"Rei!" Mariah exclaimed as he dragged her through the crowd, "Where are we going?"
"You'll see when we get there," he replied, "by the way, are you hungry?"
"Um...I 'spose I am a bit peckish..." she said.
"Good," he said and they finally stopped in front of a restaurant called White Tiger with Chinese characters with the same meaning. The pink-haired girl looked from the restaurant to Rei's smiling face wondering what was going on.
"I'd like you to meet someone..." Rei said as they entered the little Chinese restaurant.
"Is that you Rei?" a man's voice spoke. Soon an Asian man came out. He had short black hair and a friendly face, "How are you? Ooh...and who's your girlfriend?" he asked.
"Uncle Jin, yes it's Rei and this is Mariah, a friend from the village," Rei introduced.
"It's a pleasure to meet you Mariah, Rei never told me he had such a pretty girlfriend!" Jin said.
The two youths blushed, they had never admitted to being more than friends, even to each other.
Jin noticed this and laughed heartily, "Come on in, lunch is on me!"
Rei and Mariah smiled and chose a table by the window and looked through the menus for something to eat.
Meanwhile, back at the stadium the second match was about to begin. Kenny and Emily waited in anticipation, getting their equipment set up to record all the statistics. Kai was bored and soon Tyson and Max came back to claim their seats.
"I wonder how the next teams will be, should be exciting," Tyson commented.
"Australians have been very impressive beybladers so far," Max agreed.
"Mm..." Kai mumbled his agreement and Kenny nodded as well.
"For the second match we have the Shade Brothers blading against the Beykids, the youngest team entering the tournament!" DJ Jazzman called out. The excited spectators cheered loudly.
"First up we have Ricky from the Shade Brothers against Melanie from the Beykids. The beydish used will be a rocky desert. With all these obstacles beyblading will be difficult. Now, let's battle, 3, 2, 1 let it rip!!"
The youths launched their beyblades onto the rocky terrain. It was difficult to tell what Ricky was feeling with his sunshades on but Melanie had a determined look on her young face.
Nathan watched with interest at the battle in the arena. He wasn't sure who to cheer for.
"Hey Nath', who're you rootin' for?" Alyssa asked.
"To be honest, I'm not sure. See those guys with the sunglasses""
"Um..." Alyssa looked around and caught sight of the Shade Brothers, "Yes, why?"
"They're my brothers. I used to be the youngest on their team but got kicked out because I had lost their first battle," Nathan told her.
Alyssa felt sorry for her friend, "That's a bit harsh," she commented.
Tala overheard them and decided to join in their conversation, "Where I came from, we were not allowed to stay if we lost a battle against an outsider," he said.
Nathan and Alyssa looked his way with interest as he hardly ever spoke of his past.
"Did you also get kicked out for losing?" Nathan asked.
Tala shook his head, "No, I chose to leave."
As they ate their lunch Mariah asked, "Rei, do you get the feeling that we're missing something?"
Rei took one last bite of his dumpling before answering, "I don't think so, the famous Dark Angels are battling in the third match so I think it's alright."
"If you say so," Mariah replied, although there was a hint of uncertainty in her voice. The girl looked out the window and watched the pedestrians walk to and fro. The two youths were both lost in their thoughts for a moment.
Ricky and Melanie were both attacking each other furiously. The beyblades were rebounding off the ragged rocks into the sandy surface of the beydish. They spun around the dish amongst the rocks swiftly and with an accelerating force every turn.
"Ema, show yourself!" Melanie shouted. From her beyblade came a grey emu type bitbeast. The bitbeast had the power of speed and the beyblade encircled Ricky's blade with an increasing velocity.
Ricky didn't like the look of the emu and called out for his own bitbeast to appear, "Brolgaris!" soon a tall brolga emerged from the centre of the beyblade and spread its lovely wings.
The two birds attacked each other constantly and the two owners urged them on.
"Come one Brolgaris, you can beat that emu!"
"Ema, show them the power of speed!" Melanie called out.
The grey beyblade was now spinning so fast is caused a mini sandstorm to develop.
Amongst the crowd, Tyson was particularly interested in this move as it resembled his Dragoon's storm attack.
"Hey Chief, could you get me the stats of that sandstorm?" he asked Kenny.
"Sure thing Tyson," Kenny replied, he and Emily were already busily setting up the equipment to record the data.
"This is very interesting, Kenny," Emily stated.
"Really?" Kenny asked, "How so?"
Emily went on about the similarities and the differences between Dragoon's storm attack and this girl's sandstorm.
Ricky was having difficulty seeing what was going on in the dish as he had to shield his eyes from the sand that was flying everywhere as a result of the storm. Melanie thought this was amusing and with a smug look on her cheeky face she commanded Ema to make the storm larger. It was then that Ricky noticed something about the storm, no matter low large it became the sand only reached a certain height.
An idea brewed in the young man's mind, "I got it!" he thought, with that he made Brolgaris jump amongst the rocks and climb up until the blade was moving along the edge of the beydish. The storm gained on him but the blade soon jumped thought the centre of the storm. Melanie thought the victory was hers. However, she was mistaken. The blade had jumped through the centre of the storm where there was no force and smashed right into the opposing beyblade causing it to break into two parts.
The storm ceased and Ricky noticed the young Melanie on her knees with the broken beyblade. He grabbed his blade then lent his hand to her.
"You battled well Melanie," he told her. She looked up in surprise and smiled sweetly. "I'll pay for the repair of the beyblade." he offered.
"Isn't that lovely," DJ Jazzman said, "The winner of this battle is Ricky from the Shade Brothers but young Melanie bladed well!"
The spectators were all satisfied as they cheered for both the young beybladers.
"Ok, for the second battle we have Phil representing the Shade Brothers battling Jim of the Beykids!" DJ Jazzman said.
Phil wore his signature shades like his brothers and black trousers but wore his clean green shirt untucked and he had his hair long with two thin bangs and a pony tail. His opponent Jim was about age 10. His short brown hair was messy and he wore a simply T-shirt and shorts.
"The dish for this battle is based on the Murray Mouth. The river water gushing out into the sea, land on one side and ocean on the other. Get set bladers, 3, 2, 1et it rip!!" DJ Jazzman called out.
"Go Atrax!" Jim called out as he released his beyblade. Phil released his at the same time without and word. Both of them went straight onto the sand near the river mouth. Phil was careful to dodge Jim's blade's attacks and soon realised that at the rate they were going they'd end up drenched in salty sea water.
Jim commanded his beyblade to attack Phil's blade but Phil moved to the side and Jimmy's blade dived straight into the sea. There was silence amongst the crowd and all that could be heard was Phil's beyblade spinning aimlessly along the grass and the dirt. Suddenly, movement could be seen coming from the once silent sea and Jim's beyblade with its glowing tunnel web spider like bitbeast from its centre and water was gushing around it almost like a whirlwind.
Every once in a while a blast of water mixed with spider web came out at Phil's beyblade.
Phil frowned, then shouted, "Pegasus, come out now!!" a grand looking Pegasus with pale green wings emerged from the beyblade and neighed in anger. "Defend yourself against that blast!" Phil instructed. In an instant Pegasus flapped its wings and blew the watery blast off course. However in doing so, he also blew Phil's beyblade to the edge of the dish. Jimmy noticed this at once and told Atrax to attack, the force caused Phil's blade and Pegasus to topple out of the dish. Jimmy was clearly the winner and he cheered happily.
Phil was disappointed but being the calm sort of person went up to Jimmy and shook his hand in good spirit.
"Now that's what you call a graceful loss, Phil's no sore loser!" DJ Jazzman said.