Happy Wednesday!

The adventures continue in this chapter! What will the gang dress up as for Death Dungeon? What is Astrid up to? Read on to find out!

Thank you to all of my reviewers. I love all of you (in a non-creepy way)!

There is an important note at the end of this chapter, so don't forget to read the bold print at the bottom!

Disclaimer: I only own my OCs.

Hope you like it!

Chapter 8

"So, have you decided what you're going to dress up as yet?" Tea asked me at the lunch table.

I made a face and shook my head. "I haven't really thought about it. The last time I dressed up for Halloween was when I was twelve." Getting older had kind of put a damper on trick-or-treating. Now, at sixteen years old, I would much rather stay indoors with a cup of hot cider and watch a scary movie than go out in the cold and ask for sweets.

"Hey, I have an idea," Tristan said from across the table, giving Tea a pleading stare, "how about we don't dress up? That way none of us will have to stress over costumes."

"Did you really think I'd let it go so easily?" Tea wagged her finger at the tall brunette. "No, I've already got a costume picked out, and I am not going to let it go to waste!"

"But there are never any good costumes for guys!" Joey wailed. "I don't wanna look like a sparkly vampire or a lame superhero, so that rules out pretty much every costume out there!"

Tea rolled her eyes. "Ever think of pirates? Or grim reapers? Those are masculine costumes."

"Yeah," I added, a smirk on my face, "I can see it now: Joey the Swash-Buckling Brooklyn Buccaneer."

Joey mock-glared at me. "Not funny, Stephenson!"

"This is our dignity you're poking fun at!" Tristan chimed in.

"But you guys would look great! Pirates are so in right now!" Tea argued.

"Not doin' it!" Joey said, folding his arms. "That is abuse!"

Tea groaned. "You guys are impossible!"

There was a short-lived silence at the table, in which Joey and Tristan happily devoured their food, satisfied that they had won the argument.

Then, Yugi spoke up, surprising all of us. "Actually, I don't think dressing up would be too terrible. I mean, it's not like people will recognize us while we're disguised as something else, anyway."

Tea grinned at Yugi, her hopes rekindling. "See? Yugi's in!"

Tristan was about to respond with a not-so-nice comment, but I butted in. "What if Tea and I helped you guys find costumes? We would tell you if you looked stupid. So you don't embarrass yourselves, if that's what you're so afraid of."

"What if ya lie to us so we look like buffoons?" Joey asked, his gaze suspicious.

I spread my arms, my expression the apex of innocence. "Have I ever lied to you?"

"Well, no." Joey scratched his head, but then pointed an accusatory finger at me. "But we haven't known ya very long! How do we know that you're not a lyin', cheatin' jerk? Maybe your true colors could come out!"

Tea raised her eyebrows. "Oh, so now you're not concerned about the costume so much as you are that Erin could secretly be a psychopath?"

I snorted and tore a piece off my muffin to toss in my mouth. Next to me, Atem was awfully quiet. He hadn't said a word since lunch started. I wondered what he was thinking.

"He's got a point, though." Tristan said. "You guys could lie to us and pretend we look good to make fools out of us!"

"Do you really think we'd hang around you guys if you looked that bad?" Tea asked, trying to use logic to get the two boys on her side. "You'd be embarrassing us."

Tristan raised a finger in argument, but then dropped it when he realized there was no way to falsify Tea's statement. Joey's face fell, and he stared at his sandwich forlornly.

Yugi piped up again, trying to mend the devastation on the boys. "Hey! I have an idea! What if we all dressed up like Duel Monsters?"

Joey's head snapped up so fast I flinched. His lips had turned up into a grin. "That would be awesome!" He exclaimed. "I could be Flame Swordsman!"

"And I could be Cyber Commander!" Tristan said excitedly.

Yugi didn't look surprised at the monsters Joey and Tristan had chosen so quickly. He glanced to my side at Atem, and I followed his quick look to find that Atem was slightly smiling to himself.

"We could hit the resale boutique downtown to build our own costumes!" Tea's smile was so big that it was threatening to split her face in half.

"What about the costume you already had picked out, Tea?" I asked, though I was smiling just as widely as she was.

She waved her hand dismissively. "I can always take it back. This idea is much better than some stupid vampiress costume."

The lunch bell rang, breaking the conversation, and we all stood to throw our trash away and head to class. Atem joined me to walk to art class.

"So, what Duel Monster do you think you're going to be?" I asked as we exited the cafeteria.

He shrugged. "I'm not sure. I haven't really spent a lot of time thinking about which Duel Monster I would dress up as if the opportunity presented itself."

