Greetings everyone! PLEASE READ THIS: I have a poll on my page that I want you all to check out. It is 'What story should I start after Meltdown is done?' Please vote, because I want to know what you all want.
Oh duh! I realized after I put it up I had forgotten to put translations up and the A/N to [1] so here it is:
Translation: tā mā de is dammit in Chinese
[1] Okay so I don't know if they even have Hampton Inns in China, but it was just a figure of speech, they are staying in something nicer.
Disclaimer: I am still protesting, go back and read the other chapters and you will know what is suppose to be here.
0-0-0-0-0-0
Tyson was about to say something but Brooklyn beat him to the punch. "The truth is we were sucked in by Boris. He used the glamor scam on us[1]. We were sucked in by his words and before we knew it we had lost our ability to turn away." Everyone was silent for a little bit and Tala took this time to sneak into the bedroom Shun had went in.
He found the elder neko-jin sitting in the chair beside the bed. Kagen was tossing and turning, his hands digging into the covers. Tala leaned up against the door. "What are you going to do for him?" Tala asked, causing Shun to look up. "You really care about my nephew don't you Tala?" Tala thought about it for a second before answering.
"Kagen brought Kai back to us, and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Kai. So in a way I owe Kagen my life as much as I owe Kai." Shun nodded, before running a hand over Kagen's forehead. For some reason this calmed Kagen down and he settled down. "I am going to repair the damage done to his mind by Voltaire, his father and who ever else has messed with it. He already had a slight personality disorder, it's common for abuse victims to have it, but Voltaire amplified it. Hopefully if I can go in and repair the damage his body can focus less on fighting itself and more on fighting the virus."
Tala stayed quiet. He knew Shun could do it, he had been a doctor for the abbey for a little bit. The only nice one there had ever been and that was why he had been imprisoned. "When are you going to do it?" Tala asked finally. "After he wakes up and gives me his permission. I am not doing anything off his fathers word." "You can't wait. It's possible that he might not regain control this time." Tala said, trying to keep his voice calm.
"I have faith in him. Voltaire is wrong to underestimate him. He may not have been blessed with the Hiwatari strength, but my sister was no push over." Shun smiled down at the sleeping boy. "I see so much of her in him. It's sad to think how long he and his brother have lived without help. Good thing stubbornness runs through both sides of their family. Most people would have gave up by now."
"Are you still going to coach the Blitz2BEGA[2] team?" Shun was silent for a moment. "Truth be told I don't know the first thing about coaching a team. Voltaire assumes I do because I use to watch over the White Tigers when they were young, but my son did all the training. I just kept them from getting hurt." Tala thought about it for a moment. "You know your son is here don't you." It wasn't a question, because you had to want an answer for it to be a question.
"Yes, I can sense him. Him and Kai are in the other bedroom. It's just I can't bring myself to face him. After everything he has been through, and all because I couldn't protect him. He is like Kagen, he takes after his mother. I know even after all these years, I'll still see Mei when I look at him." "So that gives you the right to avoid him? Ignoring people doesn't make them go away, it just makes the reunion even more awkward." Tala said turning to walk out of the room. "Tournaments in two days, your going to have to say something to him sooner or later, might as well do it now." And with that the redhead was gone.
Shun looked down at Kagen once more. "Mei, what would you say if you saw me now? Avoiding our son because I am afraid of what he might say. Mei please forgive me." Shun sat back in his chair and closed his eyes.
0-0-0-0-0-0
The talking had fallen into meaningless chatter as no one felt like addressing the real issues. Alexei felt a par of eyes watching him and he didn't have to look up to know who it was. "You afraid of your son too?" Tala asked leaning against the wall beside the elder Hiwatari. "What do you want me to say? Kai and Kagen both hate me. Shun hates me as well, I know his son hates me. What am to say?" Tala sighed. Adults could be so slow sometimes. "Explain everything to them. From the beginning." Alexei thought about it for a second.
"When Kagen is recovered then, if we make it that far, I will explain everything to them all." Tala sighed giving up on convincing the adults to do anything useful. Tala walked over to the bedroom door that everyone had been avoiding. 'If they wont do this I will."
Kai's POV
0-0-0-0-0-0
"You didn't?" Tell me if I am wrong but has nothing he has said so far made any sense at all? "It's like this, when they took me to meet with Voltaire. . . ."
*Flashback*
Ray followed Velk without a word. His adrenaline was still high enough that his body didn't register his injurers or his fatigue. Finally they were face to face with the same door they had seen before. The large medieval door. Velk swung it open and Ray walking in, head still down and his body still tense for a fight.
"Ray how was your visit with my grandson?" Voltaire asked facing the boy. "I don't want to talk about it." Ray mumbled causing Voltaire to smile. "Was my grandson not nice to you? You know he wasn't even nice to his own brother?" Voltaire snapped his fingers and Boris came in caring a figure slumped over his shoulder. Ray recognized the figure instantly. Boris dropped Kagen on the floor in front of Ray. "You see, I can no longer trust him. He has become . . . unpredictable." Voltaire said with a slight smile.
