Hey, the hold up continues :)

Also, I decided to start a series of thiefshipping oneshots, I'd really love it if you guys checked it out :). It's called Thief! You can get to it via my profile :). The first oneshot is set in Ancient Egypt, AU :).

Hope you guys enjoy the chapter!

-Lauren

x.x.x

Marik's heart rate quickened as he raised his hands, feeling the panic coursing through his veins. This was unexpected, and Marik hated unexpected. Where was Bakura, anyway? He felt oddly vulnerable without the taller boy around.

'REMOVE YOUR CELL PHONES!'

Everyone in the bank reached into their pockets or bags and took out their mobiles.

'PUT THEM ON THE FLOOR!' the armed man ordered.

The people complied. The other men swept the entire place, picking up the mobile phones and scaring people by pointing the guns at them.

'LIE DOWN, FACE DOWN, ON THE FLOOR!'

The entire bank dropped to its knees and lay down on the floor, as ordered.

'Lock this place down!' the man ordered his companions. Quickly they locked the front doors, closed the bars that the bank used to lock the place down at night, and secured all the exits.

'Mark, go round that side, round up the guys in the toilets.'

One of the men in black nodded and walked over to the toilets.

Bakura was in the toilets, thought Marik, slightly panicked. Well, there was nothing that he could do about it anyway. He was lying face down on the floor while these crazy thieves were holding up a bank.

Soon, the man was back from the bathroom. Marik stole a look, and saw that he had brought out a couple of crying ladies and one businessman. No sign of Bakura.

Marik was scared. What had happened to Bakura? Where was he?

He had bigger things to worry about when he felt his back being prodded by something heavy. A gun.

'Don't move, boy,' the man ordered. Marik felt his blood run cold. He couldn't die – not now! He was only 17 years old!

In the distance he heard one of the other men threatening a teller.

'Get me all the money you have!' he shouted.

'I-I can't!' cried the teller desperately. She burst into tears. The man rolled his eyes and reached over, grabbed her collar and pulled her over the stall to his side. He pointed a gun at her forehead.

'Stop your sobbing,' he ordered.

'I can't give you the money!' she whimpered. 'It's all locked away, after every transaction.'

'Locked away where?' the man asked savagely.

'Behind here!' the woman said, desperately, pointing back to the stall.

'Well then fucking open it,' he said viciously.

'I can't! I don't have the key code! I can only put money in through the slits, not take any out! Please!' she cried.

'Who has the key code?' he asked, pressing the gun closer against her head.

'Only the manager!' she screamed.

'Where is the manager?' he asked.

'I don't know!'

The man sighed.

'Boys, looks like this is going to have to be a hostage stakeout after all,' he called out to his men. He heard screams and crying from the general public, but ignored it.

'Boss, there's police surrounding the building,' said one of his associate thieves.

'Fuck,' said the guy in charge. 'This level is too damn exposed. We'll have to go upstairs.'

The other guys nodded.

"The Boss" released the bank teller, throwing her roughly to the ground.

'We have to move all the hostages upstairs too,' he said. 'Take it slowly,' he ordered. 'One mistake and this whole thing could be ruined.'

The other thieves nodded again, and got to business.

'EVERYBODY ON YOUR FEET!' the boss shouted. 'I WANT TO SEE THOSE HANDS OF YOURS UP IN THE AIR!'

Slowly the people rose. Marik was still wondering about where Bakura was. As he got to his feet, he took a quick look around. There was no sign of the white-haired thief anywhere. Had he managed to escape?

After much threatening and prodding with guns, the entire place had been moved upstairs. Upstairs were a couple of conference rooms that they were forced into. The thieves stood in the doorways with their guns, guarding them from escape.

Marik was huddled on the ground next to a businessman that was hyperventilating, and a bunch of teenage girls that whimpered every couple of seconds. The fear in the room was palpable.

Pity, Marik thought, he used to be the one instilling this kind of fear in others. If he had his Millennium Rod, he could control the mind of the thieves and let all the people escape. He would be a saviour. His life would not be in danger.

