Author's Note: From the lack of response I've gotten, it seems that the last chapter of this story wasn't all that great. Sorry about that. Hopefully this chapter will make up for it.

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, and the character of Raven is the creation of sammycrusinix.

Chapter 7: Night of the Immortals, Part 1

When Yusei and his friends learned that they would be staying in the home that once belonged to Yusei's late parents, they didn't expect that home to be a white two-story mansion with ten bedrooms and a dining room that could seat twenty. They certainly didn't expect that home to come with a large adjoining garage with its own workshop and enough room to store all their D-Wheels. And none of them expected there to be a guesthouse with its own pool. The place was quite a drastic change from what Yusei and most of his friends were used to. After spending much of their lives in Satellite they were used to living in structures that seemed like they might fall down around them with a simple gust of wind. Even the Bird's Nest, which over time had been upgraded into a comfortable building with its own heat and generator, was a far cry from the mansion that Yusei had inherited.

As Yusei and the others had learned from Rex, Yusei's late mother apparently came from a fairly rich family that had pretty much died off, leaving Yusei the soul heir. After two days though, Yusei and the gang had gotten more used to living on the large estate. Though they had been spending much of their time trying to track down the Skeleton Knight. Unfortunately they had no leads and no idea where to start looking. And it did not appear that Rex was doing anything at all to help.

That afternoon, Yusei was in his father's old study looking at some papers he had found. Yusei never knew either of his parents, so he wanted to learn as much about them as he could.

Aki walked into the room and knocked on the open door, getting Yusei's attention. "Sorry to disturb you."

"It's fine. What's up?" Yusei asked.

"Crow and Raven just got back from another trip to the library." Aki explained as she walked further into the room. "They still didn't find anything about the Skeleton Knight."

"There has to be some kind of clue." A frustrated Yusei insisted. "He made us come all this way to the city and he hasn't made a single move since then."

"Don't worry. We'll figure this out." Aki assured him. "So, what're you reading?"

"Just some old research notes my dad wrote." Yusei answered. "He really was a genius."

"That's probably where you get it from." Aki assumed. "You're the most brilliant man I've ever known."

Before the conversation could continue any further, the couple was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell. The sound wasn't that of a normal doorbell, but rather that of a large gong. It was understandable for such a large house to need such a loud doorbell that could be heard throughout the whole house. But it was still a very startling sound nonetheless. Yusei and Aki went downstairs to answer the door. Awaiting them on the other side was Jaeger.

"Ah, Mr. Fudo. Ms. Izayoi. I trust you're having a splendid afternoon." The clown greeted.

"Did Goodwin find a lead on the Skeleton Knight?" Yusei asked.

"Sadly, no." Jaeger answered. "I'm here for a different reason entirely. You've both been invited to a small party the director is holding tonight at his home. You may also bring a couple of your friends if you wish."

"We could use a night off." Aki suggested. "I mean it's not like we've been getting anywhere finding the Skeleton Knight."

"Alright. We'll go." Yusei agreed.

"Excellent. The party will begin at 7:00." Jaeger informed them. "Ta for now." With that, Jaeger left.

"Well, I guess we should ask the others are interested in this party." Aki decided. She noticed the troubled look on Yusei's face. "What's wrong?"

"I can't shake the feeling that Goodwin is playing us somehow." Yusei admitted. "I don't think he's even lifted a finger to try and find the Skeleton Knight."

"It could be he's having just as much trouble as we are." Aki pointed out.

"Yeah, maybe. Or he's connected to the Skeleton Knight." Yusei theorized. "Just before Aporia died, he mentioned that the Skeleton Knight had a comrade. What if the comrade he was talking about is Goodwin?"

"Well if that's true, what do we do?" a shocked Aki asked.

"For now, all we can do is just play along with whatever game Goodwin is playing." Yusei decided. "He might be our only real lead to the Skeleton Knight."

Carly went up the stairs to her apartment with a bag of groceries in her arms. She had a bit more in the bag than usual, but it was well worth it. The past two days of living with Jack had been bliss. There were two large problems though. The first was that Carly hadn't gotten the interview her boss had asked for. She had been feeling conflicted about the whole thing ever since Jack had moved in.

