BeyTrix

Me: Hey, guys! Long time, no post, eh? Well, exams are coming up, so I'm gonna be posting a fair amount of stuff this weekend, since I won't get to post for a while... Anyway....
Shi: This is a new story of Aibou's. It's a Beyblade Matrix cross.
Primrose: Yeah. She's almost done the second chappie, too! Go master!
Bob: Yeah. She don't own Beyblade, she don't own the Matrix, but hell, she does own the plot and her original characters.
Me: Well, R&R!

Chapter One

Virus

Four teenagers sat up, talking, on the floor of a large room, which was empty except for them, several sleeping bags, and another teen, who was still asleep. Three of the talking kids, as well as the sleeping one, were boys, whereas the other was a female. The girl, whose name was Hilary, was about 17 years of age, and was still clad in her pink nightgown. She was half asleep, and would occasionally lean her head on the boy next to her's shoulder out of drowsiness, only to wake up upon contact.
The boy next to her, Ray Kong, was of Chinese origin, and had a long, black ponytail that was wrapped in cloth, and his bangs were held back by a headband with a Ying-Yang symbol on it. He was wearing only a pair of black silk boxers (all could see that he was fairly – but not overly – fit) and was also 17 years old.
On Hilary's other side was an American 17-year-old by the name of Max Tate. He had blonde hair, and wore a yellow T-shirt and a pair of dark green shorts. He was talking spiritedly about something.
The last and youngest of the awakened group was a 14-year-old named Daichi. Daichi wore a purple sleeveless shirt along with matching shorts, and was saying, "I think King and Queen are going to give us a run for our money this year."
"Doubt it," replied Max.
Daichi glanced at his watch. "Did something happen between them and Kai? Ever since he learned that they and their team are our next opponents, he's been training non-stop. I mean, today he left at about six thirty, and he hasn't been back since, and it's almost noon."
"Kai's always been like that," Ray put in. "Hey, should we wake Tyson up soon?"
The four of them looked over at their 17-year-old friend Tyson Granger, who was still lying in his sleeping bag, sound asleep, snoring slightly. Tyson had shoulder-length dark blue hair that was normally tied back in a ponytail and covered by a ball cap – now, however, it looked like a birch broom in the fits. Max, grinning mischievously, stood up and walked over to where Tyson lay. He drew in a deep breath, and said, in a very loud voice, "TYSON! WE'RE GOING OUT FOR FOOD AND THERE'S NONE LEFT IN THE HOUSE AND WE'RE LEAVING YOU HERE!"
"Huh?! Wha?! Where's the food?!" Tyson said hurriedly, as he sat up to see his four friends laughing. "Why do you always do that?"
"Why do you always fall for it?" Hilary commented. She looked at him questioningly, and inquired, "What are you wearing?"
Ty looked down and, to everyone's amusement but his own, saw that he was wearing Spiderman pajamas. "AH!" he screamed and ran out of the room, leaving the others laughing to kill themselves.
"Poor kid," Ray said, standing up and politely helping Hilary to her feet. "I think we've scarred him for life."
"I think he was scarred for life long before he met you people," said Hilary.
The Max, smiling, rested his arm on Ray's shoulder and daring went where no boy has ever been. He said, as a joke, "I think he was scarred for life the day he met you, Hil."
"Hey!" Hilary said, and smacked him in the arm; he stumbled, and then purposely fell over.
Ray smiled an award-winning smile. "Nice one," he said, and gave her a high five before helping Max back up. "And you're a brave soul, Max."