I chuckled and nudged him in the arm. "Me neither. Maybe we could help each other when we go shopping."

"Maybe." He smiled down at me.

I smiled back and turned my attention back to the hallway in front of us. We spent the rest of the walk to class talking about how hard it was going to be for Joey to find the right assortment of clothes and accessories to be able to fit the Flame Swordsman persona, and laughing about the fact that he would be carrying around a plastic sword that was the same size as him.

When we sat ourselves down at our seats, I could feel Astrid's glare before I looked up to see her green eyes threatening to burn through my skull from across the room. We hadn't had a run-in since Friday night, which I was glad of. Her lip twitched when our gazes met.

"Just ignore her." Atem muttered in my ear, making me jump a little in surprise at his warm breath on my skin. "She's very much the jealous type."

I cleared my throat and looked at him. "I got that." Glancing back at Astrid, I shook my head and stood up to get my supplies for the day. "What colors do you need?"

He was about to get up, but I put a hand on his arm. "No, let me. Any excuse to stay up and moving and out of Astrid's line of fire is greatly appreciated."

He raised an eyebrow, eyes moving between Astrid and me for a moment. "Alright. Blue, black and white."

I smiled at him. "Great. I'll be back, then."

As I was adding the paints we both wanted to our palettes, someone came up next to me at the paint station.

"Does he know that you dance like a moose on roller skates?" Astrid's cold voice hissed.

I took a deep breath and continued choosing colors, ignoring her beckon to an angry staring contest. "Hello, Astrid."

"Maybe I should tell him about your little mishap on the dance floor." She added, nonchalantly grabbing a bottle of paint and preparing her palette as well. "How do you think your little boy toy would react?"

Rolling my eyes, I bit my cheek and moved to the brushes. "He's not my boy toy, Astrid. Besides, I really don't think he'd care."

She followed me to the brush station. "Please, Erin. I can see right through your little charade. You may not admit it, but there is something between you two."

"No, there isn't." I narrowed my eyes and looked up at her. "Why do you even care?"

Her glare had turned to a dark, loathing scowl. "Are you stupid, Stephenson? Or are you just that naïve?"

"Astrid, just stop." I grabbed the last paintbrush I needed and prepared to go back to my seat.

Astrid didn't seem to be finished. She took a step so she was in my path. Behind her, I saw Atem had been watching, and was tensed to get up and do something. I shook my head at him slightly. "You don't want to go out with him." Astrid said, her voice low.

I growled in frustration. "You're right, Astrid. I don't. Can you please get out of my face about it?"

"No. Because you don't deserve a man like Atem." She was absolutely seething now.

"Holy crap, Astrid," I said, my voice dangerously calm, "if you like the guy so much, why don't you ask him out, instead of making a big deal about me being in the way? Take initiative. Quit acting like I'm the one to blame here when you're clearly the one who has a problem with this."

Her lip twitched again. "You're such a liar."

Something cold pressed my shirt against my stomach, and I looked down to find a thick stream of purple paint trailing down the front of my top. I gasped. Astrid's palette was tipped towards me, but she righted it in an instant.

Mr. Kayasaki was making his way towards us, and Astrid turned her scowl to that same innocent look she had plastered on her face the first time we'd met. "Oh my god, Erin, I'm so sorry!" She said, putting a hand over her mouth to hide her sadistic little grin.

I clenched my jaw, still standing covered in the violet-colored evidence of her crime. She was going to make a scene out of it so everyone could see that I had been owned by her mean-girl tricks.

"Erin! Astrid! Is there something the matter over – " Mr. Kayasaki stopped in his tracks when he saw the giant splotch of paint on my shirt. "Oh. What happened, you two?"

The classroom had gone silent.

Astrid answered before I could. "Erin wasn't watching where she was going, and ran right into me!" She pouted at me. "And I've ruined your shirt! Oh no! Mr. Kayasaki, isn't this paint hard to get out of fabric?"

Mr. Kayasaki's concerned look turned to one of sympathy. "Yes, it stains very easily."

My fingers tightened around the paintbrushes I was holding. I couldn't think of anything to say. Telling him that it was Astrid's fault just sounded like tattling to me, and besides, Astrid's feigned innocence was much too convincing for my liking. There was literally no way I wouldn't come out of this looking like a complete idiot. I mean, yeah, it was only a uniform shirt, and I hated them anyway, but those things were freaking expensive!

But I had to say something. So instead of taking Astrid's bait and exploding in the chaos she had created, I forced myself to say, "Whoops." With a final glare at Astrid, I added, "I guess I'll just have to get a new shirt after class." Trying my best to ignore the stares from our other classmates, I took shaky steps back to my seat. Mr. Kayasaki didn't say anything more.

