Author's note: I have to admit, I can't take complete credit for writing this chapter. I have to give a LOT of credit for 7th Librarian for his help on it. Read on, and you'll understand why.

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While we're on the subject of celestial bodies, one very common conspiracy theory involves the one closest to your world, the moon.

Now, some theories border on ridiculous, fueled by nothing but ignorance and refusal to accept reality. The well-known one about the Apollo moon landings being hoaxes are an example.

Many people believe that the United States was incapable of such technology, and that the moon landing was faked, filmed on a Hollywood soundstage to fool the Soviets into thinking the Americans had "won" the Space Race. (Some even go so far as to say that Stanley Kubrick was the one who directed it.

Probably the biggest evidence against this silly theory was the fact that the Russians never called them out on it. They were as capable of watching the landing as anyone else was (there were televisions in Russian at the time, contrary to what some people thought) and if there had been even a shadow of a doubt as to whether the Americans had landed on the moon, they would have thrown accusations in the U.S. government's faces and won an enormous propaganda victory. Why did they do nothing? Because they were smarter than the disbelievers.

In any event, there are photographs of the moon landing site that were taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the Apollo crews left three retroreflector arrays on the Moon that can be observed with laser to this day. (What was that? "Unmanned probe"? Actually, those would have cost even more to send to the moon than a manned spacecraft in the 1960's.)

Not to mention the fact that pulling off such a hoax would have been much, much, MUCH harder than actually going to the moon. You see, over 400,000 government employees worked for NASA at the time, including astronauts, scientists, engineers, technicians, and skilled laborers. Not a single one ever came forward to confirm the accusations. Was it possible for an administration that was unable to cover up a simple burglary that caused the President to resign in disgrace to somehow keep 400,000 people quiet through bribery, blackmail, or some other methods?

Ironically, while conspiracy theorists claim that going to the moon was impossible, the truth of the matter is, maintaining such a lie would have taken a miracle.

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CHAPTER TEN

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Bring on the Night

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Philadelphia was called the Birthplace of the Constitution by most.

These days, however, smog covered the air, and while the sanitation department worked hard to scrub the grime off of the Liberty Bell and the Old City neighborhood's statue of Benjamin Franklin, the city had lost a lot of its lackluster in recent years. The citizens of the city – and Pennsylvania in general – were always wary, knowing of the grim situation Pittsburg had been in for many years.

For a long time, organized crime in the once-modernized city of Pittsburg had been controlled by three syndicates, Neo-Doma, Dark Obsidian, and the X-Twilight. Eventually, these groups became more powerful, controlling most major businesses and law enforcement. After a while, Pittsburg was turned into a lawless city ruled by crime.

But it got worse. Eventually, evil Shadowkind seized control of all three syndicates. Pittsburg became one of the few cities in the world where the Shadowchasers simply couldn't go; heavy bounties were put on the heads of all well-known members of Jalal's organization, and they faced death if they entered. Infiltration was all-but impossible most of the time; the crime bosses employed powerful diabolist wizards to make sure they knew the do-gooders where there almost before they did.

The only beacon of hope in Pittsburg was a group of freedom fighters who followed the tenants and ideals of the Great Treaty with no official membership in the Shadowchasers. The De-Factos, as they were called, were a poor substitute, lacking most of the magic and resources that the true Shadowchasers had, but while Jalal and other important legit members couldn't publicly condone their often violent actions, he did give them some limited… compensation from time to time.

They had done a remarkable job keeping the blight from spreading beyond Pittsburg. Whether they would ever cure it completely was impossible to say, and even in Pennsylvania's biggest city, despite the distance, the chill in the air gave a constant reminder.

It seemed especially chilly tonight. But not to an attractive young lady with long, platinum-blonde hair tied in a ponytail, wearing leather clothing with a bandoleer and munitions belt, along with a tattered black cloak.

Normally, Fayte Nyte was fond of the evening air, and for good reason, being a vampire. Still, there was something unusual in the air tonight in this city that was different than it was in Backwater… It wasn't the simply the fact that it was Philadelphia either, she had been here before. Something was unusually unusual now.

Then the Duel Disk she was wearing started to hum and vibrate.

All right, all right… she thought, looking over it. How the hell does this work again…

She tapped part of it, and a stern woman's voice came from it.

"Fayte, are you there?" she asked.

"Yeah, Rayearth, I'm here, like you told me to come here," replied Fayte, her accent clearly French. "It would have helped if I knew why I'm here, by myself for some reason. This is a big city, you know. I think I'm a few blocks from Fairmount Park if that helps."

"I'm as clueless as you are," replied the Incantifer, "but Jalal said he's sending someone else from out of state who'll help and that he knows more about this. I think he's a specialist. I think it has something to do with necromancy.

"Be careful… You're one Time Zone to the east, you know. Ever hear the story about the vampire who forgot about that?"

"Yeah, about a hundred times," said Fayte with a sigh, "and it gets more elaborate and embellished with each retelling. Anyway… Tell Garrows that if she stays out of my DVDs this time, I might bring her back something… Maybe a cheesesteak. I think…"

She broke off, looking around. The chilly air felt no different than before... at least, to a human. To a Shadowkind, a dark 'taste' had been carried by that last breeze. Something wicked walked this way...

"I'll have to get back to you," Fayte said, as she cut the call and reached reassuringly for her weapon under her cloak as the wind whipped another dark feeling around.

A heady, hollow moan echoed up the street with the next gust of wind. A few seconds later, it was chorused by more than a dozen more.

Fayte flicked her eyes back and forth, uncertain of the moaning's exact source. The wind and the buildings warped the sounds and years of experience had taught her that simply relying on your ears was asking for someone to ambush you.

Fortunately, zombies really don't do ambushes.

Lurching around the street corner in front of her was a zombie. Albeit, it was a loose use of the word. It wasn't a decaying, rotting, shambling corpse. It was a corpse that was to zombies as lions were to housecats. Its body bulged with oversized muscles fueled by oversized veins and oversized limbs to go with them. Each heavy step surged it forwards, like it was straining against chains holding it back and leaving it a hair's breadth from just snapping free.

Fayte scowled at the undead being, even as it was joined by a few more stragglers. It wasn't a standard zombie and had to have been built. Meaning someone was foul enough to desecrate the living and the dead like they were kits for parts to a construction set.

Promising herself that she'd track down the perpetrator at a later date and show them what playing with the undead really mean, she unsheathed Tempest and took careful aim at the shambling monster's head.

The gun barked once, a ruby-tipped round slamming into the forehead and exploding with the force of a grenade while wreathing the zombie in flames. Now missing the upper third of its body, the corpse stumbled a few more half-steps and then toppled over as it oozed a dark blood and gore.

A second later, Fayte realized she had just snapped the metaphorical chains holding the zombies back.

The moans erupted into frenzied howls and the zombies fell upon their dead comrade like wild animals. There sounds of rending flesh and it being devoured…. Then the flames jumped from the dead zombie to all of the rest.

As one, still baying for blood, they rose and charged for her.

Fayte stared for a briefest moment, recognizing that despite Hollywood's theatrics, lighting zombies on fire was a very stupid idea. Especially when you were extremely vulnerable to fire yourself.

"MERDE!"

Spinning on her heel, she bolted down the street at speeds that would make an Olympic runner jealous. As fast as she was able, she popped the cartridge on Tempest free and slid it back into the case on her belt. She fished another free and glanced at it to ensure that it was the sapphire-tipped rounds she wanted before slamming it home.

Whirling, she squeezed the trigger once, twice, three times so fast the crack of the shots was a single sound. The rounds smashed into the lead zombies and ice erupted from the impact points, coating them and causing them stumble and crash to the ground as their limbs lost movement. As before, several of the others paused to tear into the defeated ones and the rest crashed into them, a pile of flaming dead flesh that was hopelessly tangled.

Again, Fayte swapped cartridges, this time for diamond rounds. She only had the one case, but one was enough. Taking a moment to steady her stance, she gripped the edge of her cloak with one hand and took aim with the other at the center of the mass.

Tempest roared and the round smashed through zombies before detonating while at the same time Fayte threw herself behind a parked car and wrapped her cloak around her body desperately.

Holy light erupted from the center of the zombie pile. Accompanied by the sheer concussive force, the zombies were reduced to hunks of flesh and bone as they were pounded apart. Bits of ash floated around as the holy magic destroyed whatever darkness was animating them.

Fayte carefully unwrapped herself from her cloak and stood, leaning on the car for support. She was no evil being, but that didn't mean she couldn't be hurt by light. As it was, she felt a very tired ache suffuse her body.

It didn't last as another chorus of blood-curdling howls erupted from the city around her. A second later, their owners poured out in groups of threes and fives from all over. Out of the alleys, through abandoned buildings and windows and even scrabbling down haphazardly from the roofs.

"...Mordioux…" Fayte holstered Tempest before producing her sword. It was a thin, light weapon mean to be used a fencing-style rapier. Against any opponent with actual mass, it would probably snap or break.

Except most weapons of this type weren't enchanted up to the hilt, literally and edged in a very fine line of diamond.

Light glimmered as she met the first group of zombies with a flurry of her blade. Hunks of flesh and gore rose into the air as she sliced them to ribbons. But they were still zombies and felt no pain as they lost chunks of their bodies, never stopped moving and clawing for her despite their limbs being unstrung.

Her blade sliced the claws off of one as it tried to smash her head with a dinner-plated sized hand. As the zombie swiped harmlessly through the air, she skewered its arm hard enough to pin it to its chest. Without skipping a beat, she smashed a palm into its face and spoke a word that hadn't been used by a human in over three hundred years. "Voyais."

The zombie's blood ignited, ripping through its veins like small explosions. As it exploded and its fellows forgot their bloodlust for her, Fayte twirled her blade in a short pattern and drove the tip into the ground. "Veint!"

Sparks surged from the impact point and swarmed over the zombies. They were dead and had no life in their bodies, no actual brain activity or thoughts. But they still had nerves and anything with nerves suffers when electricity is applied.

The zombies crowed in pain, their cries blunted and cracked as their bodies writhed outside of their control. Oversized muscles, stimulated beyond what they could even handle, snapped their limbs and bones as they trashed.

