I'm still in a writing mood so I'll roll with it
Wow I ain't written in ages! I'll be kind and update.
Thankyou reviewers and everyone who has faved or has this story on their alerts list. I love you
Lovelylaura003- I love you too! Your review made me feel so extrally special.
And after reading through some of the previous chapters on my computer I have found that I really need to proof read and I dearly hope that you lot are good at interpreting my mistakes. It's quiet shameful…
Disclaimer…what is this? The 25th chapter? I know ya'll ain't the sharpest tools in the shed but you must've got it by now….
Light crept through the curtains and shone down onto the sleeping forms lying peacefully in their beds.
Mariah had planned on having a long sleep in that morning but it turned out it was not meant to be. A small sliver of light clawed its way through the parting in the curtains and shone directly onto her eyes.
Grumbling, she dragged herself from bed and yanked the curtains roughly together before flopping back on top of the covers in a vain attempt to fall back to sleep.
When the curtains parted once again, shooting a stream of sunlight into Mariah's now open eyes she decided it was better for her eyesight if she just got up.
After showering, changing and doing the general mucking about that is involved with getting ready in the morning, she finally made her way out the door, snatching up the small bag of dirty washing.
The hotel had a laundry in the basement for the guests to use. It was a big, grey concrete room with rows of machines along each wall with a long bench up the centre. The various cleaning products were crammed onto a small set of shelves at the end of the room. Various stains covered the floor and the neon lights flickered sadly from above.
She didn't like it down here. It looked like a scene from a horror movie. She'd be down here alone doing laundry and be attacked by a murderer. She shook the silly thought from her head and got on with the task at hand.
Once she had separated the colours from the whites and pondered over which detergent to use, she sat down on one of the benches.
It was then that she heard the ominous bang of a door. She stiffened and listened. Nothing.
"Must've been the wind" she mumbled. She calmed herself and began to relax. Until she heard the light shuffle of feet. Slowly getting up she made her way to the door. She stood in front of it, desperately reasoning with herself that there was no murderer on the other side of the door. Just as she was about to open the door, it swung open revealing a tall figure. Screaming, Mariah leapt back and hissed at the intruder.
Bryan raised his eyebrows.
"Did you just hiss at me?"
Mariah stared back dumbly, struggling to register his words and calm herself down.
"Um, no?" she offered meekly. Giving her an incredulous look Bryan pulled her up off the ground and led her over to a bench.
"You look kinda pale. Want some water?" he asked, a weird look still marring his features.
"Nope. I'm good, thanks. Just managed to scare the crap outta myself" she explained.
"Thought I was a crazy murderer preying on young woman doing laundry?"
"How'd you know?"
Bryan smirked at her before tipping all his laundry into a machine and beginning to squint at the cleaning products.
"The matches have been drawn up" he said idly.
"Oh? Where are they posted?" she asked eagerly. She couldn't wait to find out who she would be playing against.
"They've been put up on a notice board in the foyer and sent the hotel rooms". Spencer had kicked him awake to inform him of this.
"Who're you up against first?" Mariah pried.
"The Majesties? Majestic or something like that. Come from Europe" Bryan babbled.
"You suck with names" Mariah giggled.
"Why people can't just be called 'Hey you' I will never understand"
She smiled over at him. "Maybe I'll come watch"
"Ah but then I would be obliged to come and watch your match, and if I remember correctly Mr Poofy Pants said that the 'psycho', a.k.a me, though I do prefer the term sadistic, was to stay away" Bryan informed her.
"Mr. Poofy Pants can't exactly stop you from watching my match. And don't you think you've already gone against that by being here with me right now?"
"Point" Bryan agreed.
Mariah's washing machine beeped to signal it had finished. Tipping all the clothes into her bag she then walked to the door. Her hand hovered over the door handle for a moment.
"You want me to walk you back in case there are any murderers lurking about?" Bryan asked.
"That'd be nice" Mariah answered quickly.
