Four Winds: Chapter Four
Settling In
Yurii: BWAHAHAHAHA CHAPTER FOUR! This was really fun to write. :) I decided to be a little evil to the characters. Not much else to say here, so… ONWARD!
Important Note: I will be gone all weekend, so I won't be able to respond to any emails or posts I receive.
"Talking"
Thinking
Bit Beast Communicating
(Author's notes)
(Random shit)
Disclaimer: If I owned beyblade, there would be an entire episode dedicated to showing the slow, gruesome and painful deaths of Boris and Voltaire, and both Kai and Tala would have a girlfriend. I DO NOT OWN BEYBLADE, so don't try to sue me. I actually do have an attorney, so even if you tried to sue me I can fight back! HA!
"You've gotta be kidding me."
"Sadly, I'm not."
Drayea groaned and fell back on the couch. Mr. Dickenson had sent out a letter to all of the teams requiring them to come to some BBA-sponsored lodge in southern Switzerland. Unfortunately for the Four Winds, that meant that they would have to meet all the other teams, and with the big fuss people were making about having a new team in next year's tournament, it was expected that they would get a lot of challenges. Greeeaaaat.
Taylia looked over at the Finnish girl, who had her back turned to them.
"You're rather calm about this, Riikka."
"Huh?"
A sweatdrop appeared on three heads when they saw that she was sharpening her hunting knife.
"We have to meet all the other teams up in Switzerland." Drayea put in.
"WHAT?"
The sweatdrops got larger as Riikka jumped to her feet, knife blade extended as the whet fell to the ground, forgotten. Growing annoyed, Taylia whipped out her own knife (9-inch blade. Yes.) and expertly threw it across the room, nicking the blade of Riikka's knife and knocking it out of her hand. Her own knife embedded itself in the wall behind her.
"Riikka, need I remind you not to play with sharp objects when you're angry?" Taylia said with a dangerously calm tone.
The other three girls were silent as their team captain yanked her knife out of the wall and shoved it into her pocket. Or rather, into its holster. She'd gotten the idea from Drayea: she'd cut out the bottoms of her pockets and kept a knife holster strapped to her bare leg so that when she reached into her pocket she could draw her knife. It was discreet enough to be carried around in public without drawing attention, and if she needed to get to it, it was in the perfect place where it would look casual, unsuspecting and most importantly, undetected. Add to that the fact that she was a fast draw. You can draw conclusions from there.
Smirk.
"Well, we knew something like this would happen eventually. That's what we get for signing up for the tournament." She turned to face her team, her expression thoughtful. "Well, I'm not going to try and force anyone to go. Who's in?"
Taylia put her hand out, eyes scanning the faces of her teammates asking them for their participation with unspoken words. Drayea was the first to speak up from her place on the couch with her arms folded and legs crossed.
"Well, I owe it to you anyways, and even though I don't like it, I guess I'm in."
She got up and put her hand in as well. Riikka was next.
"I'm a part of a team for once in my life, and I'll go where you go." She too put her hand in. That just left Mitsu.
The Japanese girl sighed unsurely, her arms folded and legs crossed. She wasn't used to working in a group; hell, she still wondered why the hell she had even bothered to join the team in the first place. She never was the best with teamwork...
Getting up with a slight groan from the effort, Mitsu got up and put her hand on the others'. She looked at them with a half-smile.
"Let's go."
Sigh.
Pause.
Sigh.
Pause.
Si-
"If you sigh one more time, I will tie you to the bumper and drag you the rest of the way."
Riikka swallowed the sigh she would have let out if it hadn't been for Drayea's threat. That was the creepiest thing about the griffin: she never made threats she couldn't back up. What was even creepier was that some of them were pretty gruesome.
"Geez, just 'cause you're PMS-ing doesn't mean you have to take it out on me."
The Finn received a glare in response. Taylia, now thoroughly annoyed, ripped her ear buds out of her ears and whirled around in her seat to glare down her teammates.
"Riikka, do us all a huge favor and shut up. Drayea, quit acting like someone shoved a frickin' stick up your ass."
