It was a constant chase between Cassie and Lumino, and Sage and Tempest. The Pyrus Brawler and his Bakugan were always in the lead. No matter how hard they tried to keep up, Cassie and Lumino just weren't built for speed.
"Sage!" Cassie called pleadingly. "Please! Wait!" She slowed down and stumbled, almost falling over from exhaustion. And if Lumino hadn't been there, she would have.
"Whoa, take it easy there, Cassie," Lumino spoke softly, taking her arm, and sitting her down.
"We have to...catch up to...them..." Cassie breathed quietly.
"Something tells me they won't get far," Lumino assured her, letting her lean on him for support.
"What makes you...so sure?" She asked almost breathless.
"Look at you," he gestured with his left hand. "If your in this condition after just running, I can't imagine what condition Sage is in."
"W-what'd you mean?" Cassie asked, concern glazing her hushed voice.
"Living things-esspecially humans-can't stay active-let alone alive for long in this dimension," Lumino explained. "We have to leave as soon as possible if you're going to make it out alive, Cassie..." His voice was a mix of stress and concern. He couldn't even think about losing Cassie here. Not now...not ever.
"We have to find Bailey and the others..." Cassie said regaining a bit of strength, possibly enough to stand, she thought. It seemed as though she could, and began walking, but not in a straight line. Lumino couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of poor Cassie trying to manage the mere task of walking.
"Humans are such odd creatures..." He thought to himself.
"Cassie!" Tempest shouted over to them from a distance. "Come here! We found something! Come here!"
Lumino stood up and helped Cassie down the path to the spot Tempest was calling them from.
"W-what is it?" Cassie stuttered. She looked fleetingly over at the some-what either disturbed or concerned Sage who was looking back at her intently. "Sage?"
"Yeah," he nodded absently, rushing over to her and taking her free arm, despite his increasing lack of energy as well. She didn't have the energy to think anything of it, but Lumino was still in perfectly good condition. Well enough to glare at Sage as his took Cassie's arm and guided her over to a giant tree. This tree could have easily been about the size of a football field going across. And that was just the width of the trunk! Who knows how tall it was! Cassie got dizzy just by looking at it. For some reason, she never actually remembered seeing that tree in her dimension before, though.
Sage didn't stop to just marvel at the size of the tree, however. He soon had-somehow-breached the trunk and had both of them inside. They were inside a massive tree trunk, that somehow didn't remind Cassie of the inside of a tree trunk, despite her lack of knowledge of what the inside of a tree actually looked like.
A high tech battle field hovered in the middle of several balcony-like pods that held only one person. There were so many, and she was too exhausted to count them all. The rest of the arena looked the same to her.
"Hello?!" A familiar voice shouted. Cassie, Sage, Lumino, and Tempest looked around to see who it was. Bailey and Jack, along with Serpena and another teenage boy who Cassie guessed was Jack's Bakugan, Jagu, came racing toward them.
Cassie waved to them excited. Serpena scoffed, Jagu rolled his eyes copying Jacks expression, and Bailey was the only one to wave-slightly-back as the came over to the group of four.
Cassie studied the new-now human-Bakugan. Serpena was wearing a black leather jacket with a slightly torn green and purple shirt underneath, a pair of green tinted jeans and black combat boots. His hair was a dark onyx color.
Jagu was dressed similarly, due to the fact that both were Darkus attributed Bakugan, but he wore no jacket, just a clawed up purple tank with purple tinted distressed jeans. His hair was a similar color as well, maybe a little lighter than Serpena's, and his cat-like ears and tail stuck out. That's how she was able to tell them apart.
"What are you short lives doing here?" Serpena asked arrogantly looking the group up and down. Cassie noticed his forked, snake-like tongue as he spoke.
"We don't know," Cassie confessed. "Do you?"
"Of course we don't know why you're here!" Jack started getting a little red, anger bubbling inside him.
"She meant why are you here, ya nit wit..." Sage rolled his eyes letting go of Cassie's arm, realizing he was still holding onto her. He threw her toward Lumino with a jerking motion. They water user and her Bakugan, glared at him, but their actions were not acknowledged.
