22. A Whole New Duel

With Mai no longer buying into the illusion that she was dueling the real Joey for his soul, it was a whole new duel, and Yugi relaxed a little. He couldn't see Mai's hand, particularly now that he was on the opposite side of the field, but he knew that five of the six cards she'd drawn were the ones he'd put in her deck, and only one of those was a trap, so when she set two facedown cards before ending her turn, one of them had to be Gift of the Mystical Elf. He had no way of knowing what the other was, nor the facedown card that had already been there even before he'd been summoned to the field, but Mai was one of the world's best duelists, and he had faith that she would pull through.

Both their souls depended on it.

It didn't look good, though. She had nothing but those three facedown cards between her and her 3600 Life Points, while "Joey" had him—Dark Magician—Red-Eyes Black Dragon, and Flame Swordsman for a combined total of 6700 attack points; more than enough to wipe her. He must've been thinking the same thing. "I could end it right here, Mai."

Yugi had to make a conscious effort to keep from grinding his teeth. The most important thing about dueling was honor, and there was nothing honorable about the way this bastard was hiding behind Joey, the person Mai was most afraid of hurting, in a reprise of the very duel where she'd hurt him the most. It was somehow worse, even, than when Marik had taken control of Joey and forced him to duel Yugi. At least he hadn't pretended to actually be Joey.

"You think so?" Mai was checking her nails as if she were bored. The attitude was a little forced, but it sure beat the raw emotion and indecision. "Go ahead and try, then."

"Not yet," the fake Joey said. "I'm gonna make one last try to get through to you, to remind you of our friendship and—" He hesitated, the catch in his voice so like the real Joey that Yugi flinched. "And what you mean to me."

"Save it." Mai looked ready to tear him apart, and Yugi saw she was no longer posturing. "I don't know who you are—actually, I take that back. I know exactly who you are, Ramesses, oh mighty pharaoh." She performed a mock bow. "And I know I don't mean squat to you. I do, however, mean something to the real Joey. To all my friends." She met Yugi's eye with the barest of nods. "And I won't fail them by losing to you."

"I don't know what crazy stories Dartz's goons told you, but I'm not giving up on you. First, I'm gonna summon Tiger Axe to the field." A giant humanoid tiger carrying an axe appeared on the other side of Red-Eyes Black Dragon. "Next I'll play my Dark Dragon Ritual card, sacrificing Gearfried the Iron Knight from my hand to do so."

Yugi groaned, knowing exactly where this was going.

"This ritual calls Paladin of Dark Dragon to the field." A knight that looked exactly like the one on Red-Eyes appeared, only this one didn't have Joey's face. "But he can't stay long, 'cause next I'm gonna sacrifice him to summon my old friend Red-Eyes Black Dragon."

A second Red-Eyes, this one without the armor-clad rider, appeared in place of the black-cloaked knight beside Tiger Axe. "See, Mai? This is my Red-Eyes."

"Oh, am I supposed to be impressed now?" She crossed her arms. "That's an awful lot of trouble to go to just to get a monster on the field you can't even use this turn, especially considering you're so sure you already have more than enough attack points to get the rest of my Life Points."

"If there's any player in the game I know, Mai, it's you." He was oozing with implied intimacy, and Yugi couldn't help but look over his shoulder and glare at him as he continued to bait Mai. "With three facedown cards, you're far from helpless. If I'm gonna attack you, it's gonna be with every big gun I've got." He pulled a card from his hand and flipped it forward so Mai and Yugi could see it. "So here's the biggest gun of all. Say hello to the Claw of Hermos."

Yugi and Mai both reacted with a start. Claw of Hermos had been a card Joey had only had briefly while they'd been fighting against Dartz and his gang. It was a one-of-a-kind card that had ceased to exist as soon as the Leviathan that it had been created to fight had been defeated. Though a re-creation from Mai's memory of a duel where Joey almost certainly would have used that card, this still was a real Shadow Game, and Yugi hadn't expected him to be able to call on a monster that only existed in the past. Then again, Mai had played a Seal of Orichalcos, something she no longer had in her deck. There was an infinite variety of Dark Games, and the line between possible and impossible wasn't always easy to discern.

