This chapter, as well as the next one, are flashback chapters, so they will be written in italics. They show the duel Mai versus Strings, which took place while Yugi was fighting Mako Tsunami. Essentially, they're the last two chapters, from Mai's POV.

Mai is standing on the bank of a lake and looking at her sexy reflection. Yeah, she knows that she's sexy. She sees no reason not to admit it. She sees no reason to be modest about it either. She's too smart NOT to be aware of the effect she has on most men.

What were those things that Isa chick told her about Gods? Lol, just imagine. Wouldn't it be funny if it turned out that those grotesque giants Ancient Egyptians used to draw and worship existed for real?

The woman raises her eyes to the sky. 'God guys,' she whispers. 'Have you been up there all along? Did you already know me when I was born? Were you up there and looking at me when I went through the hell that my childhood was? Then why didn't you do anything about that, Gods? What kind of God would just stand idly by while...'

Mai abruptly stops. She lowers her eyes to her reflection anew and laughs. She can't believe she really tried to initiate conversation with some nonexistent...

That moment, an eerie, distorted voice interrupts her thoughts. 'At last! I have found you, Mai Valentine!'

The woman gasps, turns around and sees Strings, Marik's brainwashed doll, standing across from her, with his duel disk ready for battle.

Mai rapidly regains her composure. 'Dude, do you have any idea how you look?' she rudely comments as she prepares her duel disk. 'I guess it is your right to be an outright freak and it also is your right to want to lose your locator cards to me. Care to tell me your name?'

'I don't know the name of this body, though I call him Strings,' Marik answers. 'As for me, you can call me Marik.'

'So you have a double personality,' Mai infers, unfazed. 'Still, not even close to being the weirdest person I have met in my life!'

'You didn't understand me, Mai,' Marik corrects her. 'What you can see right now is my mind slave. Myself, I am controlling him from somewhere far, far away.'

'Wow,' the woman comments sarcastically.

'This body you can see,' Marik continues explaining, 'used to belong to a psychotic serial killer that murdered his whole family and was put away into an asylum. In other words, it was the perfect vessel!'

'So interesting,' Mai keeps being sarcastic.

'You see, thanks to my Millennium Rod, I have developed a variety of mind controlling techniques. In most cases, I don't bother controlling people directly. I just find weak souls full of hatred and misery and implant in them my ideas, thus turning them into my supporters, who are more than happy to obey my orders without me needing to bother actually controlling them.'

Mai yawns.

'Of course, whenever needed, I will take more drastic measures. I lock away their consciousness and turn them into my puppets. While in that state, they are like video game characters whom I move using my Millennium Rod as a Playstation gamepad. Hell, they don't even need to eat, drink or sleep, because, even if their physical body literally dies of starvation or thirst or anything, I can keep controlling their dead body. And something tells me that this man is long since dead, HAR HAR...'

'Okay, let me pretend that I'm interested,' Mai inwardly says. Next, she proceeds to say out loud, 'Gee, and why are you doing all this?'

Even though he's fully aware that Mai is still sarcastic, Marik can't help proceeding to tell her about his grudge against the Pharaoh, the nightmarish childhood he spent as a Tomb Guardian because of that Ancient Egyptian king, the powers the Millennium Items and the God Cards grant to whomever collects them. Mai is not sure she understood much of that jabberwocky.

'When I win this duel, I will take not only your God Card but also your life, woman,' Marik concludes. 'You see, my mind control renders a human body exceptionally strong. Want a demonstration?'

And, without waiting for Mai's permission, he makes Strings lift a huge rock nearby and throw it into the river, producing a mighty splash.

Mai gasps. Okay, now she inwardly admits she's scared a little.

'When he defeats you, he will chase you to the ends of the Earth,' an excited Marik informs the woman. 'He won't stop until he has strangled you to death. Hunger cannot stop him. Thirst cannot stop him. The police or their stupid guns cannot stop him. Because this body is already dead and it is still moving only thanks to my mind control.'

'Maybe he can kill me,' Mai smiles provocatively. 'But can he defeat me?'

This makes Marik angry. 'Presumptuous bitch! TIME TO DUEL!'

'I bet one locator card,' Mai declares. Since she needs one more locator card to qualify for the finals, she has no reason to wager more.

