Me: Ahehehehehe…. If anyone wants a recap, go back and read the last chapter of Forgotten Memories. That was Force's first appearance, since it was so long ago nobody remembers it.

Astral: I told you not to procrastinate so much.

Me: Nooooooo but it's so much fun to procrastinate! But seriously, if you wanna know more about Force, read that last chapter again.

Chapter 16: Conversations With Strangers

"So, uh, nice to meet you… Force…" Sarah shook his hand. "So, um…"

"Why don't we sit down."

"Good idea!"

The two sat down at a table in the corner, right in front of a window. Sarah shifted around in her seat uncomfortably, not sure what to do. She wasn't programmed to deal with people of the opposite gender! Yuma was enough, and with Shark, Kaito, and Shingetsu, they practically overloaded her boy circuits. How did this even work again?

"Are you… from around here?" She began slowly.

"Not really. Just coming around for some business I have to take care of." Force replied.

"Oh. That's… cool."

"Yeah."

There was that awkward silence again. "Thanks for… saving my drink." She said.

"You were muttering to yourself so much you didn't notice me." Force said. Sarah's face went red slightly.

"I wasn't muttering that much, was I?"

"You said something about annoying boys. And tv cartoons. Not sure what those two subjects have to do with each other…"

Sarah collapsed onto the table, groaning. She sat up, then began drinking furiously. "Brain freeze brain freeze!"

"You shouldn't drink that fast then."

"I was doing it on purpose…"

"You want a brain freeze on purpose?"

"Maybe if my brain freezes enough, all those annoying thoughts will leave it."

Force looked at her. "Sure… So what's so annoying?"

Sarah sighed. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"There are a lot of weird things out there. I've seen most of them. I'd probably believe anything you told me."

Sarah looked at him, then burrowed her face in her hands. "Where do I start with all this?" She took a deep breath. "Well, it all really started randomly when I went home one day, to see this character from a tv show standing in my room! And it pretty much went downhill from there."

Force stared at her. "You're sure you didn't just hit your head?"

Sarah groaned. "See, I told you you wouldn't believe it! I don't really believe it myself but that's what happened! Just one day, poof! Tsukumo Yuma and Astral in my room! And then in a few days, Kotori, Shark and Kaito as well!"

Force's eyes widened at her for a second, then narrowed. He blinked, his face returning to neutral. "Well… that's very strange."

"You probably don't even know them. Yugioh Zexal anime, bit of a small fandom compared to those like Naruto and One Piece, but it's a really good and fun one." She sighed. "And now my life is chaos because of them."

"So… if you put it in simple terms you have crazy cousins over and you're thinking they're characters from Yugioh Zexal?"

"…Sure let's say that." Sarah said.

Force thought about something, then looked back at her. "So, what are they like?"

"Huh?"

"Well, what are they like? You can probably figure out a strategy to deal with them."

Sarah sighed. "Well, there's Yuma. He's, well, Yuma. Over excitable, too much energy, happy happy happy, naïve, oblivious, hasty, cheerful, and thinks that nothing is impossible. So he literally challenges himself with everything! He yells Kattobingu and tries all those challenges he can't do! It gets really annoying."

"What's wrong with that?" Force said, almost sharply. Sarah looked at him strangely.

"Well, it's just there's no way he can do it, so why bother trying!"

"You never know until you try."

Sarah looked out the window, not meeting his eyes. That had hit a nerve. "That's just a bunch of stupid stuff they tell you in school and motivational videos to make you feel better about yourself… It's not true…"

"Have you ever tested that theory?"

"….no…"

Force sighed. "So Yuma is too cheerful and naïve. Seems tough."

"Well, he really cares about friendship and his friends, so I guess he's not all bad… he just drives me insane sometimes. And then there's Astral, just floating there, not understanding a thing. And one time he peeked over my shoulder when I was reading one of my fanfics… and asked what one of the words meant, and I am NOT explaining that!"

"So Astral doesn't understand things." Force said, looking at her with contempt. "And you were reading something dirty."

"I was not!" She yelled, her face turning red.

"Well, I guess it would be normal for girls your age."

"I said I wasn't!"

"Right, right." Force said sarcastically. "But this Astral seems more naïve and clueless than this place's Yuma."

"I guess… in a lot of ways he's WAY smarter than Yuma, but Astral's stranger too. He's been hurting for some reason none of us can figure out lately, and he gets really annoying sometimes due to the fact that he's—" She paused. "Um, let's say Astral's both me and Yuma's imaginary friend! He came from another world called the Astral World and Yuma needs to collect Trading Cards to restore his memories! Because he has no memories, Astral doesn't know a thing about human stuff!"

"Yeah… I know that feeling… having to explain everything…"

"You do?"

Force caught himself. "I can sorta imagine what that feeling is like." He said. "Don't know it actually, but I can imagine it."

"Sure." Sarah shrugged. That probably wasn't the case, but she didn't really want to go deep into the subject, so she moved on. "But, Yuma and Astral are best friends, I guess. I honestly can't really think of anything that could break them apart, since they've been through so much together. Bit jealous of it really…."

"Jealous of a relationship with your imaginary friend?" Force raised an eyebrow.

"N-No! It's not that! It's just…" Sarah's voice got quieter. "Well, I'm not exactly the most popular girl… not really sure how all that friendship stuff works out… and when I see Yuma and Astral's bond… I wish… I could have something like that too with somebody… I don't really got anything to show for myself, but I hate being alone really…. Been alone, and then all the sudden they come along and crash into my life… it's crazy, that's what it is."

