Hi, everyone. Here's the ninth chapter. I hope it doesn't feel boring. I'll get to the climax of the story in the next couple of chapters, promise. I hope you read and review this one too.
It took Hilary five days to learn to do the backflip and by Thursday, Emily had learned the front walkover, the aerial somersault and had almost mastered the backflip herself. Both still practiced the other moves they'd learned as well as the basics.
The girls were all at the beach. It was early in the morning on Friday so no one was there.
"Alright Hilary, it's time you learned the back tuck," Mariam said.
"Emily, you and I will keep working on the back flip," Mariah said.
Mariam nodded at Mariah and then turned back to Hilary. "Now Hilary, a back tuck and backflip are often used interchangeably, but for the purposes of this lesson, a back tuck is doing a backflip and landing in the same place you started. The key difference is the way you launch. You jump straight up rather than up and back. Now, I assume you and Emily did your pre-training stretching exercises."
Hilary and Emily nodded. "Good," Mariam said.
"I'm really impressed at how fast you two have been coming along," Julia said, smiling.
"Thanks," Emily said.
"Now, I'm going to help spot you because you have to put your hands behind your knees for this one," Mariam said.
"How am I going to flip backwards without using my hands? When I do the backflip, I always go into a hand stand before landing on my feet." Hilary asked.
"You flipped forward without using your hands, right? Think of this as a backwards somersault."
Hilary did just that and with Mariam's help, got it on her third try. They continued to practice the move while Emily worked on the backflip. After three hours, they decided to pack it in for a while.
"That was a very productive training session," Mariam said, once the five got back to Hilary's house.
"I think that Hilary and Emily should learn the other types of flips too. You know, flipping sideways, diagonally, flipping over objects, things like that," Julia said.
"It would be good for you two to learn the full gamut before we confront Marie," Mariah told the two girls.
"But before we do that, Emily needs to catch up with Hilary so they can be on even ground," Julia said.
"She can go and train with the Saint Shields," Mariah said.
"I'll be alright here," Hilary said. "Let me know when she's caught up."
"Will do," Mariam said.
Over the weekend, Emily got caught up with Hilary and on Monday afternoon, the five friends went to the beach again. Luckily, there were few people there and Marie and the Bladebreakers weren't there either.
"Alright, there are two other flips you two need to learn; the sideways flip and the diagonal flip," Mariam said to Hilary and Emily.
"By sideways flip, you mean a cartwheel, right?" Hilary asked. "I know how to do that already."
To demonstrate, Hilary lifted her hands over her head, bent down into a launch position, and then pushed off with her left leg and rotated her body 90 degrees, flipping over in the process, and landed first on her right foot and then pushed off with her hands and landed upright, with her hands above her head again.
"Wow, that was perfect," Julia said. "Emily, do you know how to do a cartwheel?" she asked the orange-haired girl.
"I knew how to do it at one time, but not anymore," Emily answered.
"Well, it won't take long to teach you," Mariah said. "First, you lift your hands over your head to prepare. When you go into the launch position, you push off with one leg and rotate your body exactly 90 degrees as you go into the handstand position. Make sure to keep your legs spread. Once you flip over, land on the opposite leg that you launched with, then push off with your hands so your other leg comes down and you come into an upright position. It should look like this."
Mariam did a cartwheel to demonstrate. Emily watched the movements carefully. Both Mariam and Hilary helped her with it until she perfected it. Once she did, Emily practiced until she could cartwheels consecutively. It took her an hour to perfect the move.
"Alright, now we get to the diagonal flip," Mariam said. "It's basically a diagonal cartwheel."
Emily and Hilary were able to do it easily within a few minutes.
"Alright, now we'll go to the park and practice flipping over objects," Mariah said.
When they got to the park, the girls were relieved to find that Marie and the boys weren't there this time. Mariah led the group over to a vacant picnic area.
"Alright, first, we'll practice flipping over this picnic table," she said.
"What you do is, as you're going into the hand stand, you rotate your body about one hundred and eighty degrees so that you land on the other side of the table. The same goes for any other object," Mariam said.
"Like so," Mariah said, before flipping over the table herself.
It sounded simple enough, so Hilary and Emily tried it. Emily managed to do it on her first try, but Hilary only managed to turn her body 90 degrees and landed on the side of the table. It wasn't a graceful landing as she landed on her butt.
Hilary grimaced as she got up. "Well, that could've gone better," she said.
"Are you alright?" Emily asked.
"I'm fine, just a little sore," Hilary answered.
"Maybe she's just not flexible enough to rotate her body that far," Julia said.
"No way! She's done great so far. She just needs more practice," Mariah said.
"I agree. Hilary is very athletic, she can do it," Emily said.
"I think my body just went a little wonky the first time," Hilary said. "Let me try again."
Hilary readied herself to launch and flipped into the handstand position while rotating herself as much as she could. Still, she only managed 90 degrees.
"Try launching at a 90 degree angle. See if that helps," Mariam suggested.
"Alright," Hilary said. Hilary did just that and was able to flip to the other side of the table easily.
"You did it!" Mariah said happily.
"Alright, now that you two have learned all you need to about gymnastics, it's time to teach you a couple of those Aikido moves," Mariam said.
Mariam, Hilary and Emily went to the gym while Mariah and Julia stayed at the Tatibana residence.
"Alright, the first move is one I'm sure you've seen on TV before. Flipping someone over your shoulder," Mariam said. "It's called, unsurprisingly, a one arm shoulder throw. This move is more aligned with Judo than Aikido, but it's still a good move to learn. Emily, put your arm straight out."
Emily did as she was told.
"I assume both of you are right-handed." Hilary and Emily nodded. "Alright so put your right foot in front of you first. I'll do the same."