Twenty minutes later, when the entire group was dressed, fed, watered, and equipped with their beyblades, they left Tyson's house on their bicycles. Tyson seemed to be leading the group, but nobody else knew where he was going. Because of this, young Daichi asked the question.
Tyson waited a moment before replying. "I realized something this morning."
"What, that Spiderman doesn't suit you?" teased Hilary.
"Shut up!" he exclaimed. Everybody except Tyson stopped, and Hil's eyes welled up. Realizing that his friends were no longer following him, Tyson halted, rode back, and got off his bike. "For once, I'm trying to be serious."
"Why did you yell at her?" Daichi inquired.
Ty just shook his head, got back on his bike, and said, "You coming?"
The group looked cautious at first, not sure if they should follow Tyson or not – he didn't yell at his friends a lot anymore, and he hardly ever told them to shut up. But Ray and Max nodded, followed by Daichi and finally Hilary, who was still in slight shock. They continued to pursue Tyson for about five more minutes, silent, and unsure of where they were going.
Suddenly, he stopped, and got off his bike. When the teens looked up at the little restaurant they'd arrived at, they were painfully reminded of the horrible happenings of a year ago. It came back as clearly as if it had happened the day before. One of their best friends, Kenny – a.k.a. Chief – just... up and disappeared. The whole town searched everywhere for months, with no results. Also, Max, who's mother worked in America and with a team called the All Starz, for out that Emily (the only girl on the All Starz team), who was in Japan with her team, had disappeared without a trace as well. Nobody had heard from them or made any progress in the case since then.
Tyson walked into the small restaurant, which Kenny's parents owned. A middle-aged man was behind the counter. "Hello kids," he greeted them. "How are you? Are you hungry?"
"We're fine, and we just ate, but thanks anyway. Listen, would I be able to take a look at Kenny's laptop?"
The man smiled. "Oh, of course Tyson!" he said, and walked up a set of stairs and out of sight. A moment later, and came back and gave a laptop to Tyson, who took it and went over to a table with his friends. "If you need anything, feel free to ask."
"Sure. Thanks a lot," called Tyson, as he opened up the laptop. "Guys, we never actually had a look at this, did you know that?"
"We know now," Daichi said. "Now, explain to me why we're going to break into Kenny's laptop?"
Tyson sighed. "We're going to talk to Dizzi, and check out Kenny's e-mail." After turning on the power, a screen came up and asked for a password. "Password? Kenny never had a password!"
"Oh, don't you know anything?" Hilary said, shoving Tyson out of the chair and sitting down herself. "You need a password to get into any computer. And it's usually the simplest thing in the world. A word or name you hear every day, but something that no computer thief would think of. The only problem is..."
"Finding something Kenny would use?" Max inquired.
"Bingo," Hilary said, gracefully pushing her hair out of her eyes. They sat there for a minute or two, racking their brains and trying words the Chief may've used.
Suddenly, Ray went over to her, motioned for Hilary to remove herself from the chair – which she did – and said down. "We are all stupid," he said, and he typed something down. When he hit the enter button, the screen went black, and Kenny's desktop came up. "It was so obvious."
"What was it?" questioned Tyson.
Ray smiled, and winked. "I think I won't tell you, and let you ponder over it for I while," he replied. Turning to the computer, he said, "Dizzi, you here?"
The computer was silent. Everybody looked confused. Many years ago, Kenny's bit-beast, Dizzara – more commonly called Dizzi – was imprisoned in his laptop after a freak power surge. Over the years, she'd helped them in battles and tournaments, and turned them into the World Champion team of Beyblading.
"Dizzi, come on, it's only us, the Blade-Breakers," Tyson said.
Ray tossed aside the fact that Dizzi wasn't answering. "Maybe she's asleep or something," he suggested, not noticing the folder that said 'Dizzara'. "Let's just go check out his e-mail." They clicked on his e-mail inbox, and were happy to find that they didn't need a password to get in. Ray scanned all his e-mails with no luck, and then went into something called History. Luckily, it was the history of Kenny's Instant Messages. Going into one of the most recent ones, which took place a little over a year ago, they read through it.
The person Kenny had been chatting with was none other than Emily. The conversation went like this:

'Emily: Hey, brainiac
Kenny: Hello Em. What r u at?
Emily: N2M... u?
Kenny: 'Bout the same. I think Dizzi's infected with something... she's acting all weird
Emily: Infected... a virus?
Kenny: yeah sob I hope it's nothing major. But she's been randomly closing programs, and whenever
Emily: Kenny? Kenny, r u there?
Kenny: yeah, I'm here. Whenever I go IMing people, these weird pop-ups keep coming up. That's why I was just cut of there for a couple minutes.
Emily: ok. Brb, Ken!
Kenny: Alrighty
Emily: Back! Listen, I just talked with Judy – Max's mom. She said you should probably lock Diz up.
Kenny: I know...
Emily: Hey, are your people coming over later on?
Kenny: Yeah, I think.
Emily: Hey, do you know who a person by the username of 'Raven' is?
Kenny: no... but he just IMed me too!
Emily: Okay... this is weird, man.
Kenny: Yeah.
Emily: I g2g, so ttyl!
Kenny: yeah, peace.'

"Hey," Tyson said, "this was the day before Kenny disappeared!"
"Well, duh," replied Hilary. "I wonder who this Raven person is – they sound suspicious... Ray, do you know how to find it out?"
Ray nodded. "It's only simple," he told her, as he closed up the discussion between Emily and Kenny, and went into another one, which was with 'Raven'. It was a short one – very short, with only about half a dozen messagees each. Kenny didn't seem to have a clue, until near the end, but it looked as though they knew who he was, as they kept calling him 'Chief'. They said something about meeting that night, under the bridge.
"So it seems we've found out something," Daichi voiced the obvious. "Can we find out who Raven is?"
"I can e-mail this person," Ray informed him. He clicked on Raven's name, and a small informational box showed up that said 'littleblackraven13666hotmail.com'. The boy then went into write an e- mail. After writing the address out, he wrote in the dialogue box, 'Hello Raven. We are friends of the Chief's. We were just wondering if you knew where he was. Thank you!'
"What the hell?! Why are you being so polite?! Raven could be some crazy old fart bag who manipulated Kenny and kidnapped him!!" Hilary yelled angrily.
Kong shook his head. "Honestly, Hil, don't you realize that there's a much greater chance Raven will reply if we ask nicely?"
Hilary pouted.
Ray clicked on 'Send', and a few moments later, a box popped up that said that the e-mail address they'd put in did not exist. "That's odd," he said slowly. He repeated the process a couple more times, just to make sure he didn't make a foolish mistake, but each time, he came up with the same result.
"Damn!" Tyson said as he pounded his fist on the table.
A kindly woman, who happened to be Kenny's mother, walked in. "Is everything all right?" she inquired.
"Oh, we made a little bit of progress on where Kenny might be... we think," Hilary said.
"That's wonderful!" exclaimed Kenny's mom. "Listen, if it's no trouble, could you please show the police what you've come up with?"
The young girl smiled. "Of course we will. If they can get even an inch closer to finding Kenny, then we'll do anything within our power."
"Glad to here it," the woman replied, a smile on her face.

