Still more interested in rewriting this one right now. Honestly, I want to practice my writing a bit more before I continue with "Golden," and I figured re-writing this story would get me back in the swing of things and provide you guys with material. Win/win, right? :D

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! Gx.

Chapter Two: Long Live

"How is he?"

Burgundy stirred from his doze beside the boy's cot, blinking sleep's haze from his eyes. Claret's concerned face slid into focus beside him. The female duel spirit was knotting her hands around the pail of water in her lap. Catching his drooping eyelids in the water's reflection, the Staunch Defender shook himself awake and glanced at the boy, finding the wet rag still covering his face and no movement to report on.

"The same," Burgundy grunted, reaching for the rag. He lifted the cloth from the fevered face to wet it, but refused to glance at his injured guest. "If he doesn't improve soon, he'll die."

Claret put her hands over his wrist, pinning it to the pail. If he had been anything weaker than a duel spirit, the grip would have been painful. "But..."

"He's right, Claret," came another voice. Burgundy turned to see Maiden of the Aqua duck into the home, brushing back a lock of her oceanic hair from troubled eyes. "He's been like this for three weeks now. Humans don't last as long as we do."

"But we don't think he's human, right Burgandy? You sensed something off about him!" Claret interjected. Her hold on him tightened, but he could feel nothing except the desperation in her eyes.

"I know Claret," he whispered, "but that won't stop him from dying."

"He saved us!" she objected. "We have a duty to save him back!"

Burgundy turned to the Maiden for aid, but she shook her head and approached him. Sparing Claret a sympathetic glance, the spirit hooked her friend's slight hands and allowed Burgundy's to roam free. He took the chance to offer the soaked rag to the female duel spirit, who raised her hands again to chill the water, their only hope against the human's fever.

Burgundy did not expected boy did not stir, as he had not for three weeks, when the cold cloth covered his face, nor did he expect the boy to notice the icy trickles that ran down his temples and into his brown hair. Claret reached to brush those damp bangs back, but Burgundy held her hands back this time, eyes narrowed at the human.

The boy's lips had quivered.

"Claret," he began, "I think he's moving."

The boy on the bed of hay stirred, causing the rag to drop from his face. It landed on the floor with a soft sound, alerting the spirits to his awakening. They circled around the young man, tense, curious, and hopeful. His eyes opened heavily, regarding them with the same anxious mixture.

Claret smiled, extending her hand towards the boy. "How are you feeling?"

The boy snapped his attention to her and drew away, cornering himself against the wall. "Who're you? Where am I? What's going on?"

His eyes fixated on the Staunch Defender and froze there, widening on impact. Burgundy frowned at the reaction, missing the exchanged worrisome glances of his female companions. Maiden shifted, causing the brown eyes to flicker away from the warrior and focus on the new perceived threat.

Burgundy raised his weapon a notch.

Maiden waved him down. "I'm Maiden of Aqua, this is Claret, and that is Burgandy. You're at our home in the—"

"South Village, I know," the boy cut off, paling as if in the presence of ghosts, not spirits.

"Right," Claret continued uneasily. "Burgandy found you in the ruins of Yubel's castle. You've been unconscious for three weeks now and we've been taking care of you."

The boy was silent for a moment. His shoulders hunched and he slid downwards, removing himself from the corner and shifting towards the center of the bed. He glanced down at the bed sheets in disbelief, kneading at the hay cot with uncurled fists. "Thank you. Sorry I reacted like that—the Dark World's been hard on me."

Tension flooded out of the two female duel monsters. Claret returned her hand to the boy's face, brushing away the offending bangs while Maiden retrieved the dropped rag. The boy appeared confused by their antics, but did not pull away, leaving Burgundy the odd one out.

The male spirit had yet to remove his grip on his broadsword. Three weeks he had waited for the boy to wake; three weeks he had waited to see if he was their savior or their destroyer. He could wait another three minutes to see if the boy was a threat before lowering his guard—if this was truly the Supreme King's vessel sitting before him.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

The women froze. The boy hesitated. "You're not gonna like the answer."

That was proof enough. Burgundy rose, sword slashing from its sheath, and pointed the tip of the blade at the woken youth despite the gasps from his companions. "You wear the face of a friend, and yet you wield the deck of the Supreme King. I will not ask again, boy, who are you?"

