[Scrapped] The Maiden of Kul Elna
Oct. 30th, 2017 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aftanithTitle: The Maiden of Kul Elna
Author: AFTanith
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Notes: This is yet another scrapped draft of Bound by Gold (or one of the other Maiden of Kul Elna installments).
No one seemed quite sure how to react. After the screams died out, after the Pharaoh's voice, his vessel's voice, Marik's other half's voice faded away with their spectral bodies, Emily stared at the arena before her. The faces of the pharaoh's friends registered nothing but shock, their minds so astounded that they could not yet seem to move.
As the announcer congratulated Marik, Seto Kaiba turned to leave; Mokuba hesitated, wide violet eyes terrified, but after a moment he consented to follow his brother. The elevator dinged behind them without anyone uttering a single word.
And the stunned silence broke. Tea, screaming hysterically, flung herself toward Yugi's unconscious body, putting herself between the boy and his tormentor. With their female friend crying into their fallen friend's shoulder, Joey, Tristan, and Duke were screaming as well--but not the high-pitched shriek of horror Tea unleashed. Roars of outrage. Battle cries.
Marik seemed amused by the whole turn of events, stepping past them with little more than a chuckle. The announcer struggled to hold back the three young men, and for a moment Emily hesitated.
She shouldn't have been on that tower. She should have realized going up there would be putting her life in danger. Bakura warned her to stay away from Marik, and yet here she was on top of the tower, witnessing his victory over the Pharaoh.
Bakura had promised her that was impossible.
Marik's eyes roamed over the group as he waited for the elevator doors to close behind him. Emily could have sworn that they stopped to linger on her for a moment before disappearing from sight.
Blood pounded in her head as she approached the elevator door. She wanted to get downstairs before the hysterical foursome and their now soulless friend were ready to descend, as well, and so the wait for the elevator to return from dropping off Marik was nearly unbearable. She curled her fingers into her palms, nails biting into the skin as she trembled ever so slightly.
She didn't want to admit it, but she was terrified. Everything had gone wrong, and she wasn't quite sure how it had happened. One minute it looked like the Pharaoh was about to win--meaning the banished souls, including Bakura, would be released from the Shadow Realm--and the next, he was lying deathlike on the floor. She didn't understand how things could have gone so wrong.
When the door opened with another ding, Emily raced inside, immediately jamming her finger into the "close door" button. Again and again in quick succession she prodded it, biting her lip as she watched the four shell-shocked friends of the Pharaoh's lift his limp body into their arms. The announcer stood behind them, looking nearly as stressed and frightened as Emily felt--obviously he had finally realized that this job was far more than he had signed up for, even if he wasn't acknowledging the same reasons as Emily.
She breathed a sigh of relief when the door closed before the group reached it. Pressing her back against the wall, she let herself sink down to the floor for the duration of the descent. It was all she could do to keep herself from hyperventilating at that point.
Maybe Kaiba wasn't worried, maybe Yugi's friends were worried about never getting their lost allies back... but Emily was worried about what Marik would do next.
She rushed forward the minute the doors opened again, and a moment later she cursed herself for her impulsiveness. A masculine hand captured her arm as she tried to quickly dart out into the sunlight, and she nearly screamed as a figure she hadn't seen lurking in the shadows pulled her backward toward it.
"Frightened, are we?"
Emily stared straight ahead, trying to suppress the trembling in her muscles. She dared not look, but she could sense Marik standing mere inches behind her, so close that she could feel his breath against her hair. She bit her tongue, holding back the myriad insults racing through her mind, and waited for him to speak again.
"I don't believe we've ever been properly introduced." Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Yugi and his friends were on the way down the elevator, but that offered her little comfort. She doubted they could do anything to save her, and she doubted they would try.
In a swift, jerky movement that nearly knocked the breath out of her, Marik suddenly ripped her arm backward, spinning her to face him as he did so. "Look at me when I to you. Now, I have one question--answer it properly, and you can go: who are you?"
Emily's brow furrowed in spite of herself. "Who am I?"
"Yes."
She focused on a spot somewhere over his left shoulder as she spoke, determined to pretend those eerie violet eyes weren't boring into her. "Emily Robinson. I'm, uh--well, I came here with Ryou."
For a moment, he simply stared at her. Then the elevator doors opened with a final ding and the group of friends came pouring out. They hesitated as they laid eyes on Marik and Emily. The announcer, seeing Marik's vicelike grip on Emily's wrist, stepped forward, but Emily took that moment to wrench away her hand and flee.
When she reached her room on the blimp, she slammed the door behind her. That wasn't right, what just happened. Marik had never shown the least bit of interest in her before, not beyond his rivalry with Bakura. They had only been alone together once before--in that hysterical moment after Ryou's body, along with the spirit inside the Millennium Ring, disappeared into the Shadow Realm--and she couldn't recall him wasting a second on her. At most, she had earned from him a derisive snort.
