Chapter 21
Together as One
We stared blankly at Lee as he still was fazed at the loss of his friend.
"Lee." I whispered as his teammates helped him up and started to help him walk off. His eyes were still glazed over with defeat. He slowly walked back to the hallway.
I saw Tala sitting at the team bench, a confident smile on his face.
"Tala!" I growled angrily as I tried to get up, but the others pulled me back down. I wanted to jump out of these stands right now and get Galeon back. Lee's effort and misery fueled my rage as I still struggled to get up. It took Johnny, Robert, Oliver, and Enrique to hold me in the seat. I felt such anger inside of me. It coursed inside of me, giving me a strange sense of power. I felt an odd glow in my pocket as I reached inside and pulled out Orelin, who was glowing with some sort of power, like my anger had fueled him somehow. I put Orelin back in my pocket and gritted my teeth together to keep myself from saying anymore about what Tala had done.
I finally broke free of their grasps and stood up, only to see that Tala and his team were gone. I started to run out of the stands. If I couldn't catch Tala, I could find Lee and see if he could pull through.
I ran down a hallway to meet the White Tigers walking towards their team room, Mariah and Gary supporting Lee, who looked totally out of it.
"Hi Ayia." Mariah said as they walked with Lee.
"How do you know my name?" I asked.
"Lee." Mariah replied, "after he saw Orelin and you battle, he couldn't stop talking about Orelin, you, and your strategy."
"I wanna come with you guys," I said; "to make sure Lee's alright, he looks pretty beat up."
When I had said that, I didn't mean beat up physically, I meant mentally. Lee hadn't even spoken yet and was still in a daze. His bleeding body and broken spirit hung limp on Mariah and Gary's arms.
The White Tigers and I walked into the training room and they lied Lee on a nearby bench. I sat next to him.
"Lee?" I said as I looked at him questionably as I helped pull him into a sitting position, "Lee, please answer. I know that Galeon's gone, and I'm sure that you're hurt, but you need to speak to us, please!"
"I--" Lee started, "I failed, Ayia."
"Failed?" I asked him.
"Motoki's still alive, and I should of known better than to face him. "Lee said, "And Galeon paid for it, and now he's gone!"
"Oh Lee." I said.
"My blade's even gone!" Lee said, holding out his empty hand, "This hand used to hold so much. But now all it holds is air. Dead, useless, gone, air; not Galeon, it'll never be Galeon!"
He started crying again and leaned into Mariah and me, his hand holding onto my arm tightly, like I was Galeon. He leaned back again and let go of us to leave a large stream of blood trailing down my arm. I saw Mariah run to a nearby sink with a cloth and started to run some hot water.
"We need to get you cleaned up Lee." Mariah said as she came back and started to wipe off his cuts. Lee cringed at the warm water on his scars.
"Settle down." Mariah said, "You'll be fine."
"I---can't believe it's over for us," Kevin said, "just like that."
Mariah glared at Kevin. She then turned back to Lee.
"At least we still have each other." She said.
"How can we have each other," Lee said, "when a part of us is gone!"
Lee bent over and placed his arms on his thighs. I saw the other White Tigers look sadly into the distance, obviously thinking about their lost Bitbeasts, but not saying anything so Lee wouldn't be more upset. They were all suffering.
"I'm such a terrible Blader!" He said, "I should have never picked up Galeon in the first place, I've lost him! It's my entire fault, and I'll never blade again because of it! Galeon will never be free—because of---"
That's when I couldn't take it. My hand hit the side of Lee's face, hard. His head snapped to one side as Mariah gasped.
"Don't talk like that!" I said, "Ever! You're a great Blader, and you deserved Galeon. You lost him, yeah, but you're not the only person! Your efforts were not in vain, Lee! You proved that Tala isn't invincible, and that only one thing will beat him."
"What's that?" Lee asked.
"You're the person, who showed it," I said, putting my hand to his chest, "heart. You had it, Galeon had it, and your bond was unbelievable. Maybe when you said something in me was going to change, you might have been talking about yourself."
"Myself?" He asked.
"You discovered you're braver and stronger than you think," I said, "and that no matter what happens to Galeon, he's still with you, in spirit."
"Spirit?" He asked.
"Can't you feel him, hear him?" I asked, "in your mind, in your soul? Just listen for a minute."
Lee closed his eyes with me and we both listened. I saw the other White Tigers close their eyes too.
"I feel it." Lee said, "the courage."
"The skill," Mariah continued.
"The cunning." Kevin said.
"The power." Gary added.
"It's always been there." I said, "Your Bitbeasts' spirits are engraved in your hearts forever, even if their physical form is gone."
"Ayia--" Lee started.
"I've had to find that out the hard way." I said, "when I realized my old Bitbeast, Motoki, was bonded with me."