The other problem Carly was having that she hadn't yet told Jack that she was actually a reporter. She was afraid of how Jack would react when he found out. Carly was sure that the last thing he'd want to deal with was a reporter, just another vulture that wanted to eat away at the carcass of his dueling career. Thus Carly had found herself in a paradox. If she told Jack the truth about what she was, Jack would most likely leave her. Yet if she didn't get the interview, her boss would definitely fire her. Either way she looked at it, the outcome was very bad. And the deadline to decide what to do was fast approaching.

Carly put the situation out of her mind when she entered the apartment. Jack was sitting on the couch watching the television. That was what Jack had been doing during half of his stay. For the other half he had been taking long walks around the neighborhood. Jack had resolved to find a new path, but he seemed to be having a little trouble figuring out what that path was.

"Hey Jack." Carly greeted as she went to the small kitchen.

Jack didn't respond. His eyes were still fixed to the T.V. Carly glanced at the screen and saw her rival, Angela, interviewing Rex. And the subject of course was Yusei.

"Goodwin seems to be doing a good job answering everyone's questions about your old rival." Carly observed.

"At least most of the stuff he's said is the truth." Jack pointed out. "Unlike everything he's said about my past, which was all a lie."

"The truth is more interesting than any fiction, in this case." Carly remarked. "You know I just heard on the radio that Yusei's girlfriend was framed for murder by the Infinity Triad when she was just a kid. And that she's the daughter of a late senator."

"I still don't know what Yusei sees in that girl." Jack commented. "Though I suppose she is fairly attractive."

"Hey, have you thought about challenging Yusei to a rematch?" Carly suddenly suggested. "If you beat him, you'd not only get your title back, you'd be showing everyone the real you."

"Of course I've thought about dueling Yusei again. But the truth is I'm not nearly as strong as he's become." Jack admitted. "You saw that monster he defeated me with in our last duel. I have to figure out a way to become that strong."

"I'll help you in any way I can." Carly assured him.

"Well then, you can start by making dinner." Jack smiled.

"You got it." Carly gladly agreed.

Yusei checked himself in the mirror one last time as he finished putting on a black tuxedo with a blue bowtie and cummerbund, which he had obtained on a small shopping trip with Aki, Raven, and Crow earlier that afternoon. He felt that he looked acceptable at least. Aki and the others had given their approval when he had tried it on at the store.

Aki entered the room. "How do I look?"

Yusei turned around to see Aki wearing a sparkling red backless dress with pink elbow-high gloves. "Wow! You look amazing."

"Thanks." Aki replied with a blush. "We should get going. The others are all waiting downstairs."

As the couple headed down the staircase, they saw Crow and Raven waiting by the door. Crow was wearing a brown tuxedo with an orange tie and cummerbund, while Raven was wearing a dark-blue dress with matching elbow-high gloves and a black shall. Her hair had been arranged into a braid for the occasion.

"Wow. You guys look great." Crow complimented.

"Thanks." Yusei replied. He then noticed that Bruno, Sect, and the twins were there too. "You sure you guys are okay with not going?"

"That kind of party doesn't seem like my thing." Sect assured them. "And I'm sure the twins would be bored out of their minds at something like that."

"As for me, I'm going to try and do some research on Director Goodwin." Bruno replied. "I might be able to find out if he really is connected to the Skeleton Knight."

"Hey, where's Kiryu?" Aki asked.

"He just went out for a ride a few minutes ago." Sect informed them. "Said he wanted to clear his head."

"He has had a lot on his mind lately with all this Earthbound Immortal stuff." Raven pointed out. "I don't blame him for being worried."

"I'm a bit worried about that too." Yusei admitted. "Well, we should probably get going. I'm sure Kiryu will be okay."

Kiryu rode at top speed down the highway. He had been riding for a little over an hour. But not even the feeling of the wind against his face could make him forget his most troubling problem. No matter how he looked at it, Kiryu saw himself as a danger to everyone around him. He didn't understand how, but he could feel the power of the Earthbound Immortal he was connected to pulling at his mind. It seemed that it was just a matter of time before the creature fully awakened and consumed him. Kiryu had to figure out a way to control that dark power before it took control of him. But he had no idea where to start.

