Disclaimer: I only own the characters that I made up for this story. Everything else is property of its respective owner and I take no credit for it. I do own a few of the cards and those will be marked with a (*).

Theme Song: Hardly Breathe by Hydroponikz


Chapter 7: Deal of Phantom

Hikazu Minato. That was his name. An arsonist of the worst kind, a pyromaniac without a conscience. He sat in a prison cell, completely alone. His hands were handcuffed behind his back, so any attempt to escape would be a waste of his time. He stared intensely at the iron bars that held him there.

"Damn... How could I have let myself get caught so easily...?" he asked himself.

As he thought about this, he heard a noise. It sounded like a lock being opened. "Huh?" The cell door had opened, granting him freedom if he did this right, but he didn't move. It was too good. Too simple. There had to be more to it.

After waiting for a few minutes, he decided to check it out, curiosity getting the best of him. As he exited the cell, he found himself in a strange place. Fog covered everything, preventing him safe passage.

As he stumbled around the halls, his curiosity only grew. "What happened? Why isn't there anyone here?"

"Why should there be?" said a voice. Hikazu quickly spun around, towards the source of the voice, but didn't see anyone else.

"What do you mean by that? I'm in the Facility!" he replied.

"Really? Does this look anything like the Facility?"

"No. It doesn't, but where else could I be?"

"You are here." said the voice.

"Don't bullshit me! I want to know what this place is, and I want to know now!" demanded Hikazu, his infamous temper finally showing.

"My, my. So impatient. If you must know..." started the voice. "This is a dimension separate from yours. I brought you here for something important..."

"And what could that be?"

"An offer... I could easily get you out of prison, give you power and whatever else you demand. However..."

"However?" asked Hikazu curiously. As with any offers like this one, there was always a catch, and this one was no exception...

During this time, the last part of the duel between Team Enigmatic and Team Inferno had begun, and the tension was thick. The crowd was heavily drawn into the action as they waited to witness the result of such a close duel. They were surprised by all the dueling that they were witnessing today. After all, this was only the start of the WRGP, and already the duelists were dueling their hardest.

(1200-4000) [10-12]

Kaiser started off, everyone except his teammates anxious to see how he dueled.

"I'll start by using the effect of Phantom Hand, which means that the card that Tueur had removed from play now comes back to my hand." He took a quick look at it and placed it on the disk. "Now, I'll activate it! I use the effect of the quickplay spell, Emergency Provisions! By destroying some of the spell and traps on my field, I get a thousand Life Points for each one!" Wave-Motion Inferno, Phantom Hand, and a third set card turned into glowing pixels that surrounded Kaiser, increasing his Life Points to 7000.

"That's not all. Now, I'll sacrifice Infernity Randomizer to summon Dark Red Enchanter (1700/2200) in attack mode!" A spellcaster dressed in crimson robes appeared on the field, with two glowing orbs floating around him.

"When he's normal summoned, he gets two spell counters on himself. Each one of those counters grants him an extra 300 attack points." The spellcaster glowed with a red aura as its attack points rose to 2300.

"He's not enough to defeat my Junk Warrior! And attacking my Field-Commander Rahz won't be enough to stop me from destroying that spellcaster of yours next turn!" Casey stated.

"Heh. You underestimate me. I activate the effect of Speed World 2!" he started, slowing down severely as his speed counters decreased by 10. "By giving up 10 speed counters, I can destroy one card on the field!" A bolt of lightning fell from the skies and hit Junk Warrior, causing the mechanized warrior to explode, leaving a paralyzed Casey to deal with Kaiser's monster.

"Dark Red Enchanter, destroy Field-Commander Rahz!" The spellcaster raised up his staff and hit Rahz with an electrified surge of crimson energy from his staff, which caused him to shatter into pixels.

"I'll set a card and end my turn."

(500-7000) [11-3]

"Not bad, but you aren't the only one who can do that! I also use Speed World 2's effect! I'll remove 10 speed counters to destroy that monster of yours!" Another lightning bold fell from the skies, eradicating Dark Red Enchanter.

