The Beginning - ARC 1

Did you ever have a wish that you wanted to make come true, but couldn't because it was illogical to begin with? 
I had one simple wish.
My wish was to somehow end up in my favorite anime or cartoon franchise and be on an adventure with the main cast.
Why would I wish for something like that? Because I was lonely. I didn't have any friends that I had been able to keep from my childhood and I didn't have friends even as a young adult now.
I was scared to get rejected by others if they found out I had autism. My brain worked in a different way than the norm. I wasn't a serious case as many often saw on videos on social media, but I had my difficulties.
That made me insecure of myself, especially with my painful past. I would stay in my bedroom in my family's house and watch anime and cartoons on my laptop, imaging I was among the crew and helped them out any way I could.
My favorite anime was Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's. I had watched Duel Monsters and GX, but 5D's was my favorite because it had more action and a plot that was darker than the first two seasons, but still not scary enough to frighten me. It was entertaining and exciting.
And to be honest, I grew a small crush on the main protagonist; Yusei Fudo. He was a calm young man, intelligent, the quiet type, serious, but cared a lot for his friends. He was my ideal man.
As you can probably figure it out by now, I never had a boyfriend during my 22 years. It didn't hurt me as much as a normal young woman would be, if she had been without a partner for a while, since I knew I wasn't ready yet to be in a relationship. That was why I wrote fanfics about certain cartoon male characters I got a crush on and paired them up with original characters that I made up. That was like a mental preparation for me to later face the real world when the time would come for me to have a boyfriend.
But everything changed on one particular day when I was going to a small game center in my hometown to play Yu-Gi-Oh.
My name is Estelle Malmström and this is my story of an unforgettable adventure that changed my life forever.
XXXXXXXXXX
I was going through my Yu-Gi-Oh Deck by my desk one last time after I had finished modifying it. I was already dressed to head out for a small tournament in my hometown in a game center where I went to once a week to play card games. I didn't have any close friends there, but I had acquaintances that I got to know when I began playing last year. The main card game they often played was Magic the Gathering, but sometimes they arranged Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments and I wanted to take that opportunity to try out my Deck. I wasn't a professional player, since I mostly collected cards, but I could still hold onto a game for more than ten turns.
I felt satisfied with my dragon/warrior/spellcaster Deck and put it away in a metal box where I kept a collapsible paper game mat that usually came with Starter Decks. My favorite Duel Monsters were dragons, warriors, and spellcasters. I had always loved dragons, both in fantasy books, Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokémon, Digimon, and many other franchises. I found them mysterious, powerful, and beautiful.
My ace Duel Monster was a Synchro Monster that I fell in love with at first sight, literally, when I got to know about its existence. That Synchro Monster was a dragon known as Star Eater. So far, Star Eater was currently one of the only two Level 11 Synchro Monsters existing, so it was unique. I spent more than two years looking for the card, buying booster packs of the series in which Star Eater was included, until I got it one day. I cheered out loud in joy and kinda embarrassed myself in front of many people, but I didn't care. I got my destined Synchro dragon. Star Eater was added in my Deck as often as I could, depending on how I structured it. I mainly used Synchro Monsters in my Decks. I would sometimes add Xyz Monsters, but no Pendulum nor Link Monsters. Those were too complicated for me to use.
I put the metal box in my dark red satchel before zipping it, and stepped out to the hallway. I took a quick peek on myself in the mirror. My thick half-wavy chestnut brown hair was combed and reached down to my waist. My blue eyes blinked beneath my navy blue-rammed slight oval-shaped glasses, matching my very pale skin. My outfit consisted of a black top with long sleeves that hugged my slim figure, a red jacket with short sleeves, jeans, and white socks. I sat down on a small bench and put on a pair of black long-length boots that almost reached to my knees. Once I got the boots on, I walked out of the house and locked the door behind me.
The weather was nice and warm for a May day. I took a deep breath while I walked towards the bus stop. Everything seemed to be as normal as it always was. So imagine my surprise when I heard a rumble echoing in the distance. I stopped in my tracks and glanced up at the sky once again.
