Disclaimer: I don't own Beyblade or any of its characters, merchandise, TV rights, ect… (I think you get the point.) I do however own Phoenix. (hides from glaring faces) That is I would own Phoenix if she weren't a real person.

Summery

ONE SHOT – When night falls like a cloak over the world, all the trials of the day just seem to melt as you hold the one you love in your arms. (Tala/OCNix)

Like all of my work this is just something that happened to float through the empty void inside my head. Like it or hate it please R and R as honest opinions are always welcomed, as are random acts of worship.

Lamb: I can't believe that my stunningly amazing Nix is celebrating her nineteenth birthday today! (sighs) She's growing up so fast.

Muse: Did you give Lamb her pills this morning?

Dedi: No, I thought you did.

Lamb: Hahaha, I've not been taking drugs! (dances round the room)

Muse: Oh boy.

Lamb: But really Nix, you are a truly an amazing person and I really don't know what I'd be have done if you hadn't come into my life. It's so cool having someone around who knows what goes on in your head.

Muse: Nothing, as far as I can see.

Dedi: Uh-huh. Well as you may have been able to tell this fic is dedicated to shadowphoenix101 cus today is her 19th birthday and Lamb loves her very much. So shadowphoenix101 this is for you.

Lamb: As always sorry for any bad spelling and if you feel the need to throw things at me please wait until I've hidden behind the sofa kay!?

Muse: On with the fic!

Phoenix from the Flames,

We will rise together they will know our names,

Can you feel it shelter me from pain,

I always wanna to feel this way Oh yeah,

Just like a Phoenix fron the Flames,

In The Heat Of The Night

Tala Valkov moved almost silently across the hotel room towards the open windows and the balcony beyond. Though clad in only light blue jeans, his shirt long since discarded due to the heat, a light film of perspiration peppered his smooth pale skin and shimmered in the dying light. He reached the window and looking out saw, as he had expected to, the figure of his alluring girlfriend. The nineteen-year-old girl seemed to be lost deep in thought as she lent on the balcony her eyes looking towards the darkening sky.

The night was hot and humid; the dying sun burned a feverish fiery orange. The intense heat seemed to drag the very air from his lungs. But she stood on the balcony of their shared room in shorts and bikini top, leaning out into the fading light unfazed as the world seemed to burn around her. He stood, leaning on the frame of the open window and watched her. She seemed totally unaware of his presence, concentrating intently on the blazing cipher that was sinking below the horizon, and turning the sea a bloody crimson.

Some strange emotion stirred deep with in Tala as he continued to study the form of his silent girlfriend. Her hair was falling down her back in a wild cascade; the last raise of the sun's light turning the normally blonde strands a bright burnished copper. He could picture the look in her vivid green eyes, for he had seen the deep sadness lingering in their depths for most of the day and all that time he had felt powerless to help her.

Her emotions had always been wild and untamed. One moment she could be the bright passionate girl who had first captured his heart, but then the next she could be spiralling into the depths of a deep depression, that could leave her almost suicidal and himself raging at his inability to help her. It was at times like this when he sometimes found himself wondering if it was worth it, if she was worth it. And then she would turn to him and give him the look that he knew to be for him alone. The look that said she would love him beyond all others until her dying day and would never willingly leave him. And then he would feel sick with himself that he could even think of leaving this girl who had given him a new reason to live.

Leaning her waist against the smooth concrete rail of the balcony she spread her arms wide and leant out into the scorching air and the summer night. Tala thought she looked like some magnificent bird about to take flight and fly away from him forever, and the thought made him shiver despite the heat. Then she placed her hands on the warm stone and, resting her weight on them, balanced with her bare feet off the ground.

"Phoenix." Tala called softly, at last stepping out onto the balcony, but the girl did not move at the sound and remained still as the redhead call her twice more. Not until he placed a hand on her shoulder, and felt the warmth of her smooth skin beneath his fingers did she seem to become aware that she was not alone.

She turned her head to look up into his face, and her hair, like a tassel of silk, slid over his hand where it still rested upon her shoulder. Her bright green orbs were dancing, seemingly filled with the light that sparkled on the ocean's waves, and there was not a trace of the lingering sadness that had consumed her since she had awoken that morning. Phoenix smiled up into the translucent ultramarine eyes that were tracing every line in her face as if trying to see deeper, to look into the very heart of her being.

"Tala." she half spoke half-laughed, and threw herself into his arms, winding her own around his neck and pressing her mouth hungrily to his. After long experience, her sudden shifts in mood no longer knocked him off balance and Tala responded eagerly to her ardent demand, deepening the kiss and holding her tight to his naked chest. He relished the feel of her in his arms, this vital living creature that meant far more to him than he would ever say. Then all too quickly, she was pulling away from him, stepping backwards out of his embrace.

