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Author's Note:
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I confess, though I still love it and it will always be one of my favorite guilty pleasures, I haven't watched Beyblade in nearly two years. But at the height of my obsession I had this dream about the Bladebreakers being a game that I think was partially inspired from a recent viewing of The Warriors. I typed up a summary of my dream and saved it in my documents and over two years later, happened to stumble upon it. Intrigued with my initial idea, I decided to write it. But as I haven't seen the show in such a long time, please bear with me that I might have some of the characters a little OOC and might have skewered their names a bit. And the plot's kind of funky, too.
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Warnings:
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There are no set pairing right now but there will probably be both het pairings and slight hints of shounen ai (because I seem to be incapable of writing otherwise). And I'm a bit not-so-nice to certain characters (ie: Kenny, Hillary, Daichi…probably more…) And umm…language, and drug use, and other naughty things.
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Chapter One
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Tyson Kinomiya raced with wild abandon through the streets and alleys of the old neighborhood filled with potholed roads and dilapidated buildings he called home, arousing only the occasional glance back from passers by.
"Tyson!" Max Mizuhara, his best friend and favorite accomplice shouted behind him. "Wait up!"
But he didn't slow down. Not yet. Only when his grandfather's small house with the sagging porch came into view did he slow his pace to a walk, pulling the CD's he'd swiped out from the inside pocket of his red jean jacket.
"You coulda waited up for me, you know!" Max exclaimed, catching up at last. "No one noticed us leave."
He shrugged. He could never explain to someone like Max, someone who'd never stolen a thing in his life, the feeling it gave him. The rush. Something he imagined was akin to sex, which he had never had but was sure he would one day. He had calmly left the record store, waiting till he was just out of site to burst into a spring, where he could pretend someone was after him and he'd managed to cleverly slip through their fingers. It was an old game of his.
"For you, my friend," he told Max, handing over the two CD's he'd grabbed for the blond.
"Thanks."
Max had never stolen anything, and Tyson sincerely doubted he ever would. Sure, he'd come along without making a move to stop him, and he'd accept whatever you'd picked up for him, but he would never ever steal anything himself. Though Kai Hiwatari, their disgruntled leader, might've minded, it didn't bother Tyson. He often thought Max had the best chance out of any of them of actually making something of himself. If he didn't want to steal, then that was just fine.
"So what does Kai want tonight?" Max asked.
"I don't know. He was real secretive on the phone. I wonder what he's plan--"
He was cut off by the screech of "Tyson!" and a small rabid child dropping from the tree before them bricked into the sidewalk.
Startled, Tyson dropped all he'd been holding, cracking a couple cases to his dismay. "Dammit, Daichi!" he yelled, pushing the smaller boy backwards so he fell. "These were brand new."
"Well, you didn't pay for them anyways," he quipped.
Max helped himself to pick them up, hoping to get Tyson away from the brat before all Hell broke loose. "Get lost, Daichi. We've got important things to do."
"I want to join the Bladebreakers!" he whined. "Come on! Give me something to do to prove it! I'll do anything."
"Why don't you bother the Tigers? They let Kevin hang with 'em. I'm sure they wouldn't mind a mutant monkey like you stalking them!"
"But I wanna be a Bladebreaker!" The child made a grab for the navy haired boy's arm. "I wanna be like you! You just gotta give me a chance, Tyson, you just gotta!"
Tyson raised a fist and for a moment looked like he was going to pound the child into the pavement, but then he paused, and a familiar sparkle came into his eye that told Max they were in for trouble. "Okay, Daichi," he said calmly. "So you wanna mission. You get us a pair of Miriam's panties. And they have to be hers. If they're not we'll hang out from this tree by your toes."
Tyson was as scary as Kai sometimes.
"Her panties?" Daichi asked, his voice quivering with uncertainty.
