"Well now, isn't this a surprise," Kaibaman snorted, crossing his arms over his chest and staring imperiously up at the large serpentine dragon floating above him, "It's been a while since I've saw you. What brings one of you well dwellers here?"

"Former well dweller." Serpent Night Dragon correctly with a snort of derision.

"Oh, you finally decided to get off your scaly rear and do something then?" Kaibaman chortled, before pausing and eyeing the dragon thoughtfully, "No, that's not it. Now that I give you a look over, I can sense it. A connection, a strong one too, to a duellist? Someone actually picked a third rate monster like you up?"

"Still better than trash like you who can only borrow the strength of a true powerful beast," Serpent Night Dragon, retorted, eyes narrowing "But if you must know, I indeed have found a duellist worthy of my respect, one so strong in fact that even the real Seto Kaiba would have trouble defeating him." the serpentine dragon boasted.

He was very familiar with Seto Kaiba. After all, once upon a time, he had done battle with his legendary dragons and even fought in his Battle City tournament with his once upon a time wielder, Rex Raptor. Truly only a short span of time had passed since those days compared to the total time he'd lived, but it felt so much longer. The days of being carried by that useless twit, then the fop fake psychic and being sold off to a rich little snot only to be thrown in the well of rejection after the fool failed utterly to wield his strength.

What Yarden lacked in resources in comparison and powerful rare cards, he made up for with guile, cunning, knowledge and brutal efficiency, and he did not lack in skill.

Serpent Night Dragon had never imagined he would ever end up in the hands of such a skilled duellist. Never mind become the ace of his deck. These past few weeks, had been glorious. Showing his might and strength to the world, it was a feeling he had long missed with the days of old.

Truly only his master was worthy of his services.

"Hoh? Quite the claim," Kaibaman hummed, "Congratulations are in order I suppose. Perhaps I should pay him a visit and see how he handles the might of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon?"

"Yarden will easily defeat them." Serpent Night Dragon retorted without a seconds hesitation. Even the mighty Cyber End Dragon and its deck of support wielded by the previous greatest duellist of Duel Academy could stand up to his master!

Their evolutions on the other hand, may be a bit of a problem. But Yarden was still young, so very young. He had just took his first steps towards greatness a few weeks ago. One day he was sure, his master Yarden would even be able to overcome them!

"Interesting," Kaibaman chuckled, "Something to keep in mind I suppose. But, beyond that, you have not answered my question, what brings you here dragon of the night?"

"I am searching for Dark Magician Girl," the dragon replied, "I have searched the island high and low for her and found no sight. If she is here currently, this is the only place she can be." This place, was a small spirit realm that existed between the human realm and the worlds of the monster spirits, a place where monsters who lived in the human world could come to relax.

It had been ten days now since his master had been promoted to the blue dormitory and recognised for the elite that he was. And in total it had been sixteen days that he'd been tasked with finding the Dark Magician Girl spirit for his master. How it grated him to be taking so long to complete the first and utterly simple task his master had bestowed upon him. Simply shameful.

He had taken so long, his master had already acclimated to the bonding process of making Lessar Dragon into his Ba. And a few days ago, five to be exact, began mass bonding with the weakest of the spirits: Spirit Of The Breeze, Fairy Dragon, Chaos Necromancer, Soul Tiger, Larvae Moth, Griggle, Marron, Catnipped Kitty, Unhappy Maiden, Skull Servant, Marmot, Goblin Calligrapher, Serpent Marauder, Blade Rabbit, Steel Scorpion, and Dreamsprite. Quite the list, and it would take him a while to acclimate once more to the bonding, but each day it progressed, he became faster, stronger, and more powerful than before.

The day would soon come when it would be his turn to become a Ba of his master. A mere month or two away. He was progressing even quicker than he had predicted.

Kabaman huffed, "She's here, yes," he nodded, "She has been visiting the younger, weaker spirits and keeping them company. What do you want her for?"