Mariam grabbed Emily's arm under her elbow, and then pulled Emily to her, raising her elbow in the process.
"Pulling your opponent to you is the key to getting them off balance. Once they're off balance you can execute the move," Mariam said.
She then put her free arm underneath Emily's armpit. "Make sure you have a firm grip on their arm. That's why I've wrapped my left arm underneath hers. Now I'm gonna step back with my left foot, bend my knees, turn and…"
She threw Emily to the ground. After a few moments, she helped her back up.
"That was painful," Emily said.
"Sorry, but I needed a test subject," Mariam said. She turned to Hilary. "I hope you were paying attention because now you and Emily are going to practice on each other until you have it right."
After thirty minutes, the two had mastered the move, although both had sore backs by the time they were through.
"Okay, now we go to another type of throw. It's really more flipping someone over than actually throwing them. Unfortunately, I don't know the proper name for the move, I only know how it's performed," Mariam said. "Hilary, you'll be my guinea pig this time."
She grabbed Hilary's right wrist. "Grabbing the wrist is the best way of doing this move. I take the wrist, swing my arm down bringing hers down with it. Then I step forward with my right foot and swing my arm back up, letting go of my opponent and tossing them to the ground."
Hilary was in fact on the ground when Mariam finished her explanation.
"You take the step forward right as your swinging your arm to give yourself the thrust necessary to toss your opponent back. Now I prefer to do it by swinging my arm back and down in an underhanded motion, but it can also be done in the reverse, down and back. You can use this move on two opponents if you can get your hands on one of their wrists each." Mariam helped Hilary up before speaking again. "Now, I'll let you two practice the move on me."
It took Hilary and Emily fifteen minutes to master the unnamed move. When they and Mariam reported back to the Tatibana residence, they reported their progress.
"Very good you two," Julia said.
"So now, can we go and beat the crap out of that boyfriend-stealing bitch Marie?" Mariah asked.
"Hold on Mariah, we said we'd try a bey-battle first," Hilary said.
"And besides, before we confront her, we have to get the Bladebreaker's beyblades back from wherever it is Marie is keeping them," Mariam added.
"How do we do that?" Emily asked.
"Give me five minutes with her; I'll get her to tell me where they are!" Julia said, clenching her fists."
"I have a feeling that they're somewhere in her house," Hilary said. "Unfortunately, I'm probably not allowed in there anymore after what happened last time."
"I say we give her an ultimatum. Either tell us where the beyblades are voluntarily or we go to her house and turn it upside down until we find them," Julia said.
"Julia, technically, that's vandalism and even if we did find the beyblades, we could very well be arrested," Emily said.
"So what can we do?" Mariah asked.
"I think I have an idea. I'll ask her to give me the beyblades so I can get the boys back to training because I know they've been too preoccupied with Marie to train for the past three weeks," Hilary said.
"What if she refuses?" Mariam asked.
"You leave that to me."
Hilary went over to the Granger dojo immediately and found Marie out in the backyard with the boys.
"Marie, I need to talk to you about something important," Hilary said.
"Well Hilary, this is a nice surprise," Marie said smiling.
"Come into the living room with me. I'd like this talk to be private."
"Sure."
After the two were inside, Hilary turned to Marie with a serious, but non-hostile expression.
"Marie, I'd like to know where the boy's beyblades are so I can give them back. I'm still a part of the team, and as a coach, I believe I have a right to know."
"Well, forgive me Hilary, but you haven't exactly been around in the last couple of weeks."
"I know and I believe I've abdicated my duty as a coach long enough and I've let the boys slack off long enough."
"You can understand that I'm somewhat skeptical. Why the sudden change of mind?"
"I've been visiting with friends and learning new skills. Now that things have calmed down, I feel ready to return to my place as a coach."
"Well, I don't really need to give you the beyblades. I could just as easily give them to the boys myself."
"Yes, you could, but for some reason, I feel that you won't be doing that anytime soon. Tell me, have the boys been training at all in the past three weeks?"
Marie hesitated before answering. "Once or twice, but for the most part, I've let them rest. They work hard in school and to add the stress of training seems unfair."
"I think they've rested enough. Now Marie, I didn't want it to come to this, but the Bladebreakers are an official team and they need to train to be effective. You have two choices. Either you tell me where the beyblades are on your own, or I'll notify the BBA and make you give them up."
"Are you threatening me?"
"Yes, I am and I'm not bluffing either. The BBA oversees every official beyblade team in the world and if they know you're keeping the Bladebreaker's beyblades from them, they can and will come down and force you to give them back because you'd be considered to be deliberately trying to sabotage or otherwise hamper the team's performance."
Marie looked away for several moments before answering. "Alright. The beyblades are at my house. I'll be back in half an hour."
"You'd better be telling the truth. If you're not back in thirty minutes, I will call Mr. Dickenson."
Thirty minutes later, Hilary did in fact have the beyblades back and put them in her backpack.
"I thought you said you'd be giving the beyblades back to the boys," Marie said.
"It's close to sundown, so I'll give them back after school tomorrow," Hilary answered. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to my own home."
When Hilary got back to her house, she found Emily, Julia, Mariah and Mariam still there.
"So, how did it go?" Mariam asked.
Hilary smiled broadly. "I actually got them back," she said.
"That's great! How did you do it?" Mariah asked.
"I threatened her with contacting the BBA," she answered.
Julia smirked. "Nice job."
"Tomorrow afternoon, we'll confront her about what she's done to the boys, but right now, I just want to get to bed," Emily said.
"I'm with you. See you tomorrow Hilary," Mariam said.
"Goodnight girls. See you tomorrow."