DISCLAIMER! All fictional entities in this segment belong to Kazuki Takahashi; I just rent them. Except Sara Scinner and Silpheed; they're mine.

This is my first-ever OC fic for this site. I've wanted to do one for the longest time. Don't worry, I'll try sticking to the show's plot (this begins roughly near the end of season two, in Zane's side of the story; and since the show doesn't get into detail about his daily life, I look at it as a free-for-all).

PS: "Frienemieship" is a word I made up. It's when two people are friends and enemies at once.

PPS: This has been edited, and probably will recieve more edits in the future.

"CHEAP LAUGH"

ACT ONE

"Give me a glass of water. With ice."

That was all Zane had to say. In a fatal neck-snap, all the waiters in the café dropped everything and scurried to the kitchen, plastic glasses held high over their heads. This happened, no matter where he went. If he didn't get served right when he entered the place, even if there were people waiting for their orders before him, heads were going to roll. Well, he never actually threatened to roll any heads, but who was complaining? He got the service, with a little respect on the side. That was all he'd wanted, after all.

Almost ten seconds after he made his order, a waitress hopped over to his seat, bouncing the glass back and forth between her hands and spilling some of its contents to the left and right. For some reason, however insignificant to Zane, she wore plastic green sunglasses that were almost as large as her head, concealing her face. Zane paid no attention to this. All he came in here to do was get a drink and shuffle off.

She clapped the glass onto the table. "There you are, sir! Enjoy!" She pranced away, leaving the rest of the staff sighing with relief…and realizing that number seven's order was now shriveling up into a smoking, charred raisin.

Zane grabbed his glass, shut his eyes and took his water in a series of light sips, concentrating on the refreshing liquid coolness. Just three seats away, the "waitress" sat, peeking out of her glasses and biting her upper lip, to suppress her sniggering.

Having the ears of a Harpie's Brother, Zane stopped sipping and blinked. Was somebody snickering at him? Woe to the worthless maggot that had the gall to do such a thing! His icy teal eyes scanned the whole café, before moving back to his drink. Whoever that maggot was, they must've ducked under a table to cower in fear. He didn't go looking for them; that would be a plain waste of energy.

The girl had swiveled around and had her back turned from the duelist. By this time, her face had gone red and puffy, but not from embarrassment. No, it was from all her giggling, which she wasn't sure she could hold back much longer. Holding back a laugh was not one of her strong points. She felt her toes curl up in her boots, while her fingers gripped the edge of the table.

Five seconds later…

"BWA-HAHAHA! Woo!"

Zane set his glass down and glared daggers, clutching the glass so tightly that he could've crushed it to bits. One side of his conscience--yes, he had a conscience--told him to go up there and bitch-slap that girl like he'd never bitch-slapped someone before. His other side told him to just turn around and ignore her. At this point, he couldn't afford to have his blood pressure blast through the roof. He decided to follow the latter.

The girl rested her head on the table, heaving for oxygen. Her novelty sunglasses slid down until they perched precariously on the tip of her nose. "Oh, ho, ho, man! I got ya good, didn't I?" She blew a stray lock of brown hair out of her face.

She sat up and made a toothy grin. "What's the matter? Didn't you get it? Huh?"

What is there to get, that you're a moron?

She scooted from chair to chair, doing a full swivel in each one, before plopping in the seat right next to him. "Aw, don't tell me you didn't notice your drink!"

The girl began trembling with laughter again. "You asked for a glass of water with ice, right? So, when I gave you it…I didn't put in one cube! You just swallowed the whole thing, plain and WITHOUT ice!" She rapped her knuckles against the table like a drummer: ta-ta, RAP!

Looking into the cup, Zane noticed that there really was no ice. You probably would've expected him to go right ahead and slap this stranger into next month (this was what all the employees in the café expected when they saw the whole thing through the window and held their breath). But instead, he stood up and headed for the door, without leaving a single penny of a tip. These people weren't good enough for his money. And besides, they wouldn't demand a tip; they were far too chicken-livered.