Marik cursed. He had stopped his evil plans because he didn't always want to be constantly endangered. What did a normal, boring life throw at him? A bank hold up.

And this wasn't like the one in the movies – there were no secret CIA agents among them or anyone brave or stupid enough to fight back. Marik certainly wasn't. There was nothing he could do anyway – he was unarmed, and any move he made could get himself and the other occupants of the room shot to death.

It seemed like hours that they were cooped up in that room, the thieves outside consulting in hushed whispers. They were making ransom demands, but it seemed they were still waiting on an answer.

'I'm fucking sick of this!' one of the thieves shouted, in a gruff, raspy voice.

'Be patient,' one of the other thieves chided him.

'I'll be patient if I can bash one of these little hostages up,' he grunted.

'Sure,' said the boss. 'You take your pick. If it'll cool you down. And maybe we can take a photo of him afterwards to show the authorities we're not messing around.'

The angry thief grinned evilly.

'I'll enjoy this,' he said. He burst into the room and the hostages flinched, having heard the conversation outside the room.

'Who wants to get hurt?' he asked, a glimmer of sadistic glee sparkling in his eyes. Various 'please no's and screams erupted from the crowd. Marik tried to hide his face and not attract any attention. From what he knew, they always picked on the ones that showed their fear loudly.

'You,' said the thief gruffly, and to Marik's horror, he felt the thief grab him by his collar and lift him off the ground. Marik couldn't believe his bad luck. Out of all the people in the room, he was the one that was going to get bashed up. He truly did have some sort of curse. First Bakura, now a bank hold up...

Marik gulped, and tried not to scream as the thief dragged him out of the room. He heard a gun being loaded behind him and pressed to the back of his neck.

'That room over there,' the thief said, pointing to a smaller conference room. There was something unusually familiar about the thief's voice...

Marik opened the door carefully, and the thief shoved him violently in. Marik fell to the floor and scrambled back. He refused to beg for mercy, however, simply glaring up at the man.

'You're sick,' Marik declared. The man approached him, Marik crawled backwards but not fast enough. The man leaned in, and drew a knife from his belt. Marik gasped. This man didn't just have a gun, he had a knife too. He was really in big trouble now. The man pressed the knife close to Marik's neck.

'I would call it brilliant, but sure, I can be sick if you want me to be,' said the man.

Marik had a sudden sense of déjà vu. Hadn't he had this conversation somewhere before, with the same gruff voice...

'Bakura?' he exclaimed.

The man removed the balaclava and sure enough, a mass of white hair emerged and the same evil smirk that Marik knew all too well.

'What the hell?' shouted Marik. Bakura slapped a hand over his mouth.

'Sh!' Bakura hissed.

'What the hell?' whispered Marik furiously. 'Don't tell me you fucking held up the bank for the $10,000?'

'Of course not,' snapped Bakura. 'I was with you beforehand, remember? How could I?'

'Then – then how come you're with them?' Marik asked.

'Well, while I was in the toilet, throwing up because you made me sick, some guy with a gun came in and started threatening me and this other guy. I realised the bank was being held up. Being the brilliant thief that I am, I thought, hey, here's an awesome opportunity. I overpowered him, knocked him out, hid him in one of the cubicles. Don't worry, he won't be waking up for a few days yet. He had the same sort of voice that I did, slight British accent too, if we were all wearing balaclavas there's no way the others would be able to tell the difference. Plus, you know, under extreme stress, humans aren't as capable of doing normal things like recognising voices or eyes very well. You may think these thieves have everything under control, but really they're on edge and any little thing could tip them over the edge.'

'Okay, you are officially the dumbest retard I have ever met,' said Marik, thoroughly unimpressed. 'You're taking this massive gamble, pretending to be a thief – for what?'

'Oh, so I can steal their takings,' said Bakura evilly.

'And how do you propose to do that?' Marik asked huffily.