"I play my Claw of Hermos, fusing it with my Red-Eyes to create the Red-Eyes Black Dragon Sword, which I'll equip to my Flame Swordsman." He looked up at Mai. "Do you still think I'm not really Joey Wheeler?"

Yugi noticed "Joey" didn't so much as glance his way, but he still got the distinct impression that he was very much aware Yugi was here after all, and ignoring his presence had been part of the act to convince Mai the Orichalcos was making her see things.

Mai, for her part, seemed to falter when she saw Hermos. "That card. How…?"

"I got it dueling you, remember?"

"I—"

"Mai!" Yugi drew her attention to him. "Don't lose sight of the truth. He's playing from your memory. Remember."

Slowly, she began to nod. "I do remember." She looked at Joey. "Flame Swordsman gets a thousand extra attack points, right?"

"Fifteen hundred, actually." Joey sounded weary again, but Yugi knew it was part of the act. "One thousand plus an extra five hundred for every dragon on the field. So thanks to the Red-Eyes you summoned, Flame Swordsman now has thirty-three hundred attack points. Now, I might be a little hazy on the math, but I believe with Red-Eyes, Dark Magician, and Tiger Axe, that gives me more than enough to take out your 3600 Life Points. 5900 more, to be exact." He nodded at Mai's three facedown cards. "You got enough there in your facedown cards to stop 9500 attack points?"

"I guess we'll find out, won't we?" Mai shrugged as if completely indifferent.

Joey smirked. "You're bluffing, Mai."

Even Yugi wasn't sure himself whether she was or wasn't. Gift of the Mystical Elf would definitely help, but it wasn't enough, not alone anyway. Although…. He considered what he knew of Mai's deck. If one of those cards was what he hoped it was….

"I know your deck," Joey said, "and I know exactly what you're planning, but it won't be enough to stop 9500 attack points."

"Then call my bluff."

"You got it, sweetheart. Dark Magician, attack her directly with Dark Magic Attack!"

As if he had no will of his own, Yugi raised his staff and pointed it at her. He struggled against the compulsion, but he couldn't stop the attack. As long as he was a monster on Joey's side of the field, he had to follow Joey's orders. He flinched as a green shaft of energy shot out of his staff and arced toward her.

"I activate my Mirror Wall trap card!"

Yugi nearly crowed in triumph when a huge mirror went up, reflecting back his attack and cutting it in half. The rest of the energy hit her, blowing her back, and she shielded her face with her Duel Disk, but her Life Points only went down by 1250 instead of 2500, leaving her with 2350.

"Nice try, but it's not enough. There's still Red-Eyes, Flame Swordsman with his Red-Eyes Black Dragon Sword, and Tiger Axe left. That's 7000 attack points left, and half of 7000 is 3500. Still more than enough."

But Yugi smiled, knowing what one of those facedown cards was. He caught Mai's eye and she gave him a barely perceptible nod as "Joey" called his next attack. "Red-Eyes Black Dragon, you're next!"

The armor-clad Joey atop Red-Eyes didn't look any happier about attacking Mai than Yugi had been, but the dragon beneath him charged forward, preparing its attack.

Mai pointed at her second facedown card. "Activate Gift of the Mystical Elf!"

A tall, blue-skinned woman in a flowing green gown and white headdress rose from the card, her hands cradling a glowing sphere of brilliant white light. But instead of her usual long blonde hair, this Mystical Elf's hair was red, and even with blue skin, her face was unmistakably Serenity's.

The Serenity-Elf looked over her shoulder at Mai and nodded. Mai, startled at first by her resemblance to her friend, recovered after a moment and smiled in return before Serenity turned to face Yugi and "Joey's" side of the field. Uttering a wordless chant, she released her sphere. It settled on Mai, increasing her Life Points by 1200; 300 for every monster on the field. Then Mystical Elf nodded to Yugi and to Mai once more before disappearing.

"I now have 3550 Life Points. You were saying?"

Yugi looked over his shoulder and saw "Joey" scowl. Red-Eyes finished its attack, dropping Mai's Life Points back down to 2350, then Flame Swordsman and Tiger Axe followed, taking 1650 and 650 Life Points respectively. When the dust cleared and Mai recovered from the direct attacks, she was only a hairsbreadth away from losing, but 50 Life Points was still enough to keep her—and Yugi—out of the Shadow Realm for now, and he breathed a sigh of relief. "Way to go, Mai!"