"What! You worked for those thieves?" Lee yelled as he towered over me, "Traitor!"
"No it's not like that," I said, "when I was in Moscow, he was my Bitbeast, and I had no idea I was being controlled. Now Orelin is protecting me from the darkness, and bringing me into the light, slowly but surely. I know I'll never forget Motoki, but Motoki showed me that darkness is something I need to turn away from, and go towards the light in my heart."
Lee sat down with a heavy sigh. "You know your mission so well." He said, "It's almost been planned out picture perfect."
"No." I said, "My 'mission' killed someone and hurt many people close to me; it's been anything but perfect."
"I thought mine was over before it started," Lee said, "When Mariah, Gary, Kevin, Rei and I lived in China in a small secluded village-"
"No way!" I said, "Rei lived with you guys too?"
"Yeah," Mariah said, "We were best friends."
"My Grandfather and Rei's grandfather knew each other very well, so that meant that we were almost inseparable—until we turned thirteen." Lee said, "We had trained with Beyblades when we were only five and looked forward to our right of passage at thirteen, the obtainment of a Bitbeast. My own Grandfather held both the spirits of Driger and Galeon. He told me that Driger would go to a rightful and responsible owner. I trained for years alongside Rei to be the owner of Driger, but Rei and I both wanted his ownership, and we gave all we had each day. Our birthdays came—and Rei was awarded Driger and I was stuck with Galeon. I thought 'that's it, it's over' but Galeon showed me to never underestimate him or myself. After more months of training, I was just as good, or even better than Rei. But then, Rei left us, and I felt betrayed. I didn't show my anger until the Asian Tournament; but when the Bladebreakers defeated us, I renewed my respect for him, and we were great friends again."
"Sounds like you and Rei were very competitive." I said.
"We always were," He said, "and we still are."
"I know we've been kicked out of the tournament," Kevin said, "but that doesn't mean that we can't stay and watch the rest of the matches."
"I don't think so guys. I could look at another dish or blade if I tried." Lee said, "We need to go home."
"Home?" Mariah said.
"Yes," Lee said, "we need more training."
I wanted to speak, but when Lee made up his mind, there was no changing it.
"Okay Lee." I said, "Just at least watch our match today."
Lee sighed, "Okay." He said, "But after that, we're out of here."
"Will you watch anymore of the tournament?" I asked.
"Maybe the very last match." He said, "there's no doubt in my mind that it will be between you and Tala."
I lowered my head lightly. I knew that time would come, whether now or in the Finals, it would come.
"Right." I said, "I'll miss you Lee."
"Same here." He got up with the rest of his team, "good luck Ayia."
"Stay strong Lee." I said, "because you know you are."
"Thank you Ayia," he said, shaking my hand, "I'll never forget you, and your spirit of light."
"I'll never forget you and your courage and power." I said, "and your strong heart."
"Bye Ayia." He said as he and his team walked to the door.
"Bye Lee." I said as he and his team left.
I sat on the bench and took in what had just happened. Motoki had happened, no, darkness. It was darkness, stealing Bitbeasts, no, murdering them.
Murdering the Blader's spirit and the physical bond between them and their Bitbeasts.
Lee's confidence and sprit had almost been lost, as well as the others. I knew Galeon would still be with him in spirit, and Lee understood it, but for Lee seeing Galeon was believing Galeon.
I walked out of the small room and back out into the end of the hallway, where the rest of my team waited for me.
"Our match is almost getting ready to start." Johnny said, "ready?"
"Ready?" I said with a smile, "I was born ready!"
"Well me too!" Johnny replied.
We all walked out onto the floor as the audience cheered. We walked to our bench and sat, waiting for the Jazzman. He walked out to the foot of the dish covering and started to announce the teams.
"Are you guys ready for the second match?" He asked the crowd as they cheered back, "Alright then! After the last match, I'm sure that this one will be just as or even more intense! First we have Ayia from the Majest-"
"Wait!" I cried out as Johnny and I ran up to the dish, "we wish to challenge the Windwakers to a tag-team battle. Two from each team at one time."
The whole stadium was silent with shock.
"Wow!" The Jazzman said, "Ayia and Johnny have issued a tag-team battle to the Windwakers, will they accept?"
'Accept!' I thought, 'what if they don't accept?'
"We'll take you on!" Skylar said as he and Remei stepped up to the stadium, "we have so much power, what's there to worry about?"
"Why you!" Johnny said, stepping forward.
"Johnny calm down." I said, stopping him, "You can only argue with me, remember?"
He smiled, "you know it!" He said.
We held up our Launchers.
"Remember Johnny, focus." I said.
"For the love of the game." He replied
"For the love of the game." I agreed.
"The Windwakers have accepted!" The Jazzman said, "and now to reveal the dish this match will be held in!"