'Whatever, I don't care,' Strings, who is actually Marik speaking through this body, shrugs. 'I don't want your locator cards anyway, Valentine. I want your God Card. And to kill you!'

Mai inwardly admits that the anticipation in his tone of voice when he said he wants to kill her is giving her the creeps. But she's (successfully) trying to act cool and fearless. 'Okay, Marik, or whatever your name is. I understand, more or less, from what you've said so far, why you want to kill Yugi. But why do you want to kill me too, dude? Are you secretly gay and jealous of my big boobs or something?'

'I hate the Pharaoh and, as a result, I hate anything and anyone related to him as well,' Marik explains.

Mai rolls her eyes. 'Let's duel,' she says and produces a coin. 'Heads or tails?'

'Heads,' the opponent chooses.

Mai tosses the coin. It falls on the grass. Mai crouches and looks at it. It's tails. So Mai will make the first move.

Mai skips her draw phase and begins her turn.

'I set 1 card. Then I play the Cyber Harpy (1800/1400) in attack mode.'

The Harpy appears and, as always, greets her master with a howl and a flap of her wings.

'Draw,' Strings unnecessarily says, beginning his turn.

Marik and Yami Mokuba are watching the duel through the former's Millennium Rod, with Marik of course being the one actually choosing the cards Strings plays.

'So, what is your strategy in this duel, Marik?' Mokuba asks. 'Don't forget she, too, has a God Card in her deck. Do you really want this to turn into a clash between Gods?'

'No need to take that chance,' the blond madman chuckles. 'I have a plan to get rid of her God right away. Trust me, Slifer is the only divine card that is going to fight in this duel!'

Strings shows Mai the first card he's going to play. A spell card depicting a finger pointed at an ominous looking man wearing a black eye mask, a purple cape and a brown hood. 'Dark Designator,' he declares. 'I get to declare a card name. And if that card is in your deck, you have to add it to your hand, Mai!'

Mai raises an eyebrow. What the...

'Obelisk the Tormentor,' Marik declares.

Mai is further perplexed. Why does that nutjob want to give her access to her best card? Something is fishy. Of course, having no choice, she searches in her deck, gets Obelisk and adds it to her hand.

'Next, I play the Card Destruction,' Marik exclaims, showing a spell card with a hand drawn on it. It is a frail looking blue hand throwing cards away. 'Now both of us discard our respective hands and draw the same number of cards.'

Mai gasps. So that's what that freak was up to. And, since Mai already knows all strengths and weaknesses of her God Card, she also knows that it cannot be summoned from the Graveyard for longer than one turn!

'Your God is useless now,' Marik causes his mind slave to burst into demonic laughter.

Mai closes her eyes and exhales, with her hand on her chest, trying to remain calm. 'Okay, I lost the God guy. So what?' she inwardly tries to encourage herself. 'I was the Duel Queen before I had that card and I can retain my title even without it.'

Marik carries on, 'I play the Curse of the Masked Beast.'

He places the aforementioned ritual spell card on the board and tributes two unseen vanilla monsters from his hand, in order to summon...

'...the Masked Beast (3200/1800) in attack mode!'

A faceless, centaurus like creature, with patches of various ominously dark colors on its body, appears, wielding a red stick with a horrified face drawn on its upper end.

'Masked Beast, attack,' Marik makes Strings command the aforementioned monster.

The centaurus charges at the Harpy.

'Trap card activate,' Mai haughtily declares. With an unintentionally sexy gesture of hers, she causes her face down card to turn face up. 'Female Solidarity!' (ORIGINAL CARD; FIRST APPEARED IN CHAPTER 6) 'When a female monster of mine whose original ATK is 2000 or less is attacked by a male one, I can activate this card. It allows me to send from my deck to the graveyard a monster that has the same name as the one under attack. For this turn, the ATK points of my female monster that is being attacked increase by an amount equal to the ATK points of the monster I sent to the graveyard this way!'

Mai sends another Cyber Harpy, from her deck, to the graveyard. As a result, the spirit of the second Harpy briefly appears on the field and holds the hand of the first Harpy. The two Harpies smile at each other. The Harpy's ATK points increase to 3600!

Marik mumbles curses; it's too late to stop the attack.

