One True Team: Forever

Sorry for my late updates! I'll try to update sooner! Due to school, I might update extremely late. Anyhow, thank you for those who reviewed my last chapter. By the way, I DID have fun in Hong Kong! )

Enjoy!

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Riiing! Riiiing! Riiiing! Riiiing!

"Argh!" Terri moaned and rolled to one side of the bed to where the dresser was. She pushed the OFF button to the alarm clock with one hand. It was 8:00 am.

Slowly sitting up from her bed, she looked about sleepily. Saber and Solo were still asleep, but Lexis' bed was empty. A note was left on Terri's dresser. It said: 'Gone to practice at the practice room. Won't be joining you for breakfast. Lexis'.

Guess someone decided to practice early todayTerri thought.

When she and the others had returned to their room last night, Terri had found Lexis asleep in her bed. Tyson had explained that Lexis had a headache in the middle of the dance and had left.

That would explain why I'd seen Tyson dancing with some other girl, Terri realized. I better wake the others.

Terri got off from her bed and walked to Saber and Solo's beds. She nudged Solo, who woke up rather quickly, and had to take at least a minute pushing Saber before she woke up.

"Lexis has gone practicing?" Saber yawned when Terri had explained the missing teammate's reason.

"Yeah. Now come on, get up and brush your teeth," Terri said. "We still have to eat breakfast and practice afterwards."

"Oh man! I want to sleep in-"

"Saber, move it!"

"Okay, fine." Grumbling, Saber rolled off the bed and crawled to the bathroom. Solo walked to the window and looked out.

Moscow sure looks white with all that snow, she thought as she stared at the snowy city. Snow was falling down from the sky and it was a rather pretty sight.

Solo sighed. Things weren't going as smoothly as she had thought. They were probably at least one or two days behind in their practices/training, which could lower their chances of coming in first for the tournament.

After a rather quick breakfast, the two teams rushed to the training room and practiced for 4 hours straight. Lexis, who looked a lot better than the night before, worked with Tyson to perfect their timing in their new strategy. Max and Terri worked to strengthen their attack plan while Saber and Ray were just going one on one on each other. Solo and Kai had just finish practicing both their battle strategies and were now fixing their own blades.

"Alright! We've managed to put our backs into practicing for at least 4 hours today," Chief announced proudly as everyone cheered. "We're doing pretty well so far. If we keep up with our training daily like this, we should be able to defeat the other teams in no time at all."

"Alright!" Tyson pumped his fist into the air.

"Say, Chief, do you have any clues as to who is going to compete in this tournament that we know of?" Max asked, as he stretched.

"Well, besides the Howlers, a.k.a. the Hellsings, we don't have record of any other teams we have faced in the past as a whole." Kenny's fingers pressed onto the keys of his keyboard as he clicked onto a window, which showed the teams in the tournament.

"That's a lot more teams than the tournament had before in the past," Lexis observed.

"We should be able to flatten most of these teams flat," Saber said, playing with her braid. "Most of them are just amateurs and the rest of them don't have enough power to finish us off."

"I don't know about that," Ray said as he skimmed through the huge list. "It looks as if we're going to have more competition this year than last time. Since both our teams have claimed the championship titles as the Teams Pairs Champions, everyone else would do everything to take our title away."

"Darn! So much for slacking off," Saber grumbled.

"Saber!" Terri exclaimed. Solo and Lexis both shook their heads in disapproval.

"Now, back to our teams, we're divided into Groups A, B, C, and D this time. We are currently in Group D, and our first match should be next week, either on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday." Kenny nodded.

"Then we should get a move on it and practice harder," Kai said firmly. "We've already wasted too much time. If we are to defend our titles, then we will have to work twice as hard as the last championships in order to maintain it. All of you have won a tournament before, so you should know how much harder it is to maintain a title than win it." Everyone stayed quiet as they absorbed Kai's words. He'd never said this much before to a large group of people, so it probably meant how serious he was getting at.

"Okay. Alright then, let's resume our training with a pair-on-pair battle," Kenny said. "Max and Terri will be facing Kai and Solo, while Ray and Saber will be facing Lexis and Tyson. Exchange pairs after you have battled at least three times. You may battle longer with the same pair if necessary." Everyone followed Chief's orders and in a matter of seconds, beyblades were flying everywhere. They kept at it for almost 2 ½ hours.