At the front of the bus, Mitsu chuckled quietly to herself at the unfolding scene. Even though she was almost the youngest member of the team, it felt like she was babysitting three younger sisters, one of which who happened to be a legal adult.
Taylia stuffed her ear buds back in and turned up the volume, eventually drowning out the groan of the bus' engine and nodding her head with the beat of a Linkin Park song. Riikka just shrugged off her team captain's comment and stretched herself out over the length of the whole backseat. Drayea, who was sitting in the middle not far from Taylia just folded her arms and closed her eyes.
It was going to be a long bus ride.
"Hey Tai?"
"Mm?"
"You know how we got a list with all the team names on it?"
"Mm."
"Mm to you too. Can't you respond in a real language?"
A very irritated Taylia sat up from her position stretched out across two seats.
"Think about it, Riikka. I am an insomniac, which means I don't sleep much. I value the time that I DO get to sleep, and right now you are interrupting me." She growled.
Judging by the look on her face, she was only an arm's reach away from her knife and Riikka's imminent death. The Finn made a motion with one hand over her mouth as though zipping it shut. Taylia gave a twisted smirk before falling back onto her makeshift bed again and going back to sleep.
Riikka sighed. She had long since admitted to being the most impatient member of the team, but this was ridiculous. Two whole freaking days on a bus wasn't helping her patience –or lack thereof- at all.
Karma is a bitch.
She idly wondered what sin she was paying for.
"We'll be arriving in 15 minutes, and according to Mr. D, we should be one of the first teams there, so it won't be quite as chaotic."
"Finally."
Taylia rolled her eyes at Riikka and continued.
"Anyway, let's just make a few things clear.
1) No killing/maiming annoying bladers. This especially applies to you, Riikka. ("Awww!")
2) If you decide to take a challenge, don't use your final attacks, especially not at full power. We don't want them to know all our best attacks before the tournament. It'll give them time to come up with a counter.
3) This one isn't exactly a rule, but I think you'll enjoy it: feel free to use your normal launchers."
The other three girls smirked almost simultaneously. Each of them had a launcher designed to fit their bit beast's designated weapon attack. Example: Gundula's Tempest Scythe. Drayea's made her look even more menacing than usual- her custom launcher was a scythe with an elaborately carved blade with a staff handle that was as tall as she was. A tattered red ribbon was tied near the top, and when she was really pissed off, you knew you were staring down your defeat.
The list of their custom launchers looked like this by appearance: (Taylia has three)
Taylia: Lance, scythe, twin guai (For launching both blades at once- Garland's launcher is a guai just for reference)
Drayea: Scythe
Mitsu: Glaive
Riikka: Meteor Hammer
Still, as scary as an enraged Drayea was, they all had to agree that Taylia clad in her black trench coat and armed with her own scythe launcher (it was her backup), she looked like the Grim Reaper.
"Ladies, we've arrived."
The four bladers looked up and went to the windows. Inside looking out, they could see a rather typical log cabin-style lodge, though it actually looked like a lodge in the center of a small village.
"Well, at least there are no paparazzi." Mitsu said, trying to be cheerful.
Three heads turned to look at her, all of them with a skeptical raised eyebrow as if to say 'You're joking, right?'. Mitsu just looked away, mouth shut. That was the only problem with her; when she put in her two bits, it tended to come out sounding pretty stupid.
The Four Winds girls filed off the bus, Taylia opening up the cargo doors and handing them their bags and custom launchers. They'd all packed pretty light, taking only the essentials; no point in taking something they wouldn't need. It was practically deserted inside save for the receptionist. Just when they thought they'd gotten away...
"Who the hell are you?"
Whoever had spoken -rather rudely I might add- only got them to look over their shoulders. Drayea resisted the urge to grab her scythe launcher and teach the rude punk a -brutal-lesson in manners.
Taylia just shot him a dark glare; the idiot who'd spoken was a silver-haired teenaged boy whom they immediately recognized as Garland of team BEGA. In person, he was noticeably taller than they'd thought; almost 6 feet tall. Nonetheless, Taylia in a bad mood was far more intimidating, and lo and behold, Syevrniy was already pissed off from lack of sleep.