The dish opened to reveal a dish with a large black cat with wings on one edge and he rest of the dish was covered in sand.
"Welcome to the Bastet dish!" The Jazzman said, "This dish is named after the Egyptian God of fighting spirit, as you see near the edge of the dish. Both teams are certainly going to need some fighting spirit today to stay alive in the tournament!"
I smiled a bit. The dish wasn't really in their favor, but not in ours either. Then again, Skylar could always whip up a sandstorm, but he'd be hitting his partner as well as us. Compromising wouldn't really go his way either, because Remei was not the best person to try to compromise with.
I put my hand near my pocket and felt a small lump in it. I slowly reached into my pocket and pulled out the Engine Gear charger.
"I almost forgot!" I said, putting it into Orelin and turning it to the left, "Johnny, charge your-"
"Already done." He said with a smile, "maybe you should be more prepared."
"Give me a break Johnny, I have to deal with you and remember things." I said as we laughed.
After Orelin was charged, I took the winder out of the blade as our stats were being shown.
"The Windwakers tag team, made up of Remei and Skylar, have already lost one match." Brad Best said, "If they lose today, they will be out of the tournament!"
"But they only lost by a small amount last battle." A.J. replied, "and it seems they've got their two best Bladers out on the floor to get the job done!"
"As do the Majestics!" Brad said.
"You've got that right!" A. J. added, "Their new Blader, Ayia, has completely surprised us with her powerful strategy mixing speed, strength, and graceful tactics in the heat of battle. Her wolf Bitbeast, Orelin, is no weakling either! But I don't understand why she's paired up with Johnny."
"That's right!" Brad continued, "Johnny seems to be the hothead of the team and hasn't battled in the tournament yet. But I'm sure that he and his Bitbeast, Salamulyon, will heat things up when the battle begins!"
"Are you ready?" The Jazzman said as I looked over to the stands where Lee was sitting.
'This is for you,' I thought to myself, 'my friend.'
"3,2,1," The Jazzman counted, "Let it Rip!"
We both fired our blades into the dish.
"Johnny, stick together!" I said to him.
"Got it!" He replied.
We raced around the dish as the Windwakers followed.
"Turn around and fight us!" Remei said, "cowards!"
'We need to find a way to make her angry,' I thought to myself, 'time for a few tricks.'
"Johnny, weaving pattern!" I said as we went into a weave and turned 360 degrees to face the Windwakers as we knocked their blades backwards.
"If you want us to attack-" I started.
"You'd better be prepared." Johnny finished, "we don't take insults lightly."
We kept weaving around the dish and letting the Windwakers try to attack, easily dodging their sloppy attacks.
"Keep attacking like that," Johnny said, "and this battle is ours!"
"Stop Johnny." I said, "We need to conserve our energy and let them make their own mistakes."
"So let them feud on their own?" Johnny said.
"Yes." I said, "Remei will begin to get angry, and we need her to direct her anger at Skylar."
"Got it!" Johnny said.
We both went to the center of the dish and waited as they both raced towards us. Suddenly, their blades went under the sand!
"Where'd they go?" Johnny asked.
"Right
here!" Skylar shouted as his blade came up from the ground and hit
Johnny.
"Johnny, onto the statue!" I said as he took shelter
on the large black cat's head, "You focus on Remei, I'll deal
with Skylar."
"Got it." He said as Remei stated to climb to the top of the statue.
"Now," I said. "To focus on my own problems. I know he can handle Remei, but I need to find Skylar."
I suddenly heard a digging sound---that's it—sound! If I heard Skylar coming, I could evade him easily!
I moved when the sound got close, and just as I had expected, Skylar came crashing onto the surface. I reeled back and hit Skylar back a few inches.
"How'd you avoid me?" He asked.
"The question is, how can you avoid this?" I asked, "Orelin, Extreme Speed!"
Orelin started appearing at different edges of the dish, except this time, each image stayed there. When Orelin stopped creating copies, there were at least twenty in the dish, leaving Skylar totally confused.
"Attack!" I yelled as all the blades rushed towards Skylar and hit him hard and slammed him against the back legs of the cat statue, causing them to break and the statue started to lean diagonally.
I went up to top of the statue to see that Johnny had knocked Remei off. I looked to see Skylar and Remei with smiles on their faces.
"What are you so happy about?" Johnny said, "you're almost out of spin!"
"Hey Remei." Skylar said, "I think it's time we show these weaklings our Special Attack."
"Let's do it!" She shouted as their blades locked together and started to glow. They spun extremely fast and kicked up a large amount of sand that became a whirlwind. I saw a light blue and red light appear—their Bitbeasts. The light formed into Inume and Kagome. Inume then ran around the whirlwind, instantly turning it into a blazing inferno of wind and fire.
