Far From Here
A/N: Wow! People actually like my stories! *sniffle* 20 reviews!!! *looks at Jen's 68 reviews for TWO CHAPTERS and Celina's 138 reviews and the 52 reviews for… some other story of Laura's* WAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Depressed!!!!
DISCLAIMER: see chapters 1-6. I refuse to do this anymore. You have been officially informed that I do not own Beyblade.
CHAPTER 7: DAY TWO OF THE TOURNAMENT
Alec could only watch miserably as Julien accepted the black bag Pam held out. Somehow, he had a feeling Julien wouldn't listen if he protested, and besides, nine years in Balkoff Abbey had taught him never to speak up while this was going on.
"Wh-wh-what are you doing?" Chief squeaked out, eyes wide and round as Julien opened the bag to haul out what seemed like a zillion long wires in a myriad of colours. "Wh-wh-what are those for?"
"I'd like to know that too," Dak agreed, stepping forward dangerously. Laili, pale with shock, was hanging onto Isobel Yvan's arm.
"This'll take a while," Julien said vaguely. "I'll explain when we're through. It might be better if you all leave." Slowly, reluctantly, the adults left.
"I stay." Alec spoke up. "I know how to deal with the side effects."
"Side effects?" the room chorused in unison, even Julien, who looked up in surprise from where he was busy attaching various wires to plug-ins and electrodes. Kai was still looking scarily… scary, glaring at Alec.
"Guys, get out," he spoke up, directing his gaze at his teammates, who looked reluctant. "Now."
"Yessir!" Max finally yelped and tore out of there, closely followed by Chief and Tyson. You just didn't mess with Kai when he used that tone of voice.
"No." Rei said quietly. "I'm staying."
"Rei, get out." Kai repeated. "If you make me get up and forcibly remove you…"
"I'd like to see you try, in your current state," Rei responded, crossing his arms and seating himself on the armchair across the room.
"Kai, we're ready to start attaching." Julien interrupted, and the teen obeyed by stretching out on the couch and remaining perfectly still as Julien attached the many, many, many, many, many electrodes at various points around Kai's head: his forehead, his temples, underneath his hair, along his scalp.
"Ready, Kai?" Julien asked, after the whole procedure was finished. Carefully, taking care not to rip any electrodes out, Kai nodded.
Rei and Alec, watching over Julien's shoulders as he clicked Commence, looked back up at Kai as he jumped a bit, then remained motionless.
"What's going on?" Rei asked, eyes never leaving the sight of his ice-cold and diamond-strong captain look completely helpless and vulnerable. "How long does this last?"
"It's memory re-modification and re-erasage and re-implantation," Alec answered quietly. "What program letter is it, Julien?"
"Uh, S, why?"
"All right, then it's rebinding as well." Alec added.
"Explanation?" Rei asked hopefully.
Alec sighed. "When we first arrived at Balkoff Abbey, we, ah, weren't the most compliant of children. Too many good memories of our homes outside of the abbey. So, in order to keep us in line, Boris had his lackeys use some super-advanced, never-released-to-the-general-public programming, to modify parts of my memory, such as my last name. They did the same with Kai, except on a more extreme scale. They not only modified some of his memories, they erased most of it completely and replaced those memories with fake memories they implanted into his brain. I think they implanted memories of his home here being horrible and abusive."
"That's the most outrageous thing I've ever heard." Julien said flatly. "Why would he be reacting now, then?" He paused. "All Sebastien told me was that it was beneficial for his health to continue this."
"Yeah, because the programming needs updating every month." Alec answered. "The way they kept the programming in our brains was with little wires that run through each area of the brain. When the programming begins to subside, then the wires start sending off electric shocks, which, in the abbey, were picked up by radar. However, outside the abbey, they just give you increasingly painful headaches and frankly put, Boris doesn't care once you're gone. Kai had that horrible migraine when we arrived, so my guess is, judging by the severity of the shock waves, that he's probably known it needed updating for a couple of days. My programming has long since stopped, since I've been sort of on the run for a year. I really ached for a really long while, but I guess the wires just got exhausted."
"So you're cyborgs?" Rei asked.
"No," Alec responded forcefully. "Cyborgs have a lot more than just memory modification. We just have little itsy-bitsy wires running through our brains."
"What was with the rebinding?" Rei asked.