"Hey, where're ya going? Aren't you gonna laugh?" To his dismay, she got up to follow him. Why, oh why, didn't he have any pepper spray?

He found himself muttering, "Aren't you supposed to be back there, working?"

She shoved her tongue in her left cheek. "Oh, I don't work there. I just hang out, to stir up a couple of laughs. It helps to take the load off of their shoulders, those poor guys."

Either it was his imagination, or Zane noticed that this nameless nobody was donned in a uniform. The standard Duel Academy girls' uniform, to be precise.

"You're a student at Duel Academy. Why aren't you over there with the other ass-pains?" He didn't know why he was even asking this; it wasn't like he'd care. He tried to shake her by increasing his pace by a bit.

But she just jogged after him. "Well, you know, it's a nice Saturday, and all the Pros were going home from this big tourney that we've just had. And Silph and I thought it wouldn't hurt to, say, sneak onto the ferry, play a little harmless hooky, see the sights…"

If what happened in the cafe was supposed to be a joke, it was a very lame one. Even Yuki would yawn at that. He leaned over just so, tried to pick up a little more speed. He couldn't go too fast, though; his health wouldn't allow it.

"I don't get it, that joke worked on Spongebob," she murmured.

"Hate to burst your bubble, but this isn't…Spongebob." He felt a sharp, bitter taste in his mouth just by mentioning that obnoxious cartoon sponge's name. "This is reality. And in reality, no one cares if you cry."

"I wasn't crying. I was just trying to make you laugh, Cap'n Sunshine."

Cap'n Sunshine? He was Zane Truesdale, not a cheesy, pirate hat-wearing cartoon mascot for a sugary, tooth-rotting cereal. "No one cares about that, either. Now leave me alone." If only he could vanish into a puff of smoke and leave a log in his place. But since he lived in a universe of card games and not in a universe of wacky black ninja magic, yet since he lacked the energy and time to slaughter this pest in a duel, he did the next best thing:

"…Is that Pegasus doing the Macarena?"

"Who doing the what, now? WHERE?" She stopped in her tracks and glanced the other way, giving Zane enough time to slip behind a corner and melt into the shadows.

"I don't see any Pegasus! Or any Macarena! Maybe you should get your eyes—huh? He's gone. Oh, man! Looks like the Joker has had the wool yanked over her eyes." She snapped her fingers in frustration.

"But then, he did make a joke…maybe that means I'm cracking him up? Silpheed! C'mere, boy!" Most likely, you would've thought she was calling for a dog. From out of her jacket, she pulled out a small, yellow kazoo. She puffed out her cheeks and blew into it:

ZOOOOOOO!

Silpheed perched on the gutter of the café, attempting to pick up a lady-pigeon who nonchalantly pecked at the bread crust she held under her tiny, pink feet.

"RAWK! Come here often, pretty bird?"

ZOOOOOO!

At the second blow, the cockatoo ruffled his white feathers. "Hold it, hold it, RAWK!" Hopping off the gutter, he fluttered down and landed not-so-gracefully on his owner's shoulder, almost knocking her sunglasses off in the process.

"RAWK! Sara, Sara!"

"There you are, you cocky cockatoo! Were you trying to score with a hot chick?"

"Pigeon. RAWK! You ruin everything."

"Aw, sticks and stones. Listen, I think today's the day that we're gonna make Truesdale crack up! Poor fruit loop's in denial."

"Sad sack, sad sack."

"Yeah. But, when I'm through with him, not only will he be happier, but it'll also further my career! If I can make Truesdale smile, then I can make anyone smile! Everybody wins! If anybody sees anything wrong with that, I'd like to hear what!" Sara rubbed her palms together confidently.

"RAWK! Flew the coop! Flew the coop!"

