Written by: Michirutsunami

Summary: Yugi and the others search for the second protector. Joey thinks he’s in love.

Chapter Two

The Second Protector

It had been about a month since Yugi had met Melanie, who had gotten along very well with everyone. When Tea wasn’t with Tristan, she was at the mall or at the pizza parlor with her. Joey usually hung out with her because she knew some really good tactics for his dueling cards. Kaiba barely ever saw her and just like everyone else, he completely ignored her. The only person who Melanie stayed away from was Bakura, she preferred to just keep her distance from him. Yugi didn’t know why, but he thought it was because she might have known about his millennium items soul and thought he might come after her because she knew of the other items and their owners. Melanie started to attend Yugi’s highschool so to make sure that if she found out anything, he’ll only be a little while away, although she did have some complaints about her uniform, “ I HATE PINK!” Although everything was going great, they had problems to deal with. We join our friends at the pizzeria.

“ Alright!” Joey yelled as he threw his tightened fists on the top of the table, “ it’s been over a month and yet we still haven’t seen nothin’ or anyone that knows or deals with the other two protectors.” “ You have to be patient Joey,” Melanie replied as she took a sip of her root bear. “ Patient!” Joey exclaimed, everyone getting a sweat drop, Melanie staring at him while still drinking her soda, “ how can I be patient, how can you be patient, how can anyone be…” but he was interrupted by Tea’s hand covering his mouth and pulling him back down to his seat. “ Be quiet Joey, you’re making a scene,” “ yeah big mouth, shut up,” Kaiba exclaimed, he was lucky to get away from his work. Believe it or not, he’s was a bit intrigued when he heard about the protectors, “ I bet its because their girls our age,” Joey whispered to Yugi when Melanie told them about the female protectors.

“ Why you…” he started to say until he heard the little bell at the door ring. He looked behind him, his eyes widened. “ Joey?” Yugi asked, Joey didn’t answer, “ hello,” he said as waved his hand in front of Joey’s face, until he and the saw what Joey was looking at. He was staring at a young girl, a very pretty one too. She looked to be about their age and was about Joey’s height. She had long orange colored hair that went down to her waist, pulled back with a ruby and gold clasp and had light blue colored eyes. She was wearing a tight white colored zipped up shirt, and black pants that went to her knees, white bands on each of her wrists, and a pair of white tennis shoes. “ She’s gorgeous…” Joey muttered while still keeping his eyes on her, “ WHAT!” everyone shouted in unison.

“ Hello, how many in your party?” the woman at the counter asked the girl, “ just one,” the girl replied. As the waitress lead the girl to her table, Joey slowly kept his eyes on her. “ Well…” Melanie muttered as she twirled her straw in her drink, “ seems Joey got a little crush on a new girl.” Joey came back to earth, “ huh, what?” “ Why don’t you go talk to her?” Tea asked Joey. “ Oh come, look at her, I wouldn’t have a chance with her,” Melanie looked annoyed, “ oh come on Joey, don’t be chicken,” Tristan complained. “ Hey look,” Yugi said out of no where as he pointed to something on the floor. “ Looks like it belongs to the girl,” Kaiba replied as Joey picked up what seemed to be a library card. “ Go give it to her,” Tea replied, “ what! Are you crazy?” Joey exclaimed, “I cant, you do it,” “ Joey, go on,” Yugi urged, “ it wont kill you,” “ it will when I humiliate myself in front of her.” “ Just go!” Kaiba said rudely.

Joey took in a deep breath and walked over to her. She is so beautiful; I’ve never seen a girl that cute Joey thought as he got closer to her table. “ Um, excuse me,” Joey choked up to her as she lifted her head to look at him. “ Uh, you dropped this,” he said as he held out his hand with her card in it. Her eyes widened, “ oh thank you,” she replied as she was handed her card, “ I just die if I lost this.” She looked up to smile at him sweetly, making him blush, “ no, no problem.” “ You want to sit with me?” she asked sweetly as she held her hand out toward the other seat, “ uh yeah alright,” he stuttered out as he slowly sat down. “ My names Joey Wheeler,” Joey said, “ Joey that’s a cute name,” the girl giggled making Joey blush again, “ my names Claire, Claire Montiago.” “ That’s a really nice name, ya new here?” “ Yeah I just moved here,” Claire replied, “ cool, what school ya goin’ to?” “ Domino,” Joey eyes widened, “ no way! I go there to too, you have to let me show ya around.” Claire giggled, “ I like that…a lot.” Joey and Claire just kept talking.