Just as Kiryu was about to head back towards the Fudo mansion, he saw a sort of shadowy mass heading towards him at high speed. In moments a person on a black and silver D-Wheel emerged from the mass. The person was a young woman in her late teens with pink hair and very pale skin. She had on a tattered black cape with a black helmet that had a spider motif. The rest of her outfit consisted of a black string bikini top with black jeans and black elbow-high gloves. She had a red triangular mark on her cheek and her eyes were black with purple irises. Kiryu immediately recognized the young woman as a member of the captured Blackbird Gang known as Bandit.

"Hello Kiryu." Bandit greeted. "Nice night for a ride, isn't it?"

"Bandit, are you okay?" a concerned Kiryu asked. "How did you escape?"

"Your friend hasn't escaped. I'm merely using her as a puppet." Bandit told him as she held up her right arm, which had a glowing purple spider-shaped mark.

"Skeleton Knight!" Kiryu quickly realized. "Let Bandit go, now!"

"I'll consider it." The undead knight replied through Bandit. "In the meantime, I intend to use her as a proxy so that we can have a little duel."

"Fine! If it's a fight you want, you've got it!" Kiryu agreed.

Just as the two of them began to rev their vehicles up for a duel, a purple mark suddenly appeared on Kiryu's arm. It was the same mark that had appeared before when Crow had dueled the Skeleton Knight, a mark that resembled a sort of human figure. Kiryu suddenly realized that this duel could fully awaken his Earthbound Immortal. But there was no going back.

"This is going to be fun." The possessed Bandit grinned.

With nothing else going on, Leo and Luna had settled in to watch a movie. After a short debate that took place just a few minutes before Yusei and the other three left for the party, the twins had narrowed the choices down to two. Leo's pick was a somewhat cheesy alien movie called The Thing from Saturn 2, and Luna's pick was a fantasy movie called Princess Sparkle of Sunflower Medow. Due to Leo losing a three-round game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, they ended up watching Luna's pick. They had gotten over half-way through the movie to the part where the princess was about to rescue her captured pet unicorn from the evil wizard when both their Signer marks began to glow red.

"Something bad must be going on." Leo realized.

"We better go tell Bruno and Sect." Luna decided. And with that, they stopped the movie and quickly left the room.

The party at the Goodwin mansion had been relatively dull. It had been nothing more than a bunch of wealthy elitists exchanging hot air. Yusei and Aki did find that a few of the people at that party had known their families. But the four of them were largely ignored. It wasn't much of a surprise though. Despite whatever families they came from, they were still from Satellite. And so the evening had quickly turned to Yusei and his three companions taking up a spot by the wall.

"Well this turned out to be a real blast." Crow stated sarcastically.

"At least we got to dress up." Raven optimistically pointed out.

"You know what this is all about though Yusei. Goodwin's trying to show off his new champion." Crow assumed.

"That might be part of it." Yusei agreed.

Before the conversation could go any further, Yusei, Aki, and Crow's Signer marks began to glow. As did the seal on Raven's back.

"What's going on?" Aki wondered as she tried to hide the light from her mark.

"The power of an Earthbound Immortal is beginning to stir." Raven informed them.

"Does this have anything to do with Kiryu?" Yusei asked.

"It looks that way." Raven grimly replied. "But it could be the Skeleton Knight too. Either way, things don't look good."

"Then let's get the hell out of here!" Crow decided. "This party's going nowhere anyway."

Jack and Carly had more or less settled in for a quiet evening. The two of them had started watching a movie that Carly had selected, a tearjerker romance film called A Kiss for Eternity. Jack found the film rather nauseating. But Carly seemed to like it, so Jack decided to just tough it out. As the film's female lead began to cry for what seemed like the fiftieth time when the mark on his arm suddenly began to glow.

Carly noticed the mark almost instantly. "What the heck is that?"

"It's a birthmark I have. And it's not the first time it's done something like this." Jack explained.

"That's right. Your arm glowed when you dueled Yusei." Carly recalled.

