Chapter 3

In the Mutos' Game shop, Yugi and his grandfather were showing Joey the new cards that had been released when Emma and Bakura came stumbling in, both looked as though they had been in a fight.

"What the hell happened!" exclaimed Joey as he helped them both to the shop counter.

"I'll call the cops." said Yugi's grandfather as he got out of his seat so that Bakura could sit down.

"No don't." pleaded Bakura taking the handkerchief away from his nose so that he was heard. "Just fix me up here and I'll be alright."

"If that's what you really want." replied Yugi's grandfather before he disappeared in to the back to get his first aid kit.

"Who did this to you?" Yugi asked them both as Yami appeared by his side wanting to know the same thing himself.

"Kaiba." replied Emma quietly.

"Wait till I get my hands on that jerk!" shouted Joey raising his fists and headed for the door. "I'll break every bone in his body for doing this to my pals."

"Don't make things worse and more complicated." said Bakura just as Joey was about to leave the shop but stopped at his friends request "He was only protecting me."

"There seems to be more to this than meets the eye." Yami suggested to Yugi.

"You got that right, Yami." said Bakura before he raised the handkerchief to his nose once more.

Yugi stared between his two beaten friends in surprise. "You've swapped bodies."

"Say what!" Joey said even more surprised and confused than usual.

"We don't know how it happened, but we can explain most of the story." Emma's voice said, but who was in fact Bakura inside her body.

Joey turned the shop sign to 'closed' so that nobody entered while everything was being explained.

After everything was explained it was decided that Bakura and Emma would live out each other's lives until they could figure out how to get everything back to normal.

Emma went to Bakura's home and had gone straight to bed as she aced from the beating from Kaiba. At first it seemed strange lying in someone else's room but after a little while she fell asleep and dreamed peacefully until she awoke with a start a few hours later.

She felt a cold sweat on her forehead so went to the bathroom to wash her face. She splashed the water on to her face and stared at herself in the mirror, only to find Bakura's reflection staring back at her. His nose was swollen and his right eye was still slightly puffy but nowhere near as bad as before she had put on the ice pack back at the Game shop.

Another image began to form in the mirror next to Bakura. "How are you feeling?" sneered the reflection of the spirit of the millennium ring.

Emma turned sharply to find that nobody was there. "Where are you?" she shouted.

"Over here." replied the voice of the spirit, and Emma turned to see him standing in the doorway. She swung her fist at him but hit nothing as he disappeared.

"And over here." she heard him again back near the sink, and once more tried to hit him and failed.

"But I think you'll find," Emma spun round quickly to see the spirit walking straight towards her. "I'm mainly in here." he carried on walking and entered her mind causing Emma to stumble backwards and fall, hitting her head on the sink basin.

"You're going to be fun to break." the spirit stated as he stood before Emma. "Bakura was weak, so I hope you will last longer for my enjoyment."

As she got up on to her feet, Emma saw that her arms and legs were her own and not Bakura's, so she figured that they where both inside her mind. Or was it Bakura's? Either way she wasn't about to give in to some silly mind tricks.

Walking through the darkness Emma began to feel slightly scared. Not knowing what lurked there in the darkness was having a greater affect on her then what she thought, and being alone wasn't making it any easier for her. She heard what sounded like groaning coming from behind her and turned to see the zombie-like forms of many different creatures fill her view. She attempted to run from them but surrounded in the black emptiness she didn't seem to be getting anywhere, and to make matters worse she had now become totally surrounded by zombies.

As they groaned and staggered closer to her she began to feel her heart race in her chest. She couldn't see anyway to escape the circle that had formed and dropped down in to a ball and began to rock back and forth with her eyes closed. She knew that they were only images in her mind and thought that if she could keep herself cheerful that they would disappear. She knew that singing to herself would help.

"I tore my letter up
I couldn't even start
To tell you what's really here in my heart.
There's only so much that words can say
So I sent you a piece of this beautiful day.
Oh…………." She opened her eyes, but they were still there, and now they were almost on top of her. Her heart raced faster and she continued to sing even though she was aware that she was now crying.

