A.N: I don't own Bakugan! If I did... well, let's not go there now...
Enjoy!

1. The Beginning

It was dark. Rain lashed down into the soaking streets of Wardington City, and onto a girl named Alice. She shivered, and flicked a damp lock of orange hair off her face, wishing she had thought ahead and worn something less summery than her usual yellow dress. Her case, which she was dragging behind her, and had been since she'd left the airport, snagged on a rut in the pvement, and she hit the ground. Hard. Groaning, she forced herself shakily onto all fours, assessing the damage. Alice hurt, but there was nothing more wrong than that. "Up you get..." Suddenly, a voice sounded, its owner just outside her field of vision, but the voice was familiar all the same. "Masquerade?" Alice whipped her head around to catch sight of even a glimpse, but whatever she had heard, he was nowhere to be seen, not even as a flash of white in the distance. Alice sighed, she missed Masquerade. She didn't miss being him, and doing all those dreadful things, even though her friends were convinced it was not her fault, but she did miss having company on dark nights like this one. She was sure she had no feelings for him, but even so, her heart sank in dissapointment.

A shadow moved in the darkness, catching Alice's eye, and she turned towards it. "Masquerade?" However, she did not get long to look, as somebody from behind her held a dirty cloth to her face. It smelt so strange, and she found herself... falling... as...leep...

The men bundled the unconcious girl into a large black sack, composed of a thin plastic, held between the both of them. As they stuffed her into the back of a large, official-looking armored car, one of the men caught a glimpse of something tattered and white in the corner of his eye, but when he turned to look, nothing was there. Strange. He shivered, a chill running down his spine.
"Can we get out of here now?" he whimpered to his companion, trying to keep the waver from his voice.
"Why? Are you scared?" the other man, a large, brutishly build kind of man, mocked, "We got what they wanted, so yeah, we can go now."
The smaller man breathed a sigh of relief, and clambered into the driving seat of the truck, strapped himself in, and waited for his companion, who joined him in the truck a little while later, after securing Alice in the back of the vehicle.

Masquerade, his form flickering and wisping away on the wind like a ghost, watched the events take place from a building with utter disgust. How dare these men take Alice! How dare they touch her with their unclean hands! His calm demeanour masked the urge to scream into the night, and chase the men, but he had no hope of doing that himself. His energy was running low, and so his time in the real world was running out also. Masquerade walked slowly from the ledge of the building he was standing on, and walked away, fading from view as he did so. It seemed that it was high time he caught up with the brawlers...

Meanwhile, the brawlers, gathered in Marucho's mansion, were eagerly awaiting Alice's arrival, but they were starting to get worried, and, now well past midnight, quite tired too. Shun sat in the shadows, as always, just a little way from the group, watching with calm eyes. Dan, who had eaten quite a lot of the food that Marucho had provided, was snoring gently, his head resting on Runo's shoulder, who pretended to be annoyed, but secretly was quite pleased. Julie was re-applying her makeup. Again. Marucho himself was anxiously checking flight delays on a laptop, trying to find a logical reason why Alice was not yet with them, but was so far coming up with nothing. He finally shut his computer with a loud snap, attracting all but Dan's attention, and lay back with a frustrated sigh. "She should be here... There's no reason why not... No traffic, no flight delays... Nothing!" Julie looked up from her makeup, "Cheer up Marucho! She'll be here soon!"
Runo nodded in agreement, "Yeah! Alice is tough! Nothing's happened to her!"
"I think we should all try and get some sleep..." Shun's calm, and as always, practical voice was heard quietly from the shadows, "Alice'll understand if everyone's asleep, I'm sure."
Marucho tucked his computer under his arm. "Indeed. I can have Kato bring in some beds if anyone wants one."

Suddenly, the sleepy atmosphere was shattered by Dan's shout: "ALICE!" He was still asleep, but now grasped at something invisible before him, nearly punching Runo in the mouth as he did so. "Dan...?" She muttered, moving away a little, as to not have him punch her. Dan's eyes flickered, then opened wide, but instead of his usual firey brown, they were a shocking, icey blue. He stood up, awkwardly, as if somebody was pulling his body around on strings like a puppet. "Brawlers..." His voice sounded strange, as if somebody were trying to change its sound to match theirs, "Save Alice..."
Runo, her hand held up halfway to her mouth, gasped at him: "Who are you? What are you doing with Dan? What about Alice?" Her questions seemed to irritate whoever was using Dan's body, as they glared coldly at her, and continued, "Some men took her. Bad men. In a truck. With a...White...Dragon..."
"But...But we beat Naga!" Julie squealed, dropping some eyeshadow on the carpet. Dan's lips quirked upwards into a smirk, "Apparently... Not..." Shun was about to ask his own question, but the ice-blue eyes rolled back into Dan's head suddenly, he made a strangled sound, and collapsed, unconcious. The brawlers rushed over to him, obviously concernerned, but he was still snoring away, as if nothing at all had happened.

Marucho was the first to look up. "What's our first move?" His voice concealed a tiny tremor. These events had shaken him, to say the very least. At this, everyone was silent for what seemed the longest time, before Shun spoke up, ever practical, as always: "We should get some rest. That's our first move." This suggestion was deemed as sensible, and, fearing the incident with Dan could occur once more, the brawlers settled on sofas, tables, chairs and even the wide windowsill, comfortably wide, next to thick, near bullet-proof glass.

Soon, the rhythmic sounds of sleeping were the only noises in the room, and of course, no-one noticed Dan's hands twitching, as if trying to remove something from his face...

A.N: Review now and you'll recieve a free cookie!