Chapter 52

'Congratulation,' the redhead appeared out of nowhere, 'you passed.'

'What the...?' Joey half gawked at her. 'Where'd you come from?'

'I didn't come from anywhere; I've been here the whole time. Watching and waiting for you to finish, so I could complete my Master's orders.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'The Master thanks you for all you have done,' the redhead focused her gaze on Téa, 'but your services are no longer required, the rest is up to me.'

'But...?'

Before Téa could finish what she was saying, the redhead gave a casual flick of her hand causing Téa to vanish and the Elemental Axe to clatter to the ground.

'What... what did you do with her?' Yugi's eyes were wide with horror.

'I have returned her to where she belongs,' a sad smile pulled at the redhead's lips, 'the Master no longer has any use for her. Congratulations.'

'For what?' Joey frowned.

'For proving the strength of your village,' her voice was stilted and quite. 'It is the bonds which exist between you all which gives you your true power. It is that true power which will allow you to overcome almost anything and with what the Master knows is coming...'

'What the Master knows is coming...' he echoed her words, 'you mean Crovell has prophetic abilities?'

'That is one way of looking at it, yes. Although his powers consist more of seeing a multitude of possible paths and his ability to predict the correct path is... impressive, but not absolute.'

'Predictive preconception,' Yugi pressed his lips together, 'a common ability amongst powerful God Class beings.'

'It is also useless if you have no ability to influence the outcome,' Joey folded his arms, 'and something tells me my son has at least some influence there.'

'Not as much as he would like,' the redhead tilted her head to one side, 'and it is certainly not an ability which will develop for him; he took the hell future as evidence of that. But however minute his influence might be, it is still useful to him.'

'It's useful to anyone who has it,' Joey rolled his eyes. 'So do I get my son back now?'

'I'm afraid not,' she half turned away from him, 'the game is not over yet.' She waved her hand again, this time causing the Axe to disappear. 'When you're ready, simply pass through that gate,' she pointed towards the open gateway which appeared behind her, 'once you have the last stage of the game will begin. Good luck,' with that she vanished.

Almost as soon as she'd disappeared, SK and Covo appeared out of nowhere. For a few long moments there was a heavy feeling of confusion. The redhead hadn't said anything about returning players for a start and for a second shouldn't there have been four of them and not two? With a slightly edgy feeling moving through his stomach Yugi found himself glancing towards Mokuba, but the younger boy's expression was unreadable.

'I'm not the only one who thinks there are people missing here, right?' Duke gave a nervous laugh.

'Rich boy probably got thrown out of the game for cheating,' Joey shrugged, 'big deal.'

'Shut up Joey,' Mokuba glared at him.

'Shut up Joey?' He cocked an eyebrow at the younger Kaiba brother. 'I'm insulting that jerk you call kin and the best response you can give me is shut up Joey? What happened to all those choice words you were throwing at me earlier?'

'I just don't feel like them right now,' he shifted his gaze away.

'And here I thought Duke didn't have any issues with me.'

'Okay, what?' A shock sounded laugh beat its way out of SK. 'What does Duke have to do with anything? No wait, scratch that, what I really want is for someone to tell me what the hell is going on. Only the last thing I remember I was accepting some challenge to win his,' he pointed to Jay, 'soul card.'

'Actually,' Jay licked his lips, 'you were trying to win your own. See I am you and Covo's really Ahna.'

'You're kidding me, right?' Now it was SK's turn to cock an eyebrow.

'Why would anyone in their right minds joke about something like that? Do you seriously think I want to think I'm really you if I don't have to?'

'I...' he shook his head before flicking his gaze around at the other. 'Does this have anything to do with why the hell you're pregnant?' He fixed his gaze on Joey.

'Yeah... apparently I'm really Mai, so this,' he indicated towards the bump, 'is actually a lot more natural than it looks.'

'So that means Mai didn't lose Jo then,' SK sighed in relief.

'No she... uh... she's still unconscious,' the colour drained from his face as he rapidly made his way towards her.

'Is she okay?' Covo's voice was filled with concern.

'She... uh... she was hit by a blast from the Axe,' he shook his head, 'so in other words, no.'

'But you can heal her, right?'

'If I couldn't heal Téa with the full burst of the First's powers, how do you expect me to heal Mai with the limitations of Win Mai's powers?'

'What?' Covo frowned.

'Do we really have to go back to explaining all this again?' Joey gritted his teeth. 'We've already told you, no one here is who they appear to be. You're Ahna, I'm Mai. Go figure.'

'But how?'

