Harry awoke in a cell. That much was obvious without even lifting his head. He could see through the bars that held him confined and what he saw gave him little hope. Wrapping the meagre blanker he had around himself and forcing it to warm himself slightly he observed the rest of the room.

It was bare, that was without a doubt, only a bed and a chamber pot, the former of which he was lying on at the moment. The very air seemed heavy around him. Of course it was then that he remembered where he was. He was in the dark spirit world. Taken captive from the caves of the spellcasters.

He had no choice, Harry decided, he had to stand up. Though as he did he immediately wished he hadn't, the fatigue of days of travelling immediately attacked him causing him to fall the ground.

"Oh so you're awake." A voice sounded from across the hall.

Harry groaned from his position on the floor and looked towards the voice. "And I have company."

"You're in the castle of the mad king of the dark world son, company is in spades."

"I'm not you're son old man." He didn't need to see the owner to know that he was older than him, almost every spirit was older than him such was their nature.

"I'm barely six years old."

So he was in the presence of the exception to that rule, though to be fair the voice did sound quite mature. Of course before he had the chance to say something else sarcastically, the voice spoke again.

"If I were to make a suggestion, drink the glass of water before they come and take it away. After that I'll help you recover your shadow powers."

Harry looked to his left and sure enough there was a glass of water on the ground beside him. Though it didn't look clean, Harry grabbed it fast and gulped it down as fast as he could. When the glass was drained of the very last drop Harry collapsed back on to the floor and stared at the ceiling.

"Are you going to admire rather décor any longer or are you going to sit up and talk."

"It's rather awkward to talk to a shadow you know." Harry replied without moving an iota.

The voice scoffed. "I know your powers are drained at the moment but are you telling me a shadow wielder chosen by the gods themselves can't even look into that which empowers them."

Harry rolled over and looked up at the shadows, his eyes glowed a brighter shade of green, illuminating his face and allowing him to see into the darkness. "You say my powers are low but encourage me to use them nonetheless."

"It's like a muscle, use it less to let it heal but still use it. Now do as I say and you'll have your powers back in no time." Opening his palms they began to glow with purple. "With a physical body of my own I can easily share my power with you. Just open your hands."

Opening his hands Harry watched as the purple light flew from the spirit into Harry. "Who are you?" Harry asked at last, wanting to put a name to a face, as familiar as it was he still had to know.

The figure smirked.

He knew that smirk.

"Say it" Harry said after a moment of staring between the two.

"Shouldn't it be obvious? Do you still have that locket?" The figure asked him at last.

Harry took the locket he had around his neck from his shirt. Nobody had seen this locket before as it was always under his shirt and hidden, even the chain it rested on. He opened it, knowing what he would see as he did. In it was a picture of his father, Yugi, Kaiba, and the Dark Magician.

He knew the minute he saw the eyes, this was the Dark Magician as it was to him. On his card. The black armour, the green eyes, the eye of Anubis on his belt.

"Meditate while we get your power back, we have much to discuss." The newly crowned Dark Magician. "And before you try and argue like you do so much with Mahad, know that you won't be leaving any time soon, so make use of your time here."

"I am not Mahad, but I have every one of his memories prior to my creation, I know of his life as a human, as a spirit in these realms. I saw as he learned to transcend time and space so that he could be the guardian to the spirit of the pharaoh. But what he never shared is that it came with a cost."

Harry wouldn't bite.

The Dark Magician saw this and frowned slightly. "Fine, spoil my fun. Mahad made a deal with the gods of the spirit realm. In exchange for such longevity he would sire the incarnations of the Dark Magicians should they ever be needed. The Dark Sage, The Skilled Dark Magician, all of us were brought forth into this world by divine decree, just like you."

"Are you telling me that all spirits are brought forth just like magic?" Harry asked.

"Not all of them. If you ventured beyond this world you would see families of spirits brought into this world through a variety of ways, magic, procreation, evolution, and more. There are some of us though, who operate outside the boundaries of reality. And because of this our very creation is achieved by breaking those boundaries."

"Where is Mahad?"

