Chapter 11 – The Repair-Store Cowboys
Nemo awoke to the sound of someone drumming their hand on the saucepan.
"Rise and shine, new friends!" Chantelle squealed. "Breakfast's ready!"
Ashley sat up, rubbing her eyes. "You made us breakfast?"
"Sure! It's the least I can do for my new friends who probably saved my life!" Chantelle laughed, rolling her eyes.
"The least you can do," Nemo said, grumpily, "is shut up and stop making so much noise this early in the morning. Now go back to sleep."
"Like you can talk, fishy," Maxie mumbled into her pillow, "you got us up real early one morning to walk to Clow."
"Don't call me fishy," Nemo snapped, "and that was different, we had to get away from Gaia."
"Oh, you're going to Clow?" Chantelle asked, lowering her saucepan. "That's such a coincidence! I live there!"
"You're kidding, Chantelle!" Ashley said, smiling at her.
"At least now that you're with us, Nemo can't get us lost again," Maxie mumbled.
"Zip it, Maxie."
"You guys should come have breakfast. I've made it for you, we can talk more there!" Chantelle said, cheerfully.
Stretching and yawning, the members of the newly entitled Ripmongers crawled out of the tent. Chantelle had apparently rummaged through their supplies to find all their breakfast necessities. A picnic rug was laid out on the grass by the tent, with the tiny stove cooker Nemo had packed lying next to it. Ashley's plastic plates were laid out, one for each of them, with helpings of buttered rolls, fried mushrooms, tomatoes and baked beans.
"I had to go to the shops to get some of this," Chantelle said, "so I spent some of your money. I hope you don't mind… the baked beans were on special offer!"
"That's very considerate of you, Chantelle," Ashley said, cupping a hand around Nemo's mouth, who had opened it to say something nasty.
"Isn't that other girl – the blonde one – going to come out?"
"Erm – she's not really feeling well." Ashley said.
Nemo looked at Ashley, sighed, and sat down. The four of them ate while Chantelle spoke to them at a hundred miles an hour.
"… I think I'll ask my mummy and daddy to take me here more often! That's when I get back to Clow, though. I couldn't call them on my cell phone to come pick me up. That would mean explaining why I came out here in the first place, I didn't have a good excuse… instead I called Rachel and told her to tell them I was at hers, so they wouldn't worry…"
Maxie quickly gobbled up her own helping. She licked the plate clean, and stared at Jordan's unguarded plate hungrily.
Ashley looked interested.
"Why did you come all the way out from Clow to challenge the Blade Bandits?" she asked, while Maxie nicked a mushroom from Jordan's plate, "that was extremely dangerous, you could've gotten lost."
"Ashley, right?" Chantelle asked, "well, I have to admit, I'm not the world's best thinker. I guess it was stupid for me to come, but all I wanted to do was to save Jackie the trouble of – "
"Jackie?" Nemo interrupted. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, the Blade Bandits invited Jackie to a battle, but I decided to fight them myself, I couldn't let them take his bit-beast! By the way, did you guys pick up my bey? I haven't seen it."
Ashley looked stony-faced.
"Well…" she began, but Maxie saved her the trouble of explaining.
They'd scooped up the bits of Bellfire into a small pouch, which she now emptied. Red, orange and pink multi-colour plastic scraps fell onto the picnic rug.
Chantelle gazed at the pile of dysfunctional plastic for a moment, and waved a hand airily, chuckling.
"Oh well, I was planning on buying a new one anyway!" she said, startling them, "yeah, I have to admit I'm not the world's best beyblader either… but I beat one of those bandit thingies, that's a story I can tell all my friends, eh? Eat your mushrooms before they get cold!"
Nemo was not sure she liked this girl. She didn't truly like anyone, of course, but the demeanour of this girl particularly annoyed her and she couldn't wait for the trek to Clow to do part with her.
Once they were finished, they took an hour packing their things away and folding up the tent. Jordan stumbled out of the tent and curled up on the grass, nibbling her helping of breakfast.