"I'm not done yet!" continued Casey. She looked at the card she had just drawn, which was Educated Student Lv. 3*. "I summon Educated Spellcaster* (1000/100) in attack mode!" The small spellcaster appeared on the field, its second time being used by Casey.

"Thanks to his effect, I can special summon one level four or lower Warrior-Type monster from my graveyard, but I have to negate its effect and it will be destroyed at the end of my turn." Marauding Captain appeared on the field again, though he looked more battle-worn this time.

"Of course, that doesn't really matter, since Educated Spellcaster* is a tuner! So I'll tune them both!" Educated Spellcaster* became three green rings that floated around Marauding Captain, who dissolved into three glowing stars.

"Magic and strength work together! Combine your powers and become an unstoppable force! Synchro summon! Shine, Educated Knight*!"

A knight covered in gold and silver armor appeared in the field, wielding a powerful sword of light and a strong shield. (2500/1900)

"Nice monster. What can it do?" asked Kaiser.

"It can take your life points down a notch! Attack him directly!" The knight swung his sword, releasing an energy blade that hit Kaiser head on.

"Your move."

(500-4500) [2-4]

Kaiser drew a card, pretty content with how the duel was going. "You know, you are a pretty good duelist. That monster of yours, I can see that its pretty strong. Honestly, though, you have to do better." he said, chuckling.

"Anyways, I'll set another card, and summon Injector Fairy Lily (400/1500) in attack mode!" Another one of Duel Monster's most seductive women appeared. This one was an angel dressed in a tight nurse's uniform, holding a large needle in her hand. Some of the men in the crowd cheered as they saw her make her appearance. Though other people in the crowd were disgusted by the behavior of these men, others knew well what was going to happen next.

"I'll end my turn with that. Your move."

(500-4500) [3-5]

"Hmph. That's all you can do? Seems like you are giving up already. In that case, I'll help you!"

Casey drew her next card, which was Kuriboh. "I'll set a card, and summon Educated Student Lv. 3* (1500/100) in attack mode!" A small kid appeared on the field, dressed in a school uniform and clutching a small spellbook.

"Educated Knight*, destroy his monster!" The shining knight swung his sword and fired an energy blade at Fairy Lily, who threw the giant needle at him as a counter. The blade was dispersed when it hit the needle and Educated Knight* raised up his shield, struggling to hold the attack back.

The needle exploded, but when the smoke cleared, Educated Knight* still stood on the field.

"What happened?" wondered Casey.

"Injector Fairy Lily has a pretty good effect. When she battles, I can give up 2000 Life Points to increase her attack points by 3000!"

"Good thing my monster is impervious to destruction through battle."

"Yeah, but you still take battle damage! Enough to make you lose the duel!" replied Kaiser.

"True, but by discarding the Kuriboh in my hand, I can negate it!" She discarded her Kuriboh, saving herself for this turn.

Her team watched from the pit, and they were worried. "This is bad. She should have remembered Fairy Lily's effect. She wouldn't be stuck in this position right now. If he uses her effect on his turn, he'll win this duel." stated Akira.

"Yeah, but she's still got a chance." said Zeke. "We'll just have to hope she can do this..."

"I'll end my turn!" said Casey, now trying to see how she would survive the next turn.

(500-2500) [4-6]

Kaiser drew another card, still satisfied with the duel. It was almost as if he wasn't worried about beating her, or even losing.

"I'll activate Fairy Lily's effect again, reducing my Life Points by 2000 points to increase her attack points again." Fairy Lily glowed with a green aura as her attack points went up, while Kaiser glowed with a red aura and his Life Points decreased.

"Fairy Lily attack again and end this duel!" Fairy Lily threw her giant needle again, aiming it at Educated Knight*.

The needle exploded on contact, but when the smoke cleared, the crowd saw two things. One, was Educated Knight* with his shield raised up, and kneeling down in defense mode. Two, was a trap card that was activated.

"Sorry, but I activated the trap card that Zeke had set before he lost. Its a trap known as Ready for Intercepting! This allows me to take a Warrior-Type or a Spellcaster-Type monster on the field and flip it into defense mode! I used it on my monster, preventing me from taking any damage." she explained.