Still pretending he was unaware of Yugi's presence, the Joey imposter congratulated her as well. "Great move, Mai, but you're down to 50 Life Points, you still have no monsters on the field, and you lose Mirror Wall as soon as you draw unless you can pay 2000 Life Points to keep it, and I'm thinking that's a little bit too steep for you right now."

"But it's my move." She drew, smiling as she looked at her card, and Yugi's heart stopped pounding—she had something good. Mirror Wall disappeared, but her smile remained. "I remember how this went in our real Orichalcos duel after Joey played Hermos. As I recall, I pointed out that your Flame Swordsman is only as strong as his weapon. And this time around, you also have a couple of things that belong to me that I want back. I play Harpie's Feather Duster!"

A huge feather appeared on the field and swept away all of Joey's spell and trap cards, including his facedown cards, the Red-Eyes Black Dragon Sword, and Double Magical Arm Bind. Yugi felt like a restraint had been released and he was pulled as if by a magnet back to Mai's side of the field along with the Red-Eyes Black Dragon and its armor-clad rider with Joey's face.

"When Double Magical Arm Bind is destroyed by the effect of a spell, trap, or monster, it allows me to special summon one monster from my graveyard." Joey was now across the field from Yugi instead of behind him. He swayed, as if unsteady from exhaustion. "I bring back my faithful Red-Eyes Black Dragon!"

It appeared on the field with a roar, taking its place beside Tiger Axe and the reduced-power Flame Swordsman. "Remember how I first got Red-Eyes, Mai? It was all because of you. I won him from Rex Raptor at Duelist Kingdom because you bribed him into playing me. You hated me at first, just like you hate me now, but after that duel with Rex we became friends. You even gave me that card I needed to play in the Duelist Kingdom finals, remember? This Red-Eyes is a symbol of that, Mai."

Yugi felt another wave of fury wash over him. "Those memories belong to Joey and Mai, not to you! Don't you dare try to manipulate her with memories of what Joey means to her. You are not Joey!"

Her eyes flicked up to the Joey that was still astride the Red-Eyes on her side of the field and she nodded. "You're right. Red-Eyes does remind me of how Joey and I met, and how we became friends, just like Dark Magician reminds me of my friendship with Yugi and Mystical Elf reminds me of Serenity. I have a lot of friends now. You can't manipulate me as easily as Marik or even Dartz, because I know who my friends are. In fact, I'm going to have another of my friends join us now. Munchkin, you're up!"

She played a card in one of her monster slots, and Rebecca Hawkins, dressed in the flaming orange robes of Fire Princess, appeared beside Yugi, a green Orichalcos seal burned into her forehead. Mai winked at "Joey." "Now lets see, that puts us at three monsters each. Let's tango, shall we, lover?"

"Anytime, baby."

Yugi felt an urge to throttle him, so when Mai ordered Dark Magician to attack the opposing Red-Eyes, he relished the task of destroying the dragon that belonged to the real Joey, not this phony. Mai then called on her own Red-Eyes to attack Flame Swordsman, and Fire Princess to attack Tiger Axe. With the 500-point boost they each got from the Seal of Orichalcos, "Joey" lost a total of 2200 hundred Life Points, bringing him to 1400. The force of the blow from each attack nearly knocked him off his feet, and he stood crouched over, his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

The imposter looked up from his hunched position. "That was an awesome move. You might be under an evil spell, but you haven't lost your touch. You're still one of the greatest duelists I know. I may be about to pass out, but this is fun."

Mai's expression clouded when she saw how weak he looked, but she bit her lip and hardened her gaze. "Oh, cut the act, drama queen. This duel is over on the next turn and you know it."

"I still got plenty of fight left in me." His appearance belied his words, however—act or not, it didn't look to Yugi like he'd be able to remain standing through another turn. His hand was shaking so badly that he had trouble grabbing the top card of his deck to draw.

Mai averted her eyes, biting her lip harder and Yugi saw that even knowing it was a lie, she was struggling with having to watch Joey suffer.

"It's all an act," Yugi reminded her.

"I know. Doesn't make it any more fun to relive."

He nodded. "Then, let's win this thing and get out of here."