"He's gone, his last progeny was myself. Mahad made a deal to protect the Pharaoh and all others chosen by the gods. When they brought you into this world Mahad used it as his chance to pass on, he protected you while I was trained. When I was ready he was allowed to pass on and join those of his time. But he cheated, in order to pay them back for his years of service, his final act was to give you his powers."

"His powers? In me!" Harry shouted.

"Yes, he's been feeding you his powers for nearly a decade. The final part should be insignificant in comparison to your own."

"But if he's been giving me his powers then why have I been relying on him all this time?"

The Dark Magician tilted his head slightly and looked at Harry's glowing green eyes with his own. "Have you ever wondered just how you teleport, how you start shadow games, levitation? A shadow human duellist should only have minor physical powers in the realm of humans, the ability to start a shadow game and manifest spirits should be the extent of it."

"But why did he do it?"

"You are the chosen of the gods. A plane walker. A shadow duellist of the highest calibre. Had you lived five thousand years ago, you would be Pharaoh. There was another reason, but he kept it, even from me"

Harry thought over the words thereby drowning the conversation in silence once more. Oh how he wished he never knew the truth. How he wanted to simply find Mahad and go back home to Duel Academy, to Alexis, having fun with his friends and just being a kid. But to find his friend was gone, while trapped in a cage, and knowing that his powers were the result of the gift of the most powerful spellcaster. It was almost too much. He had to get out. He had to go home. He had to find Yugi, or his father.

"We're getting out of here." Harry said at last. "Together"

The Dark Magician stood in his own cell and raised his hand. "My powers won't work here. They know me for what I am. I was able to give you what I could but only because of the link between us."

"You don't need powers. For my time here, I've been afraid of the consequences of coming here. Well now I say damn the consequences brought my friends here to save another and all I've done is put us all in danger. And if I didn't know about Mahad giving me his strength, then neither do these guys."

Harry stood and took a step away from the bars raising his own hand in front of him. "I hope this works, take a step back." He told his new spirit friend.

"What are you going to do?" The Dark Magician asked his young friend only to receive no reply, at least, not an audible one.

Harry had tapped into his powers like never before. Consciously activating them all the shadows of the cell seemed to rise from the very ground and cling to his body leaving nothing but his glowing green eyes standing out. When everything was covered, the eye of Anubis blazed on his forehead.

"DARK MAGIC ATTACK!" Harry cried as the bars in front of him exploded. The force behind Harry's power sending the off the wall and into the bars of the Dark Magician, knocking them to the ground as well.

"Harry!" The Dark Magician cried as he ran out of his cell and grabbed the falling teen.

"I'm fine." Harry replied as he stood on his own two feet. "Let's get my things and get out of here."

As Harry and the Dark Magician reached their armour and weapons. The Black Luster Soldier and Dark Magician of Chaos were using the shroud of darkness to infiltrate the castle. Or so they thought.

Brron, the mad king, had heard the explosion caused by Harry as he attempted to break out and in his endeavour to find out just what had happened he discovered the two chaos monsters on their way in. He simply watched, nobody knew why, he was not the mad king without reason, but he didn't sound the alarm. Well at least until they reached the courtyard.

As for Harry, his energy along with the Dark Magician's meant that there was no opposition from the dark world monsters as they reclaimed that which is theirs. The Dark Magician grabbed his staff while Harry re-donned his armour and grabbed his sword. The two blasted their way through the doors and quickly made their way to the courtyard, only to find they weren't the only ones there.

"Trespassers and escapees, what to do what to do. If I take you prisoner you might escape again, so maybe I should just send you to the shadow realm." Brron bellowed form his iron throne above them all.

Harry took note of the situation that had gone to hell in a hand basket all too quick. What was supposed to be an escape, regroup and a trip home, had quickly become an escape, regroup and recapture.

Brron drew his sword and jumped down from his podium landing square in front of the four while his guards surrounded them all.

"So, who's first?" The mad king asked. "Will it be the boy?" He pointed his sword to Harry. "Or do one of you want to take his place."

Before he even finished the three monsters had stepped in front of Harry to protect him but the shadow duellist wasn't having any of it.