The boy was thin, pale, and weak in the reflection of his sword. Yet his expression was hard and his eyes accepting against the threat leveled at him, yielding none of the fear from his first awakening. "That's a really good question."

Burgundy's jaw clenched, certain he was being mocked. Before he could make a move, Claret stood between them, shoving his sword aside with strength he often forgot she possessed. "Burgundy, stop this!"

She turned towards the human while Burgundy stumbled backwards in surprise. "You saved us, don't you remember? You are the one who defeated Yubel and freed us, are you not?"

"Yubel?" the boy muttered, his eyes clouding over. "I am... I was..."

"What do you mean?" Maiden asked quietly.

The boy looked at her and then at Burgundy, imploring the older man to understand with his determined eyes. He said, "I came to this world to save a friend, and along the way I was swallowed by its darkness. I did some really, really bad things before my friends saved me. So to stop Yubel from making the same mistakes I did, I had to do something really drastic. And, well, kinda crazy, too. So my head's a little messed up, and I'm not really sure how to answer you."

"With the truth," Burgundy growled, unimpressed. Claret made a noise of protest, but the man ignored her. Dropping his sword, he shoved past his friend until he was staring the boy in the eye, searching for the harsh gold in brown irises. "Are you the Supreme King?"

His gaze was returned tenfold, but with a twitch of defiance in the boy's eyes as he answered, "I've been called the Supreme King by my followers, but my loved ones call me Jaden Yuki."

"LEXI! WAKE UP TIME SISSY!"

Alexis jumped out of her bed and tumbled to the floor with a resounding crash. Even without the grating voice of her brother, she felt the ground would have been the end point to her nap with a dream like that. Fists pounded on her door like Jaden's words did on her mind, causing her to curl in her blankets and stare at the ceiling.

She knew ignoring any problem made the situation worse, but answering Atticus' calls were not an option. Not when the tiled roofing was blurring and stinging her eyes, not when her throat was closing from all the dust in the room, and not when her chest burned from the impact of it all. All that was standing between her and her brother was a flimsy lock on a wooden door. Whether she or the lock would break first was never even a question.

Atticus jimmied into her bedroom with one well-placed tug, grinning only long enough to see her sprawled on the floor, laughing for the half-second it took to spot her face, and then dropping the letters in hand and rushing as her tears began to fall.

"Sis?" he asked, kneeling beside her as Claret had to Jaden. Alexis moved her arm over her eyes, cursing at herself for her weakness. Three years she had waited for the news that Jaden was alive. Three years she had waited to see him open his eyes, hear his voice, and watch him smile—only to realize it wasn't real. Atticus reached for her and she backed away, refusing to be comforted because she was not breaking down. It was just a dream, just a stupid dream, and she was far past the point where she needed her big brother to rescue her from nightmares.

"Alexis, what's wrong?" Atticus murmured. He pulled at the blankets, she pulled back, and they struggled in a stalemate of empty sheets and muffled sobs.

A second pair of feet entered her room, and she knew with certain dread that Jesse had entered the scene with her brother, probably back from calming the older male's tantrum about his protégé's loss. Atticus may be persistent, but it was Jesse who turned the tides, sitting down and staring into the twisted blankets like it was his second home.

"It's okay," he reminded her. "I still dream about it, too."

Regret was instantaneous when she peeked at him from beneath her arm. With a smile like a waning moon, Jesse's face was a stolen image from Jaden's, her personal sun. She could see the Slifer in the transfer's expression so clearly there was nothing to do but drop the sheets, turn into her brother, and bawl.

"Lexi, what happened?" Atticus cooed gently.

"I saw him," she chocked out. Her wingers wrapped around whatever loose material they could find in her brother's shirt. It wasn't much to hold onto, and she nearly laughed at the ridiculousness of it all.

Her brother took that as a good sign. "Who is it Alexis?"

"Who else would it be?" she snapped, thrusting away from her idiot brother. "Jaden!"

Atticus reeled from her shove and put a hand to his chest, bruised. She found no pity in the sight, so she turned her eyes to her knees and hugged them, pushing the caps into her sockets until the last tears squeezed out. She was the only pitiable creature here and she refused to be weak in anyone's eyes.

"He was hurt and in trouble," she whispered into her knees. "Some spirits in the Dark World found out he was possessed by the Supreme King."

