Chapter One:

Joey Wheeler had seen some pretty insane stuff. Particularly since his pal Yugi had solved the Millennium Puzzle.

First there were the creepy, dusty old knick-knacks which were haunted by crazy ghosts from, like, eons ago—well, the Pharaoh had been a pretty cool dude, but that Bakura guy had been totally off his rocker. Pretty much everyone had felt really bad for poor Ryuu, who got stuck with that guy. Well, actually, most of the people who got mixed up with all that old Egyptian stuff ended up kinda whacky. Pegasus and that Marik guy were all kinds of batty, even if they kind of turned out alright in the end. At least they weren't stealing people souls, 'cause that was messed up. Marik's sister and that other weirdo had been decent, but they were still kind of freaky with their whole fate/destiny/end of the world mojo.

There had also been the whole fiasco with some old guys living in a computer trying to kill the Kaiba jerk. Or whatever. It didn't make much of a difference, 'cause Joey and his buds showed those old stooges the what-for. No pencil pusher was going to mess with the best duelist in the world. Then there was that messed up motorcycle gang. Something about Atlantis or seals and orcas or something. It was weird. Joey pretty much did his best to not really think about that load of hokum too much.

Honestly, all of them had a lot of other stuff to think about at the time anyway. With Yugi's ghostly roommate collecting all the super duper strong, awesome, ultra rare God Cards, he started figuring out who he was, and then things went even more topsy-turvy, if that was even possible. They'd had to defeat Bakura and some giant blue dork in a memory world inside of the puzzle. Well, Yugi and the Pharaoh pulled through, but then it was a matter of saying good bye. That hadn't been easy for anyone to watch.

And, well, that aside, it really was all super freaking unbelievable when Joey thought about. They were just a bunch of kids playing a card game after all. How it ended up looking like they had somehow saved the world was pretty absurd. It kind of gave him the heebie-jeebies, thinking that.

Since then things had been pretty quiet. Well, mostly. There were still plenty of duelling tournaments going on, of course, just without the whole Destiny stuff, Shadow Realms, or anything else crazy like that. It was… nice. Yeah. Just going to school, hanging out with his friends, and seeing his sister more often. It went unsaid amongst the gang that something was missing, but they all knew it was for the best that Yami—Atem, had moved on. That didn't mean they would ever forget though.

All that aside though, like any relatively normal person, Joey Wheeler was indeed, extremely shocked to find a girl in his cupboard.

All he wanted was a quick bite to eat before his friends showed up. There was a special exhibit for Duel Monsters, which Pegasus had sent them all invitations to attend, so they were supposed to meet up beforehand. In fact, Joey had about ten minutes until the gang arrived at his door, and he had been hoping he would at least get a chance to have some toast, some cereal, or something, before spending the majority of his Saturday wandering around a duellist convention.

Instead he got a stranger tumbling out at him, an equally surprised expression on their face.

Startled, and off balance, Joey was sent reeling backwards by the abrupt collision, and, in all honesty, was very lucky that he did not crack his head open on the counter behind him. Some (a certain money-bags in particular) might say he did not have the brain cells to spare, some would know he didn't have the money to spare for the hospital bills, and fewer would be genuinely upset if he had died. It was a moot point anyway because if there was one thing saving the world from magical Egyptian monsters had given him, it was a quick reaction speed. It was because of this that the very startled boy managed to catch both himself, and the stranger at the very last second in an extremely forced tango position.

It might have even been somewhat romantic, in a cliché sort of way, had they both not been screaming like little girls.

Fortunately, the cacophony of shrill, over-the-top panic was brought to an immediate halt when the mystery girl suddenly lifted her hand, and slapped him across the face before slapping herself as well. It managed to be shocking enough, either the sudden stinging sensation in his cheek, or the sight of some strange girl giving herself a solid smack, that Joey fell silent. At the same time, he let go of the girl, and gracelessly stumbled backwards, his arms crossed dramatically in front of himself.

"Wha! Who are you supposed ta be? What'r you doin' in my pantry?" Joey's immediate thought was that somewhere along the line he had managed to get himself a stalker, or that maybe she was a burglar. Not that there was much for her to steal from him. Had to be a stalker then.

The girl for her part, was still trying to regain her balance. "Who am I? Who are you? Why are you in my house?"