Now that the excitement was over, everyone went back to their work. Again, it seemed to me that the students at Domino High were like vultures – they were only interested if something was dying. Like a small freshman's self-esteem. Or my calm composure.

Atem stood when I reached our table. "Erin – "

I shook my head and sat down. "Don't. We're ignoring her, remember?"

"But your shirt – "

"It'll be fine, Atem."

He waited for a moment, not seeming to know what to do in my state of total indifference. Then, finally, he sat back down beside me.

I slid his paintbrush and palette over to him. "Hey, at least it wasn't our paint that suffered the casualties, right?" I asked, trying to lighten the mood.

He hesitantly reached for his brush. "Yes. Right." I knew he really wanted to comfort me about my shirt, but I didn't want the attention, and I think he knew that, too. It was just a stupid shirt, anyway.

Still, Astrid's words were anything but forgotten in my head.

Did she really think there was something going on between us?

Did it really look that way to other people?

I had almost completely forgotten about the weird feeling I had had last week when I had touched his hand. In fact, I had dismissed it all as my mind playing tricks on me. But the fact that Astrid was so insecure about me stealing Atem away from her hit me hard.

What if it wasn't actually me, but Atem who was sending those signals to onlookers?

What if Atem was the one who liked me?

Instead of hanging out at the game shop after school the next day, we all decided to hit the used clothing store Tea had mentioned to pick out our costumes. The second we walked in the door, Joey and Tristan rushed over to the men's racks, starting another one of their stupid little contests.

This time, they were betting on who could get their costume together first.

Yugi, Atem, Tea, and I exchanged amused looks and shook our heads simultaneously.

"Hmm," Tea said, tapping her finger against her chin, "what clothes would make a Magician of Faith costume?"

Yugi shrugged. "Maybe a hoodie and a pair of those baggy pants. We can always alter the clothing so it will look better, right?"

Tea nodded. "Okay, I think I'm gonna go look then. Erin, do you want to come with me?"

"Sure." We split off from the two boys and turned into the girls' aisle.

Tea turned to me when we got into it. "Any idea what you're going to be?"

I shook my head. "Not a clue. I don't know a lot of the cards, remember?"

"Right." Her eyes flicked to me, and then to the shirts next to us, and back to me. "Hmm...I guess we'll just have to see what we can make!"

The next hour was spent browsing through the aisles, pulling anything from the racks that resembled the baggy purple and magenta getup of the Magician of Faith, which Tea showed me a picture of to aid me in the search. We ended up with an oversize purple t-shirt, a dark pink sweatshirt with no hood, and a pair of white harem pants. Tea planned to dye the harem pants so they matched the t-shirt, and knew a craft store where they sold lengths of rope she could use for the belt. The entire time, we threw ideas back and forth about what I could dress up as, each time compelling me to look up pictures of the female monsters on my phone so I knew what she was talking about.

So far, none of them seemed too appealing, especially since the temperature for Halloween night was set to be pretty cool, and most of the monsters Tea and I looked up were not dressed warmly enough for cold weather.

One of the monsters that popped up on my internet searches was called Dark Magician Girl. Though I had no intention of dressing up like that, I couldn't tear my eyes away from the photo. It was like I had seen her before. I mean, I had seen her in Yugi's deck, but this time it was different.

For a second, I could've sworn I knew her.

I shook myself out of my thoughts and continued on my search for a persona to take on. Like I had before, I just brushed it off as my mind punishing me for the stress I had been through with Mom and Dad's divorce and the move and the new city and school.

After a while, I gave up on my hunt for a costume and followed Tea to see how the boys were doing.

The answer was not well.

Joey and Tristan were laying on a pile of clothes, both complaining about how hard it was to find things in their size, while Yugi and Atem stood by, not seeming to know what they were even looking for.

"Ugh, you guys are hopeless!" Tea said, kicking Joey lightly on the bottom of his shoe. "Come on, get up and Erin and I will help you."

I folded my arms and stood next to Atem. "You look lost."

He looked at me. "I still have no idea what I'm going to be."

"Then I guess we're still in the same boat." I said. "No female Duel Monster was ever created to go out on cold autumn nights."

He chuckled. "Yes. Some of them are rather scantily-clad."

Yugi turned to us. "I still can't decide if I really do want to dress up as Dark Magician. I mean, I want to, but I don't think..." he trailed off, eyes moving to Atem, as if asking for some kind of permission.

Atem shrugged. "It's your choice, Yugi. You won't be hurting anything, I promise."

