"Be careful! Aknadin is a traitor!" Shada cried as he struggled with Aknadin. "Return the Millennium Key!" But Aknadin threw him down. Shada was too weak from his injuries from earlier.
"Aknadin! Have you gone mad?!" Shimon cried.
"I don't know who's controlling your mind, but this ends now!" Yami yelled.
"A new king shall soon rise." Aknadin said simply.
"Hold your tongue! How dare you utter such venomous words in the presence of the great Pharaoh!" Seth snapped.
"Silent!" Aknadin demanded and casted a spell on Seth.
Everyone looked at Seth. A rainbow of light outlined him. Kay nudged him a little. No response. She shook him. Still no response.
"He can't move!" She exclaimed.
"He's frozen in time." Aknadin said and cast the same spell on everyone else. "That will hold you long enough for me to complete what Bakura couldn't." He laughed. "I've done it! As soon as I place the remaining Millennium Items in the stone, the Dark One shall rise and the Pharaoh's empire will crumble!"
Aknadin walked over and took the Millennium Rod from Seth's frozen hand and the Millennium Necklace from Isis's neck. "I'll return the Millennium Items from whence they came." He said and looked over at Yami. "You are not qualified to be Pharaoh."
He turned to the Millennium Stone. "And now! The final piece! My Millennium Eye!" He cried. Everyone, unable to move or speak, watched in horror as Aknadin ripped the Millennium Eye from his own face.
"Now, return the Items to their resting place." The voice of Bakura ordered Aknadin.
"Bakura was defeated...so how can I be hearing his voice?" Yami thought to himself.
"You've proven to be a worthy pawn. The ultimate Shadow Game is nearly complete!" Bakura's voice said.
Aknadin kneeled on the Stone, placing the Items in their slots.
"I saw Bakura disappear into the Shadows with my own eyes! This Shadow Game should be over! Unless..." Yami continued to think to himself.
Aknadin placed the final Item into the Stone and the entire cavern became engulfed in light.
"Is this all just a game?"
Light shined from the village, which was now seen to be a part of a playing field, enclosed in a table, suspended in space with the Millennium Puzzle hanging overhead.
Yami slowly woke up and he was seated at one end of the tablet, while Bakura sat on the other end.
But this time, they weren't in their Ancient Egyptian forms. They were in their present day forms!
"You're sleeping through the most important game of your life." Bakura said.
"Where are we?" Yami asked.
We're in the Shadow Realm, of course, sitting before the playing field." Bakura replied. "I promised you a Shadow Game, didn't I?"
"I'm in no mood for games!" Yami said, frowning.
"It's too late. You're already right in the middle of one. The field is ancient Egypt, and the pawns are the people of your past." Bakura said.
"Everything we do affects the events of the past? You've sunk even lower than I thought. Manipulating people's lives just to play out some twisted game!" Yami growled.
"It's not some game, it's THE game. As soon as I resurrect Zorc from the Stone, the final stage of this game will begin." Bakura said. "My soul has been sealed into the Millennium Stone. I'll be revived as Zorc."
"If I don't defeat Zorc, does that mean I lose the game?" Yami asked.
"You'll lost much more than that. You'll lose your friends. They entered a world where they didn't belong, so when they playing field disappears, they'll disappear. You will never see them again." Bakura said.
Yami pounded his fists angrily against the tablet. "YOU-" Bakura cut him off.
"If you want to see your friends again, you'll have to win the game. But at the moment, all of your pawns are frozen in time, thanks to my hourglass token. As the game master, I have three of them. And one freezes time for every character in the game except for my characters." Bakura said. "But it's not the first time I've manipulated time."
Bakura pointed another hourglass token.
"I used this one earlier in the game to reverse time." He said.
Yami remembered.
"So that was YOUR doing!" He cried.
"Thanks to these hourglasses, I can rewrite history three times over the course of the game. Which means your life in under my control!" Bakura laughed.
Anzu stood frozen in the library while Yugi and Kristen were frozen in the hallway.
"Bakura must be behind this...I hope the Pharaoh, Cat and Kay are all right." Yugi thought to himself.
Jounouchi stood frozen with a young woman passing through him. The woman was frozen as well, so she was stuck halfway through him.
"Well...I can think of worse situations to be stuck in." He thought to himself.
