So, I was listening to Ke$ha while writing this again. And I'm still listening to Ke$ha. I've been listening to Ke$ha for a month now. This can't be healthy.

"Looks like Yugi really helped you out!" Tristan remarked, putting his hands in his pant pockets as the two of us strolled through the town. "I mean, I gotta admit that you had me scared a couple of times." He threw his head back in hearty laughter, paying me and the offended expression on my face no mind. How dare he doubt me! I'll have you know that I was trained by the motherflipping -pause for dramatic effect- King of Games.

"Well," I replied, elongating the word as I said it. Initiating the Lorna bullshit application. "It really was nothing... I mean, I'm just a natural at card games, be they Uno or Go Fish..." I rambled on. Lies. I sucked at Uno and Go Fish -and, while we're at it, every other card game in the whole world.

Apparently, Tristan's mind wasn't completely with my idle chatter, and who could blame him; my own mind was hardly paying attention to my word vomit. "Hey, Lorna?" he asked, arching his back slightly to look down at me.

I glanced up, immediately putting an end to my rant in order to listen to what my friend had to say. "Yeah?"

He sighed and looked away from me for a moment thoughtfully before speaking. Then it came -the question from which I wanted to stay at least fifty meters away. "What exactly happened with you during your duel with Rex? Why were you screaming?"

I frowned and pursed my lips, trying to think of a good way to successfully avoid that question. It's not like he could really help me even if he did know. I was sent here, told to learn something from Yugi and save the world, and I was expected to do this successfully. I mean, if they asked me to do it, then I must have been somewhat capable, as I doubted people with mystical powers chose their world saviors without thinking about whether or not these chosen ones could actually save the world. "I'm scared of dinosaurs," I told him finally, averting my eyes and digging my nails into the rough skin covering my left elbow.

Hey, it was a reasonable fear! Fear of the unknown, fear of things that died billions of years ago. Reasonable.

The look on Tristan's face told me he wasn't buying it though, and who could blame him? "You didn't look scared of the dinosaurs; you looked scared of him. Lorna, what's going on with you?" My lips set in a straight line and I didn't say a word, trying to weasel my way out of this way. He had already caught me in a lie, so trying another lie wasn't going to help me much. "Téa told me about the other day," he added when he saw that I wasn't about to speak anytime soon.

Taken aback, I look up wide-eyed at my friend "What other day?"

"The day you went shopping with Téa," he clarified, looking right back at me with an unreadable expression on his face. "She said you blanked out for five minutes."

"And what does that prove?" I snapped at him before he could say anything else. It wasn't like spacing out meant anything... Besides, I happened to space out quite often, and it didn't mean anything. There was nothing wrong with me. Okay, so I saw a little girl dying... that might have been a tiny bit unorthodox, but I could handle it. I was supposed to handle it, and I would. I had a mysterious voice counting on me, even if it did abandon me.

Bitch move right there, Voice.

I heard Tristan let out a long and exasperated sigh, which made my tighten my jaw and set my gaze to the ground, waiting for him to speak. "You didn't just blank out, Lorna. You were saying stuff. And if I'm taking Téa's word for it, pretty scary stuff."

I felt a pang in my chest at the thought of it. Saying stuff? Stuff like what? Why would I even be speaking unconsciously? Or, more importantly, why wasn't I told about this earlier? Couldn't Téa have spared me a word or to concerning my very strange behavior? I mean, obviously it was note-worthy if Téa went and told Tristan about it, and who else had she told? Yugi? Joey?

Well, of course she told them. How much more stupid could I possibly be? They probably thought I was crazy or demented or possessed... And God bless Tristan and his big mouth or I probably wouldn't have found out at all. I just would have thought that at least one of them would have approached me with this information sooner.

"What kind of... stuff?" I asked, trying not to sound majorly pissed off and stopping in my tracks, my legs giving up on carrying me any further... or was that just my brain? To tell you the truth, I couldn't really trust my limbs anymore since they decided doing things involuntarily was a thing. I mean, I somewhat get talking in my sleep, but this...

Tristan turned on his heel to face me, and for the first time, I could see the expression he was wearing, a look of concern and anxiety among other things.

Could he possibly be scared? For me? Or of me?

"You kept saying 'Stop' or something... I mean, I wasn't there so..." The boy trailed off, averting his dark brown orbs from my own probing eyes. I suddenly became aware of the tension in my brow and brought my hands up to my face, rubbing the tightness away. "I just can't help but feel like this and your duel with Rex..." He paused to recall the point he was trying to make, his eyes shutting tightly for a moment, then relaxing as he brought his gaze back to me. "They weren't a coincidence, were they?"