Fayte ignored them and was already moving to leap atop the car. They weren't defeated, but they were down for the count and it would take too long to kill them all.

It had also apparently taken too long to just eliminate them, as more zombies were already clawing their way up the car. Talons sliced through steel like it was paper, glass shattered and Fayte's sword was a blur of busy light as it sliced through everything she could reach.

A roar was her only warning as something heavy and hard smashed into her back, the vampire belatedly realizing that she had stupidly forgotten the back the zombies could climb the buildings. The impact hurled into the crowd of them below and she felt her sword lodge in one, ripping free of her grasp.

They descended on her, clawing and biting and shrugging off her blows that would have left living beings nursing broken limbs and damaged organs.

"Detecting activation of Duel Disk battle system."

Flesh flew as Fayte used the edge of her now-active duel disk to start ripping into things. When it lodged solidly into one zombie's head, she tore said head off. With a faint 'puff' the holo-projectors launched and while they would normally be rather harmless….at point blank range, they caved in the chest of two of her attackers.

Eventually, the Disk could take no more and it warped, the tray snapping off as a particularly heavy hit split a head like an overripe melon. But it had done its job- Fayte now had room to stand.

And worry. The zombies had backed off, encircling her and unlike before, they were not going out of their way to feast upon the fallen. They were wary now, like a pack of wolves circling a prey they had not expected to fight back.

"Who are you?" Fayte spat. "Are you going to hide behind your pets?"

She could see it now, a faint glimmer in the lifeless eyes of something inside their heads, controlling and guiding them. A puppeteer playing with marionettes.

In unison, they roared and lashed out at her in a random sequence. If she dodged one set of claws, she'd wind up in range of another and then the process would repeat until they got her, ripped her to shreds or she managed to escape...into the grasp of the other zombies waiting outside the circle.

Children tormenting an animal.

But they were not children and she was not an animal. She was a vampire. And Fayte Nyte was a predator.

As one of them took a lunging swipe at her, she seized its wrist and yanked it close. Ripping that arm back, she snapped its neck with the other and sank her fangs into its exposed neck.

It tasted dark and vile, so foul it nearly sickened her. But it was blood and that's what was important. Blood was the currency of life and Fayte still wanted hers.

She drained the zombie of everything it had and then some, dropping the husk as bits of red sparks began to arc of over her body. Black flooded her eyes and she roared, body creaking and groaning as her bones began to shift and change. Flesh bulged to the point it was going to tear and her hair erupted down her back, spiking and gaining an unnatural hardness.

The zombies milled and lashed out at the thing she was becoming, but their talons slid harmlessly over thick, armor-like fur and her growing bulk shoved them back.

A tire-sized paw with claws like short swords turned the upper body of a zombie into finely minced paste.

Fayte had become a bear. A bear that had had a tank for a parent. The size of a small car, with thick heavy fur that was armor and spiked protrusions all along her back. Fangs that could tear through metal with ease glistened with blood as she tore into the zombies in front of her.

They swarmed over her, on her, trying to tear her apart. But they may as well been trying to get blood from a stone for all the good it did them. She slaughtered her way through the ones in front of her, her weight and momentum crushing those she didn't destroy.

The horde thinned, then was gone as she tore free of their ranks and barreled down the street. Already, she could feel the transformation shedding and waning; blood from undead was barely worth the effort of draining but it had worked. For the moment.

She staggered stumbled and then lurched as her human form reasserted itself. Exhaustion coated her bones and she groaned.

And groaned again as she heard the moans and shuffling of more zombies.

And above that, the hum of a D-Wheel engine.

"Fayte!" a voice shouted. "Hang on!"

She turned to see the D-Wheel just come out of a sliding turn around the corner, its rider extending their hand as they roared up to her. With force that would have ripped a human's arm free, she snared their hand and swung herself onto the back of the bike.

And nearly fell off as the driver banked into a nearly 90-degree turn before speeding down a narrow alleyway. It was also a move that, at the speeds they were going, a human shouldn't have been able to do.

No human, which meant her rescuer was… "Luther!"

Indeed, the D-Wheeler was Frederick Luther, a well-known Shadowchaser of Cleveland and the only other vampire in the organization. He shifted gears, hit the gas and sped off, bowling aside more of the beasts as he did so.

"You say like Superman does when the first name is 'Lex'," he snarked back. "You're welcome, by the way."

"I'll thank you when we both leave here alive," she mused. She gripped his waist as he sped up, head near his shoulder so he could hear her better. "Did you bring anyone else?"

"No," told her, deftly zipping between parked cars. "We were supposed to, but then those zombies showed up. And they're not typical ones, either. Safer to just pull back until we knew more."

"That explains why I couldn't bring the Watchguard, then…" Fayte said with a sour tone in her voice. She had groused about not being able to bring her team along with her, but given how dangerous those zombies had become, it would have been a bloodbath on both sides. "So what exactly are they?"

"Bloodhulks," replied Luther. "Apparently, there's a way to 'improve' the standard spell used to animate corpses into zombies using powerful dark magic. All we know is, the corpse has to be freshly killed, and it requires blood from three other corpses that are the same size."

"Four bodies to make one zombie?" Fayte hissed softly at the thought of the dead and living who had been taken to create the nightmares. "And there were…"

"I know, dozens of them," replied Luther, "meaning likely hundreds of victims. But as I was saying, a bloodhulk is stronger than a standard zombie and harder to hurt, but if you can hurt it, you can destroy it faster."

"I noticed," she replied. "They can't take big hits well. Almost like whatever is animating them is explosive."

She grimaced as a thought occurred to her. "Or it was planned that way?"

"Powerful zombies that double as kamikaze fighters," he said with a nod. "Someone is either very desperate or stupid to work with those. And whoever made them is probably equally as smart. Or immoral."

Luther's curt tone easily conveyed his heavy dislike for the situation. A heavy silence hung over them for a long moment as they sped down the road.

"Mister Monster…" she hissed out the words. "It's him, isn't it?"

"It does fall into his style of creation," Luther said briskly, "but we have to worry about the source later. You and your wife's personal feelings on the matter aside, these creatures are far from the only dangerous and illegal technique whoever is behind this has been using, and since he's armed to the teeth with powerful necromantic spells, Jalal needed a couple of folks who are hard to hurt with that stuff."

"Yeah, well, you can have all the protection from necrotic magic in the world," said Fayte, "but that won't protect you from being pummeled by their fists."

"As you found out," he replied and Fayte could tell he was smirking slightly. "The hard way."

"If you like," she said, through grit teeth, "I can throw you into a pile of them and see how well you do. I'll even throw in a nick-of-time rescue."

"Okay, okay, calm down," he said in an urging tone. "I've managed to locate the man behind all of this. And with your little fight drawing most of the bloodhulks towards that location, whatever defenses he has should be hardly enough to stop us."

He swerved around a corner, and the obvious goal, the Philadelphia History Museum at the Atwater Kent, was ahead of them. Luther pulled up to the building and came to a stop, and the two dismounted. Luther yanked off his helmet, shaking his long, shaggy black hair out as the two looked where they came.

"They're trying to follow us," he said, softly, "but like I said…"

"Then we need to do this quickly," she interrupted. "If he's desperate or stupid enough to do all this for something in here, then we've backed him into a corner now. There's no telling what he'll do."

She started for the front doors. "Or has already done."

Luther sighed, and nodded. "All business, I see…."

Indeed, the front doors where open, and they didn't appear to have been forced at all. Someone had broken into the closed museum as if he had owned the place, by simply opening the door and walking in.

"He clearly used magic to open the door and disable the security system," said Luther, "which means the bloodhulks are supposed to keep people away."

"Mmm-hmm," replied Fayte, looking around. "The negative energy they're giving off would send anyone else fleeing for his life, and probably has the whole city too afraid to even look outside. Question is… What in the world would a necromancer want in this place?"

Luther drew his sword from his hip as they edged inside.

"You got me," he said. "None of the exhibits in this museum date back earlier than the 17th Century, and it's pretty much limited to American historical artifacts, with an emphasis on Philadelphia itself. I'd say the stuff a necromancer would want in such a place is kind of limited. Wizards tend to prefer museums that hold much older stuff."

Fayte un-holstered Tempest. "Let's make sure it stays that way. If he likes playing with the dead so much, he can join them."

As she walked in, Luther sighed.

Haven't changed at all, have you? he thought.

It was rather easy to find where the perpetrator was. Vampires took pride at being the ones among Shadowkind who ruled the night. And when it was this close to midnight, in a darkened museum, it was the place and time where they would be right at home. As such, the two Shadowchasers moved at a fast sprint through the place with no more noise than a breeze, honing in on their quarry.

Eventually, they came to a lighted room, where the target was sighted. He had actually turned the power on here, apparently to get a better look at what he was after… Whatever that was.

The man hardly suggested a burglar, or a necromancer. He was a strange looking middle-aged man, with grey hair worn in a flared style.

But what really set him apart was his outfit. It seemed centuries out of date, much like Jalal's, only gaudier, with bright colors that clashed, with a cravat in place of a tie. Luther wasn't familiar with the style, having emigrated from the Homeworld of Shadow about a century ago, but Fayte had been here longer, and had remembered those styles during the Colonial Period among noblemen.

The room displayed the type of furniture used by American officers on the frontlines during the Revolution, which was mostly makeshift ones, given the limited budget of the colonial army. A painting of a military officer they didn't recognize was on the wall by the corner, and a desk was at the same corner.

The desk was what he seemed to be interested in. He was studying it closely, looking hard at the drawer. Luther guessed what his intentions were; something valuable was inside, something that he didn't want to risk breaking, and he was trying to think of a way to open it as gently as possible.

Fayte raised Tempest. "Step away from the desk and raise your hands. Now."

The man let out a tired sigh, and turned to them.

"Figures…" he said. "You can consider every variable you can think of, go over the plan a hundred times, and still, you can't prepare for everything, it seems…"

He regarded Fayte and her weapon with almost detached expression, like he wasn't really seeing them in rea life. "That weapon shoots gemstone-tipped ammunition, doesn't? I have covered that variable, however. It cannot hurt me."

"Maybe not... and maybe so," was her reply. In the next two seconds, Fayte popped Tempest's cartridge free, pulled out with quartz-tipped rounds and pulled the trigger twice.

