A/N: Vah, I go back to college on Thursday, so I'll try to write as much as possible between then and now.

Remember to go and check out "Who Is?" Via my profile! Try it, you might like it. ¬_¬

~Ava

~XxX~

I turned, very carefully, on the balls of my feet. Marik hadn't seen me, impossibly I was partially hidden behind one of the 3D projectors. I took a deep breath and held it, as though he could hear me breathing form two feet away. I tensed up considerably, knowing that one small movement could give me away, and in turn, my life. I leant slightly into the 3D projector to afford myself less visibility from Marik's point of view and listen to his mutterings.

"-The Millennium Rod showed the Pharaoh and Kaiba something about the past when the two Egyptian Gods clashed-" He seemed irate, well, more irate than usual, and I frowned. Mokuba and I must have missed that. I controlled my breathing some more as he continued chunnering to himself and attempting to get the Rod to show him what it had shown my two friends earlier. Had I not been in such dire straits I would have laughed at how angry he was getting. Apparently the Rod liked him about as much as I did.

Of course, that was when I saw Teá walk calmly onto the Duel Arena and stoop to pick up the Item that Marik had just flung away.

No, not Teá. I chastised myself, Marik in Teá's mind…The other Marik…

"You should be more careful with this." She said, her voice bringing back memories of crates and anchors as it was dually toned with both her's and Marik's voices. The evil Marik glared at her as she held it crossed across her chest like a Pharaoh from a sarcophagus. He leant back a little, sizing her up and obviously not noticing that his other half was inside her mind.

"Hand that over, girl." He said, advancing on Teá threateningly as I glanced around for something I could use to help her/him. Of course, I needn't of bothered, the mind of Marik was obviously no idiot and the eye on the front of the Rod glowed brightly before pulsing and sending the mental Marik flying backwards. I nearly cheered from my hiding place. The other Marik clambered to his feet, eyes fixed solely on Teá. "What's going on? No-one is able to use the Millennium Rod but me!" His voice betrayed a tinge of disconcertedness in the face of something he didn't understand. Teá looked over to him coolly, her pupiless eyes focused on Marik. The Millennium Rod flashed again and the other Marik cottoned on. Teá brandished the Millennium Rod outwards, backing the other Marik into the railings. "So you left a piece of your mind inside this girl? How pitiful." He spat at the sane part of Marik that lived inside my best-friend's head.

"That's right." S/he said, the voices giving me the conflicting emotions of wanting to kill Marik but without hurting Teá, "And it's my responsibility to stop you." The Teá puppet spoke, derailing my train of thought so vastly it ploughed into a river and caught fire, killing all other thoughts I had in the process. Did Marik have some kind of sudden emotional epiphany? What in the name of the Nine Hells of Baator brought that on?

"You're forgetting something, Marik." The other him said, snickering dangerously, "This is your body too. If I die, you have nowhere to go." The words would have sounded like bargaining if they'd come from anyone even remotely scared for their life, but not from the madman who was currently being threatened. Unfortunately it did the job, Marik reached out and grabbed Teá's wrist, wrenching the Rod from her grasp and flinging her against the railings, the roles reversed. The other Marik brandished the Item now and backed her up to the railings, intent on pushing her over.

Ever since I met my friends, I've realised something. I'm horrifyingly unpredictable to myself.

I preformed a move that was dangerously close to becoming trademarked with me, throwing my other shoe, the only shoe I had left, at the back of Marik's head.

Aw crap. My brain whined as he turned to face me, I guessed he wasn't thinking happy thoughts. Capitalising on the moment of silence and surprise Teá turned slightly, double arm vaulting the railing to launch herself over the top of Marik and his hair before landing neatly on my side. That was the grace I attributed to my best-friend. He snarled at Teá.

"You're just prolonging your demise, Marik." His eyes flicked to me and he smiled, the kind of smile that made me think he was imagining my guts as tinsel on a tree, "I could kill you, girl. but your pathetic attempts at fighting me are much more amusing." He licked the wing of the Millennium Rod that had sliced my hand to taunt me, "And that's not a compliment that I use lightly." I stared at him, frozen and bug-eyed like a rabbit in the headlights after my brief spurt of action and bravery. He raised the glowing Rod and sent the two of us flying backwards, I hit the 3D projector I'd been hiding behind, knocking the air from my lungs, and the Teá/Marik landed a little away from me. Marik closed the gap between the two of them and charged the Rod for another blast of light. "It's time to end this little game." He flicked a momentary look over his shoulder at me, "And then I'll start with you." My mind was still frozen in the 'Aw crap' mentality as a light purged what I imagined to be the sane half of Marik from Teá. I would have been grateful had the sane half not been on my side. Teá collapsed fully against the floor, eyes closed. I would have made a move to scramble to her side, should have, but I was very busy focusing on the fact that the mad-haired madman was now moving towards me.

