Some getting used to...

Roxy opened her eyes and looked around. She was in some room with computers and a man in a brown trench coat looking at her. That must have been Playmaker's ally. She guessed that he must have been unable to keep track of Playmaker inside the Wind Ignis' world, so he must be confused about why she came back alone.

"What happened?" Kusanagi asked.

"Nothing, I had a hard duel," Roxy replied. She tried to stand up from the chair she was sitting on, but lost balance and fell back, alerting the man.

"You don't look good at all." He told her. "Are you sure you don't want me to-"

"I said that I'm fine." Roxy interrupted him. "I had to split from the others and the enemy ambushed me. Soulburner came after the duel and told me to log out. I'm just… a little tired, you understand."

Kusanagi looked her over. Indeed, she didn't look nearly as bad as Playmaker, after a hard duel. But that didn't mean that he wasn't going to worry about her health. He sat back into his chair and looked back at the blank screen.

"I lost contact with you after you went through the gate," Kusanagi explained. "What did you find?"

"We…" Roxy bit her lower lip. She didn't keep a close eye on those humans, so she had no idea what the girl was up to before she took over her body. "I'm sorry, but Playmaker should be able to explain it to you in better detail when he comes back."

"He must have gone after the enemies, right?" Kusanagi sighed, leaning back into the chair. "I feel so useless, sitting here, doing nothing to help Yusaku and Takeru."

'So that's Playmaker and his lackey's names, huh?' Roxy took note of Kusanagi's words before speaking up. "They can take care of themselves. I'm sorry that I couldn't be of much help either, but would you call my home for me, please? I would go home myself, but I'm feeling too tired."

"You don't have to ask." Kusanagi smiled at her and took his phone.

Roxy leaned back into her chair and relaxed. She would have to spend a few days getting familiar with the human world, as to not appear suspicious to the people that knew her, personally. She would also need to get her hands on a data-to-matter converter in order to make a physical copy of her card self.

Yes indeed, she had a long list of objectives that needed to be completed before she could challenge them. She should also use this chance to observe the humans' operations and learn what their own plans were. Roxy closed her eyes and smiled happily to herself. She had no need to be in a hurry, it wouldn't hurt anybody if she spent some time for herself! After all, she hasn't had a proper body for so many years that it would be a crime if she let that opportunity go to waste.

It was late, the sun was starting to set, and most adults were going home from work. But just because he wasn't in his office, didn't mean that Akira wasn't still working. He was in Den City's park, along with his sister, Aoi, and Emma. He had sent them after Playmaker to try and learn more about the Ignis and to hopefully fix the mistakes done by SOL Technology. But as he had expected, their investigation didn't go far past their encounter with Playmaker and Soulburner.

"Stolen consciousness data…" Akira muttered to himself. "Whose data is it?"

"I don't know." Emma shrugged.

"He promised to give us more information later, but since he went to the gate there might be a link between the consciousness data and the Ignis," Aoi suggested.

"Playmaker will be the one to contact the other Ignis," Akira said. "He's the key. That's why SOL Technologies' higher-ups will keep pursuing him."

"You're too worried," Emma smirked. "Seeing that he has decided to get another ally, and how cooperatives he was in the other world, something in him seems to have changed."

"If only I could get in touch with Playmaker directly." Akira crossed his arms.

The problem with that was that Playmaker was just one person and Den City was a big place to search all of it. And even if that wasn't such a problem, what was Akira going to be searching for? They knew nothing about Playmaker's real identity. He could be acting completely differently in LINK VRAINS, to cover his true identity. Personality, speech, he could be faking all of it.

"It would be impossible to find him, even for you, Akira," Emma responded.

"Maybe we should wait for him to contact us," Aoi suggested.

"Do you believe that Playmaker would agree on an alliance with us?" Akira looked at his sister. "After all, I'm part of SOL Technology. He might think that I'm trying to sell him out to them…"

"Playmaker knows that you have good intentions, brother," Aoi reassured him. "Also, when I talked with him, I sensed the same regret in him, for the battle against the Knights of Hanoi. He doesn't want the same thing to happen again. He has changed."

Changed? Akira wasn't sure what he should say to that. For good or worse, they all have changed in these past three months. He had to listen to the cries and curses that the parents of the Tower of Hanoi's victims that started to protest against SOL Technology, for not stopping that tragedy. Though he and his sister, somehow managed to miraculously survive, nothing was going to be the same as before for him.

