Fifteen
Please come now I think I'm falling
I'm holding on to all I think is safe
It seems I found the road to nowhere
And I'm trying to escape
I yelled back when I heard thunder
But I'm down to one last breath
And with it let me stay
Let me stay
"What did you say?!" Hideaki asked, furious. Kai's solid icy gaze was fixed firmly on his father. He looked beyond angry at this point.
"I said no! Got a problem with that?" Kai replied nastily, his teeth gritted.
"Don't you _dare_ try to violate my authority Kai! I am your father--"
"My father?! You are _no_ father to me!! I know what you did to my mother!! And what you're trying to do to me!!"
"But how…how is that possible?!!"
"You can't make him forget her Hideaki," Tyson interjected. Hideaki scowled at Tyson. "He won't forget her, and he won't forget us. He knows us, and I know he trusts us. Right Kai?" Kai looked at Tyson for a few moments, then over to Ray, Max and Kenny. He did know them. He knew their names, he could vaguely recall their battles together; as opponents and as a team. These people, these Bladebreakers, would appear to be his friends.
"Yes…" Kai replied slowly. Tyson smiled, and that smiled seemed to reassure Kai. He felt a lot more stable knowing he wasn't alone anymore. Hideaki was fuming at this point, and had made his way over to a panel on a wall. He was randomly hitting buttons on the panel, and this seemed to make Kai react rather unnaturally.
"Kai?!! Kai are you OK?!!" Tyson cried out, as Kai sank to his knees and began screaming, his hands on either side of his head. He looked like he was in writhing agony.
"NO!!! NO I WON'T!!!! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!!" Kai screamed, shaking his head violently. "GET OUT!!!!! GET OUT!! GET OUT!!!!" Kai was now a crumpled mess on the floor, shaking and screaming like he was being killed from the inside out. Thinking on it, Tyson wondered if maybe Kai was. Tyson looked over to Hideaki, whose expression had brightened somewhat. Hideaki was controlling Kai with that panel and the machine attached to Kai's head and face.
"Guys!!" Tyson called over to his friends. "Kai is being controlled!! We've got to shut the machine down!!"
"But Tyson! Hideaki said it can't be shut down!" Ray replied, noting a very important factor Tyson had forgotten.
"PLEASE JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!!!! GET OUT!!! I DON'T WANT YOU!!!" Kai screamed furiously, though his anger was slowly diminishing to more of a piteous scream. He was hurting, and Kai knew that there was one way to take all the pain away.
Remove the machine.
Kai placed his fingers over the components that covered the left-hand side of his face, and at first tugged on it gently. Realising that it was indeed grafted there, Kai saw no other alternative than to just tear it off in one go. He slowly counted to three, then a stomach wrenching tear rung out through the large warehouse size room. Kai screamed out in agony as the metal and glass component came free from his face into his hand. Max covered his mouth with his hands. He felt very sick.
"Kai…" Tyson said slowly, taking in the full extent of what Kai had just done. Blood was tearing down Kai's pain-ridden face in full force, and it was getting everywhere. He was sweaty and tired, but he mustered all of his strength to remove the remaining components and the needle in the back of his head. Once the main components were gone, Hideaki had lost control over Kai's mind. Kai lay on his side on the floor, gasping for air, not noticing the IV tubing attached to his arm, that had linked in to the mainframe of the machine he had worn.
"No…" Kai muttered. "I'm…past this…I don't need…your stupid…fucking medicine…anymore…" and with that Kai ripped the IV tube from his arm, and now his body was totally paralysed with pain, he hardly felt it.
"Kai!!!!" Tyson cried, running to his friend's side. Kai's consciousness was starting to waver. If he closed his eyes now, he would evidently die. "Kai, stay with me!! Don't die on me yet!!"
"I'm…so tired…" Kai said weakly. By now, Dranzer had stopped spinning and had returned to Kai's hand. Now the Demolition Boys were working on keeping Hideaki at bay, seeing as during the first skirmish it would have seemed that Hideaki's army had been evacuated.
"I know you're tired, I know you're real tired, but you have to stay awake for me now OK Kai? You promise?" Tyson said, stinging tears falling down his cold cheeks. He clasped Kai's bloodied hand, yet relinquished his grip when he saw Kai grimace. He was hurt. Maybe too badly now to be saved.
"I can't…I can't…I just…want to die…" Kai muttered, all concerns of the exposure of weakness and frailty had left his mind totally. He just wanted it all to end. He wanted to see a light at the end of this black tunnel of nightmares, and now to Kai it seemed as if death was his only light.