"Yeah, that's the other thing," Alec admitted. "Even after all the memory stuff, we still weren't mindless minions, so they had to use more technology, called 'spirit-binding'. What this did, was, pretty much literally bound our spirits into one tiny corner of our minds, until the spirit wasn't really capable of making any decisions. This needed to be updated every month as well."
Rei shuddered. "So how long does this normally last?"
"About 5 hours or so, I guess," Julien shrugged, plopping down on the ground with the laptop. "He's usually asleep for a while after that, too, so no point really, in sticking around here, so we may as well go sort this out. Alexei, go get the others at the main house."
"No need," Glen Yvan responded, walking in. "We heard the entire thing. Why is this still going on?"
"We busted out Biovolt last year, though," Max whined. "They closed down Balkoff Abbey."
"You don't seriously think that was the only training facility Biovolt had?" Alec scorned. "They've got them all over the globe. Only Voltaire knows exactly which facilities are his."
"Goody." Tyson muttered.
It took a few hours, but finally, the whole story finally got out. At the end, Dak was ready to go and rip the electrodes off that instant, but Alec talked him out of it. "It'd only do worse damage. It could wipe out his entire memory, it could blow his brain apart, it could turn him into some sort of mindless monster, it could paralyze him, it could ki—"
"Okay, I get it!" Dak groaned.
"What are the side effects of this, Alexei?" Laili asked, directing the question at Alec, who looked as though he had a slight headache. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah, it's just backlash I guess. Tiny headache, I get 'em sometimes. Doesn't really hurt. Any way, the side effects are he's pretty groggy when he first wakes, usually he's a bit on the irritated, violent side and most of the time, he'll just sleep a lot. Trust me, this is a good thing for him to sleep twenty hours a day or something like that. Oh! And don't be surprised at his expression."
"Expression?" Dak asked.
"He'll kinda look like he's… I doubt you've ever seen a druggie on his high?"
"Nope."
"A really distant expression like he's looking into some other galaxy, his eyes are unfocused and his face will be kinda flushed, but reeeeally pale at the same time."
"That's a complete oxymoron, Alexei," Isobel pointed out.
"Wait until you see it," Alec assured her.
A incoherent mumble from the living room made the whole strangely silent group whirl around.
Alec stood up and caught Kai's arm as he went to stand up. "Hold it, Kai."
"Lemme go, Alec," Kai mumbled thickly, succeeding in elbowing Alec in the side, using his captivated arm.
"Mm-hmm," Alec said non-committedly as he cautiously kept his distance from Kai, though he didn't release Kai's arm.
"…ment," was all Alec could understand of Kai's next statement.
"I'm not readin' you, Kai." Alec told him.
Rei came over from the kitchen and said calmly, "We're not going to make it, Kai. We've already missed most of the tournament."
Kai sat upright in a flash of slate. He let a long string of words in various foreign languages, causing Julien to look appalled and Alec to look impressed.
"That is one impressive vocabulary," he said in admiration. "I didn't know you could talk like that."
"Don't even start with it, Kai," Julien warned. "Just because most of the people here can't understand what you're saying doesn't mean they don't get the gist of it."
Kai glared at him through heavy eyelids. "Don't bug me." he sighed. "Well, at least it was only a regional. We still get to go to the nationals."
"Wonderful," Tyson mumbled.
Max grinned. "That's a couple of months away. WHOO! Vacation time!!!"
"Don't even think about it, Max," Kai snapped. "We're not disregarding the training schedule."
"Nuts." Max muttered, smile fading.
The next morning, Chief awoke to the sounds of arguments from the master bedroom. The three younger boys had pulled out the hide-a-bed in the living room and collapsed in fatigue. Alexei had gone home with his parents. Since Rei was pretty much the only one who was least likely to bug Kai, he got the honours of rooming with him.
"…honestly, Kai, I can't believe you!"
"I'm fine, Rei, now go get the others up!"
"There's no way you can be back to normal yet."
"Normal? What's that?"
"Don't start with the evading-the-question act, Kai. You're still not recovered."
"Ridiculous," Kai finally proclaimed and stormed out of the room fuming. "Oh, good, Kenny, you're up. Get Tyson and Max up. We start training in half an hour."
"Kai, it's 6 in the morning," Chief protested, yawning. Rei emerged from the bedroom, long unwrapped hair fuzzy and wavy and eyes sleep-heavy.
"Yeah, Kai, it's 6 in the morning," Rei echoed.