My eyebrows knit together at Yugi's strange question and Atem's even stranger response. However, I was forced to let it go when Tea grabbed Yugi's arm. "Yugi, you've gotta help me with these guys. They don't know anything about buying clothes for themselves."

Yugi gave Atem a grateful look before Tea pulled him towards the mess Tristan and Joey had created.

I shifted my position so I wasn't standing so close to Atem. My thoughts from yesterday still hadn't left my head, and if my suspicions were true, I didn't want an uncomfortable silence. "How about we help each other pick out costumes?"

He smiled at me. "Sounds like a good idea."

I turned to the racks. "So, what are your favorite Duel Monsters?"

"Dark Magician, but that's what Yugi is going to be." This eased my confusion at their earlier conversation, and I nodded. "And I don't think I'd want to dress up as Kuriboh..."

I snorted at that. "No, I don't think that's a suitable costume for anyone."

He smirked at me. "Don't hate on Kuriboh. He's not a bad monster."

"I never said he was." I grinned back at him. "But would anyone really want to stick a bunch of tufts of fur to their clothes and tape two giant eyes to their head?"

We laughed for a few moments. "No, probably not." He cocked his head at me. "What do you think I should be?"

His question caught me off guard. "Uh...I don't know. I don't know a lot of the cards yet..." My cheeks reddened for no apparent reason. Probably because I didn't like being clueless. An idea occurred to me, and I perked up. "How about you tell me the name of a monster, and I look it up on my phone and deem whether or not you could pull it off with the clothes here?"

He nodded. "Sure."

Fifteen minutes later, we had deduced that Buster Blader had way too much armor, and Giant Soldier of Stone was definitely a no-go. Black Luster Soldier had way too much detail for a thrown-together costume, and King's Knight couldn't possibly be formed from used clothing even if we tried.

"So, I guess we're back to square one." I said, scrolling one more time through the pictures on my phone.

"Well, at least we've figured out what I'm not going to wear." He said over my shoulder, looking at my phone screen even though he knew very well what the cards he was mentioning looked like.

I bit the inside of my cheek. He had done it again – his warm breath was on my neck, sending shivers down my spine like it had in art class. To stop the assault on my nerves, I turned around to face him. "Are there any others that could possibly be a good costume?"

He studied my expression. He had been doing that a lot while he was naming cards, like he was waiting for my opinion. Which I guess he was.

But still, his gaze always seemed to focus on me, and nothing else in the room. Just as it had in the first days of school, it was making me nervous.

I assumed I was noticing this more because of what Astrid had said. His behavior did nothing but spur my suspicions on.

"What about Magician of Black Chaos?" He asked suddenly.

"Um..." I typed it into my phone, then frowned at the picture. "That could be really hard to make..." I zoomed in on some of the armor. "But maybe a little cardboard spray-painted to look like metal wouldn't be terribly difficult..."

"And we could use some of Yugi's leather bracelets to make the arm and leg belts." He added, finishing my musings.

I raised an eyebrow at my phone. I had noticed Yugi's taste in jewelry before, and had just been about to mention those. I guessed Atem and I had both been thinking the same thing. "Yeah. And then all you'd need is a black turlteneck and black pants, and of course that scepter, which couldn't be too hard to make with the right supplies..."

When I glanced up at Atem, I found him grinning at me. Not just smirking or smiling like he usually did, but full-out grinning. "What?" I asked, kind of put off by his out-of-character eagerness.

The light in his eyes was dancing with the spark of a realization. "I think I figured out what you're going to be."

"Yeah, I just picked up my costume from the tailor." Astrid said, shaking the bag she was carrying even though her friend couldn't see it through the phone. "It's going to be perfect for that Halloween party we're going to."

The street around her was dark, and not many people passed her on the sidewalk. She knew this was a scarier part of town, but she wasn't afraid. The solitary feeling one got there made her feel right at home. After all, she didn't have much more company at her own house. Being alone was customary to her.

"Ooh!" Reece exclaimed on the other end, shuffling following. "What are you going to be this year?"

Astrid smirked at her friend's brainlessness. "I told you: it's a surprise. But I promise you, it's going to be amazing."

A strong gust of wind blew Astrid's long hair to the side, and she pulled her jacket tighter around herself. Despite how much she liked this part of town, she would have to get back home soon – it was a school night, after all.

"I'm going to have to let you go and see if I can hail a cab or something." She told Reece. "See you tomorrow."

"Later." Reece seemed much too eager to hang up, but Astrid ignored it. The peppy redhead was always eager.

Astrid allowed herself to shiver in the crisp autumn air. She knew she wasn't going to find a sane cab driver here, so she was going to have to book it to the subway station if she was going to get home quickly.