As much of an annoyance he found this puffed up peacock of a spirit to be, Serpent Night Dragon could at least respect the role he'd taken up, protecting the younger, weaker spirits of this world of in between.

"My master wishes to speak with her, to have the chance to recruit her." Serpent Night Dragon responded truthfully. How he knew of Dark Magician Girl being a quite frequent visitor to the island, the dragon did not know, nor did he truly care. His master knew many odd things that he really shouldn't, but, it was not his place to ask such questions, nor would they change his opinion regardless. He of course had a good idea why his master wanted to recruit her. There were two reasons, the first being that his master sought power, something worried him, and he wanted power to be able to deal with it, thus sought it out.

And secondly, he was a lustful human. His desire to take the three human females he spent so much time around made that apparent. Dark Magician Girl was a duel spirit with the appearance of a great human beauty. Most likely his master wanted to rut with Dark Magician Girl just as he did with the human females.

He did not understand the appeal, but Serpent Night Dragon did not care about that either way. If his master wanted to meet Dark Magician Girl and try to recruit her, then that was what he would make sure came to pass.

"Something seems a bit off here," Kaibaman mused, before shrugging a moment later, "Well, she's a big girl, she can take care of herself. Follow me then, I'll lead you to her, though convincing her to meet with this apparent amazing master of yours will be up to you, I have no care either way."

"I thank you." Serpent Night Dragon dipped his long graceful neck and nodded his head, following behind the duel spirit version of Seto Kaiba as he led the serpentine dragon to his destination.

Ten days came and went in relative peace for Yarden. The only hiccup really had been his transference into the Obelisk Dormitory.

The other blues, weren't quite so accepting. Most of them at least. It seemed that the duel against Zane had been taken off the record. According to Crowler, it was because there were many talent scouts and investors who had their eyes on Zane, and Crowler wanted to keep the duel off the record, at least until Zane signed a contract with sponsors for the Pro Circuit for when he graduated.

If it was to save face or something. Yarden probably would have been a bit miffed, but, honestly, since the guy was just trying to look out for his students prospects, he let it go.

It helped that he didn't really care about being known to have defeated Zane at this time by the overall populace. The important people knew after all, Zane himself, the teachers, and his three favorite eye candies in Alexis, Jasmine and Mindy.

And Crowler had made sure to explain to any complainers that his promotion to Obelisk Blue was legitimate, both with how high he scored on the exams and his frequent easy defeats of many an Obelisk Blue. And that, if Yarden did not belong in the Obelisk Blue dorm, what did that say about all those he had scored vastly higher than and easily defeated day after day? Even made a snide little comment about how they should be in Slifer then.

It got the main complainers to shut their asses up, not wanting to draw those labels to themselves. It didn't mean though that they were content to let things go. Two or three of them challenged him to duels a day, he didn't even need to go out searching for them, they came to him.

Yarden sighed, leaning back on the large, comfortable green couch within his dorm, "This is gonna take a while." he mused.

Spread out on the glass table in front of him, were a variety of cards from his collection, most of spirit card not within his main deck spread out beside them.

He'd been at it every night for the past week. Trying to build a series of decks to let him use the monsters. But, there were honestly just too few of them, especially with how only a few of them could work well together in a theme deck. Even with the extra cards he'd picked up from drawing sandwiches at the card shop. He'd refrained from buying anything since he was waiting on the Dark Paladin card arriving that Sadie put an order out for, and he'd need enough to buy it.

He'd gotten ten cards in total. Serial Spell, Flint, Graceful Charity, Royal Decree, Pyramid Turtle, Hyena, Rescue Cat, Spell Absorption, Re-Fusion and Forced Ceasefire.

There were some pretty good cards in there, but not enough to cover up for the glaring lack of synergy between his spirits.