The two rounds smashed into a glimmering shield of light that appeared a moment before impact and staggered him. But that was all they did, their electrical magic sparking uselessly on the shield. Fayte narrowed her eyes as she saw the actual bullets had simple bounced off his skin.

"Stoneskin…" she growled.

"And Advanced Elemental Protection," the man informed her. "I told you, you can't…"

He got no more out as Luther's fist landed full in his face.

The vampire back-handed the human before he could recover and then seized his throat in hand, slamming him against the desk he had been trying to get into. "You are under arrest."

"No, I think not," the man replied as his hand rose and he said something neither vampire could understand.

But they could feel it, a concussive force hurling them both off their feet and crashing against a pair of displays in heaps. Both scrambled back to their feet, glaring daggers at the would-be thief.

"That's something the man who sold me my army passed along my way, just in case they got out of hand," the human remarked with a smile. "Not sure what the spell is called, but I think 'Repulse Undead' works out well."

The two Shadowchasers glanced at each other and then at him.

"Well, now what? I seem to have the advantage now. You two are…"

Tempest barked and it was the man's turn to be thrown off his feet. The force threw him over the desk and he yelped in pain.

He hauled himself up back with a speed that his size would have suggested he was incapable of. "What was that!?"

"Emerald round," replied Fayte. "It doesn't do any elemental damage because it concentrates the kinetic force of a mid-level wind spell into itself."

She aimed the weapon between his eyes.

"Would you like to see what it does to your head?"

His pallor dropped a few shades into white. "You... wouldn't... you're Shadowchasers…"

"And you're a mass murderer," she said, her crimson eyes narrowing. "You bought those bloodhulks and that means you are responsible for the innocent people who died to create them. I'm sure that number is well into the triple digits. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't."

"She has a point," Luther said as he folded his arms, obviously an indication that he wouldn't stop Fayte if she decided to pull the trigger. "Pretty sure that she's not going to get in trouble for killing you. Might even get an award, actually."

The man glanced between the two and then tensed, as if he was gathering his courage. "I'll give you an excellent reason," he spat out. "If I die, there will be nothing controlling those bloodhulks but mindless rage. They'll kill thousands, turning Philadelphia into a charnel house. Would you get an award for that?"

Silence reigned for a moment, then Luther stepped forwards while Fayte didn't lower her weapon. "Who are you?

"You may address me as the Earl Roland Drumer," the man said, putting obvious emphasis on the title.

"'Earl'?" asked Fayte and shook her head. "Americans... Couldn't think of your own titles, so you just borrowed them."

"I've heard of him," replied Luther, rolling his eyes. "He's a member of one of those fraternal organizations, you know, Freemason wannabes."

"You mean Funny Hat Clubs?" asked Fayte.

"Watch your tongue!" shouted Drumer. "We are a respected organization and I…"

"Yes, pretty much," Luther said, overriding Drumer's protests. "They claim to be secret clubs who do secret, mysterious things, but all they ever really do is drink beer and play cards, using it as an excuse to get away from their wives. And yes, more often than not, they wear pretty stupid hats and give themselves titles that mean nothing. Am I leaving anything out, Fayte?"

"I think most of them are 'no girls allowed'," she replied, "like a child's treehouse, really."

"Fine, fine, I won't deny it," replied Drumer. "Still, you may doubt my true intentions, but I'm only here to exonerate a man who has been wrongly accused of a terrible crime."

"More terrible than creating a zombie horde?" asked Luther.

"If you must know, I'm here seeking what everyone seeks, dear sir," he replied, "the truth. Specifically on General Benedict Arnold."

"Benedict Arnold?" shouted Luther.

"That's the first time in nearly two and a half centuries I've ever heard anyone refer to him by his military rank," said Fayte, her smirk turning back into a frown.

"Some still considered him one," replied Drumer.

"True, he was admired by King George and the Tories for his loyalty to the Crown, but not by the Whigs," added Fayte. "And do you know why? Because very few people trust a traitor, no matter where his loyalties lie."

"And that's the truth I seek, deal lady," he replied. "This country has believed a lie since the days of the Revolution. They believe that he was a traitor, so much that his very name has become synonymous with the word."

"What are you implying?" asked Luther. "That he was framed? That the plot to surrender West Point was a farce and he was a victim?"

"Oh, the plot was very real," replied Drumer, "but he was under direct orders from a superior to do so. I'm not sure exactly who… All I know is, it was some other officer in the Continental Army he was associated with. Possibly John Cadwalader, possibly Nathanael Greene… Maybe even Washington himself."

"You're mad…" replied Fayte. "You've killed God knows how many people to prove this?"

"Say what you will, milady," replied Drumer, "I've devoted my entire life to this, and I have it on good authority that there's a secret compartment in this desk with a document containing the order itself. Once I have them, General Arnold's name will be vindicated. The true culprit's name will be known and Arnold will finally get the recognition he deserves, as a hero of the Revolution!"

"Right…" replied Fayte, in a snarky tone. "And will you be remembered as a hero by the relatives of everyone who had to die for this posthumous exoneration?

"Look, Mr. Drumer, listen to me," replied Luther. "Maybe it is true to a point that Benedict Arnold was unfairly demonized and a victim of propaganda. He was a competent officer who was passed up for recognition and promotions that he rightful deserved, and it made him bitter. Maybe, just maybe, if more fairness had been shown, he would indeed have been recognized as a hero.

"But even so, you can't change the facts of what happened. If he truly had been framed, you'd think evidence would have turned up sooner. This foolish belief that he was railroaded won't erase his crime from American history."

Drumer looked at him for a minute or two…

"So that's it?" he shouted. "You make one valid point, and you expect me to throw away my life's work when I've already sacrificed everything to come this far? To hell, with you, vampire, I will not falter when I'm this close to succeeding!"

He stopped. The look that Luther was giving him now was making his blood chill.

"You know nothing of hell."

Drumer shivered a little after hearing that. Luther went on, his tone turning far sterner and angrier.

"You are mad and raving. Starkly so," he scowled, baring a dangerous-looking fang in the process. "Your rationale, your reasons, the why and how of you brought this about, I no longer care. You have slaughtered innocents for your petty, selfish desires, little man. You are going to pay for your crimes, Drumer. One way or another."

"You said you wanted us to go to hell…" Fayte's eyes seemed to burn red. "You're already on your way there, Drumer. And we're the doormen"

"No... no... I won't back down." Drumer spoke quickly, more to himself than to either of the Shadowchasers. "I won't, I won't, I won't… This is more important than myself or you or anyone else! The truth supersedes all! ALL!"

Then, with one swift stroke, he drew a wand from a sheath on his belt and pointed it at them.

"I'll see you both burn to ash in Prismatic Light!" he shouted, stepping towards them and brandishing the wand like it was a sword. "I'll vaporize everyone if I have! Do you understand what this will do?"

The two vampires backed up slowly. Yes… They did. Prismatic Light was a special type of evocation used as a weapon against undead…

"It can turn five of those bloodhulks to dust in one shot," he continued, "very useful if they were to turn on me… I've never tried it on anything stronger, but I'm more than willing… Like I said, this is my life's work, and two bloodsucking abominations aren't going to stop me!"

He grinned in glee as they both took a step back and Fayte's weapon lowered. Then his glee turned to panic as she lifted it again and aimed right behind him….at the desk.

"Wood burns quickly…" she said, as she cocked the weapon's hammer. "Paper even faster… Do you think you'll have time to save your little treasure and stop us?"

Then the true nature of Fayte's threat hit the false Earl. True fear appeared in his eyes…

"Don't…" he gasped. "You can't! You mustn't! History is in there! Real history! The truth! The Truth!"

"Drop the wand or your life's work goes up in flames," she growled.

"Are you insane?" he gasped. "You could burn this whole museum to the ground… Some of these antiques date back to the Eighteenth Century…"

"I'm a Shadowchaser…" replied Fayte, "I value the lives of the people of the present far more than the relics of the dead. There will always be more dead."

"And as far as her being insane," added Luther, "I can vouch for her, she is…"

Drumer's hand quivered. This was a hard choice… He couldn't risk what was in there going up in flames… But… if he dropped it, he'd have two very angry vampires to deal with…

"I'll see the two of you in hell…" he snarled, pointing it. Fayte clicked the hammer down.

"Wait!" shouted Luther.

The two of them stopped. Luther started whispering something under his breath. Drumer couldn't hear it, but Fayte could, mostly. Her hearing was better than humans. It was four simple words.

"He's calling them, Fayte," he whispered.

She froze. Clearly, if that were true, Drumer had far more of an advantage. Especially if she made him angry. She did not want to fight them again…

"Earl," he said. "There's no need for violence… Just calm down, and we can talk about this like reasonable adults…"

Drumer didn't reply, but Luther could tell he was, indeed, calming down. Luther turned to Fayte, and her finger eased. He turned to Drumer again.

"You have a Duel Disk?" asked Luther.

"Yes…" he replied.

"Tell you what…" he said. "If you put down your wand, my partner might be willing to put down her weapon, and I might be willing to settle this like gentlemen…"

"Fred…" whispered Fayte to him. "What will we do when…"

Then she stopped for a minute, as if a thought had occurred to her and then nodded quickly.

Drumer gave them a sly look. He slowly set his wand on the floor, as Fayte did the same with Tempest.

Then he rolled up his sleeve and flicked a switch on his wristband. A modern Duel Disk unfolded. Fayte backed up as Luther activated his own Disk.

All I have to do is stall for a while, he thought, as Fayte slowly backed away. No matter what happens, I'll get what I want…

He unfolded the D-Gazer, and the VR grid formed over the museum.

(Luther: 8,000) - - - - - - - - - - (Drumer: 8,000)

As both players drew their opening hands, Fayte retreated to the back of the room and squatted in the corner.

Let's hope Fred knows what he's doing, thought Fayte. I don't even know if this will work.

She tapped the broken remains of her Duel Disk, the mechanism to activate the new communication device. There was a little static at first… But via some miracle, the system still seemed to work. Of course, seeing as half of the "system" was Jalal's card, maybe it only needed a small miracle.

Luther made the first draw, and played two cards, both of them set. One appeared on his Monster Zone, the other behind it.

