A/N: Thank you all for reading and especially those who bothered leaving a review :). I'm glad you accepted my OC:s. I hope you don't mind the flashbacks, too. There are going to be a couple of them in this chapter again and also in the later ones since I'm planning to deepen the characters and the storyline via flashbacks.

Disclaimer: I own neither the Beyblade characters nor the song 'I Was Made for Loving You' by Kiss. Everything else is mine and not to be stolen without my permission.

Warnings: bad language, violence.

It was hot. Rei usually liked warmth but this was too much of it even for him. They were currently somewhere in the south coast of Spain and the car they were sitting in was easily comparable with an oven. Rei felt his head spinning and tried to cool himself by drinking water but even the water was warm so it didn't help that much. The boy reached out his hand to turn on the fan. His hand was stopped by Tala's moving it back away from the dashboard. The Chinese boy shot an accusing look towards the redhead who didn't even look very bothered by the heat.

"The fan annoys me," the Russian stated and turned the steering wheel sharply to the right, making the car take an equally sharp right turn. Rei had to tighten his grip on his seat as he didn't want to fall over onto the floor. Tala was driving way too fast. Rei decided to never let him drive again.

"But it's so hot…" the ebony-haired boy whined.

Tala rolled his eyes, "You should have thought that before you put so much clothes on," he said matter-of-factly.

"But I've never been to Spain before! How was I supposed to know it's this hot," Rei tried to defend himself though he knew very well he had caused this all by himself. He slid down on his seat, wishing they would arrive to their destination soon, "So, why does Boris even want this stupid stone?"

Tala chuckled slightly at the boy's extremely bored yet irritated tone, "The stones. There are five of them," he said, gaining a raised eyebrow from his new partner, "oh, not all of them are in Spain, just one."

Rei snorted and gripped the seat once more as Tala made a superfluously sharp turn with the car, making Rei's water bottle roll on the floor, "Could you slow down a bit?" he snapped at the older teen, "You're fucking going to kill us…" he muttered.

"When did you become so foulmouthed?" Rei could see Tala wasn't too interested in getting the answer as he had busied himself with flipping radio channels, having hard time on finding one that would actually please him. Rei found himself hoping Tala would at least watch the road as he drove. Soon some music that Rei didn't recognise was floating off the player in much too high volume. It was giving the neko-jin a headache, "And no, I won't drive slower," Tala informed suddenly with a smug smirk on his face, making Rei sigh and close his eyes, just hoping he would make it alive back to Russia.

"So, do you know about the stones or what?" he asked in a defeated tone, not opening his eyes.

"No. All I know is that they have something to do with the box," the red-haired boy explained. Now Rei opened his eyes to look at the boy.

"The box we sold a couple of weeks ago?" Tala nodded, "But we sold it," Rei insisted.

Now Tala laughed, "Yeah," he glanced at the puzzled expression on the younger boy's face, his smirk broadening, "hey don't look at me, I'm not the one to run this thing." Rei knew he was right. The boy turned his head to look out the window though it was dark since it was in the middle of the night. He gave up trying to view the landscape and closed his eyes, leaning his head against the back of his seat. Faintly he heard that the radio had started playing 'I Was Made for Loving You' by Kiss.

Rei could almost hear Tala smirk that infamous, extremely self-satisfied smirk of his, "Aww, come on Rei, don't be so sour. Sing along…

Flashback

…I know you know the words," Tala encouraged cheerfully, turning up the volume of his CD player. Rei looked up from the bed he was sitting on. Kai's bed. His own was on the other side of the room. It could have been Tala's room as well since he spent much more of his time in there than in the room he shared with Bryan.

Rei smiled as Tala and Kai grabbed each others' hands and started pouncing around with their eight-year-olds' enthusiasm, singing at the top of their voices 'I Was Made for Loving You' by Kiss.

Kai paused only to grab Rei's hand as the two older boys jumped past where the youngest was sitting. Rei soon found himself pouncing around with them, his other hand holding Kai's and the other one Tala's.

A grin made itself at home on Rei's face and he joined his friends in screaming out the words of the familiar song. He knew – they all knew – Boris would kill them if he found out about their little party but right now they didn't care since they were having so much fun.

All of a sudden Rei's sensitive ears heard the door open. He stopped and so did the others, turning their gazes in the direction the Chinese boy was looking at. Bryan stood at the door, looking at them with that usual emotionless expression plastered across his face.