She had only dared face him at the finals today because she'd been sure the Pharaoh would defeat him. She had been sure she would soon be welcome Ryou and his spirit back from the shadows. The possibility of his losing had been inconceivable.
So now Emily stood at a crossroads. Any hope of hiding from Marik seemed to be gone. The Pharaoh was gone, and with him went the only person with the power to defeat Marik. The Spirit of the Millennium Ring was gone, and with him went the only person who cared enough about Emily to protect her.
For a single flitting moment, Emily contemplated something horrible, a thought that she would never admit to entertaining, not even for the brief millisecond in which it entered her consciousness.
For a moment, she pondered aligning herself with Marik.
Perhaps that's what he wanted. Perhaps that's what their brief altercation had secretly been about. Could he have been gauging her reaction to him, looking to see if the unassuming tag-along to the Battle City finals had more to her than she let on?
Or perhaps... With the Pharaoh gone, perhaps he was just looking for a new victim.
Emily shuddered again. She didn't care what he wanted, she realized. She wanted nothing to do with the sociopathic freak who was wreaking havoc on her life. The people around him were getting picked off, one by one, and that meant only one thing: she needed to be somewhere else. Anywhere else.
First and foremost, that meant making sure Marik didn't corner her like that again. And as much as she hated the thought of imposing, there was safety in numbers--meaning she would have to inject herself into the throng to keep herself from being picked off as a straggler. She could only hope that Yugi's friends hadn't already been poisoned against her.
With utmost caution, she opened her door to peer into the hallway. After a moment--when she could be sure that Marik was nowhere in sight--she darted out, letting the door hang open behind her, and raced toward Yugi's room.
She wasn't sure they'd be there, unfortunately, but she knew it was her best bet. She had to assume that Yugi's friends were mourning him now, letting his unconscious body rest in the privacy of his own bed. If she didn't find the group there, she wouldn't know where to look next.
Her footsteps pounded down the hallway, echoing the thumping in her chest. She kept expecting to hear someone behind her, or to turn a corner and come face to face with her fears, and yet she reached Yugi's room without incident. She knocked on the door with a new fear surfacing in her mind: what if they simply turned her away?
The hulking form of Tristan Taylor greeted her when the door swung open. It had never before occurred to her just how tall he was--not until now, when he towered over her with a look of pure rage on his face. His expression didn't change when he registered that she was not, in fact, Marik.
"What?"
"Can I, uh, come in?"
He glared at her for a moment, then stepped to one side of the doorway. She crept into the room cautiously, muscles stiff with awareness of just how unwelcome she was. Tea glanced up at her as she neared Yugi, who lay as if sleeping on his mattress; Joey failed to acknowledge her presence at all. Duke, meanwhile, was nowhere in sight, which didn't bode well.
She forced herself to hold Tea's gaze. "I'm so sorry." The tear that accompanied her condolences was genuine; she'd lost every bit as much as Tea. Had every bit as much to fear.
Tea didn't respond. Her eyes seemed almost lifeless as she turned her attention back to Yugi. It crossed Emily's mind that Tea looked as if she'd lost her soul to the shadows, too.
"Where's Duke?"
Tristan cleared his throat behind her. "Getting Serenity."
She nodded slowly. "She'll be safer if she stays with the group." She didn't add that it was why she'd come; she doubted they needed the clarification. "Has... has anyone talked to Kaiba about setting up an infirmary?"
Tea glanced back at her. "He won't listen. He won't admit that we're in danger until Marik starts slitting our throats."
Emily was disturbed to find that Tea was the one holding their gaze now, her lusterless eyes seeming to bore into Emily. She suppressed another shudder and glanced away. "It won't come to that. We'll be safe in a few days."
Joey snorted. "No one's safe now. Yugi's dead. Mai's dead. Before long, every last one of us is gonna be--"
"No one's dead," Emily interrupted. "No one's dead, and no one's going to be. In a few days, this blimp will be back in Battle City. We'll be back in Battle City. If Marik tries to physically hurt anyone, he'll be arrested. And this isn't unfixable. There are other Millennium Items. Somebody just needs to get their hands on one, and we can get everyone back from the Shadow Realm."
Joey didn't even spare her a glance. "Don't kid yourself. We can't do shit without the Pharaoh. And since when are you one of us, anyway?"
Emily bit her lip. "Sorry."
She turned to go.
No one stopped her. She almost couldn't believe it.
But then her heart sank. Of course no one stopped her. She didn't know these people. She was only in the periphery of their lives, and now nothing mattered to them but their core group. Nothing mattered to them outside of keeping themselves and their remaining friends safe. They didn't have time or energy to waste on outsiders.