"It's glowed a few other times over the last month or so." Jack admitted. "I've never known what it means."

"Carly!" Fortune Fairy Hikari frantically interrupted as she appeared with her sisters. "There's something really big going on."

"What is it?" Carly asked.

"We don't know." Ann admitted. "But we know where it's happening."

"Then take us there at once." Jack ordered as he stood up from the couch. "I want to find out just what's going on."

Kiryu and the possessed Bandit raced full speed towards the first intersection. In a split second, Kiryu took the corner first.

"Track Field, activate! Infernity Wasteland!" Kiryu called out. All at once, an endless desert replaced the massive city and a hot noonday sun had replaced the night sky above. "I start by summoning Infernity Dwarf in Defense Mode!"

Appearing alongside Kiryu was a squat humanoid with grey skin and a shaggy dark-grey beard. He had on a tattered farm hat and dusty overalls. In his hands, the dwarf carried a large axe with a long grey handle.

"Next I activate the Continuous Spell, Infernity Launcher!" Kiryu announced. "With Infernity Launcher's effect I send Infernity General from my hand to the Graveyard! Finally, I activate one of Infernity Wasteland's effects and discard Infernity Archfiend! That ends my turn!"

Bandit drew her first card. "I summon Skull Spider-Savage Wolf in attack mode!"

Materializing onto the field was a large grey furry spider with four red eyes and sharp fangs. Each of its eight legs had two black stripes, and on the top of its abdomen had a large black skull-shaped mark.

"Savage Wolf, attack Infernity Dwarf!" Bandit commanded. "Predatory Fang!"

The feral spider leapt high into the air and tackled Kiryu's dwarf to the ground. After Savage Wolf bit down, Infernity Dwarf shattered into bits of light and vanished.

"When Savage Wolf destroys a monster in battle, it deals damage equal to that monster's ATK." Bandit revealed. "Meaning you take 800 points of damage!"

The spider rose up and sprayed Kiryu with a green acid. Kiryu's life points went down to 3200. As Kiryu recovered from the damage, Yusei and the rest of the group that had gone to the party rode up from behind on their D-Wheels. Sect, Bruno, and the twins soon joined them.

"Kiryu, are you okay?" Yusei called up.

"Yeah, I'm fine for now." Kiryu assured them.

"No way! Is that Bandit?" Sect quickly observed.

"It's not really Bandit. The Skeleton Knight is controlling her like some kind of puppet." Kiryu explained.

"Let her go, you bonehead!" Crow furiously demanded.

"I think not." The knight laughed through Bandit. "I set two cards on the field and end my turn."

"I activate another one of Infernity Wasteland's effects!" Kiryu announced. "Instead of my normal draw, I can add an Infernity monster to my hand. So I now add to my hand, Infernity Beetle!" He took the card that popped out of his deck. "Yusei, don't freak out at what I'm about to do."

"I trust you." Yusei nodded.

"I activate one of Infernity Launcher's effects and send Infernity Necromancer to the Graveyard!" Kiryu announced. "Next I activate Infernity Wasteland and discard Infernity Knight! Now I summon Infernity Beetle in Attack mode!" A large black three-horned beetle materialized on the field. "I activate Infernity Beetle's effect! Since I have no cards in my hand, I tribute Infernity Beetle to summon two more from my deck!"

The black beetle shattered into bits of light and became a large whirlwind. Two identical bugs flew out of the twister shortly before it vanished.

"I banish Infernity General from my Graveyard to summon Infernity Knight and Infernity Necromancer!" Kiryu announced.

Two new monsters rose onto the field out of a hole of black energy in the ground. One of them was a white skeleton dressed in purple robes and a green-feathered headdress. The other was a knight clad in black armor.

"I tune the level two Infernity Beetle into the level three Infernity Necromancer and the level three Infernity Knight for a level eight Synchro Summon!" Kiryu announced.

One of the two large beetles flashed orange and changed into two rings of green light and encircled the two new monsters. The knight and the necromancer then became six balls of white light.

"Shadows of the underworld come together! Open now the gates of the abyss!" Kiryu chanted. "Synchro Summon! Rise from the pit, Void Ogre Dragon!"