'Ask my son, when we find him of course.'

'Wait, this is all Crovell's doing?'

'Look, we really don't have time for this. We have to find a way of waking Mai up.'

Almost as if she knew they were talking about her, Mai groaned loudly and her eyes slowly fluttered open.

'So... did we pass?'

As Mai began to recover from her experience with the Axe, Mokuba found himself studying Duke closely. Those mild and confusing feelings of resentment were definitely his, Mokuba was certain of that now. His last argument with Joey had pretty much proved it. No, it was more than that. It was the fact Duke was the first to mention Tristan and Kaiba's absence. Mokuba had been aware of it, thinking about it even, but Duke had been the one to say it.

'Is something wrong?' Duke shifted his gaze towards him. 'You've been staring at me like that for a while now and it's just a little bit creepy.'

'I... uh...' Mokuba squirmed, 'I was just wondering if you have some kind of a problem with Joey.'

'Huh?'

'Do you have a problem with Joey?' Mokuba gave a nervous cough. 'I mean, is there some reason why you... I don't know if you'd call it resentment exactly, but...'

'I'd rather we didn't have this conversation,' Duke cut him off. 'Right now we think we're each other and we don't know exactly how much of the others memories we're going to retain when everything goes back to normal, so I'd rather not have that conversation unless I have to.'

'Does that mean you do harbour some resentment towards Joey then?'

'I didn't say that.'

'No, but you did a good job of implying it. Does it have something to do with Crovell? Do you hate not being Crovell's real dad? Or is this to do with them not wanting you around as much as Crovell does? This does have something to do with Crovell, doesn't it? I can feel it you know, as I'm saying it, I can feel it.'

'And I told you I didn't want to talk about it now,' Duke turned away from him. 'Come on, it looks like the others are making their way through now, we don't want to get left behind.'

'Okay, I get the message,' Mokuba rolled his eyes, 'but I'm telling you now, if I get to remember any of this when I'm me again we will be having this conversation.'

'Sure, whatever.'

The group made their way through the gate to find themselves stood in a large, temple like chamber. On one wall there was a large depiction of the Yatnuh and just in front of it was a crib containing the baby Crovell.

'Da da da da da,' he chirped happily, 'breeee.'

'Crovell!' Ahna darted towards the crib.

Before she could reach him, however, she was repelled by a wall of energy and sent flying backwards.

'Ahna,' Covo rushed to catch her, 'are you okay?'

'That hurt,' she winced, pulling herself back to her feet. 'What was that?'

'Proof that this game isn't over yet,' Joey sighed.

'But what are we supposed to do now?'

'Find someway of freeing our child,' he gritted his teeth, 'obviously.'

Almost as soon as Joey had spoken a loud and familiar laugh cut across the room.

'Is that what you think Wheeler?' A voice sounded almost out of nowhere. 'You do remember this is your son's game, don't you? Meaning that he's responsible for everything. And that includes this little shield.'

'Kaiba,' Joey gritted his teeth, 'if you have something to do with this…'

'Oh please,' in the blink of an eye Kaiba and Tristan appeared next to Crovell's crib, 'don't you listen to anything I say?'

'Okay rich boy,' Joey glared at him, 'just what the hell is going on?'

'You haven't completed the third stage of the game yet,' Tristan leant over the crib and carefully lifted Crovell out, 'me and Seto have.'

'And by the rules of the game,' Kaiba smirked, 'that makes your kids ours.'

'What?' Joey's hands balled into fists.

'You heard me Wheeler.'

'But you can't do that,' Mai took several steps towards them, only to find herself stopped by the force field.

'I'm afraid we can,' Tristan half smirked at her. 'It takes a village to raise a child and a child as powerful as Crovell needs a strong village. That doesn't just mean individual strengths or group strengths, that means every kind of strength going. As far as proving yourselves go, if you can't break his spells when he's an infant, then how the hell are you going to be able to cope when he gets older?'

'But that's not fair,' Ahna stared at them in horror, 'we didn't know that's what we were supposed to do.'

'Yes we did,' Catilin bit her lip. 'I am. Reflection. I reflect. You are. Reflection. You reflect. The dreamer sleeps. The sleeper dreams. What once was, sees what now is. To walk a mile is to know the truth. When boundaries blur, the line becomes clear. No one said the game was being played in order.'

'Actually,' Kaiba folded his arms, 'it was. You just had the option of winning it early.'

'But since you didn't that means the third stage of the game is about to begin,' Tristan lowered his head slightly. 'You have thirty minutes in order to break the spell, if you fail, then your kids become ours.'