"Ifrit, get him!"

"Not so fast!"

Madoka sighed and chuckled as she entered the bey park to find that Gingka and Zero's battle was already well underway. She only hoped that they wouldn't get carried away and turn the facility into a crater.

"Come on Gingka, play nice!" Maru laughed. Gingka merely grinned playfully in response, turning his head to look at her.

"And lose out on all the fun? No way!" He exclaimed, dodging Zero's attacks the instant before they hit.

"Gahh! Come on, quit running!" Zero protested, waving his arms wildly in the air as Ifrit nearly leapt out of the stadium's pocket. "Ifrit! Special move, Burning Uppercut! If he won't hold still we'll bring him to us!"

"That's more like it!" Gingka whooped as the flames of Zero's bey rose high.

"Is he ever fazed by any battle like this?" Maru laughed as Gingka began to make a show of weaving in and out of Zero's wall of flames.

"How are you still moving freely?!" Zero yelped.

"Pegasus has too much speed to be dragged up or confined by those rules." Gingka laughed. "To the outside, Pegasus!"

"That speed won't do much for you!" Zero exclaimed, pushing his bey to go faster and faster, knowing what Gingka was likely planning due to previous battles against the redhead. "If you go too much to the outside you'll just fall out and I'll win!"

Gingka grinned. "Not if I knock Ifrit out first!"

"You can try!" Zero challenged

Gingka merely laughed, eyes ablaze with excitement as a wall of blue flames rose around Zero's orange and snuffed them out in an instant.

"Not this again!" Zero yelped, shielding his face and peering between his arms as Gingka dramatically swept his arm to the side, unfazed by his own power.

"Pegasus! Storm Bringer!"

Madoka sighed and calmly pulled a lever just before the explosion from Gingka's attack rocked the stadium, throwing several of the less-experienced bladers on their backs.

"Just how much more power do you have, anyway?!" Zero yelled from the top of the stands, where he had landed in a rather tangled up position with a few other bladers.

Gingka just laughed triumphantly, still standing almost precisely where he had been before. "Quite a bit more than that still." He admitted. "But anything much more would blow the stadium away with you guys."

"Even with the special venting system that was installed to reduce the damage caused by those explosions." Madoka shook her head. "Honestly Gingka, how many more stadiums are we going to have to replace because of your recklessness?"

Gingka shrugged. "Who knows? Good thing Tsubasa found a cheaper way to make them."

"Yeah, out of necessity!" Madoka facepalmed. "You're lucky you've always had a friend high-up in the WBBA or you'd have been banned from battling a long time ago because of how destructive your battles always get."

"I'm just glad we padded the stadium walls." Maru groaned, checking her laptop to make sure it wasn't damaged before putting it away as Gingka stepped down from the platform above the stadium, helping a few young bladers up as he made his way to Zero to return Ifrit to his protege.

"Showoff." Zero grumbled as he took his bey and put it away before standing and dusting himself off.

"New record." Gingka smirked in amusement.

Zero stared at him. "... Were you seriously just seeing how far into the stands you could throw me?!"

Gingka flashed one of his signature mischievous grins at the Ifrit blader. "Now Zero, what in the world makes you think I would do that?" He asked as he held up a hand and grabbed Pegasus out of the air.

Zero facepalmed. "Sometimes I seriously can't believe you." he said, before shoving the older blader. Gingka just stood his ground and laughed, ruffling Zero's hair with one hand while the other moved towards his carrying case to put Pegasus away.

"Pegasus is even still glowing, sheesh. Does it normally do that after a higher-power battle?" Zero grumbled, shoving Gingka's hand away from his hair.

Gingka paused and blinked, looking down at Pegasus, then holding it up in front of his face to get a better look at it. "... No. No, it doesn't normally glow like this." He muttered, his tone of voice and entire demeanor suddenly very serious.

Zero blinked, confused at the sudden change of emotion he saw in Gingka's eyes. "Gingka? Is everything okay?" He asked slowly.

"... I'll be back later." Gingka said quickly before turning away and bolting out of the stadium as fast as he could run.

"Wha-Gingka?! Where are you going?!" Madoka yelped as the redhead nearly knocked her over in his dash for the exit.

"Well that escalated quickly." Maru said, blinking and staring after the redhead as he disappeared.

"Madoka, does Pegasus glowing on its own mean anything significant?" Zero asked, joining the girls where they stood.

Madoka blinked. "Like glowing how?"

"Just… glowing. I pointed it out to him thinking that it was something from the aftermath of the battle but then he got really serious and bolted." Zero said.