They intended to collect their fixed beys that afternoon and walk to Clow, before, Ashley put it, "anything else bad can happen". Chantelle agreed to escort them there as she knew the path.
Jordan eyed her meal.
"T-Tyler used to like mushrooms." She said tearfully, making the rest of the team sigh.
"What do you mean, have I seen her?" Jackie asked, irritably.
"We thought you were, like, friends now!" Rachel said, panicked.
"She only went missing yesterday!" Paula snapped, "just a day after you guys were hanging out together! We thought you'd have something to do with it!"
"Nah," Jackie said, arms crossed. "That was part of some inter-school hang out with kids day thing…"
They were staring at him in outraged disbelief. "My association with her stretched for about five hours that day, and no further since."
"If she's not been with you, do you know where she is now? Did she say anything to you?" Rachel asked.
"You'd better answer her questions truthfully, her parents are worried sick!" Paula demanded.
Jackie glared at Paula, his eyes glinting with dislike. "Well, don't you think if I had any idea where she was I'd have told you about five seconds ago?"
"Chantelle called me last night and told me to lie so her parents wouldn't worry. She refused to say where she was, though. She hasn't contacted me since." Rachel said.
"You're an idiot for doing that, then."
"Would you quit slagging us off and at least try to be helpful?" Paula grumbled. "When you were hanging out together, did you go anywhere else away from the city? Did you talk about anywhere else? Chantelle is REALLY adventurous."
Jackie's hand drifted casually to his pocket. He touched the core of his bey, and a memory that was not his entered his mind: he saw Chantelle discarding something at the Clow shrine, and depart via the other side of the hill, into the valley below.
"Jackie…?"
"I think I know where she is," Jackie said, quietly, and the girls were taken aback by his change of tone. "Don't worry about it. I'll go find her."
He left the pair, who were too dumbstruck by his reply to hassle him anymore.
His feet moved almost mechanically. In what seemed like no time he'd climbed the way to the shrine. He knew she'd been past here, heading for Ghoul Valley – but why?
He took a step forward and his foot landed on something hard. He looked down and saw a pair of walkie-talkies on the ground, with a letter.
The letter had his name on the envelope, so he took it and read it. Much of the valley on the other side of the hill was obscured in shadow as the early afternoon sun drifted over the hills, so when he looked up in the direction of the valley, the darkness ahead did nothing to boost his morale.
"You didn't…"
Ashley slammed the big book on the table shut with a sigh. They were in the library, by her insistence, and a plethora of books lay on the table before them.
"Any luck?" asked Nemo.
"No!" she said, "there's nothing mentioned in here about the Perseus bit, at all!"
"Too bad." Nemo said, yawning.
"At least we've found out something, he wasn't lying about how he was the descendent of the man that founded the valley," Ashley said, poring over the large pile of books on the table before her, "… and that his responsibilities were passed down to his daughter, who died prematurely…"
"We've?" Maxie repeated. She was lying down across about three chairs, staring up at the ceiling. "You've done all the work, nobody else cares about what happened two hundred years ago. I just wanna' go get my bey and leave."
"Well, maybe I was hoping if we found a conflicting story about the Perseus bit, we could tell Owyn and change his stance on taking it for his own!" Ashley snapped.
"He's probably already read these books," suggested Nemo, "I know I would if I were him. He knows everything to do with the history of this place."
She remembered the affectionate way he spoke of the Perseus bit, and couldn't help but compare it to her feelings toward Andromeda. If he hadn't messed up their beyblades and forced them to stay in the valley for the meanwhile, she'd feel quite sorry for him.
Chantelle was looking at the Jacqueline Wilson series on a shelf a few yards away. Jordan was building a castle out of books, which quickly toppled over, making a loud noise as each book landed on the floor with a thump.
