Survival Skills
DISCLAIMER: Own nobody. End of story.
Chapter 2: Landing
"Oh shoot, WHAT?!" Rei asked, in a slightly panicked tone. He made his way cautiously over to the storage room where Kai was rooted to the spot in surprising horror. "Oh shoot."
"What?!" The three younger boys all chorused.
"Houston, we have a problem." Rei muttered. "Guys, hope we land somewhere soon."
"Why?" Chief asked suspiciously.
"Because we're sinking." Kai said frankly. "Something punched a hole in there. We're flooding rather quickly."
Tyson and Max and Chief all started yelling and gibbering and pleading that they didn't want to die.
"Now that wasn't necessary." Rei told Kai.
"Hmph." Kai answered. "Better the wolves at the front than at the back."
"So says you." Rei muttered, resettling himself on the flour bags. "I prefer the wolves behind me."
Just when the water had broken through the makeshift barricade Kai and Rei had constructed half an hour later, there was a jolting crunch as the boat tumbled onto its side and came to rest on a hard surface.
"Hey, guys!" Max cried delightedly. "I think we hit land!" He dove for the door, then stopped with his hand on the handle. "Can I, Kai?" Apparently Kai's reaction when Chief tried it had stuck.
"Go ahead." Kai muttered, waving a non-committed hand at him.
Max banged open the door and fought his way through the watertight seal to tumble out onto glorious land! "I am never going anywhere in a boat again!" he crowed, hugging the sand.
Tyson and Chief happily tumbled out three seconds later and Rei jumped out right after them. Kai stuck his head out, hmph-ed again and said, "Deserted island. Fun."
"How do you know it's uninhabited?" Rei teased, even while dancing around on the beach.
"There'd be people here." Kai answered vaguely. "Guys, start grabbing supplies and pile them down by the those rocks there."
"You're no fun, Kai." Tyson whined, but grabbed a bag as Kai and Rei started tossing them out. "These are heavy!"
It took about an hour for them to unload and then Kai ordered them to go look for firewood.
"But Kai!" Tyson, Max and Chief whined. Rei had long since given up complaining. He tried to pick up a log and was unpleasantly surprised when his arm burned with pain. "Ow!" he hissed, pupils suddenly constricting (A/N: you remember the 'wild cat' look, right?).
"What's the matter, Rei?" Kai asked irritably.
"If I knew, I wouldn't be in pain!" Rei growled. "Owie."
"Come here." Kai ordered, then looked at Rei's arm. "It doesn't look too badly injured." Surprisingly gentle for being Kai, he pressed down on the inside of Rei's upper arm.
"Hey!" Rei hissed again, pupils constricting again. This time, his fangs were bared as well.
"Get control of yourself!" Kai snapped, taking off his scarf and making a makeshift sling and gently slipped Rei's injured arm into it. "You just pulled a muscle, that's all. Leave the arm alone for the night. It'll be good as new in the morning. Go sit over there."
Obediently, Rei sat down on the rocks and watched Kai bark orders at the younger three, who screamed back at him and then skittered off when he advanced threateningly.
"If I pull a muscle too, can I be excused?" Tyson asked.
"No," Kai said mercilessly. "Keep hauling, Tyson. Unless you want see exactly what kinds of creatures come out at night. Lions, tigers, bears,"
"Oh my." Chief added. "Sorry, couldn't resist." He scurried past Kai, who had actually cracked a half-smile and put the newest load of firewood next to Rei. "Lucky."
"Nah." Rei said. "I'm going to have to do double-duty sometime without a doubt."
"All right, that's enough!" Kai yelled. "Now, Kenny, take some of that wood and start building a fire."
"But I don't—"
"—know how." Tyson and Max added.
"I could look it up on the Internet if I had Dizzi," Kenny said piercingly.
"Don't blame me for your carelessness." Kai said. "Make sure you learn this the first time around, because I'm not doing it again."
As the sun began to set, dark clouds looming overhead brought about the other subject the boys had forgotten.
"Are we just sleeping out in the open?" Max asked warily as he took some of the 'random soup', as Tyson called it, from the pot cooking over the fire. "Kai?"
"Knowing him, probably." Tyson muttered, taking a bowl for himself.
"That wouldn't be logical." Kenny said. "We have no medicine if one of us gets sick. We'll probably camp out in the boat. Somebody will notice when we don't show up in Brazil when we were scheduled to and they'll send out the Coast Guard to find us. A week at most. Isn't that right, Kai?"
"Somebody? Help?" Rei asked. "One-armed man here, can't get soup. Hungry…"
"Sure, buddy, just a second." Tyson laughed, setting his bowl back down on a rock. He grabbed the bowl from Rei and the injured comrade took the spoon and put a surprisingly little amount in.