"Shut up, Flame Thrower! I knew what she meant!" Jack spat back, getting more angry every minute the conversation kept going.
"Flame thrower!" Sage chuckled sarcastically. "How original!" Jack growled hatefully in response.
"Shut your traps!" Bailey hissed. "Both of you!" she glared at the two bickering boys first, then sent a warning glare to the rest of the group.
"Bailey!" Serpena sounded almost as if her were whining. "Can we get me out of this ugly human body now? It's so...ugh!" he shivered. Bailey walked over to Serpena, and bunched him in the stomach. He nearly collapsed on impact.
"You're so annoying, Serps..." she rolled her eyes and stood next to him, waiting for him to recover. "Now would you stop being such a sissy and grow up for once?"
"But, Bailey!" Serpena complained. Bailey raised her fist.
"You want a black eye to go with that?" Serpena shut his mouth.
"Please enter the pod, corresponding with your attribute," A high pitched female computer voice requested of the group, stopping all voices at once.
"Huh?" The group looked around for any trace of the strange voice, but none was found.
"Well..." Bailey sighed. "Maybe it can get us out of here...wherever 'here' is..."
Everyone else nodded and followed her lead.
Above each pod was an attribute symbol, signifying which pod went with which attribute. There was at least one for every attribute, but there were several more pods than just one for each attribute. To be exact, there were six Darkus balcony pods, four Pyrus, five Haos, three Subterra, three Ventus, and two Aquos.
As they circled the battle arena, looking for their pods, they noticed that they couldn't just enter any willy nilly pod they wanted. The pod would create an orange electric wall and 'reject' an unwanted brawler so to speak if they were the wrong attribute user, or it wasn't their specific pod.
"Hey!" Cassie cried to everyone, noticing an Aqous pod. She ran over to it, followed close by Lumino. "I found my-" The orange field opened up, and rejected her, making her bounced back and fall on her butt. "Ow..." she complained, rubbing her lower back. "Dang...pod..."
"Hmm..." Bailey thought. "I wonder..." She reached gingerly for the closest pod. An orange field became visible and Bailey's hand could go no further. "I see..." She stepped back, and put a hand to her chin, thinking intently. "Maybe this one..." she walked over to a Darkus pod and looked back at Serpena. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. He rolled his eyes as she walked to the next Darkus pod three pods down. Still nothing.
"Um...Bailey...?" Cassie asked curiously. "Whatcha doin?"
"Shhh!" Bailey shushed Cassie.
"Yeah, Cass," Sage began. "Didn't you know that curiousity killed the cat?"
"Don't look at me then!" Cassie raised her hands in surrender, trying to stifle a laugh. "Talk to cat boy over there," she gestured over to Jagu who hissed in return. Sage and Jack laughed.
"Hey guys!" Bailey called over to them. "Check this out!" Everyone looked over in her direction and noticed that as she stepped up to a pod, a purple light shown from the symbol above Bailey's head and Serpena started glowing.
"If this is what power feels like, hit me again!" Serpena shouted. Bailey gave somewhat of a smile and walked into the pod. Serpena immediately vanished in a ray of purple light, zipping from one end of the arena to where Bailey was standing. He appeared in Bakugan form in her hand. "So that's what happens..."
"Let me try!" Cassie ran to the next Aquos pod and a blue light captured Lumino as he returned to Bakugan form as well in Cassie's palm. He popped out of his ball form.
"It worked!" He cried. Cassie smiled at him. Before long, everyone was in their correct pod, and all the Bakugan had returned to ball form.
"What are all the other pods for?" Jack asked. Everyone else shrugged.
"No clue," Cassie and Bailey said in sync.
"Beats me," Sage shrugged.
All of a sudden white lights appeared inside each empty pod from seemingly nowhere. Since there were so many, it got too bright for anyone to see. When the light dimmed down, each pod was filled with faces familiar and not.