"I'll play Heart of the Underdog," he said, trying to be polite, "and then it's your move, Earl."

Drumer made a slight smirk as the Continuous Spell appeared, and Luther knew what he was thinking.

He thinks he knows what kind of deck I'm using, he thought. He's in for a surprise.

"Indeed," replied Drumer, as he drew a card. "I use my Continuous Spell Card, Call of the Mummy."

The card rose onto the field with a gloomy, eerie mist, and he took another card from his hand.

"Via its effect, I can Special Summon a Zombie from my hand… Thus…"

As he played the card, a huge, hulking thing loomed up behind him. It was an enormous pumpkin with one glaring eye, a large, toothy mouth on the front, and four long, vine-like tendrils radiating from each corner. It wore a small crown on the top. (2,000 DEF)

"Pumpking?" shouted Luther.

"Indeed…" replied Drumer. "An old card, yes, but it does have more surprises hidden within than you may know about… I summon Castle of Phantasms next."

He played the card, and an eerie, demonic castle floated over Pumpking that seemed strangely familiar. (1,000 ATK)

"That's…" said Luther.

"Yes, it looks like the infamous Castle of Dark Illusions," replied the Earl, "and while on the field, it may as well be, as one of its effects treats it as having the same name as that older card. Which means, due to Pumpking's effect, it gains a bonus of a hundred points for both attacking and defending every turn, starting now."

(2,100 ATK)

"Also, because I Normal Summoned it, the Castle itself moves to Defense Mode."

(2,000 DEF)

"I will also set one card," he said, as a set card appeared behind the Zombie and the Fiend. "And my turn ends…"

"Okay…" said Luther. "With Heart of the Underdog in play, if I draw a Normal Monster during my Draw Phase, I can draw again…"

He drew, and then flipped the card forward.

"Eh?" said Drumer.

"It qualifies…" said Luther, as he drew again. He turned that one forward too, and it qualified, so he drew a third time. He flipped it around again.

"Beast of Talwar, the Earl of Demise, and... Summoned Skull?" Drumer said, giving a tiny smirk. "Seems I'm not the only one with a taste for nostalgia."

"Frankly, 'Earl'," replied Luther, "the less you could say that attempts to put me in the same light as a mass murdering obsessive compulsive lunatic like you, the better."

"A valid point I suppose," replied Drumer, "but this is bigger than the lives of a few vagrants and mundane, this is about removing the stain from the legacy of a great man. I am no less driven to see justice carried out then you or your companion."

Luther looked at him coldly, clearly not impressed. The Earl let out a long sigh.

"If it makes you feel any better," he replied, dryly. "As I've stated before, I bought most of these bloodhulks. I didn't kill most of the unfortunate souls who were used to construct them. I may have researched a few of the alterations in the necrotic rituals and provided the actual magics, but most of the raw material was supplied by a… benefactor."

"So where did all the corpses come from?" shouted Luther.

"Don't know, don't particularly care," replied Drumer, shaking his head.

Luther simply closed his eyes and shook his head, then drew a fourth time. "This one isn't a monster, so I'll stop. However… I'll use Allure of Darkness to draw twice more. But once I do, I have to banish a Dark monster or I lose my whole hand."

He played the Spell, and made two draws. Then he took a card from his hand – The Gross Ghost of Fled Dreams – and tossed it upwards, where it disappeared.

"Now I'll use Polymerization, to fuse together Headless Knight and the Earl of Demise…"

The Fusion card appeared, and a decayed ghoul in a rotting nobleman's outfit holding a rapier, then a knight in decorated bronze armor with a sword and shield, with no head, both appeared, and turned into globs of darkness.

"I create the Duke of Demise!" he exclaimed.

There was a chilling moan, and a phantom in a rotted tunic, cape, and leggings, with a sunken, skeletal face, with skin stretched tight over it, phased out from the shadows behind Luther. It held a sword that emitted ghostly ectoplasm. (2,000 ATK)

"Impressive…" said Drumer.

"Oh, I'm not done," replied Luther. "I use the Ancient Rules Spell Card. I can use it to Special Summon a high-Level Normal Monster directly to the field, like my Beast of Talwar."

Then Spell Card appeared, and with diabolical laughter, a horned, muscular devil with green skin and wings that wrapped around him like a cloak leapt from it. He held two crescent-shaped scimitars. (2,400 ATK)

"Then, I'll sacrifice him," he continued, as the Fiend vanished. "For Summoned Skull!"

There was a clap of lightning, and the signature Fiend monster used by the King of Games appeared, electricity running over its armored exoskeleton. (2,500 ATK)

Still using that deck you were "working on", huh, Fred? thought Fayte. I just hope he doesn't clobber you as fast as I did…

"Summoned Skull, turn that overgrown gourd into a squash with Lightning Strike," ordered Luther, as the Skull lifted its arms.

"I use the Trap Card, Nightmare Mirror!" exclaimed Drumer.

The set card lifted and spun around, and a diabolical looking mirror with a horned rim appeared in front of Pumpking… With Luther's reflection in it…

Too late. The bolt of lightning crashed into the mirror, shattering the glass. Luther held his chest.

"By simply discarding one card," continued Drumer, "I've not only protected my monster, I've dealt you 1,000 points of damage."

"So I see…" groaned Luther. "I'll end my turn by setting two more cards…"

He took two more cards – the last two in his hand, actually – and fit them into his Spell Zone, where they appeared upside-down.

(L: 7,000) - - - - - - - - - - (D: 8,000)

"My move…" said Drumer, making a draw. "First off, Pumpking gains another small boost from my Castle…"

(2,200 DEF)

Then he showed Luther one of his cards. It was also Polymerization.

"I can do Fusions too," he said. "By combining a Zombie-Type monster with Castle of Dark Illusions, which my Castle is, due to its effect…"

Just like Luther's monsters did, the demonic castle and Zombie pumpkin turned into two orbs of darkness.

Then, a remarkably different – and incredibly creepy – Fusion Monster appeared from the dark shadows that the fusion portal had created. It looked like bundles of dead wood tied and lashed together with twine hastily and haphazardly with no concern for aesthetic at all, nor with any concern for proper material, most of the wood being rotted and decaying.

The end result was a nine-foot-tall, vaguely humanoid shape like a patchwork scarecrow (for lack of anything better to compare it to) with the limbs uneven and different sizes. Still, its disproportionately large hands had sharp claws on the ends, and what passed for a face conveyed a dark, malignant intelligence, even though it had no eyes or any other features. (2,700 ATK)

"So, what do you think of Azenwrath?" asked Drumer.

Luther fidgeted a little. Even Fayte, who was turning to watch every minute or so, was nervous about this… thing.

"Oh, come on," said Drumer. "He's loads of fun. Here, I'll show you…"

The spindly Zombie moved jerkily, and then slashed quickly with one claw at Summoned Skull, ripping the Fiend in half, literally. Fayte quickly turned back to her Duel Disk and spoke into it in a quiet whisper.

"What do you, you 'can't 'find it'?" She hissed into the device and then paused as the person on the other side responded. "Kenshin, I know it's hard for you to keep up, but it's big, shiny and glows in the dark. Just turn the attic lights off!"

(L: 6,800) - - - - - - - - - - (D: 8,000)

"It's your move, my good man," said Drumer with mock respect

Then he stopped. Standing next to Luther was a dark and ominous figure that did not look friendly. He reminded Drumer of Breaker the Magical Warrior, with the same pointed, face-obscuring hat and robes, but black rather than crimson, and instead of a sword, held a scepter with a golden snake entwined up the shaft, holding a blood-red ruby in its mouth.

"Uh… who's that?" he asked.

"Right when you declared your attack," replied Luther, "I activated a Continuous Trap Card called Infernal Inquisitor. We'll get to that in a minute. Before I draw, I'm activating a Spell Card."

The sinister man faded into the shadows as his set card lifted up, revealing De-Fusion. The Duke of Demise pulled apart into two globs of glowing ectoplasm, and both fell to floor in puddles. Then both puddles rose and grew, taking shape again into Earl of Demise (2,000 ATK) and Headless Knight. (1,450 ATK)

"Now I'll draw," said Luther, drawing. "And Heart of the Underdog is still in play, and because this card is Feral Imp, I can draw a second time…"

He drew, then stopped. He looked at his two monsters, then played one of his two cards, and the Feral Imp, the cute, gremlin-like Fiend with green fur that Yugi Mouto had been known to use early in his career. (1,300 ATK)

"Next, I'll use Silent Doom to summon Beast of Talwar back from the Graveyard."

The Spell Card appeared, as did a spectral hand emitting an eerie light. The Fiend rose from the ground under the hand, kneeling in Defense Mode and covering itself with its wings. (2,150 DEF)

"Now I know what you've been thinking the whole time… Most of the monsters I've been using are crap, and most duelists these days would agree with you. But if you look hard enough, you can find a use for anything.

"You see, the monster I'm about to summon requires two Normal Fiends…"

"What?" shouted Drumer, as the familiar vortex started opening.

"So with the Overlay Network complete," said Luther, as Headless Knight and Feral Imp vanished, "I can Xyz Summon the Black Steel Guardian."

The monster landed, or rather fell next to Luther with a crash, shaking the entire room. It was a huge, bulky Fiend made of metal with oversized hands and feet on all fours. A dangerous looking spiked harness surrounded its shoulders, and it had bladed horns.

"That's Metal Guardian…" replied Drumer.

"Trust me, this upgraded version is much better," replied Luther. "First of all, as you can see, it's defending, and its Defense Score when I summon it becomes the combined total of those two monsters I used to do so."

(3,100 DEF)

"Plus, so long as he has at least one Overlay Unit, you can't attack any Fiend other than him. But if you think I'm using him to protect my Earl, guess again. That's where my Inquisitor comes in.

"It works like this. Every time you destroy one of my Fiends, like you did last turn, he gains an Authoritarian Counter."

The Inquisitor lifted his staff, and sickly purple motes surrounded Beast of Talwar.

"Each time I expend one, I can either upgrade or downgrade the Level of a Normal Fiend by one. So I'll downgrade Beast of Talwar from 6 to 5."

"You're going to make a second Xyz Summon!" shouted Drumer.