"Any ideas?" he turned to his left, eyeing the orange haired slip of a girl in a tattered blue dress sitting on the couch beside him, with room to spare. Like seriously, the couch was semi circular and over ten feet long.

The room itself was something right out of a five star hotel penthouse. Fifty feet by fifty feet. A huge king sized bed. A sixty inch television straight across from the couch. The Slifer's got a crappy PC per room, where as this room came with a top of the line laptop. The freaking television even had cable!

He even had expensive glass doors that led out to a sprawling, immaculately designed balcony.

"No, sorry." Unhappy Maiden shook her head, a small smile on her face.

Well that much was expected. She wasn't much into it at all. Honestly, she just seemed happy to be included.

"You know master, you don't need to try so hard to make separate decks to include us all," Dreamsprite pitched in, the nude curvy blue skinned, orange haired spirit lazily floating in the air above him, "You're stressing out too much thinking of ways to include us. We won't blame you for maining the deck you've already made. You should just use us as you did before and use the dragon deck you made for important fights. Maybe switch one or two of us in here and there if we fit for who you're dealing."

This room was so much bigger than his old one back at the Slifer Red dorm, as such, he could freely let his spirits out and about as much as they wanted without crowding the room.

Honestly, most of them were out and about right now. Catnipped Kitty, Blade Rabbit and Marron were curled up on his bed. Larvae Moth was actually coiled around the lamp for some reason. Petit Angel, Marmot and Griggle were playing what he assumed was tag. Skull Servant was on his laptop, while Goblin Calligrapher sat on the desk beside the purple clad skeleton monster and drawing on a piece of paper.

Petit Dragon, Baby Dragon, Decoy Dragon and Fairy Dragon were all outside on the balcony, play fighting in the air and having a blast, and the balcony was actually big enough for both of his Winged Dragon's to snooze under the stars and night sky. Lesser Dragon was sleeping as well, curled up in the corner of the bedroom. Really, beyond fighting, his dragons sure did love sleeping.

Relinquished wasn't out and about. Despite appearances, it was quite the shy monster and preferred to stay in its card most of the time. And sadly, Hyozanryu was just too big to be out and about in the immediate vicinity, and Serpent Night Dragon was out once again searching for Dark Magician Girl.

"Think so?" Yarden bit his lip, "I made you guys a promise remember, that I wouldn't be like those idiots that couldn't see your worth."

"I know, and we love you for it master," Dreamsprite giggled, flapping her orange wings and lazily gliding down to land on his lap, he tensed slightly for a second, drawing another giggle from the blue skinned beauty before relaxing, "But just because you can't find ways to use us right now, doesn't mean you're breaking your promise to us. It's enough to use us casually like you did before, and that you know our worth."

"Agreed," an airy voice said, before two lithe green arms wrapped around his neck and blue hair appeared in his vision as Spirit Of The Breeze rubbed her cheek gently against his own, "All things considered, I prefer just being with master over dueling anyway."

"..Well, if you guys say so," Yarden replied, letting loose a sigh of relief and relaxing into the couch, "I could definitely get used to this I admit." he chuckled, eyes drawn to the nude blue skinned spirit in his lap. She wasn't anywhere near as bodacious as Alexis, Jasmine or Mindy, she was more svelte in build, but that didn't make her slight curves at all unappealing, and the exotic blue skin made her even more beautiful.

Dreamsprite giggled again and gently grasped one of his hands, lifting it up to cup one of her small breasts, "Well if master wants, I don't mind giving you some relief~"

Temptation thy name is Duel Spirit.

Dreamsprite and Spirit Of The Breeze were definitely his most affectionate spirits, of the human variety at least. Dreamsprite was, a chipper, cheery, energy fueled wood nymph at heart, and Spirit Of The Breeze wasn't much better, just being the calmer and more mature of the two.

"Well, if you're offering." Yarden grinned and gave her breast a light squeeze, a small breathy moan escaping her. Was it weird that he was feeling up a spirit that had merged with his very soul? Probably, but he definitely wasn't complaining.

