Eli: Response, I love it. You guys are walking all over me. Here's chap 3.



Sara pulled Ian into the living room and had him sit on the couch. Sara took the chair opposite to him and sat down. "Now, I have a couple of questions for you. Are you gonna answer?" "I will answer all that should be for the moment." "No! I want straight answers. Are you going to answer me?" "Yes."

"All right. First off, why did it take you twenty-five years to find me?"

"It didn't. I have known of your whereabouts since I was nineteen."

"How old are you now?"

"Thirty-two."

"Okay, if you have known where I have been for thirteen years, why did it take you so long to contact me?"

"Your Father wasn't the only one objecting to our friendship. I was forbidden to contact you by my Father."

"How did Irons know about me?" Ian just put his head down and remained silent. Sara felt sympathy for him. She reached over and took his hand in hers. The witchblade again came alive and began to show them both visions.

They could see young Ian hang up the phone with Sara. He carefully folded the paper with her phone number on it and put it in to his pocket. He heard something behind him and turned to be face to face with a kneeling Irons. "Who were you conversing with, young Nottingham?"

"Sara, sir. She is my friend." Irons shook his head and made a clicking sound with his tongue. "No such thing is to ever take place. Do you know who Sara is to become, young Nottingham?"

"No, sir."

"She is to be the next wielder, my wielder. You are but a servant, someone below her. Someone she would never have as a friend." Ian raised his voice in protest.

"But she already has!" Irons back-fisted him across the face. "Silence! I will have obedience. I forbid you to make any contact with the wielder until she finds the blade. Even then, you are not to do anything without being under orders, and you most certainly can not be friends. Is that understood?!"

"Yes, sir."

That vision turned into another.

Ian was before Irons, looking older and more like a servant. "Ian, how do you spend your day?"

"I study and I train, sir."

"To do what?"

"To protect you and the wielder, sir."

"Does obedience come along with protection?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then why have you purposely disobeyed my orders?" Ian shifted nervously. "You didn't think I would find out? I know everything, Ian, and I know you were planning on contacting the wielder!" He walked behind Ian and pulled his head back. "Is this not true?"

"No, sir. It is true." Irons forced Ian to his knees. "You are my creation, Ian, and you will do as you're told!" He then tore Ian's shirt from him. "For every crime, there is a punishment. Do you accept your punishment?" Ian was silent. Irons pulled his head back again. "Do you accept your punishment, Ian?"

"Yes, sir," he stammered out. Irons held up a cat-of-nine-tails and began to whip Ian's back with it. After ten or twelve strokes, Ian cried out. Irons just began to whip him even harder. "Show no weakness." After another fifteen strokes or so, Irons stopped. Ian was now kneeling in a pool of his own blood. Irons picked up his phone and called up Dr. Immo. "Doctor, could you please come to the library? Young Nottingham has done something foolish, again." He hung up the phone and walked out the door, but just before he left he went right behind Ian and whispered "She is mine, Ian, mine." Then he was gone.

Sara and Ian returned to reality. Ian let go of Sara's hand and leaned back on the couch.

"Please tell me that didn't really happen to you." He sat silently, what could he say? "Oh, God!" She put her face into her hands and closed her eyes. "All that happened because of me."

"No, it's my fault; I shouldn't have tried to find you unless I was sure he wouldn't know about it."

Sara looked up at him. He was leaning forward and, for once, was looking her in the eyes. "Anything that has happened to me, I brought it on myself. You have caused me no pain. In fact, you brought me hope. Hope to a scared, lonely, little boy walking along the line of darkness who could remember that somewhere in the world someone wanted to be his friend. So don't blame yourself for anything that was administered to me, okay?"

Sara nodded. "What happened to you after that?"

"He sent me off to Japan that same night. I stayed there for four years, after that he sent me to the army for three years. Finally, I returned to him and have been training to protect him, and you, ever since."

"So, why have you come now?"

"Because all that has been forbidden was released tonight." Ian broke eye contact.

"I'm sorry for your lost, if it really is a lost to you. Oh, I didn't mean that, of course it's a lost. I just.. I didn't kill him. We both saw him walk towards me. I was just threatening him, I didn't mean for him to die, and" "You don't have to say anything, Sara. I know it's not your fault. It was his life to take." He got up. "I should go now."

"Wait! I still have one more question for you."

"What?"

"Do you still want to be friends?"



( To be continued, and I promise the answer wont be what you would expect it to;)