Disclaimer: I own neither Danny Phantom nor Yu-gi-oh. Wish I did: don't. That's life.

If you like this check out the fic I'm co-authoring with moonymonster, called The Ultimate Hero. It's an AU of The Ultimate Enemy: what would have happened if Clockwork hadn't saved Danny's family?

This was written as part of Versus 'Versus, which is a series of oneshot crossovers. moonymonster asked me to continue this one: she's a friend, therefore I am. If you want any of the others continued, continue them yourself?

For those unfamiliar with Yu-gi-oh, monsters are really parts of people's souls and most of them live in the Shadow Realm, although you can steal the souls of living people. The Blue Eyes White Dragon contains the soul of Kisara. Yami is the ghost of Yugi's previous life and possesses Yugi when they duel.

The spirits in the cards have a connection to the duelist, and can decide if they want to help them out or not. If the monster likes you, you'll draw it exactly when it will do you the most good.

In the Doom Arc, Dartz was stealing the souls of duelists, who have more spiritual power than most people, to revive an ancient god/demon. He also summoned a bunch of monsters and let them loose all over the world.

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"I can't believe your parents brought us all tickets to the Kaiba Corp Grand Prix," Tucker gushed.

"Jazz talked them into it. It's for research." Danny grinned. Occasionally Jazz proved herself useful.

"Research on what? Kaiba Corporations solid hologram technology? I can't believe I'm going to get a chance to see the first ones of the new top-of-the-line dueling arenas!" Tucker hugged his PDA in joy.

"Do you even play, Tucker?" Sam rolled her eyes.

"It's nerd poker, Sam," Danny reminded her.

"It's not just for nerds! Look." She fished in her pocket and fished out a deck. "Fiend and Zombie deck. My parents actually paid for it. They brought me all these cute fluffy fairy cards that I sold on E-bay." She grinned. "All the rich kids are playing it now. Mom freaked when she saw me play Ouija Board."

"Whoa, back up. Your parents wanted you to play a magic card game? Didn't they say it was too occult?" Tucker asked.

"It is occult. Haven't you heard all the rumors?" Sam's eyes sparkled. "The game is supposed to be based on ancient Egyptian magic! How cool is that?"

Tucker snorted. "Oh come on Sam, that's just advertising."

"No it's, not. Industrial Illusions has denied the rumors, but that's just because they don't want to get the religious nuts any more against the game then they already are."

"Sam might be right," Danny spoke up. "That's why my parents are going to the tournament. There's a Professor Hopkins who is going to be there to watch his granddaughter duel. He's an expert on ancient mystic stuff, and when my parents, or mom really, asked to talk to him he said to come to the tournament to do it and gave us tickets."

"Hold on a minute. Hopkins? As in Rebecca Hopkins?"

"Is she famous?"

"Oh yeah, I modeled my deck after her old one, and after Bakura at Battle City. Shadow Ghoul kicks so much ass."

Tucker stepped back. "Sam? You're that enthusiastic about something? Has the world come to an end again?"

"It's a really cool game, Tucker. I bet you would love the Machine monsters."

"There are machines? I thought this was a magic game." He looked a little interested.

"There are all sorts of things. There are cards based on stuff from all over the world."

"Sam, it might be dangerous. Didn't you watch the news? All the people who went into comas recently were duelists. And there were those monsters appearing everywhere that the Fenton Thermos didn't work on?"

"At least the Ghost Shield worked." Tucker counted their blessings. "Technology wouldn't let us down."

"It's true a lot of those monsters were ones on the cards. So you need to check it out, Danny. You should learn to play, I'll buy you a deck," Sam offered.

"No thanks." Danny shook his head. "I learned my lesson with Technis, you're the gaming expert. If any weird stuff happens at the tournament, you can figure it out."

"You think something will happen?" Tucker asked. "It's not in Amity Park, and the ghosts usually stay here."

"I don't know. There's a lot of weird stuff going on with this game. And Vlad sent me this." Danny fished a deck out of pocket. "He gave me a note with it, too." He fished around more and dragged out a ratty piece of paper. "Since there's no way a fourteen-year-old like you would understand chess, learn this instead if you want me to continue to regard you as not totally worthless as an adversary," he read. "If Vlad wants me to learn it, no way." He shook his head violently. "This might be some plot to get me in a coma like all those people."

"He made you a deck?" Sam grinned. "You should totally show that to Jazz. A deck says a whole ton about your personality. If I help her figure out the cards, we could learn a lot."

"About what?" Danny looked at it dubiously.

"Danny?" Tucker looked a little alarmed. "It's not very cold today."

"What?" Danny looked at his breath. "My ghost sense is going off. Just barely." A thin trail of vapor hung in the air. "I think it's the cards. But why didn't they do this when they were in my pocket?"

"Some people believe that the monsters are real and the cards are a link to them. There's all this stuff about a 'Shadow Realm' on the forums." Sam looked excited. "That's why you have to go! This Shadow Realm might be the Ghost Zone."

Danny's eyes narrowed. "And if people can use these cards to bring monsters out of the Ghost Zone… I wonder if Industrial Illusions is a subdivision of the DALV Group."

Sam shook her head. "Maximillion Pegasus owns it. He's the creator of the game, and he always knows what move people are going to make next."

"Mind reading? Is that a ghost power?" Tucker asked. "I mean, you already possess people."

Danny shrugged. "I don't know, but I'm going to find out. You two are coming with me to the tournament and we'll see if there are any ghosts there." He looked at the deck. "And I'm going to give this to my parents so they can run tests on it." But his hand tightened around it. Maybe just looking at the cards wouldn't do any harm. Nothing had happened to Sam, after all. "It's one of Vlad's plots again, I just know it."

"Oh come on Danny, no harm in trying it out. I'll teach you how to play?"

He frowned, undecided, but since it was Sam asking, "Sure."

At the tournament, Sam lost all faith in Rebecca Hopkins when she played cheerful cards, Jack was escorted out of the park by security after shooting at the holograms, Tucker got to examine the cutting-edge holographic technology while Danny and Sam dueled, and Danny's ghost sense only went off a little, once when Seto Kaiba summoned the Blue Eyes and again while Yugi Motou was dueling Leon.

"Of course they've got strong connections to the cards, they're champions." Sam shrugged.

"I don't know. Did you see how Yugi looked different when the duel started?" Danny frowned. "Totally different from when he was sitting on the stage."

"I didn't notice anything," Sam said, looking at Tucker. "Did you?"

"Sam? Hello? Why would I look at the players when there were all those cool holograms?"

Sam rolled her eyes. "Good point."

"Jazz went with our parents to meet with Professor Hopkins. She's going to tell me everything he says when they get back." Danny looked at the deck. "There is something ghostly about these. We're going to need to study it more."

"Wouldn't it be cool if you could summon Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer?" Sam grinned.

Danny nodded. "These cards are connected to spirits, and we're going to find out how."