Time for one of my tediously-written fanfics! We're reading A Tale of Two Cities in English class and the title of the first chapter stuck with me until inspiration hit. Just as in the book, I've tried to make it so that you won't be sure what the chapter titles mean until you've read the chapter. I've also tried to include a quote that relates, somehow, to the chapter.
Summary: Kai's father appears, but is he really all he wants the team to believe he is? Or is he part of a project planned from Kai's birth? How do Tala, Wolborg, and Dranzer fit into this?
Disclaimer: Take a glance at the word 'fanfiction' and look for the clues as to whether I own Beyblade and Tale of Two Cities or not. I'll even give you a hint or two: 'fan' is somewhere in there, as is 'fiction'.
'Thoughts', "Speech"/ time change and end/beginning of chapter.
Recalled To Life
"'Recalled to life.' That's a Blazing strange message. Much of that wouldn't do for you, Jerry! I say, Jerry! You'd be in a Blazing bad way, if recalling to life was to come into fashion, Jerry!" (Tale of Two Cities, C. Dickens)
Prologue
We've won. Kai was only faintly aware of the stunned thought floating across his mind as the real meaning of the words sunk in. He instantly turned his eyes towards his old team, the Demolition Boys. Each one of the Bladers had a defeated look to their otherwise expressionless faces. Tala's eyes were dulled with defeat and the glassy glaze of fear of the future coated the icy orbs with an unnatural shine. Bryan was glaring death at Tyson, but seemed resolved to face Boris' undying wrath with a face of radiating hatred. Spencer was looking at the Bladebreakers with longing, hiding his apprehension of what would happen to them once they entered the Abbey's darkness once more. Ian was the only one of the team who showed outward fear: his eyes were wide and he wiped sweat from his eyes as Kai watched, shifting nervously from one foot to the other, often glancing up at Spencer as though to reassure himself that he wasn't dreaming of their loss.
The signs were discreet, and to outward appearances, their pride was simply stinging from the team's beating. Yet Kai knew them all, having seen them in others, faceless and screaming, only too often in twisted memories of darkened corridors and flashes of warped, bloody red.
"Kai!" The Blader turned his stare away from the fearful group of four to see Tyson standing beside him.
"We won, Kai! We beat the Russian team!" Tyson's grin was almost too much for Kai to bear; the thought of what the Demolition Boys would go through compared to his own team's happiness made him feel sick. He allowed himself a small smile, however, at the idea that his team was the best in the world. It had been a thought that had hounded him all his life, nagging and worrying his mind into endless circles of strategies and tactics that would win him a place of power. How well he remembered those sleepless nights of training; the nights where he stared outside, past the hollow flies curled in on themselves in death that lay on the windowsill, as his thoughts lost themselves in the grey blanket of pouring rain!
"Kai? He returned to the present in time to see Tyson's face express worry just as Max bounced over with a war cry of, "GROUP HUG!" Kai found himself being hugged on all sides. Though the panic of others being too close to him rose in the back of his throat, he bit the inside of his cheek and managed to let his smile widen a bit.
Even the strangely approving glint in Voltaire's steel orbs didn't attract his attention.
They had won, after all.