"So...feeling a bit confused? It has been a while after all. Maybe I should refresh your memories a little, hmm?"
"Why don't we start off with the Fate Cards? These are the cards that you've seen Begia using - but more on Begia later. Fate cards are made using three different ingredients: raw and unstable energy; a human sacrifice; and a special energy converter. No-one that we've met so far knows just what exactly the special energy converter is, so the Fate cards that have been seen have not been fully functional ones. Once a Fate card is played, any duelist whose lifepoints hit zero has to choose a face down Fate card, which decides what happens to them. There are good and bad Fate cards, though we haven't seen any good ones so far, more things like ""The Death of Fate", which kills you. Euch. But as I've mentioned the Fate cards seen so far haven't been "proper" ones, which means if one of these "unfinished" Fate cards would cause you to die, your heart would stop, but there would still be a little bit of brain activity, enough to keep you going for a couple of days before you give out completely. "The Death of Fate" is one of the more simple Fate cards in that it does exactly what it says it will. Cards like "The infection of Fate" are a little bit more complicated, but let's try explaining it."
"We've seen this "infection" on a couple of characters, most notably Ethan. So what does it do? Well it taps into your deep dark side, the one that society tells you to keep hidden, and pulls it right out into the public eye! Fun, huh? Of course, if "real" Fate cards were used you'd turn into a Fate soul, but as it happens the "infected" characters still have a tiiiny bit of humanity in them, it's just not very clear. So what about when Ethan was hit with a double dose of infection? Did it just bring out his bad side twice? Hmmm, no. If you're given a second "Infection of Fate", that scrap of humanity you had pretty much goes bye bye, and you also get the little ability to see snatches of the future. That and your skin becomes a little bit green, and your eyes become...well, very green. This isn't really that well researched seeing as its only happened to one person so far.
"What about the origins of these cards? Well, not that much has been given away, but we do know that the leader of Begia - Hamon Ayver - discovered these cards while in Egypt. Which leads on to our next bit of catching up."
"Begia seems to have a couple of clear goals, the most important is to use these Fate cards and judge humanity, one soul at a time. Seems a little slow to me, but maybe they'll be more efficient in the future? They also want to get their Fate cards turned into real ones, and of course they've taken over the Duel Academy Island. I know, I know, why take over that particular island? Put it this way - that island has something very important for the development of the Fate cards. Could it be the special energy converter? Even Hamon doesn't know what it is yet, and you didn't know this until just now either. Oops, maybe I gave a bit too much away? Ah well, too late now. Begia's currently using the emotions of children to create raw and unstable energy, and who knows who they're killing for the sacrifices? Probably just random civilians, I haven't really given it much thought. From what you've seen so far, Begia doesn't really seem like the strategy types, and you're right. I mean, their genius plan of blowing up the Duel Academy Island...twice? Yeah, they weren't really too bright on that one, you see the first set of explosions was so that they had a guise for bringing large numbers of the organisation onto the island, and they could just pass them off as people helping out for the tournament that was going to raise money for rennovations. So why didn't Kaiba just pay for it instead? Well, he was most likely being blackmailed at the time, but we'll ask him when we see him! So yeah, the plan was to capture a student called Fay Britt and then level the island so that they could start building things. So what did they want with Miss Britt? Well..."
"...Fay is one of the original children to be used to make the Fate cards, and they decided to do a little experiment on her - implant an emotion absorption device which would wirelessly allow Begia to draw upon her emotions so that they'd be more real than the kids in the test tubes. Of course, Hamon wanted more negative emotions than positive so wiped her memory before he released her and then always had a couple of people chasing her to make her feel distressed. The island blowing up twice can't have been good for her nerves. Speaking of Fay, she somehow magically came back from her almost-death, right? Well we can't say for sure, but if I had to guess, I'd say that it had something to do with her being the creator of a lot of these cards..."
"You're probably thinking, "Why are you summarizing this? Is Finding the Balance finished? If so, what a weak ending! So many loose ends etc.!" Relax, it's not the end. This summary was to give you the information you needed to know for the next parts of the action."
"This isn't the author speaking, by the way, though I'm sure most of you knew that already. Ethan, at your service, and I look forward to seeing you in the future."
So, is there anything that still confuses you? If so be sure to ask, and if it's not something that will be revealed I'm sure Ethan can fill you in...