Half an hour later, at around two o'clock, after they'd shown the cops what they'd found, the group went to find Kai. Ray, who was pretty sure he knew where the guy would be, was leading his friends. They soon came to the trees that surrounded a small field. After maneuvering their way through the woods, they spotted Kai.
Kai was in the middle of the field, with his beyblade. Half a dozen empty soda cans were placed strategically on the grass, standing erect. Kai Hiwatari himself was the same age as the majority of his friends, and had bluish-silver hair. As soon as he saw his friends in the corner of his eye, he summoned Dranzer, the bit-beast that inhabited his beyblade, back to him.
"Kai! Hey, Kai! Guess what we found out!!" Tyson said, as he, followed by his friends, ran towards the middle of the field.
Dranzer was almost into Kai's hand when a gunshot rang through the air. Tyson, Max, Ray, Hilary, and Daichi stopped dead in their tracks. Although it didn't contact the blade, the sheer speed of the bullet in such close proximity of the beyblade caused Dranzer to fall to the ground. The bullet itself hit the ground not ever a hair's width away from the toe of Kai's sneaker.
"What the hell was that?!" Tyson yelled.
The half a dozen teenagers looked to the origin of the sound, which was a small hill, not a minute's run away, on which stood two people. Both were dressed in long, black coats, along with dark sunglasses. The figure holding the pistol had straight, sorrel hair that reached the color of the jacket. The other person, who was talking into a cellular telephone, had red-orange hair that was tied back in a ponytail.
Kai bent down to pick up Dranzer, whereas his friends went to see if the object that almost hit Kai was a real bullet. When they found out it was, they looked back up at the hill, but unfortunately, the couple of strangers were gone.
Later that evening, five of the six were still in shock. Kai, however, seemed very tranquil and collected... the exact opposite of Hilary.
"How can you be so calm at a time like this?!" she nearly yelled. "For all we know, some freaky strangers may be plotting to kill us all!"
Kai shook his head, and sighed. "I would prefer, Hilary, if we didn't discuss what happened back at the field."
"Speaking of the field..." Tyson began, even though he was fully aware of Kai's death glare, "why have you been training so much lately? I mean, you can't be that worried about King and Queen's team – King and Queen themselves are pushovers, and I'm pretty sure that the rest of the Royal Flush is no different."
Kai sighed. "Ignoramus. I'm not worried about them. I'm worried about the Punishers."
Tyson was taken aback. "Did you just call me stupid?"
"The Punishers..." Ray said, "they sound like a team, but I've never heard of them before."
"They are a team," Kai said. "I only found out about them when I was talking to Mr. Dickinson the day of our last victory. Apparently, they were late signing up, and originally, he wasn't going to let them into the tournament."
"But...?" Daichi asked.
"But Mr. D put them against the Blade Sharks, to see if they were any good. It turns out – and these are his words – that they have exception skill, and can probably give the Blade Breakers a run for their money. That's what he said, and when he says a team is good... they're usually tough."
"Cool," Ray said.
"I wonder," Hilary said dreamily, "if there's any cute guys on the team..."
Daichi inquired, "Hey, do you think there's any hot chicks on the team?"
"Do you know if they have bit-beasts?" asked Max.
Once again, Tyson questioned, "Did you call me stupid?"
"Honestly, you people are weird," spoke Kai. "Anyway, that day, when I was at the BBA Headquarters, I looked up their info – after all, I'd never heard of a team called the Punishers before. The main bladers are three girls, but their alternate is a male. And yes, Tate, they do have bit- beasts. Their first match is tomorrow, right after we take on the Royal Flush team. And if both we and they advance, we'll be facing them two days after tomorrow."
"Damn, that's a handful to take in..." Ray said.
Hilary fixed Kai with an unblinking stare. When he asked what in God's name she was doing, she replied, "Just tell me what your feelings on what happened today are."
"Honestly?" he inquired. She nodded. "All right then. Personally, I think this is all some set-up by Chief and Emily."
Hilary gasped. "What do you mean?!"
"Well, think about it. Kenny and Emily disappear without a trace one day, noticing it would cause an absolute uproar, and the one day we make any progress at all on where he and Emily might be, I almost get shot!"
Ray looked thoughtful. "He does make a bit of sense, Hilary... but Emily wouldn't do that, and definitely not Chief!"
"Oh..." Hilary pouted. "I'm not gonna be able to get to sleep tonight..."
"Kai, DID YOU CALL ME STUPID?!"