Marik's double went white as a sheet. "You!!!!" he cried in utter shock.

The formerly dead man narrowed his eyes. "Yes, it is I. And now I know of your true identity. It pains me to know that you, my old colleague, have turned against me so much that you would try to utterly destroy me."

The imposter ignored those comments. "But how?!" he demanded. "That poison was infallible!!"

Shadi undid his robe slightly, letting the bandages covering his wound be revealed. "While it is true that your poison invariably causes first chaos, madness, and then death, you underestimate the powers of the forces of good. It was not my time to leave this world. I have been returned."

Yugi grinned, so relieved that Shadi was alright.

Marik's double only snarled in response. "So what? I can just kill you again!!" He was about to use his Heat Beam Eyes when Shadi retaliated with the Ankh, using an energy burst to redirect the blast at the wall. There was a loud splintering sound as a hole tore straight through.

"Whoa, man," Joey gasped, his eyes wide as the thought of what it could do to him.

Suddenly Vivalene broke free of the Man-Eater Bug's grasp and stood in front of Yami Bakura. "Ha! You fool!!" she crowed. "I have the Immortality Talisman! You can't do anything to me as long as I possess it!!" Yami Bakura stood his ground, his eyes narrowed as Vivalene stepped out of the way. "However, you, I believe, are not possessing one."

"YAMI!!!" Bakura screamed, realizing what Vivalene was up to. Pushing the thief out of the way, he stood in the path of the giant bug instead.

"Bakura, you moron!!!" Yami Bakura yelled, grabbing the boy out of the way just as the bug slashed at him. Bakura cried out in agony as he felt it rip into his flesh.

"Be gone," Yami Bakura hissed, forcing the bug back into its card. He held Bakura gently and rolled up his pant leg, examining the wound.

"Let me see," Vivalene purred. "If I'm not mistaken, the Man-Eater Bug's attack is poisonous. Oh, such a pity that you don't have anything to use to heal him!"

"Shut up," Yami Bakura growled, cradling Bakura and trying to stop the bleeding.

"Yami," Bakura whispered shakily, "am I going to die?"

"No," Yami Bakura snapped. "Now don't try to talk. Go to sleep, Bakura. Just . . . sleep." He brushed his hand over the boy's eyelids, closing them. Bakura gave a little sigh and soon was fast asleep in his Yami's arms. "Brave fool," he muttered when he was certain Bakura wouldn't hear him. Hopefully, he thought, Bakura was finally over the damage Vivalene had done to his mind.

Now Vivalene smirked to herself as she used the invisibility talisman to reappear back on the balcony overlooking where Seth and the two Khus were standing. "Well, darlings," she called loudly, "it certainly has been fun seeing you all again. And it's been fun joining forces with the likes of you two brothers! Or would it be three brothers?" She laughed at her joke.

"Shut up," the bad Khu growled, "or I'll . . ."

"Stop!!" the good Khu gasped. "You can't hurt a lady!!"

"You two are giving me a headache!!" Seth screamed. "How do you put them back together?!"

Seto smirked at him. "Wouldn't you like to know," he said, even though he had no clue himself.

"Just have them squeeze the talisman again," Vivalene purred.

"I'm not going back with a namby-pamby goody-two-shoes like him!!!" the bad Khu growled.

"Please don't force me back!!!" the good Khu wailed.

"Oh, just do it for crying out loud!!!" Seth yelled, forcing both halves to place their hands around the talisman. There was another bright flash of light and one Khu dropped down out of it, blinking in confusion.

Vivalene turned back to look at the others. "They are so amusing, aren't they. Sadly . . ." She paused, taking out a deadly machine gun. "Only one of us is fated to possess the treasures in the world . . . and that one shall be me!!!"

Seth glared up at her. "I already knew you were planning to turn traitor," he declared, powering up his dark magic skills.

"Then you should have been more careful, hmm? You know, I was the one who knocked you off the balcony. Poor pity that Nuru had to go and heal you." Vivalene sneered. "But she won't be healing you today. Daolon Wong has seen to that."

"What?!?!" Seth cried, but then he was caught with a deadly round of Vivalene's machine gun fire before he could defend himself. The priest stared at the blood in disbelief and then crumpled to the floor.

Khu just gazed at his brother in shock. "Seth?" he growled, kicking at the younger man's body gently. "Seth?! Get up, you moron!!!"

Vivalene only laughed. "He can't, I'm afraid. And you're next!!" She pointed the gun at the dark-haired man wickedly.

Khu looked up, his eyes flaming. "I don't think so," he snarled, drawing his sceptre and shooting the gun out of her hand. "You're going down, woman."

The others just watched in astonishment.

"So, uh, what do you think he's angrier about?" Joey wondered. "That Vivalene betrayed him or that she shot his brother like a half dozen times?"

