11. Picking up the Pieces

Yugi, Joey, Tristan, Mai, and Serenity sat in a semicircle at the opposite end of the alcove from where Téa was lying. On a heap on the floor in the middle of them were the pieces of the fake Millennium Puzzle along with the six other phony Millennium Items. Each of them had the gold chipped off around the Eye of Horus, revealing glowing green stones beneath. The only exception was the Millennium Key, which alone of the seven Items was not decorated with an embossed Eye of Horus. They'd chipped off the gold down the entire length of the ankh to find the Orichalcos stone at the bottom where the ankh became a key.

Personally, Yugi would have preferred to not have the stones anywhere near where Téa was still lying unconscious, but he had no intention of letting her out of his sight, so they'd settled for spreading the disguised Orichalcos stones on the floor inside the alcove but as far away from her as possible.

"The 'other dark force' Pegasus mentioned," Yugi said, this being only the latest of many reasons he wanted to kick himself right now. "How could we have missed it? It all makes sense. The Orichalcos is even older than the Millennium Items. That's what's causing the Dark Games, that's what was making us feel so weird in the Chamber of Wedju. There must be thousands of these stones under the stone tablets in there. And it would explain why Serenity wasn't affected by the Chamber. She's the only one of us who wasn't even around the Orichalcos stones or the Seal back when we fought Dartz. And why Mai and I are affected more than anyone else—we're the ones who deliberately played Orichalcos duels."

"Except that wasn't really you," Joey reminded him.

Yugi shrugged. "Same difference."

"What about Rebecca?" Tristan asked. "She's been even worse than the two of you and she never played an Orichalcos duel."

"She and Duke did duel Valon, but he never played the Seal card," Mai agreed. "It is odd that she's having such a difficult time with it."

Yugi looked at her. "Any idea? You know more about the Orichalcos than the rest of us."

"Great, I'm so thrilled to be the expert in that," Mai replied with a trace of bitterness, but then she shrugged. "Not sure why the munchkin would feel it so much. Did she ever even come in contact with any of the stones?"

Yugi swallowed, feeling terrible. "Yes. She and her grandfather had one of the stones for a while. I got it from Grimo when I beat him back in Japan when the whole thing started, and then I gave it to Professor Hawkins so he could try and figure out what it was. He said it was similar to what he'd seen in the Atlantis ruins. She… she was wearing it on a chain around her neck when we saw them again in California. She gave it back to me and… I used it to play the Seal of Orichalcos against Rafael. I don't know what happened to it after that."

"Rafael took it off of you while you… while the Pharaoh was unconscious," Joey corrected himself quietly.

"Okay. That was the last we saw of it. But anyway, she had it for a while. She didn't use it in a duel, though, I'm positive."

"It seems to be effecting us even when we're not dueling," Joey pointed out, "at least when we touch them. Or in the Chamber of Wedju."

"Yes, but it's much worse when we're dueling. That's when we can't snap out of it." Yugi shook his head in frustration. "I should have realized. The way we've been reacting while dueling, all that anger? That's exactly what happened when we played the Seal of Orichalcos."

"Not exactly," Mai disagreed. "Before it was more… subtle, don't you think? When I was with Dartz's gang, I was angry and bitter, but I didn't feel quite as… I don't know… animalistic as the duels here. Does that make sense?"

Yugi nodded. "It was more gradual, more natural. More… focused."

"And it was connected to the Seal of Orichalcos," Mai added. "The stones didn't work alone."

"Hey, wait a second. If these have been Orichalcos duels instead of Shadow Games, does that mean—?" Tristan began, but then snapped his mouth quickly, his eyes flicking toward Téa for a moment and then down again.

Yugi closed his eyes a moment, trying not to let Reshef's attack on Téa replay in his mind again.

"No," Mai said firmly, putting a bracing hand on Yugi's shoulder. "No. It was the Seal that took the souls away, not the stones, and Pegasus had all the Seal of Orichalcos cards declared illegal and destroyed after Dartz was defeated. Anyone found with one of those cards in their deck would be banned from tournament play for life. I don't think even collectors have any, not even what's left of the Rare Hunters. No one's soul is being taken by the Orichalcos."

Yugi opened his eyes and nodded at her, grateful. "Mai's right. I don't know how the Orichalcos stones are working on us, but these are not Orichalcos duels, not like the ones we experienced in California."

"So if they're not Orichalcos duels and they're not Shadow Games, what are they?" Joey asked.

"Some kind of cross between the two. Somehow Ramesses has figured out how to use the Orichalcos stones to get us to open Shadow Games. The pathways Pegasus was talking about," Yugi replied. He took a big breath and let it out slowly. "So now we know what's causing the darkness. What we need to figure out is how to get out of it. We need to take a look at who beat it back in California and why."