Honda was moving around freely because he was Bakura's pawn now. He watched Bobasa, who continued to gulp down handsful of food. He wasn't frozen.
"I don't understand why Bobasa is unaffected." He muttered to himself.
Bobasa looked down sadly at his stomach. "My belly is so big...I can't see my slippers." He said.
Aknadin stood upon the Millennium Stone.
"Zorc! I offer to you these seven treasures!" He called out.
Everyone could only watch, frozen.
"I can sense the pulse of pure evil beating below us." Isis thought. "The Dark One has awakened!"
The shadowy form of the Dark one rose over the stone. "Denounce your allegiance to Egypt and pledge loyalty to me." The shadow said. "If you do this, everything you desire will be yours."
"My only desire is for a new Pharaoh to be named! My own beloved son…Seth!" Aknadin said.
Seth's eyes grew. "It can't be true! Master Aknadin is my father?" He cried in his mind.
"Your transformation from sacred priest to Lord of Darkness is now complete." The shadow said and sent a blast of energy toward Aknadin.
Aknadin screamed as he started to be transformed. Once the transformation was complete, he turned to everyone, now a masked creature with shocks of red hair, robed in dark purple.
"My Aknadin game piece has just doubled in overall strength. He is now the Great Shadow Magus. The Priest of Darkness." Bakura said, sitting at the playing field.
"What have you done to Aknadin?" Yami asked.
"I haven't done a thing. All these events are reoccurring exactly as they did three thousand years ago, with some small modifications. Thanks to this Shadow Game, I'm able to influence certain events. In the old days, you may have managed to lock away his own spirit in order to seal Zorc away. But you won't be so lucky this time. There are still some holes in your memory. You don't even know your own name! A single word with the power to resurrect Zorc, AND lock him away." Bakura said and brought out another hourglass token onto the table. "But I've discovered a way to bring back Zorc without your name…by using my third and final hourglass."
"What are you saying?!" Yami demanded.
"When the final grain of sand falls, the ruler of the darkest Shadows shall arise!" Bakura said.
Honda entered a hall with huge portraits of all the Pharaohs, each with a tablet of hieroglyphics at its feet.
"The Pharaoh's name should be located in this room. You must find it before the others do and destroy it!" Bakura's voice said to him.
Honda walked along the hall. "Every Pharaoh in history must be here…so the name I'm looking for must be written on the last tablet." He said to himself.
He stopped at the end of the hall, only to find that the last tablet was blank!
"This doesn't make any sense!" He protested.
"Banish the Pharaoh to the darkness so that your son may take the throne!" The shadow Zorc said to Magus. (Aknadin)
Magus laughed. "This is what I always wanted for you, Seth. Ever since you were a young boy!" He said.
"How could he leave me, and then lie to me all these years?" Seth wondered.
"There's something else you should know." Magus said to Seth. "The former King Aknamkanon was my brother! Therefore, if anything should happen to the current Pharaoh, you're next in line to inherit the throne!"
"Why, after all these years of loyalty, would he turn on his own family?" Shimon wondered. "Bakura must have preyed upon the hidden jealousy Aknadin always felt towards his brother, and the incredible guilt he must have harbored after giving up his family."
"We will no longer live in the shadow of my brother!" Magus said to Seth. "We shall rise up and claim our rightful place on the throne of Egypt!" He rose a great power. "The era of King Seth has begun!"
Magus then sent the attack towards Yami, who was still frozen. But suddenly…Hasan emerged from his sanctuary and flew to the rescue, coming to strand in front of Yami, deflecting the attack.
"What?! This isn't part of the game!" Bakura cried, sitting at the playing field.
Yami laughed.
"Have you forgot that there were two people playing this game?" He asked and held up a small figure of Hasan. "I have a token too."
"Where did you get that?!" Bakura demanded.
"Who stands in the way of my destiny?!" Magus demanded.
"I am Hasan, protect of the Pharaohs. For centuries, I have defended the honor of Egypt's kings." Hasan answered and then looked at Yami. "Fear not, for I will shield you from the darkness, just as I did for your father, and his father before."
Yami remembered him from the cave, giving him the warning about Zorc…but he thought he was just hallucination!
"If you are truly the protector of the Pharaohs, you should be protecting Seth, the true king of Egypt." Magus said.
"Darkness begone!" Hasan commanded and Magus's attack became broken.
