A/N: Well, so far nobody replied to my story, but it is great fun to write it anyway.


My head pounded as I lay down on my bed. Adrian sat down next to me, and I told him what had happened. The dorm was a large room with sixteen beds that looked like old iron hospital beds: white blankets, sheets and pillows and very uncomfortable matresses. About ten other children very busy playing cards.

"You're becoming Boris' pet," Adrian joked.

I rolled my eyes. "If that means having a headache all the time, I don't know if I'm too happy about it. Anyway, Mikael will kill me when he's back."

"Why?"

"I humilated Fritz."

"Fritz humilated you all the time!"

I yawned. "Maybe."

"I can't wait to be tested, too," Adrian said. He lay down, too, and crossed his arms behind his head.

"Why?"

"I want to prove that I'm not that bad at everything."

Maybe he was too soft and a coward, but he wasn't a bad blader, and he was very athletic. I wanted to reply something, but I could only yawn again. Our heads touched one another.

"Good night," Adrian mumbled.

"Night." I blinked and saw his firy red hair before I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

"Wake up, brat!" Something hit me hard on my head. Having my eyes closed, I could hear Adrian breathing next to me. Not wanting to wake him up as well, I tried to get onto my feet, but fell down on the floor.

Fritz was standing there when I finally got up again.

"What are you doing here?" I whispered.

"Don't be cheeky – or do you want to wake up your little boyfriend? I was told to go and get you!"

"He isn't my boyfriend. And what are you doing here in the middle of the night?"

"It's half past five. That is part of the training programme of the top bladers. If you don't get along with it, you'd better leave."

Rubbing my nose, I followed Fritz. We went to the training rooms. There, I got a few slieces of bread, but nothing to drink. By then, I hadn't drunk anything in about 24 hours, because there had been no water for supper the day before, only fruit tea.

Again, I had to battle, though I still felt dizzy. Though I didn't see Fritz, I knew he was watching me, and he was angry.

Eventually, I had to go to Boris' office. It was a large, but dark and ugly room, and it smelled old and dead. There wasn't even a computer or any sign of high technology. The room could have also belonged to the 19th century.

"Nearly everything is positive," the coach said.

Boris nodded. "I'm surprised, really. I didn't notice how good some of our bladers are. That was a mistake, I guess."

Gaspadin seemed satisfied; usually, I felt scared in his presence, but he was in an unusual good mood that day.

"You've found something in blading… Try to keep it, and I promise I will make you a champion one day, such as your brother is," he told me.

And this sentence surprised me. I had never before thought about becoming a champion, but as he mentioned it… I had found something in blading, yes, and this feeling was somehting I really liked. Smiling inside, I went back to training.

I had to get up at the same early time every day, and when I got to bed after fourteen or more hours, I fell asleep immadiately and couldn't talk to Adrian. Though I did miss our conversations, and all the games and fun, I enjoyed blading more and more. It was a great feeling when I got better, even though it was exhausting.

Boris hid in his labs again and didn't let anyone come near him. After a while, I stopped counting the days, I ate and drank less, but my body didn't show any signs of being exhausted.

Once, when I picked up my blade after a battle, something hit me in my neck, and I felt hot blood running down my back.

"Ah!" I pressed my hand against the wound. Turning around, I saw Fritz and his crowd of jerks (including Ethiopis) standing a few paces behind me.

"You're a crying baby – so what are you doing here?" Fritz picked up his blade that he had shot at me. It had returned to him automatically, but this was nothing but an impressive trick. Just a trick.

I tried to ignore my brother, but he shouted other insults.

Don't pay attention to him, he's just a stupid jerk. No tears, don't cry! No tears, I told myself.

Eventually, he said something which surprised me the most: "Try to beat me now, bastard!"

Just then, I realized how much I had bruised his pride when I had beaten him; and I knew he would pay me back. However, I couldn't ignore his challenge, even if I knew that it might be a dangerous challenge. Just once, I wanted to keep my pride.

"No problem, I'll kick your butt within a minute!"

Fritz grinned. "You're that confident? I'll teach you a lesson you'll never forget!"

There were three or four coaches at the far end of the room, and they could easily pretend to have seen or heard nothing. So we could start our battle right there.

We took our positions around the dish, ready to launch our blades. Stupid me, I really should have known that Fritz had a special weapon…

"3, 2, 1… Let it rip," Ethiopis bellowed.

The match started, and just when I wanted to attack him first, my so-called brother showed me what he had in store for me: "Coyborg, attack!" A shining shadow-coyote appeared above his blade.