"I want you to know that I took a rainbow
And sent it off in a letter to you.
Took some flowers in the spring
Made a sweet clover ring
And sent it off in a letter to you.
Took a song from the lark

The moon from the dark
A spark with the sparkling dew.
With a kiss and a hug and a whole lot of love
I sent 'em off in a letter to you." She peeked once more to find that all of the zombies had disappeared and that the spirit of the ring stood before her once more. She wiped the tears from her eyes and felt disappointed that she had been scared so easily.

"You seemed stronger than this, but you haven't even put up a fight." The spirit sneered down at her. "You're pathetic, but at last this boy's body is now mine."

Emma felt a sudden rage fill her, not from being called pathetic, but from the thought that she had let the spirit take full control over Bakura's body. She got up and attacked the spirit once more only to pass straight through him.

"I knew you were stronger than that." The spirit laughed. "But you're a fool to think that you could possibly hurt me with physical violence, in side this boy's mind." He turned and started pacing towards Emma with each word that he now said. "You are helpless to even try and free yourself from this place."

Emma stood her ground now knowing that if she couldn't hurt him, them he couldn't hurt her either. She watched as he stopped so close in front of her that their noses almost touched. "And without the powers of the millennium ring to send us in to a shadow game you don't stand a chance of defeating me either."

"You want a shadow game then you shall have a shadow game." Smirked the spirit and they were suddenly surrounded by mist. "But you haven't got the use of your millennium key or your cards here, so you're finished."

"How did you do that?" Asked Emma almost horrified. "Bakura doesn't have the millennium ring anymore so how are you still able to use its powers?"

"The ring is a lot closer than any of you think." The spirit walked away before turning to face Emma ready for their game. "And unlike you I know how to use its powers. Your force-fields and body switching abilities are insignificant to the power that I possess."

Emma was surprised that she didn't realise that it was the power of her millennium key that had made them switch bodies. But at least now that she knew how it happened she had a better chance of returning things back to normal. All she had to do was win this game. "How about we state what each of us is and we must out-do each other. Anything is allowed as long as it exists." She was good at this so felt confident that she would win.

"Fine." Agreed the spirit. "Since you decided on the game, I'll be the one to go first." His eyes gleamed as he made his first choice. "I am an Anthrax virus, destroying all life that I come in to contact with." Around him appeared many different forms of life which began to die and decay before their very eyes.

Damn, Emma thought to herself, as she knew that his go was going to be hard to beat. She decided to play safe and go on the defensive. "I am a world, providing life to all who inhabit me." A planet appeared before them causing more of the same decayed life forms to re-appear and beat the virus with their greater numbers.

The spirit looked disappointed that his virus had been overcome so easily. "I am a super nova, destroying planets with my intense heat and explosion." A star appeared next to the planet and was still for a moment before it imploded in on its shelf and then exploded, destroying the planet in a blast of light.

Emma shielded her eyes from the light, using that time to think of what her next move would be. "I am the universe. I embrace all life and am never ending." Tiny solar systems and galaxies appeared and formed all around, shining light through the darkness that was waiting to engulf one of them.

Again the spirit had been overcome, but was sure that his next go would end it all. "I am anti-life." He said with laughter in his voice, which then changed to a more threatening tone. "I am the darkness that symbolises the end of worlds, universes, gods, everything!" Darkness fell upon them once more, blocking their view of each other.

For once Emma was glad of the darkness, for in meant that the spirit wouldn't be able to see the look of terror on her face as she panicked. What could possibly beat the end of everything? She had to stay hopeful otherwise all was lost. And that was when she realised that she had the advantage all along as she had never given up hope, even though she had been close to it. A light began to glow around her. "I am hope."

The spirit watched as the light became brighter. He had to shield his vision as the light grew brighten than anything that he had ever seen.

"As long as hope exists anything and everything can, and will, be overcome." She told the spirit who looked shocked at what he was seeing. "And as you can see my hope is burning brightly, as you've failed in your attempt to break me."

The darkness began to return but only around the spirit as it slowly engulfed him to send him to the shadows. "You haven't seen the last of me." He sneered as he faded in to almost nothing. "This boy and I are like two sides of the same coin, each of us needs the other to survive. I will return and not you, him or anybody else will be able to stop me."

Emma watched as the spirit finally disappeared, but she could still hear his laughter all around her. "You can't destroy the shadows where I lurk. I shall have my revenge."