"I think we'll call it a day soon," said Ashley, "just get our blades and go. I can't see us finding out anything else. If we leave now, we'll be at Clow in time for lunch…"
Everyone's heads were turned, so Jordan slipped around the bookcase and walked down the adjacent passage. She passed into the next room and stopped at the banister looking out over the ground floor of the library.
Three people, two of them boys, were perched around a circular table. They didn't hasten to keep their voices down, because they weren't aware anyone was nearby.
"… dunno' if I want to be trashin' no more beys. Don't feel right no more. Thought about what that girl said. Don't think the Perseus bit chooses double-crossing bullies." The shorter of the two boys was saying, his arms behind his head.
"Owyn, you're never gon' get Perseus if you're nice about it!" the older practically spat at him. "We're bandits! We need to show people we mean business! Make 'em fear us!"
"Nah, we just ruined beys for fun. Fact is it don't have anything to do with the bit, quite hones'ly. It ain't fun no more, though… but hey, maybe if you still like it, you should leave the group and we just change our team name."
Jordan crouched down and crawled behind another bookcase. The girl who accompanied them was looking between both boys, back and forth, as if she was watching a tennis match.
"Bandits?" Jordan asked herself. She frowned, thinking she recognised the name.
The older boy was muttering incoherent words. The younger shook his head and stood up.
"I keep telling you, Sciro," he said with an air of finality, "we ain't doin' it. I'm the strongest on the team and what I say, goes. Besides, their beys don't mean nothing to me… I'm only interested in Perseus, and woe is you if you don't feel the same."
He kicked his chair in and walked out of Jordan's line of view. The other two waited for the sound of the exit door slamming shut, before they spoke again.
"Runt," said the older boy. "Thinks he's the leader. Doesn't know the meaning of the word team."
"Maybe he's got a point, Sciro," the girl replied, softly. "Maybe it'd be best if we just focused on our true mission. Forget about everything else."
"No, Electra." He replied, standing up. "I've had it with that guy ordering me around, and I'm gonna' prove it. We're bandits, that means outlaw, check a dictionary while you're here if you don't believe me. So, are you a bandit or just a phony like him?"
The girl tried to interrupt him, but trailed off. "Well, he did found the team…"
"Well?" Scirocco asked, eyebrow raised.
"I'm… I'll do it if it helps with our goal." She said.
"It does. The more bit-beasts we have when it comes down to battlin' Jackie, the better. Besides, no right-minded blader could pass down the chance of obtainin' Andromeda… not when it's just sittin' in that repair shop, defenceless like that girl said…"
The boy's face flooded with greed. He turned on his heel and the girl followed him out of the room.
"Andromeda! That's Nemo's bit!" Jordan whispered. She clapped a hand over her mouth, remembering that she was meant to be silent in the library.
She crawled across the ground and hurried back to the rest of the team. She went over to Ashley and nudged her painfully in the side.
"Not now, Jordan, I'm busy."
Jordan walked over to Nemo instead, and poked her.
"What?" she grumbled.
Jordan tried to lip-sync words at her, but Nemo's expression remained impassive.
"Go play somewhere else, idiot."
Nearly stamping her foot from frustration, she began to act out the words she couldn't produce. She mimed something spinning around in her hand, pointed to Nemo, and then pointed to the room she had just come from.
"Is this charades?" Maxie asked, sitting up. Jordan nodded and tip-toed across the room, trying to mime a thief.
Nemo picked up the nearest book and threw it at her. "No'one wants to play charades, idiot."
Maxie had gone back to trying to get some sleep. Jordan clenched her fists and stormed wordlessly from the library.
Outside, she took a deep breath and said: "if I can't tell them what those bandits are up to, I'll have to put a stop to them myself!"
It was a bad day to play fancy dress in the valley, as Jackie soon realised. It was swelteringly hot, for a start, so the long black cloak that trailed behind him as he walked drew laughter from passers-by; he answered them with obscene hand gestures.
The pirate mask wasn't exactly weather appropriate, either.
