"Rise up and give me victory, Theinen the Great Sphinx!"
Harry felt his eyes go wide as he was literally blown off his feet and sent tumbling along the ground at the raw power the simple shout had caused. While the world of his mind had no sky the air itself seemed to darken with the palpable Shadow Magic that filled the area. The Forbidden Forest swayed ominously as the black gem that had cracked open began to bubble and boil as rivulets of black magic wept down its sides to pool on the forest floor.
Above the wizard's head in the merging soul that was the ancient bandit of Egypt the fragments of the jewel had begun to melt as well falling from the desert to the forest as a black magically charged rain. The magically charged air began to discharge lightning that lanced forth from the melting jewel fragments. Red lightning the color of blood flew wild across the landscape and blistered the armaments of the castle behind Harry and ricocheted off the wards to crash back against the building pool of black magic.
The five magicians stood strong in front of the wizard even as they were assaulted by the powerful winds and magic that struck against them like a rolling tide. Each of the men had their staff firmly planted on the ground as a shield spell was erected before them a glittering sapphire of color against the ever pressing shadows. The female of the group held her baton in her hands as she soundlessly seemed to mouth a chant that was funneling the magic put into her earlier back into the magicians that had given it.
A deafening roar exploded through the air as a brown claw that looked exactly like Andro Sphinx's reached up from the mass of black energy and toppled the surrounding trees as it planted a hand firmly against the ground and began to pull. A golden mane began to rise from the depths of the earth though a hint of pink could be seen from behind it until the feral face belonging to the male sphinx appeared above the ground, black ichor dripping from its snout and saliva covered fangs as it wrestled another arm free of the magical pool and seemed to lift itself up where its torso loomed over the ground casting a shadow across Hogwarts and its grounds.
Without warning it arched back away from the group before another set of paws, this time white, latched onto the shore of the tainted magic and pushed upwards. With a size and speed that could scarcely be imagined the bottom half of Sphinx Teleia burst forth and smashed into the magical wards that protected the illusion of Hogwarts in Harry's mind and soul, shattering the magic to pieces beneath its powerful claws. It's black eyes watched with triumph as its great weight crashing to the ground sent several of castle's towers crumbling to the ground.
From his position on the ground the wizard could see the dual faces of Andro Sphinx and Sphinx Teleia staring in opposite directions from the same skull and felt his rage swell as his mind seemed to hit rewind and he was eleven years old again staring in horror at the back of Quirrell's head, facing his parent's murderer face to face for the first time. A dark green glow began to surrounding the teenage wizard as he forced himself back to his feet, his eyes locked on the two headed monster with all the loathing he could muster from the depths of his very soul.
"Now do you begin to see? There is no power greater than mine, little Wizard. Soon your soul will be torn asunder as I take your place and live again!"
"All I hear is someone to cowardly to face me in person," Harry spat as he looked from the intimidating beast to his magicians. While they were powerful, especially as a group, he didn't know whether or not they'd be able to defeat the combined power of the two sphinx's merged into one. His hand automatically went to his duel disk and the card laying on top of his deck. A bolt of white lightning flashed behind the wizard lighting up the darkness with a blaring white light where all that was visible for a split moment was a pair of glowing green eyes.
A breeze swept up from behind the wizard as he stared at the card in his hands, the one sent to him by Pegasus. He stared at the monster on the card and then back to the behemoth that loomed over him and his five protectors. This was it. By playing this one card he knew his life would never be the same.
"I'm sorry," he said sadly as he looked at his Dark Magician, Dark Magician Girl and Chaos Command Magician with haunted eyes. "I can't let him though. I sacrifice Dark Magician, Dark Magician Girl and my Chaos Command Magician to summon," he paused as the cards on his duel disk flew into his card graveyard, "my all powerful beast. Come forth, The Wicked Dreadroot!"
As Harry placed the card on his duel disk he felt an ominous dread rise up and grip his heart. The ground rumbled both beneath his feet and above his head causing a rain of sand and embers to fall. The air grew thick and it was all he could do to take one perceived lungful after another and remain on his feet. The sound of stone and mortar cracking caused the wizard to turn and watched in horror as the building that contained his soul room was torn asunder and sent crashing to the ground.
The sands from overhead were pulled down to where Hogwarts one stood and began to swirl in a wide dust devil that ripped the trees of the forest from their rooted foundation and sent them twisting in the harsh winds that announced the Wicked God's arrival. From the swirling sands two sets of gleaming yellow eyes seemed to take form before Harry heard a cry from his remaining spellcasters. Glancing behind him revealed them dropping to a knee, their staves held loosely in their hands as the very strength was sucked out of them.
His green eyes turned to Theinen as its colossal weight slammed into the ground beneath it as it dropped to its knees. The Sphinx was gripping its chest in agony as its dark presence was overcast by the arrival of Harry's most powerful card. The wizard turned back to the approaching God monster only to have to cover his face as the sand cyclone was blasted apart, the sand ripped at his clothes and burned his skin even as it tore the bark from the trees and pelted the other monsters present.