"Oh please," was all the lavender-haired boy said before turning on his heels and leaving the room. Tala and Kai just stared after him while Rei went to turn the CD player off. Bryan wouldn't tell Boris, they knew that.

End flashback

Rei opened his eyes and gazed at Tala who was now drumming his fingers on the steering wheel while humming to the song silently. Tala had changed so much from the times they were little. Yet sometimes he would act exactly as he did back then. Rei couldn't figure him out. Tala noticed Rei's gaze and gave him a raised eyebrow asking the silent question.

"Oh please," Rei muttered and turned back to the window.

"Now you're starting to sound like Bryan," Tala remarked monotonously, obviously not very impressed with the lack of interest Rei was directing towards him. The Chinese teen chose not to say anything and kept on staring at the night outside.

Only a few minutes later the car stopped, "We're here," Tala informed coldly before stepping out the vehicle. Rei followed his lead and grabbed his bag before joining the Russian boy to continue by foot. They didn't park the car too near their target since it would have been just plain stupid. Rei didn't mind to walk though, it wasn't so hot out there than it had been in the car and he could see perfectly well in the darkness so that didn't bother him either.

They didn't have to walk long to reach their destination: an extremely expensive-looking summer house with a huge pool and everything. Fortunately to them, there was no one living in there at the moment.

Despite the luxury of the house, it was almost ridiculously easy for the two young criminals to break in. Tala agreed to keep watch outside while Rei would carry out the almost as ridiculously easy mission to get the little stone. What made it so easy? Well, the owners of the house had no idea of the true value of the object so it wouldn't be hid very well. Rei presumed it would probably be mounted into some ornament.

The Chinese boy turned on the little radar he had with him. The stone was supposed to radiate with some specific form of energy that the radar was specially programmed to find. As soon as the small device was on, a little red dot started flashing on the screen, telling Rei he wasn't too far from the target.

Rei advanced soundlessly through the luxurious rooms and hallways until he came to a bit smaller, very cosy looking room with a huge fireplace on one wall. Despite the darkness, the neko-jin's sharp eyes spotted a clock on the edge of the fireplace. Very expensive-looking clock at that. He moved to it and observed it carefully, finding four little, black stones placed on each four corners of the object. He raised his quietly peeping radar, sliding it across the clock. The peeping fastened on one of the stones while the others caused no effect on the device at all. Rei decided this had to be the stone he was looking for.

The boy fished out some tools from his bag and neatly removed the stone, equally neatly replacing it with a very believable yet worthless copy. Rei smirked, almost feeling sorry for the clueless owners of the house. Now their fancy clock wasn't worth a crap.

After finishing his task, Rei returned to where he had left Tala. However, just as he turned a corner to the hallway that led to the main door, he heard a sharp sound of glass shattering.

Flashback

Tala lay on the floor surrounded by splinters of glass. Some of them were covered in blood just like the boy himself. He didn't move.

Rei waited until Boris had walked away. Then he ran up to his friend, "Tala!" He tried to touch him but the Russian grabbed his hand, holding it back.

"Don't," The redhead moved away, shivering slightly. Rei watched him with tears in his amber eyes. He could see the boy was in pain. But Tala didn't cry. By the age of eleven, he had learned not to cry.

"But you're hurt," Rei whispered.

Tala looked at him sadly, "Yeah," he shivered again, "I'll be fine in a few days," after saying that, the boy fainted.

Rei shot up from his spot on the floor, "Kai!" he screamed as he ran to the now unconscious Russian. Soon he heard Kai's running steps approaching.

End flashback

Rei had instinctively raised up his arm to cover his face from the splinters. His arm was stinging with pain and he felt blood run down his skin. He lowered the arm to his side and looked at a dark, motionless form on the floor in a growing pool of crimson liquid. He cautiously made his way closer to it and gasped as he recognised it to be Tala.

"Tala," he whispered and reached out a shaking hand to touch the boy. His hand stopped midway as he heard glass crushing under shoes. Rei quickly raised his head to find two tall boys standing outside the broken window. The Sun and the Moon. The former was observing the damages of the house with a small frown on his face while the latter had fixed his piercing glare on Rei. Again the two were complete opposites of each other, the Sun wearing completely white while the Moon's outfit was black as the night around them. The collar of the long, white coat the blond one was wearing was slightly stained with blood and the boy offhandedly wiped some of the same substance off the corner of his mouth. The dark-haired boy on the other hand had a big bruise on his left cheek and his coat was ripped up a bit.