"This is new to you?" Kai asked, opening the fridge to find the juice. "Now stop arguing before I tape your collective mouths shut. TYSON! MAX!"
"Wha—ah!" Tyson yelped, jumping upright and causing Max to tumble onto the cold hard-wood floor.
"AIIIIIEEE!!" Max screeched, scrambling up off the ground. "What was that for, you baka????!!!"
"Sorry Maxie." Tyson apologized, tugging his baseball cap on over his tousled hair. "Rei, you look like a girl."
"Shut up, Tomato Head." Rei grumbled. Tyson flushed bright red and mumbled something about genetics. Max, now apparently recovered from his rude awakening, giggled as the two tried to figure out something else to insult the other with.
"Guys!" Kai interrupted. "Training in twenty minutes. Get up. Whatever you haven't accomplished in the next twenty minutes can wait until tonight."
"I call dibs on the bathroom!" Rei yelled, dashing for the bathroom and locking it behind him.
"Hey, ten minutes, man!" Chief howled.
"Hey, it takes ten minutes to wash my hair alone!" Rei whined through the sounds of running water.
"Wrap it out here!" Max added.
"Fine!"
"Fine!"
"Fine!"
"Fine!"
"Guys!!"
"Sorry Kai!"
With some difficulty, Kai managed to collect his team and get them ready for training in twenty minutes. Breakfast was accelerated, as in Tyson and Max whining because all Kai would give them was a slice of dry toast and a juice box for breakfast, and that had to be eaten while training.
"Shut it, guys," Rei said, noticing Kai was looking a little drowsy and thus irritated. "Why are we up this early anyhow? And why are we still here, come to think of it, if we're not competing in the tournament anymore?"
"We are," Kai responded. "We leave in an hour. That's why we're getting in training now."
"But I thought," Chief whined.
"I called the officials earlier today," Kai responded. "They've excused the absence, since we weren't competing that day any way."
"Fine." Tyson mumbled. "C'mon guys, let's get training."
"That's more like it," Kai said, satisfied.
Getting sick of his teammate's fuss over him, Kai indulged their wishes and slept for the hour-long ride out to Sunsrest, and was almost back to his normal self by the time the tournament started. Maybe a little more irritable than usual.
"Max, Draciel's attack ring is getting dull. Replace it now."
"Tyson, stop whining, you're not four years old."
"Rei, go get Kenny to readjust Driger's balance ring."
"Kenny! Get your head out of the clouds and help me here!"
"Max, I mean it. Replace Draciel's attack ring now."
"Tyson! One more whiny comment out of you and I give your lunch to some kid in the crowds."
"Rei, Driger's still off-balance."
"KENNY!"
"Max! All right, that's it. Max, Rei, give me Draciel and Driger. Somebody get Tyson out of my sight now unless you're intent on letting rip him limb from limb. And Kenny, go somewhere else. What did I ever do to deserve teammates like you?"
"Yeesh, somebody's touchy today." Tyson muttered as a startled Rei and Max dragged him from the room.
"Welcome Beyblade fans, to DAY TWO of the Sunsrest Regional Tournament! Our first battle starts in five minutes, between the Bladebreakers and the Eternals!"
"Max, there's Draciel. Careful! The attack ring's sharp."
"You're telling me," Max mumbled, sticking his sliced finger in his mouth.
"Take your finger out of your mouth, you look like a toddler. Get a bandage. Rei, here's Driger. Careful not to dislodge the balance ring."
"Gotcha, Kai," Rei answered, carefully reclaiming Driger.
"Now please behave yourselves." Kai sighed as he seated himself on the bench.
"When have we ever not?" Tyson asked. He shut up when Kai sent him a withering glare.
The day passed fairly uneventfully, as far as Beyblade battles went nowadays: the Bladebreakers thrashed their opponents easily and it was so typical that Kai nearly fell asleep on the bench. He actually did once, but a gentle poke in the side from Rei woke him.
"Based on the attitudes of you five, I'd say you won today?" Dak asked as the team piled into the van.
"You'd guess right." Rei answered, grinning.
"We kicked major butt!" Max crowed.
Tyson nodded. "Didn't we, Kai?" He poked Kai in the shoulderblade, but the poor guy had already fallen back asleep. "That's the second time today," he groused.
"Oh, let the poor boy sleep," Dak said warningly. "What time were you guys up since this morning?"
"6, but he was probably up earlier," Chief answered.
"There you go."