Enjoy!
Chapter 23
The First Encounter
Elizabeth started watching television to clear her head. After all, this was the first time that she ever told someone about the most painful experience in her life. Eating lightly, Takuya watched Elizabeth and the show at the same time, which didn't seem possible. Suddenly, a noise unknown to Elizabeth seemed to dash across her back porch.
"Who's there?" both people called towards the back of the house at the same time. The noise had stopped, and the two took it for nothing more than wind across the porch, or a squirrel running across.
The two couldn't have been more wrong than to assume that all was well at all. Nothing was right. The noise, louder than the first, clomped across the back. The previous one, now recalling, had clinks tied into the running.
Takuya stood behind Elizabeth and she stayed in front of him, watching, waiting for something to happen. It happened, almost directly on cue.
A crash from the window behind Elizabeth, four shadows rushed in; one nabbing Takuya silently like a predator silencing its prey, only it was alive. Elizabeth stood frozen at the spot, trying to make sense of what was happening. Two of the people she recognized all too well. Who were the people, you ask?
It was none other than Marik and Bakura, only it was the evil sides that had done the work; the other two were no longer a part of them. The other two, however, were unrecognizable to Elizabeth; she had never even seen them before. However, Elizabeth knew them from somewhere, though didn't know where.
The one holding Takuya hostage Elizabeth recognized slightly more than the other one. The one holding the hostage seemed to hiss:
"Why are you so surprised? After all this time and you can't even remember me? It's a pity, and you were so highly ranked among the ones who served under me." Elizabeth shivered. Now she knew that he was familiar, but who was he, and why were the other three here? Takuya struggled to break free, but a knife-like weapon, known as kunai (from what Elizabeth slightly recalled) stood in place right before his neck.
"Leave him alone; what did he ever do to you?" Elizabeth tried asking calmly, but couldn't manage to completely hide her fear and anger in her voice.
"He did something; actually. He took away our most prized secret weapon and has managed to seal it away," Marik grinned in malice speaking matter-of-factly. Elizabeth felt herself shaking slightly not of her own will.
"We won't kill him, if that's what you're asking. We won't do it…yet," Bakura noticed Elizabeth shaking and added more sickening promises to scare Elizabeth. She trembled uncontrollably now, out of anger and fear, like one who receives the chills after being in the cold without proper warmth.
"We've come, however, to speak to you about something," one person, around Elizabeth's age, if not slightly older, took a step forward. He was the one person Elizabeth only the slightest bit recognized. This didn't please her; however, because of the way he made things seem much worse than they already were.
"I'll make this short and sweet," the other man smoothly looked at her with cold, unfeeling eyes (Elizabeth's trembling slowed a little, though not knowing why), "turn yourself over to us, and you'll spare your life, along with the other lives of the ones you care about."
"And, if I refuse to do so?" Elizabeth got her confidence back and was no longer shaking to the core. A disgusting grin overtook the faces on the four wicked people's faces. The kunai barely sliced Takuya's neck, but it bled ever so little.
"Your friends…die," they whispered at once and at the same time. Elizabeth's face almost instantly drained in color and she looked like she'd seen a ghost. The trembling came back and struck Elizabeth swiftly.
"Don't worry; you have until the end of summer to give us an answer. That should be plenty of time to think about it. Until then," Marik's voice was smooth, almost inhuman. Elizabeth now remembered who the men she didn't know before; at least their names. Orochimaru, the one who held Takuya captive, released him. Kabuto, the one that was next to Orochimaru, took a step back. The four disappeared out the window. Elizabeth slumped onto the ground, shivering like a leaf in the wind.