Author's Notes: WOW. I cannot believe the response I got for the first chapter. I didn't expect to get so much feedback since Kariah is such an different pairing. I'm glad I did though…that sure got me to finish this chapter more quickly, ~^ I'd like to thank EACH AND EVERYONE ONE OF YOU SOOOO MUCH!!^^ Alrite, now remember this *is* Kai/Mariah pairing ok? I'll see what I can do for all you Mariah/Rei fans, but don't expect them to end up together ~^ The Beyblade section's gotta have just ONE Kai/Mariah fic atleast =P Neway, let the fun begin.
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Everywhere
Chapter 2: Finding an Escape
"No…" Kai murmured under his breath as he stared blankly at the sign. After a few seconds of being awestruck, his expression went through a transformation of emotionless back to being annoyed.
"Damnit!" he yelled as he clenched his fist and punched the metal door angrily. The outraged teen could felt his temples throb from the build up of frustration from getting his Beyblade swiped and now realizing that he was trapped in an arena with a little pink-haired brat.
"Can you open it?" a small voice behind him asked quietly, interrupting his mental break down.
Kai gave her a sharp glare as he slid past her and began walking through the hall silently. Mariah watched as the heated Bladebreaker re-entered the training grounds. She rolled her eyes as she took after him slowly.
'Now isn't this gonna be a fun experience,' she thought to herself sarcastically as she neared the entrance. 'Oh well, at least I don't have to put up with Lee lecturing me,' Mariah tried to think on the bright side. That is until she entered the blading area and saw Kai standing near a dish with the most irritated look anyone could possibly ever have, even for him.
The female White Tiger bit her bottom lip as the crimson-eyed teen threw daggers with his eyes. She quickly turned her back on him to avoid his evil glare and decided it would be safer if she stayed away from him for now until he cooled off…that is if he could actually manage to. Mariah walked over to the opposite dish and stood beside it, making sure she wasn't facing him.
'God that girl,' Kai thought grinding his teeth while staring intently at her back. 'She must of thrown my Beyblade outside somewhere. And as if that wasn't enough, she just *had* to get us trapped in here together,' he thought bitterly.
Mariah didn't have to look behind her to feel his angry stare burning on her back. 'Uhhh! I wish he'd stop giving me that look,' she thought dreadfully. Being in the same room with someone who wanted to kill you was definitely not very comforting. At least he chose to keep his mouth shut. Kai undeniably had won himself the crown for the rudest person Mariah has ever met after giving all of those malicious remarks earlier.
After fifteen minutes, which seemed like hours, of just standing there, Mariah finally got the courage to turn around, attempting to catch a peek at what her prison partner was up to. She let out a gentle sigh of relief, thankful that he quit his death glare and was simply leaning against the wall with his eyes closed and arms crossed. A little smile crept onto her face as she watched him for a brief second.
'You know I'm beginning to think that's the only pose he's capable of doing,' she thought teasingly. Unfortunately, her carefree moment was cut short as the blue-haired Beyblader opened his eyes unexpectedly. Her golden eyes widened as her gaze shortly met with his. Mariah tightened her fists and braced herself for another round of his fiery glares, but was let down as he just turned around and started to head towards the hallway. She blinked in surprise and tilted her head curiously.
'Where in the world is that guy going?' she wondered to herself. "Hmph, like I care," she scoffed aloud while casually flipping her hair, trying to occupy herself with something to do. Mariah's eyes then began to wander around the gymnasium boredly. She continued her oh-so-exciting activity for a few more minutes, until her curiosity began to get the best of her.
'Should I follow him to see what he's doing?' she began to debate with herself as she stared at the hallway ponderingly. He definitely did not want to talk to her and she wasn't too thrilled about the idea of having a conversation with Mr. Peachy either. Despite that though, the pink-haired teen shrugged and decided to tag along. She figured if she was going to be stuck with him, they had to eventually make contact sooner or later. She reckoned she'd might as well bite the gun now instead of procrastinating. Besides, she was about ready to die of extreme ennui now.
Without further hesitation, Mariah folded her arms and casually took a step as she proceeded towards the hallway.
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"Oh yah, that definitely hit the spot," grinned Tyson as he patted his stomach. Max glanced at his friend and stifled his laughter as he continued eating his food.
The sociable Bladebreakers were in the hotel restaurant eating lunch. None of them had bothered to look for Kai because his normal ritual when they weren't competing was pretty much disappearing off somewhere during the sunlight hours and re-appearing again either before a match or dinner. It was so habitual now that Tyson gave it the official name of "Kai's Magical Vanishing Act".