"Exactly," replied Luther, as the Overlay Network started to churn again. "You know… It's ironic you used that castle…"

The Beast and the Earl disappeared, and more lightning flashed. Then a new, hideous-looking Fiend appeared, one with no eyes, horrid, and inch-long teeth – and that was just its face. Its torso was hulking, muscular, and solid, with jet-black skin and bony spurs jutting from the shoulder blades and elbows. It wore gauntlets and leggings made of grey fur, and both had foot-long claws. (2,200 ATK)

"My Savage Emperor of Yamimakai may not be a match for Azenwrath right now," continued Luther, "but my monsters can also work as a team. You see, while my Guardian's Defense Score is impressive, you can't overlook its Attack Score of 1,300 either, because by getting rid of an Overlay unit…"

A dark sphere flew out of Black Steel Guardian, and splashed into Savage Emperor of Yamimakai's chest.

"I can increase the Attack Score of any other monster on the field by its Attack Score, meaning Emperor gains 1,300 points."

Savage Emperor's score rose to 3,500 as electricity started to form in its hands…

"Destroy Azenwrath with Demon Bolt Wave!" ordered Luther.

The powerful flash of lightning coursed across the room, hitting the horrid Zombie. Both Luther and Fayte were relieved to see it burst into inert, burning twigs.

(L: 6,800) - - - - - - - - - - (D: 7,100)

But as the flames died down, Drumer started to chuckle. Pumpking appeared behind him, and vanished into dark vapor.

"Indeed, you've found a use for an outdated card," he said, "but then, so have I. You see, Azenwrath's effect now activates. By banishing the Pumpking, I can Special Summon two other Zombies from my deck now."

"WHAT?" shouted Luther.

"Of course, they have to be the same name," continued Drumer, "and each has to be no more than half of Pumpking's Level. Rounded down, of course. So I summon two copies of Pumprincess, Princess of Ghosts!"

As hard as it was to believe that a Zombie could actually be cute, the two monsters that popped up where the hideous Fusion Monster had been qualified. Each one was a pint-sized feminine version of Pumpking, with a fancier crown and ribbons behind it. (900 ATK x2)

"Uh…" said Fayte. She stood up slowly.

"But that's not all," continued Drumer. "Since I happen to have another Pumprincess in my Graveyard, the one I discarded to use Nightmare Mirror, that one is summoned too."

Fayte flinched a little as a third one appeared with the others. (900 ATK) She had actually heard about this card.

"Any time now…" she muttered into her Duel Disk, tapping it.

"Ugh, I end my turn…" muttered Luther. "But that boost to my Fiend's Attack Score won't wear off until the end of your turn…"

"Which means, my three Zombies are now destroyed," said Drumer.

The three Pumprincess all shattered into foul-smelling, green dust.

"So what's the point?" asked Luther. "You…"

Then he stopped. The green dust started to coagulate and solidify, and the three Pumprincess reappeared.

"You said they were destroyed…" he continued.

"They were," replied Drumer. "But that means now they come back in my Spell Zone, and act as Continuous Spells."

"Like Crystal Beasts?" asked Luther.

"In a way, Pumprincess is a little better than a Crystal Beast," replied Drumer.

Luther looked at him strangely, and Drumer nodded. It wasn't the first time someone had a hard time believing that.

"Crystal Beasts can't do anything on their own in a Spell Zone without other cards to help them," replied Drumer. "Pumprincess, however…"

He drew a card.

"…this is where her true effect comes into play. You see, every Standby Phase, each of them gains a Pumpkin Counter, and each Pumpkin Counter reduces both Scores of your monsters by a hundred points."

Luther turned, and vines sprung from the ground around Black Metal Guardian and Savage Emperor of Yamimakai. The two Fiends snarled a little. (Savage Emperor of Yamimakai: 3,200 ATK, Black Metal Guardian: 2,800 DEF)

"Now I'll summon Pumpking the Dark Agent!" he exclaimed.

He threw his card on his Disk, and a beanpole-thin man in a sharp, white suit appeared out of the ether, a jack-o-lantern for a head. Fire surrounded his hands. (1,200 ATK)

"Your monsters may lose Attack Points from those Pumpkin Counters," he chortled. "This guy, however? He gains whatever amount most monsters lose."

(1,500 ATK)

Drumer fit his last card into his final space in his Spell Zone, causing it to appear in a set position.

"Your monster is still far too strong, and I can't attack it anyway due to your Guardian, but by the time it's my turn again, my three Pumprincess will have two more Pumpkin Counters apiece, and I have the time. Until then, it's your move, which means your Xyz Monster loses the boon it gained previously."

(1,900 ATK)

Fayte looked at them and scowled angrily, before turning and stalking out of the room with a furious flip of her cloak.

Drumer turned. He saw Tempest still lying where she left it… And his own wand where he left it.

"Guess your girlfriend couldn't take the pressure…" he said, slowly.

"She's not my girlfriend, fellah…" said Luther. He lifted his hand to draw a card...

Drumer quickly tried to make a dive for the wand. As his hand reached for it, he screamed as a stiletto blade stabbed into the floor between his middle finger and ring finger.

He shivered as he looked up, and saw Luther palming another one, with his trench coat open, revealing about six others.

"You weren't thinking of weaseling out on our deal, were you, Earl?" he asked.

"Heh…" stammered Drumer. He slowly stood up. "You, you missed on purpose, right?"

Luther looked at him coldly.

"It's my move, I believe…" he said, not answering the question.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Meanwhile, Fayte, who had switched from a walk to a sprint after leaving that room, was in the entrance hall of the large museum.

Those things were getting closer… Drumer was obviously stalling.

"What is taking so long?" she snapped. "The attic isn't that big!"

"Fayte, sweetie, you need to calm down," came another voice from it, a far more soothing and sultry one. "You snapping at us it isn't helping.

"Sorry… Tsuki…" replied Fayte.

"We're looking for it, Fayte," came the reply, "but the attic here is pretty cluttered. We've got enough junk here to have a garage sale… Wouldn't be a bad idea if so much of it wasn't dangerous…"

"We'll think of what to do with it all when I get back," replied Fayte, "if I live that long…"

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Luther drew and turned it forward, revealing it to be his second Summoned Skull. He drew again, then he stopped.

"Don't forget," said Drumer, "as each Pumprincess gains Counters, my Dark Agent grows stronger as your monsters grow weaker."

The three Zombie princesses grinned, and more vines appeared, tightening around his two monsters. (Savage Emperor of Yamimakai: 1,300 ATK, Black Metal Guardian: 2,500 DEF) Dark Agent, however, burned with a blazing halo of fire. (1,800 ATK)

"Seems your Emperor is already outmatched," said Drumer.

"Is he now?" asked Luther. "My Black Steel Guardian may only have 700 Attack Points because of those three Zombies, but if I use its effect a second time…"

He discarded Headless Knight's card, and Savage Emperor rose to 2,000 Attack Points.

"It's just enough. "Destroy his Dark Agent!"

There was another bolt of lightning, and pumpkin pulp splattered all over the room as the Zombie burst.

(L: 6,800) - - - - - - - - - - (D: 6,900)

"Meh…" muttered Drumer.

Luther scowled back at him and took his other card, setting it next to his other one. (Drumer was wondering what the other one was – it had been there for a while – and was considering how important it was.)

"Your move…" said Luther.

"You know what that means," replied Drumer, as he drew. "Each princess now has three Pumpkin Counters!"

(Savage Emperor of Yamimakai: 1,100 ATK, Black Metal Guardian: 2,200 DEF)

Then he chuckled a little as he looked at what he drew.

"So now it's time to bring out something special… Thanks to Call of the Mummy, I can Special Summon the Queen Pumpking!"

In a dark, shadowy fog, a very unlikely Zombie appeared. She didn't resemble Pumpking – or any Zombie, really, for that matter – at all. A young-looking, attractive woman with a black dress much like that worn by Morticia Addams – complete with a very low-cut V-neck that left little to the imagination. Her long sleeves and the bottom of her dress were torn and ragged. She had a witch's hat on top of burnt-red hair tied in pigtails, and a sweet smile. She also carried a glowing lantern shaped like a jack-o-lantern with a lit flame inside. (2,200 ATK)

"So long as I have at least one other Pumpking or Pumprincess on the field, she can destroy one Spell or Trap Card per turn. So I'll…"

The Queen looked at Luther, then lifted the lantern. She stopped and turned towards Drumer. He looked at the set card.

"Ah, the Heart of the Underdog card!" he shouted.

Flames spouted from the lantern, burning the Spell to a crisp. Then Drumer's set card, Call of the Haunted lifted up, and a coffin made of black wood appeared next to the Queen. It opened, and Pumpking the Dark Agent crawled out.

(2,400 ATK)

"He's even stronger now…" said Drumer, "and your monsters are weaker, meaning I can turn them to paste."

Queen Pumpking's smile changed, and was clearly evil now; her eyes glowed, and a burning, dark hex flashed from her hands, blowing Black Steel Guardian to bits.

Then the Dark Agent held its hand out, and a smaller, fiery pumpkin appeared in its palm. He threw it, hitting and roasting Savage Emperor of Yamimakai.

(L: 5,500) - - - - - - - - - - (D: 6,900)

But to Drumer's shock, both the Earl of Demise and Beast of Talwar were standing there now.

"Notice I never used that guy's effect or told you what it was?" asked Luther. "Because I only used Normal Monsters to summon it, and both were still being used as Overlay Units, both are now summoned to the field."

"That doesn't make them any less vulnerable to Pumprincess' effects," replied Drumer.

(Earl of Demise: 1,100 ATK, Beast of Talwar: 1,500 ATK)

I hate to say this, but he's right, thought Luther. Whatever Fayte is planning better be dyno-supreme…

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Speaking of which…

"OUCH!" shouted Fayte.

Something conked her on the head. As she rubbed it, she picked up the long scepter that had fallen, one with gold plating and eagle's wings on the tip, along with a scroll.

As she started to run to the front door, Rayearth's voice spoke from the Duel Disk.

"Fayte, we found it. But you're going to need to hurry."

"Because I wasn't hurrying before?" replied Fayte curtly.

"You need to hurry," replied Rayearth ignoring the vampire's tone, "because the Mundanes are getting involved and fast. If this escalates too much, it'll blow the masquerade. Not to mention possibly reduce Philadelphia to an even worse condition than Pittsburg."

