RTC: Hi guys! I got the chapter done! This is the longest one yet, over two thousand words! And I found my muses!

Ray: I can't believe he locked us up in a closet.

Tyson: And I can't believe you put make up on him! I so need a picture of this. (Runs off to find Kai.)

RTC: How did you all fit in there anyway?

Max: I don't know, we just did. This is an anime, just go with it.

RTC: Okay, whatever. Sorry that this chapter is so long yet somehow still sort of dull. But this means the fic is almost done! I had meant to write this as two or three chapters, but I don't want to bore you to death, so I jammed it all in one chapter! So, disclaimer please!

Daichi: Ray-Tiger-Cat has dreamt that she owned Beyblade, but then she woke up. So in other words, she does not own it!

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You Win A Little, You Lose A Lot

Kai's POV

I had been awoken by a huge group of guards who proceeded to tie me up and drag me down to the torture chamber. Of course I had fought back and put up a fuss, but to no avail. My protests however had woken up Tala and he helped deal those thugs a world of hurt. Kari was out like a light, which might have been for the better, since I didn't want her to get hurt too. It's been a few hours, I think-can't be sure because I've been in and out of consciousness-and I'm sore all over. I don't think I can last too much longer. The only things keeping me going is the fact that I'm driving the crazy old bat-a. k. a. my grandfather-absolutely crazy and the fact that the longer I fight, the longer the others are safe.

Tyson's POV

"We've been in here for almost an hour. How big is this place anyway?" I whined.

"Not that big, Tyson," Spencer said patiently, "But we have to take the long route to avoid more guards. Unless you really want to knock another few out." We had run into a pair of guards, but Byran and Spencer had managed to knock them out cold and stuff them in a closet, thankfully for us.

"Hey, what's that up ahead?" Max asked. "There seem to be an awful lot of guards there."

"Hmm, boys, I think we found it, ready guys?" Byran said.

"Yeah, we're ready," Spencer and Ian replied.

"Wait, ready for what?" Ray asked.

"This." They launched their blades and while the guards were trying to grab the blades, they hit them on the back of the head, promptly knocking three out cold. Max, Ray and I decided to follow suite.

"So, much for stealth. Full out attack, now!" Byran commanded. Before I could join the fight, he grabbed my wrist. "Tyson, I need you to go down the hall and get Tala and the others out. Don't let them see you," he warned. Luckily for me, there was a lot of noise and in the chaos, I quickly ran down the hall. Like Byran had said, Tala and Kari were locked up in a cell. I wondered where Kai was, but I figured I'd better bust them out before worrying about anything else.

"Tyson, what the hell is going on? Are you crazy?!" Kari yelled the second she saw it was me.

"I'm trying to rescue you, can you please cooperate?" I said as I launched Dragoon at the lock. It broke and both Tala and Kari ran out, or rather limped out. I could see that they had been through a lot.

"We've got to find Kai," Tala said.

"What?! You mean you don't know where he is?!" I demanded.

"Tyson, they took him away. You have really bad timing. They were going to kill him, and they do that slowly most of the time. They might just shoot him!" Kari wailed. Oh, so that was why she was so upset.

"Well, I can't change the past, but if we hurry, we can find him and save him. The others are down this way," I replied, running down the hall. When we got there, we saw half of the guards running down another hallway and the other half out cold.

"Follow them!" Spencer ordered. This worked reasonably well until they decided to split into groups. One went into a small room, the others kept running. "Room!" Spencer yelled, making the choice for us. "Bryan, Ian, with me!" The three of them ran off along with Tala and Kari, while us three sneaked into the room. The guards were running through another door and they slammed it shut. We could hear a lock being shut.

"Great," I mumbled to no one in particular. Just them we heard a moan. There was a person tied to a table. We approached with caution.

"Take out the flashlight," Max advised. When I turned it on, we were in for a surprise.

"Mom?" Ray asked, disbelievingly. "What happened?" Diana chewed on the gag, indicating that she couldn't talk. Ray reached over and pulled it out.

"Raymond, is that you?" she sounded so weak. "Pull these tubes out, would you? I can't explain everything now, but all you need to know is that your friend Kai is in serious danger. We have to get to him. If Voltaire kills him, it's game over." Ray obliged and pulled out some tubes that were dripping some kind of poison into his mother's veins. He also released her from the table and she sat up. "That's better, thank you," she mumbled, swaying slightly.

"Mom, take it easy," he ordered.

"No, we have to go now." Some of the authority was back in her voice, which was a relief. She got to her feet unsteadily, grabbed Ray's shoulder for support and started walking towards the door. "I know where Kai is. Please, just listen for once." We had no choice but to follow her. She led us down a corridor where we met the B-Boys and Kari.

"They're in there," Tala said, indicating a door. The lock was already broken, no doubt their handiwork.

"Alright, we should break the door down," I suggested. "Maybe someone should stay here as a look out," I added, glancing at Diana. Before she could protest, we had told her to be the look out and ran inside. The sight we were met with was a horrible one. I think it'll haunt me in my sleep from now on. We were standing on a balcony like structure and down below us was Kai and several guards. Kai looked half dead. In fact I was sure he was dead until I saw him try to hit one of the guards. "Ready?" I whispered. The others nodded. "Go!" We jumped off the balcony-it wasn't very high-and stormed the guards. It wasn't long before there was total chaos. (AN: Sorry guys, I have such trouble describing fight scenes!) Byran and Spencer managed to take out the most guards, but the guards weren't going down easily. It wasn't long before they pulled out whips and knives. The thug I was fighting thought it would be fun to throw the knives and he just narrowly missed me.