"Read the damn list and guess." She snapped, her free hand moving to her side.
Taylia's first custom launcher (again stated, the scythe was backup) was a long lance with a blade decorated like a phoenix, appropriate to suit Arseni's Heavy Offense attack: the Omni Infernal Lance. She had it hanging by a strap from her belt so that it was parallel with her leg. The thing was surprisingly heavy despite its appearance, so even hitting a certain someone (-cough-Garland!-cough-) over the head with it would do plenty of damage.
"I'm just going to take a wild guess and say you're the rumored Tsyetirye Vyetra."
Taylia turned fully around, now thoroughly annoyed.
"Bravo Sherlock, you figured it out. Extra points for pronouncing the name right." The sarcasm dripping from her words was almost acidic.
Turning back around on her heel in a military-like fashion, Taylia trudged forward with her team right behind her.
Stupid asshole.
"Well, isn't this charming."
The way the lodge was decorated was strange enough; the way it was arranged was even weirder. Their were 4 long cabins organized in a kind of circle around the lodge, and in each "cabin" were two dorms, one for each team residing there. The dorms themselves had a huge kitchen-slash-living room-slash-dining room when one came through the door, and through one doorway led to a small hall. At one end was the laundry room, and lined up in the middle were two bedrooms with bunk beds in both of them. At the far end of the hall was a bathroom large enough for two whole teams even though only one would be occupying it. Not too much farther down was what Taylia guessed to be the den; it came as no surprise to her if Mr. Dickenson had provided them with a few things. In Drayea's case, a piano.
Riikka immediately claimed the top bunk in the room she was sharing with Mitsu, and Taylia and Drayea -who could care less about who got top and who got bottom- just did rock-paper-scissors. Drayea was on the bottom.
What was interesting though was when the girls got settled and started putting their things in the dresser drawers. Taylia found a note from Mr. Dickenson telling them that they would have to place a sign on their door to show which team it was residing there. Riikka, being the artist she was, immediately set to work on the provided bronze-gold colored metal plate and carved a simple but elaborate -and surprisingly neat- compass rose with their name written in Russian and Latin letters on the bottom below it. Their names were carved in their native languages in their appropriate spots.
It didn't take long for the girls to get settled, and a few hours after they arrived they could hear heavy footsteps as their cabin-mates arrived. Another hour passed, and the other team was silent again. Mitsu was the first to break the silence.
"Shall we go see who our temporary neighbors are?"
The others shrugged as Mitsu got up and opened the wooden door, their new sign screwed to the outside shining dully in the light. A moment passed before the Japanese girl returned, her face slightly pale.
"Something wrong, Vostotsniy?" Taylia asked.
"It's our neighbors."
"What, are they the BBA Revolution? If it's them, I can understand. Tyson and Daichi are supposed to be very loud." Riikka put in.
"No, worse."
Taylia cocked an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue.
"The Blitzkrieg Boys."
"Well, if it isn't our old friends the Four Winds."
Taylia cringed inwardly. She was hoping that getting out early would help avoid confrontation. Guess not.
" 'Old friends'? I'm flattered, Ivanov." Taylia replied dryly.
"Yeah, real cute Syevrniy." Tala stared down the team captain. She stared back in a defiant, almost challenging manner. No, she definitely wouldn't back down without a fight.
"I don't suppose introductions are in order?"
Both Taylia and Drayea sighed; this was getting old.
"Eh, fine. Taylia Strelnikov, alias Syevrniy the North Wind, at your service." She gave a mock bow.
"Drayea Rothstein, alias Zapad the West Wind."
"Mitsu Utariyma, alias Vostotsniy the East Wind."
"Riikka Korpela, alias Ugniy the South Wind."
"And now that you know all our names, I bid you adieu."
"Great, now she speaks French."
"Oui, il y a de fromage dans mon pantalon.." (1)
The other Four Winds girls snickered as their now thoroughly annoyed team captain turned and left with Mitsu and Riikka right behind her. Drayea turned to go as well but was cut off when Tala put an arm in front of her.
