"Oh," Mana's tone was faintly disappointed.
Mahaad's face bore the slightest smile as he escorted Mana thoroughly around the cramped circular room, highlighting the worktable, magic burners, spell components and books in his Dark Magic research area.
"So..." Mana swallowed her disappointment at the mundaneness of Mahaad's workshop. Mahaad could tell she was wondering what all the fuss and secrecy was about, but he did admit, at least she was trying to hide it. There was a time not too long ago where she would have been vocal in her disappointment and open in her scorn. "What do you need me to do?" Mana squared her shoulders, resolutely determined to help.
"Well, not fainting on me would be a nice start," Mahaad replied mildly as he reached forward and opened the invisible door that floated in the middle of the workshop.
Mana's knees did sag as Mahaad led her through that door.
"Master, where are we?" Mana asked in a low tone. Except for herself and Mahaad, complete blackness met her eyes.
"This is where our power, the power of Dark Magic, flows the strongest. This is the plane of Dark Magic in Yugi's deck. All of his Dark Magic potential is here," Mahaad explained.
"So this is what the atelier is all about."
Mahaad simply smiled. He gestured, shaping the Dark Magic in a way that Mana recognized.
"You cast Dark Energy," she observed, feeling the increase in her power. "Are you expecting an attack?"
"No, but I do want to conduct an experiment. Both of us are affected equally by Dark Energy, correct?" Mahaad slipped into his lecture mode.
Mana nodded. "Right. So our attacks remain in the same relationship with each other, just at a higher level."
"Correct. But you gain an added bonus simply because I am here, is that not so?" Mahaad pressed.
"I would in a duel, if certain conditions were met."
"As far as your bonuses go, you can consider that this Dark Magic pocket dimension functions that way," Mahaad told her.
"Okay..." Mana wondered what the object of all this was. She knew better than to ask. Mahaad would perversely go off into an esoteric lecture if she showed her impatience. It was better for her to wait until he decided to continue.
"Allow me to summon an illusionary monster." Mahaad manipulated the raw Dark Magic in a way that Mana had never seen before. A Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon solidified from the darkness. Despite the fact that Mahaad said it was only an illusion, Mana jumped.
"And now, I will attack it," Mahaad continued. Mana never tired of watching Mahaad, when he was fully in his Dark Magician role, attack something with Dark Magic. He concentrated his force in his staff and sent the Dark Magic screaming toward the Ultimate Dragon. Though it was an impressive and powerful attack, it failed to affect the Dragon.
"Now, you try," Mahaad directed, lowering his staff.
"Wha...?" Mana began. Mahaad crossed his arms and focused his most fearsome 'don't give me any back talk' glare on Mana. Shrugging, Mana turned and regarded the Ultimate Dragon. Knowing that it was utterly useless, she concentrated on the power of Dark Magic in her and sent it flowing to her staff as Mahaad had taught her how to do millennia ago. She released the Dark Magic...
...and sat down hard on her rump from the backlash. The Ultimate Dragon dissolved into thousands of shards as Mana's Dark Magic attack ripped it apart.
"That was sloppy," Mahaad commented critically as he reached a hand down to assist Mana to her feet. "If you were paying attention, you would have realized the power you have and would not have been taken by surprise like that. I have trained you better, Mana!"
"What?! How?! Master!" Mana was flabbergasted. "How in the world did I do that?!"
"Though you've never been in the atelier before, you know the Dark Magic potential of Yugi's deck as well as I. However, you have always been more responsive to visual lessons..." Mahaad gestured again. The darkness fell away. The workshop revealed in the light was much larger and grander than the previous one. It was also populated. Mana blushed that anyone had seen her fall over from the backlash of her own attack.
"Allow me to present Mana, my apprentice, the Dark Magician Girl," Mahaad bowed to the people in the workshop. Mana dropped into an automatic curtsey at Mahaad's formal introduction and lowered her head politely.
"You finally decided that the 'little disaster area' was ready to learn about us, eh, Mahaad?" Mana's head snapped up at that.
"I am not a disaster area!" she protested. "Only Mahaad calls me that!" She lifted her head and stopped in shock at the teasing, kindly eyes that met her gaze. She recognized her master in the older but vibrantly strong visage.