"Hn, Zack, you broke the house…" the blond muttered before turning to look at his partner. Then his yellow eyes flicked towards Rei who was now standing, "Ah, good evening," he greeted politely. Rei merely clenched his fists. The blond-haired boy tilted his head a bit to his left, "Not very talkative, are we? Oh well, but this is Zachary and I am Elia, pleased to meet you," now the boy flashed him a smile that immediately turned into a smirk.

Now Zack smirked too, "We believe you have something of ours," he said and looked at Tala, "at least your partner didn't have it…" he trailed off. Rei glanced at Tala. He still hadn't moved. Fear crept its way up Rei's spine. What if he was dead? He couldn't stand losing another important friend. Even if he couldn't say they had been friends in years anymore.

"You will not get it without a fight," Rei said as he turned his gaze back to the two in front of him, anger colouring his soft voice.

"Very well then," Zack said, turning his back on Rei, "let's take it outside and not damage the house more than we already have."

"You have," Rei corrected and followed the boys to the empty swimming pool.

Elia chuckled, "Hey Zack, isn't it kind of unfair to go two against one?"

The addressed boy threw a quick smile at his partner, "Everything is fair in war and love, my dear," then he turned to Rei, "and this is obviously the former one."

Rei raised an eyebrow, "It seems you didn't think it was unfair to beat up my partner with superior force earlier."

Elia snickered a bit, "Yeah well, he proved himself to be tougher than we had thought," he glanced at Rei, "you on the other hand though…"

Rei felt the anger in him rising again, "Don't underestimate me," he hissed. The Sun and the Moon both smirked at him, "You think you're better than me? Then show me what you've got," the neko-jin invited.

"Gladly," Zack accepted, jumping towards him so quickly Rei hardly managed to dodge his fist. The younger boy in return let his fist to get to know the other boy's abdomen, making the victim fall onto the ground on his knees, his arms wrapped around the sore area.

Before Rei could send another hit towards the black-haired boy, there was Elia's foot contacting with his chest, making him fly a few meters backwards. Elia jumped after him, grabbing the boy from the ground and throwing him roughly against a wall. Rei groaned quietly as the air escaped his lungs. Elia walked over to him with unnecessarily slow pace and lifted him up, wrapping his fingers around his neck as he pinned the boy up against the wall. His other hand he drew back intending to send a well-directed hit to the boy's face.

Rei's reflexes, however, were too quick for the attacker to see and therefore he managed to kick the boy away, dive behind him and finally take his turn to kick the opponent against the wall. Quickly the Chinese teen jumped on the older boy, straddling his waist and starting to hit him furiously. He could taste blood in his mouth and his whole body was aching.

Rei had completely forgotten about Zack until the boy was suddenly behind him, taking hold of his waist before shoving him straight to the bottom of the empty pool. Rei let out a little cry of pain as his right arm twisted and a crack was heard. Soon he had Zack sitting on top of him, flashing him that complacent smirk of his.

"I noticed the Kitten has claws but unfortunately they are not sharp enough," he said softly and leaned down, grabbing Rei's both wrists in his tight grip, making the boy cry out in agony. Then he released the unbroken hand but tightened his hold on the broken one, making the boy numb with pain, unable to fight back. Rei started slowly feeling dazed, the pain waving through his body almost unbearable.

Just when Rei was sure he would lose consciousness, he heard a revolting sound of a sharp weapon sinking into his lower abdomen followed by another wave of pain running through his body. A silent groan escaped his lips.

"Oops, I cheated," Rei could hear that Zack was smirking, "now, let's see what we have here," the older boy's hand snaked into Rei's pocket, fishing out a little box Rei had put the stone into, "thank you very much for your co-operation," he said solemnly before leaning down close to Rei's ear. The Chinese boy felt the weapon being twisted in his wound. He couldn't help wincing, "It hurts, doesn't it?" Zachary whispered.

Then he was up, pulling the dagger out of Rei's abdomen painfully slowly.

"See you later… perhaps," this voice belonged to Elia whom Rei hadn't even heard joining them on the bottom of the swimming pool. Then there were their footsteps moving away before a car drove off the yard.

At the last moment of his consciousness, Rei heard a faint clink of a bell and soft, running steps approaching. He forced his eyes open to see something white and blue through the haze blurring his vision. Then he was swallowed by the darkness.

A/N: Please review, it would mean the world to me :).