Ray was shaking again, as he out Kagen's head in his lap. "Kai did this to Kagen?" Ray asked looking up at the man before him. Voltaire nodded. "With the help of that little redhead of course." Ray growled low in his throat. "I knew that stupid mutt was no good." Voltaire looked to Boris, this time Boris had finally done something worth his time. "I agree with you completely but you see I need your help in order to get back at them." Ray looked back down at Kagen, he was torn to pieces and every time Ray looked down at him he got angry all over again. "Anything." Ray said looking back up at Voltaire. "Good, here is what we are going to do. You are going to go back with Leonid. He is going to train you for one more year. Once your back, you get your first shot at revenge. You will go against Tala, I want to see how much you can do with your power. Once you have proven yourself I'll give you a gift and this gift will enable you to get back at my grandson. Then we will put our final plan into action."
"What about Kagen? He shouldn't get hurt anymore." Ray said, and Voltaire smirked. "I'll make sure Kagen remains unharmed while you are training. Do we have a deal young tiger?" Ray stood up, laying Kagen carefully across the floor, walking right up to Voltaire and sticking out his hand. "Deal." Ray said. Voltaire smirked. The kid was to easy.
*End Flashback*
"You made a deal with Voltaire!" I hissed sitting up on the bed. I saw Ray cringe at the sound of my voice. "I wasn't thinking strait at the time, Kai. You had just denied my existence, not only that but you had replaced me with Tala." I calmed down a little. I knew Ray hadn't been thinking straight then, betrayal makes people do stupid things. "Is that the real reason you were upset when I left the team?" I asked. It was a simple question and I knew it was a simple answer. "Yeah it is. Me and Tala have never made a mends. I still hate him and he still blames me. I am sure when I battled Bryan, Tala was laughing his head off."
I could hear the bitterness roll off his words. I also heard the door open. "You're right, I do still hate you, you stupid half breed." Well guess I don't have to look at who walked in. "Speak of the mutt and he will appear." Ray said with a laugh. Great, these two were going to tear each other apart before I could get a straight answer out of the either of them.
"Watch it, kitty." Tala growled, and I couldn't help but think they looked somewhat like a real cat and dog about to go at it. "Why should I? I seem to remember winning our last little fight." Ray said with a smirk. Well I hadn't expected that. I looked to Tala, expecting him to deny the claim but instead of denying it he just growled. "Explain now." I said glaring at both of them. Tala sent a glare at Ray.
"Ask your little kitty cousin." Wait did he just say- "Cousin?" Looks like me and Ray caught the same thing. Tala just blinked. "Did you two not know?" Wait, first we knew each other, then we were best friends, now we were cousins? Could everyone just make up their mind. "Would we have asked you if we did know?" I said keeping my voices as monotone as I could.
"Well you are. Shun just told us." I changed a look over to Ray. He had told me his father had died, and judging by the look of pure outrage on his face, that was still what he believed. "Don't bring up my dad." Ray growled his hands clinching into fist. "Why shouldn't I? It's not like I am saying anything bad about him." I watched as Ray got to his feet. Tala I would shut up if I were you. " Tā mā de, Tala, stop talking about my father." Tala looked truly confused now. "I am only telling you the truth. Your father told us that you and Kai were cousins about an hour ago." Crap, I jumped up, but it was to late. Ray lunged at Tala, and I mean really lunged at him. They hit the wall and went straight through. I followed them, hoping to prevent any farther damage from being done,
Turns out I didn't need to stop them, because someone else had already done it. Ray was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, eyes wide. Tala was holding his shoulder and standing beside a bed. I looked at the bed and noticed the person laying in it was none other then my brother but that wasn't the shocker. The shocker was the 'ghost' that stood at the end of the bed, looking down at Ray with the same wide eyes as Ray. Looks like Tala wasn't lying after all.
Ray's POV
0-0-0-0-0-0
No way! It was impossible, he couldn't be here. I saw him die! I couldn't have imagined that! "Ray?" He asked looking down at me. "No, you can't be here. You're dead. I saw you die. I saw you, he killed you. . ." I kept repeating those words to myself, not even realizing I had slipped back into Chinese. "Ray, please listen to me. What you know, what you think you saw. It's all a lie. They made you believe I died because you were no use to them otherwise."
I shook my head. That couldn't be true. I had been there, Leonid had killed him, I had taken Dranzer from him, but I couldn't have. Because Kai had always had Dranzer. Ever since we were little. Leonid couldn't of had it, which meant this man standing before me, was really my father. I felt the tears as they ran down my cheeks but I didn't really notice.
"Dad?" It was the only thing I could manage and even then I could only manage it in Chinese. He just nodded at me, his eyes looking at me with sadness. It was him, it had all been a lie. He hadn't died. Then I started thinking about it, the only time I could recall his death was in my nightmares. Had I really fallen so easily into one of BioVolt's traps. "What have they done to me?" I whispered, not wanting to really come to grips with this new reality.