"Where are you going?" Tala asked in mixture of confusion and wonderment, for as she moved back towards their room she seemed float over the ground rather than walk. At his question she turned back to him, the fingers of her right hand absentmindedly tracing over her moist lips, as she tilted her head slightly to the side, the ghost of a smile playing on her full mouth.

"Swimming." Phoenix said as if it was that most natural thing in the world and then she was gone. Moving swiftly after her Tala could not suppress his own smile as her glimpsed her vanish through the door to their hotel room and enter the hall beyond. Her mood was infectious, and just as hours before he had been dragged down by her melancholy, Tala now felt his spirit fly as he followed her as she ran down the stair way and out into the heat of the night.

Tala came to a halt as he stepped out into the night, as the weight of the air crashed over him like a wave, scorching him with furnace heat that tasted of hot spices on his tongue. He saw her running towards the stone steps that would take her down to the beach, her hair like a burnished gold mane, flying out behind her. He moved again and continued to follow the flight of his elated phoenix as she disappeared from his sight.

He stepped onto the baking sands just as she shimmied out of her shorts, revealing the bottom half of her black bikini, and, kicking them away from her feet, moved swiftly to where the sea's waves lapped gently at the shore. She paused at the water's edge and looked back over her shoulder to where Tala stood, his eyes fix upon her sun-warmed body. She gave him a small smile and stepped into the waiting sea. The water was still warm from the sun's heat that it had received throughout the day and Phoenix delighted in the feeling of the seductive warmth against her skin. She was soon chest deep and swimming smoothly into deeper water.

Entranced, Tala watched her progress until she reached a group of rocks some hundred yards from shore. There she stopped and floated in the sea's embrace. Never taking his eyes from her, Tala quickly removed his jeans and threw them to where her shorts lay on the hot sand, and then headed down to the waiting waves. A strong swimmer, it took him hardly more than a minute to reach her where she floated, her hair splayed around her head and waving in rhythm with the ocean.

Her eyes were open, staring up at the darkening sky, and he could already see the first stars reflected in their emerald depths. A lazy smile crossed Phoenix's face and she looped her right arm around his neck as her lover moved beside her and, slipping an arm around her waist, pulled her upwards. Her back arched and her head fell backwards as Tala pulled her from the water. Her hair, darkened by the salty water, fell in tendrils across her bare golden skin over which beads of water ran in rivulets.

With one arm still round the girl's waist, Tala brought his right hand up to caress the back of her neck, the strands of her hair feeling like liquid silk against his skin. Phoenix opened her eyes and looked into the beautiful, almost feminine face, of the person who held her heart captive. Carefully, as she were examining an object that was extremely fragile, she let the fingers of her left hand trace the features of his face, his sensuous mouth, high cheek bones and straight nose, until finally she brushed damp blood red bangs from his eyes.

Moving with her in his arms, Tala moved around to the seawards facing side of the rocks, to a place where they could stand on a submerged outcrop so that the water would lap no higher than her chest. Then he dipped his head towards her and watched as her eyes fell closed as he placed his mouth on hers. She could feel the rock at her back and her lover holding her close, and in that moment felt safer than she ever remembered feeling before in her life.

There was nothing beyond the sea and the sky, and the girl he held in his arms. Tala could feel himself drifting and melting, until he was flowing into her. as if she was becoming part of him. He was Phoenix and she was him, and they did not exists beyond the realm of each other's touch. Beneath the warm waters his hands skimmed down her sides, feeling her tremble at the touch as she had the very first time he had caressed her body in the same way. His hands came to rest on her hips, atop the ties that fastened her bikini in place, and he felt her smile into the kiss as she realised his intentions.

It seemed so natural, so right. Out sight, out of mind. With the sky and the sea the only witnesses to a love so intense that it could almost burn those who felt it. Starving for breath Tala pulled back and looked into her face flushed by emotion and the last of the sun's rays as it sank below the horizon. She was perfect in his eyes and in that moment could think of nowhere he would rather be than here with her in the heat of the night.

Lamb: So there you have it my Nix, I hope you liked it. And let me just say this is far better than the first one I tried to write. (shudders)

Muse: Well its not as if it could have been worse now is it?

Dedi: I'm saying nothing about it. But we really do hope that you liked it shadowphoenix101 and please let us know what you thought.

Please R and R I'd love to know what you thought.

Big luv see ya

Lamanth