Okay, so a couple of years ago I had promised myself that I would never again have two stories going at once. I am now breaking that promise to myself, BUT, it's for NaNoWriMo. If you don't know what that is, it's the acronym for National Novel Writing Month, meaning that during the month of November, people around really the whole world try to write a 50,000 word novel in just one month. SO, even though I have not yet finished Eye of the Storm 2, I am posting this story, because Tattered Wings is my NaNoWriMo novel. I do not know if I will finish it during this month. But I sure do plan on trying! So, without further ado, even though I meant to post this AFTER EotS2, enjoy the prologue for Tattered Wings.
Gingka knew where he was. He had had this nightmare many times before. It was always the same. He would open his eyes to the sight of flames, hearing people screaming and Nemesis towering over him, larger-than-life and just as frightening as he had been seven years ago when Gingka had faced him and defeated him. He would look down at his feet and see his bey, Pegasus, laying there defeated and shattered beyond repair. It terrified him the same every time, and he always longed for the moment when he would finally shoot up in bed, wide awake, and be able to remember the reality, that Nemesis had been defeated, hopefully never to return again.
Yet something was different this time. Gingka found that the rocks he was standing on were not an ugly, dusty brown, but sparkled with many different colors. Shattered buildings lay around him, with disfigured silhouettes that looked human running past him, away from the direction he was facing. Yet these figures were not human. Gingka could not place precisely what about them was different than people, but something inside of him told him that they were something else.
The stranger part about the whole thing, the redhead mused, was that, even though he could not see their faces, only their shapes, black against the burning city around him, he knew them. He could not place names to them, but he felt as if every last one of them was someone who he had met and knew closely. But who were they, if not human?
The flames seemed to rise ever higher, ominous in their flickering. Gingka trembled slightly, looking around in confusion. Was he in Metal Bey City this time? Yet no, none of the half-destroyed buildings or streets looked familiar. It was as if he were on an alien planet, which was strange. Gingka did not think aliens even existed. If they did, he was glad that they tended to keep to themselves rather than bothering the human race, which had enough problems of its own if you asked him.
"Look out!"
"He's coming!"
Various screams, repeating those four words, kept echoing from the fleeing creatures around him. Gingka turned, looking every which way to determine precisely what they were even running from. He had to admit that this was almost scarier than the usual nightmare. With this, he did not know what to expect, what he might find in this strange land his brain had placed him in. All at once, an enormous man was towering over him, looking down with a maniacal sneer on his face. Gingka froze. Was this what these creatures were afraid of? This man, no, creature, had to be at least twice his size. Whoever, or whatever, it was, it was clearly quite strong. And it was clearly trying to destroy all that stood in its path. Which of course, meant Gingka at the moment.
"Gingka!" A familiar female voice screamed as the giant in front of the redhead raised the giant sword in his hand and brought it down.
That was when Gingka finally awoke, shooting up in his bed the way he usually did, coated in a thin layer of sweat and gasping for air, trembling as he forced himself to relax and realize fully that it had all been a dream. Yet what had that been? It was nothing he had ever seen before, Gingka knew that much. And yet, it was familiar. Gingka rubbed his eyes with one hand, letting out a shaky sigh as he stared down at his lap, eyes narrowed as h e tried to recall the images he had just seen so he could place them in his mind somehow, discover what location he was remembering. But nothing came to mind.
"You alright, Gingka?" Madoka's voice called from outside his door as the brunette knocked.
"Yeah. Just another nightmare. I'm fine." Gingka called back, sighing and laying back down.
"Nemesis again?"
"... I don't think so. But it's passed now." Gingka replied. "Go on and go back to sleep. I'll be fine."
"If you say so." Madoka said skeptically, her footsteps indicating that she was indeed heading back to her own room in the B-Pit.
Gingka sighed and closed his eyes once more, trying to get back to sleep, although he quickly found that this was practically impossible. Eventually, once the sun began to peer over the tops of the buildings and into his window so that sleep became entirely impossible, he sat up again, climbing out of bed and stretching.
"Gingka! Are we going to the Bey Park again today? You still owe me a battle!"
Gingka chuckled as he heard Zero's voice.
"Obviously. I'm looking forwards to it still." He called back as he reached for his jacket and scarf, quickly changing into his normal clothing before buckling his belts and gear around his waist. "I just hope you're ready for defeat."
"Defeat? Not me! I'm going to beat you!" Zero shot back.