"Your house? This isn't your house! It's my house!"

"No it's—,"The girl spread her arms out grandly, but then cut herself off as she took in her surroundings, which were, in fact, unfamiliar to her. "This isn't my house! Where on Earth am I?"

"I told you, this is my house!"

"Well how did I end up in your house?"

"That's what I wanted to know!"

"But I don't know! What, you think I just randomly pop up in some random stranger's house for laughs?"

"How should I know! You're the stranger who just fell out of my closet!" By this point Joey had lost his defensive stance as he continued to argue with the unknown girl as if they were squabbling toddlers.

The girl had also gotten completely distracted from the main issue, and somehow got even further derailed from the current topic. "Well you know what they say about skeletons and—."

"That saying doesn't have anything to do with this—wait, what was that saying?"

"Haven't a clue!"The girl admitted, voice unreasonably high to match the equally unreasonable shouting of Joey Wheeler.

"Well you brought it up!"

"So? You mentioned closets first!"

"Well, I wouldn't have if you hadn't fallen out of mine!"

"Well I wouldn't have fallen out of it if—," At this point the unexpected, and unwanted guest once again stopped herself short. Her eyes darted about warily before landing on Joey's face. For a moment she looked exceedingly confused, which was not altogether unwarranted given her current circumstances, before looking utterly defeated, and dropping to the ground very dramatically. "Honestly. What is even going on right now?

Although Joey could have continued his outraged tirade in response to this, he was not a complete fool. Instead he also dropped to the floor, scratching his head furiously as he tried to collect himself. "I dunno what happened or why ya ended up in my cupboard. Might help if you told me what you last remember."

"Not much. I was putting my crackers back on the shelf, at home, and I think I tripped? Next thing I know, I'm here, and staring at your weirdly familiar face. Hey, you don't happen to play Duel Monsters do you?"

This, as it turns out, was enough to convince Joey to completely abandon his previous reservations, and even, interestingly enough, forget that she might be a crazy fan. "I sure do! I bet you've totally heard of me! The name's Joey Wheeler, and I'm the Duellist Kingdom runner-up, took fourth place in the Battle City Tournament, and placed in the Top Eight during the Grand Championships! Hehe, me and my Flame Swordsman are going to sweep the whole duelling world, just you watch!"

The girl nodded along politely, until he had finished his self introduction. Then, she clapped her hands together, with a grin. "Right! Nice to meet you Joey! My name is Kay Bishop, and I come from another dimension. Which might be a little bit weird sounding, but I know for a fact that it's not the first time you've heard of other dimensions, or something very similar to it. I mean, you did spend some time in the Shadow Realm, and all. Or maybe that hadn't happened yet?"

Understandably, this really did freak Joey out quite a lot. Certainly, he had encountered a number of very strange things in the past, and some random person telling him they came from another world was not amongst the strangest of things. In fact, in some ways it wasn't really the first time. It was still very disturbing to have a person who he had never met mention certain events that, as far as he knew, they had no business knowing about.

The teenaged boy closed his eyes, and breathed in deeply, before exhaling very slowly. "Alright," he said after a very long moment of silence, "the rest of the gang should be here in no time at all. How about you explain what's going on to all of us then?"

"Seriously? I get to meet them all? Really! This is so cool! Do you think Yugi would be weirded out a lot if I asked for his autograph? Wait. Do you think the Pharaoh—uh, Yami would give me his autograph too? Wait, do you even know about him yet? Oh damn, I'm going to have to be so careful about spoilers! Wait. What if this is Season Zero?"

Joey grimaced at the onslaught of hyper-speed mumbles, and quickly interrupted. "Woah, woah, woah. Hold up. I don't even know what you're saying right now, and, it's super creepy that you know about the Pharaoh."

"So you do know who he is! Wait! When is this?"

"When? I don't—Either way, we all know about who Yami—ugh, Atem was. But. Um. Was? I don't know how much you know, or why, but he's… gone now.

This made Kay grow mysteriously still, and her brows creased together. "So, wait. You're telling me I'm came here after everything has already ended? That… doesn't make sense. I don't think that's how this is supposed to work. It'd make more sense if it were somewhere in the timeline…" the last part was said mostly to herself, though Joey still heard it.

Before he could ask, however, the doorbell rang.