"How about a deal, Brron?" Harry asked from the cover of his three monsters. "You and I duel, the winner gets to walk away from this."

"A duel." Brron said, more to himself than to the others. "His spirit would help immensely." He turned to Harry, or rather to the monsters surrounding him. "I accept your little challenge. But this duel will stay to those terms and nothing more."

"You have my word."

In the other world:

"SHEPPARD!" Came the thundering voice of one Maximillian Pegasus "Where is my son?"

The chancellor turned from his office window to see a sight, one which any other day he would welcome, the king of games Yugi Muto, the owner of the school Seto Kaiba, and the president of I2 Maximillian Pegasus stood in front of him with their arms crossed. The latter was to be expected but the others? Well now he had to explain everything.

"Have a seat gentlemen." He said pressing his fingers together as he did so. "To be blunt, we don't know where he is. Harry disappeared the next day after our meeting Pegasus."

Pegasus frowned at the words of the chancellor. "You mean to tell me my son has been missing for weeks and you didn't see fit to tell me?" He hissed

Now it was Sheppard's turn to frown. "With all due respect Pegasus, we are at a boarding school for teens. It was some time before we found out he was in fact missing and not simply sick or ditching class. Your son has a select group of friends none of which came forth to tell us about his disappearance. Once we did discover him gone, a search party was dispatched immediately."

Kaiba spoke up this time, "And you didn't feel the need to tell us once you did discover him gone?"

"As I said, we are a boarding school, kids run away all the time for an abundance of reasons. Had we not found him we would have alerted all of you, but since we had the situation handled and were doing all that was possible we saw no reason to worry you."

Finally Yugi spoke. "Where are his friends? Have you asked them where he might be?"

Sheppard nodded. "Unfortunately since his participation of the school duel was announced Jaden has not left his dorm. The pressure along with many who feel he's undeserving of the spot has left him quite exhausted, in fact we're not even sure he's realised Harry is missing." He turned only slightly so that he could look out his window, towards he lake. "But there is someone who might know."

As the three titans of duel monsters watched Sheppard reached over his desk and pressed a button on his phone.

"Please send for Alexis Rhodes."

Back With Harry:

"Remember our deal Brron, neither of us goes to the stars. I lose my soul is yours, but my friends go free. I win we walk out of here unscathed." Harry warned the mad king of the dark world, his green eyes flashing bright as he looked into the blank ones of the duel spirit.

"Fine by me." The duel spirit agreed as he pulled back his regal cloak and revealed his duel disk. "My guards will attend to your friends in the meantime, wouldn't want them disappearing during the duel."

"That won't be necessary." Harry retorted.

His monsters turned to him.

"Are you sure about this. Putting your soul on the line isn't exactly helpful in our goal to stay quiet." The Dark Magician of Chaos.

Harry snorted. "We were quiet coming in. Who cares how much noise we make on our way out, we're going home."

His three monsters nodded before a flash of light and they disappeared. On Harry's arm was now a new duel disk, his other one left behind so that he had another reason no to duel. Similar to Kaiba's fascination with the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Harry's duel disk now glowed with arcane energy and symbols as plates of Dark Magic purple spun from the deck slot creating card slots. He took his deck from his back pocket and placed it in the slot watching as the arcane symbols formed a life point counter.

"Shall we begin?" He asked the mad king.

If he was worried, Brron didn't show it. He simple raised his duel disk once more and put his own deck in.

"Let's duel!" The shouted to each other.

Harry: 4000/Brron: 4000

"I'll start off first." Brron declared drawing his sixth card. "And I'll start by activating the field spell card, Gates of the Dark World. Now all fiend monsters gain an additional 300 attack and defence points. Then I'll summon Broww, Huntsman of the Dark World in defence mode and end my turn."

"My draw." Harry cried as he drew his own card. "I play Defender, The Magical Knight in attack mode." Defender rose from the arcane circle of magicians before glowing blue. "When he's summoned he gains one spell counter, but more on that later. Next I play a little field spell of my own, Magical Citadel of Endmyion."

The gates to the dark world shattered into a thousand pieces as the magical tower rose from the ground around them.