"Mahaad...?!" She turned to the Dark Magician next to her in confusion, seeking his eyes in her attempt to figure out what was going on. She recognized her master in his face too!
"Even I do not quite understand it, Mana. But the Dark Sage appears to be...me...aged by a thousand years and much stronger in Dark Magic because of it. Remarkably spry, too, given his advanced years!" Mahaad teased. The Dark Sage just smiled.
Mana's helmet was tipped playfully to one side. She wheeled, to recognize Mahaad again, in the face of a different Dark Magic duel monster, this time armored as a knight.
"All of us are versions of the Dark Magician, if the proper ritual is played or special sequence of events occurs," the Dark Magician Knight explained.
Mana moaned softly and swayed on her feet. The Dark Magician, the Mahaad she had entered this mad place with, wrapped an arm around her shoulders in support.
"So who...is you?" she asked, looking up into Mahaad's eyes with a deeply confused look on her face.
"I am. They are...hard to explain. More than ghosts, but not quite separate duel monsters. They only exist in the game if I am changed somehow, by ritual or polymerization into one of them. So they are all me, but separate, because their powers are different. I recall being the Dark Sage, but that level of understanding of Dark Magic, enough to be able to cast two spells per turn, is beyond me unless I'm in a duel and the right cards have been played to turn me into the Dark Sage. Does that help?"
"No!" she flung herself out of Mahaad's arms frantically.
"You!" she demanded turning to the Dark Sage again. "Who are you?!"
The Dark Sage met the Dark Magician's eyes over the Dark Magician Girl's head and smiled before turning his gaze back down to her.
"Mana, calm down. This is precisely why Mahaad waited so long to bring you here."
"You call him Mahaad...but you are Mahaad?!" Mana cried out.
"It really is complicated to try to explain it. I am Mahaad, but only in that moment when the Time Wizard's spell has transformed the Dark Magician into the Dark Sage. My memories are borrowed, except for those times when Mahaad, as the Dark Sage, is in a duel. Those memories are mine. That is who I am, 'Mahaad', but only when he is the Dark Sage."
"So he is really...Mahaad. That is...my master from so long ago?" Mana pointed a trembling finger at the Dark Magician.
"Yes."
"Why...did this happen? How is it that you are here, like this?"
"We think it is to keep the powers of the variations of the Dark Magician separate, otherwise, Mahaad would remember them all and the Dark Magician would become too powerful for the game."
"Oh."
Mana slowly walked around the workshop, pausing and searching out the eyes of each Dark Magic user in turn. Each time she stared for long moments, at an altered, yet still recognizable, humoring, understanding, slightly smiling version of her Dark Magic master.
"We are pleased that we were able, when Dark Retribution was played, to help Mahaad save you," the Dark Magician Knight noted when Mana had finished her inspection of him. "Not one of us would ever permit the least thing to happen to you, if we are able to prevent it."
Mana walked up to the Dark Magician, picked up his hand and twined her fingers trustingly with his just as she used to do long ago, when she first became Mahaad's apprentice.
"I think I understand, Master." She laughed. "Well, as much as such a thing can be understood!"
"Are you okay with it? This is why I keep the atelier off limits. Such knowledge is very confusing!" Mahaad admitted.
"I'm okay with it. All of them are you and yet, not quite you, right?" Every head nodded. "It doesn't matter if I understand it completely, right? Everyone here wants to help Yugi in duels, so everyone in here is a friend, right?" Again, the universal nod. "So it's all good!"
Mahaad smiled at that. "You have grown in understanding, Mana!" he praised.
"Now...do you see how you had the power to take out my illusory Ultimate Dragon?"
Mana looked up in startlement and then scanned the room. She thought for a long moment.
"But...it doesn't add up."
"She's quick!" the Dark Sage approved. "She's very fast to find the heart of things, isn't she?"
"Yes, she is," Mahaad agreed.
"I don't gain a higher bonus from the Dark Sage or Magician of Black Chaos, do I, Mahaad?" Mana asked him.
"No. Each Dark Magic user gives you the same bonus. And, before you can ask, no, you don't gain any special bonuses here in the atelier either, other than the Dark Energy spell I cast."