Madoka narrowed her eyes in thought. "That's unusual. Pegasus glows when it's in the middle of battle sure, but never out of it that I- Oh. Oh no. Gingka wait for me!" She turned and bolted after her fiance, leaving Zero and Maru to blink cluelessly.

"... Should we follow them and find out what's up?" Maru asked slowly.

Zero nodded. "If we can even catch up." He said. "Come on. We can at least ask the Manager about it."

With that, the two took off, little knowing but somewhat suspecting the gravity of the situation they were all about to be thrown into.

"Manager!" Zero called as he and Maru entered Bull Burger.

"He's in the back, on the phone." One of the waitresses replied. "He should be with you in just a minute, but you're welcome to go back and wait for him if it's as urgent as your faces suggest."

"Thanks!" Zero said, as he and Maru walked quickly into the back, only to find Benkei with a phone pressed against his ear and a similar serious expression to the one Gingka had had previously.

"You can't be serious about this… No, I don't know if it happened to Gingka too, but I'd be willing to guess that it did. Yes, I remember what it meant last time… I'm not that stupid, Kyoya pal. What? A warning? No I didn't get any sort of weird call like that. Madoka did though. She was telling me about it this morning… Alright, I'll tell them... Bye." He hung up the phone with a sigh.

"You were talking to Kyoya?" Zero blinked in surprise, having not expected the name of Gingka's rival to come up at all.

Benkei turned to the two and put on a rather obviously fake smile. "Yeah, he decided to call me today! How can I help you two?"

"Did he say something about his bey glowing? We already know something's wrong." Maru said.

Benkei sighed, the smile dropping from his face. "It's not your fight, but yes. I assume Gingka's bey was glowing too then?"

Zero and Maru nodded, becoming more and more nervous by the attitude of anyone who found out about the glowing beys.

"Manager… What does that mean? What does the beys glowing mean?" Zero asked.

"And just those two's beys, too?" Maru asked. "I mean, Ifrit isn't glowing."

Benkei ruffled Zero's hair and patted Maru on the head, chuckling. "It's not their first time seeing this. Don't worry about it. Everything will be fine."

Zero sweatdropped and shoved Benkei's hand away, grumbling. "You say that but how you guys are all acting tells me you're not even sure of that, are you?"

Benkei hesitated.

"Just tell us. We've been through some bad stuff now. We can handle it." Zero said, crossing his arms.

Benkei sighed and shook his head before jumping for his phone as it rang again. "Tsubasa?... Yeah Zero and Maru were just asking about that, I already know what's going on. Kyoya called me and told me too."

"Gingka and Madoka came here and told me. We all know what this probably means." Tsubasa said. "I need you to come here at once. You may as well bring Zero and Maru. They're already suspicious and at this rate, not telling them is more likely to freak them out than telling them. They may as well at least know what we're all so serious about."

Benkei nodded and sighed. "Yeah, that makes sense. We'll be right over there. See you soon."

Zero and Maru glanced at each other nervously as Benkei hung up and put his phone away once more.

"We're going to the WBBA. Tsubasa or Gingka will tell you what's going on once we get there." Benkei said. "Let's get going so they don't have to wait too long."

Zero and Maru nodded nervously and followed Benkei out the door.

"Looks like the real fun's beginning then." One cloaked figure, standing atop a sand dune, said, staring at the sky as clouds swirled before turning to a second cloaked figure behind him.

"I knew it would be soon. That's why I bothered having you help me hack into things so I could warn those who needed to know." the other said.

"You gonna bother helping them?"

"And be bothered? No. Not unless they mess everything up and I have to."

"You really should have given them more details sooner. They could have nipped this in the bud before it really got started as much as it has."

"It's not like I could care what happens to them. I just don't want to see that lunatic pop up again."

"You mean the guy who claimed to be behind Doji, Ziggurat, and Nemesis before, as well as apparently the capture of Gingka twice now in order to make a second attempt with the first two?"

"Precisely. He's messed with my life quite enough and I'm tired of it."

"So you're not going to bother going in and stopping him yourself?"

"Oh please. As if I even can right now. I don't know where he went after I told him to get lost and blasted away his gang of hooligans."

"Suit yourself then. I guess we have that in common." The first cloaked figure said, chuckling.

A derisive snort came from the other figure as he stood, eyes flashing dimly in the moonlight. "Shut up and let's keep moving."

"If you say so." The first figure chuckled and jumped, sliding neatly down the sand dune before rolling at the bottom and shooting back to his feet with practised ease. "You coming?" He asked, only to find that his companion was already standing beside him and walking off towards the next sand dune. The two continued on in silence, disappearing into the desert as they traveled towards the destination that only they really knew.