Max was still seething when Tyson made his appearance for breakfast.
Tyson's chocolaty brown eyes widened in amazement as the feisty blonde absent mindedly ripped a loaf of bread to pieces, scattering pale white and golden yellow crumbs onto the shiny tiled floor.
"Uh, Maxie? Are you O.K dude?" Tyson braced himself for an onslaught of high pitched screaming; knowing Max as well as he did, the blonde's unstable temperament did little to surprise him these days.
Max looked up and the storm haired boy and blinked rapidly as if he had just woken up from a dream. "I'm fine Tyson." He replied chirpily, grinning like a Cheshire cat when he saw the mess on the floor. "He-he, oops!"
"Oh my god! What did you guys do to my kitchen!!" Kenny wailed, plonking his laptop onto the table, earning an annoyed buzz from Dizzy as he frantically began cleaning up the floor.
Max sweat-dropped and made an amazingly quick exit, while Tyson set about getting some breakfast.

Later on in the afternoon Kenny got a call from Kai informing him that the Bladebreakers were to be at the city centre gym by no later than two o'clock precisely.
Much to Tyson's amusement, Kenny promptly went into a frenzied search for a bus timetable. He and Max stood at the foot of the stairs staring in bewilderment at Kenny's rear end wriggling around in the space between the hall and the storage cupboard under the stairs.
When Kenny finally reappeared there was dust on his shirt and glasses, and he triumphantly held up a battered looking slip of paper. He unfolded the paper and scanned the sheet thoughtfully, his expression was impossible to read through the twin jam-jar lenses obscuring his eyes.
Suddenly he jumped up and yelled in panic, causing Max and Tyson to clutch at each other, then break away blushing.
"Five minutes!! Oh no!!!" He darted into the living room and began throwing himself around haphazardly looking for something.
Max peered around the doorway cautiously. "Uh, Chief? What wrong?" He jumped out of the way as a blur of brown fluff sped past him.
"The last bus into the city centre is in five minutes!!" Kenny yelled, startling Tyson who had been rolling on the floor laughing hysterically at his friends antics.
"Aw crap!!" Tyson pouted; he hated being rushed.

When they all eventually found their shoes - and Rei had gotten dressed - Kenny bundled them all out of the door and raced down the road to the bus stop.
They all skidded to a breathless halt just in time to see the bus pull up and Tyson launched himself at the door, falling at the feet of the driver.
"City centre dude." Tyson panted desperately groping around from a safety rail to pull his self up, while Max made his way to the back the bus where there were four empty seats.
Kenny fell back onto the cushioned backrest and clutched at his laptop for the rest of the journey.

The bus dropped them off a 15 minute walk from the gym, and because it was only 1:30 Kenny agreed when Tyson suggested they go get ice-cream, and was backed up very enthusiastically by Max, who was already anticipating all the sugar.

The ice-cream parlour was only five minutes in the opposite direction to the gym, so they also had ten minutes spare to sit and eat.
Tyson devoured his strawberry and vanilla sundae greedily, Kenny's spoon occasionally appeared from behind his laptop to dip into the tripple scoop toffee crumble, Rei watched out of the corner of his eye as Max sat thoughtfully, toying with his chocolate chip cookie crunch and staring at Tyson.
He knew Tyson was hiding something from him and he was determined to find out what it was.

Kai was stood outside the gym when they arrived tapping his foot impatiently. He made a feeble attempt at a glare at Tyson, although obvious pain showed on his face.
Tyson however, would not soften and glared back then roughly pulled his shirt up over his neck and stalked into the building.

The gym was impressive, even by the Bladebreakers standards. It contained all the latest in beyblade training technology, which Kenny was eager to examine. There were the usual fitness training machines designed for warm ups and stamina building and there were some newer looking machines which appeared to be designed for improving launch techniques.

Tyson sat in the middle of one of the blade dishes, feeling the cold metallic surface beneath the course skin of his fingertips, and staring at the shiny surface.
He was brought back to reality by a familiar husky voice in his ear.
"Impressed?" Kai's eyebrows were raised quizzically, although knowing Kai as he did; Tyson knew the boy was waiting for his approval.
"They sure as hell don't make 'em like this at home." Tyson replied, his brown eyes darting to meet Kai's suspiciously.
"Good, then you and Rei can test it." The tone of Kai's voice told him it was more of an order than an invitation.
"Three bags full sir." Tyson muttered irritably as he pushed himself up to stand outside the dish facing his still yawning opponent.
"Are all the lights switched on in there, or do they need a kick start?" Kai drawled meaningfully, glaring at the startled neko-jin.
Tyson bristled instantly and balled his hands into fists in an attempt to curb his temper.
Max, who was watching the whole episode, was completely baffled; Kai seemed to be going out of his way to get under Tyson's skin, and Tyson was having less patience with him than usual.
"O.K lets get this over with." Tyson stepped forward and loaded Dragoon into his launcher.
Rei, keen to avoid anymore lashing from Kai, took the hint and complied.
Both boys launched at the same time with Max acting as ref, owing to Kai adopting his trademark pose; leaning against the wall with his arms folded.
Rei flinched as his blade hit the dish with an unsteady gait, causing Dreiger to wobble precariously.
Tyson didn't miss the weakness and immediately went on the offensive, matching Rei's desperate dodging attempts move for move. Eventually when Dreiger landed at his feet, Rei was too shell shocked to protest. "How'd you do that?" Rei gawped at Tyson, who didn't even seem to be breaking a sweat.
"Good old fashioned practice." Tyson replied cheerfully, his mood apparently improved.

