Chapter 11 - The Challenge

In which chaos happens, as usual

Garland decided that he hated his life sometimes. Of all the weekends when his brothers and sister were all away at various competitions as well as Hiro having gone back to the dojo to visit Tyson, it had to be the one when he had two bad-tempered super-powerful bladers possessing demonic bit-beasts in the house, who were at each others' throats the entire time. Not only had Brooklyn decided that stealing L-Drago and not giving it back was a really fun way to liven things up, he'd also now removed himself to the roof, where no-one could reach him, and was currently entertaining himself and infuriating Ryuga by getting a besotted L-Drago to play fetch.

Apollon's blader couldn't understand it. He had been brought up to understand that a blader could only have a true relationship with one bit-beast at a time, and that everyone was perfectly matched to their own bit-beast. Yet Brooklyn had apparently adopted L-Drago, who didn't even seem to care that his real master was only a couple of metres away, sitting cross-legged on the patio, seething.

Just to make matters even worse, Mystel was not being exactly helpful. He appeared to have taken Brooklyn's side in the argument, to the extent that both Poseidon and L-Drago were now chasing sticks up and down the garden like a pair of very lizard-like dogs.

"I'm really sorry," Garland said for what must have been the thousandth time that day, but as usual, Ryuga didn't accept it. "I know it's awful but..."

"I don't see your beast out there making a fool of himself," Ryuga snarled. "So why don't you just shut up and work out how to get mine back?"

Garland restrained himself with difficulty. "Look, Brooklyn will get bored eventually. He always does. Just don't react, give it a couple of days and..."

It was the wrong thing to say. Ryuga stood in a swirl of white cloth and with a disgusted look at the bearer of Apollon, stormed back inside.

Garland sighed and tilted his head back to look at the sky. He'd never known Brooklyn to be so... so obstinate before. Yeah, he'd been difficult at times, but never like this. Normally, give Brooklyn a few hours alone with his birds and he'd be happy to do anything for anyone. But now, he was just being stubborn. What could Garland do to stop either Ryuga or Brooklyn from tearing the place apart?

.

Lunch was downright awkward. Garland somehow managed to manoeuvre everyone so that Ryuga and Brooklyn could neither glare the other into submission nor physically attack the other. However, Brooklyn made it painfully obvious that he was not going to co-operate with anyone that day, whilst Ryuga just feigned deafness so well that Garland gave up and had to reach right across him to get the ketchup rather than trying to ask. Brooklyn took advantage of this to begin a discussion with Mystel about all the possible weaknesses in a dragon-form bit-beast. Naturally, Ryuga couldn't respond without breaking his fictitious deafness, so he had to sit there seething whilst Brooklyn merrily ran through a list of things that could go wrong with a dragon, beginning with scales falling off and ending with it getting cut in half like a worm and the cut ends growing back the wrong other end, so that it had two tails on one and two heads on the other. Garland was just waiting for the table to explode into flames. It couldn't be long now.

But for once, Garland was glad to be wrong. Lunch passed without any super-powered explosions, and even without Ryuga breaking his self-imposed lack of hearing. Brooklyn seemed slightly disappointed by this, which was unnerving.

To the utter relief of the currently only sane member of the household, they had visitors straight after lunch. Mystel and Brooklyn were delighted when Yuu showed up, and Garland even more delighted when Ray showed up with him – something about Hilary and Madoka wanting to go shopping and Max having more than enough help in the shop. The bit-beast thief and the gymnast disappeared off into the garden with Yuu, whilst Garland managed to make something resembling green tea that Ray was too polite to refuse.

"How long does Brooklyn usually keep things for?" the neko-jin asked, taking a sip for courtesy's sake. "A day, a week, a month?"

"Could be anything," Garland admitted. "He normally loses interest in something after a couple of days, but if he gets a reaction out of someone for what he's done, he'll keep doing it. It's not malicious, really, it's just his way of getting what he wants."

"What does he want?" Ray's question came as a bit of a surprise to Garland, who hadn't really thought about it.

"I'm not sure," he admitted. "Brooklyn doesn't seem too bothered about the actual blade itself – he's left that lying in his room somewhere – but he's very determined to make Ryuga aware of the fact that he's got L-Drago."

Ray's mouth twitched. "And there was me thinking that we'd managed to get away from all the bit-beast thieves."

"Yeah... you know what Ryuga did in Battle Bladers, right?"

"Of course I do." Ray flicked his gaze to the French doors leading to the front room. "I managed to persuade Chief to get a copy of the battle tapes for me. There was some pretty serious stuff going on there. I'm surprised it ended as peacefully as it did, though I guess that's mostly thanks to Gingka and his friends."

Garland sighed and looked out of the back window to where Yuu and Mystel were now battling enthusiastically. "I just wish I'd noticed something was up sooner. If I'd noticed what was going on in the rest of the WBBA instead of just running the promotional tournaments with the other guys, maybe I could have stopped it all from going so far."

Ray shook his head. "Don't beat yourself up about it, Garland," he ordered. "There was no evidence that they were doing anything dangerous or even illegal right up until the end when Doji started getting overconfident. By then, you couldn't have stopped it even if you'd tried. It was the same with us and BEGA – we didn't realise something was wrong until BEGA was already firmly placed and had been in action for a couple of months, and even then Boris almost succeeded in making us out to be the bad guys. Doji would have just done the same to you."

"I guess you're right." Garland's gaze had drifted beyond the battling pair and up to where Brooklyn was sitting on the rope-swing under the apple tree, L-Drago once again coiled around him. "It doesn't change the fact that I wasn't paying enough attention, though."