"I am aware that he just flew the coop. That is why…we're gonna try out the element of surprise! Know what I mean?"

"No. RAWK!" The bird scooted over and leaned his feathery head in, as if expecting a secret to be whispered into his invisible ears.

Zane had never felt so relieved to have a hotel room to shut himself up in; he had the door locked and the shades pulled. No, he wasn't hiding, because that's what cowards do. He called it "keeping all the morons outside so they wouldn't kill him before his time". Okay, maybe that's the same thing as hiding, but one wouldn't want to point that out to him, unless he had a death wish.

There in the darkness he sat, shuffling through his deck. Even if he couldn't actually see his monsters, he could feel their razor-sharp and hungry gaze. As he ran a thumb over the top card, it felt like trailing it over a blade, grazing his skin. A tiny bit of his essence dripped out of this imaginary wound, in the form of phantom blood. Not that he was crazy or anything, but he thought he could hear their tongues softly lapping up his essence, yet growling for more. They'd been like this ever since he snatched them up from his ex-master's dojo, but it'd gotten worse since the duel with his little brother.

With his free hand, Zane clutched his chest. His heart curled up in dull, throbbing kind of pain. "I know you want more. But don't you think I should scrape around for the right opponent, first?" He set his deck on the night stand and pinched the spot between his eyes, feeling dizzy, and drained. He'd marched around Academy Island to leave the impression that he gained immense pleasure from electrocuting himself like a toaster in a bathtub.

But there was a deeper, darker use behind those electric collars.

Defibrillators. Battery chargers. The Vault energy drink in the form of forty-five hundred-some volts. Not to mention, Frisbee-like tools to throw at people and intimidate them.

Zane lay on the bed, as stiff as a board, grunting in discomfort. Maybe he could take the collars out now? Tonight's Underground duel was still hours away…

Nah, that would look too suspicious. Maybe he could just watch TV instead? That should distract him, if only for a while. He reached for the remote that sat on the nightstand.

Click!

"How could you betray me, Darryl? With my father?! I thought you were freaking straight!"

Click!

"How could you betray me, Darlene? With my father?! I thought you were freaking gay!"

Click!

"God bless us, everyone."

"Why're you saying that? You're a crippled brat who won't live to see ten."

Click!

"Gosh, Big Bird, I hope Snuffy will be able to clean up."

"I hope so, too. When I heard they caught him poking himself with a needle behind Hooper's Store, I was shocked, and very sad."

Zane cringed. He just started to remember why he didn't watch T.V.

Click, click, click, click, click!

"You're watching the Card Game Channel! Card game goodness, twenty-four hours a day!"

Hn, looks like there's still some wholesome material on the tube, after all.

"Today, we witness the face-off between Jimmy Moldy and Phil Cheerypit!" The camera switched to a bird's eye view of the arena, the stands melting into a moat of heads turning violet from their anticipating shrieks. Zane, on the other hand, fell right back into boredom. These two yahoots looked more like people who spent their time picking their noses and wiping the boogers on their decks, rather than play with them. Another peeve was that it was much more exhilarating to be part of a duel than to watch one, especially when he knew that he could beat either of the two blindfolded, with his foot behind his head, and while having a heart attack. Why, if circumstances ever made it so, he could be handcuffed to a pole, or worse, a crazy broad, and he'd still emerge victorious.

If there's one lesson that he hadn't picked up on his journey, it's that he should never tempt fate, even if he wasn't not doing it out loud. He didn't believe in fate; everything that had happened to him had all been according to his free will. He liked it that way. A bunch of scholars could cut in right now and discuss whether life is determined by fate or free will, but they'd have to talk an enclycopedia set's worth on the subject, so...

Moving on!

Anyways, he lay on his bed, sulking and mutely criticizing the duelists' two-bit strategies, when—

BRRRRRIIIINNG!

