emanate from everywhere but also nowhere as I struggle to keep afoot. "I'm coming!"

Eventually, I'm smashed back down to the ground as the two land on top of me, forcing the breath out of me as Dexter slams down on my gut, Leo on my chest. My back aches, freshly exposed dirt is caked on my arms and legs and decorating my shirt, and my head swims as dust and debris cloud my vision again.

Turning my head to gaze into the area that all the men had been surrounding before, I see a massive cloud of dust kicked up, like the explosive result of a bomb, but as I look deeper into the expanding blanket, my blood runs cold.

As it starts to clear and thin, I see a pair of red eyes staring back at me. And those eyes are attached to something big, something massive, with an equally red maw full of sharp teeth, a long neck, and immense wings.

"A dragon…" I breathe, gently moving Dexter and Leo off and behind me, trying to shield them from anything that might come at us. Shapeshift… what is that thing?

N-no idea, Boss… Shapeshift responds, also in awe at the thing towering over us. It roars, and I can almost feel Shapeshift retreating into my mind a bit. U-uh… I'm gonna go check on the others. See if this has brought any of them out. I'll be back!

Wait—don't go! I call after him, wondering if he'd really leave me like this, but that thought is quickly pushed aside by the shrieking pain in my arm, growing in intensity as I see it… glowing… "Wha…?"

Raising my arm in front of my face as I rock unsteadily on one knee, I see, etched in glowing red lines, some odd pattern. Two lines, one thick, one thin, stab outward diagonally along my arm, slowly curling in to form a shape like a hook, which curls in on itself several times over in rigid, jagged intervals, almost like a spiral. And it burns.

"Ben, look!" I hear Leo shout from behind me, his arm appearing over my shoulder to point at something at the base of the dragon. A glowing light, brilliant and golden, radiating and pulsating like a winking star. "I-it's the Black Rose!"

I don't know what it is, but as the dust clears I find myself pushed to stand, moving forward despite Leo and Dexter's cries. I hear Bastion shouting for me too, even Dr. Pepper is yelling for me. But still I approach the dragon.

A voice, garbled and distorted, slashes through the air like the fierce winds that brought me to my knees. "You also have the Mark!" they shout, sounding somewhat like a girl.

"The Mark? Is that what this is…?" I call back, raising my arm and finding myself walking further toward her, called by some invisible force like a moth to a flame.

The person comes into view, a figure with a black cloak rippling and billowing like the dark waters of nighttime. From behind a bone-white mask streaked with red tears, eyes as red as the dragon's glare out at me, joined by sharp spikes of red hair peaking out from the edges of the cloak, three on each side like the tentacles of a squid. A red Duel Disk sits on her arm, the first slot occupied by a card with the white border of a Synchro monster.

Pure hatred radiates from this person as she shouts, "Stay away from me!"

A black gloved hand slashes out from the folds of her cloak, performing some odd gesture before she disappears in a tower of blinding white light, forcing me to cover my eyes. I find my knees buckling again, and before I know it, I'm on my butt once more. And when the light subsides…

"She's gone," I hear Bastion say from behind me, his voice lined with curiosity, and a bit of worry as he begins tending to the boys.

Luna comes up after him, grabbing my left arm and looking at me worriedly. "Are you alright, Ben…?" she asks, helping me find my balance.

"I… yeah… I'm alright. Thank you, Luna," I say, finally tearing my eyes away from the spot where she had just been.

The destruction caused by her dragon is… incredible. As we trek back toward the car, every inch of my body aching from the encounter, I can see the damage trailing hundreds of feet up and down the street. Doors ripped off hinges, more bricks torn from the ground in the wake of those long tracks, windows that weren't shattered, now shattered, metal railings torn, wires exposed, trees uprooted… if it weren't so terrible, it would be amazing to behold.

Six hours later, eleven at night, finds us back at the twins' home. Dexter and Leo were shaken, and a bit upset that they didn't get to duel the fabled Black Rose, but they were safe—and grateful for me saving them, but I waved that off, just happy they hadn't been hurt. Luna was thankful too, and wanted to make sure I hadn't been hurt too badly, but oddly enough once we got back home, I felt fine.

The wind rushes around me as I stand out on the balcony, looking out at the sky above, clear and full of stars, with a bright sickle moon hanging overhead… and as I look at it, my mind flashes to that mark on my arm. What on earth was that…?

I catch sight of that red star, that same one from the Satellite that always looked to be pulsating; I don't know why, but for some reason I never really grasped the idea that these were the same stars. Is Rally staring up at these, wondering about me? Is Yusei seeing them?

Boss, shouldn't you be heading to bed too? It's getting late… I hear Shapeshift's nervous voice coming from the corner of my mind, almost as if he's hesitantly approaching.

There he is. Come back already, you big chicken? I ask pointedly, feeling a flash of annoyance run through my mind.

I… deserved that. I'm sorry, Ben. I just… it's… just been so long since we faced actual danger like that… he responds, and I find myself conjuring up the image of him standing with his hands folded behind his back, shifting anxiously on one leg and staring at the ground. I kind of… shut down. I-I wasn't sure what to do, not without the others there to tell me… I'm sorry.

Sighing, I respond, It's fine… not like I have a choice to forgive you anyway, huh? The sky is really pretty tonight.

It… is, he says slowly, as if trying to sense a trap. It's just like that first night at Duel Academy, when we met… uh… never mind.

Met who? I ask, my initial anger subsiding in favor of curiosity. Who, Morphy?

Gah—nobody! Slip of the tongue! Ignore what I said!

This is the only time I don't want to ignore what you said. Who did we meet that— but my thoughts are suddenly cut off by a loud crash from the street level.

The elevator ride down to the ground floor is agonizingly slow, my body jittering as I begin worrying about what might have caused that crash. My initial instincts told me to stay put, but some prodding from Shapeshift tells me that if someone is hurt, it's my duty to find out. What if they need medical help?

As soon as the doors slide open, I'm bursting out, halfway between the elevator and the entry of the parking garage before the doors are even fully closed. I clear the remaining distance in a few short bounds, before exiting into the cool night air and heading toward the western corner of the building, where the noise had come from.

Rounding the corner, I immediately see nothing as my eyes peer into the dark alleyway—but soon I hear a groan, and as I make my way to it, I stop in my tracks as I see the Duel Runner. Recognition glimmers in my eyes, and no sooner do I find it than I find the rider.

"Yusei?!"

AND THERE WE HAVE IT FOLKS! I'm so, so sorry about the long wait for this, my job has had me doing 12-hour shifts for weeks, and I'm just now getting put on a normal, non-horrifying schedule. I hope this chapter was worth the wait! Was the pacing alright?

I won't take up too much of your time with this one. I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but wind up taking more of your time nonetheless, so this sentence is probably redundant.

Anyway, how are you folks liking the story so far? Has the quality been acceptable over this brief weird period? Let me know, I want to make sure you guys enjoy it!

We're starting to get close to the Fortune Cup arc! We've crossed paths with Ben's future love interest, and Yusei! Ben has a Mark, but what is it, and what does it do? Who's this person Shapeshift remembered meeting, on a night just like this? Why does Ben recognize the name Joey Wheeler-well actually this is kind of understandable. But why is no one else freaking out when Dr. Pepper talks?!

Find out, at some point in the future, on Stardust Accelerator: A Hero in Time! (Also, out of curiosity, has anyone recognized the title as a Legend of Zelda reference?)

Anyway, as always, take care, brrrrush yo hair, I'll see ya when I see ya, PEACE!

~Chase