Meanwhile, Zeke smiled, glad that she figured it out. "That's it for my help. Now its up to Blake's card and her deck to win." he said.

"Next, I'll activate my monster's effect. During either player's battle phase, I can send my Educated Student Lv. 3* from my field to the graveyard and special summon Educated Student Lv 5*."

The kid disappeared from the field, replaced by an older, teenage version of himself. This one held a larger, more advanced spellbook. (2200/1500)

"Not bad, but its still my turn. Since I haven't summoned yet, I can sacrifice my monster to summon Master of Alchemy-Alchimie the Third* (2200/500) in attack mode!" A young spellcaster appeared before him. He had short blue hair, wore green robes, and was wielding a staff that had a crystal orb that kept changing color.

"To continue, I'll activate the equip spell, Combo Platter*, and equip it to my monster." Alchimie began to glow with a red aura as the spell had activated.

"What does that do?" Casey asked.

"You see, my deck has some pretty powerful monsters, but some of them have certain summoning conditions. For example, the monster I'm about to summon needs me to remove Alchimie and another specific monster from my field, but if Alchimie is equipped with this card, I only have to remove him from play."

Alchimie glowed with a bright, blinding light, preventing most of the audience from seeing what was happening. Once their sight returned, they saw Alchimie standing next to Kaiser, though he looked much different than before. He had a pair of large bird wings and two arms with sharp talons instead of normal human hands. Not just that, but he was covered in white armor, which seemed to be made out of the metal from Cyber Falcon. (2400/1600)

"Meet, Alchimie - Sonic Flight*! You see, Alchimie has the ability to take on the powers of other monsters to make himself stronger. There are many different ways in which he uses his abilities, and in this form, he gets an extra 400 attack points for each Earth attribute monster that you control!" Alchimie glowed with a light green aura, his attack points going up to 2800.

"Sadly, I cannot attack, so its your turn."

(500-500) [5-7]

'Damn... This guy has a pretty strong deck. From the looks of it, I need to work on beating him quickly, before its too late.' she thought. She looked at the next card she drew. It was Negate Attack.

"I'll set a card, and activate my Educated Student's effect! By removing him from play during my turn, I can special summon Educated Student Lv. 7*." The teenage spellcaster disappeared, replaced by an older version of himself, who also held a larger spellbook than his previous self. (2800/2000)

He looked at Educated Student Lv. 7*. 'What is it? Why do you seem so familiar? What is it about that monster that is troubling me?' he wondered. His head had begun to ache. Something about that monster was bothering him, but he just couldn't figure out what.

"Sadly, I can't attack with him on the turn that he's summoned, but that's alright. Next up, I'll activate the card that Blake had set for me before he lost. I activate the continuous spell, Dangerous Machine Type-6! Of course, we'll get to that later. For now, I'll end my turn."

(500-500) [6-8]

"Alright, alright. I can see that you are duelist your hardest. Right now, we are pretty much even. Let's see if I can change that."

"I summon Otohime (0/100) in attack mode!" Another spellcaster appeared, though this one was a woman who seemed to use the natural forces of energy around her to fight, since she didn't have a staff, or even a spellbook.

"Thanks to her effect, when she's summoned, I can change the battle position of one of your monsters." Educated Student knelt down, holding his spellbook before him as if it were a shield.

"Alchimie, attack her monster!" A small cannon appeared on Alchimie's arm, and it shot off a powerful blast of wind that flew towards Casey's monster, only to be blocked by her trap card.

"Sorry, but my Negate Attack will stop that attack cold."

"Fine. I'll end my turn, then." Kaiser said, Otohime disappearing from his field. "Since she's a spirit, Otohime returns to my hand at the end of my turn."

(500-500) [7-9]

Casey looked at the speed counters go up as she drew her next card. 'I have to do something quick... If he uses Speed World 2's effect to destroy my knight, he'll be able to destroy my other monster too, and that means I'd only be one attack away from losing this duel...'

