Here's the latest installment. Enjoy!

Chapter 21 There's Nothing Like Arguments & Contests

[an excerpt from Ryuga's journal]

Dear journal. No, that sounds dumb. Let's start again. I am Ryuga, the Dragon Emperor, a legendary blader, and Gingka's greatest rival. But not really that last one anymore. Gingka knows he's no match for me and my Ldrago Destructor F:S. -Insert my trademark "evil" laugh.- Anyways, I have risen to the top of Beyblade. No opponent I have ever battled recently is my equal, not even Kyoya of the Beyblade Battlegrounds. My point is that I have conquered the world of Beyblade. I believe that it is my destiny to conquer the other world, the world in which beyblading is not the center all the time. I will not do this in the way that Julian Konzern foolishly tried to do so long ago at the Beyblade World Championships. He was not careful, and that Ziggurat guy took it all away from him. Of course, shortly after that, Itook everything away from Ziggurat, sinking his oh so precious Hades City in the sea. But I didn't mean to go off on that tangent. Soon I will head out, actually not too far from here, to begin this quest. There is no need for me to go through any specialized training; beyblading with Ldrago has been all the conditioning I will ever need to undergo; which is why, as always, I will be bringing my bey with me. Just because I have risen to the top doesn't mean anyone else can also rise up to challenge me, even though the battle will always end the same for them: Defeat.

[-end of excerpt]

Ryuga closed his journal, replaced it on a bookshelf in his study, and headed out into his main shop area. He found his store in almost perfect, peaceful order. Almost, because his cashier was not doing his job; instead, he was chatting it up with his buddy Yuki, who was searching for a long read in the ancient history section of Ryuga's Readables.

Ryuga's formerly somewhat bright mood faded, and it seemed that the store and its outside surroundings grew darker at his anger. Sophie and Wales, who were perusing the modern fiction isle, wisely fled the shop at the first sign of red and purple lightning out the windows. Yuki looked up at the stormy face of the Dragon Emperor with more than a little terror. Fortunately for him, that anger was, as of now, directed at the negligent cashier.

"Kenta!" Ryuga spat the name out of his mouth with distaste. "It seems that just yesterday I hired you upon your promises of utter obedience and caring about each and every customer!"

Kenta gulped. This was not good, not good at all. "Well, um... Ryuga. You did just hire me yesterday."

"Exactly." Ryuga gestured toward the line of people ready to check out their purchases. "And look at you, neglecting your duty to the customers and talking it up Shortpants over here! I have two more words for you, Kenta, so listen close. YOU'RE FIRED!" With that, the Dragon Emperor stalked over to the counter and took up the job Kenta had sorely neglected.

A few minutes later, the assemblage of customers in line had been checked out and dispersed. Ryuga closed up the shop for the day, packed what he would need, and drove out of Anti-Zeo Zaggart Land, cursing the poorly timed traffic light that he got stopped at before exiting town.

While at the light, Ryuga saw motion out of the corner of his eye and turned to see Gingka waving at him. Now Ryuga had rolled down his windows to try and blow his scorching anger away, so Gingka had also rolled down his window.

"Hey Ryuga!" he called happily as his father, Ryo, who was in the passenger seat frowned; he was annoyed that Gingka was talking to "the arch-enemy", aka Ryuga.

Ryuga looked away in distaste, and was about to roll up his windows when Gingka added something to his previous statement.

"Ryuga, wanna drag race?" Gingka asked his rival in beyblade.

Now normally, Ryuga would have said "no" because he didn't want Gingka to goad him into anything, but this was different: A race. Ryuga always wanted to be first, especially when Gingka was part of the competition, which led Ryuga to say: "Alright. Bring it on, Gingka."

"We'll start when the light turns green!" Gingka excitedly told him.

No duh, Ryuga thought. Then, the light turned. Tires squealed as the drivers of both cars slammed on the pedals. Ryuga saw Ryo flipping him off out of the corner of his eye and felt all his anger which had previously evaporated coming back.

The two cars were neck and neck as they raced past the 'Welcome to Anti-Zeo Zaggart Land' sign, but were not even close to maxing out on speed; they were both still accelerating. Fortunately, Kenta was not jay-walking today! (Probably because of his recent erm... being fired incident at Ryuga's Readables.) Out of the town the two cars sped, neither one giving an inch. The long, empty highway road that stretched out in front of them was ideal for drag racing. Ryuga let Gingka stay neck and neck with him until they were on their third mile. Then, he really put his foot down hard on the accelerator and zipped away from Gingka yelling "Later, losers!" out the window and looking in his rear-view mirror at Gingka and Ryo's super annoyed expressions. Before long, all he could see along the road, in front and in back, were trees.