“ Awe, isn’t that cute,” Tea said in a baby tone, “ yeah, things are going great,” Yugi replied, “ hum, the guy actually did something right,” Kaiba muttered. “ Hum, seems things went just the way I planned it,” Melanie muttered while still twirling her straw from her soda, everyone turned their heads and stared at her. “ Melanie, what did you do?” Yugi asked, Melanie giggled, “ let’s just say that card didn’t get there by mistake.”

“ Hey,” Joey exclaimed as he lifted himself from the chair, “ you wanna met my friends?” Claire eyes brightened, “ yeah!” “ Ok come one,” Joey replied as he led her to Yugi and the others.

*-*-*-*-*-*

So Claire had become another member of the gang. She normally would play duel monsters with the others, as they had learned, she was very good. Though now Joey and Claire became really good friends, he still acted strange around her, but she thought he was joking around with her. Just like Melanie when she came to Yugi’s school, she had a big problem with her uniform, “ I HATE, I REPEAT I HATE PINK!” Yes everything was going great, though they still hadn’t found the protectors, but what they didn’t know was that Malik did.

*-*-*-*-*-*

“ Well, it seems those little brats found the second protector,” Malik muttered as he stared into the globe that was watching Yugi and the others. An evil grin spread across his face, “ the good news is that they don’t even know its her,” Malik started to laugh maliciously. “ Soon Umi will be mine, AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!”

*-*-*-*-*-*

“ Hey Claire hurry up, we’re gonna go met up with the guys,” Tea screamed over to her, “ alright, I’m coming,” she shouted back as she picked up her backpack. “ Come on,” Melanie laughed out as Claire caught up with them. “ Thank good it’s the weekend,” Melanie exclaimed as she yawned, “ I was going crazy.” “ Yeah,” Tea replied, “ So what ya guys wanna do?” “ How about we go shopping,” Claire suggested. “ No, we did that last week,” Melanie replied, “ plus I think the guys don’t wanna carry are shopping bags anymore,” the girls laughed out loud as they started to walk toward the guys in front of the pizzeria, “ hey what’s so funny?” Joey asked. “ Oh nothing,” Claire replied, “ lets go get some food, I’m starving,” “ YEAH!” everyone shouted just as they were about to walk through the door.

All of the sudden, something was thrown over in their direction, so close that it almost cut Claire’s cheek, and lodged itself into the concrete wall. “ What was that?” Claire yelled. Yugi looked over to see what it was; “ it’s a duel monsters card!” Everyone turned around to see who threw it at them. As they looked, they saw three men in cloaks, covering their faces, “ its Malik’s men” Melanie shouted as she clinched her teeth and tightened her fists, “ who?” asked Claire as she looked over toward Melanie. The middle henchman threw an explosive in their direction. “ GET DOWN!” Joey yelled as he pushed Claire out of the way as everyone dodged the attack. As the smoke cleared, they saw that the henchmen were going toward Claire and Joey. “ Claire, run now!” Joey demanded, “ but what about you?” Claire replied, “ I’ll be fine, go!”

“ But…”

“ GO!”

