Chapter 4-

Promise

After racing down two staricases, Kai stopped at the Arsenic Assasain's hotel room. He pounded on the door until someone answered. It was Tala. He sleepily stared at Kai, and then started to close the beige colored door. Unfortunatley for him, Kai's booted foot was lodged in the doorway.

"Where the hell is Triss," he demanded. Kai's auburn eyes were filled with rage and confusion. Tala saw this, and in his blue striped pjs, sighed and motioned for Kai to follow him. Kai moved out of the way and the red head quietly closed the door and began to walk down the hallway and did not stop until they reached the roof.

Kai was led to farthest corner of the roof when Tala stopped and leaned against the freezing railing.

"Kai," Tala started. "What you have to understand right now, is that during this entire tournement, you will never really see Alyona." His dull blue eyes searched over the cold Russian night.

Kai hit at the air. "Dammit Tala, what the hell are you talking about? I saw her tonight!" He was yelling now. It was the only thing he really could do in his state of anger. He was angry at Triss for not telling him what was wrong, angry at Tala for not telling him what was really going on, and angry at himself for not going after Triss. Kai heard Tala chuckle and nearly punched him in the mouth.

"What? Whats so funny?"

"Heh. God Kai, you're slipping. I really thought you of all people woulda realized that that girl you saw was not our girl," Tala started. Kai stared at the Russian boy questioningly. "Kai how often did Alyona contact you in the last five months?"

The two-toned boy thought for a moment. "Not at all... but what does that have to do with this?"

The red-head sighed again. "Kai, the scientists of Boivolt have kept Alyona practically captive for the last five months. The real Alyona is back at the Boivolt laboratories in an over-grown testtube hooked up by wires to all sorts of machines and monitors. When ever they let her out of that thing, she refuses to talk to anyone, not even Amaya..." Tala stopped and glared at the ground. Kai sat on the ground and leaned against the railing, but motioned for Tala to continue.

"The scientist that Asakura hired made a clone of Alyona to hid certain markings and such things. It's almost perfect."

"Almost? What do you mean my almost? And what do you mean by markings?"

"Let me finish before you start asking questions, OK? What I mean by 'almost perfect' is that there are certain things that they can't duplicate. Such things like Alyona's hair color, the clone's hair is too light, and then there's also Alyona's emotions, her bond with Illusion, and stamina. The clone may be almost as powerful as Alyona, but it can only be used for two to four hours at a time before it crashes.

"As far as real power goes," Tala continued," Alyona is about twenty times more powerful than she was. All of our team are. Er, Kai. You do realize that noone can find out I'm telling you this, right? Don't even tell Ray. The only other person who knows about this is probably Matti, and that's because Alyona programed the clone to slip her that letter tonight."

Kai nodded, but continued to stare blankly into the darkness.

Tala took a deep breath, and proceeded to blow a warm breath onto his freezing hands." over the past five months Biovolt has been expirimenting. Fusing our bitbeasts' DNA with our own, trying to create the perfect blader. When they fused Alyona with Illusion something happened. The part of Illusion that was a Dranzer-type bitbeast dissapeared. Now Illusion is simply another Pheonix-type. Because of the fusions, if we battle and our bitbeasts get injured we as the weilders and battle partners take half the damage. Its horrible! When we battle for Biovolt, we're battling for our lives." The red head glared at the ground and began to shake, his hands balled up into fists. Kai could easily see the rage that was gathering in Tala's blue eyes.

"So basically you're telling me that even though all five of you are super powerful, you take a greater percentage of damage then you used to?" Kai asked, his auburn eyes now on his friend. He shifted his gaze and let it rest over the city. "What were those markings you were talking about?" Kai stood up and leaned against the railings.

Tala looked away fron Kai. A cold northern wind blew over the building and the boys visibly shivered. "When we were fused, strange markings showed up on our bodies." Tala rolled up the sleeves of his stripped pjs to show Kai the blue triangles that made a pattern across his arms. "Amaya and Macha have light blue ones on their legs and torsos, Mikhail has a green hourglass pattern across his back, and Alyona has purple triangles on her cheeks, neck, and waist."

Kai laughed a little. He could just see Triss with purple triangles on her face, almost mimicking his own shark fins. He walked away from the railing, then turned back to Tala." Will I see her at all during the tournement?"

Tala just smiled before walking towards the Russian boy." She will be here at our first battle, and at the ones where we fight the Blade Bruisers and Blade Breakers. Alyona has total confidence that Matti and you will give her a real battle. Even though she doesn't talk to anyone, we all know she misses you Kai." Tala put a hand on older boy's shoulder, and grinned when he saw Kai smirk.

Looking back at the doors, Tala let his hand drop." Fuck. Kai, I'll see you in a few days. I really hope I helped you..." he turned and ran through the cold. "Alright! I'm coming! Keep your panties on woman!"

Kai turned towards the door to see Amaya Fonesca glaring at Tala, and holding a black jacket. She began to scold him about how its freezing outside, and that he should know better than to go outside at night in Russia. Kai smiled when he saw Tala silence the girl with a kiss, and then he noticed how Amaya smiled and fell into it. As they went inside, Kai stood on the roof by himself and remembered how he did that to Triss once. She nearly fell for it but smacked him and ran away laughing, making him chase after her.

"Triss..." Kai thought as he turned to go inside." I will save you. I promise."

...End chapter...

YAY! I'm soooo sorry it took me forever to upload! Between school and babysitting and other crap, I can hardly get my homework done, let alone post new chapters.

In anycase, please reveiw, even if its chewing me out for being a slow uploader!

Ja ne!

Unknown Dark Preistess