Another cold breeze brushed her face. She muttered a curse word under her breath at the iciness of the night.

"Astrid Koleski."

Her name was called by a deep, masculine voice, one that she found vaguely familiar but couldn't decide why. It wasn't a question, but a statement. She stopped.

"Who's there?" She asked, keeping her voice steady and turning to a shadowy part of a nearby alleyway, in which she could just make out the figure of a man leaning against the brick wall. She didn't fear this presence. Astrid Koleski was many things, but she did not consider herself a coward.

"You don't recognize me?" He stepped out of the shadows, illuminating his young face and intense eyes. Astrid took a step back in surprise at seeing him here, of all places. "Come on, Astrid. It hasn't been that long."

"What are you doing here?" She forced herself to maintain a casual stance, like it was an everyday occurrence to be confronted by her ex in the middle of a dark, empty street.

He smirked, the one expression she had found so irresistible while they had been together. "Relax. I'm not here to start anything."

She narrowed her eyes at him in suspicion. "Then what are you here for?"

"A business proposition." He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a tightly-folded piece of paper.

Astrid's eyebrows knit together. "A what?" Why was he being so mysterious? This was completely unlike him. He was usually blunt to the point of rudeness. And why approach her now, when he hadn't spoken to her since they had broken up sophomore year?

And how the hell had he found her?

He unfolded the paper and held it out so she could see it in the light. From what she could read from where she stood a few meters away, it was a one-page document full of information about a single person. Everything was on there: their date of birth, their accomplishments, and the day they died and cause of death.

She squinted at the black-and-white photo in the top left corner. "Is that...Erin Stephenson?"

"Yes." He made a strange face, turning his lips downward and his eyes upward. "And no."

"What are you talking aout?" She asked, taking a few steps closer so she could read the smaller print under the picture of her sworn enemy. "On here, it says her name is Rose Farthington and she was born in nineteen twenty-six." She glared up at the boy. "Are you trying to play me or something? Are there cameras hidden nearby?"

His amused expression turned solemn, and he shook his head. "No, Astrid. No cameras. I swear." He held the paper closer to her face. "Everything on this paper is completely legitimate. A friend of my father's is a genealogist, and he got this for me."

Astrid wasn't convinced. "Do you think I'm stupid? So what, you found information about a real person and then copied and pasted a picture of Erin Stephenson on it. Anyone with even an ounce of knowledge of Microsoft can do that."

"Then tell me, Astrid," he pulled another paper from his pocket, and unfolded it to reveal another page of information, this time about an Erin lookalike named Josephine Kinglsey-Knight who lived in the early eighteen hundreds, "why Erin is dressed for both of these time periods in the photos? Do you think she does period photo shoots in her free time?"

"Photoshop." Astrid croaked, though she knew that those pictures looked much too real to have been tampered with.

He rolled his eyes. "These photos are one hundred percent authentic. They were digitally scanned from an old collector's stash in New York. I will show you the real ones if you want proof."

Astrid was stuck between believing his load of crap and running away from his insane rantings. There was no way that the people in these pictures could look exactly like the new girl at Domino High, right down to the naturally-tan skin and perfect cupid's-bows of her lips.

She folded her arms, fingers tightening around her phone and the bag in her hand in case they were needed. She decided to humor him for now. "Okay..So why are you showing me all of this?"

"Because I believe we have a common enemy." He shook the papers for emphasis as his white teeth flashed. "And the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

And the plot thickens!

To anyone who was confused by the last scene, it will make much more sense later on. But who was the mystery guy? Most of you may have already guessed by now...

And do you guys like the costume ideas? I made a lot of references to an episode in the first season earlier in the chapter, what with everyone's choices of costumes. And the little conversation between Atem and Yugi about the Dark Magician has to do with Mahad, if anyone was wondering. Yugi was hesitant to dress up like Atem's dead friend.

And Astrid dumped paint on Erin! What a jerk move! XD

Sorry if this chapter is a little hit-and-miss. I've had a lot going on lately, and not a lot of time to write. Hopefully the scenes with Erin and Atem make up for it.

If not, I promise I'll do better next time!

Oh, and for the important note: The next few weeks are going to be extremely busy for me. I'm going to try to find time to squeeze in writing, and I will try my absolute hardest to get the chapters out on time, but I can't guarantee anything. I will promise you guys that this story will not go on hiatus. If a chapter isn't up by Wednesday, look for it on Thursday. I'll work really hard to get them up as soon as I can.

Anyway, l hope you guys liked this chapter! Hopefully not all of it was a trainwreck!

Leave a review if you liked it. If you do, then maybe I'll work a little harder to hit the deadline...XD

See you next week!

-creativelybored