* ... Later that night, at King's palace… *

Kyoya and Nile arrived at King's castle with more than a few sheets of paper explaining what The Plan was all about and why that part had been written in The Plan. King greeted them at the door himself, welcomed them in, and seated them at the long banquet table in the main dining hall.

After King had done that, he seated himself as host at the head of the table, with Kyoya and Nile as his guests of honor. "I must now inform you two that we have some extra quests. They should be arriving any minute."

Just after King had said that, the doorbell rang and King's butler ushered in none other than Damian, Kai, Tyson, Ray, and Max. After them came Tsubasa and Rose, leading an infuriated-looking Zeo Zaggart behind them. Kyoya and Nile had to admit they were just a little surprised, until they looked at The Plan and realized that this was actually recorded.

"Now why...?" Kyoya muttered. Sometimes The Plan surprised even him, one of the authors.

When the new arrivals were seated, the food was brought out. Once everyone had been served their meal, King began. "I brought you all here for certain reasons, but decided we could discuss them all together." King turned to face one of his guests. "Damian, would you start the discussion?"

"Certainly." Damian stood up and began pacing. "I did exactly what The Plan said. I stopped Zeo Zaggart from escaping, and then Tsubasa and Rose locked him in the shop. I realized that it appeared that these guys," here he waved a hand at the Bladebreakers, "were actually aiding the enemy!"

Everyone present frowned at the four "accomplices" of Zeo Zaggart. Then, King spoke. "Do you four have anything to say for yourselves?"

Tyson, who looked absolutely livid, started to rise, but Kai pushed him back down and stood up instead. "I suppose you could say that the four of us did help Zeo escape from the drained-out diving well, which I'm sure one of your fellow townspeople put him in."

"I fell," interjected Zeo, standing up indignantly.

Kai glared Zeo back down into his chair. He glanced around the table at everybody, who looked back at him. He opened his mouth to speak, but Tyson beat him to it.

"How were we supposed to know you guys hated Zeo?"

Kai nearly groaned. What a stupid, idiotic question.

Nile answered it with a laugh. "The name of the town is Anti-Zeo Zaggart Land. Surely that must have given you at least a bit of a hint."

Tyson looked annoyed at his own stupidity and sat down to try and let Kai talk them out of trouble.

"Well, why did you bring us here and what are we supposed to do?" Kai asked King directly.

King answered. "Because you helped Zeo Zaggart, which is forbidden in our town, we have brought you here for questioning."

"About what?" asked Max. This conversation wasn't making very much sense to him.

"Your motives," answered Nile. "Why did you help him?"

"I for one, hardly helped him at all," responded Kai. "I just told the others that I heard something, which turned out to be Zeo calling for help. And even if I hadn't told them what I heard, they would have investigated anyways because Tyson also heard the sound."

That sounded like a reasonable explanation to Nile and the others. "Well then, we'll clear you of all charges," King told him breezily. That took care of one of the five.

"And how about the rest of you? What did you do?" Tsubasa asked Max, Ray, Kenny, and Tyson.

"Kenny and I just stared at Zeo," put in Max. "We didn't do anything but watch."

"You also didn't prevent anything," Kyoya told them pointedly. "But even though you two, and even Kai a bit, committed the sin of omission, you're all cleared because we have no hard evidence or civilian eye witnesses that say anything against you." He figured that doing nothing to prevent was better than doing something to help.

"There are still two that haven't been cleared yet," Rose said.

Tyson spoke up and decided he may as well confess. After all, he couldn't prove he had done nothing; there was too much evidence against him. Hard evidence. The Garcias had seen the whole thing happen before their intervention. Who knew? Maybe he'd get a clear for fessing up. "Well, I've been friends with Zeo ever since we took down his evil father, Dr. Zaggart. I helped Zeo escape the diving well because of that camaraderie." Tyson looked pleased at saying that long last word, and then continued, so as not to heap all the blame on himself. "Ray helped get Zeo out."

Ray nodded. He felt it wouldn't harm to tell the truth.

King looked sadly at them. "I'm afraid you two will have to be escorted out of town, along with Zeo Zaggart."

"What?!" yelped Tyson and Ray.

"You'll be coming with us," said Tsubasa. He and Rose had stood up to escort the three of them out, along with Damian.

Once they left, King said, "You can leave also," to Max and Kenny, who rose to go back to Hyoma's Hotel. After all, they hadn't been told to leave town. Kai rose to follow after them, but was stopped by Kyoya. "Why don't you stay here." The door shut behind Max and Kenny.

"Would you be interested in joining us and helping with The Plan?" Nile asked.