"A bit-beast?" I nearly fell backwards.

Fritz was satisfied. "Are you surprised, little rat?"

Then, everything happened pretty quickly. I saw a green and a red flash light before I felt a hot pain in my shoulder when an invisible power hit me.

The next thing I remember is lying on the floor, the metallic taste of blood in my mouth. Every part of my body was aching when I tried to move. Especially my nose hurt, for I had fallen on my face and rolled over to my side. The pain took away my breath.

"Are you crazy, boy? You're not supposed to use and waste this power that way." It was Tala's voice.

Getting up as quickly as I could (which wasn't really quickly in fact), I saw Tala, Ian, Taylor, Bryan and Mikael standing behind Fritz. Tala shouted at him, and Mikael seemed to be angry at him, too. They all looked at me for a second. Etiopis and the others didn't dare to move either, for they were shocked about the D-Boys sudden appereance.

"Go away, all of you!" Mikael demanded.

Not wanting to get into more trouble, I walked away slowly and left the hall, though the pain was still torturing me all the while.

My head was poundering when I entered the yard. It was icy, the snow wasn't soft and fresh anymore, but hard and frozen. The thought of previous battle made me shiver – it had been terrible. The power of Coyborg, the way to use it, being so powerless and weak… and Bryan.

He had looked at me like Taylor, or Mikael - as if he didn't care.

"Stupid kid, sulking vult," I blamed myself.

He had talked about changes, I remembered. If this change meant losing my friend… No, I had never needed anything like patience, so why… My head began to ache even more. "Loser, fool!" Tears streamed down my face, and the tears just wouldn't stop anymore. There came more and more…

For an hour or even longer, I sat outside in the snow, my arms slung aroung my knees, rocking myself back and forth. The battle had been too short to feel all the fear, but now I did feel it, and it made me shudder and I had to cry even more. After a while, pain and fear became one and disappeared behind the streams of tears.

That night, I searched for Adrian but couldn't find him. The dorm was empty, there was no one at all. All alone, I lay in the darkness, knowing my only friend was gone. However, I couldn't cry, the tears were dried and there were no more. I just felt wounded inside – lonely, weak, and scared. The night was cold, and there was no way to get warm.

"I hate changes!"

A few weeks before, Adrian and I had played in the snow like wild children, we had had snowball wars and all that… Now, these times were over, though I didn't want to believe it. I wanted my friend back, and the lessons with Bryan. These had been the two only things in my life I had loved ( - I had loved Bryan, too, but I was sure he didn't care about me, so why should it bother me?)

I went to the dinning hall in the morning after my battle with Fritz, hoping to meet Adrian there, but instead there were other kids who looked at lists that hung on the wall. The tables were empty, and nobody even thought about having breakfast. I, too, was more curious than hungry.

When I recognized some names on the lists, I got an idea: Search for Adrian's name! Hoping that it would lead me to my friend…

After ten minutes, I even found his name on one of the lists: Adrian Nicovlov. According to the list, he was training in the basement.

Just as I wanted to head for there, someone grabbed me by me upper arm from behind.

"Where do you think you're going?"

I turned around to see the one who hold me back. "Bryan?"

He didn't reply anything but dragged me to the far end of the dinning hall, where others were already waiting for something. There were the D-Boys, Mikael and a few youngsters – including Julie-Ann, who whispered something like "loser" when seeing me.

However, I ignored her and Bryan pulled me down to make me sit next to him.

"Everyone's here?" Tala looked at his team mates.

"Taylor's missing," Ian said. The D-Boys glanced at Mikael.

My brother shrugged. "I guess she's still sleeping."

Just then, a very messed up girl joined the group, trying to put up her dark blue hair in a high ponytail. "Sorry, I slept in." Taylor yawned.

Tala rolled his eyes. "It would have been a wonder if you had been punctual."

She gave the red.head an innocent look and sat down next to Mikael.

"So, if you think you're prepared for this, we can start," Tala told everyone; and it seemed to me that everyone knew what he was talking about – everyone but me!

"Let's just go, kay?" Tala wasn't one for big speeches – not like Boris was. "And if the two of you," he said and glanced at Taylor and my brother, "think that you can behave, you can come as well."

Bryan grimaced, but said nothing when Taylor complained about Tala's words. "I didn't do anything – at least, not today."

"I just wanted to make sure that you aren't going do anything – at least, not this morning," Tala replied.

This behaviour was so… childish? Human! I had never though of Taylor, Bryan, Tala, or my brother as friends who kidded around and had fun-arguments.

