She was bubbles and butterfly wings, fluttering and lifting her to heights he dreamed of going. When the dulled, golden sunlight spread across her light pink hair, the perfect match to her gentle pink eyes, he fell. The sight of her floating in the air as her yellow and purple beyblade clashed with the Parisian's had him entranced. She was not particularly talented and even meager compared to his own natural talents, but butterflies were not strong either.
The crowd cheered and groaned when Rushing Boar, suffering a double attack from the Majestics, fell to its blader's feet. Taken aback, Mathilda made her beyblade retreat just as Oliver used the momentum to go on the offense. Her small fists clenched, and Pierce Hedgehog swerved to attack Unicolyon.
She reached out to her beyblade and called out, "Poison Needle!"
Light and bubbles burst from the beyfield, a terrain of dried dirt and rock columns, and her attack successfully flung Oliver's beyblade from the match. Shouts of support and admiration for Mathilda rose from the stadium's audience. The girls shouted most enthusiastically for one of their own.
"My! In her second year participating in tournaments, Mathilda has done very well for herself," Mr. Dickinson remarked proudly, as he would for any beyblader in the BBA. Although several chairs decorated the small observation room reserved for high-ranking BBA officials, he opted to stand near the large window overlooking the final match.
Brooklyn, comfortably seated in a blue armchair, turned his gaze from the match and gave a small smile to the older man, who had invited him to watch the Parisian tournament. "Too bad she won't win." His natural intuition already predicted the match's outcome, and the orange-haired beyblader didn't see Mathilda having the strength Max had during the Justice Five to change fate.
Understanding the boy's strange cognition, Mr. Dickinson frowned while watching Mathilda fighting to hold her own against Robert's onslaught before gathering the strength to return each blow with her own. "That may be, but with each battle, win or lose, she has truly grown and opened up."
"Grown? She barely seems competent enough for getting this far in the tournament."
Brooklyn heard the elder man defend Mathilda, but the orange-haired blader, entranced, watched her wings flutter as she tried fending off an attack. Her blade glowed as she prepared to unleash her special attack again when Griffolyon swooped around to knock Pierce Hedgehog from the dish. As her beyblade fell to the ground, so did she. He wondered if it hurt when her bare knees hit the solid platform, and did the skin of her palms break when they supported her from the ground.
It's a long way to fall, he recalled from his battle with Tyson.
Aaron offered her a hand which she accepted while Jazzman announced the victors of the Parisian Summer Tournament. She shakily stood and, after regaining her bearing, waved to the cheering spectators. Her smile was excited, despite the loss, and Brooklyn's lips dared to twitch in their own slight smile.
"Something on your mind, Brooklyn?" Mr. Dickinson asked, curious about the beyblader's serene expression typically saved for afternoons spent lounging in the grass with blue jays and ladybugs.
Struck from his trance, he looked at the older man with a dazed expression. "Hm?" Looking back at the beystadium floor where Mathilda and Aaron were exiting to the locker room, Brooklyn asked, "Would you introduce us?"
Mr. Dickinson looked at him with raised eyebrows. "To Mathilda? I thought you weren't impressed." He wasn't about to openly ask someone as shy as Brooklyn, but the BBA president wondered if beyblading was the only subject at hand. They were teenagers, after all.
"I'm more interested in her style of beyblading than anything else."
And I sense there's something else I don't quite understand about her. Being so well-accustomed to having an understanding and knowing beyond the capabilities of every other person, Brooklyn could not let this little mystery slip by.
Mr. Dickinson's innocent curiosity concerning Mathilda and Brooklyn was not unknown to the latter, who only smiled as they approached the second place team in the stadium lobby, where beyblade enthusiasts surrounded the tag teams. The throng of bodies and mélange of voices made Brooklyn unbearably uncomfortable, so he hung back and let Mr. Dickinson make his way through the crowd. Besides, the orange-haired youth expected his bad, though marvelous, reputation to precede him. When Mathilda's attention was directed through the crowd to the ex-BEGA blader, her surprised blush confirmed it.
I think she's one of Tyson's friends, he idly tried remembering the small group of bladers against BEGA at the time of the Justice 5 Tournament. There were quite a few of them, but only a few girls. Three, maybe four? I suppose it doesn't really matter.
While Brooklyn tried remembering her face in the wild rush of last summer's epic tournament, Mathilda easily slid through the gaps between bodies to exit the crowd. Her memories of his arrogance, disaffected airs, and horrible breakdown surfaced at Mr. Dickinson's mere mention of his name. She appeared increasingly uncomfortable as she approached him with stiff shoulders and hands clasped together. Her rabbit red eyes looked anywhere else rather than meet his cool blue gaze.