Having been returned safely to her room, without bumping into any murderers, Mariah found that the rest of team was still sleeping peacefully in their beds. She thought it logical that if she couldn't sleep in, neither could they. She flung open the curtains and let a small smirk flit across her face when she heard the groans emit from her teammates.
"Rise and shine boys" she sang. A series of growls answered her. Frowning at their blanket-covered forms she spied the envelope near the door. Picking it up she realised that it was the match timetable for the tournament.
"I have the tournament draw ups!" she hollered back at them. That got their attention.
"Wha? Where? Where!" Lee yelled, wrestling with his blankets and eventually falling off the bed.
"Don't get too excited. We're up against a bunch of unknowns" Mariah sighed. This was both good and bad. Good, she would be able to be in one of the matches, cause some certain boys were selfish and kept all the good matches for themselves. Bad because they were probably rather weak and that wasn't much fun.
The boys all began to get out of bed, Lee locking himself in the bathroom with a bad case of bed hair. The day was clear, no signs of the storm from that night, but was still rather chilly. Her eyes drifted between the small pile of the Blitzkrieg Boy's clothes and the goosebumps on her arms. Walking over to the pile she plucked Bryans jacket from the top and slid it on. The fur tickled her cheeks and the whole thing was far too big but it cured her goosebumps, which she convinced herself was the only reason she was wearing it in the first place.
Deciding that she didn't need any nosey boys asking why she was wearing her ex boyfriend's jacket she left the hotel room, shouting a goodbye over her shoulder. Finding herself in an exceptionally good mood she almost pranced about the hotel, her feet taking her where they wished.
Blinded by her own good mood she managed to obliviously splash an old woman whilst jumping in a puddle and knock an ice-cream out of a child's hand. She frolicked towards the training ground that had been set up for the competitors.
She was shocked to find Tyson training. It was before noon and he was out of bed? World must be coming to an end, not that she was going to let that put a damper on her brilliant mood.
He was locked in a beybattle with Daichi. Both were becoming increasingly animated and were letting loose battle cries (which didn't work quiet as well for Daichi with his squeaky voice, not that Tyson was doing any better). On the sidelines was Kenny tapping furiously on his laptop and Hilary inspecting her nails out of lack of anything better to do.
Mariah let herself get sucked into her own little world. Did Kenny even have eyes? Where did Hilary get her manicure done? Was Tyson aware his fly was undone?
She was snapped out of her trance when a loud crash met her ears. Everyone in the training ground turned to look at the far corner. Upon seeing who was there many of the heads snapped back to their own business that a large majority were probably now suffering from whiplash.
In the corner the Blitzkrieg boy's seemed to be having a scuffle. The crash was from Kai smashing his fist into a stack of large metal containers. What was disconcerting was that the crates looked very heavy and hard, yet Kai had managed to send the stack flying and had left visible dents in the ones he had hit. Spencer was now holding Kai in a death grip whilst Tala tried to calm him down. Kai wasn't thrashing, hell he was barely moving, but anyone could see he was stilled pissed. Bryan was pacing in front, Captain at his heels, sending a threatening look at anyone who made eye contact.
The moment Spencer released Kai all the tension that had gathered in the area was released with him. Tala sent a silent message to Tyson who was edging closer to them, worry on his face. Being Tyson it flew over his head but luckily Hilary caught it from behind and gently pulled him back to their beydish.
"You see why I don't want you near them," Rick said, coming to stand beside her. He had arrived just in time to see Kai's fit. "They're dangerous" he continued.
Mariah turned to look at him. She recognised the look on his face. It was the same look everyone else wore. He thought they were freaks and because they were freaks he was repulsed and scared. When he looked at them, he saw savage, rabid animals.
She turned towards the Blitzkrieg Boy's and tried to see them like that. She couldn't. She saw injured people. Injured and caged.
"Cage with no bars" she mumbled to herself.
"What?" Rick asked, frowning down at her.
"Nothing, nothing. We just see things differently," Mariah muttered. "I'm going to stay and talk to Hilary for awhile." She added the lie after a seconds thought.
"Okay, just stay away from them" Rick told her. Mariah began to move across the training ground when Rick spoke again.