Gingka chuckled under his breath as he stepped out of his room. "You can definitely try, but Pegasus and I aren't gonna lose easily."
"I know." Zero grinned as he poked his head out of his room, messy hair sticking out in all directions. "But Ifrit and I won't go down easily either."
"That may be true of the bladers your age, but you forget, Pegasus is a Legendary Bey with the power of an extra Star Fragment." Gingka smirked, ruffling the younger blader's hair and messing it up further.
"Hey!" Zero protested, launching himself at the redhead, "That's not gonna matter in the long run because my bey spirit burns just as brightly as yours!"
Gingka laughed and sidestepped the teen's attempts at tackling him. "Good. It wouldn't be any fun if you weren't as enthusiastic as you are."
Zero grunted as he accidentally ran into the wall in a failed attempt at tackling Gingka. "Well what's the point of it if you aren't having fun?"
"Saving the world is usually a good point to things too." Gingka chuckled, squatting down and ruffling Zero's hair again, earning himself a blue-eyed glare for his trouble.
A flash of mischief shone in Zero's eyes for a moment before he suddenly launched from where he was laying on the ground and managed to finally tackle Gingka to the ground, causing the redhead to yelp in surprise as he fell over.
"Not fair! You caught me off guard!" Gingka protested, his golden-brown eyes twinkling with mischief as he began tickling his protege's ribcage.
Zero screeched in a rather undignified manner at this and fought back. The two bladers ended up rolling around the hallway, both laughing hysterically until tears came to their eyes.
"I.. Surrender!" Zero said eventually, gasping for breaths between laughing.
Gingka chuckled and stopped tickling him, sitting up with a smug grin on his face as Zero glared at him in amusement, trying to catch his breath.
"Well, now that you two are done with the morning wrestling, anyone want some breakfast?" Madoka laughed as she stood at the end of the hallway.
Gingka and Zero looked up and turned light pink from embarrassment.
"... How long have you been standing there?" Gingka asked slowly.
"About from when he tackled you." Madoka laughed. "Sometimes I wonder which one of you is really the adult here."
Gingka crossed his arms and grumbled something under his breath. Zero just laughed, still trying to catch his breath as he wrapped his arms around his torso, ribs aching from laughing so hard. Gingka grinned and ruffled Zero's hair one more time before standing and offering a hand to help the younger blader get up, which Zero accepted, although he pulled Gingka's headband over his eyes while he was at it. Madoka's eyes widened at this and she immediately flattened herself against the wall as Zero bolted past her, followed by Gingka as soon as the redhead managed to get his headband back into place.
"Well, I suppose they'll be wanting breakfast later once the chase has ended and they remember that they're hungry." The brunette chuckled under her breath as she heard the door to the shop slam shut, indicating that the two bladers had left the building and were off down the street to who-knew-where.
Gingka and Zero did not get very far down the street, however, as they each felt something pulsing from their carrier cases that indicated something was happening. Zero paused running, the urgency of escaping Gingka forgotten suddenly as he swiftly pulled out Ifrit and looked at it confusedly. He glanced back, only to see that Gingka was doing the exact same thing with his bey. Pegasus was glowing a faint blue color, pulsating in a strange manner. Gingka was staring at the silver and blue bey with wide, almost frightened- frightened?- eyes.
"What's wrong?" Zero asked, jogging back towards the older blader, although he was wondering why Ifrit was also glowing and pulsating, although at a different rate than Pegasus was.
Gingka swallowed, hard, and closed his eyes, clenching his hand tightly around his bey. "This had better not mean the same thing it did last time." He said, a slight tremor in his voice that frightened Zero more than the look in the redhead's eyes had.
Zero opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, but, all at once, the glowing and pulsating from their beys stopped. Gingka opened his eyes and looked at Pegasus in surprise, raising an eyebrow as if expecting the bey to give an explanation for what was going on.
"No… If it was what happened last time then Ifrit would not have been doing it too…. So what happened…?" Gingka mused, before turning and looking at Zero, "By any chance did some blinding white light hit Ifrit recently?"
"Uhh… No?" Zero said slowly.
Gingka looked thoughtful. "Then why were they glowing…?" He wondered, looking back at Pegasus intently.
"... Maybe some of the others might have a clue?" Zero asked.
"Perhaps. If they don't then I know who will." Gingka said, beginning to walk off towards the distant Bey Park and WBBA Headquarters.