"Hey, Brooklyn," Mathilda greeted to break the silence before it could grow. "Um, I didn't know you'd be at the tournament."
He shrugged. "I wasn't doing anything else."
"I heard you were hanging with Garland," she said, hoping to form some sort of easy conversation.
"Yeah, but I was invited by Mr. Dickinson." With the Indian beyblader absent and away training at a dojo in Japan, Brooklyn had found himself enjoying days of pleasant, endless solitude. That is, he did until Mr. Dickinson called and invited him to watch the competition in Paris. Only after agreeing did he learn of the social aspect of seeing the Majestics. Robert had clearly expressed his desire to meet the blader who defeated Kai and drew with Tyson.
"Um, that was nice of him."
Mathilda, nervous and not knowing what else to say, bit her lip. Brooklyn supposed anyone would normally ask if they enjoyed themselves at the tournament, but part of his illustrious reputation was his nearly incurable boredom with everything apart from nature.
He quietly sighed. I guess I'm supposed to say something.
Before he could, Mathilda willed herself to courageously say, "Mr. Dickinson said you wanted to talk. So what's up, Brooklyn?"
She crossed her arms to appear tougher, earning a softly snorted laugh from him. "It's about your match—"
Her cheeks matched her hair in an angry blush as she defensively sputtered, "You-you want to talk about how I lost?"
"I guess?" A sudden spark in his mind alerted him to a swift change in the close future. I only said two words, so how could that make such a difference?
Mathilda unknowingly answered his question. "Listen, I know I'm not as good a blader as y-you, but I tried my hardest out there and— and I won't lose next time!" Her pink blush covered her face out of embarrassment and anger as she quickly turned to run back to Aaron, who waited for her near the entrance.
"Uh, wait?" Brooklyn meekly called out, unsure what he did wrong. Maybe I started that on the wrong foot. Mathilda's short outburst had garnered the attention of far more people than Brooklyn would have liked. Really, he would have preferred to be part of the wall or a potted plant than be stared at.
I wonder if there's a park around here.
Mr. Dickinson's reappearance and encouraging words didn't help. "Well Brooklyn, it seems there is something you're not perfect at." Brooklyn flinched at the very thought. "But don't worry, my boy, for no man is. Women are mysterious creatures, and Mathilda is a particularly bright and spirited girl."
He frowned and wondered, What did I do to make her so defensive?
"You'll have a second chance," Mr. Dickinson continued. "She's still sensitive after her loss, so perhaps you could try catching her at a time she's happy. They're always more open when they're happy! But for now, let's get a cup of tea and do as the Parisians do—enjoy a lazy evening!"
They left the stadium with Brooklyn a step behind, slowed by the thought that Mathilda's anger with him was, in fact, a failure on his part. It was a loss.
I hate losing, his fiercely competitive side all but roared within him. Being so focused on seeing Mathilda again, he momentarily forgot what Mr. Dickinson had insinuated.
Now he remembered what Mr. Dickinson insinuated.
"It's not like that," Brooklyn began as the elder stirred milk into his white porcelain mug of English tea. "I just admired how she could fly in battle." The two sat at a table beside a while covered in old wallpaper, which he figured was to add to the small café's charming, shabby ambiance.
"I see. You're not easily impressed though, Brooklyn," Mr. Dickinson pointed out. "What is it about her attack that has you so interested?"
The boy shook his head and replied, "I've always admired birds for how they can fly and abandon the earth. I had to make a separate reality to achieve that." Brooklyn frowned. "Yet her measly attack allowed her to effortlessly fly," he enviously admitted.
The elderly man observed the younger as his expression grew pensive, though not dark, and Brooklyn thoughtfully rested his cheek against a dark magenta-gloved hand. "So you want to know how she does it?" Mr. Dickinson asked.
Noticing wrinkles slightly drooping at a sad memory, Brooklyn slightly smirked and said, "I don't want to seem insensitive when I ask her about her wings, so please tell me anything I need to know." He knew Mr. Dickinson could hardly say no to that argument.
He gave a long sigh before explaining, "An associate of Boris called Barthez coached Barthez Battalion in last year's world championship. In order to heavily damage another blader's beyblade, he had her destroy her own in battle." His shoulders slumped at the memory. "Poor Mathilda was devastated. After ridding themselves of Barthez, her teammates gave her a conglomeration of their beyblades. And then, well, she could fly."