"Good afternoon boys," smiled Mr. Dickinson as he approached their table.
"Oph Phay Fir!" greeted Tyson with his mouth full of God knows what.
The kind old man raised an eyebrow and chuckled at Tyson's typical, but still comical behaviour. He shook his head with a grin, knowing that Tyson would never change.
"Is there anything you need?" Kenny asked politely.
"Well yes, thank you for asking," Mr. Dickinson smiled warm-heartedly. "I was wondering if any of you boys happen to know where Kai is."
The four of them looked at each other and then looked back at Mr. Dickinson, shaking their heads. The aged gentleman looked at the floor disappointedly, but still managed an understanding nod, "I see," he sighed. "Well if any of you happen to find him, would you please tell him that I'm looking for him?"
"Of course," agreed Rei, "but just out of curiosity, why can't you just wait till he gets back in the evening?"
"Well I suppose I could do that," he thought wonderingly, putting a hand on his chin, "but I was hoping to tell him the news as soon as possible."
"What news?" questioned Max.
The elderly sir paused for a moment, contemplating if he should let Kai's teammates aware of the new findings. "Well," he finally began, "I think it's best if Kai is the first one to hear about it," he tried to explain. "It's somewhat of an issue I'm sure he'd prefer people not know about. I respect his privacy and I'd like to leave it up to him whether he should tell you boys or not."
All of them nodded in agreement, all except Tyson that is. "Aw man!" he groaned. "Like he'd ever let us in on anything about him."
"Even so Tyson, it's his life," Mr. Dickinson tried to reason. "You know he's not the sociable type. But I'm sure that he'll eventually come around when he's ready."
Tyson swallowed his hamburger as he continued to complain, "Well can't you give us just a little itty bitty clue?" the meddlesome teenager persisted.
Mr. Dickinson laughed lightly, "You are a very stubborn young man, aren't you?"
"Yes sir!" he beamed.
"All right then, I'll tell you *one* thing," the plump gentleman gave in. "Jamie," he said plainly.
"Jamie?" Tyson blinked in puzzlement. "Who's he?"
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Kai rummaged through the office hastily, looking for a phone. If he didn't find one soon, he was sure that he would lose his mind. He glanced up at the clock: 12:15. It would be hours before any of his team-mates figured out that he was missing, and being as impatient and annoyed as he was at that very moment, the blue-haired teenager did NOT want to wait that long. The sooner the door was opened, the sooner he'd get his Beyblade back and get away from her.
You'd think that someone would have come to practice by now, but obviously people had other plans. Day offs weren't that frequent during the Asian tournament this year, and competitors were definitely using today to take some time to relax. Nerves have just been going crazy with all the pressure, and "training" grew to be the godly word for the sport. It had become as essential as breathing and when that's all you do from the time you wake up in the morning till you go to bed at night, it could get pretty tiring.
"What *are* you doing?" a surprised voice asked from the direction of the door.
"None of your business," he replied without being distracted from his current expedition.
Mariah sweatdroppped as she observed the room, which had been taking apart from top to bottom. "Um…looking for something?" she asked, trying to make some kind of conversation get started.
Kai shot her an irritated glance. "Didn't you hear me the first time? I said it's none of your business," he spat, quickly getting back to his search.
'Oh yah, he's definitely still mad at me,' she thought unfortunately. 'Maybe it was a bit too much throwing his Beyblade out like that…' she began to wonder to herself. "Okay look," she abruptly began with a strong tone, "I know we're stuck here together, and I'm just as upset as you are."
"Care to make a wager on that?" he retorted.
"Oh jeez," she rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Okay, I'm just upset too then, happy?"
"Not really," he scoffed.
It took Mariah all of her willpower not to say anything rude back. 'Okay just keep your cool,' she coached herself in her head. "ANYWAY," she continued, ignoring his last comment, "I wanna get out, you wanna get out. You're obviously looking for something and two hands are better than one, right? Besides, you don't wanna clean up this mess all by yourself, do you?"
She had a point there. Kai cocked an eyebrow as he took a look around the room. Funny, he never noticed before that it looked like it was hit by a tornado. "Fine," he agreed reluctantly. "The phone," he simply stated, turning back to his task.
'Wow,' she thought to herself pleased. 'That wasn't as bad as I thought. Hm…we could be on the right track to an early prison release.'