I almost flinched in shock when I saw thick and black clouds quickly covering the entire sky. Where the heck did they come from? The weather report never said anything about rain or thunder. And how in the world did the clear sky switch into this nature disaster-like monstrosity so fast? The sun was shining like less than a minute ago.
Thunder started cracking among the clouds, and the air was full of static that made the hair on my body stand up. I cold sweated when I realized a really bad and sudden storm could be on the way, so I turned around on my heels and walked back fast to the house.
I was less than 100 meters from the house when a lightning struck the ground only a few meters from me. I jumped in shock and cried out in fear before crouching down and covering my ringing ears. That lightning sounded like over a thousand drums in an orchestra.
Once the ringing in my eardrums stopped, I let out a sigh in relief and straightened up to leave. It was then the wind got strong and blew around me, causing my hair to fly everywhere. I tried brushing it aside to see, but it constantly got on my face. I threw a glance upwards and noticed something odd.
The lightning among the clouds looked like they were crimson, not white. What did that mean? I had never heard of a thunder that released a red-like color. Something was wrong. Awfully wrong, and it scared me.
"It is you…"
I snapped my eyes and looked around, trying to see if there was someone right next to me who had just spoken those three words. I saw no single human nearby. It was I was in a video game world on my own and I was soon going to face the final boss. That was the feeling I had, and the game I could relate to was "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild".
The next thing I knew, lightning struck the ground around me with such a bright light that I had to shield my eyes while my head felt like it was going to explode due to the deafening noise that sounded like the cry of a dragon.
After that, everything became black.
XXXXXXXXXX – Normal POV
Rain was pouring down on the dirty Satellite. Two male residents of the island, known as Blitz Boylston and Rally Dawson, ran through the rain, hurrying to an underground base where their friends were waiting for them. Rally was only around eleven years old and had thick curly reddish hair, dark grey eyes and peach skin, and because of his looks he was often mistaken as a girl. Blitz was around his early twenties, tall, had slight tanned skin, dark grey eyes, and sandy brown hair which he had covered with a blue bandana.
The duo ran past an alleyway when Rally suddenly stopped in his tracks. He swore he saw something odd in the alleyway. He ran back to take a closer look. Blitz noticed Rally wasn't behind him and looked over his shoulder, seeing the boy was looking at the alleyway.
"Rally! What're you doing?" Blitz called irritably. "We need to take shelter from the rain!"
"There's someone in here, Blitz! I think they're hurt!" Rally retorted before rushing into the alleyway.
Blitz rolled his eyes with a groan and rushed after the young boy. When he entered the alleyway, he saw Rally was kneeling next to a feminine figure that was lying on its stomach. When Rally rolled the body over to its back, the duo quickly realized it was a young woman. She was still breathing, so she had only lost consciousness. She had glasses and a dark red satchel strapped to her. At the first glance, she looked fine with no visible injuries.
"We need to help her", Rally concluded.
"What? Rally, we can't just bring a girl down to Yusei's place!" Blitz said. "We don't even know who she is!"
"But we can't leave her out here in the rain!" Rally argued. "And what if she's really hurt and needs help?"
Blitz grunted inwardly before he shrugged and squatted down. He took off the satchel on the fainted girl and settled it on the ground before putting her on his back, holding onto her legs while he made sure her arms rested on his shoulders.
"You take her bag." Blitz told the small boy before walking out of the alleyway.
Rally was first a bit surprised that Blitz listened to him, but he was still happy that the young adult wouldn't leave a girl alone in the cold. He picked up the red satchel and ran after Blitz as the rain started pouring down a bit harder.
XXXXXXXXXX – Yusei's POV
I was checking the data of my Duel Runner, trying to remove a few glitches I had discovered after I took it out on a test drive. While doing that, I heard the rain clattering against the asphalt that echoed from the crevasse in the ceiling in the abandoned subway where I lived. I liked listening to the rain whenever I was working. It was a nice change of noise after a day of work in the recycling center. It was relaxing to listen to Mother Nature.