"Just out of curiosity, whose jacket is that? Looks familiar" he asked, staring at the jacket trying to place where he'd seen it.
"One of the boys. Grabbed it on my way out without thinking." This was the second lie. It was strange how easy it was for her to lie to him. Usually lying left her feeling horribly guilty.
"Huh. Right, see ya" Rick said. This time Mariah watched him leave before moving again. Instead of making a beeline directly towards Bryan like she wanted to, Mariah sauntered amongst the beydishes, smiling politely at each team and making small talk. She moved closer, in a slow but obvious manner. Last thing she wanted was to startle them.
Making eye contact and getting an approving nod she excused herself from watching a random teams beybattle, Mariah closed the gap between them. She crouched down beside Bryan who was sitting on the floor leaning against the wall. They were silent for a few moments, both watching the Captain gander about the place.
"Still haven't seen any serial killers, I'm pretty sure you're safe for the mean time" Bryan told her jokingly. Tala and Spencer both stiffened.
"Good to know you're keeping an eye out" Mariah smiled. The other two relaxed, well, more like became slightly less tense. They must've been waiting for her eyes to flick towards Kai.
They watched passively as the Captain tackled Tyson to the ground and slobbered all over him.
"Warm?" Bryan asked quietly. She had been wondering wether he had noticed the jacket.
"Yeah. You don't mind do you?" She said, smiling slightly as Tyson chased the Captain who was currently holding the boys cap in his mouth. She saw him shake his head out of the corner of her eye.
The Captain bounded up to her, proudly holding his trophy. The dog dropped the hat into Mariah's outstretched hand.
"Tell me if you ever need someone to take the Captain off your hands so you can train, okay?" she offered with a smile.
"Dear lawd, please" Tala whined, still keeping one eye on Kai.
"By the sounds of it we'll be taking you up on that offer" Bryan told her.
"I better get going" Mariah said as she stood. She gave the Captain one final pat and waved goodbye before walking over to return Tyson's cap.
Bryan watched Mariah leave. His eyes didn't miss Rick standing, semi hidden beside some crates or the hateful glint in his eyes. He didn't miss the sucker punch of bad vibes the universe threw his way either.
The whole day passed by rather quickly. Before she knew it, it was nighttime and she was getting ready to go on a make up date with Rick to reconcile after their last one. Though their last one didn't count as a date seeing as she blew him off to roll around in mud with her ex. Put that way she could understand why Rick had been so pissed.
A knock on the door dragged her away from choosing what earrings to wear.
Looking through the peephole she saw the slightly distorted face of afore mentioned ex.
"Hey there" Mariah greeted swinging open the door. The Captain yapped at her happily.
"Hey. Oh, you're going out. Don't worry about it" Bryan said, turning back towards his room once he saw her all dressed up.
"Wait. What do you need? I might be able to help" Mariah asked, grabbing his hand to stop him.
"That offer you made this morning. I was going to call you up on it but you're going out" Bryan replied turning back towards her.
"No. I can look after the Captain. I'm not doing anything all that important. I can blow it off" She told him.
"You sure?"
"Positive!" she chirped taking the leash from him.
"Thanks" he said, giving her hand a squeeze before leaving. Oops. She'd forgotten she'd grabbed his hand. She looked around quickly to make sure Rick wasn't around to see them holding hands in the hallway or her telling Bryan she'd blow off a date with him to take care of a dog.
He'd have kittens if he found out. Now that was a thought. What would Rick kittens look like?
She pondered this as she txt him with some excuse and could only hope he didn't come to check on her.
She wondered when she'd stopped caring as much about dates. Though she didn't really have to wonder, she knew exactly when.
Her phone buzzed with Rick's reply. He was annoyed as expected but didn't question her.
With that Mariah flopped on the couch snuggling into his jacket with his dog resting across his legs. It was almost as good as having him.
And that's it! I'll try update sooner! I'm sorry. Took me forever to get any inspiration and then I had to rewrite half of it cos it was crap, sorry, I mean crapper.