The two teens went on with their quest for the key to get out of their jail. Mariah didn't bother trying to talk to Kai anymore; she was sure that doing so would highly result in her Beyblade getting flung somewhere. Even though they were now tolerating each other a tad bit better than earlier, Mariah was still upset about what he had previously said to her. It was mean. It was out of line. It was contemptuous. It's too bad it was also true and Mariah knew it. Still, that didn't give him the right to say what he did.
'What is up with this kid?' Kai wondered to himself as he glanced at Mariah from the corner of his eye. 'First she's hurling my Beyblade somewhere outside and now she's helping me. God, girls don't make any sense.'
"I don't think the phone is in here," suggested the yellow-eyed teen, as she looked through a drawer for the tenth time.
Kai ignored her implication and kept on searching. Mariah furrowed her brow, but left him to carry on with his wild goose chase. She carefully made her way through the disaster zone to the open door. "Just to let you know, I'm gonna check the other room across the hall, okay?" No response. She sighed as she sauntered to the opposite door.
"Let's see…" she said out loud as her bright eyes scanned the room. It looked like another office. Probably an identical version of the one Kai was in, before he actually stepped in the room, that is.
There was a wide, wooden desk in the right corner of the room with a professional-looking black lamp on top of it. She caught sight of a photocopier and a bunch of drawers and file cabinets on the other end of the room. The rest of the area was either filled with empty space or chairs.
Mariah strolled over to the desk as she began looking for a phone. She went through the drawers cautiously, trying not to mess anything up too much. She knew they had their work cut out for them in the other room and she wasn't about to add another crash sector to clean up.
After inspecting the desk to find nothing, she headed over to the file cabinet and began a new search there. No luck. The pink-haired girl sighed as she plopped herself onto a chair and stared at the ceiling. After discovering nothing of her interest up there, she closed her eyes and rested her head on the top of the chair.
'Lee's gonna be so mad at me when I get out of here,' she began to think to herself unhappily. 'I can hear him right now… ~Mariah! Where have you been? Don't you know that you could have used this time training? While everyone else is lounging around, you could have been improving your Beyblading skills~ Oy, I won't even think about what he'll say to me when I tell him that I got myself locked in the training arena,' she cringed.
Mariah finally opened her golden eyes as she tilted her head to the left. She blinked. Was she seeing things or was there something on top of the file cabinet that she didn't notice before?
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Hope this chapter wuz alrite…. LoL ~^ Eh…I'll make the next chappie better; at least this one's longer than the first. Till next time, happy reading!
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Everywhere
Chapter 2: Finding an Escape
"No…" Kai murmured under his breath as he stared blankly at the sign. After a few seconds of being awestruck, his expression went through a transformation of emotionless back to being annoyed.
"Damnit!" he yelled as he clenched his fist and punched the metal door angrily. The outraged teen could felt his temples throb from the build up of frustration from getting his Beyblade swiped and now realizing that he was trapped in an arena with a little pink-haired brat.
"Can you open it?" a small voice behind him asked quietly, interrupting his mental break down.
Kai gave her a sharp glare as he slid past her and began walking through the hall silently. Mariah watched as the heated Bladebreaker re-entered the training grounds. She rolled her eyes as she took after him slowly.
'Now isn't this gonna be a fun experience,' she thought to herself sarcastically as she neared the entrance. 'Oh well, at least I don't have to put up with Lee lecturing me,' Mariah tried to think on the bright side. That is until she entered the blading area and saw Kai standing near a dish with the most irritated look anyone could possibly ever have, even for him.
The female White Tiger bit her bottom lip as the crimson-eyed teen threw daggers with his eyes. She quickly turned her back on him to avoid his evil glare and decided it would be safer if she stayed away from him for now until he cooled off…that is if he could actually manage to. Mariah walked over to the opposite dish and stood beside it, making sure she wasn't facing him.
'God that girl,' Kai thought grinding his teeth while staring intently at her back. 'She must of thrown my Beyblade outside somewhere. And as if that wasn't enough, she just *had* to get us trapped in here together,' he thought bitterly.
Mariah didn't have to look behind her to feel his angry stare burning on her back. 'Uhhh! I wish he'd stop giving me that look,' she thought dreadfully. Being in the same room with someone who wanted to kill you was definitely not very comforting. At least he chose to keep his mouth shut. Kai undeniably had won himself the crown for the rudest person Mariah has ever met after giving all of those malicious remarks earlier.