'Okay, you've never robbed a bank before, so I'll tell you the deal. These guys negotiate, the police, because they're scared for all these poor hostages, agree to give up the money, they do things in little dribs and drabs, you know, exchange half the hostages for half the money, trying to tire out the thieves and make them lower their guard. So, obviously, these guys are going for the jackpot, I don't know how much this bank holds but I reckon about a million in cash at the moment? Half would be more than enough for our purposes. But obviously, even if I got the money, I couldn't exactly just run out of the bank. 1. The others would shoot me dead, and 2. The police would go after me.'

'So basically, you're screwed,' said Marik, seething. Bakura was insanely stupid.

'No,' said Bakura. 'I've got a plan.'

'Woopdedoo,' Marik said sarcastically. 'What's the plan?'

'Okay, so I'm going to go and do the negotiations with the police, we'll release a few hostages. One of which will be you.'

'That's a good start,' said Marik.

'You won't be released with the others, though. I'll let you go out of one of the back exits, where the police won't find you. Because if they do, there'll be all sorts of eyewitness reports and shit that you'll have to fill out and they'll take you down to the police station and things will just get messy. After I release you, I need you to steal a car.'

'No fucking way,' Marik said firmly.

'Oh come on, Marik,' said Bakura, irritated. 'It'll be easy enough, all the police in this area are concentrating on this building. Just threaten someone, I'm sure you can pull it off.'

'I don't want to,' Marik said.

Bakura grabbed Marik by the collar and shook him.

'Marik, just bloody listen to me and do what I say!' Bakura shouted. 'You steal a car. Park it about a street away, behind the bank. I'll grab the money, climb out through one of the windows and make it down there to you. We'll drive away, with the money. Do it or I explode the bomb,' Bakura threatened.

Marik sighed.

'Fine, I'll do it,' he said.

'Good,' said Bakura. 'Unfortunately, I do actually have to bash you up...'

'What?' hissed Marik.

'I told the others I needed to bash someone up! If you come back unhurt, they'll be suspicious,' said Bakura.

'You idiot,' said Marik. 'Why didn't you just say you needed to threaten one of the hostages – verbally?'

'Oh, I have an insane urge to threaten a hostage verbally,' said Bakura sarcastically. 'Yeah, that would have totally worked. Don't worry, I'll only give you surface wounds. I won't break any bones. It'll heal in a week, maximum.'

'I still have bruises from yesterday,' Marik complained.

'Stop being such a baby,' said Bakura. 'Just scream loudly to add to the effect.'

'I don't really have a choice, do I?' Marik asked, sighing.

'Not really,' said Bakura.

'Don't touch my face, okay?' Marik said, finally.

'Okay, pretty boy,' Bakura teased.

Marik curled up into a ball on the floor and winced as Bakura kicked him in the stomach. Bakura was stronger than he remembered... He screamed loudly, as instructed. Even though Bakura said he was only inflicting "surface wounds", Marik was still hurting a fair bit. Though he noted that perhaps Bakura wasn't giving it his all – this didn't hurt half as much as when his father used to beat him, and Bakura was twice Marik's late father's size...

Bakura grabbed Marik's collar and slammed him against a wall, their faces almost touching.

'You done yet?' Marik rasped.

'Just about,' said Bakura. 'You've got a pretty good coverage of bruises. I was afraid your tanned skin wouldn't show them.'

'I hate you,' hissed Marik.

'Love you too, darling,' said Bakura sarcastically. 'It's time to go back.' He pulled his balaclava back on.

Bakura slung Marik over his shoulder effortlessly, and walked back to the other conference room. Marik dangled upside down, all the blood rushing to his head, and he felt slightly dizzy...

Next thing he knew he had been flung back into the room full of hostages. He landed on the floor and sharp pain racked through his body. He cursed Bakura in his head. The other hostages scurried away from him, as if he had a deadly disease or something.

'Satisfied?' the boss asked Bakura.

'Just about,' said Bakura.

Marik sighed. It was another couple of long hours, this time in a considerable amount of pain.