NO!" Bakura screamed as shards of the attack fell upon the playing field, one of them striking his time-freezing hourglass, causing it to break.
"My friends are now free." Yami said.
"I rendered you powerless!" Magus cried, as everyone became unfrozen again.
"Not anymore." Hasan said. "The Shadow Spell has been broken."
"It's only a matter of time before the Shadows claim your spirit and everything! And everything you care about crumbles! Your poor friends are running out of steam." Bakura said.
"How?" Yami asked.
"Attached to everyone's Duel Disks is a sensor that measures life energy. My Great Shadow Magus is at full power, but the same cannot be said for your friends." Bakura said.
The glowing meters on their Diadiankhs are all less than half-full.
"Once someone's life force sensor goes dark, they'll die. That goes for you too. When you lose in the past, you lose here as well." Bakura said. "Do you understand the brilliance of the game I've created?"
"This must end!" Yami cried.
"Of course. Every game has an end. It's just a question of who the victor will be and who will die." Bakura said. "Here, we sit high above the rest of the world, deciding the future of mankind. The fate of the world rests in our hands!"
"You may fight for greed, but I fight for the safety of my friends and the world!" Yami said. "I defeated you once, and I'll do it again."
"That's all in the past. In this Shadow Game, I have all sorts of advantages I didn't have the first time. And you will never remember how you won." Bakura said.
"I still have time!" Yami said.
"The countdown to destruction has already begun." Bakura said with his hand on the hourglass.
The sands fell through the hourglass.
"Seth! Obey your destiny and stand by my side, so that we may rule Egypt as father and son!" Magus said.
"I'm not your "son"! My father would never betray the Pharaoh like this!" Seth said and stood by Yami's side. "Magus lies and I won't join him."
Magus pointed at Yami. "That impostor is no Pharaoh! It is you who should be king!" He said.
"I vowed to protect the king, not replace him!" Seth snapped.
"But you deserve more." Magus said.
Hasan turned to Seth. "It's true that you're the son of Aknadin. However, Aknadin has lost his identity to the Shadows, and the creature that stands before us is no longer your father."
"Hasan is right." Yami agreed.
"That's nonsense!" Magus said. "Seth is my flesh and blood! And that makes him royalty! Seth! Don't let these fools deny you of the power you deserve!"
Kay jumped in. "Seth! Don't listen to him! I don't believe that's your father anymore…you two look nothing alike. If you WERE related to this monster, I would have to question what you would look like." She said with giving Magus a sarcastic grin.
Magus steamed a little.
Kaiba walked down the stairs to the cavern where the stone tablets were kept, passing Bakura who was lying the steps.
"What happened here?" He asked, Bakura. There was no response. "I guess our rematch will have to wait."
Kaiba continued on, leaving Bakura.
When he arrived at the bottom of the stairs, he was surprised to see Yugi, Jounouchi, Cat, Kay, Honda, Kristen and Anzu lying, unconscious on the ground.
"I'm guessing they didn't fly all the way to Egypt just to take a nap." He mummered, kneeling by Yugi and then looked up, spotting the stone tablet with the Pharaoh and sorcerer carved on it.
"I've seen this before." He said, standing up again. "In the museum back home."
All of the sudden, the Millennium Eye in his hand started to glow before emitting a beam of light that illuminated the stone.
Images of Yami and everyone else and Magus appeared on the stone.
Kaiba spotted Seth and gasped.
"That's…that's me!" He exclaimed.
"Seth, your father chose a path of hatred and greed, but I beg you not to make the same mistake." Yami said to Seth. "Fight by my side, and together, we can restore peace to Egypt."
"I've heard the same words uttered by my brother when he was Pharaoh! My brother didn't understand the first thing about leading this kingdom! In fact, his idealistic approach nearly destroyed Egypt!" Magus said.
---
Everyone bowed to Pharaoh Aknamkanon as his brother; Aknadin stood behind him on the balcony of the palace.
"While the people worshiped their Pharaoh, it was I who was truly responsible for their safety." Magus said.
"Our enemies draw near." Aknadin said.
Aknamkanon sat on the throne. "Egypt will only fight as a last resort." He said.
"I've already moved the soldiers into position to attack! It's the only way to prevent invasion!" Aknadin protested. "If we don't act now, we'll be destroyed!"
"You've overstepped your bounds." Aknamkanon said.