And it would definitely help take the edge off from being around Alexis, Jasmine and Mindy constantly. Especially Alexis, she'd been seeking him out to spend more time with him ever since he spent that day with her at lunch helping her with her deck. That sinful body of hers stretching her uniform out in all sorts of mouth watering ways.

"I think two spirits are better than one," Spirit Of The Breeze mused softly, her green lips pressing a chase kiss against his cheek, "We'll relieve you of all your stress master." she purred softly in his ear.

Just as he was about to reply, a soft pressure on his left arm made him turn his head. Unhappy Maiden was staring at him, a pout on her face, cheeks flushed.

Ah damn.

"Alright, alright, not tonight." he relented. As much as he would love to get his dick wet with his spirits, it wasn't worth upsetting the other ones. Unhappy Maiden was a very shy one, she definitely wouldn't join in, and it would be a total dick move to do when he was spending time with her as well.

"Foiled already huh?" Spirit Of The Breeze mused, a soft laugh leaving her, "Oh well."

Dreamsprite giggled and ground herself into his lap, "Looks like we'll have to try another night master~" she teased.

Her giggles got louder when he reached around her to cup her backside, his fingers sinking into the springy soft rounded cheek. Then yelped when he thrust into her a bit and forced her sprawling off of him. In the past ten days, with his bond to Lessar Dragon being completed and him joining with a bunch of the other spirits, his physical abilities had drastically increased.

Dreamsprite righted herself in the air with a flap of her wings, "Meany!" she stuck her tongue out at him, despite that though, her lips were in a wide smile.

"Nobody's allowed to get a one up on me without my say so." Yarden smirked at him.

A breathy little giggle escaped Unhappy Maiden's lips and Yarden felt his smirk stretch a bit more. She always looked so sad, so when he even got a light little giggle like this out of her, it made him feel happy.

Just then, the PDA sitting on the table beside his cards started ringing loudly. A message.

Leaning over, Yarden picked it up and checked the message. It was from Alexis, and it was a video message?

He opened it up and pressed play.

A second later, it started up and he could see Alexis' face, her eyes wide with panic, sweat trailing down her cheeks and her skin pale, "Yarden, sorry about this, but I need help!" she hurriedly said, "I'm out near the Abandoned Dorm running back towards my own! Some huge guy just came out of nowhere and he tried to grab me! I-" just then, she stumbled, and the message ended.

Yarden was on his feet before he even realized it. He ignored the cards on the table, grabbed his duel disk and ran for the balcony to the surprised stares of many of his spirits. He already had his main deck strapped to his belt after all in his deck box.

A moment later, he was leaping over the balcony railing and dropping a good thirty feet to the ground. As he fell, his spirits turned into beams of light, shooting out from his dorm room and following behind him to submerge into his body, even if only roughly half of them were actually connected to his soul.

His enhanced body absorbed force of his drop easily, landing on his forefeet without problem.

Alexis watched the three Slifer Red's, Jaden, Syrus and Chumley make their way back towards their dorm. She was sticking around before leaving to make sure they didn't double back and do what they shouldn't be.

It was against the rules after all, for students to enter the Abandoned Dorm. A sigh left Alexis when they disappeared back through the forest and the blonde turned back around to stare at the decrepit building behind her.

'Brother.' She bit her lip. She'd been here for nearly three weeks now at Duel Academy, yet, she wasn't any closer at all to finding out about what happened here, and how the students that were here at that time, her brother being one of them, disappeared.

It didn't matter who she asked, they were all incredibly tight lipped about it. And every record of the abandoned dorm had been wiped clean.

She was beginning to lose hope that her brother was a alive at all. But, Alexis had steeled herself. If nothing else, she could never be at peace until she found out what happened to her brother. He couldn't rest in peace until whatever or whoever done this to him was exposed and dealt with.

