Adela felt weak as she slowly returned to consciousness. She shakily got to her feet, then winced as she became aware of a throbbing pain in her right arm.

What..? Rolling back her sleeve, Adela found a thin trickle of blood escaping from her arm. Adela attempted to clean it away to see the cut, and found a very small thin opening in her arm. Adela rummaged through her pockets to see if there was something to stop the flow of blood, but finding nothing had to resort to tearing off a piece of her jumper and wrapping it around the cut. After tightening the make shift bandage, Adela became aware of the faint sound of the Duel Computer's voice.

"LoSs...1950...PoIntS..." Adela took off her Duel Disk and charged up to the computer, stabbing at its control panel with frantic jabs. After several minutes of this the computer finally went silent.

Great. We think of doing that AFTER we're knocked out. Ah well, probably had a protection barrier or something weird protecting it before. Reattaching her Duel Disk she then went to Bryon and started shaking him.

"Bryon...Bryon...BRYON!" Bryon finally came to and stood up, then lost balance as a wave of dizziness swept over him. He grabbed onto Adela for support, and once he was able to stand grinned at her.

"We won the duel?" Adela hesitated.

"After you got knocked out, Hamon came in and did the same to me." Bryon looked shocked. He remained silent, looking around the room. His eyes eventually settled on the Duel Computer and before Adela knew what was happening he had started charging at it. "WAIT! I already did that." Bryon beamed at her and made for the exit, then grabbed his leg.

"OW!" He pulled up his trousers to reveal a cut identical to Adela's, except that it was on his ankle. Bryon had a small plaster in his pocket and applied it.

"Do you have any more?" Adela enquired. Bryon pulled out another plaster and applied it to her cut.

"YOU have one as WELL? Where did they come from?" Adela shrugged, thinking back to her encounter with Hamon.

Did he have something to do with this?

"Well, Arlene? Are you finished or what?" Arlene surveyed the field.

All I have to do is get rid of Shape Shifters or make him lose 400 life points. No problem.

"I'll set a card and call it a turn." Ethan grinned maliciously and drew his card.

"This duel will be over in less than four turns." Arlene folded her arms to make it obvious she didn't believe him.

"How would you know something like that?" Ethan pointed to the green mark on his forehead.

"This thing does more than pulse on my forehead. Getting back to the duel, I play the magic card Healing Fission. Then I'll sacrifice my Wingweaver to summon Frostsaurus (2600/1700)!" The ice covered dinosaur gave a chilling roar before assuming a neutral stance. "Now Healing Fission activates, so whenever a monster of mine is sent to the graveyard by tributing I gain 1000 life points!"

Ethan: 1400
Arlene: 8600

"Now, Frostsaurus will attack you!" Arlene revealed her face down.

"I activate Balance Reinforcements, which I can activate when you declare an attack. I special summon from my deck or graveyard a monster with "Balance Warrior" in its name. Not only do I get to choose to add 3 Light or Dark Auras to the monster I just summoned, but also your monster has to attack the newly summoned monster. I'll bring out Balance Warrior Gyunn (1600/1400) to the field and add 3 Light Auras to him, bringing his attack up by 1200 (1600/1400 - 2800/1400)!" Frostsaurus clashed with the newly summoned monster resulting in the ice dinosaur being destroyed.

Ethan: 1200
Arlene: 8600

"You've gotten better," Ethan noted. "I end my turn."

"Alright then, Gyunn attack him directly!" There was a flash of grey light as Gyunn slashed at Ethan.

Ethan: 0000
Arlene: 8600

The Fate cards were placed face down in front of Ethan. Ethan gave no hesitations and picked the middle card which turned to reveal...

The Infection of Fate.

A double dose of the Infection of Fate? What's going to happen? Arlene's thoughts were answered by Ethan's scream. Green light seemed to burst forth from his skin and snaked itself around Ethan. His screams grew louder causing the green light to be blinding. Arlene shielded her eyes until the light seemed to fade. Lowering her hand she looked at Ethan.

Ethan's mark on his forehead was gone. In its place his eyes were now a luminous green with the same effect as the mark on his forehead before. He seemed a lot more confident and he now had green marks scattered across his skin. Ethan took a few seconds to familiarise himself with his new body before staring straight at his sister.

"Why thank you, Arlene," Ethan told her, a dry sound in his voice. "I can see Fate itself. Snatches of the future, of the inevitable. We're going to meet again, but it wont be for a while..." Ethan gave a soft laugh. "You've only scratched the surface on the true nature of the Fate cards. Maybe Hamon can tell you more?" Green light burst from his skin, and Arlene collapsed to the floor.