And yet Emily couldn't help but note that if she'd approached them mere hours earlier, they would have welcomed her into their group with open arms. The way they had welcomed "Namu."
She had one last hope, and so off she went toward the control room. She hoped to find one of the Kaiba brothers there--either one would do. If she could only convince one of them that she feared she was in true, mortal danger--perhaps by exaggerating her exchange with Marik in the tower--she might be able to earn the protection she needed to keep her out of Marik's line of sight until she was safely back in Domino.
And yet--and she realized afterward that she'd half-expected it--she didn't make it.
She'd been so terrified of being stopped before she reached Yugi that she'd nearly forgotten her fears as she raced away from him. And so she barrelled into Marik without a moment's hesitation.
She didn't even have a chance to scream; one minute, she had slammed her forehead into an unsuspecting chest. The next, she was up against the wall, screaming into the hand that covered her mouth.
"What a pleasant surprise, running into you like this." He laughed. "We didn't get a chance to finish our talk earlier, after all, my dear."
Emily couldn't suppress her shudder then--she remembered what happened to the last woman Marik attached that pet name to.
He laughed again. "So terrified. Pity Bakura can't see you now."
Emily's brow furrowed in hatred, but she bit her tongue. Even if she could have responded, it couldn't possibly have helped anything.
"You know, my dear, I must admit I quite enjoyed my duel with him. These final rounds have been quite fulfilling compared to my usual fare." He chuckled, leaving Emily not quite convinced she understood the joke. "And I'm very disappointed that the festivities are over. I don't know what to do with myself any more."
This didn't bode well. There wasn't a single fucking word spewing from his mouth that offered Emily the slightest hint of hope that she might get out of this--whatever this was about to become--alive.
She fully expected to be slaughtered at any moment, all because Marik was starting to get bored.
"But, of course, the best part of the finals hasn't been the duels themselves." His eyes seemed to be laughing at her, as if somehow, she was the joke. "It's the fear. The moment right before my opponent loses, the moment when they can't come to grips with their loss and so their fear envelops them. Paralyzes them." He pulled his hand away from her mouth; she suddenly found herself too petrified to even scream. "I saw it in the Pharaoh's eyes. I saw it in my weaker half. I saw it in little Yugi." He paused, eyes glittering with malice. "And I saw it in your Spirit."
She never should have done it. Really, she shouldn't have. She would regret it for the rest of her life. But she did it, and that's all there is to it. She couldn't take it back.
She rammed her body forward, bringing her arms up to Marik's throat, nails scraping at his neck and nearly penetrating his flesh--but not enough, because suddenly she was back against the wall, only now it was her face smashed against the cold metal, her mouth open as she screamed.
And Marik didn't try to stop her even as he held her immobile; he just laughed in her ear, and she heard the razor sharp edge of the Millennium Rod scraping against its casing as Marik withdrew the blade; then the tip of it was against her back, slicing through fabric until her shirt and bra were held on only by the shoulders. And then the shoulders were torn, and her shorts, and she didn't have a damn thing left. Not a protector, nor a friend, nor a hope. Not a damn thing.
She kept telling herself someone would come running. She was sure someone would come for her.
And then, when they finally did, she wished they hadn't.
Marik had hardly wasted a moment in making himself clear. The things he'd started muttering in her ear were obscene in the worst possible ways--it wasn't about her, and he wanted to make that absolutely clear. It was about Bakura, about reliving one of his great victories.
Emily stilled against the wall, teeth piercing her tongue as she suppressed... everything. The urge to scream, to run, to beg, all of it. There was no sense in it, no hope in it. She just wanted this to end.
There was no sense prolonging her humiliation.
But she couldn't stop herself from crying, and so that's what Duke and Tristan found when they finally raced around the corner. Both froze in their tracks the moment they set eyes on the couple before them--Marik leering at them with a cocky grin, Emily silently sobbing with her forehead against the wall and arms held captive above her head.
They didn't seem to know what to do, and honestly, Emily couldn't blame them. Marik had too much power now. Nothing they could do would stop him; even deterring him was a formidable task.
But it didn't matter; Marik didn't waste another second on her. The next thing she knew, he was pulling away, walking away, disappearing around a corner; and Emily dropped to the floor, wrapping her arms around herself as she sobbed. She didn't bother with the remains of her clothes.
It took Duke and Tristan a moment to come up with any response whatsoever. Then, finally, Tristan raced off down the hallway, muttering something about getting Kaiba, and Duke lingered uncertainly where he stood. If he wanted to comfort her, he didn't know how to try.
It was ironic, really, that Kaiba finally set up an infirmary that night. Emily was "admitted" first, the KaibaCorp-funded doctors taking a painstakingly careful examination of her body, as insisted by their boss. He'd finally admitted Marik was more than just a nuisance--he was a danger. Joey would be pleased.