"I'm not really hungry," Rei said by way of explanation. "Thanks, Tyson."
"No problem." Tyson answered. "Anything for a damsel in distress."
"Hey!" Rei yelled, tossing a handful of sand at Tyson.
As the grains fell into Max's bowl, he yelled and threw a handful back at Rei. Pretty soon, all four boys were involved in a wild sand fight.
Meanwhile, Kai had surreptitiously left a half hour before to explore the island. He had had a funny feeling the entire trip, and right now it was starting to scare him.
He had found virtually nothing. Feeling a faint realization in his heart, that maybe they were lost with no way back, he stood up about chest-deep in the ocean. He had decided to have a swim and try and forget about the nagging voice at the back of his head. He saw a beaten path, though overgrown from many years of nonuse. He went to get back on the shore when, in his bare feet, he stepped on something strangely sharp sunken in the sand. It was far too sharp to be a rock and, in diving underwater and reaching into the muck, he retrieved an old Beyblade, a model that had gone out of production almost ten years ago now. In the bitpiece was a picture of a gazelle.
'Tsvi,' Kai thought, shaking the water out of his eyes, pocketing the Beyblade and was returning to the beach when Rei and Tyson appeared from the other side, closely followed by Max and Chief.
"Hey, Kai, there you are!" Max called, grinning.
"Why must they follow me everywhere?' Kai groaned internally, falling backwards again into the water. 'Like little ducklings.'
Well, you and the others followed Kristian and Seth around like that, too. A nasty little voice, that Kai thought he'd gotten rid of, said.
Choosing to ignore the comparison, Kai responded to Max's call with a customary "What do you want?", pushing the wet hair out of his eyes and glaring at them.
"I wanna go swimming!" Tyson yelled, stripping off his shirt, cap and shoes and socks and running in.
"Yeah!" Max and Chief both agreed and imitated Tyson. Within seconds, all three boys were busy with "The Ultimate Water Battle". Rei was a little more hesitant to go into the freezing cold water. He kicked off his shoes and socks, rolled up his pant legs and went no deeper than his ankles.
"Hey, guys!" Kai called. "Don't go out too far. We don't know what lives in the water." Rei backed up to the beach and flopped onto the sand, grimacing as he jolted his arm.
"Yes, Mother!" Tyson called back cheerfully. Kai just grumbled incoherently and joined Rei on the beach, shaking the sand off his shirt before pulling it over his head.
"So why'd you disappear on us again?" Rei asked quietly.
"What do you mean, 'again' ?" Kai responded. "We've only been stranded for six hours."
"Every time we're away on a tournament, it seems like you disappear somewhere and then we get all worked up. Then you just come back and you don't even say where you've been. You really gave us a scare at the world championship. We'd thought that we'd lost you forever, Kai. The fact you came back is beside the point, because if you'd trust us like we trust you, you wouldn't keep running off. Why do you think we follow you everywhere now?" Rei said. "It's so that we know you won't leave us again."
"Listen, Rei," Kai snapped, standing up. "I have never needed anybody in my life and I don't intend to start now. The only way to stop from being betrayed is not to trust anybody. If you'd have done that in Moscow, things would've been different." He left the beach to jump nimbly along the rocks leading back to their crash site.
Liar.
'Shut up.'
"Great job, Rei!" Tyson called satirically. "Real people skills there!"
"Shut it, Tyson!" Rei yelled back.
"Kai, where are we sleeping?" Max whined an hour or so later as the four other Bladebreakers trooped back into the temporary campsite.
"Wherever your heart so desires." Kai called back, stretched out on his allotted blanket on the top of the boat, which was actually the bottom of the boat.
"I call hammocking in the boat!" Tyson and Max yelled as one and each grabbed their blankets and clambered into the tipped houseboat.
Kai grabbed the side of the boat as it rocked. "Maybe this isn't the best place."
"I want right side!"
"I want left side!"
"But I want right side!"
"You can have it, Tyson! I want left, you idiot!"
"Then say so!"
"I did!"
"Fine!"
"Fine!"
Chief held back a smile as he said, "I would take the bedroom part of the boat, but as it's currently on its side, I guess I'll take the sand. Looks comfy enough."
"I wouldn't." Kai called. "Probably all sorts of insects and scorpions and stuff."
"Ugh!" Chief yelped, scrambling up next to Kai.
"Well, I don't want to be inside there while Tyson and Max are." Rei said. "I prefer to live to see another person besides us again. Guess I'll join you guys up there." He grinned and jumped up.
"Hmph." Kai responded, jumping down again and adding another log to the fire.
"Man of many words, isn't he?" Chief asked wryly.