"Y-you, what have you done," Anubis' quaking voice demanded to know from where the spirit still resided in the original Pyramid of Light. "My Theinen! What is it you summoned to weaken my all powerful Sphinx!"
The ancient sorcerer's answer came in the form of a hulking green creature who could only half appear within the confines of the soul it was summoned in. Its powerful muscles bulged beneath an armor made of the bones of some powerful fiend whose eyes still glared from its skull which sat as a crown atop Dreadroot's head. Bone claws extended out past the green knuckles of the brawler Wicked God from the wrists of the skeleton which overlaid its body. Its mouth, while closed, did nothing to hide the gleaming mouth of fangs the creature had while it glared dangerously at the two-faced sphinx kneeling before it.
"When the Wicked Dreadroot is summoned it automatically cuts the attack and defense of all monster in half," Harry answered as he focused most of his ability to just stand under the onslaught of the Wicked Gods power. "Now, Wicked Dreadroot, show this pitiful wizard while he'll never be able to claim my body and soul! Fierce Knockdown!"
The God turned his attention to the small figure staring up at him from behind a pair of glasses and seemed to stare directly through him for a long moment before nodding. Clenching its right fist so hard that all present were capable of hearing its bone's pop and crack it reared its arm back before swinging forward. The resulting impact of the Wicked God's fist meeting the snarling face of the weakened sphinx sent a shockwave through the merging souls before Theinen was dragged off its fore-paws by the God's might and sent slamming onto its second face and back before exploding into nothingness.
Harry sighed with relief as he watched the powerful two-faced monster disappear and turned to thank the Wicked God that had helped him only meet a very different pair of eyes. Emeralds stared in shock into rubies which watched him from a purple canine head with long perked up ears. The creature opened its mouth and breathed into the face of the teenage wizard whose eyes rolled up into his head before he collapsed asleep.
Harry bolted up from where he lay on the cold hard tiled floor of museum to the shock of the pink haired witch who had been hovering over him. Their heads collided halfway through his sit up and sent both crashing back to the floor. Both wizard and witch gripped their foreheads in pain before sitting up and wincing at the oncoming headache.
"Merlin, Tonks, did you have to lean over me so close," Harry asked as he pulled his hand away from his head to check for blood.
"Forgive me for being worried for you when you passed out, idiot," the pink haired witch who was quickly growing into a redhead in her anger, snapped as she put both of her hands to her head hope to keep the pain away. "What happened anyway? That curator lady put that oversize piece of jewelry on you and you just fell to the floor!"
"I don't think you'd believe me if I told you," he said honestly as he stared down at the gleaming pyramid that was moving along with each inhale and exhale of his chest. Carefully he raised his hands to feel the side of the blue artifact and sighed when he didn't feel Anubis' presence however he could still sense the power radiating from the psuedo-Item. "Whatever happened, I think I just got a leg up in this fight."
Climbing to his feet Harry heard a strange shuffling noise and glanced at his feet. A pile of Duel Monsters cards had been placed in a stack beside his feet and he had accidentally kicked them over when he had managed to stand up. Kneeling down he scooped the strange cards up and began to look through them before stopping in shock at the last four. An orange pyramid stared back at him from within the confines of a trap card with a very familiar name including a shocking text beneath it. The other three held a pair of monsters and their seemingly fused counterpart that made him gulp at the memory of fighting them.
Palming the cards back into a stack Harry opened the deck box on belt and slid the cards in before buckling it shut. Duel Monsters was a game of strategy and the luck of the draw and it would be foolish of him not to use every card available to him to stack the odds in his favor. It was also advisable not to be a simple one trick duelist like Rex Raptor and Weevil Underwood who used Dinosaurs and Insects respectively and since Duelist Kingdom had taken a hard plunge in popularity when they and their decks were soundly defeated.
His eyes flashed around the exhibit in search of the Ishtar sister in hopes of an explanation for the cards only to find that he and the punk witch were alone once again.
"People come and go so quickly around here," he muttered remembering a line from a movie he had once heard from his cupboard. Turning he flashed a forced smile at the witch behind him. "Come on, lets get out of here and get the last two locator cards!"
"Yeah sure, Harry, whatever you say," Tonks said as she climbed to her feet before releasing a sigh. 'Maybe I should have just watched the tournament from a cafe or something. Harry's friends were right, he certainly doesn't do anything normally.'
Author's Note: I'm Sorry, please don't kill me! I promised this chapter for last night and then only had this much smaller one to show for my efforts. Real life can be a massive pain in the ass. I've been taking some of the messages I received to heart and will be splicing up Harry's deck so it isn't just straight up spellcaster based. After all, people who focus on one particular type or a handful of cards usually end up getting crushed by Yugi and his bizarre deck of random card types and strategies.
The votes for Harry's friends in this story have come in.
Tonks: 5 (primary companion)
Twins: 4 (tag duelists)
Fleur: 3 (secret)
Neville: 2
Chazz: 2
Remus: 1
Mai: 1
That is 4 people, 5 if you count Isis who is an automatic inclusion. So I think we have our Fellowship of the Duel Disk all nice and set.