All she had in her hand right now, was Gaia the Fierce Knight. "I'll activate the effect of Dangerous Machine Type-6! During my standby phase, I can roll a dice, and what happens depends on the result." A holographic dice appeared between them and began to spin rapidly. They watched as it slowed down, landing on a 3.

"Since it landed on a 3, I get to draw another card." As she drew it, she put all of her hopes on it, wanting it to be the one she needed to win this. A smile appeared on her face as she looked at the card.

"I'll activate the quickplay spell, Shrink! Now, I get to halve your monster's original attack points!"

Alchimie glowed as his attack points decreased to 1600.

"Sorry, but I have to stop you right here!" he said, revealing one of his set cards as Solemn Judgement. "By paying half my Life Points, I can stop that card's activation and destroy it!"

Casey sighed as her card was destroyed. "Then you leave me no choice. I switch my monsters to attack mode!" Her monsters stood up, each one making a fighting pose.

'If I have my Educated Student sacrifice himself, then he'll be left with no monsters on the field, and my Educated Knight* can deliver the finishing blow!'

"Educated Student Lv. 7*, attack his Alchimie!" As her monster got ready to attack, another one of Kaiser's traps revealed itself.

"I activate the trap card, Negate Attack, ending the battle phase right here and now!"

Casey took a quick look at her hand, and then looked back at her field. "I have no other choice but to end my turn now."

(500-250) [8-10]

Kaiser drew another card, the headache starting to bother him even more. "You know, this was fun and all, but I'm afraid this all ends here. I activate the speed spell, The End of Storm! This destroys every monster on the field, and we get hit with 300 points of damage for each of our monsters that was destroyed!"

A large bolt of lightning descended from the skies, striking down all the monsters and the duelists as well. Their Duel Runners stopped suddenly as their Life Points decreased to zero.

"What a duel! Team Enigmatic and Team Inferno finish their first match in the WRGP with a draw! It is rare to see two teams so evenly matched that they tie on every turn! Truly, this was a fantastic duel to witness!" said the announcer as the crowd cheered in the background.

Casey and Kaiser went back to the pit, each one quickly being surrounded by teammates.

"You did well, Casey. I can't believe I wasn't much help." said Blake.

"Thanks, but were great. That card of yours really came through for me." she replied.

"Yeah, well, I tried." Blake said, laughing.

Outside the stadium, reporters were eagerly waiting for the duelists to exit. Every time a duelist exited the stadium, he or she was immedeately swarmed by them. This happened with Team Inferno, who tried their best to get away from them as fast as possible.

Team 5D's and Team Enigmatic were the only ones who had avoided the press entirely, though this was mostly because Yusei and Jack wanted to talk to them privately.

"Tueur, I was curious. Where did you get your cards?" Yusei asked as he approached them.

Having heard this, Tueur quickly told his friends to go ahead without him. "Sure, Tueur. I have something else to do. I'll see you, Crusher, and Greuto at the apartment later." replied Kaiser, driving off on his Duel Runner, like Crusher and Greuto also did.

As soon as they were far enough, he turned towards Yusei. "Why do you want to know?"

"Just curious. I mean, those cards aren't exactly easy to get."

"True. I guess that just means that I know where to go."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I'm out of here. See you guys later."

As he was about to get on his Duel Runner, someone had grabbed his arm and held him back. When he turned and looked, he saw that it was Jack. "Listen, you little runt. Take that tone with us again and you'll have a lot of trouble on your hands. Just answer the damn question!"

Tueur stood silent for a moment. Then, out of nowhere, he got out of Jack's grip and grabbed his arm instead, slowly crushing it. "Tch. You Signers just seem to look for trouble. Stay out of my way, or you'll be the ones in trouble." He let go of Jack's arm and got on his Duel Runner, leaving them behind as they gathered around Jack to make sure he was alright.

"I'm fine." he said, rubbing his arm a bit as he got up. "More importantly, how did he know we were Signers?"

"I don't know... You think this could have something to do with the Dark Signers?" Yusei wondered.

"Didn't we take out Dark Signers already? You think there might be more?"

"Who knows. Either way, we'll need to investigate this further..."