I wasn't sure how to answer him, because as far as I knew, a coincidence was exactly what they were. "Well, I don't know anything about this," I insisted, crossing my arms over my chest. "Any reason why Téa isn't asking about that day herself?"

This question caught Tristan off guard and the look on his face reeked of pity and it left me with a bad taste in his mouth. I survived a coma, so perhaps he could keep his pity to himself. "Y-You had no idea," he sputtered. "We thought it would be best if we told Yugi first and figured things out -"

Then I realized exactly what this was about and tightened my fists around the hem of the new black top I was wearing. Sorry, shirt. "You didn't trust me enough to tell me about this?" I asked him, holding back tears and trying to prevent my voice from becoming raspy.

"That's not it!" Tristan cried out in objection, his voice firmer than it had been before. "Hear me out before jumping to stupid conclusions like that, Lorna!" he scolded.

I set my lips in a straight line, swallowing back the lump that was growing in my throat, and gestured with my hand as if to say, "Go on." I guess he was right and I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions, but I was still pretty new to the whole friendship deal. I wasn't a loner when I was in my world, but I wasn't exactly everyone's go-to girl.

He sighed and composed himself before beginning his explanation. "What I mean is that we didn't want you freak out about this -at least, not yet."

Deciding that it would be best to go about this in a mature way rather than childishly try to make a bad guy out of Tristan, I replied curtly. "Thanks, but I can handle it." I felt a bit bad, not only for snapping at Tristan, but also for pushing him away, but there was no way he'd be able to understand what was going on with me; there was no way any of my friends would be able to understand. Even I wasn't so sure what was going on with me.

"We want to help you, Lorna." Oh, don't say my name so pathetically like that.

"Well, you can't, okay," I replied sharply, trying not to sound too hostile, but I don't think my mouth was really agreeing with my brain -can't say that was a first.

My friend began to scowl and I could sense the frustration building up inside of him from the way his back had gotten rigid and his hands were struggling to stay put. "Why not?" His tone showed restraint and I realized that, if I were Joey, I probably would have been punched in the face ages ago.

"There is no way you guys could even begin to understand!" I argued back and with a long sigh, I decided to give him the information he wanted and see exactly where he would go with it. "You really wanna know what's going on?" I watched his eyes widen; he had no doubt expected me to be tight-lipped for the rest of the argument. Well, he was definitely in for a twisted little treat. "That day when I went out with Téa, I didn't just space out. I followed a little girl into the street and watched her stand in the way of a speeding truck." I winced at the memory -the sound of tinkling bells as she laughed -the loud crack when the truck finally made impact.

"Why didn't say any-"

I continued to speak, paying his question no mind. "Just a few minutes ago, you watched me have a nervous breakdown in front of dozens of people for no reason..." I stopped speaking to rub away the goosebumps that were brought out by the oozing red on Rex's neck, slipping between his fingers and trailing down his shirt. How could I possibly get an image like that out of my head? How was I supposed to believe that all that was just my imagination?

"What did you see, Lorna?" Tristan asked quietly so as not to startle me from my recollection.

I brought my arms back down to my sides and responded to his question, sparing him the gruesome details that I would have to live with for a long time. "He was committing suicide."

I watched the realization on Tristan's face as my words registered in his mind and I felt worse and worse with every moment that passed. I still hadn't told him about the nightmare I had just last night, but I hadn't even begun to process that dream or its implications myself. For now, it was just a creepy dream induced by my confusion and fear, but I would have to deal with it sooner or later, and I was beginning to think that it would end up being sooner rather than later.

"Let us help you," he finally said after a moment of heavy silence and the sounds of people passing us by as we stood in the middle of the sidewalk. "I can tell you don't understand anything, but we can help you. Maybe Yami knows something. He's like three thousand years old or something so..." And there it was again. Yami. What the hell would Yami know? He didn't even know who he was for fuck's sake!

"What could you possibly do?" I asked hopelessly, shaking my head.

"You can't do this alone. You need friends to help you see the bigger picture, and five heads are better than one. Trust me." Tristan gave me an awkward smile, and I could tell he was trying to lighten the mood, and he did not know just how much I wanted the mood to be lighter, but I couldn't bring myself to smile back.

"You're forgetting something," I informed him. "I've already seen the bigger picture. Three seasons of it."

"What -" Then he remembered exactly what I meant. "You know... everything," he said more to remind himself than to remind me. I watched the resolve fade from his eyes as he tried to think of a way to counter that.

Letting out a long sigh, I decided to end the conversation for both of our sakes and stepped towards Tristan, putting a friendly hand on his shoulder as I said, "You probably shouldn't be late to see Serenity."