"Isn't that why they're rebuilding the WBBA with a much stronger structure this year?" Ray asked. "So that people like the Dark Nebula organisation can't take advantage of it again?"

"I suppose. But I'll keep a closer eye on things in future."

Ray suddenly grinned. "Yeah, you do that. And who knows? Maybe one day you'll be the Director of the WBBA!"

"Yeah right." Garland laughed. "No thanks." He suddenly looked around. "Who's playing the piano?"

Ray's grin tilted a little to one side. "You've only just noticed, huh? I think it's Ryuga."

"I didn't know he could play piano."

"He can't."

"Oh." The neko-jin was exactly right. Ryuga was not the world's best pianist. He was, however, angry, and not afraid to show it. Garland winced. "That was a Steinway."

"I think it still is," Ray pointed out. "If it's a Steinway, it'll survive a bit of bad treatment."

"It's not mine. It's my sister's."

Ray fixed him with a golden glare that by now was beginning to look eerily familiar. "Would you rather he was taking it out on Brooklyn?"

Garland had to admit, the answer to that was no.

.

To Garland's relief, Ray accepted his invitation to stay for dinner, meaning that it was slightly easier to keep Ryuga and Brooklyn separated. Yuu happily chattered away at the older Dragon, who made absolutely no response, having reverted to his previous state of feigned deafness. Brooklyn, however, seemed to have already forgotten his obsession with Ryuga's constellation, and was engaged in a rather fierce debate with Ray about something or other. Garland decided to count his blessings and struck up his own conversation with Mystel.

He thought he had got away with it. Unfortunately for him, Ray was merely a distraction, albeit a lengthy one that managed to last until about halfway through Mystel's second slice of blackberry and apple pie – which was about when everyone else was finishing their first.

"Oh, Garland?"

The voice was all sweetness and light, and he really shouldn't have answered it. "Yes?"

"You know what? L-Drago fits in my beyblade! So now I can use L-Drago and Zeus at the same time."

Garland was suddenly very aware of Ryuga's gritted teeth on his left, and remembered with a small jolt that it wasn't just Ray and green-haired Kyouya who bore two small but nevertheless rather impressive fangs.

"That may not be a good idea..." he began, but Brooklyn could be amazingly slow at getting a hint when he wanted to.

"Of course, he's quite a tricky beast to totally control, but I'm a beyblade master, so it only took me about seven minutes. He's really quite friendly once you get used to him snapping. Must have been an old owner teaching him bad habits."

There was only one way this could go, and Garland could feel everything spiralling out of his control. "Look, Brooklyn, maybe you should just give L-Drago back to Ryuga. It is his bit-beast after all."

"Constellation."

Everyone at the table turned. Ryuga was staring straight ahead at the wall, jaw clenched and hand gripping the edge of the table so hard that Garland was expecting it to shatter. "L-Drago is a constellation, not a bit-beast." Somehow he managed to say it without once unclenching his jaw, even without moving his lips.

"Oh, sorry," Brooklyn said absently. "I forgot that you call bit-beasts funny things where you come from. Well, now he's mine he'll have to be a bit-beast. I'm sure he won't mind."

Even Mystel suddenly decided that Brooklyn had gone too far this time, and hid behind Ray. Brooklyn's maddening smirk was still in place when Ryuga rose to his feet with all the terrible majesty of an enraged Emperor, eyes flashing brilliant red. That was more than enough for Garland, who after all had seen the final battle of Battle Bladers.

But before he could get between the two, another voice piped up. "Ryuga? Ryuga! Stop it, you're scaring me!"

Garland thanked every lucky star that had ever risen for Yuu Tendo. The little boy, less than half Ryuga's height, had reached out to tug at the Dragon's arm, bringing those terrible eyes round onto him with an accompanying snarl. "Ryuga?"

For a long moment, wide, frightened green eyes looked up into deep, glowing red ones. Even Brooklyn had frozen into stillness. Garland could hardly dare breathe. How was it that Yuu, who couldn't be more than eight or nine, could face up to the terrifying figure in front of him when the nearly nineteen-year-old, professionally trained kick-boxer Garland couldn't?

"Ryuga, please?"

Some invisible string of tension snapped, and the red in Ryuga's eyes slowly faded to its usual gold as the Dragon let out a soft sigh. Garland could have sworn that he saw the outline of a three-headed dragon surrounding him, but... no, that was impossible.

"I'm going to bed." The announcement was perfectly calm, almost as if nothing in the past five minutes had actually happened. "Good night, Yuu."

The remaining five in the room stayed silent in shock until long after the door had closed behind Ryuga. Finally, Mystel whistled through his teeth.

"That was close," he muttered. "Brooke, you might have just pushed him a bit too far."

Brooklyn ran his right hand through his hair, the way he always did when things hadn't quite gone how he'd planned. "Yeah, guess so."

"Um, we should be going," Ray faltered. "Hilary and Madoka will be wondering if something's abducted us."

"Of course," Garland replied absently. "I'll... yeah, I'll just get the door for you."

He was still somewhat dazed as Ray and Yuu disappeared down the garden path into the dark. As the two reached the gates, Yuu turned back and waved, and then shouted something that Garland didn't quite catch. He waved anyway, then closed the door against the night and leant back against it. Sometimes, he wondered at his own sanity, let alone that of the four complete psychopaths he shared a house with. And yes, that was counting Hiro.

.

Ray frowned as he led Yuu across the main road. "Why did you say that to Garland, Yuu?"

"What?"

"Why did you tell him to look after Ryuga properly next time?"

Yuu shrugged. "Someone's gotta look out for him. Might as well be me, as he's got no-one else now." And he skipped ahead of the neko-jin towards the welcoming lights of Hilary's home.