"Kai listen to me!! We're here to help you!! You're going to be fine!! Just hang with us for a little while longer, and you can go to sleep then! Once a doctor has seen you, you can sleep for as long as you want! We'll train, we'll run laps, we'll go mountain climbing., we'll camp out in igloos!! Anything to keep you from sleeping now. Don't you understand yet Kai? We're your friends!! Don't let this be the end of your life yet, you've hardly lived it! Just fight! Fight for a little while longer…resist it Kai!!"
"What's with…all the sentimental crap…?" Kai asked, adding a dry laugh to the end of his question. Tyson laughed too, wiping the tears from his eyes. "I never knew you cared…"
"Oh, funny Kai," Tyson laughed softly, wiping the last remnants of his salted tears from his face. "You're the strong one remember?"
"I remember," Kai smiled.
"Tyson!!" Ray called over to Tyson. "We should get Kai and go now!"
"Yeah I know," Tyson replied, pulling one of Kai's arms over his shoulders. "Hey Tala," Tyson focused his attention over to Tala. "Can you handle him?"
"No problem," Tala smiled, keeping Hideaki up against the wall. "You get Kai to a hospital." Hideaki didn't look happy to see his carefully set out plan falling to ruin, and as far as he was concerned, the fat lady hadn't sung yet, so it wasn't all over for Kai and the Bladebreakers. Not by a mile.
"You think I'm going to let you just run out with _my_ son?!" Hideaki fumed. "Well, think again Tyson!" and with those words, Hideaki smashed in a small door hidden in the wall, and a low blipping noise started to echo through the room. Max ran over to Tyson and pulled Kai's other arm over his shoulders, to share some of the burden with Tyson. Kenny had Dizzi examining the source of the strange blipping noise.
"Uh oh…" Kenny gulped nervously.
"What is it Chief?" Ray asked, walking to Kenny's side.
"I have a suggestion here boys: I suggest we run for the hills!!" Dizzi yelled.
"The machine that was attached to Kai was also, it would seem, rigged with an explosive device. We have a minute to get out of here before this whole underground warehouse comes down on us!!!" Kenny exclaimed in horror.
"You're kidding!!" Tala cried, overhearing what Kenny was saying, and making the fatal error of removing his attention from Hideaki. "We have to go!! Now!!!" and so Tala made for the fire exit, followed by Ray, Spencer and Ian.
"Tala!!! Hideaki escaped!!!" Bryan called over to his leader.
"Never mind that now!! We just have to get out of here with our lives!!" Tala ordered. Bryan acknowledged this, and ran to join his team. "Tyson!! We have to move! Now!!"
"In case you forgot Tala, I have a wounded person here!!" Tyson replied, sounding a bit annoyed that he was being rushed.
"Leave me here Tyson," Kai said. Tyson looked at him in astonishment. "I'm nothing but a burden."
"Hey, ever heard the term the captain goes down with his ship?" Tyson grinned. "You've helped keep us afloat enough times Kai, now it time we returned the favour. We're your ship here Kai, when we go down, so do you, and we're not going down just yet." the blips grew louder and louder as Tyson and Max picked up their speed. Everyone was ushering them to hurry up.
"Ten seconds!!" Kenny yelled out to Tyson and Max, who were still some distance from the escape door.
"Tyson, Max move it!!" Ray yelled, extending his hand out to them.
"Five, four, three, two, one!" Kenny called out in panic. As soon as the counter hit zero the whole room filled with a bright light…
From the centre of Moscow a large burst of power and light could be seen. An explosion of seemingly immense proportions had gone off in the suburbs, and many Russians stopped dead in their tracks as a huge plume of fire and smoke went up into the air. It burnt there for many minutes before the familiar sound of fire engine sirens interjected the melodic undertones of destruction.
~~***~~
"And in other news , the European stock market has fallen into yet another slump, its lowest in the past three weeks," the news reader calmly read out what was written in front of him, before shuffling the papers around and handing the report over to the Weather Forecaster.
"This is dull!!" Mariah whined, turning the television over to another channel. "Europe is a nice place and all, but the TV is totally whacked!!"
"You'd think with Enrique's house as big as it is he'd invest in some better television channels," Li smiled at his White Tiger team mate. Enrique entered the room, followed by one of the butlers of his estate he was carrying a tray of tea and cakes. The butler set the tray down on a small neatly dressed table, and set the correct amount of chairs around it.
"Won't Oliver, Robert or Johnny be joining us?" Mariah asked.
"No I'm afraid not, they have some business to attend to," Enrique replied with a warm smile.