"And with your point bonus gone, my defender can take him down." One slice of a magical sword later and Brron had nothing on his field.

"My turn then. And I draw, first I activate the spell card dragged down into the. First we show our hands to each other, then we each pick one card from the others and send it to the graveyard. Then we draw one card to replace it."

"Nice try." Harry said to his opponent as he looked at his cards. "But I choose your Grapha. Since it's the only one who doesn't capitalise on being discarded."

"And I choose your Black Luster Solider."

Grapha Dragon Lord of the Dark World and Black Luster Soldier Envoy of the Beginning flashed before going to the hand but Harry was too angry to notice.

"When my Grapha is discarded by a card effect, I'm allowed to target one card you control and destroy it, and I think I'll choose your Defender"

"By removing his spell counter, my Defender is safe from harm." Defender glowed blue once more before his shoulders sagged from exhaustion. "You'll pay for that." He growled to the mad king his eyes glowing once more.

"Not before you do. With my Grapha in the graveyard, I summon Beiige, Vanguard of the Dark World, and send him back to my hand in order to special summon my Grapha from the graveyard. Now he'll attack your Defender!"

Harry: 3000/Brron: 4000

"But that's okay, by playing the spell card upstart Goblin, you get a thousand life points, all I get is one more card. With that I end my turn."

"You really are mad." Harry observed as he drew. "Well this ought to knock some sense into you. I play Queen's Knight in attack mode, next I play the spell card Double Summon, and with it I can summon my King's Knight in attack mode. With Queen's Knight and King's Knight on my field I get to summon Jack's Knight, from my Deck in attack mode."

"Next I play the spell card Polymerization. This fuses my three knights to summon my most powerful warrior Arcana Knight Joker arise and attack his dragon!"

Harry: 4000/Brron: 2900

"I play one face down and call it a turn."

"A nice try." Brron called as he drew his card. "But I play the spell card dark world dealings. We each draw a card and discard a card." Harry drew a card and discarded it leaving him handless once more. "The card I discarded was my Beiige, Vanguard of the Dark World and his special ability allows me to summon him once more. So come back my friend in defence mode. But he won't around for long as by sending him back to my hand, I can re summon my Grapha, Dragon Lord of the Dark World in defence mode."

"I'm getting real sick of seeing that thing."

"If you think he's bad now, wait till I'm done with you. But for now I play two face downs and end my turn."

"I draw, and play the spell card, Card of Sanctity. Now we draw until we have six cards."

"Good." Brron shouted. "That makes this much more effective. I play the trap card Eradicator Epidemic Virus, all I have to do is send my Dragon to the graveyard and all spells on your field, your hand, and every spell you draw for the next three turns is destroyed."

"Not quite, by removing a spell counter from my Citadel it's safe from harm. And because of all the spells we've been playing, it's got quite a few. "

Nonetheless though, two cards in Harry's hand vanished, his swords of Revealing Light and his Dark Magic Curtain.

"I play Skilled Dark Magician in Attack mode and activate his special ability. By removing himself and three spell counters he can summon a Dark Magician from my hand deck or graveyard."

"But he doesn't have any spell counters."

"Wrong, my citadel can act as a substitute for any spell counter requirements. So by removing three of its counters, and sending my magician to the graveyard I can summon my friend. Dark Magician, from my hand I call you forth."

From the arcane symbol of all magicians Dark Magician arose in a veil of shadows. His black armour spiked and wicked and his staff draining the very light from their surroundings.

"Now attack him directly with Dark Magic Lightning!"

"I play my trap, Negate Attack. Not only is your attack cancelled but you can't attack any more this turn."

"Then I play one face down and end my turn."

"One face down and no spells allowed. Doesn't take a genius to figure out what that is." Brron drew his card. "I play mystical space typhoon to destroy your trap card." Harry's trap was blown up to reveal a mirror force. "Oh that must hurt. And next I play another field spell card, Gates of the Dark World. Now all fiend monsters gain an additional 300 attack and defence points and your Citadel is gone for good."

Grapha roared as its attack points rose from 2700 to 3000.