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"Say, aren't those the Bladebreakers?"

"Looks like it." The two girls peered through the glass window that was situated on one of the walls of the training/practice room.

"I didn't realize they were staying in this hotel," the first girl said, as the second girl looked down at the window.

"Hmm. They are the champions of the last tournament, aren't they?"

"Yep. They're the ones everyone is going after." The second girl brushed her hair back from her face. Music could be heard coming from her MP3 player.

"They sure don't look much, for competition that is," the first girl spoke up again, folding her hands against her chest.

"The Bladebreakers?"

"No. The other group, those girls. You see?"

"Hm. . . oh! You meant them. Who are they?"

"Don't know, but our main goal is obviously the Bladebreakers."

"That means we'll have to eliminate the group they're with first and then take them head on." The rhythm of the music blared from her headphones. She nodded to the beat of the music as her friend continued to examine the bladers below in the practice room.

"You know, I wouldn't have agreed to join this stupid tournament last second if I hadn't know these guys would be here as well," the first girl said, as she turned away from the window.

"Yeah. Neither would have the rest of us," the other replied. "I guess we're all here in this tournament for our own individual reasons, eh?"

"Hm. Probably."

After a few more seconds, the girl turned away from the window. "They certainly won't be showing much of their moves here right now in the practice room," she said, yawning as she walked down the hallway. "Come on. We'd better go back."

The two girls walked down the lighted hallway, with the music from the MP3 echoing off the walls and down the corridor.

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"So then I told the girl that I was Max from the Bladebreakers, and you know what she did? She thought I was actually faking it!"

Everyone laughed. Max had told them what had happened to him while he was on a tour to Australia. The Bladebreakers and the Wildcats were now having a late lunch after their practice. Everyone was exhausted both mentally and physically. With their skills and battle strategies almost perfected, the two teams were extremely tired. Max tilted his glass of pop back as he finished it. Everyone else was trying to drink something without giggling or choking on it, but no one had succeeded. Pretty soon, the waiter had to be asked to bring at least a dozen more napkins to the table.

Saber and Ray were nodding to the beat of a song playing on Saber's mp3 player while Kenny was explaining about how Mr. Dickinson had told him about the tournament. It sounded as if this year's tournament was going to be even more complicated than the last tournament.

"Say, when does Leslie get here?" Tyson asked Solo.

"I'm not sure. It should be either tomorrow or the day after, but she hasn't called me about it. I send her an e-mail but she hasn't replied yet," Solo answered.

"She'll probably let us know soon," said Kai, his arm over Solo's shoulder. Suddenly, Pachebel's Canon rang, its dinky little sounds coming from Lexis' pocket.

"Excuse me," she said as she pushed her chair aside and pulled out her cell phone. Walking away from the group, she flipped it open. "Hello?"

As she walked away, Tyson peered behind his shoulder to glance at Lexis.

Everyone continued to talk as Lexis headed for the doorway, phone still at her ear.

"Hey Ren. I'm so glad you called. Can you do something for me-"

Tyson didn't hear anymore as Lexis walked out of the room.

"So, starting tomorrow, we're going to have to work extra hours if we want to keep our titles as the Teams Pairs Champions. Here's a toast to us all." Everyone stood up with their glasses.

"To teamwork!" Kenny said.

"To teamwork!" Everyone emptied their glass while Tyson looked back to where Lexis had gone. As he gulped down his drink, Lexis came back.

"Sorry, that was just my friend on the phone. Shall we go back to the gym now?"

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"So you saw them in the hotel?"

"Yes. They were practicing. He was there too."

"Hmm. . . . interesting. I didn't think they were going to start practicing so soon."

"They DO have a title to keep, you know," the girl answered. The other girls sat in silence.

"So are we going to initiate a plan now, or should we wait until later?" someone asked.

"We're going to wait. We still have almost a week before the tournament officially starts. That should be more than enough time to figure out their weaknesses, and when I say their weakness, I mean everyone's weaknesses." The girl stood up. "Start practicing."

I'm EXTREMELY sorry that chapter was sooo short! But hey, I'm human TOO you know! Sorry about the SUPER long update! I hope u'll review this chapter and give me some feedback!

Zero2-the-scyther