The Masked Beast tries to strike the Harpy with its rod, but the winged lady gracefully avoids it by raising herself higher in the air. Then she counterattacks with her claws, destroying the Masked Beast and decreasing Marik's life points to 3600.

'You incompetent fool!' Yami Mokuba yells at Marik.

'Calm down, partner,' the blond duelist chuckles. 'I'm still just toying with her.'

'Before I end my turn, I will conduct a normal summon as well,' Strings declares and plays the last card left in his hand. 'Revival Jam (1500/500) in defense mode.'

The immortal slime monster appears on the field.

The turn ends and the Harpy's ATK points decrease back to 1800.

'My turn,' Mai declares and draws a card. 'I play the Harpy's Brother (1800/600) in attack mode. And thanks to his effect, I get to summon another Cyber Harpy, from my deck.'

And so, when all those summoning sequences are over, Mai has three Harpy monsters on the field (two Cyber Harpies and the Harpy's Brother).

'And now, Cyber Harpy, attack the Revival Jam.'

The Harpy charges at the blue blob and strikes it with her claws, thus easily destroying it. However, the very next moment, to the surprise of the Harpy as well as her master, the scattered pieces of the defeated monster gather and reform the creature as good as new!

'I guess you now know why it is called the Revival Jam,' Marik laughs.

'A monster that can reconstruct its body?' Mai gasps. The perfect defense! 'I bet this card is banned!'

Marik turns to Mokuba. 'Hey, check the Industrial Illusions official site. Is it really banned? Just curious.'

Yami Mokuba casually takes out his cellphone and accesses the Internet. 'Yes, it is in the banned list indeed,' he informs his partner, not giving a shit about the rules anyway.

Marik chuckles.

'And what are you gonna do about that, Mai?' Strings chuckles. 'Moan to some imaginary referee? We're alone here, girl, in a life and death battle!'

Mumbling curses, Mai sets one card before ending her turn.

Relaxed, Marik commands Strings to draw his next card. Now, thanks to this indestructible mass of slime, he has ample time to prepare.

His next card is the Card of Sanctity! Yes!

'I play the Card of Sanctity. Now we both draw cards until we have six.'

Both players draw, until their hands are full.

'And now, Mai,' Marik thinks, 'I will show you how perfect my deck is at everything: offense, defense, summoning speed.'

'First, I play the Jam Breeding Machine, a spell card that remains on the field for three turns.'

A large, round, metal generator, which is depicted on the aforementioned card as well, appears on the field. It will produce one slime token every turn.

'Then, I play the Different Dimension Capsule, a spell card that remains on the field for two turns.'

He places on the duel disk a spell card depicting the coffin of a pharaoh. Now he gets to select a card from his deck and remove it from play. After two turns, when the Different Dimension Capsule is destroyed, he gets to add that card to his hand. And of course, the card he chooses is none other than Slifer the Sky Dragon!

'Fool,' Mai thinks with a smile. 'This move is risky. If I destroy the Different Dimension Capsule with a Harpy's Feather Duster first, his God Card will remain removed from play!'

'I know what you're thinking, woman,' Marik thinks, looking at her smiling through his Millennium Rod. 'And I'm one step ahead!'

'I play a third spell card from my hand,' Strings carries on. 'Turn Jump!'

He places on the duel disk a card depicting a silver pocket watch in the desert, in front of a pyramid, half buried in the sand. 'Now three turns pass instantly!'

Mai gasps as the aforementioned watch appears on the field, its arrows spinning rapidly.

'Now not only do I instantly add Slifer to my hand, but also I have enough tributes to summon him, since the Jam Breeding Machine has produced three slime tokens in the meantime.'

On cue, the three slime tokens disappear and are replaced by...

'SLIFER THE SKY DRAGON!'

The giant God descends from the heavens, with a thunderstorm breaking out and the God summoning soundtrack being heard, coming from nowhere.

Mai is staring at the gargantuan monster in front of her, with her eyes widening. A red, winged, serpent like dragon with two mouths. Slifer opens his upper mouth and produces a roar that Mai swears caused some fruit to fall off nearby trees.

'Witness your death, Mai,' an elated Marik cries through the body of Strings, making the latter unnecessarily point a finger forward. 'This is the last monster you will ever see.'

Even the monsters on Mai's field, the two Cyber Harpies and the Harpy's Brother, look scared.