The lights flashed and exploded into a pillar of crimson flames. The flames died down after a moment to reveal a winged dragon with large claws and scaled the color of dried blood. Adorning parts of its body were a few round blood-red stones.

"That's the dragon Kiryu used against me at the bottom of the Pit!" Yusei observed.

"You mean the one that you said drove him nuts?" a startled Crow asked.

"I activate another of Infernity Launcher's effects!" Kiryu continued. "Because I have no cards to my hand, I can send Infernity Laucher to the Graveyard to summon Infernity Dwarf and Infernity Archfiend!"

Kiryu's Spell card exploded into a blast of red flames. The flames died down to reveal Infernity Dwarf, and a grey demon with straight fiery red hair wearing blue and orange robes.

"I tune the level two Infernity Beetle into the level two Infernity Dwarf and the level four Infernity Archfiend for a level eight Synchro Summon!" Kiryu announced.

The second beetle flashed orange and changed into another pair of green rings. The rings encircled the pair of monsters and changed them into eight balls of white light.

"When the curtain of darkness descends down, the eyes of the underworld will open! Swoop down, darkness!" Kiryu chanted. "Synchro Summon! Show yourself, Hundred Eyes Dragon!"

The lights flashed and erupted into a massive pillar of black energy. The energy soon died down to reveal another dragon. It was black in color and had its wings on its arms. The dragon's entire body was covered in purple eyes, with one large eye on the center of its chest.

"Whoa! Two level eight dragons in one turn!" a very impressed Leo observed. "And both with 3000 ATK."

"Nice to see that you're still using the two cards I gave you." Bandit remarked.

"Wait a minute. Kiryu, when did the Skeleton Knight give you that second dragon?" Yusei asked.

"I gave it to him just before you went to rescue Aki from Placido." The knight explained through a grinning Bandit. "Didn't he tell you?"

"I told you Yusei, I can handle this." Kiryu assured him. "If I'm going to fight against this darkness that's trying to take me over, I'm going to start now!"

"Oh just let the darkness take control." Bandit suggested. "You'll be much stronger for it."

"I activate the effect of Hundred Eyes Dragon!" Kiryu continued, Ignoring Bandit. "By banishing Infernity Dwarf from the Graveyard, Hundred Eyes Dragon gains his effect until the end of the turn!"

A ghostly version of Kiryu Dwarf appeared and flew into the large eye on the dragon's chest. All of the eyes on the dragon's body then began to glow with an unearthly purple light.

"Void Ogre Dragon, attack Savage Wolf!" Kiryu commanded. "Hellfire Shot!"

"I activate a Trap, Mirror Force!" Bandit announced.

"Then I activate Void Ogre Dragon's effect!" Kiryu announced. "Since I have no cards in my hand, Void Ogre can negate the activation of a Spell or Trap card!"

"Then I activate my other Trap, Divine Wrath!" Bandit announced. But when she pressed the appropriate button on her D-Wheel, nothing happened. "What!"

"Because I have no cards in my hand, Infernity Wasteland prevents card effects from countering the effects of my monsters." Kiryu explained.

After skewering the large representation of Bandit's Mirror Force card, Void Ogre Dragon incinerated the grey spider with a blast of red flames. Bandit's life points dropped down to 2900.

"Because you destroyed Savage Wolf in battle, I can set a Skull Spider monster from my deck onto the field." Bandit announced.

"Because Hundred Eyes Dragon has Infernity Dwarf's effect, it inflicts battle damage when it destroys a Defense Position monster in battle." Kiryu revealed. "Hundred Eyes Dragon attack Bandit's face down monster! Infinity Sight Stream!"

Kiryu's second dragon reared back its head and blasted the second monster with a stream of purple light. Before being obliterated, Bandit's monster was revealed as a fairly large purple spider with stubby red legs and a white skull mark on its large abdomen. The spider exploded in a blast of green slime and Bandit's life points dropped down to a mere 800. Yet at the same time, some of the slime splashed onto Hundred Eyes Dragon, causing it to suddenly collapse and dissolve into particles of black dust. Kiryu's life points then inexplicably dropped to 1700.