"You've been trying your luck here, girl." He said, that perpetual crazy glint seeming to flare up with glee as he turned away from the unconscious body of Teá to face me, as I rose to my feet carefully, "Dancing on thin ice with fire in your hands. But you see this?" He raised the Millennium Rod and my bandaged hand twinged at the memory. "This is going to slice off your hand this time, and the fire you're holding will melt the ice, and you'll be left in the middle of a frozen lake to drown." I shuddered at the imagery, I thought this Marik was supposed to be completely irrational and barbaric? It turned out he had moments of lucidity after all, though I wasn't quite sure I preferred them. I took a deep breath and decided to stall for time. Groping behind me as I backed away so that I was edging round the 3D projector I'd slammed against, if I could just reach the stairwell…

"You don't scare me." My voice and words at odds with my body language and feelings. Evil Marik laughed and his face stretched outwards insanely.

"How unfortunate." He fixed that glare on me again and I felt a shiver of pure fear run down my spine like ice water, Teá wasn't moving, she was on the ground…dead? No, she couldn't be. But this made it two of my closest friends that this bastard had rendered unconscious now. "You should be scared. I'm a creature born of my weaker half's hatred with my only purpose being to cause death and suffering. I can read your mind like a script if I want. And now that all the other characters are close to taking their bows and exiting the stage," He advanced on me with the sharp wing of the Millennium Rod outstretched enough to press against the skin of my neck, not breaking it, not yet. "How about an encore presentation where I teach the audience why their children are afraid of the dark?"

Fucking hell, he's deranged. His sanity scares me more than his insanity. Ohgod I really don't want to die right now…

Apparently someone heard my silent pleading.

"Stop this at once." A calm and collected female voice sounded from the stairwell next to where I was currently standing on my tippy-toes, trying not to be garrotted by the Item at my neck. Cleo! I thought exultantly. Could she possibly help? At all? In any way? Please?

"Sister?" Was the confused and angry reply from the man currently picometres away from killing me. His eyes narrowed as I tried very hard not to breathe and jostle the blade at my neck, my eyes darting from one tan-skinned person to the other. "You stay out of this, Ishizu!" The part of my brain that wasn't noticing that there were little black dots dancing on the periphery of my vision indicating that if I did breathe in soon I'd faint due to lack of oxygen, that part of the brain that wasn't noticing any of that committed the name to memory. Fortunately, Marik seemed to consider her more of a threat - judging by how weak I felt at the moment, he was right - as he swung the Rod round to face Ishizu. I fell to all fours, spluttering, coughing and whooping in deep breaths. I clutched my uninjured hand to my throat as I did so, thankful I could still do so. Well, until I felt the warm stickiness that came hand in hand with a coppery smell. I looked down, ignoring whatever it was that was transpiring between the two apparent siblings, I sighed in relief. It was just a very, very shallow cut running from the right of my décolleté to my left armpit when Marik had whirled away from me to point the Item at Ishizu. You know It's bad when you're thankful you just got 'slightly sliced' rather than 'killed' isn't it? My subconscious snarked at me, I rocked back onto my heels while sitting, wiping the blood that was there away from the cut so it could breathe and scab over quicker. Fortunately that kind of cut would stop bleeding almost immediately. As I started to wipe the blood on my hands on my trousers and blouse I glanced over at what I had missed.

Not for the first time I wondered if I really was too self-absorbed.

Of course, then I rationalised that I had had other things to be thinking about and couldn't have possibly noticed that the sky around the Duel tower had blackened, shadows were slowly swirling round said tower and Yami was facing down Marik as two separate eye of Wdjats' glowed on their foreheads.

I was really bad at rationalising.

I took advantage of the fact that no-one was trying to kill me personally at this moment in time to crawl over to where Teá and Ishizu were. Teá lying unconscious still and Ishizu cradling her head so that she didn't have an obstruction in her airway. The Ishizu woman looked at my face as I looked at Teá and checked her pulse, wincing at just how much blood I hadn't got off my hand yet.

"She's got a pulse." I concluded, smiling as I looked up to face Ishizu, my smile faltering slightly as I noticed the intensity with which she stared into my eyes. I shuffled a little on my knees. "Uhm-"

"You know who I am just as I know who you are, Sophie McCallaghan." She said calmly, gently resting Teá's head on the ground as she spoke. I felt a clutch of panic before I realised that it wasn't that hard to put together my name if you listened to one conversation between Seto and myself it would have been clear what my last name was and my first name was what everyone else used. But…she knew the 'Mc' bit…Seto only called me Callaghan' because the 'Mc' was just a syllable that everyone dropped, hell, I barely wrote 'Mc' on any paperwork…

"Very nice, Ishizu Ishtar "I answered, wiggling my fingers but feeling a little creeped out even as I repeated the favour. She nodded and seemed about to say something else when Marik spoke again and the shadows around us dissipated smoothly. My head snapped up to look at him, in case he was coming back for me or Teá. Though I regret that I was more worried for me. I needn't have been as he walked past Yami, brushing shoulders and saying something too quiet for the three of us on the floor to hear. However when he headed for the stairs he spoke loudly, enough for us to get the gist of what he had just said.