Adrian, the thought came back to my mind, where are you?

Tala paired us up into groups when we were in the training center. The others took out their blades, and just then, I realized I hadn't mine anymore. When had I used it for the last time? The battle against Fritz… I had forgotten it because-

"What are you waiting for?" Julie-Ann complained. Tala had told us to work together for this morning.

I bit my bottom lip; for sure, I would be in deep trouble if I told anyone I had forgotten my blade.

"Riley!" Mikael came over to me; his hand outstretched, he opened his fist. "That's yours? At least, what's left of it…" In his hand, I saw my broken blade, hardly enough was left to recognize it. The metal was melted on the edge of the blade, the power wring was totally broken. I took it from my brother's palm.

"And how do you think you can blade with that, loser?" Julie-Ann interrupted.

Mikael shrugged, showing me it was none of his buisness. "Bryan will take care of that."

So I had to go to Bryan with my broken beyblade. He was just explaining something to three other kids, when I found him in the great hall.

As he was finished, he saw me and rolled his eyes. "Why did you accept the challenge at all? You won't be able to battle with that blade anymore. By the way, you should be glad that you didn't get seriously injured."

I looked down at the gorund.

"You're okay, aren't you?"

"Sure."

"Try this one." The lavender-haired teen took something out of his pocket: a white and olive coloured beyblade. However, it looked different than my old one. When I hold it, I couldn't wrap my fingers around it for it was too big, and the edges were pretty sharp.

"Your old one was too small for an international standarized battle. At first, it will be hard for you to control this new type of beyblade, but you'll get used to it. Tala thinks you're too small, so you should better prove that you're not." The tone of his voice told me that he wasn't in the right mood for small-talk.

"Thank you," I mumbled.

"Don't thank me too soon. See you tonight – if you're good enough…"

Bryan had been right. It was harder to control the new blade, but as soon as I knew how to control it; the power was enormous. At top speed, it threw Julie's blade out of the arena again and again, and it's strength nearly overpowered me, but it was great, just great!

"I think the two of you should stop now," Taylor said in the early afternoon. She seemed really bored of being the coach. "You've been battling for hours, and the same blader won every time."

"Hours?" I was surprised.

The older girl ignored what I had said. "Wait here," she told me and took Julie-Ann to another room.

I looked around in the high-ceiled hall, trying to find out what the others were doing. About 10 or 11 other kidswere there, but there had been like 16 or 17 at the beginning. Bryan walked over to me.

"You're getting along with the blade?"

"Yeah, it was awesome," I answered enthusiastically.

His face stayed emotionless. "How comes you improved your skills so fast?"

"Huh?" I blinked. "I just do what I always do."

The teen looked down at me. "No. I just watched you blading. You got control over your blade pretty easy."

"I don't understand what you mean," I replied honestly.

Bryan shook his head. "Never mind. It's four o'clock – English tea time." He smiled weakly, but I felt that something was wrong… very wrong indeed!

The both of us walked over to the far end of the hall where other had already helped themselves and ate some bread and cheese. I was the hell thirsty, but there was only tea, and no water.

For some reason, Bryan behaved nearly overprotective: he gave me food, and a drink, but when I didn't drink, he gave me a puzzled look.

"You're not thirsty?"

"I am, but this stuff tastes fishy – I never drink it."

Again, Bryan gave me the same look he had given me when I had told hom I hadn't noticed my improvement. Why did he sometimes act so distanced, and sometimes he was so worried about me? I missed Bryan; the one who had learned with me and taken care of me when I was injured. Now, he didn't care when I was hurt, but when something quite ordinary happened. That was really annoying!

Tala came over to us with a list. "Bryan, have you seen Taylor lately?"

"Last time I saw her, she took the other girl away," Bryan replied.

The redhead looked down at me. "She's still too small."

"She did pretty well."

"Are you impressed? Who wonders…"

"No, Tala. Ask Taylor if you don't trust my judgement; she was with the kids all morning."

Tala's eyes were pinted on me. Shyly, I dared to look back. His yes were aquablue, like… I shivered – I had seen this look and these eyes before! The very same colour, the very same light around the iris…

I was so shocked that I looked at him with my mouth wide open.

Playfully, Bryan put a finger into my mouth. "Shut your mouth again, kid – or do you want to catch flies?"

"Whatever," Tala mumbled, "I don't care about your buisness. You're the one responsible for the youngsters' training, and I'm going back to my own buisness tomorrow."

Bryan sighed. "Don't be cranky. C'mon," he grabbed Tala by his upper arm and dragged him away.