"Yeah. And no going through Josef, either. You gotta find a way to get 'em on your own." He smirked. "And when you're done, we'll…assess the situation, and decide if you might be Bladebreaker material after all."
Tyson might as well have told him he had to walk to the moon. For once, Daichi looked absolutely speechless. "But-But Miriam will kill me!"
"We put ourselves in danger all the time," Tyson told him expertly. "It's all a matter of priorities. How important is this to you?"
"I'll try," he said in a softer, more defeated tone.
"Don't try. Do." Tyson walked on.
Max smiled in Daichi's direction as he passed him. "Oh, and Daichi, make sure it's a pair she's worn."
The red-headed brat's face went whiter. If that was even possible.
They kept up their tough guy façade until they entered Tyson's house, where they both burst out laughing.
"Do you really think he's gonna try to do it?" Max asked, falling back on the couch.
"I hope he does. And that Miriam really does kill him. It'll save me a lot of time." He pulled the CD's from Max to see what was salvageable.
"But he wants to be just like you," Max teased, trying to sound like the annoying child. "Don't you think you oughtta take him under your wing and show him what it is that makes Tyson Kinomiya Tyson Kinomiya?"
Tyson laughed. "The only thing I'd take him under my wing for is to smother him."
"I think he's going to do it."
"He is stupid enough."
"What do you think Miriam's going to do to him? Throw him threw a window."
"First she'll beat him to a bloody pulp," he told him, pulling the wrappers from his new possessions. "Then she'll castrate him. And then, she'll throw him threw a window."
"I can see her doing that," the blond agreed.
"She might not mind if she caught you going through her underwear," he teased.
Max bolted upright, turning as red as Daichi's hair. "Yeah, well I think Kenny has a crush on you!" he cried defensively.
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," he spat.
"Is it? Do you ever see him standing in the hall staring after you with that kicked puppy look? And the way he says your name?" Taking the coffee table as his stage, he stood for dramatic affect, hand over his chest with his eyes half closed. "Tysooooooonnnnnnn," he sighed. "Oh, Tysooooooon."
He debated thowing a CD at Max. Instead he started laughing. "He only does that because we used to be friends."
Max paused on the table. "You? With him? I don't remember that."
"It was before you moved here."
The blond bounced onto the floor. "So, you used to be friends with the guy. Then you turned on him and now you beat him up to do your homework."
Tyson nodded in agreement. He and Kenny Amana (1!) had been thrown together since kindergarten because they were both outcasts. Kenny was a dork and he himself had been the slightest bit round. Perhaps more than a bit. (the baby fat had dropped away at puberty) But eventually he realized Kenny got his ass kicked more than he did, and when he started joining in on beating up the four-eyed geek he'd started making friends. Maybe it was a crap thing to do, but Kenny was kind of creepy anyway. Max was right about how he said his name that special kind of way though Tyson would never admit it.
"What loyalty. I hope I never get on your bad side," he smiled.
"Nah. I think we'd be pretty even in a fight."
The door banged open again and Tyson suppressed a groan. His grandfather wasn't supposed to be home from work until eight. He worked at the supermarket two blocks away. On top of stocking the shelves, he refilled the balloons and made sure all the cards were in the right slots.
"Gramps! What're you doing home so early?"
The head of the Kinomiya house stepped into the doorway, grasping his cane. Not that he needed it. Even in his seventies he worked out everyday with the vigor of a man half his age. Tyson suspected he carried it around just to always have something handy to hit him with.
"Get off my table!" he yelled, pointing the cane at Max.
"Yes, sir," the blond quickly jumped down.
Mr. Kinomiya stalked through the room. "Been down at Amos's again, Ty?" he asked, giving the stolen merchandise a look over. "Why did you take all this cracked crap?" he demanded.
"He dropped it," Max explained.
"Why'd you drop it?"
"I didn't mean to! Daichi jumped out of the tree right in front of me."
"Steady hands, boy! Steady hands. Look!" He held his hand out for his grandson's inspection. "Not a tremor."