Aknadin acquiesces, bowing to the Pharaoh.
"I want what's best for Egypt, but I won't accept violence as the only answer. We must try to find a peaceful solution." Aknamkanon said.
"Y-Yes…" Aknadin said hesitantly.
"I believe we'll live in harmony one day, and I need you the share that belief with me." Aknamkanon said.
"I was right. Our enemies didn't share my brother's belied in peace." Magus continued. "Thanks to me, when our enemies attacked, we were ready. Of course, his majesty received all the credit, while I was ignored. It was then I realized that my brother would be the light, while I would be the shadow. If Egypt was going to survive, drastic measures would be necessary."
Aknadin and his men, cloaked and carrying torches, met before an underground cavern at night.
---
"Hidden deep beneath the sands laid an ancient manuscript with a dark secret." Magus said. "This, Millennium Spellbook contained the secret to a power known only by the Egyptian gods. If it hadn't been for me, the Millennium Items wouldn't exist."
"And neither would this mess!" Shimon added. "The Millennium Items may have helped us stop one enemy, but their creation gave rise to an even greater enemy!"
"Correct. We sparked the rebirth of Zorc the Dark One." Hasan agreed.
"Exactly! And now Zorc can finish what Aknadin began! By crushing the Pharaoh and his followers, and allowing a new king to take the throne!" Magus said. "You'll never understand what I've been through. I devoted my life to my brother and received nothing in return!"
"You're wrong! But you're too blind to see it!" Shimon said.
Yami agreed.
"I gave up my wife and my only son, just so I could save my brother's kingdom!" Magus cried. "Even though I abandoned my son, Seth found his way back to me! It was Seth's destiny to reenter the palace and rise to greatness!"
"When I joined the Priests, I pledged my devotion to the Pharaoh. And the one person who was always there to guide me was Aknadin." Seth said. "There was four other priests in the Pharaoh's court, but Aknadin spent most of his time training me. And now I know why. Secretly Aknadin knew I was his son."
"You were destined for greatness from the day you were born. That's why your path keeps crossing with that of the White Dragon." Magus said. "You were chosen to wield its power."
Suddenly, Seth's eyes started to glow, becoming under Magus's control.
"I should rule…and the White Dragon will help me." He said.
"Stop lying to your son and set him free!" Yami snapped at Magus and turned to Seth. "You mustn't give in to this temptation!"
Magus then sent a blast of power in between Yami and Seth, separating them.
Seth turned to Magus. "Tell me the truth! Why are you really doing this?!" He demanded.
"I want you to experience what I never had. Power and respect. And when Zorc arrives, that's exactly what you will receive. Zorc will usher in the Age of Shadows, and someone will need to reign over this new world." Magus replied.
Seth's eyes began to glow again. "I…I will reign." He said.
"SETH!" Yami called but Seth stepped forward.
"I must…join my father." He said.
Seth continued to walk to his father.
"SETH DON'T DO IT!" Kay cried as she ran up to Seth and slapped him, breaking the spell.
Seth blinked in surprise.
"Seth…the White Dragon is urging you to join me." Magus said.
"Seth don't go! Your father is under the control of an evil force, and if you join him, you'll lose yourself to the shadows as well!" Kay cried.
Everyone else also urged Seth to stay and help them.
"The others are lying to you. The Pharaoh is threatened by your power and is trying to keep you down." Magus said.
"The Pharaoh is protecting Seth, just as your brother protected you!" Hasan said.
"My brother took all the glory and left me to wallow in the shadows! And now my brother's son shall pay!" Magus said and shot an attack at Yami, who threw up his arms to protect himself.
"You're weak, Pharaoh! Just like your father!" Magus said.
Hasan jumped in front of Yami to block the attack. "As long as I'm here, no harm will befall the Pharaoh!" He said.
Seth looked on in surprise.
Kisara ran through the hallways of the palace, calling for Seth.
She woke up when Seth was starting to give into Magus. She sensed it and knew she had to try and stop him.
She stopped for a moment. "I hope I'm not too late." She said.
Honda watched from around a corner, smiling evilly to himself.
"Keep on running, girl. Soon you'll join forces with Seth on the other side." He said, Bakura talking through him.
Yay! Another chapter done! :D
The final battle will be coming up soon. Yup, Yup!
I hope you enjoyed this chapter! See you next chappie! :D