Adela had been walking behind Bryon for a few minutes before he stopped dead.

"What is it?" Adela snapped. The throbbing pain in her arm had not subsided, leaving her very irritable.

"It's...Fay..." Bryon whispered.

"What?" Adela moved Bryon out of the way to see Fay staring straight back at them. She looked a lot thinner than before but otherwise was the same.

"Bryon..." Bryon rushed forward to hug her. Fay broke the hug after a few seconds to look at Bryon. "You set the Slifer Dorms on fire." Bryon's face grew serious and he looked down at the floor. Fay punched him in the stomach and ran in the opposite direction. Adela and Bryon were initially unsure of what to do, but after a few moments followed her.

I'm back in Begia's headquarters! And Bryon's here! Why am I here? How did I get here? These questions raced through Fay's mind with no answers. Looking over her shoulder she saw Bryon and heard him calling out to her, but she ignored what he was saying. He's just trying to trick me. I have to get out of here. Fay turned a corner and went through a door, only to find it was a dead end. She was about to leave when she saw Arlene on the floor.

"Arlene!" Fay rushed up to her and started shaking her. "ARLENE! WE HAVE TO GO! BEGIA TOOK US AND..."

"Don't yell," Arlene muttered weakly, getting to her feet. "What happened?"

"I woke up here and-"

"Wait wait wait." Arlene interrupted. "How come you're alive?"

"What?"

"You lost in a duel to Erick Guerra and got the Death of Fate card. Why are you alive?" Fay looked stunned as she tried to think of an explanation. At that moment Adela and Bryon burst in. Fay screamed and tried to escape, but Bryon caught her.

"Fay, STOP! I'm not the bad guy here!" Bryon tried explaining. Fay continued struggling.

"FAY!" Arlene yelled. Fay stopped and looked at her. "A lot has happened, both while you were "dead" and here. So we need to fill in the blanks of what we know. We'll start with what happened after you lost."

The four teenagers sat down and talked for a few hours about all that had transpired after Fay had "died". Once Fay was up to speed, Adela and Bryon talked about what had happened while they were dueling the Computer, leaving out their mysterious cuts. Then Arlene told them about dueling with Hamon and then Ethan, but skipped over the revelations Hamon had told her about regarding her friends' pasts.

"So where does this leave us?" Fay asked after an uncomfortable silence. "Hamon's gone, so's Michael and we still have to deal with Duel Academy. Then there's the whole deal with the Fate cards and that woman researcher...so Ethan can tell the future?"

"I don't know," was Arlene's honest reply. "He was right about the duel ending in less than four turns, but that could have been a guess. He did say that we'd meet Ethan again but not in the near future. This is all so confusing..." Inside her head Arlene was struggling with another matter.

I know I shouldn't believe what Hamon says, but...

"Something wrong, ARLENE?" Bryon asked. Arlene nodded and faced Adela.

"Have you killed before?" Adela looked stunned by the question, but recovering from her shock gave a slow nod. "Why?"

"I'm not getting into that. That's private." Arlene didn't know what to say and looked down at the floor. Fay decided to break the silence.

"Look, we all want answers right? And the only place that'll give us any leads is Duel Academy. So let's go!" Bryon nodded and stood up, as did Fay, but Adela and Arlene stayed where they were.

"Come ON, you two! The quicker we go, the QUICKER we'll get out of here, the QUICKER..."

"Yeah, yeah I get it," Adela stood up and faced Arlene. "Coming?" Arlene nodded and followed Adela out of the room.

"I'm not going with you." Bryon, Fay and Arlene turned to face Adela. The four of them had returned to the helicopter that Bryon had used to get to and from Duel Academy. "I've had about as much as I can stand of this whole Fate thing. Maybe once all of this is over you can look me up, but until then, see you." Adela had run off before any of them could even mutter a goodbye.

"I guess it's just us again," Arlene noted. The three of them got in to the helicopter, ready to return to Duel Academy.

New Cards...

Healing Fission
Continuous Magic
Image: An Ameba splitting into two with a bright light emerging from where it split.
Effect: When a monster you control is sent to the graveyard as a tribute, increase your life points by 1000.

Balance Reinforcements
Counter Trap
Image: A lone Balance Warrior Boru facing a Summoned Skull. Behind both of them various Balance Warriors are charging towards the two.
Effect: You can only activate this card when your opponent declares an attack. Special summon from your deck or graveyard a monster with "Balance Warrior" in its name. If the monster is special summoned successfully, you may add either 3 Dark Auras or 3 Light Auras to the monster just summoned. Your opponent's can only attack the monster summoned by this card during this turn.