Tyson sighed. He didn't want to hear the lecture he knew was coming. He rolled his eyes at Max who smiled back in sympathy.
"Back in my day you had to be tough. Only the fit survived. You kids today are all spoiled rotten. When are you going to stop being Kai's bitch and start your own gang, Tyson? Be a man!"
"I am not his bitch!" he snapped back, though truthfully he probably was. Besides the fact that he actually admired and looked up to Kai, he hesitated to start his own for the simple fact that Kai was a lot scarier than he was. When Kai spoke, you listened. It didn't matter who you were.
"He calls and you come running!"
"He's our leader! Will ya get off my case, already?"
And there it was. The whack of the cane against his skull. Tyson held a hand to his now throbbing head.
"You young brats don't respect nothing," the old man mumbled, heading towards the kitchen.
"Do you want some ice?" Max asked as Mr. Kinomiya left the room.
"No. I'm fine. Stupid Grandpa." He turned towards his friend. "Think your dad would mind if I crash at your place tonight?"
"I doubt he'd even notice."
"Let's get out of here." He was in and out of his room with his backpack in less than a minute. He scooped the CD's in and called out a quick "bye," to his guardian as they left the house. "Kai wants to meet around seven."
"Where at?"
"His house."
"His house?" Max repeated in surprise. "He never invites us to his house."
"Yeah. That caught me off guard, too."
"This must be big."
"You wanna go to the park?" Tyson asked.
The blond shrugged.
The park was nothing more than a fenced in parking lot about midway between the two boys houses. It had a swingset cemented into the pavement and had once had a couple see-saws. Having gotten drunk one night, Tyson, Max, and Kai had removed all the bolts and scattered the pieces around the lot. Later one of the old see-saw boards had come into contact with the head of Bryan Kuznetsov, courtesy of Kai, which had put them on bad terms with the Demolition boys, the fiercest gang in the area. Curiously, Kai had once belonged to them.
The park was not empty when they arrived. On top of the swingset sat Miguel Lavalier, leader of the Barthez Battalion, joined by Zeo Zagart, who sat elegantly smoking a cigarette.
The Barthez Battalion were not the Bladebreakers favorite people. They'd sided with the Demolition Boys on numerous occasions. It surprised Tyson to find Zeo with him. The boy was the only heir to the Zagart Laboratories, but had grown up in the neighborhood because the Zagart mansion was placed right in it's heart. Zeo was educated and fawned over, but had a wildness to him his father had yet been able to figure out how to quell. After his brothers death the year before he'd started getting into more trouble. He didn't align himself with any gangs but he and Tyson had always been sort of tight. Zeo smiled at him from the swing set.
Miguel hopped down with ease. "Catch ya later, Zeo."
The turquoise haired teenager followed him off the swings. "See ya." He wasn't smoking a cigarette. He held it for them. "Want a puff?"
They both accepted.
"You're in a good mood," Max noted.
Zeo nodded. "Yeah, I guess so. I went out with Hilary last night."
"That slut?" Tyson asked.
"I thought she liked Tyson," Max said at the same time.
"I think she likes anyone who pays attention to her."
"You didn't?"
Laughing, Zeo brushed passed. "So what if she's a slut? We used protection." He started to climb the fence. "Dunga's having a big party tonight. You's coming?"
"Kai wants to have a meeting," the blond sighed.
"Come for a little while. Or will your get grounded for being out on a school night?" he taunted.
"I'm coming," Tyson made up his mind, running after Zeo. "We can still get to Kai's by seven," he called back to Max.
Starting to feel good Max hurried after them. Maybe Miriam would be there. If she wasn't busy strangling Daichi.
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Note Key
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#1: I vaguely remember seeing Amana somewhere in Kenny's parent's noodle hut place, and thinking that it might be his last name. Can't recall what episode that was in. Or even what season.
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