"Strike one!" Antonia called. "Maybe I need to find a better opponent."
"Yeah, right. I'm just warming up," Edward insisted, fetching the baseball he'd missed and tossing it back over to her.
Antonia caught it neatly in her glove. "Sure you are. Come on, let's go again."
She threw the next one too wide and it passed the foul line. Edward only bothered to swing half-heartedly, not even coming close to hitting it. "Foul ball!"
"Damn," Antonia grumbled to herself. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd thrown a foul ball. Not for a good year, at least.
Edward threw the ball back a second time. "You're not losing your touch, are you, Ant? You shouldn't let my good looks distract you so much."
"And you shouldn't let your big head distract you," said Antonia, throwing the ball whilst he wasn't paying attention. He tried to swing for it, but he wasn't fast enough. It sailed past and hit the fence behind. "Strike two! One more and you're out!"
Edward grinned, collecting the ball and pitching it to her. "I didn't think you'd resort to foul play."
"Hey, it's not my fault if you're not paying attention," Antonia pointed out. "Keep your head in the game, you narcissistic douche!"
"Aww, you're cute when you're annoyed," teased Edward.
Antonia took her baseball glove off. "Be serious, Ed. You know I wanted to practice. If you don't quit screwing around, I'm not gonna practice with you anymore."
"Course you will," said Edward confidently. "You've got no one else to practice with. Artie and Finn don't even like baseball."
"At this rate, I'd rather practice by myself," said Antonia. Even as she said it, she felt like she was being a bit of a drama queen. Edward always infuriated her a lot easier than most people. Maybe she was just overreacting.
"Don't be silly; then you'd miss out on my gorgeous face," grinned Edward.
Nope. Definitely not overreacting. He was still as annoyingly overconfident as ever. "I'm sure I'd survive," she said testily.
"Come on, Ant, put your glove back on. I'll be good," promised Edward. "I still need to prove that I'm a better batter than you are a pitcher."
"You're not doing very well at it so far," said Antonia, though she did put her glove back on. She could never back down from a challenge.
"Hey, it only takes one good hit to put me back in the game," said Edward.
"For once, you're right," agreed Antonia, throwing the ball fast and hard.
Edward swung at it with all his strength. It hit with a resounding thunk and ricocheted to the right. Antonia darted sideways and dove for it, just about catching it in her glove. She landed hard on her side, but she didn't really care. When you were as competitive as she was, every victory was exhilarating.
"Out!" she shouted happily, pushing herself to her feet and holding the ball up for Edward to see.
"Dammit!" Edward childishly threw his bat on the floor. He was competitive too and not a very gracious loser.
Antonia danced over to him and held up her hand for a high five. "Without trying to inflate your ego anymore, you still played good! You nearly had me."
Edward grinned and returned her high five. "I did, didn't I?"
She just rolled her eyes. "I'm not saying it again."
"Say it just once more and I'll buy you ice cream," Edward offered.
Antonia laughed. He might have been an egotistical womaniser most of the time, but he could also be quite charming when he wanted to be. "Fine, you nearly beat me. Now let's go so you can get me a strawberry sundae."
XXX
They were only just queuing up at the ice cream bar when Antonia's cell phone started ringing. She used personalised ringtones for the people she called most, so she knew that it was her best friend Finlay.
She fetched the phone from her pocket and flipped it open. "What's up, Finn?"
Edward only half listened to what she was saying whilst he ordered their ice creams from the counter.
"Yeah, we've finished practicing," Antonia was saying. "We're at Juliani's now." She paused for Finlay's response. "Sure, come up. We're only just getting served, so we'll still be here. Okay. See you in a bit."
Edward had already paid by the time she'd hung up and was leading her over to their favourite booth by the corner window. They knew the best times to come here – it was usually pretty empty at this time on a morning.
"Finn and Artie are just round the corner at Morocco Records," said Antonia. "They're coming round after."
"Oh, okay, that's cool," said Edward.
Finlay and Artie appeared before their ice creams did. They sat down and then ordered their own ice creams from the waitress who brought Antonia and Edward's over.
"So what did you buy?" asked Antonia, peeking inside Finlay's bag before he even had a chance to reply.
"Some new drumsticks and a couple of vinyls. Feel free to have a look," said Finlay sarcastically.
Antonia just grinned back at him and emptied the bag onto the table. Her and Finlay were close enough that they were practically like brother and sister. She picked up the first vinyl record and started reading the sleeve.