Claire didn’t argue any longer, she struggled to get up and started to run. As the henchmen watched her leave, one of them revealed his hand, which started to glow. As Claire kept running away, she was lifted into the air by a purple glow. “ Ah, Claire!” Joey yelled as he lifted himself up, “ Ah! Help me!” Claire screamed. “ LET HER GO!” Joey yelled as he ran toward the henchman, ready to attack. But as Joey tried to hit him, the henchman dodged and then sent a dangerous kick toward his body. Joey was rammed against the wall and knocked out. “ Ah Joey!” Yugi yelled over to see if his best friend was all right. “ NO!” Claire yelled as her eyes filled with tears. She jolted her head toward the henchmen with her eyes glowing red. All of the sudden, Claire was able to break through the barrier and knocked them out. Yugi and the others stared with a blank face, “ what just happened?” Melanie asked Yugi and the others as she kept her eyes on Claire, then she gave little yelp as she saw what had answered her question. Yugi and the others turned toward her, “ what? What is it?” Bakura asked as he ran over and kneeled right next to her, “ look!” Melanie exclaimed as she pointed to Claire.

As they turned back to Claire, they noticed that not only was Claire’s eyes glowing red, but on her forehead was a red mark, it looked like it was what looked like a hieroglyphic. “ What is that?” Kaiba exclaimed, Melanie was quiet for a moment, struck with horror. “ It’s the symbol of the pharaohs protector!” “ WHAT?!” Everyone exclaimed. Yugi’s millennium puzzle started to glow, transforming him into Yami, “ so that’s the second protector?” he asked with his deep voice to Melanie, she nodded her head. “ Yes, that’s the sign of the second protector, she’s known as “the flame of hope” to Egyptians. “ Its seems she was able to tap into her powers in hopes to save Joey,” Bakura replied, Melanie nodded again, “ that’s right Bakura, but we have to make sure she controls her energy or she might destroy everything in sight.” “ How do we do that?” Yami asked as he lifted himself from the ground, “ we have to go to the main reason she tapped into her powers, we have to make sure Joey’s alright,” she replied Bakura helped her get up and started to run toward Joey.

Claire flashed her eyes at Melanie,” DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH HIM!” she screamed as she a red flash right at Melanie. Melanie was lucky enough to block it, “ Claire, control yourself, don’t let it take over you.” “ I TOLD YOU TO GET AWAY FROM HIM!” she screamed as is she didn’t hear Melanie at all. “ Yami!” Melanie yelled turning her head toward the others, “ get Joey, I try and hold off Claire.” “ Right,” they said in unison as they ran over to the unconscious Joey. “ Hey Joey you all right?” Yami said shaking Joey intending to wake him up, “come on wake up you idiot,” Kaiba added. Joey started to stir, “ uh what, what happened?” “ You got knocked out by the hooded freak,” Tea replied, “ where’s Claire?” Joey said with urge, Tristan looked behind him, “ right there.” Joey looked in horror at the sight of Claire. “ What happened to her?” Joey said with horror in his voice, “ apparently she’s the second protector and went mad when you got knocked out,” Kaiba replied. “ Claire…” Joey muttered.

“ CLAIRE,” Melanie yelled over to her friend, “ LET US HELP YOU.” “ I TOLD YOU TO GET AWAY FROM HIM!” Claire replied as she sent another deadly red beam toward Melanie. Melanie wasn’t able to control it, her friends watched in horror at the site of Melanie being flung across the street, hitting the concrete wall, knocked unconscious. “ NO,” Bakura yelled as he ran over to the unconscious Melanie. “ You’ll regret that,” he said maliciously as he gave Claire a deadly stare. Bakura pulled out his millennium ring from his shirt as it glowed violently. After the flash of light, there stood the soul of the millennium ring in Bakura’s body. “ You wont get away with this,” he yelled as he threw a flash off light at Claire’s body, which she wasn’t able to block, flinging her to the ground. “ Claire,” Joey yelled as he struggled to get up, but failed. “ Don’t worry,” Tea replied, “ we’ll take care of Claire, Tristan, you stay here and watch Melanie and Joey.” “ Gotcha,” Tristan replied as her saw Tea, Kaiba, and Yami run over to Claire.