His cell phone rang it's plain and boring tone. For the first two rings, Zane wondered if he should answer. He hated to think of who had the gall to call him, or even how they got his number. At the same time, if he didn't answer, they were just going to keep trying to call him until his ears would ring as much as the phone.

…Unless, of course, he stuffed under something to muffle it out.

So he did. He took out the ringing phone and stuffed inside one of the fat, fluffy pillows, then stuffed the pillow under the bed. He barely heard anything now, save the T.V.

Wonderful.

"Please leave your message after the beep."

EEEEEP!

"Yo, Cap'n Sunshine! If you're there, pick up the phone! I have to pay a quarter for every minute I stand here! Yeah, you may not know me from Adam, but I just called to...challenge you! You and me, one on one, good clean fun! So much fun, that we'll both be drunk on laughter! I give you the one-hundred percent Scinner guarantee! Now, if you just answer, Sunshine! Sunshine? Sunshine, Sunshine, Sunshine, Sunshine, Sunshine, Sunshine…Sunshine, Sunshine, Sunshine, Sunshine, Sunshine, Sunshine! I know you're there, buddy, you can't fool me! I'll bet you're just sitting on your doomy-gloomy—"

"Please pay to continue your call."

"What? Nuts, I ran out of coins! These payphones are robbers!" Sara slapped the receiver back in place, pouting. "He doesn't just need his eyes looked at, he needs his ears checked, too! How else can I get his attention? Got any ideas, Silpheed? Silph?"

As usual, the cockatoo was too preoccupied to answer. He was underneath a bench, with another pretty pigeon. She pecked the dirt for a morsel, while he leaned against a bench leg, poofing out his crest.

"RAWK! Pretty bird, pretty bird! Wanna know why I'm called a cockatoo?"

Well, that got the pigeon's attention; except it wasn't the reaction Silpheed had been aiming for. Three seconds later, he shot out and landed at Sara's feet face-down, scattering more white feathers all over the sidewalk. Right after him, that furious pigeon somehow managed to toss a brick, which flip-flopped across the sidewalk like a domino and landed on top of Silpheed with a POW!

"Whoa! Silph, you okay?" She glanced to the bench, where Silpheed's assailant fluffed up her feathers in disgust and took off.

Upon realizing what had just happened, Sara clucked her tongue in sympathy. "Tsk, tsk, tsk! Silpheed, what'd you say to that girl?" She leaned over to lift the brick off of the poor bird and scoop him up into her arms. "Judging by the growl in her coo, I'm guessing that you crossed a boundary."

"RAWK! Women. Hard to get."

"They may be, but they ain't much better than emo kids. I'm sorry, but they're so sad, that the gloom's pouring out of their ears. If not that, they're drowning it out with their iPods." She eyed the brick lying on the ground.

Sara couldn't be classified as the sharpest thinker, or the most logical, but when it came to quick thinking, she was a pro! Any time she was in the process of cooking up a scheme, she crammed her tongue into her left cheek.

"Hmmm…"

Patting Silpheed on the top of his head, he sat him on top of the pay phone and opened up her jacket to take out her notebook.

Thump! It wasn't a very large thump, just a small, soft one, as though a sparrow or an object of similar size had hit his window. Zane kept his steely teal eyes glued to the T.V.

Thump!

Thump!

…

Thump!

Just keep watching the T.V., Truesdale. Whoever's out there's going to have to give up some time.

"Ooh, I can feel the victory coming in the air tonight, and you know why, Moldy? Because I activate the Spell, Prohibition! I call the name of a certain card, and as long as Prohibition is out on the field, neither one of us can play said card! And I prohibit—"

CRASH!

Something whooshed through the curtains and landed on the floor with a soft thud. Thousands of shards of glass littered the carpet. Most people would've had a heart attack in this situation, but not Zane. He was used to having things thrown at him, especially since he had to endure this treatment when he struck rock bottom. He just sat up, as alert and erect as a cobra. He took a glance at the destroyed window, swearing to himself that he was not going to pay for that, either.