"How did baseball practice go?" asked Artie. "Who won?"
"Take a guess," grumbled Edward.
Artie laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "Bad luck, bro. You'll beat her one day."
Edward and Artie were actually twins. Antonia and Edward would probably have never even spoken, had it not been for that fact. Antonia and Finlay had been best friends since the start of high school. They'd then met Artie in their second year and Edward through him. They'd sort of fallen into their little friendship group from then on and had also started their own Beyblading team.
"Hey, what's this?" Antonia had found a leaflet amongst Finlay's vinyls. There was a large image of a Beyblade on the front.
"Oh, they were giving them out outside JB Sports," replied Finlay. "It looks quite interesting actually. It's from the All-Starz Sports Centre. They're making all the facilities available to the public if you register your team with them."
Antonia was surprised. "But they spent millions on that place. Why would they open it up for just anyone to use?"
"Well, like I said, you have to register," said Finlay. "And they give you membership badges to gain access to everything."
Edward raised his eyebrows. "There must be some kind of catch. How much do the memberships cost?"
"It says in there that it's free," said Finlay. "I guess is just looks better on their team by doing this. The more teams that join, the more everyone's gonna appreciate them."
"They have so much there!" added Artie. "They've got several Beystadiums, two swimming pools, a gym, an indoor basketball court..."
"They're even linked to that nice new baseball diamond on Maple Avenue," said Finlay.
Both Antonia and Edward looked impressed. It was a lot better than the diamond they'd been practicing on. "We should register," said Edward, flipping through the leaflet himself.
"Hey, I thought I was the team captain here," Antonia pointed out.
"Well, don't you think we should?" asked Edward.
Antonia hesitated. "Are you sure it's free?"
"Positive," replied Finlay. "It says the only things there that aren't are the gear shop and the cafeteria. Which sounds fair – they can hardly afford to give away free stock too."
"Yeah, that's true... Alright then," said Antonia brightly. "We can go straight from here if you guys want to."
Her teammates happily agreed to it and they headed straight over to the All-Starz Sports Centre as soon as they'd finished their ice creams. When they got there, they were all pretty intimidated. They'd seen it from the outside before, but on the inside, it somehow seemed even bigger. They stood together in the middle of the foyer, looking quite lost.
"This place is huge!" exclaimed Artie. "Where do you reckon we're supposed to go?"
"That looks like some kind of reception desk over there," said Antonia, pointing to the left. "Let's go and ask."
They wandered over to the desk where a pretty dark-haired girl was sitting. She looked up and smiled when she saw them. "Hello there. How can I help?"
"We're here to register our team," explained Antonia. "Do you know where we're supposed to go?"
"Sure, you'll need to speak to the director." The receptionist leant across the desk so that she could point down the main corridor. "Go straight down here and through the glass doors. The director's office should then be the first door on your right."
"Okay, thanks," Antonia smiled.
They made their way down the corridor, following the receptionist's directions. They found the director's office easily and were greeted by an attractive blonde woman. "Hi. Can I help you?"
"We wanted to register our team. The receptionist sent us here," explained Antonia.
"Of course! You came to the right place," the woman beamed. "My name's Judy Tate – I'm director of the BBA and also manager to the All-Starz team. Please come in and take a seat."
She led the way into her office and sat down behind the desk. There were several chairs grouped around the front of the desk. Antonia and the boys all followed her in and grabbed seats. Judy pulled some forms out of the paper sorter on the desk and took a pen out of her pocket.
"Right. First thing's first, I need your team name," she said professionally.
"Chaos Engines," Antonia replied.
"You can tell she came up with the name," Edward muttered.
"Shut up," Antonia protested.
The director didn't comment on their banter, but she smiled. She could see Edward's point. Antonia was only tiny, but she certainly seemed to make sure that people took notice of her with her spiky flaming red hair, punk-grunge fashion, multiple tattoos... And probably a lot of attitude too. Chaos Engines seemed like a fitting name to have come from her mind.
"Now who's your team captain?" Judy continued.
"I am," said Antonia. No surprise there.
"Can I have your full name please?"
"Antonia LaVelle."
"And do you have a co-captain?" Judy enquired.
"Yeah, that's me," said Edward. That wasn't a surprise either. "It's Edward McKay."
Judy turned to Artie and Finlay. "And can I have both of your full names too?"
"Artie McKay and Finlay Flynn," Artie answered for the both of them. He knew that Finlay hated his full name with a passion and would avoid it where he could.