“ Is she alright?” Tea asked as Kaiba checked her pulse, “ she’ll be fine, just knocked out,” Kaiba replied. “ Hey where’s Bakura?” Yami said as he looked behind him. “ You guys, Bakura’s gone,” Tristan said as he ran over to them, “ and he took Melanie with him.” “ What!” Yami exclaimed, “ why didn’t you stop him?” Tea added. “ Kinda hard when you got someone else to take care of,” Tristan replied back. “ Don’t worry, he won’t hurt her,” they heard Claire mutter as she moaned slightly as she picked herself up. “ Claire, you all right?” Tea said as she helped her friend sit up, “ yeah,” Claire replied, “ I mean, for someone who was flung across the street, yeah.” “ Claire,” Joey yelled as he ran over to her side, “ you okay?” Claire nodded with a smile on her face; “ yeah I’m fine Joey, are you okay?” “ Yeah, I’m fine,” Joey replied, Kaiba just rolled his eyes, “ oh brother,” he muttered, that’s when Tea elbowed in the ribs.

“ How do you know that Bakura won’t hurt her?” Tea asked, “ he and her know each other pretty well,” Claire replied as she struggled to sit up straight, “even if Bakura’s millennium item soul had taken over, he still wouldn’t hurt her.” “ Well, Melanie can take care of herself,” Yami said, “ lets get you two to Kaiba’s house and take care of your wounds.” “ All right,” Claire said as Tristan helped Claire up. “ So…” Claire started to say as they walked toward Kaiba’s house, “ now we need to find the third protector or Malik will go after her too.” “ WHAT!” they all said in unison, “ how do you know about the protector’s?” Joey exclaimed. “ I heard you guys talk about it,” Claire replied as she held her side. “ She’s right,” Yami added, “ we need to find the third or she might get into more trouble than she and Melanie have.” “ Are you sure that Bakura won’t hurt Melanie?” Tea asked again, Claire nodded, “ yes, I’m positive, she’ll be just fine.” I hope so Yami thought it’s just surprising that he wouldn’t harm her, but then again, Bakura was really kind to her, almost as if he was flirting with her, I remember the first day they met…

***FLASHBACK***

“ Class we have a new student today,” the teacher announced as a red haired girl entered the classroom, everyone one of the gang except for Bakura knew who it was. “ This is Melanie Scott, she just transferred here from Paris, France,” the teacher announced. “ All right,” Tea whispered to her friends, “ its about time we got another girl to talk to.” “ Yeah,” Yugi whispered, “ what do you think Bakura?” Yugi turned to look at him, who face was crimson red and his eyes widened with shock. “ Bakura?” Joey said as he waved his hand in front of his face (no moment). Melanie was smiling as she looked around at the class, but her smile disappeared as she laid her eyes on Bakura, her eyes also widened with shock. “ What’s going on here, have Bakura and Melanie met?” Kaiba asked as he shook his head with pity at the sight of Bakura, “ I don’t think so,” Yugi replied. “ Why don’t you take the seat in front of Bakura Melanie,” the teacher said as she pointed to the vacant seat in front of the stunned Bakura. “ All…all right,” Melanie stuttered as she sat in front of Bakura. Bakura then had a wicked smile cross his face. “ How bizarre,” Tea muttered as she watched them. “ Maybe they knew each other before,” Tristan mentioned, “ I guess…” Yugi muttered as he turned back to look at Bakura and Melanie, I hope things go all right between them.

*** END OF FLASHBACK***

*-*-*-*-*-*

The protectors… someone said inside Melanie’s head that started to make her stir. Find them Melanie, find them and you will find the pharaoh Melanie heard before she slowly opened her eyes. Melanie opened her eyes to find herself in a lightly dimmed room. Melanie looked around to see the room, she gave out a painful moan, “ so you’re awake,” she heard someone say, she turned to see someone sitting in a chair that was in the corner of the room. “ Who are you?” Melanie said with a gasp, “ don’t you remember me my love?” the man said as he leaned forward to show his face in the light, it was Bakura. “ You…” Melanie gasped with a deadly glare, Bakura gave a small laugh form inside his throat, “ is that any way to greet me?” he said as he slowly sat up and walked over to Melanie’s side. “ Why am I here?” Melanie said as she kept her eyes on him, “ I brought you here so you could rest,” he said as he softly stroked her face. Melanie pulled away, “ thanks put I think I can take care of myself,” she replied cruelly. Bakura laughed again, “ you always were so head strong,” he said with a wicked smile as he brushed the hair out of her face.