He scooped up the object, inspecting it from top to bottom. It turned out to be a dark red brick, with a folded sheet of loose-leaf paper taped to it. With a brisk twist of his wrist, he ripped off the paper and unfolded it, revealing a mess of dark words that were just above total chicken scratch on the legibility level:

What time is it when the cards are flying and the munstirs are frying,

And the kids are crying teers of laffter?

(Over)

A crooked arrow at the bottom pointed at the paper's other side.

…It's time to DULE!

(P.S: Cleen out the gloom in your ears!)

Stripping the corny joke in his mind, Zane guessed that someone was calling him out to a duel. This stranger must've had plenty of nuts to challenge someone of his caliber. That, or they were just really stupid. They had to be really stupid, if they couldn't even spell "duel".

Creeping over the glass, he peeked out from one corner of the curtain. The same girl from the cafe stood four floors below him with crumpled pieces of paper at her feet. She grinned and waved at him, as though they were old chums.

"Took you long enough! Sorry I broke your window, but hey, it got your attention, right?"

"…How do you keep following me?"

She put a hand behind her head. "I can smell sadness a mile away. You could say I'm a gloomhound…which is like a bloodhound, only I don't smell blood. Plus, you wear more leather than any loop I've ever met! I dunno what you treat it with, but it smells funny."

"RAWK! Chemicals!"

He suspected that somehow, she was the idiot behind the phone call. His suspicions were confirmed:

"Oh, um, if you're wondering how I got your number, Phoenix gave me it. I bumped into him and asked if he knew it, because you guys are buddies and all. Had to pay a fat chunk of my allowance for it, though."

Zane and Aster Phoenix were not buddies; they never were. That snooty brat in the monkey suit must've poked around in his cell phone when he left it behind during the tournament (when you're caught up in the rush of victory, it's quite easy to forget other, less important things). That was, after all, how they met each other again in front of the school, before his little brother appeared to foolishly challenge him. Though Aster had willingly given up the phone, he continued to taunt him, asking if he wanted revenge for their last duel with that sly twinkle in his eye.

But it wasn't in his nature to get revenge. He always looked forward, never having the time or energy to seethe about the past. But Phoenix might've done this, just to torture him indirectly. What a sadist.

He made a mental note to change his number when all of this was said and done.

"Well? Did you read my note? Are you going to come down and duel me?"

One should not suspect that he would shrug off a duel; Zane never backed down from an opportunity to win, usually. But putting his health in consideration, he wasn't sure if he should squander what was left of his strength on a petty duel with a silly schoolgirl. When he dueled, he gave it his all, or else there was no duel at all.

"Come on, I'm not asking you to marry me! I'm not even asking you out on a date! Is one stand-up duel too much to ask for?" she huffed.

"Chicken, chicken! RAWK!"

The raw nerve! That alone would be enough for Zane to march right down there to hurt them both! He wasn't the kind of guy whom you could poke with a stick and live to tell the story! But as mentioned before, he wasn't a vengeful person. He just stood there, trying to kill them both by glaring daggers at them.

Sara pinched the bird's beak shut. "Now, Silpheed! We don't want any trouble, honest. We just want a smile, that's all. Maybe a chuckle?"

A smile? If there was one thing in this world he could not do—well, would not do, really—it would be to smile. A smile was a sign of affection, which he didn't feel for anyone, especially not for this joker. This didn't make him hateful, mind you; he simply didn't like people. To hate and to simply dislike are two different things.

Nevertheless, he wouldn't smile, even if it could cure his heart problems.

He turned around and slunk back inside.

"HEY! Where're you going? Don't turn around when someone's talking to you, Mister! Tch, you really are the anti-respect duelist of the League, aren't you?"

But in ten seconds, Zane reappeared, with the brick in his hand. He could've thrown it at the preposterous pair and smashed their faces as much as they'd smashed the window. Instead, he stretched his arm out and dropped it.

