Book 3. Choices through time and space.

In the labyrinth of screams part 2.

A,N: Hello you guys. So, so sorry for the wait you guys. Had lack of motivation to be honest. That and trying to finish up Gx so I have less to work on. Hope you can forgive me. However at least the chapter are making up for my absence. With further ado. Have fun reading.

Astral's p.o.v.

Astral looked worriedly at Zaira, as Dark mist dropped her into Vector's lap. The Astral prince didn't question that they had put some kind of spell on her. After all he knew Zaira, and if she could she would clearly had tried to escape in some way. but at the same time, Astral knew that neither Vector nor 96 was gonna hurt Zaira right now. She was after all a trophy to both of them, and what knowledge Astral knew of trophies was that they were priced. At least for now. it was with that resolve that Astral was prepared to face 96 head on. Zaira believed in him. Although Astral still wondered what 96 deal with Zaira was, or why she was so important to the barians. After all getting captured twice here, must have some kind of meaning. Astral shook his head a little. Right now it wasn't important. He had to focus on the duel, and this was a question for another day.

"Now that that had been taking care off, I will duel and defeat you!" 96 uttered as he appeared in the arena once again. Astral snort confidentially at that.

"That will not happen!" he then stated, summoned a duel disk, and looked up at Yuma on the pedestal "Yuma I need to duel with your cards". An energy wave hit Yuma making his deck case open and let his cards slide into the duel disk deck slot.

"Oh yeah. Just kick his butt Astral!" Yuma shouted cheerfully back.

"He-he, things are different now Astral. I am much more powerful, so there is no way you can beat me. Zaira will soon belong to me" 96 stated and summoned a duel disk with a deck ready as well. The duel began.

Dark mist: 4000 Lp's.

Astral: 4000 Lp's.

96 of course started off, which was something Astral had suspected. The dark number drew and normal summoned "Malicevorous Spoon" to the field in att mode. It was this lv 2 fiend monster who was holding a spoon in his hand and had 100 att and 500 def points. Then by sending "Malicevorous knife" from his hand to the grave, 96 could now special summon "Malicevorous fork" from his hand to the field in att mode. That was also a level 2 monster. However, 96 was not done yet. Since a Malicevorous monster was special summoned just now, Malicevorous spoon's effect kicked in, allowing 96 to special summon a Malicevorous monster from his grave, He of course brought back "Malicevorous knife" who also was a level 2 monster.

"He already got three level 2 monsters on the field" Astral could hear Yuma say in the background, and both of them knew where this was going. He was gonna summon his alter ego. "Number 96 Dark mist".

"I overlay my three Malicevorous monsters into the overlay network and XYZ summon my alter ego, my evil avatar. Nb 96 dark mist" 96 proclaimed and smirked evilly as his evil avatar appeared on the field in att mode.

"No not that monster again" Yuma uttered rather fearfully. Astral was sure he remembered his last run in with 96. In the test inside the key.

"Whenever Dark mist battles, if it uses one Ou, it steals half the opponents monsters att points, and adds those precious points to itself" Astral could now hear Vector comment from the throne he was sitting at "In other words, dark mist's special effect ensures that it always has at least 100 more att points than its opponents. So you will always play catch up. Isn't that right Zaira?".