"Oh well! All the more for us!" Kenneth cried out with joy, running for a seat. He was soon joined by Gary, then the remaining White Tigers. Enrique settled himself into his usual chair and sipped at his tea.
"So, how do you all find Europe thus far?" he asked.
"Oh it's lovely," Mariah commented brightly.
"Yes, it's definitely a place where we can acquire a lot of new skills," Li concurred with his friend. Gary and Kenneth were too busy enjoying the refreshments to comment.
"Any news from Ray about how he and the Bladebreakers are?" Enrique asked yet another general question.
"No…we've had nothing…" Mariah replied sadly. "I'm concerned. With Kai in the state that he's in, anything could have happened to them!"
"I know how you feel Mariah, and I worry about Ray too, but we have to trust that they're OK. I'm sure they would have informed us if there were any serial problems," Li turned to Mariah, trying to ease her concerns.
"You present a good point Li," Enrique commented. "But I have to agree with Mariah. It is worrying, with Kai being in the fragile state he's in. I would have thought that you would have heard something from them by now."
"Aw darn!" Kenneth cried out, looking over at the television. "Another newsreel! Mariah turn it over!"
"Hang on there, dude," Enrique said, holding a hand out to Mariah as if to stop her.
"News just in from Moscow. An explosion has just gone off in the suburbs of the city. The explosion appears to have originated in an underground base below the presumed abandoned Baikov Abbey. Once a training ground for Biovolt students, all assumptions police had that the building was abandoned after the capture of Voltaire earlier in the year have now been quashed. We now link up live to our reporter outside of Baikov Abbey," the reporter had caught the attention of all in the room. This had to be bad.
"Here I am outside Baikov Abbey, in the suburbs of Moscow," the on-site reporter began. "It is here where onlookers say that the blast originated, and from the looks of things, they are correct. Ambulance and fire crews are on the scene now, in case of casualties, and police are beginning to launch a full investigation into the cause of the blast."
"Baikov Abbey? That rings too many bells…" Enrique mused whilst sipping his tea. "Isn't that the Biovolt base?"
"They just said that, idiot," Mariah hissed, trying to listen to the whole report. Her concerns about Ray were now heightened.
"News has just reached me that a large group of about nine teenagers have been recovered from the wreckage of the underground base," the reporter continued, moving swiftly over to where the ambulance crews were situated. It took the White Tiger's breath away when they saw the people who had been recovered from the rubble.
"Ray!!!" Mariah cried in horror.
"It would appear that these boys are the Beyblade team known as the Bladebreakers, and the others recovered are the Russian Demolition Boys team. Both teams had recently battled in the World Beyblading Tournament," the reporter resumed, making sure the camera got clear shots of everyone as they were brought onto the ambulance. First was Ray, then Spencer, then Bryan, then Kenny, then Tala. They didn't seem to be too badly injured, but you could never be sure. Then Tyson was brought onto an ambulance.
"Tyson!!" Enrique cried out. "Man he looks terrible…" indeed Tyson did. He had cuts, burns and bruises all over his body. As did Max, who was next to be brought on, embarked onto the same ambulance as Tyson. But they were nothing compared to the state of Kai.
"Oh dear god!" the reporter exclaimed. Several seconds later, the camera caught a glimpse of Kai's condition. He was covered in blood, large tears in his skin and muscle were everywhere, and he was burnt and broken. Kai was rushed off into a different ambulance, and it sped away from the scene as fast as possible.
"Start packing your things, guys," Mariah said, getting to her feet. "We're going back to Russia."
There are some scars
That fade with time
And there are some scars
That never die
Though physical pain
You can easily hide
Mental pain
You can't deny
So look inside yourself
And tell me all you know
For I can see myself dying
And now I have nowhere to go
SN: A bit long, a bit short, who knows. The opening paragraph is One Last Breath by Creed. The lyrics were suggested to me by my dear friend Maeris. Thank you very much for that ^^. If you know of any songs with lyrics that would suit this story, tell me the song and artist in your review and I'll look it up. Any contributions that could help with plot progression are welcome!
I have a list, a pretty big list, of my devoted following (bless you all ^_^) and you shall all receive your much deserved thanks by the end of this, especially those that have inspired me. Yup yup. ^^ And hooray to DragonBlade for putting up the first review for part 14, within minutes of me loading it! And man, you read my mind with the whole boom thing yeah? Heheheheheh…
Review my dears! Just click it! And keep voting for your ending! It's all starting to tie up, so I may have to get extra help with this ending cos its getting a bit evenly matched. Review and I'll try and send you all biscuits. No guarantees on that though…