THUD!

Sara cocked her head to one side, confused. She reached over and picked it up. On the top of the brick was a crude doodle of a smiley face in black marker (it nearly killed Zane just to draw it). It had two tiny dots for eyes, and an even tinier U-shape for a smile.

"You want a smile? There you go." He turned and disappeared again, this time drawing the curtains.

"Oh, a wise guy, aren't we? We'll come up there, if we have to! To the elevator!"

You think I'm scared? I just stocked up on pepper spray before I checked in here.

From out of his jacket, he pulled out two cans, one for each hand, and expected the pair to bust through the door. He had to stand and anticipate for a considerably long time. That's because when the pests reached the elevator, they got a tad side-tracked and stayed to fool around in it.

"Going uuuuuuup!"

Sara punched the button with the highest number on it, "eight". No, not just "eight"; hell, why not punch all the numbers on the pad? The two held on to the grab bars and snickered as it climbed up to level two. She was usually a persistent girl, except when it came to elevators. She HAD to play if circumstances landed her in one, just like one may stop to smell the roses if a bouquet of them happened to be nearby. Besides, Truesdale wasn't going anywhere.

To their right was a concierge who slumped against the wall, wishing that they'd just drop dead. She had an important errand to run, and time was money.

When the door shut again and proceeded to climb to level three, the employee grumbled, "Ma'am, this elevator isn't a toy. You either get to the floor you're intending to go to, or security will get involved."

"Aw, security, shmecurity! Everybody turns to those guys to untangle their knots nowadays! Give the poor fellas a break, why don't you?"

The concierge eyed Sara suspiciously. "You're a student at Duel Academy, aren't you? Aren't you supposed to be at school? You know, stuck on an island out in the middle of nowhere? And not over here…making me late, and crazy?"

"D.A. just had a big tourney. Silpheed and I see no harm in taking a teeny little break. Besides, school's kind of overrated: it feels more like an anti-glee zone than a learning establishment, half the time. Did you ever go to school?"

Sara didn't mean anything malicious by that last statement—she just had the tendency of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time—but either way, the employee turned around and faced the wall, head hung over and shoulders bent, like someone stuck in the rain without an umbrella.

"Why do you think I'm a concierge?" she muttered.

"Oh." Sara clapped a hand over her shoulder. "Don't feel bad. In fact, I'd count my blessings, if I were you. You didn't have to go through the glee-killing torment I wrestle with every day. The teachers over at D.A. all got a sense of humor that's dryer than saltine crackers. Like in math class, this one time, the Prof asked a math problem involving Life Points, and I made an astonishing discovery about calculators! If you punch in certain numbers and turn the thing upside-down, they spell words! And you know what I got when I came up with 8,008?"

"RAWK! BOOB, BOOB! BOOBIES!"

Silpheed tapped the buttons on the pad with his beak: tap-tap, TAP!

"After that, I got sent to the Principal's office. He said, 'Honestly, that's something I would've expected Atticus to do'! Now, how's that MY fault if 8,008 reads as 'BOOB'? Unless he was punishing me for stealing Rhodes's material, then I can kind of see that. Hadn't meant to. Nevertheless, those people might mean well, but they can be real buzz-killers."

Ding! The doors slid open at level five, and the concierge shot out of there like a bullet, huffing something along the lines of, "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I'm free at last!"

Taking it that she had freed the lady from her sadness, Sara grinned and waved. "Glad we could cheer ya up, pal! We'll be here all week! Remember: laughter prevents cancer!" She noticed a cart that the concierge left in there in her hasty attempt to escape. A silver platter sat on it.

"Uh, hey! You left something back here!" It was too late; she'd already turned the corner and vanished. Sara's eyes fell back onto the platter. Even though one should know better than to poke their nose into other people's platters, Sara's tongue jabbed into her left cheek.