'Well, at least my time here hasn't been bad.' Alexis mused softly, eyes closing as she recalled the past few weeks. It had honestly been a bit of a wild ride, from a Slifer beating Crowler, to then herself, to then another Slifer defeating Zane and jumping up to Obelisk Blue within a single week.

'Yarden.' a small smile tugged at her lips as she thought of that interesting boy. He'd caught her eye since that first time she saw him duel on the first day of classes. The bold, swaggering confidence, the way he stood up to the Obelisk Blue's and showed them that the derision for a person just because of the color of their jacket was the height of stupidity and the dorms truly weren't the best way of measuring peoples talent as duelists.

She'd been spending a lot of time with him lately. So much so Jasmine seemed to be getting a bit jealous. But, it was fun being around him. Relaxing even, she didn't need to be on edge around him. And she generally only felt like that around Jasmine and Mindy.

Eating together, chatting about cards, decks and duels, learning from the combo's and plays he just casually dropped as if they weren't important, even just shooting the breeze and idly talking about whatever came to mind. Even the way he was constantly trying to one up himself in one turn killing the guys who bothered him for hanging out with her was amusing to her now. Yesterday even for instance, he one turn killed someone using his Petit Dragon by using Gift Of The Martyr to give it Five Headed Dragon's attack points.

He was bold as brass and had a crude, yet flamboyant way of going about things that she was sure her brother would just love. 'Considering how much he loves flirting with me, Jasmine and Mindy, they'd probably connect well on that to.' she snorted a little in amusement. Her brother and Yarden were cut from the same cloth that way.

And things had been going so well for her lately as well. She'd finished making the tune ups to her deck from Yarden's advice just three days ago. She'd spent all her DP and dueled quite a lot to earn more for the rest of the cards needed. And, her deck had definitely become more powerful. She was always better than most, but now, it felt like she'd reached an entire new level with the tactics she'd learned from Yarden. And Hoshingen had been surprisingly useful. She always drew it at the best possible moments for empowering her light monsters or weakening dark monsters.

"Well now, I don't think girls like you should be out alone at this time of night." A deep, intimidating voice suddenly spoke up from behind her, breaking Alexis from her thoughts.

Jumping in fright at the sudden voice, heart hammering in her chest Alexis whirled around on instinct and her eyes went wide. Standing there, was a huge barrel chested man dressed from head to toe in deep black clothing, a silver half mask covering his eyes and nose and a sick looking grin on his deeply tanned skin. He had to have at least a foot on her in size

"W-who the heck are-" Alexis tried to calm her racing heart, before he suddenly surged forward, massive arms going towards her, one of them clad in a metallic silver gauntlet.

One of his hands grabbed her around the face, cutting her voice off while the other grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her into the air.

Alexis struggled and kicked with all her might, but fit and athletic as she was, that didn't mean much when this man was just so much more massive than her.

"Go to sleep little girl." His voice rumbled and through narrowed eyes, she caught sight of some golden pyramid-like thing held on a chain being held aloft in front of her eyes.

At that moment though, blinding golden light suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and despite how bright it was, it didn't hurt Alexis' eyes at all.

The man attacking her however, let loose a roar of pain, letting go of her and stumbling back to clutch at his eyes, "W-what the hell is this!?" he demanded.

Alexis was incredibly surprised by the sudden turn of events and she had no idea what was going on. She couldn't see anything that could be putting out this golden light that felt warm on her skin.

She wasn't going to bother questioning it though. She turned on her heel and sprinted off as fast as she was able in the direction of the girls dormitory.

As she ran, her hand went to her pocket and she pulled out her PDA. Her first thought, was the boy she'd just been thinking about. She selected his name, and cursed the fact that she hadn't thought to bring her cellphone with her. She'd have to settle for a video message.