"Now joining the battle," The same automated voice began. "Skyler, Heather, Dinah, Kade and Phillip; Haos Brawlers," Cassie looked to her right to see her younger brother Phillip. She was absolutely shocked. "Jayne, Sam, and Zach; Ventus Brawlers. Telah; Aquos Brawlers joining Cassie. Alex, Ella, Shawn, and Drayden; Darkus Brawlers joining Bailey and Jack. Toryn, Samantha, and Kelly; Subterra Brawlers," Jacks eyes widened as Kelly's name was announced. "And finally: Seth Kyle and Keri; Pyrus Brawlers joining Sage."
Everyone who had just joined the brawl looked around astonished. The younger brawlers from ages around three to twelve looked awestruck and amazed by the battlefield, while the older, more experienced brawlers, plus Phillip-who was an extremely experienced brawler-were more confused and concerned than anything.
"Phillip!" Cassie called to her 9 year old brother. "What are you doing here?"
"I don't know!" Phillip called back. "One minute I was on my way home from school and the next I'm here!"
"Jack!" The brunette girl named Kelly jumped excitedly at hearing her step-brother's name, her safire colored eyes twinkling.
"Kelly..." Jack sighed in reply and hung his head as she continued to be as cheerful and positive as ever.
"Cassie!" Skyler cried across the arena. "Nice to see you again!" He winked and she waved hyperly a huge, happy smile plastered to her face.
"Sorry to do this to you," She said. "But where's Alex...I need to apologize for that fight earlier..."
"Right here!" He called, waving to get her attention, one hand still stuffed in his jacket pocket.
"Alex!" Cassie answered in relief. "I'm so happy to see you!"
"Yeah," he answered.
"I'm so sorry f-" Cassie was cut off by the battle arena shaking, and the voice. "Please comence the battle."
"Battle?" Everyone looked flabbergastedly at one another. The stairs that connected each pod to the floor of the arena were now gone, and the pods hovered in mid air above the playing field.
"Generating teams," The voice began again. Something happened before it started listing the teams though. "Error! Error!" It scrieched. Everyone covered their ears. "Too many brawlers. One must be sent home before battle can commence."
The brawlers all looked at each other.
"Bailey is not leaving this brawl behind!" Serpena bounced around. "We will fight!" Bailey nodded in agreement.
"I'm not leaving!" Sage and Jack repeated.
"There are Bakugan waiting to be won out there!" The Ventus brawler, Zach spoke up. "I will not be backing out! Esspecially since there are so many renowned brawlers and Bakugan here!"
"Kyle what do you think?" Falc hopped around on his partners head getting lost in the sea of black locks.
"I dunno," Kyle looked up, concentrating on the red and orange orb that bounced around excitedly above him. "what do you think we should do?"
"Go for it!" Falc cried.
"Alright!" Kyle gave his partner a thumbs up. "We're game!"
"Cassie, I'll play if you do," Phillip called to his older sister. She turned.
"Alright," she responded. "as long as you don't get hurt...that alright with you, Lumino?"
"Let's play, Cassie!"
"Skyler, Alex, Keri, Toryn, Jayne, you playing?" Her friends looked up.
"Whatever," Alex shrugged. Skyler smirked at him.
"Of course I am!" Skyler said. "How bout it Jayne?" Skyler called over to the timid, brunette, Ventus brawler.
"Sure," She nodded slowly, her voice not carrying as far as everyone else's. "As long as Keri opts to stay," she turned to Keri who was at least two pods away.
"You got it!" Keri cried excitedly.
"Since you guys are all staying..." Toryn spoke up.
"Yay!" His Sphinxex cried popping out of its sphere form.
"Whoa!" Cassie cried. "Your Sphinxex talks?!"
"Yeah..." Toryn replied. "So does everyone else's..."
Cassie felt stupid after that. Of course she knew Serpena, Jagu, and Tempest could talk, but she had never heard Jayne's Toryn's, Skyler's Keri's or Alex's Bakugans talk. Still, she should have guess by now.
"Right..." she rubbed her neck sheepishly.
"Hello~?" A boy about twelve with cherry red hair called impatiently.