Fayte looked out the door, and saw the first of the bloodhulks lumbering towards the museum about four blocks away. Indeed, she saw some flashing lights and heard some sirens in the distance.

"I take it the boys in blue tried a stop them?" she asked.

"A few of them did," replied Rayearth. "Suffice to say that the charges against whoever is behind this have increased astronomically in the past half hour. Fortunately, those bloodhulks seem dead set at getting to the museum.

"Now listen, Fayte that scroll has the instructions, and you have to time it right. What might happen to the two of you if the scepter is set off too early might be worse than if it's set off too late."

"Thanks for that vote of confidence," replied Fayte.

She unrolled the scroll, and started to recite the spell in the old Latin text.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Luther made a draw. Witty Phantom.

He looked at his two Fiends, and the evil vines gripped them, causing their Attack Scores to sink to only 900 and 1,300 respectively. The two monsters he hadn't summoned yet wouldn't do much better…

Then that set card he had saved from the first turn listed up.

"I use Common Charity!" he shouted. "Again, I'll draw twice…"

He did so, and he perked up a bit.

"Then I'll banish one of my Normal Monsters here…"

Witty Phantom's card shattered. Then he played one of the two new cards.

"I use Enemy Controller!" he shouted.

A large video game control pad appeared in mid-air as Earl of Demise vanished.

"By using this Spell Card, I can sacrifice one monster, and then enter the code up, up, down, down, left, right…"

He stopped, then shrugged.

"Aww, hell with it, I'm taking your Dark Agent."

The game pad vanished, and then the pumpkin-headed Zombie was pulled over to his side of the field.

"Don't see what good he'll do you," replied Drumer. "Not only does he lose his bonus from Pumprincess, but now he takes the penalty."

(400 ATK)

"In another second, it's going to be the only monster on this end taking the penalty," replied Luther, "because the next card I'm playing is Non Spellcasting Area."

As the Continuous Spell Card appeared, Beast of Talwar stood up straight, slashing with its two swords. The vines binding it fell to the floor, and it Attack Score shooting back up to 2,400.

"HOW?" shouted Drumer.

"Non Spellcasting Area renders Normal Monsters immune to Spell Cards," replied Luther. "That means they can't be blown up by a Lightning Vortex, won't be sucked into a Dark Hole, can't be caged by Swords of Revealing Light… You get the idea. And because those three Zombies now count as Continuous Spells…"

"That means…" stammered Drumer.

"They're worthless now," added Luther. "I sacrifice your Dark Agent to summon my other Summoned Skull…"

As the Skull Demon appeared, the phony Earl had half a mind to turn and make a run for and come back when his bloodhulks were closer. And he had more than half a mind to do so when Luther's other set card – which was Birthright – lifted up, and the first Summoned Skull appeared too. (2,500 x2)

"First for your Queen," said Luther. "Attack with Severing Talwar Scimitar!"

The perky female Zombie shrieked as the demonic swordsman closed in on her. With a powerful swipe, his left sword dissected her at the waist. The pieces both turned to flame and vanished in sparks like a Roman candle.

"Attack directly!" ordered Luther. "Double Lightning Strike!"

The assault was one that Roland Drumer would not soon forget. The first bolt of lightning knocked him off his feet, and the second one hit him before he even came halfway to hitting the ground. He fell with a solid crash.

"Ow…" he groaned.

"Wow, you're tougher than you look," replied Luther. "I see that steeling yourself to slaughter innocents have given you something of a backbone…"

(L: 5,500) - - - - - - - - - - (D: 1,700)

Drumer slowly got up, looking at Luther with pure hate.

"I'm not going to give up, you hear me!" he shouted. "I've been working my whole life to find that evidence, and I'm not the type who backs down!"

"Interesting…" said Luther. "You seem to be a lot more dedicated to your cause than the man you worship then."

"What?" asked Drumer.

"Suppose, just suppose, you're right," replied Luther. "Suppose there is, indeed, evidence in there that would have cleared Benedict Arnold of what he is so hated and reviled for.

"If so, he never retrieved that evidence himself for some reason to attempt to clear his name. He fled to Britain after the plot was discovered, and remained an enemy of the liberated America for the rest of his life.

"It seems then, that you have something he lacked. You're so dedicated to clearing his name that you'll do anything, commit a horrible crime and risk the worst of punishments. But the actual man whom you admire, who you claim was falsely accused? Who you claim had evidence stored that would clear his name?

"He preferred to flee. Like a coward."

"Quiet, simpleton!" shouted Drumer. He snatched the top card from his deck. "This is turning into a lecture and I have no time for such shenanigans!

"Especially since I just drew Pumpking's Knight! And I'm allowed to summon it to the field by sending my three Pumprincess monsters in my Spell Zone to the Graveyard!"

The three cute pumpkin Zombies exploded into flaming pumpkin pieces, and a monster even bigger than Azenwrath with the smell of burning pine slowly rose over the Earl's side. It certainly didn't suggest a knight; more like a large wicker man with a fire burning in its chest, the head of a jack-o-lantern, and a long wooded staff topped with several eerie lanterns. (2,700 ATK)

"Now we get to the good part," he said. "Because I summoned him that way, you send three cards from your deck to the Graveyard."

Luther hesitated.

"And…?" he asked.

"Depends on how many of them are monsters," replied Drumer. "So let's see…"

Luther slipped the top three cards off his deck – Zoa, Opticlops, and Symbol of Duty.

"Looks like my luck is about to change!" laughed Drumer, as the vampire discarded the three cards. "Now I can pair up each discarded monster with a monster on the field, and then either add the discarded monster's Attack Score to the Attack Score of the monster it's paired with, or subtract.

"So… I'll add Opticlops' 1,800 points to my monster, and then subtract Zoa's 2,600 from one of your Summoned Skulls!"

One lantern on the Knight's staff turned red, the other blue, and one of the Skulls fell to a Score of zero, while Pumpking's Knight rose up to 4,500.

"You may say my title is meaningless," he laughed, as the Knight pointed the staff, "but I guess what it all comes down to is who's pointing the burning flames of death at a target that's utterly powerless!"

It wasn't one fireball that launched at the Summoned Skull with the reduced score, but a volley of a dozen with a ghostly scream. The Fiend was torn to parts as Luther covered his head with both arms…

(L: 1,000) - - - - - - - - - - (D: 1,700)

Flames slowly started to die down as Drumer watched. Luther's face and clothing were covered with soot and ash.

"I end my turn," said Drumer, "but you're next, blood-drinker, and don't think I'm letting your girlfriend out of this…"

Luther made a guttural growl as he went to draw.

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Fayte tried hard to keep calm and hold back panic. The magic was almost ready, but the bloodhulks were getting very close and the window of time she had to work with was shrinking.

Finally, she spoke the last words, and a brief shimmer glazed over the entire surface of the scepter.

She glanced at her watch quickly, then held the scepter in her right hand over her head, bottom end forward, and hurled it like a javelin. As she'd hoped, it embedded itself point-first in the street, twenty-four feet away.

Not exactly a record-breaking throw, but it would do. She turned around, rushed back into the museum and slammed the doors closed, then grabbed two patrician poles and propped them through the door handles to barricade them.

She knew it wouldn't delay a horde of even regular zombies for longer than a couple of minutes, but now, a couple of minutes might count. She rushed back to the room where the duel was happening.

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This just might work… thought Luther, as he played the card he drew.

"As of right now," he said, "there are exactly seven Dark monsters in my Graveyard. So I'll play The Beginning of the End, and banish five of them to draw three times."

Five cards – the Earl of Demise, Feral Imp, Opticlops, Savage Emperor of Yamimakai, and Black Steel Guardian – appeared behind him, and turned to dust. He made three draws.

"Not bad…" he said. "There are three Normal Monsters remaining in my Graveyard, so I'll banish two more of them to summon my demonic knight… Knight of the Red Lotus!"

An even darker shadow appeared behind Luther, and the monster that leapt out of it, while no Fiend, was more frightening than any of his others. A tall, dark man in black plate armor with an odd design, a veil covering his mouth and flaming, red hair, he held a zanbatō with curved spikes along the blade. (2,100 ATK)

"Wait just one minute!" shouted Drumer. "That's the first time I've ever heard seven minus five equal three…"

"Not all his Fiends are Dark, genius," said Fayte's voice, behind him, causing him to look over his shoulder.

"Exactly," replied Luther. "Headless Knight is Earth, which means along with Summoned Skull and Zoa, I had exactly enough to play the Spell Card and summon this monster. And it's just going to get worse. Remember my Infernal Inquisitor?"

The shady, hooded figure stepped out from the shadows again, lifting his staff.

"Since the last time I used that card, three Fiends were destroyed, so I have three more counters, so I'll use two, putting one on Beast of Talwar, and one on my other Summoned Skull."

The Overlay Network appeared again and... Music started to play. Arabian music?

"Time to summon somebody special," continued Luther, as the two demons vanished. "I Overlay my two Fiends again to summon a stronger Xyz… The lovely and powerful Lady Dervish!"

Two lovely, female eyes appeared, and as the music played louder, a belly dancer with a halter, pantaloons, bangles on her wrists and bare feet, a veil, and cascading hair past her waist danced onto the field. She danced for a second or two… Then shyly looked at Drumer in mid-step…

Then she threw her arms outward, and twin curved swords appeared in them. (2,400 ATK)

"That's Performance of Sword!" shouted Drumer.

"That was her old stage name," replied Fayte with a slight laugh. "She's gotten better at the blade dancing act since then."

"True, she's no longer some trade-bait Ritual Monster," replied Luther. "By using her effect, I can detach an Overlay Unit and sacrifice a Normal Monster to destroy any card on the field I want."

"Heh, heh, heh…" said Drumer. "I don't know how to tell you this, but…"

"Think I don't have one?" interrupted Luther. "That's where Knight of the Red Lotus comes in. He can Special Summon a low-Level Normal Monster from my Graveyard once per turn."

The Knight stamped his weapon on the floor, and Headless Knight appeared again. (1,450 ATK)

Drumer looked dumbfounded, but Luther went on. Lady Dervish lifted her blades as the Fiend disappeared, and with a diagonal slash, Pumpking's Knight quivered… Then it fell apart, falling into a pile of smoldering twigs and ash.

