Chapter Eleven: You Fight Me
"Mr. Kaiba, the final round is about to begin, we must get off the boat!" Roland came to retrieve Seto and found him kneeling on the ground staring off into space.
"She's gone…I can't believe it…"
"Mr. Kaiba…is everything alright?" Seto snapped out of his trance and got up.
"Yes Roland. Everything is fine. Now, please lead me to Yugi Moto so I can crush him."
Roland appeared rather apprehensive, but he couldn't argue with his boss…otherwise he would be fired.
"Yes Mr. Kaiba. As you wish. Please follow me." He followed Roland off the riverboat and down the dock towards the harbor of Domino City where Yugi was waiting for him.
"Kaiba…are you ready to duel?" Seto sneered at him.
"Of course I'm ready, now…show me what you've got?"
Penelope woke up to find herself on the cold marble floor of a room that was very dimly lit by old candles. From what she could make out, it appeared to be some sort of palace. She slowly sat up and immediately noticed she was no longer wearing her regular clothes. Instead she was dressed in a long burgundy sparkling tunic, her wrists covered in gold bracelets, and metallic sandals were on her feet.
The door slowly opened, and Bakura entered the room with his millennium ring giving off an eerie green glow. As if on cue, the lights turned on showcasing that the room was an old temple covered in Egyptian hieroglyphics, gleaming a metallic gold. At the front of the room was a large gold coffin and Penelope stared at it in awe, as if she was somehow connected to it. On the front of it was a large eye, similar to the one on Yugi's puzzle as well as Bakura's ring.
"It's good to see that you're awake Aphrodite. There is much work that needs to be done."
"What are you talking about? And why the hell am I here dressed like this?"
"I brought you here so that I could recover the seven millennium items."
"And what will these items do?"
"That…is something you will find out later…but I will tell you that whomever wields the items will be all powerful. I wish to attain that power for myself and you're going to help me do it!"
He laughed wickedly and Penelope sat there confounded and a little freaked out by Bakura's dark side. She could've sworn that the kid was shy and a bit of a doormat-but then again, she was the new student at school. There was no way Penelope could learn everything about everyone within the first two weeks of being at Domino High School.
Bakura slowly made his way over to her, and she began inching away at the same speed to get away. There was no way she would ever help this creep.
"I will never help you!" she yelled.
"You will help me retrieve the millennium items," Bakura said with a devilish grin, "or I will use the Millennium ring to hurt everyone you care about."
He held it up teasingly and with the wave of his hand, the Millennium eye appeared in his hand. It just so happened to be the same golden eye that Penelope had seen Pegasus wear, except she didn't realize it was powerful at all. The eye projected a portal and showed Stephanie and Joey walking through the hallway holding hands. Suddenly Stephanie started coughing and collapsed onto the floor, loosing consciousness. Penelope screamed.
"Stephanie! No!" Suddenly the image disappeared and Bakura was still wearing his disturbing grin upon his face.
"Don't worry, nothing has happened to her. That is simply just one of the many possibilities-one of the many things I could do to your worthless friends and family if you don't obey my orders."
Penelope glared at him.
"You're a monster. A sick monster."
"That may be true, but I do have absolute power over you. Now. Find me my items with your visions!"
"My what?" Penelope did not understand what Bakura was demanding of her.
"I see. Your powers have not yet been recovered. Well then, I suppose I'll have to use the eye to bring back your memories."
Bakura lifted the eye high above his head, the gold metal somehow gleaming in the dim light of the room. Then a wave of vibrations overtook Penelope and suddenly…she remembered. Penelope was still herself, but now she could easily pinpoint the locations of the other five millennium items.
"Bakura…I have found the location of the first item."
"And which one is it?"
"The millennium scales."
"Perfect. That item is unguarded by anyone. It should be relatively easy to steal. Care to tell me where it is?"
Penelope closed her eyes and concentrated hard, seeking out the item with her mind.
"Yes…I see a cliff…and a river…and a bridge…" suddenly the images came together and made sense.
"It's under Domino Bridge!"
Bakura nodded evilly and smiled wickedly at those words. The item was located, now he just needed to control some fool to get it for him. The problem was he didn't have the millennium rod. Marik did. Luckily he was still in the country, but getting the rod from him would not be an easy task.
"We will need to retrieve the millennium rod before we go after the other items. It will make it much easier to manipulate others to do the work for us. I don't want you to get your hands dirty." He touched her shoulder and looked down upon her and smirked. She swatted him away immediately, creeped out by his sorry attempts at flirting with her.
"Don't. Touch. Me," she said through her teeth. To be honest, she wanted nothing to do with Bakura. Not only was she betraying all of her friends by doing this, but she was loosing faith in herself fast.
'I guess I'm going to have to figure my own way out of this one,' she thought. Penelope couldn't bear to tell her friends, especially Yugi. They were starting to become really good friends and she would have to betray him by eventually taking his millennium puzzle.