"At least nobody will recognise me this way." He re-assured himself under his breath. "I could be walking into a trap if I went without a disguise…"
Now he just had to find the park.
He noticed a band of small children up ahead, so he slipped down a small alleyway, not wanting to draw attention.
Nearby, Jordan charged up the lane, panting hard.
"Oi, Jordan!" Stanley called out to her, as she passed. His dog was with him. "You feeling better? Where you going? Where's the rest of the – "
"No time to talk now!" she burst out, "where's your dad's repair shop?"
"Er – just keep going up the lane, it's one of the last few shops on the right, but – "
She darted past him, sending a cloud of dust behind her and making the ferocious dog draw back in fear.
A minute later, she burst into the repair shop. There was no' one behind the counter, but the pair of beyblades she knew belonged to Nemo and Maxie lay flat on the desk, good as new. She smiled with relief and picked them up, fishing for a twenty pound note to exchange them with.
Sweat glistened on her forehead, the effort from running had been worth it to make sure they were safe.
In the distance, she heard a bell chime four times. She regained her breath and turned around, and with a pang of fear, found that she was not alone in the shop after all.
"Nice pair o' blades you got there," said Scirocco, his voice alive with malice. "Your friends', aren't they? Did you get 'em just to bring to us?"
"There's a reason why those beys had to be repaired," Electra said, beside him. They were both groping for their launchers, their own beys at hand. Jordan could do nothing but watch, petrified, as they took their stance. "Please surrender them, or you'll find out exactly what makes the Bandits the strongest beybladers in the valley."
"You've got ten seconds. Leave them beys on the ground and step away, or you're next."
Jordan took a step backwards. Slowly, she leant over to put the beys down.
She could feel her heart racing. Something was wiggling out of her pocket as her back was arched; just a bit more, she thought to herself…
Scirocco raised his eyebrows. "Well? Back off so we can – "
"GO, BUBBLEZ!" screamed Jordan, and she tore at her rip cord as her launcher and bey entered her hand.
Scirocco stepped back, gasping. Electra did the same. Bubblez went flying over their heads, and the sound of breaking glass reverberated throughout the shop. In the midst of the din, Jordan whipped Dromeda and Leonine into her pocket and dived between the bandits' legs.
Scirocco cursed and tried to grab her. She narrowly evaded, rolling over and groping for her bey as shards of glass rained down upon them –
"Ha!" he jeered, and Scorpius flew from his launcher. Nearby, Electra had withdrawn her own bey and sent it into the fray.
"Anguil, attack!" she shouted.
Jordan bounced to her feet and caught Bubblez. She threw herself away from the oncoming bey and heard a deafening bang as a piece of antique furniture collapsed. There was an older man's voice, the bandits hesitated, and in that split second she'd found the door knob –
"What's going on?!" shouted the man, from a room nearby. A glass pane smashed right over Jordan's head, but she'd pelted through the door before the grains of broken glass littered the ground.
Ashley looked around. "Deserted. It's four in the afternoon, after all."
No kidding, Nemo thought. There wasn't another soul in sight as they walked down the lane.
"Why's there no' one here?" Chantelle asked, looking confused.
"It's those bandits again, Chantelle. They come strolling through the valley on their way up to Clow every afternoon at four o'clock, so that's when the kids go inside."
Chantelle folded her arms, pompously. "Well, THAT'S not fair! Who said it's their village? Huh? Huh? If I were those children, I'd NEVER let those bully bandits boss me around like that!"
"Try saying that five times faster," Nemo muttered to Maxie, who proceeded to mumble "bully bandits boss" under her breath repeatedly.
"I hope Jordan's waiting for us in the inn, otherwise we've lost her." Ashley remarked.
"You don't know what Jordan's like about food," said Nemo, "she probably got bored in the library, sniffed out a delicious piece of cake…"
They stopped, abruptly. Stanley was hurrying up to them, looking stricken.