"Of course, that means only she can attack this turn," said Luther.

"Strike me down if you want, you foul abomination," cursed Drumer, "but my troops will be here in minutes, and…"

"Shut… up…" said Luther. "Attack directly! Battledance!"

Lady Dervish capered, spun, and leapt as she made her move, finally striking the Earl down and knocking him on his side, causing him to slide ten feet.

(L: 1,000) - - - - - - - - - - (D: 0)

As the VR system started to disappear, Fayte grabbed Luther's wrist and started to pull him towards one of the room's exits.

"What?" he shouted. "Where are we…"

"Shut up and follow me!" she yelled. He didn't resist as she pulled him past several exhibit rooms, past a door that said "Employees Only", and then past a store room. But he did object when he saw she was leading them to a basement door.

"Fayte, are you out of your mind?" he screamed.

"I said, shut up!" she ordered.

She threw the door open, then threw him down the stairs. Then she looked around, and saw a large strongbox. It was about half-again the size of the coffin she 'slept' in; it would be just big enough, barely.

"Fayte, you're crazy," he stammered, "a basement is the very last place you should hide when a zombie horde is after you."

She didn't answer right away, but forced the box open, then dumped the content out, which seemed to be little more than a collection of jars.

"When they find us, we'll be cornered!" he shouted.

"We only have to hide for," said Fayte. She checked her watch. "One minute and fifty-two seconds."

"What, how can you be so… URK!" started Luther before he was cut off as she grabbed him by the collar.

"Trust me!" she shouted.

Then she threw him inside the strongbox, leapt inside it herself, and slammed the lid closed with them inside tight.

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Drumer, meanwhile, had recovered his wand, and was clutching the side of his head as he walked to the entrance. He had considered picking up Fayte's weapon, but didn't want to take the chance it would misfire on him. He had more strongly considered trying to magically open the desk again, but he knew those two were still in the building, and he wanted his control over the bloodhulks to be absolute when he told them to hunt them down.

It was easy enough for him to clear the makeshift barricade Fayte had used to prop the front door shut. The first of the bloodhulks were shambling up the front steps.

Then he saw the scepter. The shimmer had turned to a shine… A powerful shine…

"Oh… shit…" he said.

He made a rush for it, but he barely made it half way before the spell was unleashed, which had been equipped with a magical timer.

The Spell? Sunray. A very powerful Epic divine spell used by the most powerful worshipers of Pelor a deity worshipped by many Shadowkind as the god of the sun.

A spell that could create radiance even greater than the sun if used properly, creatures of the night shivered in terror at the mere mention of it. During the Great War where Fayte and Luther's people were nearly eradicated, this spell was believed to have slain one of the Great Generals and his entire army. To the walking dead, it meant doom.

Of course, not just anyone could cast this spell, but the staff was a conduit that "stored" the already-cast spell, making anyone able to unleash it who could read the command word, but only once.

Rayearth had confiscated it years ago to make sure no-one ever used it against Fayte or any vampire they were allied with, and Fayte's own assurance to Dracula that she could be trusted was the only reason the Lord of Vampires trusted them with it. Still, Fayte didn't like keeping it around…

As she clung to Luther, she could tell it had gone off, reducing the bloodhulk army to dust. She knew it would take a lot of explaining and some boldfaced lies by core command for everyone to accept a reason why the night had turned to day for a brief minute… But she was glad the thing was gone, and that it hadn't gone to waste

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Hours later, it was two in the morning.

Several police officers were now in the cordoned-off museum, along with a couple of Luther's teammates from the Cleveland Shadowchasers, and Fayte was speaking to the museum's curator. Luther was talking via the new communication system to someone in the hospital ward at Headquarters in Britain.

He sighed and hung up. "I'm glad you're on our side, Fayte," he said, "you are crazy."

"How is he?" she asked, clearly not as concerned as the question sounded.

"He's gonna have quite a sunburn for a while, but he'll be fine," replied Luther.

"More than he deserves," Fayte replied her fist clenched slightly. "His own stupid ambition cost him to spend lives that were worth far more than any truth he thought he had could be."

Luther slowly nodded. What more could be said?

"So you say he said there were documents belonging to Benedict Arnold in this desk?" asked the curator.

Fayte nodded as the man looked at the desk while another man using fine tools to carefully disable the hinge on the drawer.

"Almost got it…" said the other man. Fayte's expression was unreadable.

He slowly pushed it open. The curator looked inside.

"Hmm…" he said. "Wait… There is a false bottom here…"

Fayte's expression morphed into a hard scowl and this time, Luther saw it. The curator's helper lifted the false bottom…

"Interesting…" said the curator.

His assistant took a large set of tongs and lifted something out. But it wasn't what the two vampires expected. Rather than the set of documents Drumer had been looking for, it was a leather-bound book, a journal of some sort.

"Hmm, a logbook of some sort…" said the curator.

The assistant turned the journal around with the tongs. It had a signature on the cover.

"Yes, that's Benedict Arnold's signature all right…" he continued. "It's tempting to read this now, yes, but we'll have to study it like anything else."

The assistant lowered it into a plastic bag, as Fayte sighed and turned around.

"Fayte, we'd best get a move on," replied Luther. "Sun will be up soon. And I don't think your wife will appreciate the fact you look like a nightmare, broke the sword she got you and the Duel Disk, and drank zombie blood and…"

"I'll just tell Maria to make one of those Mexican omelets for her tomorrow morning," Fayte told him. "They always do the trick when she's angry, and after tonight, I probably won't be awake until at least four in the afternoon."

"Fayte…" interrupted Luther, as she started to stride for the exit.

She turned to him.

"Drumer was just a crackpot," he said. "He was a necromancer using foul magic that may have been invented by the bastard who kept your lover as a slave, and six policemen are dead tonight because of him. Do you really believe him?

"This country is not living under some lie about Benedict Arnold's true motives. You aren't considering taking that guy's word, are you?"

Fayte stopped for a minute. She didn't answer.

"Okay," he asked. "What if he was actually right and there were some documents in there with the potential to change history?"

"Burn them," Fayte said without hesitation. "No madman's dream will ever stop being such when he pays for it in blood. I will make sure of it."

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With one thing and another, morning did indeed come. And at Shadowchaser Headquarters, Jabels was typing anxiously on the computer. He paused every few seconds to wipe sweat from his brow.

"You look happy," said Dolores, as she came in with two cups of coffee.

"Yeah, well," replied Jabels. "A city-wide zombie invasion isn't something to take likely or something that's easy to deal with. Still, I finally found the end of the paper trail of the contact that Felix got from that Russian businessman. And we may have killed two other birds by aiming this one stone at another. Look here… It seems this Dominic Falm he mentioned had a place of business in Brewster, a small town in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

"He doesn't own it any more, of course, but get this… The alert system I set up auto-linked me when I looked him up… Apparently, that kid that Maddie brought in the other day who claimed his dad was an alien? He used to work at a part-time job at a restaurant owned by this Falm guy… And a year ago, both he and his mother were invited back there by the owner.

"Right before he started acting strange," said Dolores.

"And here's the stranger part," replied Jabels. "During that same time, our friend Ezekiel was working there part time on a student visa."

"Three Shadowkind with fire elementalist magic in their blood, who worked there right before they went… crazy…" said Dolores.

"And that may actually be the cause," continued Jabels. "Our 'friend' Dominic was a janni who worked for the efreeti, and was trying to perfect a new entrée that he wanted to include when he catered a banquet to some rich efreeti noble. Seems this entrée used verdobba as a main ingredient."

Dolores was about to ask a question, but Jabels quickly answered it.

"It's a nutty, purple tuber native to the Elemental Plane of Fire," he said, "which the efreet – or rather their servants and slaves – cultivate as a food crop much like humans do potatoes. In fact, as far as the efreet are concerned, they may as well be potatoes. The thing is, only Shadowkind with a natural affinity for fire can eat them safely; they're toxic to anyone else. He was clearly paying large amounts of money to anyone who fit the bill to sample the work in progress.

"Efreeti aren't the best employers… They're the type who've been known to kill the cook when the food is bad. This guy was taking no chances."

"Says here that the restaurant is a condemned building now…" said Dolores.

"Yes, that's what worries me…" said Jabels. "It happened only three months ago, long after those three left, but… You know all those crazy stories about leftovers being in the fridge too long and mutating into monsters?"

"Don't tell me it actually happened?" asked Dolores, raising an eyebrow.

"Maybe, maybe not," replied Jabels. "Fact is, the place closed down when some accident created a gibbering mouther."

A gibbering mouther was the result of an unsanitary place tainted by magic. Wild magic could spawn them far more often, and places that stored food were more common than others, but it was hard to tell just what would create these beings that seemed to be minor chaos elementals. They looked like heaps of muck with a dozen eyes and mouths that did nothing but babble and gibber (thus their name) and try to eat any living thing smaller than themselves that came too close. And if not killed, they could get very big.

"Once the staff were able to kill it, Dante heard about it and got the local health inspectors to come down on them hard," he continued. "Place has been boarded up since, but I sent him to check it out…"

"Good lord…" replied Dolores

"Relax…" added Jabels. "Sofia is going along for backup, and they can handle another one if there is one. What's the worst that could happen?"

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THE DUKE OF DEMISE (Monster Card)

Fiend/Dark/Fusion/Effect/Lvl6/2,000ATK/1,700DEF

Headless Knight + The Earl of Demise

Effect: Can only be Special Summoned via Fusion Summon. During each of your Standby Phases, either pay 500 Life Points or destroy this card. This card cannot be destroyed by battle.

Note: "The Duke of Demise" was first used by Bakura in the original anime episode "Spiritual Awakening".

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NIGHTMARE MIRROR (Trap Card)

Normal Trap

Image: A mirror with a violet frame, a bat-like gargoyle on top and a skull below, with a stand shaped like two talons. The reflection of a robed, hooded man is within.

Effect: Activate by discarding 1 card from your hand when your opponent declares an attack. Negate the attack and inflict 1,000 points of damage to your opponent.

Note: "Nightmare Mirror" was first used by Marik in the original anime episode "The Darkness Returns (Part 2)".