Fortunately, that wasn't what the director focused on. "So you two are brothers then." She made it a statement rather than a question, flicking her pen from Artie to Edward.
"Twins actually," Edward corrected.
Judy smiled. "That's lovely." They weren't identical, but she could easily see the resemblance with their matching blue eyes and hair the same shade of blonde. She found it sweet that they were clearly close. Close enough to blade together at least.
She asked them more questions about their team and their preferred Beyblading styles, all the while writing everything down on the registration form. She then began questioning them on other sports, in order to find out which of the facilities they'd be more inclined to use.
Antonia had more to offer than the boys did. All four of them enjoyed volleyball, but Artie wasn't so sports orientated besides that. Antonia and Edward both played baseball and soccer, whereas Finlay was Antonia's companion for skateboarding – her favourite sport. On top of that, she also played tennis and competitive swimming. She wanted to get better at basketball too, but she knew that her height gave her an extreme disadvantage.
"Well, hopefully the All-Starz Sports Centre can accommodate for the majority of what you'd need," said Judy, re-reading through the list of sports that the team had accumulated between them. "We have indoor swimming pools and an inside basketball court. There are tennis courts on both ends of the complex and a soccer pitch behind the main building. No facilities for skateboarding though, I'm afraid. It wasn't a sport we'd really taken into account during the designing phase."
"That's okay. We really like the skate park over on Ormskirk Boulevard anyway," said Finlay.
"Good, good," replied Judy, consulting the list again. "We're sponsoring the new baseball diamond on Maple Avenue, so you'll have free access to practice there, as well as discounted tickets for the local games. We're also going to start organising evening volleyball matches on the beach at Poinciana Bay. It'll be a few weeks yet, because we still need to plan more for it, but there's a list in the main foyer where you can put your names down if you're interested."
"Yeah, that sounds awesome!" exclaimed Artie. The others agreed enthusiastically.
Judy seemed pleased. "Great! As well as all of that, we also have multiple Beyblading stadiums and a gym within the building. Though we don't have much of a range in the way of gym equipment. We want to concentrate more on specific sports."
"It all sounds great," Antonia reassured. "But is there really no catch to all of this?"
Judy laughed at the suspicious look on her face. "Really, there's no catch. Here, we believe that all sports can be linked in to personal Beyblading styles, so we want to give more bladers the chance to practice and refine their skills, as well as themselves, in different ways. It gives the All-Starz team good endorsement too as our sponsor. All we ask if that you pass the word along and encourage other teams to come down and register."
None of them could argue with that. Judy finished up their form and declared them officially registered. She gave each of them star-shaped pins, emblazoned with the letters 'ASC' – they were their confirmation tickets to gain free access both at the sports centre and the new baseball diamond.
"If you happen to lose your pin, just come back to me and I can issue you a new one," Judy informed them. "You're now free to use all of the All-Starz facilities. Don't forget to sign up for the volleyball matches when you're on your way out."
They all thanked her as they left and headed straight for the foyer, attaching their pins to shirts and bags as they walked. There weren't many names on the list for the volleyball matches yet – it had clearly only been up for a few days. As Edward was eagerly adding their names to their list, a group of jocks came in through the main entrance.
They came across as a lot bigger than the Chaos Engines, especially Antonia, whose own teammates already towered over her as it was. The one leading the group was just reaching above average height and toned to perfection. The two on his flanks were tall and athletic-looking, and then short but extremely well-built, respectively. All in all, they gave off an intimidating image and they knew it. And used it.
"Hey, looks like we've got some small fry signing up."
Antonia was the first to turn and glare at them, which only made them all laugh. "Who are you calling small fry?"
"And they've got a girl with them. She's even tinier than Emily!"
"Yeah, sorry, shortie. We didn't see you down there."
"Say that again," Antonia dared angrily, starting towards the guy in the middle. One thing she really hated was people picking on her height. Finlay and Artie quickly latched onto her arms and pulled her back. The jocks just laughed even more.
"Look, guys," Edward cut in before Antonia could say anything else. "We don't wanna start anything here."
"Smart move, kid."
"Cause you'd lose."
The three guys carried on past, still laughing. Edward was smart enough not to say anything else. Finlay and Artie only released Antonia once the jocks were safely out of sight. She was not happy.
"This is exactly why I hate jocks so much!" she exclaimed, still fuming.
"Yeah, and that's exactly why we didn't let you near them," Edward muttered.
XXX
Author's Note!
I'm going to be accepting OCs for later on in the story. PM me for more details.