"There is a missing Dark Magic user, then," Mana stated flatly. "Even with the power of Dark Energy, for me to be able to destroy an Ultimate Dragon, I would need the help of seven Dark Magic users. Oh!"
"Yes, 'Oh!'" Mahaad smiled.
********
Yami wondered what Mahaad planned. He knew his friend. Though Mahaad had told him it wasn't quite a plan, Yami knew whatever it was must be fairly advanced for Mahaad to give him such specific instructions. That Mahaad wouldn't tell him what it was worried at him. Mahaad had proven once before that he would willingly sacrifice himself. What Mahaad didn't properly understand is just how destructive such a sacrifice would be to Yugi. It might be a blow that Yugi could never recover from, driving his psyche to hide forever in the bright room of his own mind, never to come forth and face the pain of the world again. Yami admitted that to lose Mahaad now, after finding him again so unexpectedly, would be a blow to him too. He hoped Mahaad knew what he was doing.
"Pull out the Dark Magic cards of Yugi's deck and set them to one side. That would be my card - the Dark Magician, the Dark Magician Girl, the Dark Sage, the Blaze Knight, the Mirage Knight, the Dark Magic Knight, the Magician of Black Chaos and...Dark Retribution."
"Place the Millennium Puzzle in the Magic Box so that it stands on its point on the bottom of the box. It will want to tip over. Place all but the Dark Magic cards of Yugi's deck in the box so that they support one side of the Puzzle."
Not wanting Yugi to assume any feelings of responsibility if this failed, Yami had asked him to remain in his 'room' until Yami 'called' for him. If blame was to be assigned, Yami would accept it all. He thumbed through the cards, pulling out the ones Mahaad had specified.
He slid the chain of the Millennium Puzzle over his head and opened the Magic Box. Yugi had always used it as a place to store his cards even before Mahaad had told them it was a special receptacle for his magic. Yami worried that placing the power of the Millennium Puzzle, completed as it now was, into the Magic Box might be more magic than even Mahaad could handle.
********
"How do we help Yugi?" Mana asked.
"You suspect that there is a Dark Magic user here that you can't see helping to increase your power, right?" Mahaad asked in reply.
Mana nodded firmly. "There is no way, even with Dark Energy, that I could take out an Ultimate Dragon without the help of seven Dark Magic users." She scanned the room again. "And there are only six."
"So, go around the workshop and determine the magic of each Dark Magic user so you can eliminate it from the pool of Dark Magic helping you. Once you do that you can..."
"Isolate the one I can't see!" Mana finished excitedly. "Mahaad! Do you think...?!"
Mahaad nodded once. "That is my hope, and the hope of everyone here. I did not want to say anything definite outside, in case I was wrong, but once you were able to destroy the Ultimate Dragon, I knew that what I suspected was true."
"I might be able to pinpoint the Dark Magic energy helping me, but then..." Mana began.
"One step at a time, Mana. The chain is building slowly. The first link, the heart of Yugi's cards, the will of our fellow Duel Monsters for us to succeed, is with us. The next link is yours, isolating the energy."
"But, Master... The Dark Magician doesn't have enough power to..." Mana protested.
"I've set it in motion, Mana. I will have the power needed, when the time comes. Or I should say...you will."
"Me?!"
"You are the Dark Magic user who gains power from other Dark Magic users. Only you are able to isolate the energy we seek. And do not forget, it was the peril you were in that inspired such a drastic change."
"Yes..." Mana dropped her head contritely.
"None of that now!" Mahaad placed his hand under her chin and lifted it firmly. "You did not ask for or demand what happened. What was done was by his own free will. Be the exasperating, arrogant, 'everything will be okay because I say so', annoyance you are so practiced at, Mana! For this to work, you must believe in yourself."
Mana made a face at the insulting way Mahaad had phrased his command, even as she heeded it. "Everyone is counting on me?"
Mahaad nodded. "And I know that trust is not misplaced."
Mana locked her troubled eyes on Mahaad's calm, blue ones, reading the truth of his conviction. She lifted her chin on her own, grinned up at him and twirled around to dash over to the Dark Sage. Mahaad smiled at her girlish antics, knowing full well that despite appearances, she was deadly serious.
