by Shadou-sama
dei neki deru ﺣn iﺝøden vitaﺝau nauriﺝau
toen t' iﺝxalyon wanori, toen verwennen naurv'
Before Shadra could even blink, the pink beyblade went flying past Holly's head to land still spinning in the dirt behind her. Unicolyon manoeuvred to take another shot at the Mind Master, but this time Holly was ready. In one swift move, she managed to block with her own yellow blade.
The two beyblades went grinding at each other, moving in a circle until they were between the two girls. Sparks flew off the colliding metal. Shadra signalled Unicolyon to circle back around and catch Holly's blade in its higher tilted side. But the yellow beyblade anticipated the move, and slammed back into the pink blade.
Shadra was so absorbed in the battle that she didn't notice Holly until too late. The blonde hammer fisted the back of her neck. Shadra fell forward onto the ground.
"You weren't foolish enough to think this would just be a beybattle, were you?"
Shadra cursed. Holly was about to land another blow when the Time Master rolled out of reach. She jumped up and as quick as she could manage, she sprinted to Holly and introduced Holly's stomach to her knee. The blonde blindly grabbed Shadra's neck and swung her to the ground.
Shadra dimly saw that the two beyblades were still going at it. It was like they had minds of their own. Which, Shadra had to remind herself, was true.
As Holly bent over, delivering another blow, Shadra pulled her legs under her and kicked as hard as she could. One foot caught the blond in the face, the other at the base of the neck. She was thrown back a few paces, which gave Shadra enough time to roll on her back and jump up.
The two circled each other, in ready position.
"Brutality is over, Magick is beginning."
Holly pulled out her key. She closed her eyes, holding her hands a foot apart with the key floating between glowing purple. The purple glow flew off in ribbons, circled around and returned to a sphere around it. The sphere grow bigger and bigger, then a flash.
When Shadra could see properly again, Holly was holding a larger version of the key. Now it was a staff. Shadra started backing off. This was something she had never heard of before and she didn't want to take any chances.
Holly was smirking. She held her staff, large end pointed towards Shadra.
Ray grinned as his bindings came loose. It might have taken longer than he would have liked, but it was better than still being tied up. He pulled his wrists out of the lax loops of rope.
He glanced at the other Masters. They were too busy watching the battle that they didn't even notice that Ray was loose. Perfect.
Ray crouched, ready to attack. Except that Kai's blue-bushy hair was in the line of sight. He decided that he should release unbind Kai, because for one Kai looked very angry at being tied up and for two he would probably use that energy in beating their foes.
The ropes came undone quicker than Ray's. He supposed that was because he had both hands free and could see the knots, but okay. Kai mumbled a quick thanks, which stunned Ray. The great and mighty Kai stoop down low enough to show appreciation? A once in a lifetime occurrence. He felt very special then.
"Hey, what about me?" Yuki asked in a whisper.
Kai glared at him. "No," Kai whispered firmly.
"Do you really think you two can take out three Masters by yourselves?"
"Yes," Kai whispered.
"I don't know where you are, but I'm here in reality. You just found out that you're Akkae, let alone fought against preternatural evil."
"And why exactly should we help you?"
"Because I helped you."
"And what was that exactly? Tricking me into giving Shadra's bit-beast to the enemy?"
"Hey, if you were in my place, you would have done the exact same thing."
"Help evil destroy the world?"
"No, win back Shadra. And they don't want to destroy the world. They just want to enslave all human kind. So we're safe."
"We're human kind, you moron."
"But we won't be enslaved," Yuki whispered. "We'll be dead."
"And that's safe how?"
"Children," Ray whispered as he crawled around Kai and untied Yuki. "Quit bickering. We need to take out two Masters and two Akkae before they team up against Shadra, and we need everybody to help. Kapeesh?"
"So what kinds of weapons did you bring?" Yuki asked.
"Weapons?"
"Objects that hurt your opponent when you hit them with them."
"We know what weapons are," Kai whispered.
"We just don't have any," Ray added.
"And you called me a moron. Geez."
"Because you are. And we didn't know that we'd need any," Kai whispered.
Yuki spurned something back, and the two were practically in a fistfight. Ray felt his usual calm surge out of his body, replaced with a growing frustrations at the two infants.
"Look, you two," Ray snapped. "Just untie the others without raising suspicions and tell them that we're going to rush our kidnappers."
Shadra looked around for a hiding place. The place really was flat. She noticed that everything looked glazed over. She didn't have time to think about it further because she was hit by a large energy blast, throwing her into the tree, whacking her head against a branch. Shadra faintly noticed the wetness above her eyebrow, and a drops getting into her eye.