They told her to take solace in the fact that she was safe now, tucked away behind a group of Kaiba's elite guards. And even with Marik remotely sealed in his room, Emily had no hope of being protected by these people. Sitting admist the banished--Mai, Yugi, Odion--and the frightened--Yugi's friends, who'd gathered in the infirmary for protection--it was obvious: if he wanted to get to her, he could.
Marik seemed to sense her thoughts. Pressing against her back, he chuckled softly in her ear. "The Spirit of the Ring can't help you now, my dear. And the Pharaoh is dead. How exactly did you expect to hide from me?"
It was all Emily could do to keep from choking on her panic. "I- I didn't think I needed to."
He shifted, causing Emily to press herself closer to the cold metal walls; an unconscious but ultimately futile effort, she knew. There was no way she could squirm away from this mess she'd gotten herself into.
"Foolish."
She could feel his fingers straying to her hip, the other hand still firm as it pressed both her wrists into the wall above her head. His grip wasn't too particularly tight; as it was, she knew she could slip from it if she concentrated. But unlike any other binding, Marik would react the moment she tried to escape; he didn't need to hold her completely immobile, and there was little doubt in Marik's mind that it was all part of his games. He wanted her to think she stood a chance. He wanted to take away that hope, the way he took away the Pharaoh. The way he took away the Spirit.
He wouldn't take her as easily.
Emily bit her lip, eyes closed and forehead rested against the wall as he shifted against her. Just days ago, she would have considered this situation absolutely unimaginable. Who could possibly get to her? Who could possibly wrench her from Bakura's protection?
But she knew what to do. Or at least, she hoped she knew.
Emily was silent as he nudged a hand between her legs, urging her already awkward stance wider.
"No begging?" Emily might just have imagined the disappointment she heard beneath his mocking tone.
She didn't answer.
The hand thrust itself in between her body and the wall, startling her as it shoved her backward. She couldn't ignore the erection nudging against her as Marik unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans, but it vaguely amused her to note the apparent half-heartedness of it. She was sure that when she'd first felt the organ brush against her, a few brief moments ago, before she'd settled into silence, it had been far more eager about their encounter.
Emily felt another surge of panic when he started tugging her pants away from her, his hand slipping underneath their protective barrier. She cast a glance back at him. "Right here in the hall?"
Her voice sounded stronger than she felt, and it seemed to surprise him.
"Shy?"
She forced out a laugh, but dismayed as he continued disrobing her. With her jeans around her lower thighs, Emily struggled to stop her trembling. It couldn't be clearer; Marik got off on fear, and so she must conceal hers, deny him the single thing he wanted from her until he finally decided to move on. But she was terrified that the "moving on" might wait until after the damage was done.
Emily's skin crawled as he touched her; for all intents and purposes, this had been planned as something of an impromptu vacation for her and Bakura, and so there she stood, feeling like an idiot, in one of the thongs she'd brought along for the occasion. Now Marik's finger traced the string leisurely, all the while waiting for any negative reaction on her part.
It was intimacy perverted. Rather than gauging her responses to learn how best to please her, instead he stood there, holding her captive against her will, trying to familiarize himself with her fears, her hates, anything he could use against her.
It was absurd.
Emily turned back to the wall with a dread in her heart that she knew she had to suppress before it bubbled into a panic. She could show no fear. She would show no fear.
Marik didn't seem to favor her coping mechanism. Before she realized his intent, he'd spun her around and once again pinned her to the wall with his body; terror finally struck her heart as she, for the first moment, met his eyes.
There really wasn't any denying it. Marik Ishtar, or what was left of his broken mind, was deeply, truly insane. There was no reasoning with this man, no persuasion. And he would never stop of his own accord.
So he smiled at her, knowing very well what those widened eyes meant. He was getting to her, and she couldn't convince him otherwise.
"What are you doing?"
A brief look of confusion passed over his face. Then he ground his hips into hers as if to say, "Isn't it obvious?"
But it wasn't, at least beyond his literal intent. "Why me?"
At that, he laughed. Not the snide, sinister chuckling from before, but a loud bark of mirth. "You? This isn't about you, my dear."
"Then who the hell is this about?"
"Me."
Emily screamed; he'd taken the moment to slam his lips against hers, and within an instant his teeth were sinking into her lower lip. Her arms broke free from his restraint, panic seizing her and lending her an extra bit of strength; but even as her fists and feet left bruises across his flesh and her nails sank into his flesh, sending rivulets of blood rolling downward, he hardly seemed to notice.
Blood dripped from her lip as he kissed her, muffling her screams. But the sound of her thrashing echoed down the metal hall, and she knew someone would be there to save her within moments. No one could possibly ignore all that noise, not while they knew there was a dangerous lunatic aboard the aircraft.