Force looked at her in what might have been pity. "So, what are the others like?" He asked, mercifully moving on and sparing her from having to talk about that subject any longer.

"Well, Shark and Kaito are okay, nothing too wrong with them." Sarah said while breathing out. "Kotori's really nice. And then there's… Shingetsu Rei…"

"Shingetsu?" There was suspicion in his voice, but she didn't recognize it.

"Yeah Shingetsu. Some kid we stumbled upon one day. For some reason he knows about Yuma, which should be impossible, is even cheerier than Yuma, is always 'meaning well', and is a bit too innocent for his age." Sarah said. "And his hair's orange. And it sticks up at the back, pointing into something like a carrot bundle. It's gravity defying. It also makes no sense."

"Shingetsu…Rei…" A flash of anger came over his face, and Sarah instantly back up in her seat when she noticed it. It disappeared as quickly as it came, and then there was a calm, normal, human expression on his face again. It was probably her imagination playing tricks on her, but that anger was really terrifying. She was imagining things again, great. As if having tv characters in her house wasn't enough, she was imagining things now.

"Well, thanks for listening to me ramble. Sorry it made no sense." Sarah said apologetically. "I gotta go, buy dinner for the gang and everything."

"No problem." Force said knowingly. "It was nice to get to know you and the others."

"Ahehe…" Sarah stood up, waving. "Thanks again!"

"I gotta go now too. It was nice." Force stood up as well, and the two of them walked to the doors.

-linebreakofsomesort-

Oh my god it burned. It burned so much. His entire body ached, but of course, that was to be expected. After all that he had done, the aftershocks were coming now? Not now! Not when he was so close to charging enough power.

He leaned on the side of the wall of a building, his vision fuzzy. His head swam, and he wanted to throw up. He wanted to lie down and never get up again, but he couldn't. Fuelling the duel disks to work in this world when they couldn't originally had taken up more of his strength than he had imagined, and two of them had taken place in a Barian Sphere Cube, which just made it worse.

He panted heavily, his backside on the wall to stop himself from falling over. Human bodies weren't designed to take in all of that energy, but he had to deal with it. He had to get to Yuma. He had to get to Yuma as soon as possible, before it was too late.

He took a deep breath. Yuma should be around the corner, according to his senses. All he had to do was get to Yuma, and everything would be alright…. All he had to do was… get there…

He took slow steps, leaning on the wall and breathing heavily, his head heating up. A fever? Now? No, he was nearly there. He couldn't let it stop him now.

He stepped around the corner of the wall, and gathered up all the strength he had. "Yuma!" He yelled, expecting to see the black and red haired boy.

A thirteen year old girl with black hair and a shocked expression stared at him instead. Not Yuma. Next to her stood a man with black bangs and red hair spiked downwards. "Force?"

Force looked just as shocked as she did, but then scowled, his face full of anger. "You…."

He didn't have enough strength to respond, and he collapsed onto the ground, losing consciousness quickly. Just a… little break…

-linebreakofsomesort-

"Oh my god! Are you alright!" Sarah yelled as the boy collapsed in front of her. Force growled next to her, but she didn't notice. "Oh no, oh no, what do I do!"

"I'll see you around then." Force said quickly, and walked away as fast as he could.

"Wait, you're just leaving!" Sarah yelled after him, although he was already gone. She looked back and forth between the boy and where Force used to be. She grabbed her phone and called 911. "Um, ambulance! Starbucks! Somebody! There's someone really injured here!"

-linebreakofsomesort-

"He's waking up he's waking up!" The boy opened his eyes to see the girl from before yell to no one. "Oh you okay? You suddenly collapsed in the middle of the road! The ambulance came quickly, thank gods…"

"This is, the hospital?" The boy said slowly. The girl nodded.

"I'm Sarah. What were you doing that made you so tired! All the doctors checked you over and the only thing they found wrong was extreme exhaustion, like you ran 10 marathons in a row without breaks, water, food, or sleep!"

The boy ignored her. He needed to find Yuma, and yet when he thought he did it was just Force meddling again.

"But why'd you yell Yuma?" Sarah asked. "Did you want to find him or something?"

"You know Yuma?" The boy asked suddenly. Sarah looked guilty, like she said something she shouldn't have.

"U-Um, depends on which Yuma…. There's a lot of Yuma's out there…"

"Yuma Tsukumo. Tsukumo Yuma. And Astral. You know them?"

"Well, sorta… they're at my house right now…"

"Really?!" The boy sat up, then winced in pain, grabbing his back as it burned and ached. Sarah pushed him back down.

"You can't go anywhere, you're in the hospital!" Sarah protested. "You gotta rest up for at least a week or something!"

"I don't care! It's really important!"

Sarah stared at him. "Who are you and why do you need to talk to Yuma so badly? How do you even know about Astral?"

The boy didn't meet her eyes. "I… girls really are complicated everywhere…"

"That's not an answer!"

The boy sighed. "It's about how Yuma and Astral got here, how they can get back, I can't really say much more than that. There's a long story, and it's really complicated. But if I don't warn them, things will get worse and worse. And as for who I am." He tried to smile. "You can call me One."

Me: And there we go! One is back! Force disappeared! I confuse myself with this plot sometimes but it makes me laugh so much when I think about what happens next!

Astral: . . . sigh

Me: Ignore Astral, and review the chapter! I'll be here having fun have a Yugioh Zexal marathon on my computer! Yay Zexal!

YOU SHOULD WATCH ZEEEEEEEEXAAAAAAAAALLLLLL!