A few hours later, at Yeager's office, Yeager stood face-to-face with Kaiser.

"What do you want?" he asked him.

"You made me and my crew join this competition. Despite our disagreement, I still went along with it. Then, on the day before the competition, you told me and Tueur not to win. You told us to duel them as best we could, and then make sure they were able to beat us. You even told us that if we didn't want to lose, then we should at least make sure that it resulted in a tie. Again, despite our disagreements, we agreed. So, now I want to know one thing... Why the hell did you put us in this competition if you didn't want us to win it?"

Yeager stared at him for a moment before answering. "To test them. To test you."

"Test me? Why?"

"You got a headache, didn't you? While dueling the girl, right?"

Kaiser's eyes narrowed. "I don't know what you are talking about."

"Of course you do. Why don't you take a look at the locket that you keep carrying around?"

Though cautious, Kaiser took the locket that was hidden under his shirt and opened it. A surprised look appeared on his face as he saw the picture of Casey. "What did you do to my locket? That's not the picture that was in there!"

Yeager laughed. "Oh? I haven't done anything to your locket. That picture has always been in there."

"That's a lie! The girl in the picture that I had here looked a lot different than Casey. She... She... She had..." Kaiser paused, unable to remember anything about her.

"Can't even remember how she looked, huh? Seems my powers are no match for you..."

Kaiser looked at him, his head starting to ache again. "Powers? What are you talking about?"

"Don't you remember, Kaiser? It was part of our deal. You were feeling so alone, so lifeless in that cell. You felt you were betrayed, and you just wanted to die. That's when I came in. I knew you were worth a lot more than that, and that you still had reason to keep living."

"What are you talking about? That never happened."

"Of course it did, but how would you know? After a long talk with me, you revealed that you could not keep living with the painful memories that had surfaced after the betrayal. So, I told you that I could make those memories go away, as long as you did as I said."

Kaiser looked at him curiously, his headache getting stronger, and the words were starting to become more painful than before. "I... You... Erased my memories?"

"Yes. Or at least I thought. During your time in the Aguerris Center, you seemed to be coping well, up until that one day, about a little more than a week back. You should remember that day. You looked at the locket and then threw it against the wall in anger. Erasing a person's memories is easy, but with you... With you, I had too many to remove, which meant that some of them had to be altered, and some had to be added. That's the reason why you always saw someone other than Casey when you looked at the locket."

Kaiser began to clutch his head, the headache was getting even stronger, and he felt light-headed.

"Due to you having such feelings towards her, I decided to see if it was having any effect upon my spell, and guess what? It is. Once you saw Casey summon one of her strongest monsters, you recognized it, and it began to weaken my spell. You started getting that feeling. The feeling that you knew her before."

"Why are you telling me this?" Kaiser asked, clutching his head even more.

"Because you are ruining everything! Despite the deal that we made, your feelings are too strong for my spell to have an effect on you without making you useless! If I take your memories, then those feelings of yours won't have any reason to be there, and you'll just end up too focused on finding out why, thus ruining a vital part of my plan.

"So, I thought about taking away the feelings that reside in your heart, but that would leave you with no motivation, no reason to fight. If I take away both, I'll just end up with a lifeless puppet that I will have to use to duel myself, and that defeats the whole purpose of this. This is why, I shall return your memories. You shall remember everything that I have just told you, and everything that I told you the first time we met... And you shall finally do things as we stated in our last deal!"

A loud scream was heard coming from Yeager's office. It was ear-shattering, and it was heard throughout the building. Worried about Yeager's safety, Security quickly went to his office, knocking the door down in their hurry. To their surprise, they did not find anyone in there. In fact, all they found was that the office was completely destroyed and deserted.

"What happened here?" demanded Trudge as he caught up to the rest of Security.

"We don't know. Something must have happened to Vice-Director Yeager!" explained one the officers.

"Well, hurry up and find out! When the press finds out about this, we'd better have some answers for them!" he threatened, taking his leave to contact Mina and talk to her about this.

Sadly, their answers just didn't come fast enough...

By morning, every channel on tv was talking about the events of last night. Not only that, but Security now had two events to explain.