So it was unbelievable to her that twenty minutes later, she found herself huddled the fetal position in a bed that was not her own, locked away in an unfamiliar room by a lunatic.
And so Emily sobbed, alone.
But she knew someone had to come soon.
They had to.
Author: AFTanith
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Notes: This is yet another scrapped draft of Bound by Gold (or one of the other Maiden of Kul Elna installments).
No one seemed quite sure how to react. After the screams died out, after the Pharaoh's voice, his vessel's voice, Marik's other half's voice faded away with their spectral bodies, Emily stared at the arena before her. The faces of the pharaoh's friends registered nothing but shock, their minds so astounded that they could not yet seem to move.
As the announcer congratulated Marik, Seto Kaiba turned to leave; Mokuba hesitated, wide violet eyes terrified, but after a moment he consented to follow his brother. The elevator dinged behind them without anyone uttering a single word.
And the stunned silence broke. Tea, screaming hysterically, flung herself toward Yugi's unconscious body, putting herself between the boy and his tormentor. With their female friend crying into their fallen friend's shoulder, Joey, Tristan, and Duke were screaming as well--but not the high-pitched shriek of horror Tea unleashed. Roars of outrage. Battle cries.
Marik seemed amused by the whole turn of events, stepping past them with little more than a chuckle. The announcer struggled to hold back the three young men, and for a moment Emily hesitated.
She shouldn't have been on that tower. She should have realized going up there would be putting her life in danger. Bakura warned her to stay away from Marik, and yet here she was on top of the tower, witnessing his victory over the Pharaoh.
Bakura had promised her that was impossible.
Marik's eyes roamed over the group as he waited for the elevator doors to close behind him. Emily could have sworn that they stopped to linger on her for a moment before disappearing from sight.
Blood pounded in her head as she approached the elevator door. She wanted to get downstairs before the hysterical foursome and their now soulless friend were ready to descend, as well, and so the wait for the elevator to return from dropping off Marik was nearly unbearable. She curled her fingers into her palms, nails biting into the skin as she trembled ever so slightly.
She didn't want to admit it, but she was terrified. Everything had gone wrong, and she wasn't quite sure how it had happened. One minute it looked like the Pharaoh was about to win--meaning the banished souls, including Bakura, would be released from the Shadow Realm--and the next, he was lying deathlike on the floor. She didn't understand how things could have gone so wrong.
When the door opened with another ding, Emily raced inside, immediately jamming her finger into the "close door" button. Again and again in quick succession she prodded it, biting her lip as she watched the four shell-shocked friends of the Pharaoh's lift his limp body into their arms. The announcer stood behind them, looking nearly as stressed and frightened as Emily felt--obviously he had finally realized that this job was far more than he had signed up for, even if he wasn't acknowledging the same reasons as Emily.
She breathed a sigh of relief when the door closed before the group reached it. Pressing her back against the wall, she let herself sink down to the floor for the duration of the descent. It was all she could do to keep herself from hyperventilating at that point.
Maybe Kaiba wasn't worried, maybe Yugi's friends were worried about never getting their lost allies back... but Emily was worried about what Marik would do next.
She rushed forward the minute the doors opened again, and a moment later she cursed herself for her impulsiveness. A masculine hand captured her arm as she tried to quickly dart out into the sunlight, and she nearly screamed as a figure she hadn't seen lurking in the shadows pulled her backward toward it.
"Frightened, are we?"
Emily stared straight ahead, trying to suppress the trembling in her muscles. She dared not look, but she could sense Marik standing mere inches behind her, so close that she could feel his breath against her hair. She bit her tongue, holding back the myriad insults racing through her mind, and waited for him to speak again.
"I don't believe we've ever been properly introduced." Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Yugi and his friends were on the way down the elevator, but that offered her little comfort. She doubted they could do anything to save her, and she doubted they would try.
In a swift, jerky movement that nearly knocked the breath out of her, Marik suddenly ripped her arm backward, spinning her to face him as he did so. "Look at me when I to you. Now, I have one question--answer it properly, and you can go: who are you?"
Emily's brow furrowed in spite of herself. "Who am I?"
"Yes."
She focused on a spot somewhere over his left shoulder as she spoke, determined to pretend those eerie violet eyes weren't boring into her. "Emily Robinson. I'm, uh--well, I came here with Ryou."
For a moment, he simply stared at her. Then the elevator doors opened with a final ding and the group of friends came pouring out. They hesitated as they laid eyes on Marik and Emily. The announcer, seeing Marik's vicelike grip on Emily's wrist, stepped forward, but Emily took that moment to wrench away her hand and flee.