"Well," Joey began, "Grimo, Alistair, Rex and Weevil, Valon… all of them lost. They never got out of it until it was all over. But Mai beat it," he added, looking at her.

She shook her head. "No I didn't. The Seal still took you."

"But you stopped before that. Something changed and you didn't call the last attack. What happened?"

Mai considered it a moment. "You," she said simply. "I just… I don't know. One second I was furious and just wanted you gone, out of my life for good. The next second I couldn't do it. And when you fell over and the Seal started shrinking I panicked." She paused, concentrating. "Wait. What really brought me back was when you knocked the stone off my neck and the Seal shattered it. Then it was like… like breaking free, or coming up for air after being under water for a long time. That's the same way it feels after these duels."

Yugi and Joey both nodded in agreement. "That's exactly how it feels," Yugi said.

"But you beat it before that," Joey insisted. "Otherwise you would've called the last attack. You wouldn't have come over to help me or try to stop it."

"I realized I'd made a terrible mistake, yes," Mai agreed quietly, "but that feeling of really breaking free didn't happen until the stone broke."

"Unfortunately, I don't think breaking all of the stones is an option," Yugi sighed. "We could break all of these—we should break all of these—but I'm positive there's a whole lot of them in the Chamber of Wedju."

"Okay, what about the Pharaoh, Yuge?" Joey asked. "How did he… you… uh… help me out here."

Yugi grimaced, both at the unpleasant memory and at the confusion whenever he had to talk about himself as the Pharaoh separate from himself. Opting for the first person plural to lump his two halves together, he answered, "We didn't break free. We lost, remember?"

"So did the end of the duel stop it then?" Tristan asked. "The Pharaoh wasn't all evil and scary afterwards."

"More like depressed and scary," Joey put in.

"Joey!" Mai chided, slapping his shoulder.

"What? He was!"

"No, that's okay, Mai, Joey's right. I don't know how much of it was the effects of the Orichalcos and how much of it was just guilt and grief, but I… I mean he was definitely in a bad place after that duel."

"Do you know what snapped him out of it?" Mai asked him.

"I did. I mean…" Yugi groaned. More than any other memory he shared from Atem, he hated talking about the Death Valley duel. It was the one time when they were in the same place yet completely separate with two completely different points of view. Trying to keep straight which was his part and which was the Pharaoh's and then trying to describe it to others was a Herculean feat.

"Okay. This is confusing because I remember both sides of it, but I had to duel myself in Death Valley. I mean, the Pharaoh had to duel my spirit. It was like facing my…his…our demons. I… the regular me… I was the dark side this time. It was like… externalizing our inner darkness, giving us a way to fight it. I… he beat me, the darkness within us, and then it was better. After that, Timaeus could come back to… us."

"Huh?" Mai said, looking completely confused.

Yugi wagged his head. "It doesn't matter. It was like living out a huge metaphor. But the point is, I had to fight myself. Or… the Pharaoh had to fight Yugi."

"So fighting Joey got Mai out of it and fighting Yugi got the Pharaoh out of it," Tristan mused. "So friendship is the key?"

Yugi thought about that a moment. "Okay, that makes sense. And Rafael, he was the other one who broke out of it on his own. It was remembering his family that did it. Maybe we're onto something here." He thought about it a moment. "Except… it isn't working now. I dueled against Rebecca and wanted to tear her apart until Kaiba knocked me out, and she's like a sister to me. And Joey…." He and Joey exchanged uneasy glances. "Joey's my best friend and that didn't stop me."

"Me neither," Joey said, his face grim. "Hurting you didn't seem to be a problem. Not until Tristan and Duke knocked us into the water."

"Water…" Mai mused. "Could we use water to snap us out of it?"

"We don't have enough," Yugi replied. "We barely have enough left for everyone to drink and the lake is on the other side of the Wedju Chamber."

"Oh, right," Mai said, sullen.

"What about some kind of shock?" Serenity asked, joining the conversation for the first time. "Kaiba knocking out Yugi, Tristan and Duke knocking you two into the water. And remember Mai's duel with Renée Carole? She snapped out of it when she hit Joey. That was probably a shock."

"It was," Mai agreed, "but then the next duel against Jacques Rousseau I came out of it when the duel ended. It was harder to come out of it that time, but no big shock was necessary."

"So what was the difference?" Yugi asked. "Why did we sometimes come out of it right when the duel ended but sometimes need some kind of shock? And if it was friendship or our loved ones that worked in California, what's different now?"

Joey pounded his fist on the cave floor in frustration. "ARGH! This is crazy! There has to be some way to beat this!"