"Guys, come quick!" he shouted, "it's – those bandits, they've stolen your beyblades!"
"What?!"
"My dad saw 'em leave the shop, place is a mess, your beys aren't there any more either!"
Indeed, the shop looked like it had been stricken by an earthquake; another months' worth of fresh repairs at least, Ashley thought to herself.
"This is terrible!" she gasped.
Nemo let out a shriek of fury and kicked the counter. Maxie strolled back to the exit, red-faced. "Which way did they go? I don't care about what happened to Nemo's bey, they ain't takin' my Leonine and getting away with it! Let me at 'em! Lemme' - "
"If anyone's going to teach those guys a thing or two, it's me!" Nemo said, rounding on her.
"Guys, look at this! Hurry!" Chantelle called to them from the lane. They flooded out of the doors, Stanley behind them.
Chantelle pointed to the ground. There were obvious signs of a scrap; footprints that trailed off into the distance, and the wooden houses that encompassed the corner of the lane were all stained with what Ashley thought looked horribly like singe marks.
"Looks like someone's on our side, at least."
Stanley stepped forward, face full of realisation. "Jordan."
"Jordan?"
"She – I saw her just a sec ago. Comin' up the path 'ere, wanted to know where me dad's repair shop was. You think she knew something?"
"She was trying to tell us something at the library, but these guys kept putting her down!" Ashley said, pointing at Nemo and Maxie.
Maxie hung her head in shame, but Nemo crossed her arms and turned away, mumbling "I thought she was just being her usual idiotic self."
"What are you guys waiting for?" Chantelle said, frantically. "We need to go find Jordan!"
Jordan thundered up the lane, but felt something yank her foot and she fell flat on her front.
A small dust cloud consumed her, but even in the thickset of it, she could make out two distinct shadows circling her.
Scirocco laughed as he approached. Electra was next to him, stick horses at hand. "Never battled in the wild west before, have you, pretty?"
Jordan gritted her teeth, getting up.
"You'll never get what you want out of me!" she screamed, pointing at them. "I'll never give you my friends' beyblades! And just to prove it – I'll fight you!"
She reached for Bubblez. In a split second, she launched it at the circling beys and they diverted.
Anguil swerved to meet Bubblez as it bounced toward the bandits. Scorpius went straight for a nearby house, struck it, and rebounded, propelling itself through the air at Jordan…
Jordan's eyes widened, and she threw herself behind a barrel. Needle after needle sunk into it, and some of them flew over the barrel completely, catching the fine ends of her blonde hair.
"She knows about my sting shower attack. Been listenin' to her friends, I 'spect." Scirocco grinned. His bey landed on the ground.
Jordan peered around the barrel. Beads of water were cascading from the places in the barrel the needles had struck.
"Bubblez, retreat!"
"No. Anguil, keep chasing her!" Electra ordered.
"You too, Scorpius!"
Bubblez bounced toward Jordan and onto the barrel. Jordan threw herself from behind the barrel and into a roll. Bubblez flew after her, just as the opposing beys collided with it, making it explode into a fountain.
Jordan regained balance and continued to run, hearing cursing behind her. A few more needles shot past her head and sunk into the wooden boards of surrounding houses.
"I can never take them on both at once," she thought, "the only thing to do is trick them!"
She veered down a narrow side path, Bubblez close on her heel. She pressed herself to the wooden boards of the adjacent house, watching the opening at the end of the alley carefully, hoping the bandits wouldn't appear there…
She tore into the neighbouring lane and landed on her knees, sighing with relief. Bubblez circled her.
"Think you lost us, eh?"
Jordan's heart missed a beat. She looked up, and sure enough, the two bandits were standing before her, looking more serious than before.
"You have no 'ope of beating us, blondie. We've lived in the valley our whole lives, we know all the twists and turns o' this landscape."
"Please," Electra started, and she was sympathetic, almost pleading, "we don't want to destroy your bey, too…"
"Don't reason with her, Electra, she won't listen. Let's show her our 'shark pit' combination attack."