"What just happened?" Kiryu asked.

"The monster you destroyed was Skull Spider-Assassin Fang." Bandit explained. "When Assassin Fang is destroyed in battle, the monster that attacked it is killed and my opponent takes half its ATK as damage. But that's not all that's happened Kiryu."

Suddenly Kiryu's deck began to emit a black aura. A card then flew out from the bottom of the deck and went into Kiryu's empty hand. It was a card that Kiryu had never seen before, but he knew what it was immediately. Suddenly his head began to feel like it was in a vice and the mark on his arm reappeared.

"What… is this?" Kiryu asked.

"Didn't you read the fine print in Hundred Eyes Dragon's effect? When it's destroyed, the player can add an Earthbound Immortal to the hand." Bandit grinned.

"Kiryu's Earthbound Immortal is close to awakening!" Raven quickly realized.

"Since you obviously can't do anything more this turn, I'm going to start." Bandit decided as she drew a card. "I summon the Tuner monster, Skull Spider-Silk Strummer!"

Appearing on the field alongside Bandit was a fairly large black spider with long thin red legs and four large green eyes. A white skull mark was on its abdomen, and with its two pairs of front legs it held a sort of red banjo with silk threads.

"When Silk Strummer is summoned to the field, I can bring back a Skull Spider from the Graveyard in Defense Mode." Bandit explained. "Reappear now, Skull Spider-Assassin Fang!"

Silk Strummer played a short odd tune on its instrument, causing a spider web of red light to appear. The purple spider that had killed Hundred Eyes Dragon came out of the web.

"Because you have a card in your hand, you can't use Void Ogre Dragon's effect. So now I activate a Spell card, Web of Rebirth!" Bandit announced. "With this card, I can bring back a Skull Spider from the Graveyard in Defense Mode with zero ATK. Arise, Skull Spider-Savage Wolf!"

A spider web of green light appeared next to the two other spiders. Savage Wolf emerged from the web before it disappeared.

"I now tune the level two Silk Strummer into the level two Assassin Fang and the level four Savage Wolf for a level eight Synchro Summon!" Bandit announced.

The spider musician played another strange tune before changing into two rings of purple light. The rings encircled the other two spiders and converted them into six balls of crackling black energy.

"The threads of darkness shall be woven together to create the web of pain! Take witness to the ascension of its solitary ruler!" Bandit chanted. "Synchro Summon! The queen of pain and death, Skull Spider Queen-Black Widow!"

The dark lights erupted into a massive pillar of black energy. After the moment the energy faded with reveal a well-endowed woman with chalk-white skin and six arms. Her hair was black and went down to her lower back. She had red eyes and ruby-red lips. The fingernails of each hand were long and black. On her torso the woman had a black and silver breastplate with a pair of creatively placed silver skull-shaped markings. She also had on a long skirt that went down to her ankles and was open a bit in front. The skirt was black until just above the knees, where it became a silver transparent fabric with a black spider web pattern. With the skirt, the woman wore black leather knee-high high-heeled boots, and on each of her six arms she wore fingerless black leather gloves that ended in the middle of the upper arm. Around her neck she wore a black leather strap with a silver buckle, along with a necklace in the shape of a black widow spider. Atop her head was a silver tiara with a singe green gemstone in the center.

"I activate Black Widow's effect!" Bandit announced. "Once per turn I can change the battle position of an opponent's monster. So I now switch Void Ogre Dragon to Defense Mode!"

The spider queen launched thick silk threads from the bottom of each of her wrists and snared Kiryu's remaining dragon. With a tug of all six arms, the bound dragon was pulled off balance.

"Black Widow gains 300 ATK for each of my opponent's monsters, which means her ATK right now is 3100." Bandit revealed. "Making her just strong enough to beat your dragon in both ATK and DEF. Black Widow, destroy Void Ogre Dragon! Web of Pain!"

With her webs still around Void Ogre, Black Widow shocked the dragon with streams of crackling black electricity. The dragon cried out in pain before finally shattering into bits of purple light.

"When Black Widow destroys a monster in Defense Mode, she inflicts half that monster's DEF as damage!" Bandit announced.