After fifteen minutes, which seemed like hours, of just standing there, Mariah finally got the courage to turn around, attempting to catch a peek at what her prison partner was up to. She let out a gentle sigh of relief, thankful that he quit his death glare and was simply leaning against the wall with his eyes closed and arms crossed. A little smile crept onto her face as she watched him for a brief second.
'You know I'm beginning to think that's the only pose he's capable of doing,' she thought teasingly. Unfortunately, her carefree moment was cut short as the blue-haired Beyblader opened his eyes unexpectedly. Her golden eyes widened as her gaze shortly met with his. Mariah tightened her fists and braced herself for another round of his fiery glares, but was let down as he just turned around and started to head towards the hallway. She blinked in surprise and tilted her head curiously.
'Where in the world is that guy going?' she wondered to herself. "Hmph, like I care," she scoffed aloud while casually flipping her hair, trying to occupy herself with something to do. Mariah's eyes then began to wander around the gymnasium boredly. She continued her oh-so-exciting activity for a few more minutes, until her curiosity began to get the best of her.
'Should I follow him to see what he's doing?' she began to debate with herself as she stared at the hallway ponderingly. He definitely did not want to talk to her and she wasn't too thrilled about the idea of having a conversation with Mr. Peachy either. Despite that though, the pink-haired teen shrugged and decided to tag along. She figured if she was going to be stuck with him, they had to eventually make contact sooner or later. She reckoned she'd might as well bite the gun now instead of procrastinating. Besides, she was about ready to die of extreme ennui now.
Without further hesitation, Mariah folded her arms and casually took a step as she proceeded towards the hallway.
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"Oh yah, that definitely hit the spot," grinned Tyson as he patted his stomach. Max glanced at his friend and stifled his laughter as he continued eating his food.
The sociable Bladebreakers were in the hotel restaurant eating lunch. None of them had bothered to look for Kai because his normal ritual when they weren't competing was pretty much disappearing off somewhere during the sunlight hours and re-appearing again either before a match or dinner. It was so habitual now that Tyson gave it the official name of "Kai's Magical Vanishing Act".
"Good afternoon boys," smiled Mr. Dickinson as he approached their table.
"Oph Phay Fir!" greeted Tyson with his mouth full of God knows what.
The kind old man raised an eyebrow and chuckled at Tyson's typical, but still comical behaviour. He shook his head with a grin, knowing that Tyson would never change.
"Is there anything you need?" Kenny asked politely.
"Well yes, thank you for asking," Mr. Dickinson smiled warm-heartedly. "I was wondering if any of you boys happen to know where Kai is."
The four of them looked at each other and then looked back at Mr. Dickinson, shaking their heads. The aged gentleman looked at the floor disappointedly, but still managed an understanding nod, "I see," he sighed. "Well if any of you happen to find him, would you please tell him that I'm looking for him?"
"Of course," agreed Rei, "but just out of curiosity, why can't you just wait till he gets back in the evening?"
"Well I suppose I could do that," he thought wonderingly, putting a hand on his chin, "but I was hoping to tell him the news as soon as possible."
"What news?" questioned Max.
The elderly sir paused for a moment, contemplating if he should let Kai's teammates aware of the new findings. "Well," he finally began, "I think it's best if Kai is the first one to hear about it," he tried to explain. "It's somewhat of an issue I'm sure he'd prefer people not know about. I respect his privacy and I'd like to leave it up to him whether he should tell you boys or not."
All of them nodded in agreement, all except Tyson that is. "Aw man!" he groaned. "Like he'd ever let us in on anything about him."
"Even so Tyson, it's his life," Mr. Dickinson tried to reason. "You know he's not the sociable type. But I'm sure that he'll eventually come around when he's ready."
Tyson swallowed his hamburger as he continued to complain, "Well can't you give us just a little itty bitty clue?" the meddlesome teenager persisted.
Mr. Dickinson laughed lightly, "You are a very stubborn young man, aren't you?"
"Yes sir!" he beamed.
"All right then, I'll tell you *one* thing," the plump gentleman gave in. "Jamie," he said plainly.
"Jamie?" Tyson blinked in puzzlement. "Who's he?"
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Kai rummaged through the office hastily, looking for a phone. If he didn't find one soon, he was sure that he would lose his mind. He glanced up at the clock: 12:15. It would be hours before any of his team-mates figured out that he was missing, and being as impatient and annoyed as he was at that very moment, the blue-haired teenager did NOT want to wait that long. The sooner the door was opened, the sooner he'd get his Beyblade back and get away from her.
