Sorry for the long update on this story guys X-x but here's the chapter! At long last of course…

-X-

Chapter 6

You're going to hate the End

Syrus blinked. His vision was blurry behind his smudged glasses. He felt his wrists ache as they were handcuffed behind his back. He observed his surroundings. A dark, windowless room with a lone light bulb hanging from the middle of the low ceiling.

Ugh, where am I? He struggled to stand up as his knees buckled before he could steady himself. Syrus walked carefully to the door write in front of him He turned around and tried to turn the knob but it was firmly locked.

Figures…

He flinched slightly as he heard the knob click. Fearing on who his visitor would be, he stumbled back.

He stared in the face… or no one.

Well the same person who had taken him the other day he thought.
Syrus didn't get to see his features. He wore a pitch black mask with shining green eyes. The rest of his head was covered in a hood.

"What do you want?" Syrus asked, feeling a little helpless since his arms were rendered useless.
"It's obvious, we want the Data keys." His voice was unidentifiable; it was distorted through some mechanical mouthpiece, something like Darth Vador.

"What's so special about them anyways?" Syrus continued to ask, fiddling with his bindings.

"You don't need to know that reason, you don't need to know anything," he said. With that he turned around and ordered two gruff-looking henchmen.
"Take him to the VD beta room."

- - - - - - - - -

"This is all my fault…"

"No it isn't, why are you blaming yourself so much?"

"It is! I could've seen this coming!"

"This isn't like you, Zane! You're worrying too much, we're going to get him back."

"Atticus is right, Zane…" Alexis said. She just finished bandaging Jaden's cheek. "After all, Aster and Jaden both got a clue."

Aster was leaning against the wall. "It's true, and it was meant for you, Zane." He handed the letter to him.

"How did you get this?" Zane asked, he untied the letter and read silently first before reading out loud.

"If you want to see Syrus again meet us at the location below." He paused as he carefully scanned the sentence. His eyes widened. "Why here…?"

"What? Where is it?" the rest asked.

"It's not a map. It's words… Land between the two Rivers."

"What?" Atticus asked, clearly confused.
Aster shrugged while Jaden followed suit with Atticus.

"I know that place…" Alexis said suddenly. "But I'm not sure…"
"I'm not sure either but…" his voice rose.

Alexis stared down at her hands thinking hard. "It's on the tip of my tongue… The Nile… no. That's one river. Of course! I learned about this some time ago!"

"What, learned what?"

"It's the Tigris and-"

"Euphrates!" Zane finished. "Its so simple, every 11-year old knows this. So that means the two rivers, Tigris and Euphrates… the land between them. That would be the fertile crescent, but why there, honestly? It seems rather unfitting."

Alexis agreed but before she could say anything Atticus retorted "Since when were you two both geography experts?"

"We're not experts, Atti'" Alexis said a little annoyed. She returned her attention to Zane.

"So "Land between the Two Rivers" That's either the Fertile Crescent or the Mediterranean."

"But Mediterranean is Greek for "Land between". It still doesn't make sense though. These place or places are heavily populated. You think someone would notice these shady characters."

They all fell silent, thinking hard.

"It's worth a try," Aster said. Jaden nodded, "But how are we going to fly all the way to Africa?"

Chazz paled. They all turned to him.

"What?" He asked irritated.

"Chazz…" Alexis asked threateningly sweet. Atticus nudged him.

"Okay fine we'll take my jet. It'll probably be a 10-hour flight." He gave in. He pulled out his black cell phone.

"As soon as possible, yeah, yeah, I know how late it is, okay fine, tell him I'll increase the pay. Okay, tomorrow morning? Got it."

-Next Day-

"We'll be taking off shortly. Please buckle your seatbelts and enjoy the flight!" The attendant recited.

They all had their own seats, heads turned towards the aisle so they were all facing each other. The craft lurched forward and gained momentum as it took off into the air.

Jaden wrinkled his nose as his ears popped. Alexis said to Zane, "Did you tell Shiyo about this?"

He nodded. "Yeah, the other night. She has this Jet under radar so for now she'll know where we are."

The ride smoothened, as they remained airborne. They unbuckled to be more comfortable. Zane took out the letter again and scanned it.

Look at the location below… Land between the two rivers… Mediterranean, between the Tigris and Euphrates…Look at the location below. This all doesn't make sense… He slipped the paper back into his pocket.

Aster had a silver notebook (notebook as in those laptop things) propped on his lap. "Hey guys hear this. A few sources say there was an archeological dig near Luxor in 1756. On the tenth year of the dig, they discovered a narrow tunnel beneath the desert. Wondering how it came to be they decided to investigate. It was discovered that the 50-mile passageway was constructed of an ancient stone rumored to be something called Orichalcum."(I didn't get this from Jim's eye; don't imply plot thieving please, this is based off of mythology and history. 0-o)

"Orichalcum was the legendary metal used by the Atlanteans…" Alexis said.

Aster went on. "The archeologists in the lead were puzzled by this finding since Orichalcum was mostly found in Greek mythology, not Egyptian or Islamic writings and myths. In 1820 they only managed to go in 50-miles of the passage before it spontaneously caved in, killing the archeological group. Since then the government had cut the income for the site's funding."

"Oh well that's nice…" Chazz said.

Alexis asked, "This is interesting and all but what does this have to do with our search for Syrus?"

"Because it says before the passage caved in, one archeologist made a note of something he found on the walls repeatably. They posted the sketch online." He turned the screen to the others.

"There are six symbols…" Aster said quietly.

"And those six symbols are on our data keys." Zane finished.

- - - - - - - - -

"Ugh that hurts!" Syrus said a little angrily as one of then men manhandled him. "Quiet you, we're almost there."

The other said. "Be glad that we're not dragging you."

When Syrus thought he was just about to split in half, the man holding him dropped him.

"Ouch," He rubbed his shoulder, which banged against the floor. He pushed himself up and looked through the glass doors that slid open.

He found the same masked guy from earlier. They pushed Syrus into the room and the door shut behind him.

Syrus stumbled and tried to regain his balance. He noticed several Virtual Reality pods, similar to the ones at Kaibaland.

"What the.." Syrus' voice trailed off. "What do you want me to do?"

"We're going to send you to a virtual world of our own creation." He gestured at a pod. "Please don't make my force you to cooperate."

Syrus stood there for a second before he started walking slowly to it. "And why should I trust you?"

He didn't answer right away. "You don't have to. Its either this or we're going to have to hurt your friends."

Syrus' eyes widened. "You have them?"

He shook hi head. "No, but we have the ability to. Now are you going to cooperate or not?" He knew this was no idle threat. He sat down and laid back against the firm seat.

"Who are you?" He finally asked.

The guy removed his mask. Syrus gasped loudly, he couldn't believe his eyes, it couldn't be. It wasn't possible! How could this be…? But before he could say anything, the glass slid down and he was knocked out.

The man stared at his reflection in the glass.

A face with teal hair and emerald eyes stared back at him.

-X-

DUN DUN DUN! Omg a cliffie? You must hate me now eh? XD Well that's it for the sixth chapter. Okay, you know, the geography mythology and history are going to be altered just a /tiny/ bit m kay? If you want to predict what I'm planning you can look up stuff on Wikipedia if you want.

Well its getting really late so, toodles! (I hope I didn't forget anything…)