From her upper right arm, the spider queen created a silken whip that she used to strike Kiryu. The lash caused Kiryu's life points to fall down to 200.

"Since you no longer have any monsters, Black Widow's ATK drops back to 2800. But I now fix that problem by playing another Spell card, Gift of the Spider Queen!" Bandit announced. "Since a Skull Spider Queen just destroyed an opposing monster, I can summon two Phantom Spider tokens to my opponent's field in Defense Mode!"

Two shadowy black balls shot out of Black Widow's necklace. The balls began to float alongside Kiryu and changed into a pair of black nondescript spiders.

"Thanks to those spiders, Black Widow's ATK goes back up to 3400." Bandit pointed out. "That ends my turn, which means you now have to make a decision, Kiryu. Face it, there's only one way out of your current predicament. And it's in your hand right now. I provided you the perfect opening. So just make things easy on yourself and take it."

"Don't do it, Kiryu!" Yusei cut in. "You'd only be doing what the Skeleton Knight wants!"

"Yeah. Plus think of what might happened to Bandit if you went through with it!" Crow added.

Kiryu mindlessly drew his next card. "I… I tribute the two Phantom Spider tokens to summon… Earthbound Immortal Ccapac Apu!"

The two black spiders shattered to bits and a massive pillar of blue light shot up into the air. The sky overhead became thick with black clouds. In moments the light faded to reveal a gigantic almost human-shaped shadow with blue lines on parts of its body. On its head it had a blue circle that seemed to serve as an eye. With the giant's appearance, Kiryu burst into a fit of maniacal laughter.

"We're too late. The Earthbound Immortal's power has consumed him." Raven said grimly.

"Ccapac Apu, attack Bandit directly!" Kiryu commanded with insane glee. "Hand of Death!"

The giant shadow began to move its massive hand down towards Kiryu. Bandit laughed maniacally just before the hand slammed down on her and brought her life points to zero, causing her to shatter into black mist. With the duel over, Ccapac Apu vanished and the surroundings returned to normal. Everyone came to a stop near a freeway overpass. Kiryu broke into another fit of mad laughter and looked back at his concerned friends.

"Who wants to go next?" Kiryu dared. "Who wants to be the next to die?"

"Looks like there's no choice but to duel him." Crow gravely observed.

Just before Yusei was about to take Kiryu's challenge, a massive object suddenly crashed down from the bridge above between Yusei and Kiryu. The object in question was a very large three-wheeled vehicle with a silver cow skull towards the front. The rider was a very large and muscular man with dark-tan skin and long black hair.

"Looks like it's a good thing I was in the area." The rider observed before turning to Yusei. "You stay back. I'll handle this."

"And just who are you?" Kiryu asked.

"The name's Greiger." The giant answered. "Let's dance, psycho!"

Author's Note: So the thing about Yusei's mother being from a wealthy family was just something I made up for this story just to explain how Yusei and the others ended up in a mansion. To be fair, we didn't really learn much about Yusei's mother in the anime. As I recall, all we saw was a picture of her that was only in one episode for about a few seconds. So I just used a little creative license. Besides, this is an AU, so I can more or less do what I want (within reason of course).

The duel for this chapter was a little hard to write. Mainly because I had no idea who Kiryu's opponent would be, other than a puppet of the Skeleton Knight. But since the opponent was only going to be a Skeleton Knight pawn, I decided to simply have that character use more of the Skeleton Knight's cards. Which gave me a chance to expand the Skull Spiders and give them a queen (though Black Widow won't be the only queen they have). It was a last minute decision to have the opponent be Bandit, a minor character from Stardust and Roses. During that story I kept trying to work Bandit in more, but most of her scenes kept getting cut. I guess that's all the more reason for me to do that prequel that shows the formation of the Blackbird Gang at some point.

I hope Greiger's appearance in this story wasn't too unexpected. I had originally planed not to use Greiger at all. He was never really one of my favorite characters from 5D's. But he was a Dark Signer in the anime, and I realized that he could play a very important role in this story. As he shall do in the next chapter.

Please review and let me know what you think.