Yugi suddenly felt very tired. He didn't want to think anymore, didn't want to try and figure anything out. All he wanted was to get out of here, take Téa away from this horrible cave and wake her up. He felt himself slump slightly and in an instant Serenity was at his side.

"Okay, that's enough for one day. Yugi, you might still be in shock from… everything. I think we all just need to sleep on it and we can figure it out in the morning."

Yugi nodded. "I want to see how Téa's doing," he said. "Would someone take the stones somewhere away from here? The others should be back soon. We can show them what Mai found and then let's smash them into dust, okay? I don't want to be around them anymore."

"I second that motion," Joey said.

"You sit with Téa or get some sleep, Yugi," Tristan said. "I'll set up another watch schedule. We should double up…"

Yugi nodded numbly, unable to concentrate anymore on what Tristan was saying. He scooted back a few feet until he was sitting next to Téa once more. She still looked alarmingly colorless, but peaceful, which made him a little nervous. He could see her chest rising and falling evenly, so she was breathing, but otherwise she looked disturbingly like a corpse laid out for burial. Or like Snow White in her glass coffin.

If only I could wake you with a kiss, he thought, leaning over and pressing his lips to her forehead. Then, still holding her hand in his, he curled up beside her.

"I'm sorry I couldn't protect you, Téa, but I promise you, we'll figure it out. We'll get you back. I promise. Just keep fighting."

Kaiba, Mokuba, Duke, and Rebecca returned a little after Yugi had fallen asleep. They had found several tunnels that led away from this cavern, all marked with hieroglyphics and with torches, although in some cases, the torches weren't lit. They decided that tomorrow they would split up and search each tunnel, and then Mai, Joey, Tristan, and Serenity filled them in about the Orichalcos stones. The eight of them tried brainstorming a little longer on ways to defeat the effect, but they were too tired and too distraught from everything that had happened to think clearly, so they smashed the Orichalcos stones as best they could, Tristan divided up watch duties, and Joey and Mai found a quiet corner of the cave not too far from the alcove where Téa and Yugi were and huddled together to get some sleep.

Mai noticed in a sort of detached way that they didn't even discuss the arrangements; they just both assumed that this is the way it would be. Unfortunately, she was so wrung out from the events of the day that she couldn't really enjoy it. She felt mostly a sort of numb gratitude that he was near in case she had the nightmare again.

The nightmare.

Mai propped herself up on one arm and looked down at Joey. "Joey, you awake?"

"Mmmmm."

"Joey," she shook his shoulder.

His eyes flew open. "You okay?"

"I'm fine. I just realized something. I think I know why I started having the nightmares again."

Now he was awake. He propped himself up on his arm in a mirror image of her pose so they could face each other. "Really?"

"I think it's Evan. Evan and the Orichalcos."

"What do you mean?"

"He's the one person I've seen every single night since we got on the ship."

Joey's expression darkened. "Oh really? And how exactly is it that you saw him every single night?"

She rolled her eyes. "Get your mind out of the gutter, you pig. I do have some standards," she said tartly. "I think it was just a coincidence at first. I got to the ship early because I wanted to board before you and your friends arrived. I had my whole grand entrance at the ball planned and I didn't want to run into you on the pier, so I went down there a couple hours early. Evan just happened to be the first purser I ran into, so I sweet-talked him into letting me on the ship early and letting me out of the muster drill. I don't think he realized who I was right away until I said my name. He had sort of a funny reaction, which I figured was just a typical dumb guy leering over the cutesy name thing, but now I think he knew I was one of Pegasus's 'Shadow Duelists.'

"Anyway, he found me that night right after I freaked over Yugi's Puzzle and thinking you would never forgive me and everything. I gave him some song and dance about wanting to avoid Pegasus and he let me hang out in the crew lounge for a while. Then that night was the first night I had the nightmare."

"So you think seeing him before you went to sleep caused it?"

"Not seeing him. Its not like I had any idea who he was. But what if he had an Orichalcos stone with him? I bet he could have found a way to touch me with it and that would've kicked off the nightmares." She shuddered. "It's second nature for me to watch my drinks to make sure no one slips anything into them, but it never occurred to me to be careful about what I come into contact with. But it was the nightmares that got me into the Orichalcos mess to begin with, remember."

Joey nodded, his expression even darker. She continued, "And then the second day, Sunday, that was the day I avoided you all day. I never even saw you because I made sure I was in my duel area or my cabin all day. I even ate in my cabin. Then at dinnertime, Evan shows up to check on me. He said he was worried about me since I didn't show up at dinner. Of course, I thought he was just coming onto me, but what if he just wanted to get me near an Orichalcos stone again?"