When she reached her room on the blimp, she slammed the door behind her. That wasn't right, what just happened. Marik had never shown the least bit of interest in her before, not beyond his rivalry with Bakura. They had only been alone together once before--in that hysterical moment after Ryou's body, along with the spirit inside the Millennium Ring, disappeared into the Shadow Realm--and she couldn't recall him wasting a second on her. At most, she had earned from him a derisive snort.
She had only dared face him at the finals today because she'd been sure the Pharaoh would defeat him. She had been sure she would soon be welcome Ryou and his spirit back from the shadows. The possibility of his losing had been inconceivable.
So now Emily stood at a crossroads. Any hope of hiding from Marik seemed to be gone. The Pharaoh was gone, and with him went the only person with the power to defeat Marik. The Spirit of the Millennium Ring was gone, and with him went the only person who cared enough about Emily to protect her.
For a single flitting moment, Emily contemplated something horrible, a thought that she would never admit to entertaining, not even for the brief millisecond in which it entered her consciousness.
For a moment, she pondered aligning herself with Marik.
Perhaps that's what he wanted. Perhaps that's what their brief altercation had secretly been about. Could he have been gauging her reaction to him, looking to see if the unassuming tag-along to the Battle City finals had more to her than she let on?
Or perhaps... With the Pharaoh gone, perhaps he was just looking for a new victim.
Emily shuddered again. She didn't care what he wanted, she realized. She wanted nothing to do with the sociopathic freak who was wreaking havoc on her life. The people around him were getting picked off, one by one, and that meant only one thing: she needed to be somewhere else. Anywhere else.
First and foremost, that meant making sure Marik didn't corner her like that again. And as much as she hated the thought of imposing, there was safety in numbers--meaning she would have to inject herself into the throng to keep herself from being picked off as a straggler. She could only hope that Yugi's friends hadn't already been poisoned against her.
With utmost caution, she opened her door to peer into the hallway. After a moment--when she could be sure that Marik was nowhere in sight--she darted out, letting the door hang open behind her, and raced toward Yugi's room.
She wasn't sure they'd be there, unfortunately, but she knew it was her best bet. She had to assume that Yugi's friends were mourning him now, letting his unconscious body rest in the privacy of his own bed. If she didn't find the group there, she wouldn't know where to look next.
Her footsteps pounded down the hallway, echoing the thumping in her chest. She kept expecting to hear someone behind her, or to turn a corner and come face to face with her fears, and yet she reached Yugi's room without incident. She knocked on the door with a new fear surfacing in her mind: what if they simply turned her away?
The hulking form of Tristan Taylor greeted her when the door swung open. It had never before occurred to her just how tall he was--not until now, when he towered over her with a look of pure rage on his face. His expression didn't change when he registered that she was not, in fact, Marik.
"What?"
"Can I, uh, come in?"
He glared at her for a moment, then stepped to one side of the doorway. She crept into the room cautiously, muscles stiff with awareness of just how unwelcome she was. Tea glanced up at her as she neared Yugi, who lay as if sleeping on his mattress; Joey failed to acknowledge her presence at all. Duke, meanwhile, was nowhere in sight, which didn't bode well.
She forced herself to hold Tea's gaze. "I'm so sorry." The tear that accompanied her condolences was genuine; she'd lost every bit as much as Tea. Had every bit as much to fear.
Tea didn't respond. Her eyes seemed almost lifeless as she turned her attention back to Yugi. It crossed Emily's mind that Tea looked as if she'd lost her soul to the shadows, too.
"Where's Duke?"
Tristan cleared his throat behind her. "Getting Serenity."
She nodded slowly. "She'll be safer if she stays with the group." She didn't add that it was why she'd come; she doubted they needed the clarification. "Has... has anyone talked to Kaiba about setting up an infirmary?"
Tea glanced back at her. "He won't listen. He won't admit that we're in danger until Marik starts slitting our throats."
Emily was disturbed to find that Tea was the one holding their gaze now, her lusterless eyes seeming to bore into Emily. She suppressed another shudder and glanced away. "It won't come to that. We'll be safe in a few days."
Joey snorted. "No one's safe now. Yugi's dead. Mai's dead. Before long, every last one of us is gonna be--"
"No one's dead," Emily interrupted. "No one's dead, and no one's going to be. In a few days, this blimp will be back in Battle City. We'll be back in Battle City. If Marik tries to physically hurt anyone, he'll be arrested. And this isn't unfixable. There are other Millennium Items. Somebody just needs to get their hands on one, and we can get everyone back from the Shadow Realm."
Joey didn't even spare her a glance. "Don't kid yourself. We can't do shit without the Pharaoh. And since when are you one of us, anyway?"
Emily bit her lip. "Sorry."
She turned to go.
No one stopped her. She almost couldn't believe it.