"And now I equip the spell card Megamorph to my dragon since my life points are lower than yours, my dragon's attack points are now double."

Grapha's roar shook the very earth as its attack points rose once more from 3000 to 5700.

"Now attack his knight."

The sheer force behind the attack sent Harry to the ground a few meters away from where he stood.

Harry: 2100/Brron: 2900

"Next I play two face downs and summon myself Brron, Mad King of the Dark World in attack mode."

Brron vanished from his place and reappeared on the head of Grapha.

"Now I end my turn."

"My draw," Harry called as he drew his card. He turned it over revealing his card, Chaos Sorcerer. "No spell card, no luck." He raised the hand in the air. "I'm going to borrow one of your servants. By removing my Skilled Dark Magician and my Jack's Knight from play, I summon my Chaos Sorcerer. And for his debut I activate his ability. At the cost of his attack this turn, I banish your Dragon for good."

Grapha vanished in a flash of light and Harry breathed a sigh of relief. "Now my Dark Magician attack Brron."

"Not so fast, I activate the trap card chain healing. This gives me five hundred life points."

Harry: 2100/ Brron: 3400

"Next I play another trap card, Wall of revealing light. I start by removing life points in multiples of a thousand, and then for as long as this card is on the field, no monster with equal or less can attack."

Harry: 2100/Brron: 400

Harry growled before ending his turn.

Unbeknownst to either of the duellists, the sky above their heads was become lighter.

Back in the other world:

Alexis knew that this was coming yet as she walked to through the door to the Chancellor's office she was still surprised. She knew that she would find his father here but to see the legendary duellists Seto Kaiba and Yugi Muto standing on either side of him made her want to run, at least until the Chancellor spoke

"Come in Ms. Rhodes. Have a seat." He commanded gently like only a headmaster could.

"Chancellor if I may?" Pegasus asked as he moved to stand beside the bald man. When he received a nod, Pegasus turned to Alexis and she stared into his eye, the other covered by his long hair. "Ms. Rhodes, I want you to know that you are not in any trouble, we simply wish to know_"

"You want to know where Harry is." She interrupted only for her eyes to widen and her mouth to drop. It was not like her to interrupt, she was raised better.

But Pegasus merely smiled and nodded. "Yes, and we were hoping that you, as one his few friends and from what we have heard, his closest, might be able to shed some light on the situation."

"I'd love to, but he didn't really tell me, he told me a friend of his has gone missing and that he was going to find him." Alexis hung her head unable to look her friend's father in the eyes any longer.

The King of Games could not hold his silence any more. "And could I ask you Alexis, why you waited until summoned, before telling anybody this?"

"Because he asked me to."

"Alexis." Harry's voice rang in her mind. "I want you to understand that as soon as I'm gone, people are going to notice something is off. Despite this please don't tell anybody anything, I need all the time I can get."

"And what happens when you're father shows up asking questions?"

"Tell him exactly what I've said, tell him my situation makes me the most qualified."

"He said his situation makes him qualified to find him."

Pegasus's eye widened, and he turned to Yugi, the two of them having a silent conversation. A hand settled on Alexis's shoulder and she turned to find the eyes of Seto Kaiba staring at her.

"Ms. Rhodes, thank you for your help, you can go back to your dorm."

But she didn't Alexis stood outside the door to the Chancellor's office and listened.

"It all makes sense now." Yugi's voice said. "Mahad won't answer my calls so Harry went to find him."

"Yes but that means Harry is in the spirit world." Pegasus responded.

"The spirit world?" Kaiba and Sheppard asked. Alexis was thankful so that she would now know.

"It was theorised, after the discovery of duel spirits," Yugi began. "That there exists a world where those spirits live as flesh and blood. Duel monsters cards create a pathway for them to interact with this world and certain duellists who possess unique energies."

"According to Harry, Jaden Yuki is one such student." The chancellor quietly said.

"So what can we do?" Kaiba asked.

It was Yugi who finally answered. "Nothing. We don't know what part of the spirit world he's in and looking for him could make us more lost. So we just have to hope he finds a way home himself."

A lone tear fell down Alexis's face as she heard those words.