CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

~ The Light of the Phoenix ~

The sky was a dark shade of blue still. There was barely enough light to illuminate the picturesque gardens of the Alfhild estate. The birds have yet to begin their morning chorus but a blue blade soars through the landscape garden anyway.

Kai stood still, his bangs covering his eyes. He had not slept during the night at all. There was no way he could; he had way too much on his mind. After he and Ventus had taken Lux to her room, he sat at her bedside and quietly stayed beside her. She had woken up on her own twice over the night. She was much calmer than she had been in the afternoon but was still in a weakened state none the less. At the very least, the nanos in her seem to have calmed down and she was no longer in much pain.

Kai watched as Dranzer began to lose spin. He had been standing there for quite a while now without re-launching his blade as his thoughts recycled themselves in his mind. He knew all along that Lux was an experimental subject; he knew from the moment he first saw her eyes that something was different about her physiologically. Despite this, he cannot help but be affected by what she had gone through right in front of his eyes and the information that Ventus had given him upon his request of it while the two were bringing her to her room.

When Kai had asked Ventus what had been done to Lux at the laboratory, Ventus listed a total of twenty five different chemical compounds that had been injected into her. He also noted that, since she had been a rather kind hearted and willful girl, her memory was also erased with the highest frequency out of all the Magnanimae to avoid conflict with the intentions of the executives who ran the place. The most shocking piece of information to Kai was that their experiments have caused not only Lux, but all of the Magnanimae to grow a pair of wings from somewhere on their body. In Lux's case, they were on her back and in Lok's case, on his head. According to Ventus, complications that resulted from genetic mutations in the cells that constituted their wings eventually threatened their lives. So, with the exception of the Lok whose only had a problem in one wing, they all had both their wings removed surgically. Since anesthetics and analgesics were shown to have the opposite effect, the operations were performed without any application of them. For Lux, this was the one memory that the scientists did not want to completely erase from her mind as it can provide an additional means of control over her. For Lok, this was what triggered his insanity. This piece of information had made Kai sick. Dranzer, too, has lost most of its spin now.

Kai recalls Lux's voice when she had begged for the pain to go away. Her voice, much in contrast to her normally cheerful, clueless and somewhat childlike tone, was weak, desperate and shaking. He wanted nothing more at that moment than to have been able to do something to ease her suffering and he was angry that he couldn't.

He then remembers all the times he had seen her dance blissfully oblivious to her situation on the flowerbeds, her silly attempts to catch butterflies, the tune that she would sing when they walked home together in the sunset and her generally sincere nature. Dranzer's spin grows stronger now, a spark of flames igniting around it as Kai tightens his fist.

He next recalls the images he had seen on Kenny's laptop of her life before all of this - the innocent young girl hugging her golden retriever, the playful young girl who dumped paint on her cousin, and the beloved young daughter of a small, warm, loving family. He grits his teeth.

"Lux did nothing to deserve any of this…"

Dranzer spins fiercely, summoning violent flames as the phoenix within responded to Kai's anger. The sound of footsteps on the grass becomes audible as its owner approaches Kai. Not wanting to show his emotions to anyone, Kai pauses his technique and recalls Dranzer to him.

Kai did not bother to turn around. He knew who it was who had approached him. The sky begins to brighten and soon the birds began their morning concert.

"I have one question, Ventus," Kai does not bother to turn around to face him.

Ventus is silent.

"When you found her at that lab, why didn't you stop them?"

Silence followed for a short while.

"I had also wished that I could have done something at one point." Ventus turns to leave. He stops however to say one more thing. "Kai, beware the actions of the Schneifel Corporation. A contact of mine notified me a little earlier of their connections to the lab in Russia."

Kai grips Dranzer tightly as Ventus left.

...

Some hours pass by and the sky soon lit up more, giving the gardens of the estate a radiant, sprightly charm. The two teams have now assembled at a small amphitheater-like structure in one of the landscape gardens to practice. Kai sat on the sloping grass farther from the rest of the group than anyone else. He watches as the two teams battle one another and fool around almost carelessly while quieter and more mature members of both teams did more watching than participating. Everyone, having been made aware of Lux's need for rest last night did their best to avoid making noise to the extent that they separated Tyson, Hilary and Daichi as a precaution.

Kai watches as Tyson's loud mouth provokes Bryan into a challenge. From another direction, Ventus approaches them and begins to watch as Dragoon and Falborg lock and grind fiercely against one another.

"Come on Dragoon!" Tyson watches his beyblade move with glee. He is confident that he will win.

"Falborg!" Bryan calls to his blade.

"Careful you guys, I don't want to have to completely rebuild your blades from scratch!" Kenny warns the both of them.

"Aw, come on, just let them at it." Max chimes in. "Besides, there's more than enough parts to spare."

"A tune up can't hurt either of them" Dizzi joins in.

Dragoon and Falborg have moved from each other and are chasing after or encircling each other. Soon they lock onto each other again unaware of the pair of iridescent eyes belonging to an ice-blue haired youth that are watching all this some distance away from behind a tree.

"Miss Lux, you should stay in bed a little longer…" a voice sounds from not too far behind Kai.