Holly advanced. This one would be the killing blow. Shadra didn't have time to think, only act. She drew her sword and raised it so the tip inches from the wood.
"Stop or I make kindling out of this tree!"
Holly stopped. She looked mortified that Shadra could even think of doing such a thing.
Shadra thought she had at least a few moments to come up with a plan. She was wrong. Holly whipped out her mirror.
"Finally, you'll be where you should. Like Yuki and I had planned," Holly snickered.
"Yuki was in on it too?" Shadra asked, looking away from the mirror. She didn't know why, but she knew that if she looked upon that glass then it was all over.
"Of course," Holly said, then paused. "You know, I used to think it would have been a good thing to have you rejoin us. But I was wrong. It's better to have your power."
It dawned on Shadra, what Holly was after. She couldn't kill Shadra, that would throw the whole world into chaos. But she could keep her alive… that mirror. It stole people's souls, than gave the souls' powers to the holder, being Holly. Now she was doubly sure that she shouldn't look into that mirror.
The three Akkae untied the rest of the Bladebreakers and whispered to them their plan. Kenny was forthright with telling that their plan was ill conceived and idiotic. But when asked for a better idea, he was at a loss.
The boys shuffled down to the next hostages. Ray reached out for Lee's—
"Hey! What're you doing?" A voice exclaimed. Ray's head snapped up. Their captors were storming towards them. There was no time to free more beybladers.
"Charge!" Ray yelled.
The hostage Bladebreakers plus Yuki jumped to their feet, let loose their battle cries and, like Ray ordered, charged at them, Kai and Yuki in the lead, with Kenny at the tail. Fortunately, the Masters didn't have time to use their Magick before the boys were on them, kicking and punching furiously.
Max and Kenny pounced on Iayah who sent Kenny flying with one well-placed kick. Kai hit Alleon in the nose knocking him down. As Kai moved to disable him, Alleon kicked Kai's feet out from under him. Yuki cracked his fist into Darcie's skull to stop her from completing a hypnotism spell. She rebelled by biting his hand. Ray got behind Tala and pushed him forward and off balance. Tyson grabbed Tala by the collar and slammed him into the bug-ugly Mind Tree.
"That's what you get for stealing Dragoon!" Tyson whooped.
Shadra was hit by another energy blast. Her plan of not looking backfired. The sword flew from her hands. She went sailing through the air hitting the ground her arm under her with a great crack. A stream of pain rushed up her left arm. Her vision went a little double sighted… and some of the blood flowing into one eye… she thought she saw Holly walk through her friends.
Holly was fast approaching.
On instinct, Shadra grasped her key and wished that Holly would stop. She felt the key go warm, even hot. A flash of darkness. She squeezed her eyes shut.
"Ryu?"
Shadra slowly opened her eyes. Between herself and Holly stood a boy of about twelve years. He was facing Holly, so all that Shadra could see was brass-coloured hair, a yellow T-shirt and blue jeans. Also, he was tall for his age, meaning that he might measure up to some of the taller girls of the same age.
She looked past him to the very shocked Holly. The girl just stood there flapping her gums like a fish. She seemed to regain herself, her key turning back to normal, even attaching it's chain around her neck and she flung herself onto the boy, presumably named Ryu.
Shadra remembered that she was still lying on her broken arm, so tried to sit up. Tried as in it took her forever to. She just felt so drained. And pain was shooting up her arm. Slowly, too slowly in fact, she moved her head, so that she could see the two.
She was startled to see that Ryu had faded a bit. Not that Holly noticed, she was too busy crying into the boy's shoulder. She heard bits and phrases like 'You were gone' and 'came back'.
Black was starting to come to the sides of her vision. Realisation hit her in the head, as it is so wont to do, especially when she was hurt. She had conjured the boy with her wish. Maintaining him was draining her energy. The boy was fading quickly. Holly noticed and stepped back, gasping.
Ryu faded into nothing. The blonde fell to her knees. Her back shook. Then it seemed everything stopped. Or maybe Holly just stopped.
In one quick movement, Holly grabbed the sword that Shadra had dropped and came flying at the black-haired girl.
Shadra's arm came up to protect her face, her other arm reaching out—
"STOP!"
And grasping Holly's key. Her energy being so depleted… her spirit naturally grabbed hold of the sweet energy of Holly's, and pulled it into her body. Everything froze, even time itself. Except for that sweet flow of energy.
Then everything faded into blackness.
vartyan, xanta to xataix
aun dyr øden toen deru nauriﺝau
To be continued...