Silence met her answer. She was relieved for it.

Jesse's rough hand ghosted over her shoulder and she tensed, bracing against whatever useless comfort he'd say now. Jesse couldn't console her for feeling grateful for seeing Jaden alive, even if he was in trouble. Jesse couldn't fix her guilt over the words spoken in that Dark World. Jesse couldn't help ease the sorrow until she knew one way or another if Jaden was dead, killed by Burgundy's sword or another angry, unforgiving monster.

He said, "When I dream, I see Yubel."

Startled by the confession, she looked at him. He wasn't looking back; his gaze had drifted to the window behind her bed stand, to the cloudless sky beyond her dark room.

"I see Yubel watching over Jaden," he continued, lowering his arm to his lap. "She's helping him out now, like Neos and Winged Kuriboh. And if she did all of this to us for helping Jaden, imagine what she'd do to keep him safe."

The Rhodes siblings could only look at him, concern outweighing whatever sorrow they had. Yubel had possessed Jesse longer than the Supreme King had Jaden, and if the guy was still dreaming about his captive, was it coincidence or something worse?

But when Jesse put his arm to the back of his head and scratched his neck, closing his eyes in a sheepish grin, there was no doubt Yubel, wherever she was, was not in Jesse's head.

"So," the transfer chuckled. "If we're seeing two different things, they're just silly dreams, right?"

Alexis managed a nod. Jesse gave one back and stood, grabbing the elder Rhodes by the forearm on his way up. Atticus made a noise of complaint, hushed by his captor's next line, "Anyway, sorry for barging in here. I told you I'd take care of Atticus and I meant it. If you need help grading papers or need to talk, you know where to find me."

Keeping his grip on Atticus, the foreigner made his exit, keeping his eyes averted from his friend on the floor. She watched him drag her brother out with a mixture of gratefulness and shame, disgusted with how weak she had become. Her eyes landed on the pile of letters her brother had dropped, full of happy thoughts from her friends that were moving on, growing stronger, and leaving her behind.

Jim's and Hassleberry's letter was at the top, and the messy scrawl itched at something in her head. How Egypt and the Dark World were connected was beyond her, but she reached for the letter regardless, pulling up memories of her friends: Hassleberry's dinosaur bandanna, Jim's missing eye…

Alexis stopped, her hand hovering just above the letter. Jim had chased down Jaden in the Dark World after she'd died. He'd harnessed the power of the blue comet to peak into the Supreme King's mind and rescue the Slifer, but before then he had lead a search party across the world, meeting several refugee humans and spirits alike. And of the many faces, he had mentioned one village in particular that had helped him, two spirits that had nursed him to health—Claret and Burgundy.

Alexis was up and at her desk, splashing the letter across her desk and reaching for ink before she could breathe. She uncapped the pen and flipped the letter, blinking at Atticus' unexpected scribbles and greetings to the pair, before writing out her own paragraph in urgent, slashing lines. Dreams or not, learning about the two duel spirits would calm her, she was certain. Knowing they were good people, and that Jim would vouch for them, would ease her fractured mind far more than any Jaden knock off ever could.

When she turned her head to call Jesse and Atticus back, she saw her old uniform hanging in her closet, mocking her. With sudden force and chilling anger, she glared down at the forgotten relic. Fueled by boiling blood, her legs rose and stomped over to the outfit of the long lost Obelisk Queen, who needed and wanted no one, and her arms rose to the doors of its casket before slamming them shut.

Thanks for reading!
(And don't be alarmed-I'm taking down all of the old chapters of this story and rewriting them, tweaking them slightly and changing certain things altogether. But the plot's the same, just bumped up instead of taking, like, ten chapters to get to it.)

Feel free to tell me your thoughts on how this redo's going. I'd love to know who's still reading and hear any suggestions/complaints.

So far, everyone wants Yubel and Jaden's relationship clarified. Well... I wasn't intending to do that until later in the story because Yubel was lying and everyone else didn't know much. So what I can do is make it *clear* that residents of the Dark World don't actually know a lot about Yubel. Hopefully that will help a bit. :D

As for the gender thing, just pay attention to who calls Yubel what gender and you'll probably be able to guess what's going on.

Thanks again for reading guys and gals! Your comments really encourage me to keep writing. X3

~AxJfan