"Do you think my 'A' team is backing out that easily?" Seth looked expectantly at his team mates.
"No way!" The youngest Subterra brawler, Samantha called. Followed by a few similar cries that came from Sam, Telah, and Shawn, presumably members of Seth's team.
Kade, a new Haos brawler scoffed. "Wow, making me look bad much?" he leaned on the bar of the pod that kept everyone inside. "Well, I'm not leaving."
"I won't leave!" The blonde Darkus brawler Ella cried.
"That's right!" her Darkus Hogget squealed and snorted.
Everyone looked fleetingly at the last two to speak up. Drayden, a Darkus brawler, and Dinah, the Haos brawler.
Drayden laughed when he realized all eyes were on him. "Hey, don't think I'm backing out just because I haven't said anything.
With that, all eyes flitted to the scoffing Dinah. Her short blonde-y orange hair bounced as she turned her head away. "I am the best brawler that ever was," She began. "I am 'not' leaving."
What were they going to do now...someone had to go home, but nobody would, and the more time they spent there-although this has not been mentioned to anyone but the original eight that were taken there in the first place-the more energy they unknowingly waisted.
"Cassie," Phillip spoke up. "I'll go," he voleenterred.
"What?" Cassie couldn't believe it. "But, who knows where you'll go!"
"Phillip will be sent to his own dimension," Dinah began. "Safe and sound. Trust me, I've been through this before."
Cassie choked. She didn't know if this Dinah girl was right. Maybe she was just saying that to make her feel better or something.
"No," she said. "I'll go."
"Cassie you can't do that!" Phillip scolded her. "I'll go and that's that."
"But-" Cassie began.
"I have decided to leave the arena!" Phillip called to the voice.
"No!" Cassie cried.
"As you wish," the voice obliged. Phillip turned to his sister and smiled.
"You win this, sis," with that he turned into a radiant light, and vanished.
"Phillip!" Cassie cried almost hysterically.
"Cassie, its okay!" Her friends comforted her. "Phillip will be fine!"
"Let me out of this thing!" Cassie cried, grabbing ahold of the bar and shaking her pod violently.
"Cassie!" Lumino said comfortingly. "Think about your brother. If he left so you could play, and found out that you quit, what kind of model would you be toward him?" Cassie hung her head.
"Fine...I'll stay."
"Yes!" Serpena cried excitedly. "Lets beat some brains in!" A few brawlers-who didn't know Serpena-looked a little disgusted by his comment. Bailey flicked him slightly.
"Hurry up already!" Kade called.
"Let's get going already..." Dinah said impatiently.
"Generating teams," The voice said again. "Teams: Cassie, Jack, Sage, Bailey, Skyler, Kade, Keri, Sam, Kelly, Heather, and Drayden, versus
Alex, Dinah, Kyle, Toryn, Jayne, Telah, Samantha, Seth, Zach, Ella, and Shawn," all the pods merged accordinly to fit each team on one platform. "Let the battle, begin."
Hey guys! Its been awhile, no? This is a really, really, REALLY long chapter...probably the longest chapter I'll ever write for anything! Almost 3,000 words! Can I get some confetti up in here?!" *woohoo! Party! Streamers! Cake...-I'm not joking about that cake...-* Anyway, I know there is a lot of probably unneeded dialogue in here, but I think it builds the characters...well, character! Esspecially the newest members that have yet to be properly introduced! So, say hello topall of the new Charas. (Dinah, Kade, Shawn, Ella, Zach, Drayden, Kelly, Telah, Seth, Samatha, Heather, Phillip, and Sam!) Here are the stats so you don't get too lost!
•Aquos: Cassie, Telah
Darkus: Alex, Bailey, Ella, Jack, Shawn, Drayden
Haos: Skyler, Heather, Dinah, Phillip, Kade
Pyrus: Keri, Kyle, Seth, Sage
Subterra: Samantha, Toryn, Kelly
Ventus: Jayne, Sam, Zack•
Dang! This is going to be anightmare to proof read!