Electra closed her eyes, sickened with herself. "Anguilla, Lightning Ring attack."
"Scorpio, hide underground!"
Scirocco's orange bey seemed to disappear into the sand. Anguil cackled and became alight with electricity, circling Bubblez at high velocity.
"That attack…" Jordan muttered, watching it. Suddenly, Scorpius sprung up from the ground, slamming into Bubblez. Bubblez hit the ring Anguil was creating and bounced back into the centre, where it was struck again, and again, by Scorpius' attacks.
Worse still, every time Bubblez tried to jump out of the ring, Anguil adjusted its attack to follow it whilst Scorpius continued to change direction to emerge from the sand beneath it.
There had to be some way out of this, she thought.
"Had enough, yet?" Scirocco jeered.
How had she beaten Bakito? At the time, she'd thought he was a tough opponent, but she'd overcome him when she worked out his attack pattern. Wasn't this the same situation?
She watched Scorpius carefully. Every time it shot up into her bey, it was slanted upward. That meant, when it disappeared underground, it had to take time to slant before it could shoot up again.
"That's the rhythm of his attack!" Jordan exclaimed.
Jordan tapped her foot against the ground. The urge to burst out into cheerleading was strong, but she held it back.
"Fine, we'll just mess up your bey for ya'…"
Scorpius disappeared into the ground. Jordan timed him, carefully.
"Now, Bubblez! Jump!"
At that precise moment, Bubblez sprung into the air just as Scorpius appeared beneath it. The very edge of its attack ring caught Bubblez, and instead of harming it, propelled it far into the sky…
The bandits gasped. Jordan threw herself aside, and sent herself down a side alley as Bubblez landed on the roof of the nearest house, then bounced over the edge and out of sight.
"NO!"
"Ha!" Jordan said triumphantly, running through a narrow path. She kept her eyes on Bubblez, which bounced across the rooftops above her…
Scirocco and Electra hurtled down the alley after her.
"Wait."
"What is it, Electra?!" Scirocco demanded, fuming. Electra had stopped in her tracks, looking down the perpendicular alley; a bit wider where the interval between the neighbouring houses was bigger.
She shook her head. "Go on, catch up. There's someone watching, but I'll take care of him."
She turned down the side alley, and Anguil spun to meet her. Above her, the bit of Anguilla, an eel, twirled through the air as it materialised, its tail poised threateningly for attack.
"Go." Electra hissed, "I know you're there. Be gone, quickly."
Jackie slipped out from behind the dustbin. Glaseus was in front of him, already launched.
"Go," she repeated. "You don't want to get involved, or you'll face the wrath of the Bandits."
She didn't ordinarily mind repeating herself, but she'd done it so much today, she was tired of it. Still, the short, dark haired gentleman showed no sign of retreating, so she pointed ahead and Anguilla took charge.
"Anguilla, Lightning Ring!"
Her blade cackled with electricity. It shot toward the opposing bey as sparks appeared around it…
A chilling breeze immersed the alley. There was a flash of light as a second bit materialised. Electra could make out a swipe of a paw as a shield of mist enveloped Glaseus.
With a second flash of light, the Anguilla bit gave a shriek as it succumbed to the opponent bit. It disappeared and her bey flew over her shoulder and landed against a wall. It hissed for a moment before it stopped spinning, engraved against the wall.
The chilling breeze dropped, and the stranger stepped forward.
"Don't move, there's worse where that came from!" Electra ordered, standing her ground, "I'm warning you, the bandits don't take prisoners – we're on a mission to secure the protector bit of Clow for ourselves, and if you try to stop us – "
" – Then I'll succeed," Jackie grinned. He peeled the mask off his face, and Electra's eyebrows contracted in surprise. "As the familiar of Perseus… I think I know what I'm doing."
"Y-you?"
"Yeah," he said. His eyes navigated up and down the alleyway. "So, where's Chantelle?"