"You'll learn to like it," Bakura said not bothered by her rudeness. "For now I will release you, but while I go and search for the millennium rod, I am trusting you to retrieve the millennium scales for me."
Penelope was terrified now.
"And if you tell anyone about our little secret, I will not hesitate to hurt your precious friends." He laughed evilly and Penelope started to shake, almost to the verge of crying. Never before had anyone made her feel so helpless and scared, not even the cheerleaders were this horrible to her. Bakura was threatening to destroy her entire life if she didn't cooperate with him.
"I have no choice then. I will retrieve the millennium scales for you."
"Good girl. Now, run along to your little friends, and dare I say, your boyfriend."
Penelope flipped him off but he just laughed at her. He snapped his fingers and in an instant a portal appeared in front of her, leading her back to Domino City.
"But what about this ridiculous outfit I'm wearing?" she said looking down at her Greek style robe.
"Oh don't worry, you'll be back to your old self once you return to your world." Penelope climbed through the portal, hearing the words: 'Do not fail me.' being the last thing Bakura said right before the portal sucked her into the vortex and spat her out behind a pile of shipping crates.
"Ow. He could've at least given me a chance to catch my balance," she said groaning in pain from landing on her butt. She slowly got up and brushed herself off and set out to find her friends (and Kaiba) and act as if she never went missing.
It wasn't too long before she made it to the heart of the harbor where a huge area had been cleared off and Yugi and Kaiba were in the middle of their final duel. Both of them appeared calm as the crowd went wild for both duelists, but Penelope knew each of them were nervous and unsure of their next move. Well, maybe Yugi was, but Seto wouldn't show that sort of emotion. He was very confident in his ability as he summoned another monster and wiped out even more of Yugi's low amount of life points. Then across the plaza she saw Stephanie (holding hands with Joey) and all her other friends watching the duel. Tea and Tristan were cheering Yugi on, while Joey was booing Kaiba and Duke sat on one of the crates applauding every time a monster got destroyed.
"Penelope!" Stephanie waved over to her and she weaved through the people and finally made it over to where her friends were.
"Sorry I'm late. My parents called me and I got sucked into a long conversation with them," she said quickly covering up her lie.
"I was wondering where you were," Tea said. "Yugi was worried that you would miss seeing the match."
"I wouldn't miss it," she said with a smile. Her eyes went to Seto, who still appeared confident-border lining on cocky. His eyes met her with surprise-surprise to see her safe from Bakura and unharmed.
'I hope she didn't have to duel him,' he thought. 'Unless…she won.' Other thoughts went through his head, ones that involved Bakura touching her and making her extremely uncomfortable.
'No one is going to lay a hand on her as long as I'm around. I will make sure of that.'
When his thoughts returned to the duel, Yugi had taken down his Blue-eyes Ultimate Dragon, and Seto had lost the duel.
"Sorry Kaiba, looks like I win again."
Seto grumbled and grudgingly shook hands with Yugi, now realizing that for the first time in years-he lost focus. All because of her. His eyes went back to Penelope and she was coming towards him, a small smile on her face. She appeared unharmed-much to his surprise, and went to Yugi to congratulate him first. Just then Mokuba ran over to Seto to give him a hug and tell him what a great job he did (even though he lost to Yugi again).
"Hey big brother! Even though you didn't win you still did awesome."
"Don't worry Mokuba. I'll just crush Yugi Moto again some other time." Mokuba smiled and then looked over at Penelope.
"Do you like her?" he asked him. Seto was taken aback by his comment, and rather surprised to hear that come from his younger brother.
"I want nothing to do with her."
"Then if you want nothing to do with her, then how come you kept looking at her during the duel? It was like you were in love with her or something."
"I am not interested in her. As far as things go, we are not even friends."
"Whatever you say Seto," Mokuba said sighing. "But just so you know, I like her. She's really nice and I think you should go out with her."
Seto rolled his eyes and walked out of the crowd and out of the harbor. Mokuba was going to run after him, but decided not to. Seto did like her-it was so obvious. He lost focus during the duel because of her. And not to mention that Mokuba saw them hooking up on the dining room table earlier today-but he wouldn't dare tell his brother that.
Meanwhile Penelope had overheard a good portion of the Kaiba's conversation to know that Seto wasn't going to admit his feelings to anyone.
I am not interested in her. As far as things go, we are not even friends.
'He's got some nerve saying that…well if that how it's going to be, then I will make his whole day hell tomorrow at school.'
Even though she knew those words weren't true-they still hurt. She was falling for him hard and he won't admit that he's feeling the same way.
And to make matters worse, she had to get the millennium scales as soon as possible or else Bakura would hurt him and everyone else she loved.
'And I thought my life was complicated enough already…'
Sorry for a super long wait. My summer was extremely busy and I spent most of it working 40-50 hours a week. But enough of that, the next chapter will come much sooner (way less than six months). Thank you for reading. :)