"So her ability is derived from her friends?" Brooklyn skeptically wondered aloud. He can't be serious. Not everyone who has friends can fly. There's something else about her.
Before he could ask another question, intuition struck him. He stared down at his wide-brimmed mug of foamy white jasmine tea while trying to understand what was happening.
Deciding to follow wherever his intuition led, Brooklyn stood and calmly said, "I'll take my tea to-go. I just realized there's somewhere I need to be."
"It must be important since you're leaving so soon," he replied, taken aback.
Retrieving a Styrofoam cup, Brooklyn swiftly poured his nearly full mug inside without missing a drop and left the tea bag in the mug. "I'm more concerned with missing my second chance." The lid was tightly secured on the cup just before he calmly made his way out the café's door and onto the dark grey Paris sidewalk.
The normally grey city glowed with soft golden light from boutiques lining main boulevards, grand old lampposts, and lights strung across sidewalks and streets. Brooklyn figured this made the city slightly less insufferable, but the unrelenting stench of cigarettes made him cringe. He sipped his lavender tea and fully enjoyed its soft aroma until there was no more. Hoping this trek through the strange city was worth it, he took several turns then crossed a bridge to the right bank of the Seine River.
Knowing the major historical sites of Paris, he recognized what might be the great expansive art museum and palace of the lovely Tuileries, the Louvre. Brooklyn walked alongside its walls and realized that for as close as he was, he needed to hurry. His steps hastened yet not too much as he could almost smell the faint darkness hanging in the air upon entering the Tuilerie gardens.
"Pierce Hedgehog, hold on!" Mathilda's determined voice rang out among the clashing and clinking of metal against metal.
A smile snuck onto Brooklyn's lips as he saw, up-close, how her shining wings fluttered and how she floated in the air. He remembered how his own feathered wings had carried him into the clouds and another dimension, but they had been so heavy and painful on his back. Mathilda's were so delicate.
"Hey you! Get outta here!" a boy wearing a dark hood, her opponent, yelled in a gravelly voice.
Mathilda's concentration broke as she glanced down at Brooklyn, and red met blue. Dirt suddenly flew up as Pierce Hedgehog hit a bed of bright yellow tulips, snapping a few. His brow wrinkled in worry for the flowers, but that was before remembering Mathilda's wings left with the battle's unfortunate end.
"Ahh!" Her high-pitched scream made him look up with wide eyes.
Rational thinking and selfishness had no time to object before he reached out and tightly caught the short girl in his arms. Her sudden weight and his unbalanced stance sent them forward to the rocky ground.
"Ouch," she whimpered, though she realized Brooklyn had the worst of it. The weight of her back pressed his hand into the tiny white rocks, though his other had successfully supported her legs. Seeing that he was still bent over her with his forehead near her side, she exclaimed, "Brooklyn! Are you okay?"
He opened his eyes and straightened his back, allowing her to see his almost pained expression. "My knee . . .is a little sore."
Another boy whom Brooklyn hadn't noticed, one with pale skin and sleek black hair, yelled, "We won your bit beast fair and square, girl!"
She cried out, "But that's not fair! You know I would have won if he hadn't come along!"
"Excuses excuses!" Sanguinex sneered. "Now we'll be taking what's ours!" He launched his black beyblade and quickly attacked her unmoving beyblade.
"Pierce Hedgehog—huh?" Mathilda looked up in curiosity at Brooklyn, who stood and slipped his left arm out of his white jacket to reveal his golden beylauncher.
The orange-haired youth shrugged indifferently and said, "I guess I did interrupt the battle, so I could finish it for you. My way of saying sorry for upsetting you earlier. Deal?"
He sized up his two opponents while Mathilda looked at the tiny spot of blood on the knee of his pant leg. Pride and gratefulness wrestled within her as she clambered to her feet. Swiping her purple beyblade from the dirt, she clicked it back into its launcher.
"Thanks Brooklyn, but these guys, Sanguinex and Lupinex, attacked Claude and Miguel. They tried taking their bitbeasts too!" Mathilda took a firm stance, ready to launch. "There's no way I can back down!" Her squeaky voice sounded particularly shaky to his ear.
"Afraid?" Lupinex asked with a barking laugh. "You should be. Wolf Storm!"
The wind picked up as the bit beast began to emerge. Brooklyn clicked Zeus into place, but Mathilda was ahead of him, yelling, "Let it rip!" Pierce Hedgehog dove into the attack, and small bubbles appeared then popped.