"Does he care about his brother?" Tea retorted.

Khu leaped up onto the balcony and grabbed Vivalene viciously. "You made a drastic mistake," he hissed, restraining her against the wall with his sceptre's powers and then snatching the bag containing the talismans. "You're in over your head this time!"

Uncle, who had been making his way up to the balcony, now cornered him. "You will now be handing those over to me!!" he said threateningly, using his blowfish to make the satchel float over to him.

Undaunted, Khu revealed that he was still holding one that he'd apparently snuck out of the bag. "I've got what I want," he barked, lightly dropping down next to his brother's bleeding body and making them both vanish in a poof of smoke.

"That was . . . weird," Mai remarked.

Vivalene, released from the sceptre's powers, screamed as she pitched forward off the balcony. To her shock, Yami Yugi caught her before she could hit the floor far below.

"You," he declared, "have been de-powered. And now you will be sent to prison, where you belong."

Vivalene sneered. "Just wait, darling. Before you know it I'll be back again!"

Daolon Wong marched over to her angrily. "You were going to betray us all?!?!"

"Well, of course," Vivalene purred. "Surely you didn't think I wouldn't!"

"Daolon Wong never trusts anyone but himself," the wizard growled. "But you will pay for your attempted betrayal!!"

Yami Yugi shook his head and shot his hand out, using magic to throw Daolon against the wall. "No one will die here today," he said solemnly.

Shadi was still matching wits with Marik's double. "You have proven to me what sort of man you truly are," he said quietly. "You were never my ally or friend." The horrid monster began to rise from inside the Millennium Scales, grabbing for the scoundrel. "Your heart is black." Shadi turned away, preferring not to watch the creature's actions.

"No!! Wait!!" the man screamed as he struggled. "I . . . I didn't mean any of it!! I . . . I . . ."

Shadi shook his head. "The monster knows when you lie. It relishes being with its own kind."

"But . . . but . . . I don't look like it at all!!" Marik's double protested, still struggling. "I'm not anything like it!!!"

"Your soul is." Shadi winced as he heard the monster hold the man tightly and disappear. Yugi almost thought he saw a tear in the mysterious Egyptian's eye, but then it was gone.

"Shadi? Are . . . are you okay?" Yugi asked worriedly, going over to him.

Shadi looked up. "You are blessed, little Yugi," he said at last. "You have true friends who will never betray you." He turned away. "I am no longer worthy to be the guardian of the Millennium Items. I have disgraced all of my forefathers with my earlier actions today."

Yugi was aghast. "No, Shadi!!" he cried. "You couldn't help it!!"

"I am supposed to keep the Items safe. Instead I tried to steal them for myself." Slowly Shadi took the Ankh off from around his neck and handed it to Yugi. "You are much more worthy to have this than I am."

Yugi looked down at the Millennium Ankh and then back up at Shadi, tears in his violet eyes. "I can't take this!!" he sobbed. "It's yours!! You're the guardian!!"

Shadi shook his head and started to walk off.

"Shadi, wait!!" Yugi called, running after him. "Shadi!!"

Again Shadi turned back.

"Shadi, some people would've just given in to the poison's control," Yugi said now, his eyes shining. "But you kept on fighting!! You wouldn't give up! Even though you were chasing after me and trying to hurt me, you didn't do it!!" He paused, holding out the Ankh and pleading with his eyes for Shadi to take it back. "And . . . and that's because you never would hurt anyone," he said softly. "Even being under the control of the poison couldn't change that." Gently he pressed the Ankh back into the man's hand. "You haven't disgraced your ancestors in any way at all, Shadi. If anything, you've made them really proud! You're the guardian. You always will be!"

Shadi stared at him for a long while, contemplating, and then slowly closed his fingers around the Ankh. "You are wise beyond your years, Yugi," he said quietly. "I thank you."

Now everyone else began to relax and look around.

"Hey," Tea worried, "what happened to Bakura? I never did get to thank him for saying my life. . . ."

Yami Bakura stepped out from the shadows, Bakura's unconscious body in his arms. The thief had taken his own shirt and wrapped it around the boy's deadly injury to stop the bleeding.

"Bakura!!" Yugi and Tea gasped.

"He will be alright," Yami Bakura growled. "He just needs to rest."

Uncle, meanwhile, was nervously counting up the talismans and trying to figure out which one was missing.

"Well? Which one is it?" Jade asked impatiently. "Dragon Blast? Or maybe Invisibility?" She gestured wildly. "Even Shapeshifting?"

Uncle shook his head at each of those. "No," he said slowly. "The one missing is the Horse Talisman," he said at last.

"The what?" Joey blinked. "Well, what the heck kind of powers does it have? Mind-control?! Super strength?!"

Again Uncle shook his head. "Khu took the Healer."

Everyone blinked.

"Oh," Mai said at last.