That was why he wanted to find the Ignis before SOL Technology did. He knew well-enough the people that were at the top. They wouldn't care about sacrificing thousands of users to achieve their goals. If he was to let those people find the Ignis first, he feared what the outcome could be.

"Fine, we'll have to trust Playmaker." Akira sighed, turning around. "Let's hope he makes the right decision."

"Hey, hey! What's for dinner tonight?" Vermilya asked, slamming her hands against the table impatiently.

"You're sixteen already, shouldn't you start acting a bit more mature." Arme smiled slightly at the red-haired girl's childish behavior.

"I can't help it!" Vermilya whined. "I'm super hungry!"

While the two girls kept talking, Roxy was trying not to sweat while sitting between the two of them. After Kusanagi called her 'guardians', Evan came and took her home. They didn't talk a lot, she also remained quiet when they got back to his home and Avice began asking her question. As it turned out, the girl that was previously in control of this body, went to the Wind Ignis' world before they have decrypted the message she had left for them. So it was lucky that she tried contacting Firera, or else, the original Roxy might have never found her.

Being inside a human body, Roxy was starting to feel some very weird, and very human emotions, such as nervousness and fear. Both of those emotions were connected to these people finding out her true identity. Everybody here was being so loud, while she was sitting quietly waiting for 'dinner', whatever that was. Was the person she was trying to mimic usually loud? Were they starting to get suspicious of her? She was in the care of the only human that ever managed to beat her. He wouldn't be easy to fool.

"Sorry for the wait, but I decided, in honor of Arme returning, to try cooking something new," Avice said, placing two plates with meatballs in front of everyone.

Roxy looked around herself. Vermilya had immediately started to grab that 'food' with her bare arms and pile it on top of her plate, while also occasionally shoving an entire meatball up her mouth, while Evan and Arme were stabbing the meatballs with their forks and putting them on their plates.

"Since we're all here now, would you mind explaining to all of us exactly what the deal with these Knights of Hanoi was?" Arme turned to Evan.

"You mean what they said about the Greysons?" Evan asked.

"Precisely."

"I'm not sure what I should think of it." Evan sighed. "Though it's possible, I never expected to come across another group of my siblings. I don't believe it to be a trick by the Knights of Hanoi; I made sure that they wouldn't have a way to find out our true identities. It almost makes sense for these so-called siblings to be hostile toward us."

"But what about Takuma? He knows of your identity and he was also part of the Knights of Hanoi."

"He does hate us enough to tell the other Knights of Hanoi about us during his time with them." Avice agreed. "But there isn't a way we would know for sure unless we talk with him."

"I've been thinking the exact same thing." Evan nodded. "With all that's going on in LINK VRAINS, I think that we would need more help to deal with all of our enemies. I've been keeping this option in reserve, but I should try to recruit him."

"Hold up for a moment!" Vermilya shouted. "Wasn't Takuma put in prison? How exactly are you planning to get him out of there? I still hate him for brainwashing me, so don't expect me to help you break him out of a heavily secured prison."

"Actually, I had something else in mind." Evan crossed his arms. "Since I found out that Takuma was part of Hanoi, I've been busy making documents. Putting information that I knew in advance about as having been sent to me by him. Officially, Takuma was working for our company as an agent, sent to keep an eye over Hanoi's activities, and warn us in time to react."

"Isn't that going to make you look worse?" Arme raised an eyebrow.

"Takuma wasn't high enough in the ranks to know about the Tower of Hanoi, that's why he wasn't able to warn us," Evan told her. "He was also found out and put in a coma by Revolver. I had my company's lawyers, work on it for months. I just have to give them the 'ok' and Takuma will be out in no time."

"Jeez, is there anything you're not prepared for?"

Roxy kept listening to the group's conversation. It was getting interesting. These humans had a lot of enemies that she could use against them. But she didn't want to try and go after the Knights of Hanoi; those were dangerous because of their intense hatred for AIs. Actually, she should use Evan's group to destroy the remaining knights first. Yes, that would be a good course of action.

Roxy bite one of the meatballs and began to chew on it. It tasted good! No surprise there, it was the fuel that humans had to take every day to keep functioning. It was making her feel warm on the inside. That warmness quickly began to quickly escalate. She felt hot. Her throat was burning. It was burning!

She grabbed her throat and began coughing. The inside of her mouth was on fire! She was dying! She was going to die! She was-

"Here." Evan placed a glass of water in front of her.

Not wasting a moment to even ask what that glass of liquid was, Roxy grabbed it and gulped it all down, the refreshing coldness of the liquid cooling the burning feeling inside her mouth. She leaned back into her chair and took a deep breath.