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

CASTLE OF PHANTASMS (Monster Card)

Fiend/Dark/Effect/Lvl4/1,000ATK/2,000DEF

Effect: This card's name is considered to be "Castle of Dark Illusions". When this card is Normal Summoned in Attack Position, switch it to face-up Defense Position. Zombie-Type Monsters require 1 less Tribute to Tribute Summon.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

AZENWRATH (Monster Card)

Zombie/Dark/Fusion/Effect/Lvl7/2,700ATK/2,200DEF

Castle of Dark Illusions + 1 Zombie-Type Monster

Effect: Can only be summoned via Fusion Summon, and only with the above-named Fusion Material Monsters. If this card is destroyed by battle, you may banish the Zombie-Type monster used in its Fusion Summon from your Graveyard to select 2 monsters with the same name from your deck, each with a Level no more than half that of the banished monster, and Special Summon them. Then, if there is a monster with the same name as the Special Summoned monsters in your Graveyard, Special Summon that monster. Monsters summoned by the effect of "Azenwrath" are destroyed during the End Phase of the turn.

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PUMPKING THE DARK AGENT (Monster Card)

Zombie/Dark/Effect/Lvl4/1,500ATK/0DEF

Effect: This card gains 100 Attack Points for every Pumpkin Counter on each "Pumprincess the Princess of Ghosts" you control in your Spell/Trap Zone. If this card is destroyed by battle, you may Special Summon 1 "Pumpking the King of Ghosts" from your Graveyard.

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QUEEN PUMPKING (Monster Card)

Zombie/Dark/Effect/Lvl6/2,200ATK/1,800DEF

Effect: If you control a face-up "Pumpking" monster (other than a "Queen Pumpking) and/or a Pumprincess the Princess of Ghosts" on the field or treated as a Continuous Spell Card: Once per turn, you may destroy 1 Spell or Trap Card controlled by your opponent.

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PUMPKING'S KNIGHT (Monster Card)

Zombie/Dark/Effect/Lvl8/2,700ATK/2,000DEF

Effect: You can Special Summon this card by Tributing 3 "Pumpking" monsters and/or monsters named "Pumprincess the Princess of Ghosts" (either on the field or treated as Continuous Spell Cards). If Special Summoned this way, send the top 3 cards from your opponent's deck to the Graveyard. For each monster sent to the Graveyard in this manner, you may select 1 face-up monster on the field and assign 1 monster sent to the Graveyard via this effect to the selected monster. Either increase or decrease the selected monster on the field by the base ATK of the assigned monster sent to the Graveyard. (If more than 1 monster is sent to the Graveyard, you may not select or assign the same monster twice.)

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SAVAGE EMPEROR OF YAMIMAKAI (Monster Card)

Fiend/Dark/Xyz/Effect/Rank6/2,200ATK/1,800DEF

2 Level 6 Fiend-Type Monsters

Effect: If only Normal Monsters are used as Xyz Materials in an Xyz Summon of this card: When this card is destroyed by battle and sent to the Graveyard, Special Summon any monsters whose cards were attached to it as Xyz Materials when it was destroyed.

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BLACK STEEL GUARDIAN (Monster Card)

Fiend/Dark/Xyz/Effect/Rank4/1,300ATK/?DEF

2 Level 4 Fiend-Type Normal Monsters

Effect: Can only be summoned via Xyz Summon. The DEF of this card becomes the combined DEF of the monsters used as Xyz Materials to Xyz Summon it. Your opponent cannot attack Fiend-Type monsters you control except for "Black Steel Guardian".

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

LADY DERVISH (Monster Card)

Warrior/Earth/Xyz/Effect/Rank7/2,400ATK/1,700DEF

2 Level 7Monsters

Effect: Once per turn, you can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card to Tribute a Normal Monster; banish 1 card your opponent controls. If you do, this card is the only monster that may attack that turn.

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INFERNAL INQUISITOR (Trap Card)

Continuous Trap

Image: Succubus Knight and Garoozis kneeling in front of the judge from Imperial Order; lurking behind the judge is Breaker the Magical Warrior, dressed in black and holding an evil-looking staff in place of his sword and shield.

Effect: Each time a Fiend-Type monster you control is destroyed, place 1 Authoritarian Counter on this card. You can expend an Authoritarian Counter to increase or decrease the Level of a face-up Normal Monster you control by 1; you cannot use the effect of "Infernal Inquisitor" on the same monster more than once in the same turn.

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Jemorille: Whether he knew his words were tempting fate or in complete disregard for Murphy's Law, we may never know. Still, Jabels was wise to send backup with Dante on this mission, because it wouldn't be as easy as he assumed.

Nor would it be as simple. Shadowchasers, Dante and Sofia included, know enough to expect the unexpected, but what they'd find at that condemned restaurant would push the bounds of believability more than usual. Still, with what had happened last night, perhaps it was best to assume you couldn't count on anything.

"Poker Face" is coming soon.

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Shadowchaser Files: Organizations

The Fellowship of Galatea; Those that the Great Treaty Forgot

In the one-thousand years that the Shadowchasers have existed, the Great Treaty has undergone countless changes and revisions. Laws are changed, new races of Shadow become known and classified, and current races become outlaws. Certain races, like ogres and trolls, are too unintelligent or uncivilized to be protected by the Great Treaty. However, in all of this time, one long-standing race capable of sentience, sapience, and civilization has slid through the cracks.

Doll golems, intelligent constructs, have existed since before the Shadowchasers, but have always been classified by the Great Treaty in the same way as most golems, in that they are constructs created for jobs and not truly sentient. This mistake has always stood, despite many well-crafted doll golems holding sentience and intelligence, and, until recently, this was never challenged.

Trouble began when Jim Henson and his Creature Shop created the Muppets, some of the finest doll golems ever constructed. These living puppets possessed sentience, sapience, civility, emotion, personality, and even senses of humor, and later even had additional works done on them to allow them to change into human form. Despite this, however, they never contested the Treaty because they never had a need to - to this day, they've never had legal trouble nor been in any real life-threatening danger. Nonetheless, this inspired future events.

One day, a theater troupe of elves created six doll golems to perform in a traveling production of Avenue Q. Surprisingly, these constructs had intelligence on par with the Muppets and personalities based on the characters that they played. However, like many others, the elves saw these new creations as no more than talking golems and treated them as such, leaving the six very unhappy, made worse by the suicide of one after it was unable to satisfy a basic part of its implanted personality. Furthermore, the doll golems were scheduled to be turned back into mere felt puppets when the play's tour ended. Fearing for their existence, the remaining doll golems fled and attempted to seek aid from the Muppets, attracting the attention of a nearby Shadowchaser named Sonya Clarkson. After hearing their story, Sonya agreed to argue their case, and, with Jalal's assistance, earned the golems treatment (but not legal status) as intelligent beings. As an act of apology, the elves even transferred the constructs' spirits into new bodies made of modeling clay.

This incident alerted both Jalal and the doll golems to the Great Treaty's oversight, and caused both of them considerable personal distress. For the first time in centuries, Jalal began to truly question what defines intelligence—since doll golems are constructs, and therefore created, their intelligence, however great, is artificial and ultimately decided by their creators, proving that they do not have free will. Ergo, if a particularly smart doll golem commits a crime, who is to be punished: the creator or the construct. (When arcane golems were mentioned by the doll golems' supporters, it was debated that they could be seen as an exception to this, as they were given free will by a burst of wild magic and can only be created by other arcane golems; an argument more valid than most doll golems care to admit.)

The five doll golems, on the other hand, decided that they would do all they could to have their race protected by the Great Treaty, and figured that the best way to prove themselves as civilized was to form a civilization. For this, their leader Kate Monster visited Dist, the Construct King, to create new life. With his assistance they created many new doll golems out of modeling clay, and as a nod to their original purpose, each one is given the name, appearance, and personality of a character from a Broadway musical. The new society was named the Fellowship of Galatea, which is both the name of both a doll golem from Greek myth (possibly given life via divine intervention, if the myth is to be believed) and a nod to her sculptor Pygmalion, whose name is also that of the classic play that inspired My Fair Lady.

Currently the Fellowship of Galatea, currently around thirty in number and slowly growing, have registered as US citizens and work honest jobs, all of them as actors working day jobs. They are based in Los Angeles and observe no uniform religion—all members are free to choose any they like, or none at all. Their affluence is impressive, as they neither eat nor sleep and even small salaries add up when you work two or three day jobs and never buy food. Through peaceful measures (and with the Muppets' support), they continue to try and prove themselves worthy of the Treaty's recognition, hoping to one day be accepted.

Many of their supporters are "cautiously optimistic", but admit that changes of this scope to any large treaty can often take years and have unintended implications. Unfortunately, even though this subject has now been recognized, the debate may rage on forever…

Story Ideas: An appearance by the Fellowship of Galatea would almost certainly emphasize their cause. Though its members are good by nature (one of the three cardinal rules to which characters they create, along with "no children" and "no characters strongly driven by sexual satisfaction"), that does not make them harmless. It would be entirely believable that an outspoken member would commit a crime and demand to be arrested to prove their cause.

On the other hand, the Fellowship's members are eager to get on the Shadowchasers' good side, and would likely be willing to assist whenever possible. Due to their acting abilities and the malleable nature of their clay bodies, they are natural masters of disguise that are excellent for spy work.

Deck Suggestions: Every member of the Fellowship of Galatea possesses a Duel Disk and deck in anticipation of the day they may need to duel a Shadowchaser, or just for the enjoyment.

Their leader Kate Monster uses an original deck of Method Actor monsters (see Shadowchasers: Miscellaneous Files for details), but all other members are free to choose whatever suits them, and therefore just about any deck would be welcome in their hands. Just as examples, Seymour, based on the main character of Little Shop of Horrors, would likely use a Plant deck, while R.T. Tugger from Cats (members of the Fellowship of Galatea need not be modeled after human characters—some are considerably anthropomorphized animal characters) would probably favor a Cat deck similar to Cathy's. All in all, any deck used by one of these doll golems is entirely up to the writer's choice.

Credit for the Fellowship of Galatea goes to Fanfic author MultiplePersonas; for more of the history of this organization, read "Shadowchasers: Miscellaneous Files".