But then her heart sank. Of course no one stopped her. She didn't know these people. She was only in the periphery of their lives, and now nothing mattered to them but their core group. Nothing mattered to them outside of keeping themselves and their remaining friends safe. They didn't have time or energy to waste on outsiders.
And yet Emily couldn't help but note that if she'd approached them mere hours earlier, they would have welcomed her into their group with open arms. The way they had welcomed "Namu."
She had one last hope, and so off she went toward the control room. She hoped to find one of the Kaiba brothers there--either one would do. If she could only convince one of them that she feared she was in true, mortal danger--perhaps by exaggerating her exchange with Marik in the tower--she might be able to earn the protection she needed to keep her out of Marik's line of sight until she was safely back in Domino.
And yet--and she realized afterward that she'd half-expected it--she didn't make it.
She'd been so terrified of being stopped before she reached Yugi that she'd nearly forgotten her fears as she raced away from him. And so she barrelled into Marik without a moment's hesitation.
She didn't even have a chance to scream; one minute, she had slammed her forehead into an unsuspecting chest. The next, she was up against the wall, screaming into the hand that covered her mouth.
"What a pleasant surprise, running into you like this." He laughed. "We didn't get a chance to finish our talk earlier, after all, my dear."
Emily couldn't suppress her shudder then--she remembered what happened to the last woman Marik attached that pet name to.
He laughed again. "So terrified. Pity Bakura can't see you now."
Emily's brow furrowed in hatred, but she bit her tongue. Even if she could have responded, it couldn't possibly have helped anything.
"You know, my dear, I must admit I quite enjoyed my duel with him. These final rounds have been quite fulfilling compared to my usual fare." He chuckled, leaving Emily not quite convinced she understood the joke. "And I'm very disappointed that the festivities are over. I don't know what to do with myself any more."
This didn't bode well. There wasn't a single fucking word spewing from his mouth that offered Emily the slightest hint of hope that she might get out of this--whatever this was about to become--alive.
She fully expected to be slaughtered at any moment, all because Marik was starting to get bored.
"But, of course, the best part of the finals hasn't been the duels themselves." His eyes seemed to be laughing at her, as if somehow, she was the joke. "It's the fear. The moment right before my opponent loses, the moment when they can't come to grips with their loss and so their fear envelops them. Paralyzes them." He pulled his hand away from her mouth; she suddenly found herself too petrified to even scream. "I saw it in the Pharaoh's eyes. I saw it in my weaker half. I saw it in little Yugi." He paused, eyes glittering with malice. "And I saw it in your Spirit."
She never should have done it. Really, she shouldn't have. She would regret it for the rest of her life. But she did it, and that's all there is to it. She couldn't take it back.
She rammed her body forward, bringing her arms up to Marik's throat, nails scraping at his neck and nearly penetrating his flesh--but not enough, because suddenly she was back against the wall, only now it was her face smashed against the cold metal, her mouth open as she screamed.
She kept telling herself someone would come running. She was sure someone would come for her.
And then, when they finally did, she wished they hadn't.
Marik had hardly wasted a moment in making himself clear. The things he'd started muttering in her ear were obscene in the worst possible ways--it wasn't about her, and he wanted to make that absolutely clear. It was about Bakura, about reliving one of his great victories.
Emily stilled against the wall, teeth piercing her tongue as she suppressed... everything. The urge to scream, to run, to beg, all of it. There was no sense in it, no hope in it. She just wanted this to end.
There was no sense prolonging her humiliation.
But she couldn't stop herself from crying, and so that's what Duke and Tristan found when they finally raced around the corner. Both froze in their tracks the moment they set eyes on the couple before them--Marik leering at them with a cocky grin, Emily silently sobbing with her forehead against the wall and arms held captive above her head.
They didn't seem to know what to do, and honestly, Emily couldn't blame them. Marik had too much power now. Nothing they could do would stop him; even deterring him was a formidable task.
But it didn't matter; Marik didn't waste another second on her. The next thing she knew, he was pulling away, walking away, disappearing around a corner; and Emily dropped to the floor, wrapping her arms around herself as she sobbed. She didn't bother with the remains of her clothes.
It took Duke and Tristan a moment to come up with any response whatsoever. Then, finally, Tristan raced off down the hallway, muttering something about getting Kaiba, and Duke lingered uncertainly where he stood. If he wanted to comfort her, he didn't know how to try.
It was ironic, really, that Kaiba finally set up an infirmary that night. Emily was "admitted" first, the KaibaCorp-funded doctors taking a painstakingly careful examination of her body, as insisted by their boss. He'd finally admitted Marik was more than just a nuisance--he was a danger. Joey would be pleased.
They told her to take solace in the fact that she was safe now, tucked away behind a group of Kaiba's elite guards. And even with Marik remotely sealed in his room, Emily had no hope of being protected by these people. Sitting admist the banished--Mai, Yugi, Odion--and the frightened--Yugi's friends, who'd gathered in the infirmary for protection--it was obvious: if he wanted to get to her, he could.