"Security is currently looking into the two seemingly unrelated events that occurred in Neo Domino City last night. First, there's the matter of the possible murder of Vice-Director Yeager. After hearing a scream last night, Security rushed to his office, only to find that it was mostly destroyed, though no body was found." said the anchorman.

"About an hour after this, police get an anonymous call from an unknown source who mentioned that something strange was going on in a penthouse in the Tops district of Neo Domino. When Security arrived, they found that this place was also torn and in shambles. Upon investigating, they found out that the members of Team Enigmatic lived here.

"After having searched throughout the whole building, they found two members of the team, Kaiser and Tueur, unconscious on the roof. Paramedics were called in to treat their multiple injuries, and Tueur was sent to the hospital for emergency treatment. Kaiser, however, manged to end up in a better condition. Both duelists are being kept in the hospital for treatment, and are excused from participating in the WRGP. Security is currently investigating this matter, and no more information has been released."

In their living room, Casey, Blake, Zeke, and Akira watched dumbfounded.

"Seriously? What the hell happened last night?" wondered Akira, being the first one to break the silence.

"I don't know. Looks like attempted murder of some sort. Wonder what sort of thing they must have been hiding to cause someone to go to such lengths..." replied Zeke.

"Want to visit them?" asked Blake.

"Are you kidding? In their condition, I doubt the hospital will allow visitors. Besides, I'm sure that Security will be all over the place to make sure nothing more happens to them." Akira replied.

"I wonder if we should investigate this..." Zeke added, though he was mostly talking to himself at the moment.

"Maybe, but I wonder what Yusei and his friends have to say about this." Casey mentioned. After having thought about it, they believed this to be a good idea, since they might now if anything strange had happened. Even if they didn't know how or why, they knew Yusei enough to know that he always got a feeling when something strange was going on, and he had yet to be wrong. Not only that, but they were also friends with Trudge, so they might be able to get extra information.

It didn't take them long to find Yusei and his friends, who were in the garage of the small place that they called home. They had come in to find Yusei, Jack and Crow having an argument about Crow joining in on the next duel. Fortunately, they had arrived the end of it, with Crow stating that he would be dueling against Team Catastrophe and that no one would stop him.

"Hey, guys. I was wondering if you had heard about Team Enigmatic being hospitalized." said Zeke.

"Heh. Them? Seems like you've missed the recent updates on the news. Not only are they there, but so is Team Unicorn and Akiza too." Crow replied.

"Really?" asked Casey. "Wow. All these events cannot be unrelated."

"They aren't. At least not what happened to Team Unicorn and Akiza. We aren't exactly sure how, or why, but we know that Team Catastrophe is behind all of this somehow. Not to worry, though. When we duel them today, I'll make sure to teach them a lesson!" Crow stated, motivated to gain vengeance for his friend.

"We'll while you guys do that, we'll be trying to check this out." Akira said.

During this time, however, Blake was fighting with himself. On one side, he was extremely excited, yet extremely nervous, now that he was so close to his heroes. On the other side, however, he wanted to be calm so that he wouldn't say something that the current mood wouldn't approve.

After a few moments of going through this inner battle, he realized that Zeke, Casey, and Akira had already said their goodbyes and were leaving, causing him to quickly chase after them so he wouldn't be left behind.

As they drove towards the hospital to try and talk to Tueur and Kaiser, they noticed that it was getting darker. Things were about to get worse before they'd ever get better...

End of Chapter 7.


An army of Ghosts has invaded the city, and as Yusei and friends try to fight them off, Casey and her friends get caught in the very middle. Though things may look bleak, they aren't in this alone. Don't miss: The Ghost vs. the Phantom!


-CARD ALBUM-

Alchimie - Sonic Flight - Monster Card

Type: Winged Beast

Attribute: Wind

Level: 6

ATK: 2400

DEF: 1600

Effect: This card can only be special summoned by removing from play "Master of Alchemy-Alchimie the Third", "Sonic Bird" and "Cyber Falcon". This card gets 400 attack points for every Earth attribute monster on the field.