He nodded slowly and plastered on a weak grin. "You sure you don't need moral support?"

I let out a small giggle. "I can handle myself," I told him. "Besides, Serenity needs you more than I do, and she's probably waiting for you."

"Y-Yeah." He blushed and I knew he was imaging her waiting for him on that hospital bed and giving him that 1000 watt Wheeler smile. I was happy for him; at least he wasn't going to be alone.

Speaking of being alone, maybe I could call Joey or Yugi just to check up on them later, since they had told me to call them whenever I felt like it, but for now, maybe it was too early. I decided to wait until I at least had half of the required locator cards so I could at least have something to brag about when I talked to them. "If you're any later, you might miss telling Serenity about Joey's first duel," I reminded Tristan when I saw that he still hadn't departed.

"How did you-"

I gave my friend a pointed look, placing my hands on my hips. Really, Tristan?

Then he gasped and threw his head back in laughter. "Oh, right. The bigger picture!"

The smirk on my face turned into a fullout grin. "Yeah! Anyway, I'll see you soon, Tristan," I told him, taking a few steps backwards in the direction I was planning on heading.

"Will you?" he asked slyly.

I rolled my eyes and chuckled. "I hope so. Bye!" I called out as I turned around and began to jog away from him, smiling when I heard him throw me a goodbye.

Once I was finally alone, I decided to take a break, leaning against the wall of some sort of café to shut my eyes and think. Now, if what I told Tristan a few moments ago was the truth and not something I pulled right out of my ass to get rid of him, then Joey's duel with Espa Roba would be right about now, which meant that Yugi was... I winced, racking my brain for information. I guess you could say my memories of Battle City were a bit hazy, though I knew for a fact that Yugi had already defeated his first Rare Hunter, which also meant that he had already met Marik in a way.

I kind of hoped that I could just put Yugi and his friends in a protective little bubble because, though I may have forgotten all the little details of Battle City, I could still recall one duel in particular -the duel where Marik took over Joey's mind. If I could at least protect them from that, then I would feel like I had actually managed to do something with my knowledge, which had thus far been useless. How would I go about doing that, though? I couldn't even remember how Marik got his hands on Téa and Joey to begin with.

Ugh, Lorna. You are truly one of God's most useless creatures.

Well, I was hardly going to accomplish anything by standing around and thinking about stopping Marik. I needed to get out there and look for the little bastard. First things first; I had to figure out where Bakura was since, to my recollection, he was the first to meet the kid in person. And what next? Well, I would cross that bridge when I got to it.

As I opened my eyes and pushed away from the wall, I was still trying to make my very well thought out plan sound good in my head, because human instinct would tell you that actually searching for a highly dangerous sociopath was not exactly a sane life decision, though if you read enough fanfiction, you'd realize that Bakura was more likely to fuck you than actually kill you, so maybe I didn't have all that much to worry about anyway.

"Hi there!"

The face that appeared before me out of nowhere startled the saliva into my throat, causing me to let out a series of noisy coughs, coating the poor guy's face with spittle, but he was asking for it with the way he popped up like that. It took me around a minute to pull myself together and get a good look at his face to realize that he wasn't actually someone I knew.

"Who the fuck are you?" I asked, my voice still sounding a bit raspy from the coughing. It hurt like hell, so I would advise that guy to have a good reason for scaring the shit out of me.

All it took was him speaking again for me to realize just how close this guy was standing; his face would be a couple of inches away from mine were he not so much taller than me, and I wasn't just calling him tall because I was short. No, this guy was tall even by normal-sized peoples' standards and his boyish, stubble-covered face was framed by shaggy black hair "The name's Zephyr."

Call me stupid, but the first thing that came out of my mouth when he told me that was: "Is that your real name?"

The boy... No, man... No, man-boy... Well, he was definitely older than twenty, but he didn't look like a man. You feel me? I digress... The man-boy threw his head back laughing at my question, giving me a bit of relief from the closeness of his face and the feel of his hot breath on my face.

"You're funny, Lorna!"

"Yeah, I get that a lot."

Wait.

Wait.

"Wait." My eyes widened and I stared awestruck at his face. "You know my name?"

The smile Zephyr gave me was mocking, kind of like the smile you put on when you remembered an inside joke in public. "I know a lot of things."

Just who was this guy?

Ahaha, I wonder if you guys can tell how pissed off I was while writing this chapter. I'm not a big fan of dialogue in case you couldn't tell. However, this chapter is a necessary transition chapter between Lorna's duel with Rex and her next duel, which might come sooner than I originally thought. Oh well.. :D

I also had to get Tristan back on the canon train somehow.