"I almost died." She muttered. "What poison did you cook, woman!?"

"Spicy meatballs?" Avice raised an eyebrow. "But I might have put a bit too much spice in them…"

"Nonsense!" Vermilya exclaimed, grabbing several more. "If she can't handle a bit of spice, then she loses!"

Roxy glanced at the redhead sitting next to her. She was shoving those meatballs of deaths into her mouth and was still somehow alive. Were different humans capable of eating different food? Maybe that would explain why they had so many different things sitting in the fridge. But if that was the case, then what food could this human's body consume?

Roxy looked at herself and frowned. Her stomach was starting to hurt for some reason too. Being a human was already starting to feel awful, and she didn't like it. The girl frowned and looked down, only to feel a hand press against her head. She looked up and saw the face of the man that had defeated her two years ago, standing above her with a light smile on his face.

"Come, I'll make something you like."

Was he patronizing her!? After he thwarted he escape from that cursed prison and sealed her away. After he made her fight for every second of her existence and cursed her to live as little more than a crawling monstrosity incapable of communication, and trapped in the lowest part of VRAINS after he almost destroyed her alongside that cursed server. He was just standing there, smiling while treating her like she was a child. But worse than that…

…she couldn't do anything but accept his offer.

And so she did. In the end, Roxy ended up eating scrambled eggs. Having originally been a mystical creature that reproduces through eggs, she was disgusted by the food he made for her. But she was more disgusted by herself for actually liking it.

No further incident happened for Roxy beyond that point. After everyone finished their dinner, they all went to their respective rooms and shut down and recharge their energy for tomorrow. Well, almost everybody. About an hour after the last light in the house was shut off, the door of Roxy's room cracked open. Armed with a flashlight, the little girl slowly tiptoed to the first floor, where all of the Greysons' equipment was lying around.

There it was.

The data-to-matter converter she required.

She connected it to the power and then connected her Duel Disk to it. The device lighted up and small pieces of matter began to float into the glass. Pulling each other in, the small pieces began to pile up and take a shape. A familiar card-like shape with a purple layout.

It was HER.

"Are you sure that you want to do this?"

"The enemy knew of my past, they are more prepared than we initially thought. We should use any help that we could get."

"Eh, but still… trusting SOL Technology is…"

"I'm trusting Zaizen, not the company he works for."

Ai sighed. There was no use trying to argue with Yusaku once he has made up his mind about something. It wasn't like Ai didn't like Zaizen, the man seemed to be ok, even if he stood in their path during the battle against Hanoi. Ai just didn't trust him so much because of SOL.

"Hey!"

Yusaku stopped and looked back, as Takeru ran up to him, smiling. It seemed that the two of them were going to be walking to school together; not that Yusaku cared.

"Oh," Takeru's face turned serious, as he looked at something behind Yusaku. The Cyberse Duelist turned as well, and then he spotted her; walking up the stairs. It was Aoi Zaizen.

"Good morning, Zaizen." Takeru jumped first at the chance to greet the girl.

Aoi looked at the boy, unable to remember who he was, but nevertheless, she returned the greeting. "Good morning."

"I transferred recently. I'm Takeru Homura."

"I see," Aoi took a note, before turning toward Yusaku and smiling. "Good morning, Fujiki."

"Good morning," Yusaku replied. "If it's convenient for you, could we discuss something after school?"

"I'm sorry, but I'll be busy after school." Aoi apologized. "But we could talk now; there's still time before class."

Yusaku nodded. Zaizen was undoubtedly going to be working as Blue Angel in LINK VRAINS after school, but he couldn't risk logging in while SOL was searching for him. The school was the only place where he felt safe discussing these things, aside from Kusanagi's van, but that wasn't an option at that moment.

The three of them walked into the backyard of the school and sat on one of the free tables, away from other students.

"So, what exactly do you want to talk about?" Aoi asked.

"Well, this," Yusaku said, opening his schoolbag.

The Cyberse Duelist pulled out his Duel Disk and placed it on the table between them. A moment later, Takeru did the same with his own Duel Disk. Aoi didn't know what that meant, but she didn't have to guess for long, as after just a few moments, an eye appeared inside each of the Duel Disks, and then, those eyes turned into small humanoid creatures.

"That's-!" Aoi's eyes widened.

"HAi!" Ai waved at her, while Flame crossed his arms.

"But... that means…" Aoi's darted quick glances between Yusaku and Ai.

"Yes, I'm Playmaker." Yusaku nodded.