"Hey, Yusei! Has Blitz and Rally come back yet?" Nervin asked from my hut.
"No, not yet", I shook my head, my eyes never leaving the laptop.
"Don't worry, Nervin. I'm sure they're not in danger", Tank said from the hut as I heard him munching on something.
"But they should've been here half an hour ago. Rally's got his criminal mark, so Sector Security can easily track him down", Nervin said worriedly.
"Don't be so paranoid, Nerve." Tank replied calmly. "Maybe they took shelter from the rain and are safe and sound."
"And you need to stop eating everything that's in the fridge!" Nervin retorted.
"But I'm craving for French fries! If I can't eat potatoes, then I'll eat an apple instead! I'm not invading Yus' fridge!"
I couldn't help but hold back a chuckle while I listened to those two bickering back and forth. They kinda reminded me of the old times when Crow, Jack, and I were little kids and how my two foster brothers used to fight over almost every single thing. I always tried to be the peacemaker, but in the end it was only Martha who could put them in place.
My thoughts grew sour when I thought about Jack and his betrayal. How could he do those things two years ago and steal not only my first Duel Runner but also my best card?
"Guys!" Rally's voice called from the stairs of the subway.
"There you are!" Nervin exclaimed in relief. "Where've you guys been?"
I looked up from my laptop when I heard both Tank and Nervin gasping in surprise. Blitz was carrying someone on his back as he and Rally approached the hut. I stood up from the crate I sat on and walked over to the hut as Blitz slowly and carefully put the body down on my couch. My right eyebrow raised slightly in surprise when I saw who he and Rally had found.
"A girl?" Tank questioned as he took another bite of the apple he had in his hand.
"Why'd you bring a total stranger to Yusei's home?!" Nervin panicked.
"It was Rally's idea, not mine." Blitz defended himself.
Nervin turned to Rally who removed the glasses off the girl's face and put them on the coffee table next to a dark red satchel that probably belonged to her. "Rally?"
"It was raining! And she was completely blacked out!" Rally explained irritably. "It didn't feel right to ignore and leave her out there on the streets, only for molesters to find and abuse her!"
"Well, that's true…", Nervin said before throwing a tantrum. "But we don't know who she is or if she's just acting to find us so that Security can mark and lock us up forever!"
"Easy, Nervin", I said as I put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down. "We don't know who she is, but Rally and Blitz did the right thing to bring her here. If someone else would've found her…" I shuddered in disgust by the thoughts of what other men could possibly do to a defenseless girl.
"We can interrogate her when she wakes up." Blitz suggested. "But we should check if she does have an injury somewhere, especially on her head. If she suffers from a concussion, she might need medical treatment."
"Right", I nodded as I approached the couch and knelled down next to it.
While I gently moved the girl's head to check for a wound, Rally fetched the first aid kit. I was only able to find a bump on the back of the girl's head, so she could suffer from a concussion.
"What's with this bag?" Tank asked.
I looked over my shoulder and saw Tank was looking at the satchel on the coffee table.
"The girl had it on her, so it could belong to her", Blitz replied.
"Maybe we can find an ID and verify her identity…", Tank suggested before he picked it up.
"Are you out of your mind?!" Nervin panicked before ripping the satchel out of Tank's hands. "We can't just peek through a girl's stuff! Girls are very private!"
"Hey, you're the one who's paranoid and thinks the girl could be a spy from Sector Security!" Tank argued.
"Can you two argue somewhere else right now?" Rally intervened irritably. "I don't think the girl wants to wake up by your loud voices and get a headache right after she had fainted."
A weak groan caught my attention. I turned my head back to the girl and saw her eyelids were slowly moving. I removed my hand from the back of her head and moved back to give her some space.
"Guys, she's waking up." I told my friends.