"Oh no! We're too worn out," Mathilda gasped. Wolf Storm bore down on her beyblade and drove it back.
"I guess it's my turn," Brooklyn said lightly then sent Zeus straight into the fray and knocked Lupinex's beyblade aside. As was his customary style, he swerved and dodged their joint attacks with little movement.
"You can't disrespect the Dark Bladers like this!" Lupinex growled in frustration while his older brother watched the mysterious beyblader carefully. There was something even darker than them behind his bored smile. The way his beyblade moved, so effortlessly, entranced him. No doubt, Sanguinex realized, this guy was bad news.
"Dark Bladers?" Brooklyn echoed with amusement. So they like to dabble in darkness, huh?
"What did she say your name was?" Sanguinex demanded as his Drac Attack beyblade put distance between itself and the opponent's black beyblade only to be struck by Pierce Hedgehog.
"Brooklyn."
Zeus roughly hit Wolf Storm into a lamppost then again as it bounced back. Lupinex gaped helplessly as his beyblade was thrown about, making the American beyblader chuckle. With a swooping loop, he hurled his opponent into his partner. Pierce Hedgehog barely dodged the attack, and the two Dark Bladers admirably remained in the game.
Dark energy began emanating from the black beyblade, signifying his devastating King of Darkness. Worried, Mathilda shyly touched Brooklyn's elbow to get his attention. "Please don't do this, Brooklyn! They don't know how strong you are."
The two European bladers watched with growing trepidation the wisps of darkness grow and spiral within the battle. Through the hazy mixture of smoky darkness and dull gold lamplight, they could see their mysterious enemy contemplating the girl's request.
"Well guys, I guess we'll call it a night," he lazily announced while the darkness abruptly dispersed.
As the darkness died away, light and bubbles suddenly overtook them as Mathilda jumped at her opportunity. "Pierce Hedgehog, goooo!"
Too worn from Brooklyn's onslaught, the Dark Bladers fell to her well-executed surprise attack. Their beyblades fell to their feet, and they sunk to the ground in bitter defeat to who they thought would be a weak beyblader.
Brooklyn's eyes filled with the vision of her floating barely a foot off the ground beside him. Her butterfly wings had sprouted during the attack and were slowly going away, lowering her back to the ground. But for a few seconds, he could see the aura of light brightening every inch of her in a soft glow. An unconscious smile relaxed and softened his expression, a change not lost on Mathilda who blushed in turn from the warm attention.
Seeing that their opponents had mysteriously vanished in the shame of defeat, she turned to her rescuer-of-sorts and bashfully said, "Thanks for helping me out."
Brooklyn, uncomfortable with her gratitude, briefly looked away. "It was to apologize about what happened earlier. I wanted to ask you about your wings." Glancing at her let him catch her wide, surprised eyes. "I admire the way you can fly so easily. It's almost-" He blushed "-beautiful."
Embarrassed, both blushing teens gathered their beyblades. The desire to ask her how she flew had past once he learned the answer. Being right beside her and feeling the light which encompassed her revealed that her pure heart and light spirit made up her butterfly wings. For that, he admired her greatly, even jealously.
Just as he slipped his left arm back into his white jacket sleeve, small hands pulled his other shoulder slightly down. A sweet, shy kiss touched the hollow of his cheek.
Mathilda swiftly turned away as her whole face turned bright pink. "Th-that was my way of apologizing for getting upset with you earlier."
A hesitant hand raised, stalled then hid within his jacket pocket. "I guess I should apologize for interrupting your match next. How about chocolate crepes? I passed a street vendor on the way here."
"Oh, Brooklyn, you don't have to apologize for that," Mathilda said while rubbing her thumbs together.
His confidence bolstered from seeing her blatant nervousness, allowing him to hold out his hand, palm up. "I don't like to apologize, but with you, apologizing is kind of fun."
Smiling, Mathilda took his hand, and their fingers intertwined perfectly.
I don't know how clear it was, but Brooklyn is wearing the clothes he's seen in while near Garland's house in the epilogue slideshow.
This was inspired in episode 35 of G-Rev, when Brooklyn meets Mr. Dickinson and mentions his admiration for how birds can fly (it's when he gets that adorably wistful expression on his face). This couple is seriously unloved, so I hope it brings along new fans and feeds fans of this odd pairing who are starved for it.
I know, it's totally improbable, but that's why it's so fun! Kai/Mathilda and Brooklyn/Mathilda are too fantastic.
Hope you enjoyed! Please leave your thoughts and comments! :D