Mana visited each Dark Magic user in turn, sensing the flavor of the Dark Magic each supported her with so she could eliminate it as the one she sought. She stood before Mahaad last, to eliminate the simple, familiar 'Dark Magician' Dark Magic boost she gained from him.
"Can this really work?" she asked, touching Mahaad's hand to sense the subtle power of his Dark Magic more completely.
"Sweet Mana, you have the heart of the cards, the Dark Magic of Yugi's deck, all of my magic and..." Mahaad inclined his head toward the center of the workroom where a new power was taking form, "...the power of the Millennium Puzzle supporting you."
"The Puzzle?!" Mana gasped.
"I told you I set things in motion. Now..."
********
"Place all the Dark Magic cards except for mine, the Dark Magician Girl and Dark Retribution to balance the other side of the Puzzle."
Yami carefully balanced the upside-down Millennium Puzzle between the bulk of Yugi's deck on one side, and the five Dark Magic cards on the opposite face, and wondered if what he was doing would help Yugi...or do him more harm than good.
********
Mana gasped as she turned and saw that the Millennium Puzzle was indeed here. Strangely, it was inverted. It stood unsupported, balancing on the tip of its apex, turning its four-sided flat bottom up making it appear almost like a giant golden table. The loop which allowed it to be worn, was nowhere to be seen.
"How?!" she breathed in wonder.
"I asked Yami to place the Millennium Puzzle in the Magic Box. I will use it to channel and focus all the powers needed to help you," Mahaad told her.
"Master...!"
"Do not worry, Mana!" The rest of the Dark Magic users, almost as one, walked over to one side and stood along one edge of the giant Puzzle table. "Yami is setting everything in place as I asked." Mahaad noted with satisfaction.
"What happens next?" Mana asked.
"The heart of the cards supports one side, the Dark Magic of Yugi's deck the other. We should..." Mahaad interrupted himself. "There! Do you feel it?"
********
"Place my card, the Dark Magician, and Mana's card, the Dark Magician Girl, opposite each other on the last two sides."
Yami worried again at the wisdom of this plan. He wondered if Mahaad was wise to attempt to channel the power of a Millennium Item again, especially now, as he was only a Duel Monster.
********
Mana felt she should walk up to the glowing golden table and place her hands down just touching the flat surface. Mahaad mirrored her actions on the opposite side.
"All but one of the elements are now in position," Mahaad told Mana, looking across the expanse of the Puzzle into her eyes. His eyes suddenly crinkled in a smile. "Can you guess what that last element is?"
She shook her head, stunned by the power she was sensing before her. She wasn't sure if it was in the Puzzle or in her Master. She wondered what Mahaad expected her to do with so much power.
********
"Finally, even though the top loop is in the way, place the Dark Retribution card on top of the Puzzle. It doesn't have to cover the entire top, but make certain it is laying flat."
********
A giant card shimmered and appeared on the table before her. It almost completely covered the top of the Puzzle table.
If your Dark Magician Girl is sent to the Graveyard...
"It's Akai's ritual!" Mana gasped. "But it's so huge!"
"Merely a side effect of the crafting of a sympathetic magic spell. It is why we are now here," Mahaad told her. "Now, Mana, the seventh Dark Magic user's energy...do you still sense it?"
"Yes..."
"Draw it to you. Do not passively accept the power it offers, but pull it entirely from the weave of Dark Magic," Mahaad commanded. "I will pull the rest of the Dark Magic away from you."
Mana closed her eyes and reached, with all that she was, with her very soul, toward the Dark Magic that was not any of those in the room with her. She felt as Dark Magic flowed away from her, making it easier for her to focus on the particular Dark Magic she sought.
"Mahaad!" Mana gasped. "I'm...not...strong...enough!"
-------------
Author's notes -
This story is a runaway! Yami and Mahaad have completely taken control away from me. (I was going to end it at six chapters.) Yugi's about to assert himself, though, as after all, he is the main character of Yu-Gi-Oh!
Next Chapter teaser - Chapter Eight - *Unexpected results from casting the spell!*
Reviews, comments and constructive criticisms are always welcome! Please feel free to email me also if you see something awkward that needs to be clarified or fixed. I need all the help I can get!
stargarde@stargarde.com