XXXXXXXXXX – Estelle's POV
It was black and dark and cold around me. Was this what everyone saw on their way to the Heaven? But why did I still feel like I was alive? Didn't I get hit by lightning and get turned into a human crisp? Had I just imagined things?
No…
I remembered clearly the bombarding noise of the lightning that still lingered in my ears, and the bright light that almost cost my eyesight.
Speaking of, I now heard unknown yet familiar voices talking in the darkness around me. Who were they? I needed to see who they were, so I could give the voices a face. I wanted to know why they sounded so concerned. I tried to regain control of my body before I was finally able to open my heavy eyelids.
The first thing I saw was a blurry wooden ceiling. There was a light source coming from my left while I slowly sat up. The voices that talked before had grown silent as I rubbed my eyes to open them wider. Even so, I still couldn't see properly without my glasses.
I patted the furniture around to find the glasses before I felt someone grab my left hand and put something in it. "Here, if you're looking for these", a young voice said.
"Thank you…", I replied, recognizing the shape of my glasses in my hand before I put them on my face, only to halt my body.
Why did I suddenly reply in English? Well, it was because the voice next to me spoke in English, but I lived in Sweden. Was it a foreign tourist who had found me and stayed behind to resurrect me after getting hit by the thunder?
I slowly turned to my left and saw five faces I never thought I would see in real life. I blinked my eyes several times to confirm I wasn't hallucinating. I looked around and realized I was in a shabby hut.
"Hey."
I turned my head back to the young men as the one who looked just like Yusei from Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's stepped over to the couch I sat on and kneeled until he was in my eye level. I couldn't help but feel my cheeks grow a bit warm by the close contact with my fictional crush.
"Are you okay?" Yusei asked. "I found a bump on the back of your head, so I want to make sure you don't have a concussion."
"I… I'm fine, I think…", I replied carefully as I rubbed the back of my head, feeling the bump he mentioned.
"Do you remember what happened?" Yusei continued.
I did remember what happened to me, but… My thoughts were all over the place. Could it be I was in the fictional dimension of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's? Like in those fanfics I often wrote on my laptop?
No, impossible! That would be too cliché.
"Maybe she does have a concussion", the young man who looked like Tank spoke up in the background.
"No, my head is fine. Just…a bit disoriented", I confessed as I moved my legs to sit at the edge of the couch.
The little boy who seemed to be Rally walked over to the couch and sat down next to me. "I'm Rally. Rally Dawson. Blitz and I found you unconscious in an alleyway and I didn't want to leave you alone like that. What's your name?"
Rally looked very curious about me. When I looked at the rest of the group, I could tell they were both curious and cautious. If this was really the dimension of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, then I must have ended up among the first dub episodes. I could confirm that because Yusei didn't have his criminal marker on the left side of his cheek.
Since I knew how most of the episodes would turn out, I had to lay in a low profile and reveal so little information about me as possible.
"My name is Estelle", I told Rally with a small smile.
"Well, Estelle, are you part of Sector Security or not?" the man who looked like Blitz questioned me straight away.
"Sector Security? What's that?" I acted as if I didn't know what he was talking about.
"Uh-oh, she might have amnesia." Tank commented.
"Or she's acting to gain our trust and then backstab us!" the last man who was surely Nervin threw his hands up in the air.
"Calm down, guys." Yusei told his friends before he turned to me. "What do you remember, Estelle?"
I decided not to tell the boys the truth yet; that I was coming from a world where their world was nothing but fictional. Instead, I decided to play dumb. "I can't remember."
"So you have no idea how you ended up in the alleyway?" Blitz asked.
"No", I shook my head before I stood up and grabbed my satchel. "I'm thankful you looked after me, but I should go."
I couldn't stay with Yusei's group. They were highly suspicious of me, especially Nervin and Blitz. I couldn't blame them. I was a stranger that was indeed acting to keep things low about my true identity. I didn't want them to assume I was a spy from Sector Security. I was willing to leave the underground base to keep Yusei and his friends safe.
