Sorry it's been so long but I've had a lot of stuff going on. However, I've only got two more exams and after that I should only have homework to worry about (unless the teachers are really mean). Updates shouldn't take so long now and should be more or less regular. Thank you for being so understanding. Sorry again!
May I also add that the language they are speaking at the moment is Japanese and any other language will be in bold.
Disclaimer: Trust me, if I owned Betblade there would be a lot more yaoi and I mean a lot.
Chapter Eight
It was eight in the morning and everyone, sans Max and Tyson who were still sleeping, was awake and in the kitchen. Rei was helping Spencer make breakfast, not wanting the blonde to overwork himself because of his team mate. The rest of the Russians were either reading the newspaper, Ian with the comics, Bryan with sports, Tala trying to do the puzzles and Ellie with the rest, or drinking coffee (Kai). All was quiet except for the low hum of the oven, all being too tired (for various reasons) to make any small talk.
The silence was broken by the incessant ringing of a mobile phone. All eyes looked towards Kai, the only one who had such a boring ringtone, and watched him as he slowly lowered his coffee and flipped open his mobile.
"Hello…Yes…Hn…Hn…Okay…Bye…" Kai shut his phone rather dejectedly and slumped forward with a sigh before letting his head drop to the counter. Quick as a flash, Ian, Bryan and Ellie folded up their respective parts of the newspaper and slipped them under Kai's head just before it hit the hard surface. Kai's head landed with a soft thump and stayed there for a few moments before he lifted his head slightly and looked at Tala. Feeling someone staring at him, Tala looked up to see Kai's deadpan gaze set upon him.
"What?" Tala protested. "Usually I have another five minutes to complete these puzzles!" Kai just continued to stare at him. Tala sighed. "Fine." Tala quickly scribbled down the answers and folded up the paper. "Lift your head." Kai lifted his head a couple of centimetres and Tala slipped the paper onto the pile. "You can lower your head now." Kai let his head drop again with a dull thud. Rei watched on slightly bemused.
"Does this happen often?" Rei asked Spencer. The tall blonde nodded.
"More often than you would think." The Demolition Boy answered. "Anyway, Kai, what's got you so worked up? Usually you don't mind if Tala doesn't give you his paper."
"Mr Dickenson just called. Just as the BBA building was opening, a shooting occurred right in front of it. The BBA is closed until the police have sorted everything out so he asked me if the meeting could be held here." Kai explained. Tala groaned.
"Somebody shoot me now!" Tala yelled with a grimace, throwing his hands up in the air dramatically, only just missing Bryan and Ellie.
"That's not the worst of it either." Kai said grimly. "Apparently Mr Dickenson was just walking into the building when the shooting happened and the police have pulled him in for questioning and he doesn't know how long he'll be but the hotel wasn't expecting the other teams to still be there and there's some big event going on so Mr Dickenson wants me to let the other teams stay here for the day until about six o'clock." Tala groaned and let his head drop to the table. Kai pushed the pile of papers underneath him to soften the fall. Tala gave him a grateful thumbs up.
"When should they be here?" Bryan asked.
"By about ten o'clock." Bryan nodded thoughtfully.
"Ian, Ellie, you two go and tell Murielle and the kitchen staff about this. Rei, could you go and try to wake up Tyson and Max please?" Bryan asked. The three nodded and slipped of their stools and apron respectively before exiting the room. "Spencer, you might want to hurry up with the food. The pig is probably going to be coming down soon depending how long it takes Rei to wake him up and don't want him whining just because he's hungry." Spencer nodded and turned back to the oven.
"Hey, where do you get off ordering my subordinates around? I'm the captain of this time." Tala protested. Bryan smirked.
"If I'm a subordinate, then what do you want me to do master?" Bryan leered. Tala smirked seductively.
"I think you know very well what I want you to do, my dear subordinate." He said lustfully, draping himself over his koibito.
"Take it to the bedroom you two! It was bad enough hearing you last night!" Spencer called out. Bryan and Tala blushed.
"Sorry…"
------------------------------
SPLAT!
"Take that Granger!" Ian cheered
"I'll get you back for that Papov!" Tyson swore. Ian just laughed. They had told Murielle about the change in plans and she had immediately kicked everyone except Spencer, Rei, Kai and Kenny outside so she could clean without worrying about people messing the house up or not. She also got a lot of help from Spencer and Rei and Kai and Kenny could do simple tasks so that was another reason for keeping those four inside. The other six, on the other hand, had been kicked outside into the front garden to entertain themselves and so they didn't mess up the house.