You'd think that someone would have come to practice by now, but obviously people had other plans. Day offs weren't that frequent during the Asian tournament this year, and competitors were definitely using today to take some time to relax. Nerves have just been going crazy with all the pressure, and "training" grew to be the godly word for the sport. It had become as essential as breathing and when that's all you do from the time you wake up in the morning till you go to bed at night, it could get pretty tiring.
"What *are* you doing?" a surprised voice asked from the direction of the door.
"None of your business," he replied without being distracted from his current expedition.
Mariah sweatdroppped as she observed the room, which had been taking apart from top to bottom. "Um…looking for something?" she asked, trying to make some kind of conversation get started.
Kai shot her an irritated glance. "Didn't you hear me the first time? I said it's none of your business," he spat, quickly getting back to his search.
'Oh yah, he's definitely still mad at me,' she thought unfortunately. 'Maybe it was a bit too much throwing his Beyblade out like that…' she began to wonder to herself. "Okay look," she abruptly began with a strong tone, "I know we're stuck here together, and I'm just as upset as you are."
"Care to make a wager on that?" he retorted.
"Oh jeez," she rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Okay, I'm just upset too then, happy?"
"Not really," he scoffed.
It took Mariah all of her willpower not to say anything rude back. 'Okay just keep your cool,' she coached herself in her head. "ANYWAY," she continued, ignoring his last comment, "I wanna get out, you wanna get out. You're obviously looking for something and two hands are better than one, right? Besides, you don't wanna clean up this mess all by yourself, do you?"
She had a point there. Kai cocked an eyebrow as he took a look around the room. Funny, he never noticed before that it looked like it was hit by a tornado. "Fine," he agreed reluctantly. "The phone," he simply stated, turning back to his task.
'Wow,' she thought to herself pleased. 'That wasn't as bad as I thought. Hm…we could be on the right track to an early prison release.'
The two teens went on with their quest for the key to get out of their jail. Mariah didn't bother trying to talk to Kai anymore; she was sure that doing so would highly result in her Beyblade getting flung somewhere. Even though they were now tolerating each other a tad bit better than earlier, Mariah was still upset about what he had previously said to her. It was mean. It was out of line. It was contemptuous. It's too bad it was also true and Mariah knew it. Still, that didn't give him the right to say what he did.
'What is up with this kid?' Kai wondered to himself as he glanced at Mariah from the corner of his eye. 'First she's hurling my Beyblade somewhere outside and now she's helping me. God, girls don't make any sense.'
"I don't think the phone is in here," suggested the yellow-eyed teen, as she looked through a drawer for the tenth time.
Kai ignored her implication and kept on searching. Mariah furrowed her brow, but left him to carry on with his wild goose chase. She carefully made her way through the disaster zone to the open door. "Just to let you know, I'm gonna check the other room across the hall, okay?" No response. She sighed as she sauntered to the opposite door.
"Let's see…" she said out loud as her bright eyes scanned the room. It looked like another office. Probably an identical version of the one Kai was in, before he actually stepped in the room, that is.
There was a wide, wooden desk in the right corner of the room with a professional-looking black lamp on top of it. She caught sight of a photocopier and a bunch of drawers and file cabinets on the other end of the room. The rest of the area was either filled with empty space or chairs.
Mariah strolled over to the desk as she began looking for a phone. She went through the drawers cautiously, trying not to mess anything up too much. She knew they had their work cut out for them in the other room and she wasn't about to add another crash sector to clean up.
After inspecting the desk to find nothing, she headed over to the file cabinet and began a new search there. No luck. The pink-haired girl sighed as she plopped herself onto a chair and stared at the ceiling. After discovering nothing of her interest up there, she closed her eyes and rested her head on the top of the chair.
'Lee's gonna be so mad at me when I get out of here,' she began to think to herself unhappily. 'I can hear him right now… ~Mariah! Where have you been? Don't you know that you could have used this time training? While everyone else is lounging around, you could have been improving your Beyblading skills~ Oy, I won't even think about what he'll say to me when I tell him that I got myself locked in the training arena,' she cringed.
Mariah finally opened her golden eyes as she tilted her head to the left. She blinked. Was she seeing things or was there something on top of the file cabinet that she didn't notice before?
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Hope this chapter wuz alrite…. LoL ~^ Eh…I'll make the next chappie better; at least this one's longer than the first. Till next time, happy reading!