Marik seemed to sense her thoughts. Pressing against her back, he chuckled softly in her ear. "The Spirit of the Ring can't help you now, my dear. And the Pharaoh is dead. How exactly did you expect to hide from me?"
It was all Emily could do to keep from choking on her panic. "I- I didn't think I needed to."
He shifted, causing Emily to press herself closer to the cold metal walls; an unconscious but ultimately futile effort, she knew. There was no way she could squirm away from this mess she'd gotten herself into.
"Foolish."
She could feel his fingers straying to her hip, the other hand still firm as it pressed both her wrists into the wall above her head. His grip wasn't too particularly tight; as it was, she knew she could slip from it if she concentrated. But unlike any other binding, Marik would react the moment she tried to escape; he didn't need to hold her completely immobile, and there was little doubt in Marik's mind that it was all part of his games. He wanted her to think she stood a chance. He wanted to take away that hope, the way he took away the Pharaoh. The way he took away the Spirit.
He wouldn't take her as easily.
Emily bit her lip, eyes closed and forehead rested against the wall as he shifted against her. Just days ago, she would have considered this situation absolutely unimaginable. Who could possibly get to her? Who could possibly wrench her from Bakura's protection?
But she knew what to do. Or at least, she hoped she knew.
Emily was silent as he nudged a hand between her legs, urging her already awkward stance wider.
"No begging?" Emily might just have imagined the disappointment she heard beneath his mocking tone.
She didn't answer.
The hand thrust itself in between her body and the wall, startling her as it shoved her backward. She couldn't ignore the erection nudging against her as Marik unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans, but it vaguely amused her to note the apparent half-heartedness of it. She was sure that when she'd first felt the organ brush against her, a few brief moments ago, before she'd settled into silence, it had been far more eager about their encounter.
Emily felt another surge of panic when he started tugging her pants away from her, his hand slipping underneath their protective barrier. She cast a glance back at him. "Right here in the hall?"
Her voice sounded stronger than she felt, and it seemed to surprise him.
"Shy?"
She forced out a laugh, but dismayed as he continued disrobing her. With her jeans around her lower thighs, Emily struggled to stop her trembling. It couldn't be clearer; Marik got off on fear, and so she must conceal hers, deny him the single thing he wanted from her until he finally decided to move on. But she was terrified that the "moving on" might wait until after the damage was done.
Emily's skin crawled as he touched her; for all intents and purposes, this had been planned as something of an impromptu vacation for her and Bakura, and so there she stood, feeling like an idiot, in one of the thongs she'd brought along for the occasion. Now Marik's finger traced the string leisurely, all the while waiting for any negative reaction on her part.
It was intimacy perverted. Rather than gauging her responses to learn how best to please her, instead he stood there, holding her captive against her will, trying to familiarize himself with her fears, her hates, anything he could use against her.
It was absurd.
Emily turned back to the wall with a dread in her heart that she knew she had to suppress before it bubbled into a panic. She could show no fear. She would show no fear.
Marik didn't seem to favor her coping mechanism. Before she realized his intent, he'd spun her around and once again pinned her to the wall with his body; terror finally struck her heart as she, for the first moment, met his eyes.
There really wasn't any denying it. Marik Ishtar, or what was left of his broken mind, was deeply, truly insane. There was no reasoning with this man, no persuasion. And he would never stop of his own accord.
So he smiled at her, knowing very well what those widened eyes meant. He was getting to her, and she couldn't convince him otherwise.
"What are you doing?"
A brief look of confusion passed over his face. Then he ground his hips into hers as if to say, "Isn't it obvious?"
But it wasn't, at least beyond his literal intent. "Why me?"
At that, he laughed. Not the snide, sinister chuckling from before, but a loud bark of mirth. "You? This isn't about you, my dear."
"Then who the hell is this about?"
"Me."
Emily screamed; he'd taken the moment to slam his lips against hers, and within an instant his teeth were sinking into her lower lip. Her arms broke free from his restraint, panic seizing her and lending her an extra bit of strength; but even as her fists and feet left bruises across his flesh and her nails sank into his flesh, sending rivulets of blood rolling downward, he hardly seemed to notice.
Blood dripped from her lip as he kissed her, muffling her screams. But the sound of her thrashing echoed down the metal hall, and she knew someone would be there to save her within moments. No one could possibly ignore all that noise, not while they knew there was a dangerous lunatic aboard the aircraft.
So it was unbelievable to her that twenty minutes later, she found herself huddled the fetal position in a bed that was not her own, locked away in an unfamiliar room by a lunatic.
And so Emily sobbed, alone.
But she knew someone had to come soon.
They had to.
