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Chapter 6: Between the lines part 2
Nervin slammed his body into the metal door again. "Come on!" he puffed. "Open up!"
"Knock it off, Nervin," Tank advised from the corner next to Rally. "It's not gonna budge."
"Hey! Come on!" Nervin yelled. "Let us out of here already!" He turned around angrily. "Any of your guys see who those thugs were?"
"They weren't Sector Security, that's for sure," Keisa mumbled.
"I wish they'd feed us," Rally groaned. "Or at the very least, tell us what we're doing in here."
"We'll be okay," Keisa encouraged quietly, nudging him with her foot. "They can't keep us here forever."
"Yeah?" Blitz crossed his arms and leaned against the wall across from her. "How do you figure that?"
"They must have something on Yusei," she said. "Before we were taken, my laptop was receiving information from Yusei's runner."
"Which means…" Nervin prompted.
"Which means that he's not in the facility!" Blitz finished with renewed hope. Keisa simply nodded.
"But what does that have to do with us?" Rally questioned.
"They need something to hold over Yusei," Tank concluded.
There was a click at the door and everyone looked up. With a slight smile, Rally ran for the door and pressed his whole weight on it. It opened a crack. Nervin jumped up and helped him push it all the way open.
"Anybody know where we are?" Rally asked.
They emerged from a metal containment unit and ended up in some sort of trash heap.
"The time has come!"
"Hey," Nervin muttered. "Look at that." They all hovered around a small TV broadcasting the Fortune Cup.
"The Satellite's own Yusei Fudo has won the chance to take on Jack Atlas!"
"Just what the hell is Yusei doing over there?" Keisa snapped. The camera zoomed in on a hologram displaying a picture of both Jack and Yusei.
"Yusei is dueling Jack?" Tank gasped.
"When did this happen?" Blitz commented.
"Hey, hey," Nervin whispered. "Look at his face."
"They marked him," Rally gasped.
Keisa just stared wide-eyed at the screen. He was in the facility. All that time he was gone, he was in the facility being marked. She had been living as comfortably as possible in the Satellite while he was in that place. Why hadn't she tried to contact him when she started receiving data from his duel runner to see if he was okay? Why hadn't it even crossed her mind?
"No…I can't…" She stuttered. "He's…"
"He's okay now," Blitz said firmly, laying a hand on her shoulder. "That's all that matters."
"Yeah!" Rally agreed cheerfully. "He's going beat Jack and win back his Stardust Dragon!"
"I sure hope so," Keisa muttered, watching the duel.
Halfway through the duel, though, Keisa's mind had wandered again. She wasn't paying much attention to the duel at all, although her eyes were locked onto the screen, unknowingly following him around the track with her eyes. So many terrible things could have happened to him, and he'd never tell her any of it if it wasn't life or death.
"Hey, isn't that your card, Keisa?" Rally asked, jabbing a finger into her side.
"What?" Sure enough, Yusei had drawn her card—and even played it. "Healing Wave Generator!"
Somehow, this made her feel a little better. A piece of her was still with him, helping him out like a sister should. And even more so, he acknowledged her by playing her card. No doubt she'd get a talking to about tampering his deck without her knowledge, but somehow she knew he'd get over it.
Again, she'd traveled off into her thoughts, only to be pulled back to reality by an outburst from someone nearby.
"Where'd they go?" Tank cried.
"I dunno…" Blitz responded, just as perplexed.
"That's not normal," Keisa sighed. Seconds later they returned to the field, their two dragons stone still.
"Eh, what just happened?" Nervin mumbled.
"Look at Jack's life points!" Rally yelled, tapping his finger to the screen.
Sure enough, there in the background, Jack's picture was faded out next to a life point count of zero.
"Yusei won!"
Everyone began to cheer and celebrate. Keisa couldn't stop staring at the screen. Every television and hologram hanging in the stadium displayed her brother's face. She couldn't help being overwhelmed by a sense of pride. Her brother was the new champion of riding duels. Her brother.
"You okay?" Rally shook her shoulder.
"Yeah! I know he's okay so he can come home whenever he's ready!" She grinned.
"You sure it's safe to have that thing out of the closet," Blitz asked lazily from the couch of their hangout.
"I'm sure that shut up," she replied. "Yusei had his out all the time. Since he's not here, I might as well take up the space and get my runner running."
"I don't believe it," Rally mumbled from behind the laptop he borrow from Keisa.
"What's up?" Keisa looked over, seeing the look of anger on Rally's face.
"Why would a reporter write an article saying Yusei's not the champ?"
Shrugging, Keisa returned to her work. Tabloids and newspapers would write what they want. She knew what she saw. Or at least, she tried to forget about the parts she didn't. Like when he disappeared for the short amount of time.
"That's a lie!" Tank objected. "Yeah, there was that flash of light and no one really saw what happened but—"
"Tank, stop helping," Blitz snapped. "We all saw Yusei win. He's the one true champ."
"Come on, Blitz," Nervin said. "This is all about class warfare. People don't want some Satellite street trash as their new duel champ."
"Hey, watch what you say about the Satellite trash," Keisa grumbled over her shoulder.
"Good to know Yusei's got such strong supporters," a voice rang out.
Keisa picked up her wrench and turned towards the voice. No way was she going to let anyone be taken captive again.
"Who're you?" Blitz demanded suspiciously.
"A friend. Name's Blister," the man replied, stepping into their hideout. "But if Yusei'd told me about your manners, I might've stayed home."
"Yeah?" Keisa scoffed, crossing her arms. "And why should we believe you? Yusei hasn't so much as contacted me since he left, even though he said he would."
"You must be his sister Keisa." She nodded, starting to believe him a little more. "Well, Yusei finds himself a lot busier than he originally planned.
The grave look on his face struck a chord in her. "What's he doing that's so important? He's in trouble, isn't he?"
"So Goodwin captured your friends, captured Keisa, just to make you duel in a tournament?" Crow asked. Yusei sat with Crow on the end of a broken street, looking at the dilapidated buildings of the Satellite.
"Now I need to make sure they're safe," Yusei nodded. "I can't contact Keisa unless she has a signal on her laptop or her runner and nine times out of ten she doesn't."
"Well then, let's head over to your old hideout."
"Hey Crow, why are the streets so deserted?" Yusei noted.
"Things have gotten weird lately, weirder than usual. These creepy guys are stalking around. Looking for followers. Like right there." Crow pointed to two cloaked figures leading three Satellites somewhere.
"I'm gonna have to look into this. But first, I need to know Keisa and the others are okay."
And just sayin': Reviews like "Hurry up and update" won't work. I don't mind "Please update soon", but the former is just kind of rude.