"I don't believe we finished our battle."
Drayea smirked in spite of herself.
He's way too confident. I think his ego needs a little puncturing.
Shall we?
Lets.
"Bring it on, Ivanov. Let's hope you got a little better since the last time we fought."
Outside, the snow was falling quietly down, sticking to the already fallen snowflakes and slowly mounting up. The morning quiet would be abruptly shattered by two warring bit beasts.
Tala cocked an eyebrow when he saw Drayea pull out her scythe launcher.
"Dare I ask?"
"No."
He shrugged it off and loaded his own launcher, Wolborg rearing and angry for some revenge. Drayea got into a kind of fighting stance.
"3, 2, 1, LET IT RIIIIPP!"
2 HOURS LATER
"-pant- You're a lot better -pant- than you let on."
Drayea smirked.
"You're not -pant- so bad -pant- yourself." She replied as she picked up the krylon blue blade out of the crater it made in the earth where it had been thrown back. They'd been fighting the entire time, and each time ended in a tie. More specifically, 8 ties.
Even the Russian team captain had to admit, Drayea was a hell of a lot stronger than she let on. Even Wolborg had admitted it. Tala stared down the griffin as she loaded her beyblade yet again into the shaft of the actual blade of her scythe; he couldn't even remember a time when he felt so much raw power radiating off of a single person. Even Taylia knew how to keep her aura down, but Drayea's was out freely, and it was incredible.
"Shall we continue, or is 8 ties enough?" Drayea asked absentmindedly as she continued fiddling with her scythe.
"I think that's enough for now."
(I'm gonna let my BFF take over- I'm having a bout of writer's block: check out her account Rikuno Nishi!)
Drayea put her launcher away, pulling the strap so it stayed on. Putting two fingers to her forehead and giving Tala a mock salute, she did an about-face and walked off. Tala stared after her. Drayea's launcher caught a beam of light, the blade glinting.
Damn. Note to self: do not anger Drayea when scythe is within reaching distance.
"Ukko, attack!"
"Raiuma, counter!"
Taylia turned to look over her shoulder when she heard her teammates' yelling. She was definitely getting further away; of course, this was the idea. She was walking through the huge forest behind the lodge up the mountain to find a decent but isolated spot to train. She always did it alone unless one of her teammates wanted to test a new strategy and battle her, but how her techniques were done were known only to her. Arseni's power had to be carefully kept under control, and at the right moment, she would unleash a small burst of power to completely destroy her opponent.
She fingered the twin guai launchers strapped to her belt by her... other launcher. She had gotten three custom launchers made, one for each blade and the twin guai (think like Garland's launcher- that is a guai) in case the situation to launch both at once came up. Right now, she was carrying the guai and lance. The lance alone weighed about25 pounds and the guai about 3 each, but it felt light as a feather to her. Then again, if every girl in the BBA trained like she did, they'd think it was light too.
Arseni, you said that you finally developed your final fifth attack?
Yes, I did. It's called the Vulcan Ravage Talon. Shall we try it out?
If we're going to use it in the battle dome, we'll have to.
Agreed.
However, there is one thing I have to practice with before your new attack...
Taylia suddenly stopped and pulled out both her blades, looking carefully at each bit chip. Her eyes remained on the other a bit longer. It was so hard to believe that she held so much power in both hands, but this was something else.
Ah, it has been a while, my Mistress.
Yes, it has Black Dranzer.
Yurii: -suspenseful music- Dun dun dun! PLOT TWIST! Yes, Taylia is the owner and wielder of Black Dranzer! And you were wondering what that second blade was doing in her holster (:
(1) Yes, there is cheese in my pants.
Yurii: Sauerkraut! WTF? o.0! (Don't ask)
RN: You told me to, damn you!
Yurii: She lies! All lies!
RN: Your eye is twitching.
Yurii: -twitch, twitch- No it isn't.
RN: Whatever you say, Yurii...
Yurii: Be grateful I let you type, bitch!
RN: My heart overflows with thanks, now let me get back to typing.
Yurii: NEVER! Leave a review so I have a legitimate excuse to work harder.