Kai meanwhile was just lying there. He didn't have the strength to move, I guess, and that's when he came. Voltaire. I hadn't seen the guy since the first world championships, but it didn't look like he had changed much. He pulled out a gun and fired at the ceiling once. "Freeze!" he ordered, pointing the gun around the room. Kai had gotten to his feet and was leaning against a wall and I guess he was going to try and stop his grandfather. Voltaire spotted the movement, and in a blink of an eye, rounded on Kai and fired several shots. Kai, being Kai, was prepared. He launched Dranzer-how he had held on to his beyblade so long was beyond me-and that knocked a few bullets away. Kai moved enough so another few didn't hit him, but there was no possible way he could dodge them all, especially in his condition.

Then, out of nowhere, a pale green beyblade came and knocked Voltaire's gun out of his hands. However, Kai still took a few shoots. "You..." Voltaire said evilly. We looked up to see Diana holding a launcher and ripcord.

"Yeah, me. Now get away from Kai before I use your head for target practice," she said, and stubborn gleam in her eyes. It looked like she had shaken off the poison. Tala had already grabbed the gun and none of the thugs had one, probably because Voltaire was afraid that they would kill him, as he wasn't very nice to his employees either. The guards looked like they wanted to fight, but Voltaire had something different in mind.

"Plan beta!" he commanded and they left the room. "I know you have people watching the building. I know you'll report me to the police. But if I'm going down, I'm taking all of you with me!" he bellowed in a rage. Meanwhile, all of us bladers had surrounded him and had our beyblades pointing at him. Kari however had run to Kai, who was barely hanging in there.

"Kai?" she whispered as she bound Kai's wounds with bits of cloth in a vain attempt to stop the bleeding.

"Hn," he said, opening one eye. "Kari, get everyone to evacuate. Plan beta means that the building will self destruct, killing anyone inside in about ten minutes. Go now!" Voltaire's maniacal laughter seemed to confirm it. Kari tried to pick Kai up, but couldn't do it. He was losing blood fast, and if we didn't get out soon, we were all dead.

"Okay, everyone keep your launchers pointed at that-that thing," Diana ordered, "And get out of here." She then stopped and put Kai on Kari's back. "Come on!"

"Kari, I'm sorry," Kai mumbled.

"What for? You didn't do anything wrong."

"I've never been able to protect you; I've failed."

"Kai, knock it off, you sound like you're going to die." He didn't respond. "Kai? Kai?!" Kari started panicking.

"Hold on," Tala said, "Kai's still breathing, so keep moving."

"There's no way we'll make it to the ground floor in time!" I shouted, noticing that we had been running for almost five minutes already.

"Through the window!" Diana yelled, using her beyblade to smash it open.

"But we're on the thirds floor!" Max pointed out.

"No choice, move!" Byran replied. "A few people at a time, then this monster, then everyone else." Ian, Spencer, Max and I jumped first and landed in the snow. I think it was the first time I was so grateful for the stuff. Ray, Tala and Diana shoved Voltaire out of the window. He landed not-so-gracefully and looked up to see several launchers pointing at him. He wasn't going anywhere. Ray, Diana and Tala jumped next, and they landed very neatly in the snow.

"Come on Kari, jump!" Tala shouted. She was looking nervous, but suddenly, she sprang from the window frame. A few of us caught her, as she couldn't possibly balance with Kai on her back. In a matter of minutes, the police and paramedics had been called. They quickly snapped handcuffs on Voltaire and shoved him in a police car. He was too busy sulking to protest.

Kai however was another story. The emergency workers nearly passed out after seeing him and they see trauma patients everyday. They had stuck so many tubes and things into him that you couldn't possibly recognized that it was a person on the stretcher. The emergency workers also decided that Tala, Kari and Diana needed to be taken to the hospital right away, despite all of their protests. The PBD All Starz and White Tiger X were taken back to the B-Boys' place to rest up. Kenny, Daichi and Hilary came with us to the hospital.

"Hey, Tyson?" Hilary said.

"Yeah?" I replied.

"I love you, but don't you ever worry me like that again!" she said with a small smile before giving me a discreet kiss on the cheek.

"Okay," I agreed.

Ray's POV

We have been at this hospital for several hours now, and we still don't have any news on Kai. To make matters worse, most of the doctors don't even speak English, so we couldn't understand what they were saying to each other either. Both Tala and Kari had been released, with orders to take it easy. I think that they were driving the doctors crazy and that's why they agreed to let them go, seeing as how they were both badly beaten and starved for a few days. My mom wasn't quite as lucky. Whatever was in those tubes was not good and the doctors admitted her into the hospital. I'd been to see her, but she was fast asleep, so I had to come back.

"There's the doctor!" Daichi announced, pointing at him.

The expression on his face said a lot. And what it said was not good. "Kai is alive, but he's is not in good condition. He had a few bullets lodged in his body, several cracked and broken bones, multiple wounds that required stitches, a fractured skull and he lost a lot of blood. All these factors caused another problem. He's comatose and even if he did survive, chances are that he won't recover completely."

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RTC: Did you guys like it?! I have another poll for you guys. Should I kill Kai? I already asked a few people in my review replies, and so far the votes are three for letting him live and zero for killing him. Please vote, okay?

Kai: Yeah, or she'll torture me! Come on, you don't want her to kill me, do you?

RTC: I don't think they'll mind if I torture you.

Kai: Shut up.

RTC: Anyway, ignore my muse and vote! See you guys next time!