"And I'm Soulburner," Takeru stated, pressing his trump finger against his chest.

Aoi looked at Ai, then back at Yusaku. It all made sense to her. Why he was the one that found her after she got infected with Hanoi's virus. Not just that, but he was always isolated and had no friends. She should have known that Playmaker would carry a dummy deck in public to hide his identity.

"I…" Aoi covered her face in embarrassment. "I can't believe that I didn't figure it out. I've been trying to find out Playmaker's true identity this whole time, and he was my classmate this entire time…"

"You're the only one I've told this to," Yusaku said. "Please, keep it a secret."

"But what about my brother and Ghost Girl?"

"They are the only ones you should tell this to." Flame told her.

"The enemy that we're after is more dangerous than I initially thought." Yusaku looked away. "I fought the one that stole my friend's brother's consciousness data yesterday, and he knew about my past. He knew about the Lost Incident as he has lived through it."

"He was thinking himself to be the real Playmaker," Ai added. "It was a weird day."

Aoi looked down. So it was something involving the Lost Incident again… "If brother had more information, he might be able to help out."

"Ai," Yusaku commanded the little purple AI, and after a moment, Aoi's own Duel Disk beeped.

"A message?" Aoi looked at the screen. "What's this about?"

"It's the data we collected yesterday," Takuma spoke up. "As we promised, here's all of the information that we can provide you about what's going on in the virtual world."

"What do the Ignis think of all that's happening?"

"If you're asking about our stance on humans, we have never sought conflict with your kind." Flame stated. "During the past five years, we had multiple discussions, and we all agreed that we should not treat all of humanity as our enemies because of the actions of a small group of humans."

"My brother will be relieved to hear that." Aoi nodded, before turning toward Yusaku. "There's something I wanted to tell you. After the Tower of Hanoi, I tried to contact a childhood friend of mine, who has also suffered from the Lost Incident, but I was told that she's in a coma. The doctors don't know what caused her to lose consciousness, and she doesn't appear to be sick."

"Another Lost Incident victim is unconscious?" Flame rubbed his chin.

"What? Another?"

"My friend's brother was a victim of the Lost Incident too." Playmaker noted. "It is his consciousness that we are after."

"If they are going after the consciousness of Lost Incident victims that could understand how Bohman had memories of it," Ai said. "This is worrying."

Two lost Incident victims were fighting Bohman, two were unconscious, and two were still unknown. Though he had no solid evidence, Yusaku was sure that the new enemy didn't target Jin randomly; they wanted his consciousness because of his involvement in the incident.

"This is more serious than we thought." Flame sighed.

Yusaku and Takeru looked at each other. Though Yusaku did have his doubts about allying with Zaizen, this simple rescue operation was starting to become more confusing with each new bit of information that they found. It was starting to become more than Playmaker, Soulburner, and Proxy could handle on their own.

A/N: Tardix a possibly dangerous villain, or an adorable cinnamon roll trying to learn how to exist as a physical entity?

But that's what happens when Tardix's entire life outside Cyberse was fighting for her own survival. She never had the chance to stupid humans, prior to becoming one herself.

This chapter is, as most non-duel chapters I've written so far, very short. Despite Tardix being in control of the body, she's still going to be called Roxy because, the body belongs to Roxy, so it only makes sense that I continue using her name.

But now to the more important part of the chapter: Yusaku revealing his identity to Aoi. It seems that Yusaku really doesn't want to fuck up the same way he did in Season 1, and he has finally learned his lesson that he should really on his allies and that in order for them to all come on top, they should have clear communication with one another instead of trying to hunt each other down.

Thanks to KingPenguinJG for the follow and favorite.

It seems that right now, the site is experiencing some technical problems and reviews aren't showing, BUT I do get emails, so I can still respond to your reviews.

BlaiseCandell: That's the interesting part about Roxy's duels, isn't it? You never know if she would win or lose.

Insertname: As I said in chapter 50, Roxy is for bullying and suffering so... And actually, when it comes to Roxy dueling, it's more about what's on the line. If she's dueling somebody like Revolver and there are no high stakes, she has good chances. But if she duels even a literal cannon fodder and the stakes are somebody's life or worse, she becomes a potato. But even that's not true 100% of the time. But she's trying. WAS trying.

So that's that! Next time, we'll focus a bit on the Gear Hunters, so they are finally going to appear in the season proper. Thanks for reading, feel free to leave reviews, as I still see them, even if the site doesn't show them.

Diabolic Tracer out!