"I look forward to killing you in the future, Pharaoh." His cape billowed out dramatically behind him as he swooped off down the stairs. "And your friends." I felt nauseous at that, enough to contemplate whether or not I was about to throw up. Yami crouched in between Ishizu and I to check on Teá.

"She's alive." I started, wanting to feel at least a little useful for more than distracting a madman for long enough so that his Sister could show up and distract him from me for long enough for Yami to show us and save the day. Ishizu nodded her agreement.

"She will be fine," I sensed a 'but' in her next sentence as she turned to face Yami and in turn, me. She closed her eyes before speaking, probably to gather what she was going to say next. "I have a favour to ask of you, Pharaoh. A selfish one." Yami cocked his head to signal that she should continue. "Save my brother." A sharp intake of breath from Yami as she hastily explained her request. "His good side still lives!-"

"-I know-" Yami cut across her as she in turn cut back across him.

"But he lives in Teá's mind! Soon, he could be gone forever!" She seemed genuinely distressed and I wondered just how Marik became such a detached megalomaniac with that kind of familial support behind him. A brother that carved into his own face and a sister who seemed constantly worried for him seemed to wildly over-balance the insanely abusive Father, or at the very least, soften the blow. Of all the people I knew the backgrounds of…in all honesty, it was a miracle that Seto hadn't become that emotionally retarded, he only had a brother.

How did I somehow turn my wonder at Marik's idiocy round to think about him?

"So Marik's good side does still exist…" Yami mused, standing as Ishizu did. She nodded.

"Yes, and he came here to confront his Dark Side using Teá's body." Ishizu said as I stayed knelt at my friend's side. I gripped her hand tightly and looked up at the two of them, expecting at least a little backlash from Yami, who just looked a tad uneasy before replying that he would try to help him. I scoffed at him, pissed off at his lack of indignation.

"Oh, and I suppose that's perfectly fine? Huh?" I snarked at both of them as they glanced down at me, I squeezed Teá's hand a little tighter as I gestured with the bandaged hand. "That pillock that you call a brother can take over the mind of my best-friend, he can take away her free-will and you just go 'Ho-hum, he did it for 'good!'" I simpered that last word before curling my lip in a sneer of utter contempt. "Lovely. Some friend you are." I directed my last insult at Yami, mind clicking to why else I was pissed at him.

"Sophie, what do you me-"

"Shut up." I said, looking back at Teá and thinking about how she'd probably whap me over the back of the head when she woke up for speaking like this to Yami. "I know what you did to Seto before. You know, the thing that made him build Death-T?" I heard the sharp intake of breath when I said the word.

"How did you find out about DT?" He asked calmly as Ishizu seemed to be watching with interest. I turned my head a little over my shoulder but still didn't look at him.

"Virtual World. It's a long story but I found a file." I sighed wearily and looked up at him, not flamingly angry anymore due to being burned up energy-wise. "Sensation of Death? Really? That seems so…" I searched for the word but Yami cut to the chase before me.

"Barbaric?" He finished for me and shook his head from side to side as though clearing it of the memory. "I…have changed since then…we all have…Yugi, helped me to see what I did then was wrong…" His voice tailed off before he realised something. "That was the 'Psychological Damage' wasn't it? That you were going to hit me for?" I barked a laugh and looked back to Teá.

"Maybe later…" Another sigh from me as I felt my mood swing back towards 'weary'. Fucking period…' If I could just maintain a mood for longer than a few minutes today, I'd be ecstatic…and then probably pissed off.

Yami nodded to me with a slight smile at my words before turning back to Ishizu, who had continued watching us with mild interest.

"I'll save the world from Marik, and I'll save Marik's Good Side too."

Melodramatic much? I thought before scolding myself for the slight. I was snapped out of my thoughts by Teá moving and waking up.

"Teá!" Yami's voice showing he was vastly relieved that she'd woken up. She looked up at him blearily.

"Wh-What happened?" She asked, swaying a little as she sat up. Yami made to answer before she caught sight of me and gasped, clamping a hand to her mouth as she stared at me. "Sophie? Are yo-What?" She reached to me before noticing that her other hand was in mine. She let out a breath as I frowned, confused by her reaction.

"Are you okay?" I asked, genuinely concerned for her health before her eyes rolled and I realised that she was perfectly fine and back to her normal self as she poked my shoulder gently. The one that had been cut. "Hey!" I exclaimed, whapping her hand away from said shoulder before it hurt too much, I glanced down, "Ohhh…"

I looked like victim in a vampire movie. Blood drying on the collar and shoulder of my shoulder-shredded blouse and covering the top half of my chest and probably my neck too in a weird manner that made it look like I'd been scrabbling at the wound. I bit my lip, before saying the clichéd but true words. "It's really not as bad as it looks…"

~XxX~

A/N: Did I mention I was going to start writing longer chapters? No? Oh, well, I'm going to start writing longer chapters.

YOU KNOW THE DRILL PEOPLE. ¬_¬

I love you really. ¬_¬

~Ava