Sometime later, when the others had gone to shower down, Kenny sat by his faithful old laptop playing solitaire and listening to Rob Zombie.
The others had trained pretty hard, with Kai barely under the line between a good work out, and slave driving the team, so they would probably take a while.
Despite the sun glaring through the double glazed windows on the ceiling, Kenny felt surprisingly chilly, and it occurred to him that Dizzy was rather quiet.
"Are you O.K Dizzy? I hope I haven't over-heated you." He murmured worriedly.

Don't worry Chief, I'm fine

"Oh good." Kenny replied automatically, then he did a double take when he realised the voice hadn't come from his laptop. "Dizzy this no time to fool around." He huffed impatiently.

Who's fooling?

Kenny whirled around to the direction he thought the puzzled sounding voice was coming from. The wall he was facing was furthest from the direction of the sun and shadowed darkly under the windows.
He squinted uncomfortably in the darkness and thought he could barely make out the shape of what looked like a large cat.
He blew out his breath in relief. "If that's you Dizzy, I'm glad you're only a cat."

A CAT!

Kenny jumped slightly, realising he'd offended her. "S-sorry Dizzy, I really can't see you very well."

Promise you won't get scared if I show myself

"Uh, O.K." Kenny braced himself, not quite sure of what to expect.
Dizzy edged her way out of the shadows slowly, carefully avoiding swinging her poison tipped tail. Her scaled wings barely made a noise as she folded them hesitantly, half to make her look smaller and less scary, and half to draw Kenny's attention away from her tail. Her golden fur bristled slightly as she noticed the chill as well and resigned herself to the fact that she'd had good reason to leave her cyberspace shelter in order to protect her master. She also bit her lip to keep her mouth shut, despite knowing bit-beats weren't exactly common sight anyway, she figured showing tripple rows of teeth would be ridiculous.

Kenny on his part simply gawped. "O.K you're definitely not a cat." He laughed nervously.

Very perceptive

Dizzy grinned then stopped suddenly and covered her mouth with a razor clawed paw.
Kenny became inquisitive and craned his neck to look at her tail. He paused for a moment, piecing all the information in his mind's eye together. Suddenly his face lit up as it hit him.
"You're a Manticore!" He exclaimed in astonishment.
Dizzy raised a wary eyebrow but nodded all the same, her ears pricked tensely, listening for any approaching people.

Suddenly, Kenny heard the noise of Tyson's raucous laughter coming from the corridor.
When he turned to tell Dizzy it was O.K he was shocked and a little disappointed to see that she had disappeared, although his laptop was a quiet as ever, so he doubted she had returned to it.
"Hey Kenny!" Tyson's loud, boisterous yelling snapped out of his puzzled musings. "Why're you staring at the wall dude?" Tyson now looked puzzled as he studied Kenny's expressionless face intently.
"I...I saw Dizzy..." Kenny trailed off into his own thoughts again, hardly able to believe it himself.
"Huh?" Tyson stared at his friend completely stupefied. "That's not possible man; she's in your laptop." He waved a hand dismissively; obviously the subject was beginning to bore his limited attention span.
Kenny growled under his breath; is own best friend didn't believe him!
"You say somethin' Chief?" Max was now looking at him quizzically; a lot of strange things seemed to be happening today, and he couldn't understand why he seemed to be the only one noticing.
Then he caught Kenny's eye and realised he wasn't the only one noticing; Kenny looked undeniably disturbed.
However, before Max could ask him about it, Kai's voice broke through the uncomfortable silence.
"Well seen as I'm satisfied with all your progress today, I think the team deserves a night out." He turned to Tyson as he spoke, almost sneering at his team-mate. "As the life and soul of the team, why don't you choose where we go."
Tyson didn't miss the look, and he'd had enough of Kai's mood swings.
He smiled to himself and replied without hesitation, enjoying Kai's visible flinch at his words.
"Alright then Kai, we'll go to Slimelight, seen as I know you love that place so much." He almost spat on that word, as if Kai knew what that meant anyway.