"And you had the nightmare again that night." It wasn't a question.

She nodded. "And then Monday night was the night we sank. He 'rescued' me from talking to you at Pegasus's dinner, remember? I had the nightmare early on in the night, and then I woke up and went down to work out to try and get it out of my system. That's when I saw you down at the gym that night." She sighed. "All things considered, on that night I'm glad I did have the nightmare."

His eyes flicked down at that. She touched his face where the cut he'd gotten in the explosion was fading from his cheek and he looked back up at her. Swallowing, she took her hand away and continued.

"Then every night since then we've been with him on the island. And last night, actually sleeping with the stone in the Millennium Ring in my pocket…." She shuddered. "That was the worst night."

He nodded, his eyes full of concern. "Why would he do that to you? I mean besides the fact that he's a sick bastard who I'm going to totally tear apart when we figure out how to fight him."

"I don't know. Maybe it was an inroad. Maybe having the nightmares made me more susceptible when we got here."

"Could be." Now he touched her, brushing her shoulder lightly with one finger. "You weren't around him all that much today and we smashed all the stones in the Millennium Items. Maybe… maybe tonight you won't have that dream."

"No, I'll just have nightmares about what he did to Téa instead." She couldn't help but wonder, then, if Téa was in the Shadow Realm, what nightmare was she living now?

Joey must've had the same thought. He lay back down again with a grunt of frustration. "Have I mentioned how much I can't stand that guy?" he said. "We are so gonna make him pay. You know, a part of me thinks Yugi had the right idea. We should just go after this guy and tear him apart. There's nine of us and one of him."

Mai curled up on his shoulder and he automatically put his arms around her. "No, you did the right thing stopping him and you know it. We'll get him when we figure out how to counter the effects of the Orichalcos stones. We're close, Joey, I can feel it. I know the answer is somewhere in our friendships with each other, like it was back in California. There's just one piece that's missing. Something that makes the times we could stop it different from the times we couldn't. We'll figure it out and then we'll go back and kick his sorry ass."

"You know it," Joey agreed, and it was the last thing she remembered before falling asleep.

Several hours later when Tristan woke them up for their shift at watch, Mai realized that for the first time in a week, she had not had any dreams.

Just after dawn on Saturday morning—not that where he was he could see the sun rise—Evan Haines knelt before the Altar of the Wedju, chanting quietly. Once again he was performing the Final Ritual of the Ancients, not to summon Reshef the Dark Being for battle, but to speak to his Master.

When the bright light finally dimmed, Reshef towered over him on the altar and Evan bowed even lower. "I'm sorry to disturb you, sir, but I knew you would want to speak with me after what happened."

Speak to you? thundered a voice that came from Reshef but sounded only in his own mind. You are fortunate I don't have Reshef obliterate you after that fiasco! How could you be so foolish? How could you let them escape?

"It was the girl, sir, Gardner. She must be a gymnast or something. She jumped across that ravine like it was a crack in the sidewalk and lowered the drawbridge."

She's a dancer. You should have known this.

"She was punished for it," Evan pointed out.

So I saw. And for that you have redeemed yourself, not because she was punished for her interference, but because of the effect it had on our so-called "pharaoh."

"Yes. He's got a bit of a thing for the girl. He was furious."

And yet, he still did not stay and fight. Do you know why that is?

"Because he knew he couldn't defeat me," Evan said, lifting his chin slightly.

You fool. You miss the obvious because of your ego.

Evan bowed his head once more. "My apologies, sir."

The point is that his anger should have blinded him to his own weaknesses. The power from the Orichalcos stones should have fed that anger and made the need for revenge overwhelming, and yet, he left. Do you know why?

Evan thought for a moment. "Wheeler persuaded him."

Exactly. His bond with his friends is stronger even than the Orichalcos. It is your job, my Tjaty, to break that bond. We must divide if we are to conquer.

"They were pretty divided when they dueled Underwood and Raptor. They very nearly killed each other."

Yes, but they still won.

"Well of course they won, who couldn't win against those two idiots?"

That hardly matters. If you want to face Mutou, keep his friends busy. You will need help.

"Yes. I've already arranged for it. I have Underwood and Raptor, of course, and one more assistant will be joining me shortly." He smiled at the irony. "He's on his way here from the camp and should be ready to fight with us by late this morning."

Good. Rise, my Tjaty.

Evan stood up on the altar, Reshef the Dark Being looming above him.

This is your last chance. You have failed to get rid of the two reborn Pharaohs, so you must fight them in the Chamber of Wedju. Everything depends upon your victory here. Do not disappoint me again.

"No, my Pharaoh. With the aid of the Orichalcos and your own guardian creature Reshef, I will be victorious."