"Desert Fire Tornado!" They both shouted as it raced towards us.
What would we do? What could we do? We could only do things together—as one.
We just needed more power, but how?
I then remembered the odd burst of energy I had felt today when I was angry. Maybe that was the key to enough power, anger, and with Johnny here, there was more than enough anger to go around.
"Johnny." I said, "don't worry about the oncoming attack. Give me every ounce of your strength, every ounce of anger, now."
Johnny nodded and I saw his Beyblade start to glow. I focused on my own as Orelin started to glow. Things that made me angry flashed though my mind- images of Boris---Russia---and many of Tala. Tala--his stealing of Bitbeasts, it made me as angry as Lee. I couldn't control my anger, that power, so I'd let Orelin harness it and see what would happen. I shouted angrily into the air:
"Tala!"
I saw our two Bitbeasts appear and a blinding light fill the arena. Suddenly a command came into my mind, I had never heard of it before, but it felt like Orelin was calling to me.
"Fusion Blade!" Johnny and I yelled at the same time, he must have felt it too. Maybe our Bitbeasts knew something we didn't.
Remei and Skylar looked up, hoping to see our blades out of the arena, instead, they saw a large Bitbeast. It was Orelin with Salamulyon's face armor and body armor and webbing on the back of its legs and a large scaly tail whipping behind it. The gems on its mask had turned green and yellow, as well as its markings.
"What the?" Skylar asked, "you should have been destroyed!"
"Not a chance!" I yelled, "Let's show them what were made of!"
"Let's go!" He shouted in agreement.
"Ultimate Fusion attack!" We shouted as our Bitbeast glowed a bright light purple. It shot a blaze of purple and white energy at the other two blades as light flooded the stadium.
When it cleared, the whole dish was obliterated. Everything was gone but our two blades and our two Bitbeasts that had now separated and gone back into their original blades. Skylar and Remei's blades had been shoved into the stadium wall and stands. Skylar's was inches from Tala's head, which had leaned to the side to casually avoid it, and Remei's had packed a five or six foot indent into the wall.
"And the winner is the Majestics!" The Jazzman announced as I looked over to Johnny, who was on his knees and panting hard. The thing I didn't notice—was that I was as well, but we had won, "this means that they advance and the Windwakers are knocked out of the tournament!"
I grabbed Orelin and Salamulyon and walked over to Johnny. I put Salamulyon in his hand as he looked up at me.
"We did it, we won." He said, his breath fluttering as he spoke out of his smiling mouth.
"That's right Johnny, we won." I said, helping him up and putting my arm around his shoulder as he did the same, "come on buddy---let's go."
"Wait!" We heard as we turned around to see the Windwakers behind us, "Good luck in the Semi-Finals."
"Thanks." I said. I walked up to Skylar and whispered to him: "Watch out for the Demolition Boys, they'll steal your Bitbeasts on your way home."
"We'll be careful" He said, "we may stick around and watch more of the matches, I'm not that worried."
"Bye you guys!" Johnny and I said as we waved to them. We still held each other up with our arms.
"Let's get back to the bench." Johnny said.
I helped him----we helped each other----back to the bench as the team greeted us.
"Let me help you with him." Oliver with a smile as I let him support Johnny.
"That was awesome!" Enrique said.
"Couldn't of said it better myself." Oliver said, still holding up Johnny who looked like he had passed out already.
"You two didn't even use your Engine Gear." Robert said, "Well done!"
"Thanks Robert." I said as I tried to walk. Suddenly I felt myself losing energy as I fell to my knees.
"You okay?" Enrique asked as he helped me up.
"Fine, just fine." I said, "I'm just a little tired after that battle."
"That Fusion attack you guys pulled off really took its toll on you guys." Oliver said.
"And Johnny surely shows it--" I said with a smile as I looked around the stands to see that Lee and his team were gone, "Where's Lee?"
"Huh?" Enrique asked.
"I wanted to see him and his team before they left." Ayia said, "I just wish I could do something for him."
"We all do Ayia." Oliver said, "He has to sort it out on his own now."
"Let's go to our hotel and rest," Robert said, motioning to Johnny, "I think all of us have had a hard day."
We walked towards the edge of the stadium as we all turned at a familiar voice over the loudspeaker, Mr. Dickinson's.
"I would like to say, great job to all the teams today!" He said, "Our next and Semi-final round will be held in Beijing, China, see you all at the Semi-Finals!"
'Beijing huh?' I thought, 'I may get to see Lee again after all.'
We turned and continued to walk out of the stadium. I turned to still see the indentation in the wall next to where Tala's head used to be.
'Tala,' I thought, 'that's only a warm up for what's to come when we face each other and I assure you—I will win—no matter what the cost.'