Tala and Bryan were sitting on the front steps, watching the others have a snowball fight. It was the Russian Rascals (Ian and Ellie) vs. the Champs (Tyson and Max (Tyson had named them)). Suffice to say, the two Russians were thrashing the foreign lovers. They only time they had been hit was when Ellie had been acting as a decoy so Ian could shove snow down the back of their coats. The two 'champs', however, hadn't landed a single hit upon the two short ones.
Tyson let out a feral war cry and threw a snowball at Ellie which she easily avoided.
"With an aim like that it's surprising you even managed to get your beyblade in the dish!" Ellie called out, a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. The little girl scooped up a snowball and threw it with all her might towards the Japanese boy. Tyson, however, saw it coming and ducked just in time so that it skimmed the top of his cap. The snowball instead hit Ian who had been sneaking up on Tyson to put more snow down the back of his choice. Ian let out a yell of a surprise before glaring at the girl.
"Ellie!" He shouted, quickly losing his temper and throwing a snowball of his own at the girl. Ellie was surprised at the sudden betrayal and didn't dodge in time and thus ended up getting hit in the face. She tripped and fell backwards. She rubbed her stinging cheek, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. Bryan got up to go and see if the girl was okay but Tala held him back. Bryan sent his lover a slight glare.
"Tala…" Bryan started but Tala shook his head and nodded to where Ellie was. Bryan looked back to where his sister was to see Max's mother (Judy if he remembered right) kneeling next to the small girl.
"It will be good for her to interact with older females that she doesn't know." Tala said seriously, looking Bryan straight in the eye.
"I suppose…" Bryan relented slightly. "But I still don't like it." He finished stubbornly. Tala just smiled before looking back to where Judy was talking to Ellie.
With Ellie and Judy
"Hey, are you okay? Come here, let me look at your cheek." Judy said kindly, taking Ellie's chin gently and tilting her head sideways so she could see where the snowball had hit. "It doesn't look to bad but I think there might've been a piece of gravel in that snowball because there's a small cut on your cheek." The blonde American informed the girl, letting go of Ellie's chin and rummaging in her handbag for something. "Here you go!" Judy said as she placed a plaster on the eight-year-olds cheek/
"T-thank you." Ellie said quietly, giving the older woman a small smile. 'Yes, I only stuttered once!' The girl thought victoriously, doing an imaginary victory dance. Judy smiled.
"By the way, my name is Judy Tate, Max's mum." Judy introduced herself. "And according to what Emily and Mariah were saying last night, you must be Ellie." Ellie looked up slightly surprised and nodded. Judy smiled again. "Well, I'd better go now. Emily and Mariah wanted to talk to you and I need to see my Maxie. Bye!" Judy stood up and gave the girl a small wave before walking over to where her hyperactive son was talking to his boyfriend. Ellie stood up and looked over to where Judy was speaking to her son and small smile spread across her lips. She was just about to walk over to Ian, who was looking slightly guilty, when a 'SQUEEE!' came from behind her and she was glomped by someone double her size. She gave a yelp as she fell over yet again, this time forwards. Ellie looked up from the corner of her eye to see the pink thing from the zoo. 'Mariah, if I remember correctly.' Ellie thought, wincing slightly at the memories of Mariah's loud voice.
"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! You are so cute!!! Have you grown since I last saw you? Oh no, you've hurt yourself! Are you okay?!?! You're not going to die, are you?!?! Please don't die, I can't live without you!" Mariah wailed. Sometime during her one breathe speech Mariah had grabbed Ellie and hugged her hard and the Chinese girl hadn't let go of her yet so Ellie was starting to turn slightly blue.
"Mariah, it's just a scratch so let go of her before you suffocate her!" Emily berated her pink-haired friend (don't ask me where she came from). "Also, we only just saw her yesterday, she can't have grown that much if at all!" Mariah reluctantly let go of Ellie and glared at her ginger-haired friend.
"T-thank you." Ellie stammered out breathlessly, rubbing her chest slightly. Emily smiled whilst Mariah pouted.
"Come on, I wasn't that bad!" Mariah protested.
"Yes, you were." Emily said.
"No, I wasn't!"
"Yes, you were!"
"No, I was-"
"Mariah, yes you were, now please stop shouting!" Lee reprimanded his sister.
"Stay out of this Lee!" Mariah warned.
"I'll stay out of what I want!" Lee shouted heatedly. At this point, they started shouting in Chinese, leaving a slightly confused Emily and Ellie to look on. Tala and Bryan walked up.
"What's going on here?" Tala asked as he looked at the bickering siblings. Ellie answered.