"Wait! Where will you go, Estelle?" Rally asked as I stopped by the threshold of the hut. "It's too dangerous for a girl to walk around in the Satellite alone, especially in nighttime!"
"Yeah, and don't forget the curfews." Tank added. "If Sector Security catches you, you'll be sent to the Facility in New Domino City and get marked, even if you're a girl."
I couldn't help but chuckle softly about how they kept calling me "girl". Many people with autism looked younger for their age with their facial features. I've seen people with autism who are over 40 years old, but they look like they're only 25 or 30, plus with their slight immature behavior, because a human being with autism matures twice as slow as a "normal" human being.
"I think I can look after myself", I told them as I looked over my shoulder. "After all, I'm twenty-two years old."
"Twenty-two?!" Tank, Nervin, and Blitz exclaimed in disbelief.
"You don't look like that", Nervin told me.
I forgot to mention it before; I was a tall girl compared to many women in Sweden. I was around 180 cm tall, and I had always been one of the tallest children in my old schools.
"I get that a lot", I smiled softly before stepping out of the hut.
I was aware of the danger in an unknown city, but the Satellite was indeed dangerous. I didn't know any self-defense moves, so I was an easy target for bad people. I could try to convince the boys to let me stay with them, but that would be inappropriate, since I was a stranger to them and I didn't want to be a whiny woman who wanted the world to revolve around me. I had to adapt to the new circumstances. I had to survive on my own.
XXXXXXXXXX – Normal POV
The boys watched Estelle leave Yusei's hut silently after she had told them her age. She was around their age and even one year older than Blitz who was the oldest with his 21 years. Still, that didn't really matter. Estelle was a woman and looked frail and weak to fight against molesters and Sector Security.
"Should we really let her go like that?" Tank questioned, getting everyone's attention. "I don't think she's a bad person."
"Well, I don't know", Blitz shrugged. "She did leave willingly before we could kick her out-"
"She's not a bad person! I know it!" Rally exclaimed suddenly.
"Rally, don't get naïve just because we barely interact with girls", Nervin scolded the boy. "I think it's best if she stays out of our lives."
Rally growled before turning to Yusei. "Yusei! We can't let her walk outside alone! And she's got amnesia! She could get really hurt!"
The others looked at Yusei, waiting to hear his opinion about Estelle. "What'd you say, Yusei?" Blitz asked.
Yusei understood his friends' doubt and fear. Estelle could be a spy who was acting along a script from Sector Security to gain their trust, but when he looked into her eyes he knew she wasn't an evil person. She had some secrets in her baggage, but she definitely didn't mean to cause harm. That was, at least, his first impression of her.
"I don't think she wants to cause us any harm." Yusei concluded. "She can stay here until she recovers her memories."
XXXXXXXXXX – Estelle's POV
I had almost reached the stairs of the abandoned subway leading up to the streets when I heard Rally calling my name. I turned around and saw him run towards me with Yusei and the others following him.
"What's wrong?" I asked confusedly.
Before I knew it, Rally jumped forward and wrapped his arms around my waist, catching me off guard by the sudden move. "R-Rally?"
"You can stay here!" the boy exclaimed as he looked up at me with a big smile.
"Pardon?" I blinked in surprise as Rally let go of my waist.
"You can stay here until you recover your memories." Yusei explained as he approached me. "Personally, I don't see you as a bad person. And, maybe, we can help you figure out what happened to you."
I was a bit stunned by the offer. I thought Yusei was very cautious with new people, but maybe he could sense I wasn't the kind who wanted to use others and betray them.
"Are you sure?" I asked to be certain. "I don't want you to feel forced to do this."
Yusei shook his head with a small smile before he held out his hand for a handshake. "When there's someone in need for help, especially amnesia, you can't turn your back on them."
I stared at Yusei's hand before looking back at him, seeing he still had that small smile on his lips. I could sense he was cautious, but not as much as moments ago. I felt a small smile grow on my lips before I reached out my hand to shake his hand, sealing the deal. "Thank you."