"Silph? As fun as the elevator is, I'm afraid this is where we get off."

Knock-knock-ka-knock-knock…RAP-RAP!

The moment he heard the tune on his door, Zane got up on his toes, not that he wasn't already on them to begin with. This could've been her, or a bell boy. Only one way to find out...

Armed with pepper spray, he slunk to the door and opened it, only by a crack. He peeked out with one eye and one can's nozzle. To his surprise, and suspicion, he could only see an abandoned cart with a platter on it.

His instincts warned him that this was another trap. For two minutes, he looked it over, up and down. It didn't look like something that would blow up if he poked it with an electric collar. He opened the door a little wider, until his whole head stuck out.

Freeing one hand of a can of spray, he cautiously reached out…grabbed the top…

…and yanked it off!

With the door fully open now, he aimed the can at the hero underneath. The sandwich, I mean.

Zane raised an eyebrow. He certainly didn't recall ever ordering a sandwich, or anything, for that matter. He only slept in hotels, nothing more. He didn't even dare to touch the contents in the mini-fridges. One brush of your finger against one of those moist water bottles, and BOOM! Twenty-five bucks appeared on the bill! Well, since everyone feared him too much to charge him extra, he could probably touch anything he wanted, including the bell girls. Still, he never took the chance.

He wondered if they planned to charge him for this. Ooh, they better not. And to assert this, he clapped the lid back over the hero, turned the cart around until it faced the right end of the hall, where the stairs were, and gave a kick with the sole of his boot. It creaked and rolled all the way down the hallway until it reached the stairs, where it—

CLANG-CLANG-CLANGITY-CLANG, SPLAT!

He dusted his hands and "Hmph"ed back into his room, unaware of the shaky cockatoo who'd snuck onto his broad, leathery shoulder. In fact, he didn't realize this until he was about to shut the door, when suddenly it felt as though a pair of scissors were trying to cut off his ear lobe!

"AH!" With a twirl and a swipe of his arm, he tried to knock the frenzied bird to the floor, spraying pepper clouds at it. Before you could say "sniff a stir and snafu", the entire room was polluted with eye-watering spray and eardrum-shredding shrieks, the floor littered with stray ruffled feathers.

Silpheed barely managed to flutter out of the broken window as Zane stomped after it, cussing like a soldier who'd just got shot in the foot by the moron sharing his foxhole.

Just when he stuck his head out the window to shoo the feathered fiend away, and to get some fresh air—

Click!

Zane froze. Almost afraid of what he'd find, he turned around. And found her behind him, linked to his wrist by a pair of handcuffs.

"I don't like the handcuffs, either, buddy. But if it'd make you stay put for just one—"

SSSSSSSSSSST!

"Ahhh, it burns us, it burns us!"

"Un-cuff me this instant, goddamn you!" he snarled, grinding his teeth so much that they could've shattered. He dove for the tiny silver key that she held over her head, shoving her backward by at least three feet. She didn't put up much of a fight compared to his masculine might—and because she'd been blinded—but no sooner had he yanked the key out of her hand, he'd yanked too hard, and that sent the key flying out of his own hand and out the window.

Down, down, down it plunged, until it landed in the open garbage dumpster with a soft thud.

This probably wouldn't have been such a big deal in other circumstances; he'd just have to storm down there to get it. But this time, as though some cruel higher being was trying to toy with him, a garbage truck was backing into the parking lot.

Oh, no.

"RAWK! Sara, Sara!" squawked Silpheed, perched on the sill of the window to Zane's right.

"Silpheed! Is that you? Where are—WHOA!"

As swift as his little brother at a school dance, Zane dashed out the door and down the flights of stairs, with the blind joker trailing behind him, who was too busy blinking out the spray to ask what was going on.

"WAIT!"

But by the time he had rocketed out of the lobby and into the parking lot, the truck had set the dumpster down and was now trudging out, into the bustling streets.

TO BE CONTINUED...