"Mariah and Emily were fighting but then Lee told Mariah to be quiet and then they started fighting." The eight-year-old explained. By this time Lee and Mariah's argument had ascended to the level where they had attracted the attention of the others who had been having a snowball war sans Gary who had been eating.
"This would actually be quite entertaining if I could understand what they were saying." Tala said pouting slightly. Just then Mariah shouted something that made Lee reel back in shock, Gary to stop eating, Kevin to burst out laughing and, the most surprising reaction of all, Ellie to start giggling.
"Mariah sure had a habit of just blurting things out." Ellie giggled out.
"What did she say?" Tala asked the young girl quietly in Russian.
"I'm not sure I'm allowed to say."Ellie told him trying to keep a straight face.
"Are you guys planning how to torture me again?" Tyson asked loudly, walking up to the trio of Russians (Ian was trying to get snow out of his shirt). Tala sighed.
"First of all, I was joking when I said that. Nobody is trying to torture you except for maybe Ellie." The mentioned female looked mildly offended at this statement. Tala shrugged off her pout/glare and carried on. "And secondly, we're trying to get Ellie to tell us what Mariah said to depress Lee that much." This last bit was true; Lee was sitting in a dark corner with little black lines around him looking very depressed
"Why are you asking her? She wouldn't know!" Tyson protested. Bryan spoke up at this point.
"She's actually smarter than you are giving her credit for." Bryan stated. "Since you've only been here for a day you wouldn't know this but it is quite common for her to switch languages about five times in the course of a day especially if she and Ian are having one of their more heated arguments." Tyson's mouth opened and closed a bit like that of a goldfish's for a few moments before finally deciding to stay shut.
"What is it about Kuznetsovs and being able to shut up Tyson without resorting to food?" Tala mused with a grin. Tyson flushed red in anger and started yelling at Tala who just laughed. He turned back to Ellie who was hiding behind Bryan as everyone crowded round her, all desperate to find out what Mariah had said to put Lee in such a deep state of depression.
"I-I'm not s-sure I'm allowed to s-say." Ellie said softly, her mittened hands fisting the material of Bryan's trouser legs as she hid shyly behind her big brother.
"Aw, c'mon Ellie! Tell us please! You're the only one who can!" Michael, Eddie and Steven begged the eight-year-old.
"Leave her alone, you jerks! Stop feeding off others misfortune!" Emily shouted at her teammates.
"But Emily…!" Michael pleaded.
Ellie bit her lip as she turned away from Emily and Michael's beg and turn down routine to look at the saddened Lee. Feeling someone looking at him, Lee turned round to meet Ellie's uncertain gaze. He turned to the others to see what was going and, upon listening to Emily and Michael's routine, realised why Ellie looked so torn. She didn't want to hurt the others' feelings by not telling them when she obviously knew but she also didn't want to hurt his feelings even more than his little sister had. Lee sighed, looked back at Ellie and gave a dejected nod. Ellie's eyes widened before mouthing a thank you turning back to the group.
"Um…" Ellie said, unsure of how to say it without hurting Lee's pride too much. Upon hearing the 'um', everybody turned their attention to the small girl. Ellie ducked behind Bryan's legs before gathering her courage and stepping forward so she was standing next to Bryan. "When Mariah and Lee were arguing, Mariah kept shouting reasons why Lee shouldn't boss her around just because he's her big brother and because he wants her to stay safe. One the reasons Mariah said was that when Lee was seven their Aunt Aaliyah came and apparently she was really scary and masculine and Lee was scared of her. She kissed him and Lee was so scared that he wet himself and fainted." Ellie said as quickly as possible, deciding to be straight forward and make Lee's pain as short as possible.
Everybody looked at Ellie blankly for a few seconds before looking at Lee and back again. This repeated a few more times before sniggers, snickers and snorts started to spread across the group. These soon turned into full-blown laughter.
"I c-can't b-b-believe that the m-mighty l-leader of t-t-the W-white T-t-tigers was s-s-scared of h-h-his aunt!" Michael laughed.
"I c-c-can't b-believe h-he w-wet h-h-his p-pants!" Tala choked out, tears of mirth running down his cheeks.
"Oh, stop being so uncouth."
A/N: Okay, I admit this not my best chapter in the world and the last bit wasn't really that funny but there is method to my madness! (I think).
Anyway, a big, ginormous, prodigious thank you to all my readers, reviewers, alerters and favouriters for being so supportive and patient. I promise that I, Genocide Never Again, will try harder next time and get my next update by the summer holiday at the latest. That is my vow!
I hope to see you next time! Bye!