“ Don’t touch me Bakura,” she screamed as she turned away from him and buried her face in the pillow. Bakura stared at her for awhile, “ is there a reason you’re staring at me?” Melanie asked with her face still buried in the pillow. Bakura smiled again as he grabbed a bit of her blood red hair and brought it to his nose it smell it, “ is there a problem with my looking a such a beautiful girl?” “ Don’t flatter yourself Bakura,” Melanie muttered through the pillow, “ I’m not telling you where the other millennium items are.” Bakura gave out another small laugh, “ is that what you think? That I brought you here to get information from you about the millennium items?” Melanie lifted herself from the pillow a bit to look at Bakura, “ isn’t that why?” “ No,” Bakura said as he laid down next to the shocked Melanie, “ I took you so I could be with you.” Melanie eyes widened even more, “ I…I don’t understand,” Bakura cupped her cheek with his hand and stroked it gently with his thumb, “ you should.” “ Bakura,” she whispered as she closed her eyes, Bakura hushed her and he came in closer to her. “ Melanie, I still feel the same about you I did a millennium ago,” Bakura muttered as he softly touched her lips with his.

*-*-*-*-*-*

“ OUCH! THAT HURTS!” Joey screamed as Tea was putting medicine on the wound of his arm, “ would you shut up,” Kaiba replied back, “ yeah, for a guy, you sure are a whusy,” Tristan added. “ Shut up,” Joey yelled back, “ come Joey,” Claire said as Mokuba wrapped her wrist with bandages, “ don’t be so negative.” “ All right,” he muttered as he looked away. “ There,” Tea said, “ all done,” as added as she cleaned up the other medicines. “ Well now that that’s been taken care of,” Yami started to say, “ now we can get down to business.” Everyone went silent, “ We have to find the third protector,” Yami said, “ but we don’t even now who or where she is,” Joey interrupted, Yami turned to look at Claire, “ Claire, do you know anything about the third protector?” Claire just shook her head, “ no I don’t,” “ wait!” Tea exclaimed, “ I do,” everyone stared at her in amazement, “ you do?” Tristan asked. “ It was about a few weeks ago, I was helping Melanie with some research on it at her house…

***FLASHBACK***

“ You have a lot of stuff on the protectors here Mel,” Tea said as she looked through all the papers. Melanie laughed out loud; “ yeah I guess I do.” “ Tell me a bit about them please,” Tea asked. Melanie gave a big sigh, “ well, as you know there are three, each with a different characteristic and power, I have the power of purity and moon, the second protector has the power of fire and light, and the third has the power of psychic and darkness.” “ How do we know how to find them?” Tea asked, “ each one has one thing that can prove that they are a protector.” Melanie continued on, “ me, I have to the ability to heal quickly, and I mean very quickly, as in seconds.” Tea shook her head as she listened, “ the second as the ability to be an illusionist, as in control people, and the third as ESP, and read peoples minds.” “ So by knowing this, we can find them easily?” Tea asked, Melanie nodded her head and smiled, “ yep, these abilities will surely help us out.”

***END OF FLASHBACK***

“ So we have to find a girl who has ESP to know that she is the third protector?” Yami asked, Tea nodded, “ it would seem that way.” “ Well, at least we got something to work on,” Claire said happily. “ But that still doesn’t help us on how to find her,” Joey replied, “ well, I came to you guys, so maybe she’ll do just the same,” Claire replied back as she smiled. “ Well then,” Tristan started, “ we have nothing to worry about.”

*-*-*-*-*-*

“ That’s what you think you bafoon,” Malik said maliciously as he watched the others in their conversation. “ Yugi, you might have other two protectors, but I’ll make sure you don’t find the last one,” he said with a deadly tone as he gripped his millennium rod. “ Umi will be mine, and there’s not a thing you can do to stop me.”

To see what happens next, look out for:

The Third