"Yarden, I'm sorry about this! But I need your help!" she apologized first, she didn't want to get people involved with anything dangerous, but if nothing else, Yarden was tough and reliable, and she needed him right now, "I'm out near the Abandoned Dorm running back towards my own! Some huge guy just came out of nowhere and he tried to grab me! I-" something hit her in the small of her back and she tumbled to her knees, hissing as she scraped them, blood beginning to ooze form her kneecaps. She ignored it though even as she fell forward and hit the send button.

A huge hand grabbed onto her wrist and lifted her into the air easily. She yelped in pain, it felt like her arm near outright got dislocated from the rough treatment, "I was merely going to knock you out you little bitch," the huge man snarled angrily at her, bloodshot eyes glaring at her through his mask, "I don't know how you pulled that stunt with the light, nor do I care. But I'll be taking your deck as retribution before I leave here."

She stilled. Her deck? The deck that was made with cards that at first her brother had given her? The deck she'd worked on for years. The deck Yarden had so graciously helped her with, and containing the card he stressed as incredibly precious?

Alexis ignored the pain in her arm and legs and glared at him, "Like hell you will!" she lashed out with a kick that caught him in the stomach, but it was her that gave a cry of pain as her foot hit something hard and metallic.

He gave a dark, rumbling chuckle, "Oh, I think I will." he sneered, and then jerked his arm and tossed her to the ground. Her back ached as she was slammed into the stone path they were on, and the air was driven from her lungs.

His huge meaty hand reached down and grasped at her deck box on her belt. She feebly struggled, but couldn't put up much of a fight as he ripped it off her belt, winded as she was, it was hard even to take shallow breaths.

"Hoh, these aren't bad," the man mused as he flipped the box open and started rifling through her cards, "White Night Dragon? You Duel Academy brats sure are privileged to be able to buy cards like these off the shelf for as cheap as they are here. I could get a good five thousand dollars or so for this, if not more."

He wasn't just stealing her deck, he wanted to sell her precious cards as well!?

"Is that fucking right now?" a familiar voice suddenly snarled.

The huge man paused, looking towards the source of the voice, as did Alexis. It was Yarden, clad as always in his red jacket, even as an Obelisk he hadn't stopped wearing it. But, he was different from usual in a way.

His lips were pulled back, baring his teeth almost ferally at the huge man, and his eyes were narrowed into glares of bloody murder as he stomped over towards them both.

'How did he get here so fast?' Alexis wondered blearily. Even if he sprinted as fast he could, he shouldn't be that fast, and beyond that, how would he even know exactly where she was?

The mans eyes went to Yarden's jacket and he grinned himself, "A brown haired youth with a slifer red jacket, you must be my target then," he noted, before laughing loudly and holding that same golden pyramid thing up towards Yarden with the hand not holding her deck, "Come to save this little bitch have you boy? Well, if you want to save her, you'll need to defeat me in a duel of shadows, putting your very soul on the-" his grand standing speech that made no sense was forced to be cut off him Yarden suddenly lunged into a run, shooting quickly towards the man.

A second later, Yarden jumped and his fist slammed into the mans jaw and outright lifted him up off of his feet. The huge man gave a gurgling groan of pain as he slammed into the ground back first.

"You think I'm gonna fucking duel you when you hurt my friend?" Yarden snarled, and Alexis blinked in shock as he delivered a powerful kick to the mans ribs, and a snapping sound coming from him. Was that his ribs!? "Yer a fuckin' deadman mate'. Here am' gonnae show yae how wae deal wae cunts like you back in Scotland!" Yarden slipped into a thick accented brogue as he kicked the man again, and despite his huge size, flipping him around onto his front.

"Get yer hands aff a these." the teen ripped her deck from his hands, "And here, let's see how you fuckin' like it." he added, before outright ripping the mans gauntlet off and slipping his hand into it himself, the metallic silver gauntlet suddenly compressing a moment later to fit around his own arm.