Kai turns around to see Lux approaching, partially dressed, wearing only her bell and ribbon, tank top, skirt, stockings and a pair of slippers. The maid who had called to her catches up to her now with a robe for her.

"Its ok," Lux tells the maid with a smile, accepting the robe she offered anyway. "I'm feeling much better now."

Ventus turns to them and signals for the maid to go. The maid obeys and leaves. Lux takes a seat next to Kai to watch Tyson's informal match with Bryan. Kai could not take his eyes off her as he is reminded of the information that Ventus had told him. Quietly, he searches her partially exposed back with his eyes looking for any scars that might either prove or disprove Ventus's words.

"Kai?" Lux calls him, curious as to what it was he was looking at. Her hair had moved a little from her back as she had turned.

Kai turns to her and meets her inquiring eyes.

"Is something on my back?" she asks.

Kai then spots it. Still partially covered by her hair and the robe that hung loosely around her arms is a large but otherwise barely noticeable "Λ" shaped scar. In some ways it was no surprise he never knew it was there; that part of her back was usually covered by her clothing or hair. As he becomes fixated upon it, Lux looks over her shoulder to see for herself. Remembering that Ventus had told him never to bring up the information to her, Kai quickly pulls Lux's robe up more to hide it.

"You should be careful so you don't catch a cold." He tells her to cover up his actions.

She looks at him and blinks as he turns away, baffled by his actions. "But…it's not cold…today…"

"Still." Kai insists, keeping his eyes focused the other way.

Lux continues to look at him for a small while but then decides he probably was just looking out for her and smiles as she continues watching Tyson and Bryan's match. Soon the match concludes and the butler from the day before returns with two maids, each with a serving cart filled with a variety of appetizers, sandwiches, and traditional Swedish dishes. The servants then set up a picnic and served the food.

"Well doesn't that look like a lot of fun…" Wyvynn comments to himself as they begin their midday feast.

He watches as an eager Tyson and a just-as-eager Daichi begins to consume the food at an incredible rate. Not too far from them, the primary target of his mission shyly takes a small bite out of a sandwich and becomes delighted by the way it tastes. The rest seem to be eating quietly with at least some degree of manners.

Soon, the dishes from the main course were cleared away to make room for dessert. As Tyson and Daichi compete on over dessert, Daichi accidentally grabs Lux's piece of cake instead of one of the many he had asked for. The golden haired girl who had been looking forward to dessert watches with disappointment as Daichi consumes every last bit of her cake. Feeling sorry for her, Kai, who had been sitting next to her, pushes his untouched plate of cake in her direction causing the girl to turn to it and then to him.

Lux stares at Kai for a moment and then asks timidly, "I can…have it?"

Kai responds to her with a nod, his eyes closed. Lux's face lit up.

"Thank you!" Lux thanks him happily as she begins to dig into it with her fork.

Part of Wyvynn wishes he could join in too. It was clear that they aren't bad people. On top of that he was kind of hungry himself. He had watched them eat their entire meal and his stomach, no longer able to hold it in, lets out a growl.

Hearing the sound, Kai turns in Wyvynn's direction and gazes that way for a time. Ray, noticing that Kai has had his eyes set on the same spot for a while, turns too but does not see anything unusual.

"Is something there, Kai?" Ray asks him. The question causes Tala, and Ventus to take notice of that spot in the garden as well.

Wyvynn could feel a drop of sweat roll down his temple. He had almost been caught.

Seeing nothing move, Kai turns back to his meal. Not noticing anything either, the other three relax as well.

Wyvynn sneaks a glance at them one last time before quietly slipping out of the estate grounds. Although after nightfall it would likely be easy for him to take Lux back, he didn't want to do it. Besides Lok's specific orders were merely to find them and track them down. He didn't have to do more.

...

The sun hangs low in the sky as the time for it to set approaches. Dinner had been served some time earlier and this time Lux sat as far from Tyson and Daichi as possible. For some reason, Kai had not shown up for the meal and now that Lux was finished eating, she wanders the estate looking for him. With the others around she didn't really get a very good chance to thank him for staying by her side the other night and she wanted to at least do that. Suspecting that he is outside somewhere in the gardens, she quietly goes outside and looks around. Wandering aimlessly for a bit, she eventually ends up at the amphitheater where Tyson and the others had been training before. Looking into it, she sees Kai there with Dranzer. The blue blade's spin was weak and Kai appears to be exhausted.

Lux approached him a little but then stopped. The small bell around her neck makes a soft sound and at that instant, Kai's voice sounds clear and crisp in the air, calling to his phoenix bitbeast, "Dranzer, Plasma Phoenix Soul!"

From Dranzer, five streams of white flames spiral upward as a flaming aura surrounded the blue blade. Growing brighter and brighter, eventually, the light of Kai's new technique blinds Lux, forcing her to cover her eyes. When it clears, she looks to see the previously weakening Dranzer blade spinning strong in the middle of the amphitheater as if it had been invigorated by an unknown force. Kai raises his hand and Dranzer returns to him just as the sun disappears over the horizon.