"Gingka! Zero!" Several other bladers ran up to them as they saw the two champions approaching.
"Our beys were glowing and doing this weird pulsing thing!"
"The beys battling in the stadium stopped responding to their bladers!"
"What's going on?"
"Is something bad going to happen?"
"Whoa, whoa, slow down." Gingka said, raising his hands and motioning the younger bladers to calm down and be quiet.
Gingka knew that he had to come up with some explanation that would not cause a panic. Which meant that he could not tell them a word of the idea that was on his mind. These bladers all ultimately looked up to him as the strongest in the world, who had to have the answers to anything bey-related because he was at the top, the most famous blader in the world. Rarely did the full weight of this responsibility settle on Gingka's shoulders, but it was now, and his next words could either return them to their usual heated battled without a care in the world, or incite a destructive panic. He doubted he could do the former. Beys glowing and pulsating was hard to explain away when you did not know the true reason for it. But he knew he absolutely could not do the latter. Striking fear was the job of his enemies. Soothing it was his job. So, despite the fear that was threatening to make its way into his eyes once more, Gingka smiled softly.
"Our beys did that too. I'm not sure what caused it, but if it's something dangerous, then we'll stop it. There's nothing to worry about." He said. "It's nothing to panic over."
"Mr. Gingka," One of the slightly older bladers spoke up, nervously, and Gingka's eyes shifted to him, "Is the Nemesis Crisis going to happen again?"
A look of sympathy flashed in Gingka's eyes for a moment before he smiled reassuringly. "Nah. Plus, even if it did, you know what we'd do?"
This question was met with several tilted heads and raised eyebrows. Gingka chuckled under his breath and held Pegasus high.
"We'd send him packing faster than last time, because we've been getting stronger while he's been sleeping." He said, rather loudly so that the younger bladers would take it as the battle cry that it was.
Gingka's words incited several cheers from the crowd of bladers as they all held their own beys high. Gingka lowered his and replaced it into his case, chuckling as the crowd ran off to resume battling.
"Well, that worked." Zero chuckled nervously once they were all gone. "You really don't know if it'll be alright though, do you?" He said seriously.
Gingka sighed and looked down, worry shining in his eyes. "Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this were Nemesis again. But don't tell anyone that. I don't want them to panic."
Zero's eyes widened. "You mean it's actually possible?"
"I'm not sure. But the last time Pegasus reacted like that, it was Nemesis. But that was only the Legendary Beys. So I don't know why Ifrit and everyone else's beys did this too." Gingka sighed. "Perhaps it is time to have Tsubasa call the others in a big group call."
"'Others'?" Zero tilted his head, following Gingka as the redhead began walking towards the WBBA Headquarters.
"The other Legendary Bladers." Gingka said. "This has to be something serious, whatever it is."
Zero's e yes widened slightly. "You mean calling all of them together?"
Gingka smiled in amusement and nodded. "Yeah. It'll be nice to see them all again, at least. Tsubasa has the contact information for many of them. He didn't have mine but if he'd had to, he could have called my father or one of my oldest friends to try to contact me. All of us managed to stay only one or two people away from being able to be contacted. Those of us who were harder to contact also managed to keep an eye on the news for anything that might be major. Then again, we did want the next generation to be able to defend itself, something you and your friends have already proven that you can do."
"Then why not call Shinobu and the others to see if they know anything?" Zero asked, jogging slightly to keep up with Gingka.
Gingka paused and looked thoughtful at this. "Not at all a bad idea. You know where they are?"
"Some of them are probably at Bey Park." Zero said. "If not then they will be eventually or are out training with the Manager."
"I wouldn't be surprised if they're with Benkei. I'll check there, you check the Bey Park. We'll meet up outside the WBBA in…" Gingka paused and looked at a watch hidden underneath the wrist part of his glove, "An hour should be enough time."
Zero nodded. "Alright. We'll be there." He said, running off towards Bey Park.
Gingka chuckled under his breath, smiling at the enthusiastic young blader. He hoped that Zero was not too afraid of what might be happening. The younger blader had definitely caught at least a glimpse of Gingka's initial frightened reaction earlier, when Pegasus and Ifrit had started glowing and pulsating. As Zero disappeared into the Bey Park, Gingka turned towards where he knew Benkei's training grounds were, running off to see if he could find anyone there.
Little did any of them know that what was about to happen would change everything they knew about their beys.
Dun dun duuuun... Until next time, Galaxy out! XD