"N-no, my deck!" the man wailed and struggled to his knees, and tried to waddle away on them, glaring over his shoulder at Yarden, "G-give it back! D-do you know who you are dealing with! I am the great Titan! I will feed your soul to the darkness in a shadow game for this!"

"Sook ma cock." Yarden replied with a snort and started walking towards the man who was was twice his width and had a foot of height on him. Yet it was the towering behemoth of a man, Titan as he called himself that frightfully flinched away.

"No! No!" Stay away from me you monster!" Titan wailed, and grabbed the golden pyramid hanging around his neck and lifting it up. It flashed with light and a rolling mist seemed to erupt from it hiding him from view.

Yarden stopped in place, giving it a wary look, before growling, "If I ever see you anywhere near Alexis again you're fucking dead, you here me!?" he suddenly roared loudly.

And she understood a moment later as the light and fog disappeared, to show Titan completely gone without a trace.

A shuddering breath escaped from her mouth, and Alexis felt some of the tension and the fear drain out of her.

Yarden sighed, the aggression leaving his posture and he turned towards her, "You alright?" he asked in concern, making his way over to her.

Alexis gave him a wincing smile, "Now that you're here." she replied. That was terrifying. That man just came out of nowhere and tried to kidnap her. Then tried to steal her deck. And would have gotten away with it to if it weren't for the boy who rushed to her rescue.

She was right, he was reliable and strong.

He gentle helped her up to her feet, and a small gasp let her as her legs almost gave out beneath her from the pain in them. She had to lean against him to keep upright, "S-sorry about this." Alexis apologized. Honestly, she was in a bit of a daze. Everything just happened so fast.

"Don't worry about it," he gave her a comforting smile and began rubbing her back soothingly, "We're friends aren't we? That guy's just lucky he had his little magic tricks or I'd have smashed his face in for attempting this shit with you."

Despite the situation, Alexis felt her cheeks warm up a bit.

"Here." he held her deck out towards her and she accepted it gratefully.

She eyed the boy thoughtfully. The difference between the him now and the brogue snarling one promising violence from just a few moments ago was like night and day. It was, a really interesting duality. She kind of liked it.

A thought occurred to her again though. "How did you find me so fast?" she asked.

He quirked an eyebrow at her, before chuckling, "Well, I told you that card I gave you would protect you from bullshit didn't I?"

Alexis blinked at the reply, before her eyes widened. That light. There had been nothing physical for it to come from. It had just appeared from around her. "..What is that card?" she asked in wonder.

"Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies." he replied.

So there was really something special about it then.

"There's no way you'll believe me with how things are right now babe," he squeezed her waist comfortingly, "You're not ready yet. Give it a few months, you'll understand then." he informed cryptically.

"..Being cryptic like that doesn't make you sound cool." she replied dryly. Yet a smile tugged at her lips. Well, if he didn't want to tell her right now, she wouldn't push the issue. She knew enough from this to know the card was special in some way.

She relaxed against the boy. All the desperation had totally drained from her now, and she felt safe with Yarden beside her.

A few moments later, he was carrying her on his back, his hands grasping under her thighs to keep her aloft while her arms hung around his neck, though the gauntlet on his right hand felt cold on her skin. Up this close to him, she could smell his cologne clearly, a clear, crisp scent that tickled her nose, 'Guess I've still got a long way to go before I'm strong like my monsters.' she mused.

She noticed then as she hung her head over Yarden's shoulder, that there was a wide smile on his face, "What's got you so happy?" Alexis wondered.

He chuckled, "Just enjoying the fringe benefits of carrying you like this." he replied, giving her thighs a gentle, teasing squeeze.

Oh, he was just enjoying having her pressed up against him? Well, wasn't he easy to make happy? Alexis tightened her grip on his shoulders a bit and pressed her breasts into his back a bit more, her lips curving a bit when she felt his spine straightening a bit at the action. "You're such a horndog." a laugh of amusement escaped her.

"That I am." Yarden grinned and replied shamelessly.