He came over to me and pulled me into a hug. I fell into his arms, welcoming the familiar sensation of being safe, and the smell of morning grass that my father had always had. It was a feeling I thought I would never feel again. Tears streaked down my face as I buried my head into his shoulder. Part of me remembered Kai and Tala in the room, but most of me was to caught up in the truth that my dad was alive to notice anything else.
He rubbed my back and started saying things in Chinese, the lyrics to a lullaby he and mother had sang when I was little. Everything started catching up to me at once, and all at once it became to much. I felt my body relax before my eyes shut.
Kai's POV
0-0-0-0-0-0
I stayed quiet as Ray reunited with his father. At least one of us got a happy reunion. I looked over at Tala, who appeared at a loss. Something told me he didn't know the full story of what was going on. I didn't feel like explaining it to him however. So instead I turned my focus on to the only other person in the room.
I sat down on the bed and looked down at my little brother. If it hadn't been for him, I don't know what would have happened to me and how did I repay him? I let him end up like this. I looked at his neck and saw the Feng Haung that hung around my brothers neck. I knew without her, Kagen would be dead, just like I would be without Dranzer.
'Hey Dranzer, I don't know if I have ever told you this, but thank you.' I waited for a few moments before my pocket heated up. 'Anytime my dear child. I will always protect you.' I let myself smile at the phoenix's words. I looked back at Ray and his father as I heard the stream of Chinese words end. Ray had fallen asleep, no doubt the physical and mental strain of the last few days getting the better of him. Tala had moved to stand beside me, still rubbing his shoulder. "We can't trust him." Tala said, switching to our mother tongue.
"Who?" I asked not looking away from Shun and Ray. "Ray. His mind has been influenced by the abbey. There is no telling what all they have planted in his mind." I got ticked off at him. "To bad, he is my friend. He has put his life on the line for me and I am willing to do the same for him." The truth was I had already thought about that, the other thing was they had messed with my mind as well. I wasn't going to suddenly not trust Ray when he had trusted me. "Kai, think about this." "I have thought about it, Tala, just because they tampered with some of his memories, doesn't make him a slave to BioVolt. End of discussion." Tala moved to stand in front of me, blocking my view of Shun and Ray.
"You don't know what he has done, Kai. What he planned to do." I could see the pure hatred that ran through Tala's ice blue eyes. "What are you talking about?" I asked, I was sure it had to do with Ray's deal with my grandfather but Tala might have been able to tell me something more. "He tried to kill me. He would have killed me if Boris hadn't had other plans for me. They let him go, tampered with his memories. He was in a memory chamber for almost a year. They gave him false memories that went with what they needed." "What type of memories, how do you know all this?" I demanded. It wasn't like Tala to make things up and if he was being truthful about this, it could be very bad news.
*Flashback*
Tala ran down the hall at full speed. He couldn't let them catch him, if he got caught he was dead and that couldn't happen. He saw a vent to his right just as the yelling got louder. He pulled away the vent and dived into the ducts not a moment to soon.
He couldn't stop though, he began his journey through the ducts. It was possible for him to get out for good if he just followed the right path he could be out of that hell hole forever. Voices however stopped him in his tracks. "How is the implant going?"Tala looked down through the vents to see Boris standing in front of a glass cylinder with two scientist standing by the computer. "It's is going perfectly. Once we are done his real memories will be completely merged with our implanted ones." Boris smirked as he looked in the glass cylinder.
A young Ray floated in the liquid, wires attached to him as the feed the new information into his head. "And he will take care of Kai for us?" Another voice asked, causing all eyes to turn to the new person. Leonid stood there, a smile on his face. Boris nodded. "Once these memories are implanted, Ray will no longer remember his real connection with Kai. I have already found the perfect opening for him to get close to Kai as well." Tala leaned in closer to hear what they were talking about. "Oh, and what is that?"
"Next years worlds. Mr. Dickinson wants to make a team to compete out of the finalist for the Japanese tournament. Kai is already competing and will make it to the finals without a problem. All we have to do is have Ray make it to the Semi-finals then he can get close to Kai." Leonid was silent for a few moments. "How much of this plan does Voltaire know?" Boris smiled. "He knows all of that, the part he doesn't know about is our little . . . side project."
Leonid smiled. "Perfect. This way even if things go wrong and Ray doesn't succeed in killing off Kai. They wont be able to trace it back to us. To think it was this easy to take out two birds with one stone." Boris nodded walking go he was right under the vent. "After Ray kills Kai, the White tigers will lose all their power because Ray will say it was the elders that told him to do it." Leonid nodded finishing off the thought. "Then we will take little Ray's power, and give it to Kagen. Kagen will be to tore up about his brothers death to understand what is happening until it is to late. Then with the power of all four chosen, we will be able to over throw my father once and for all." Boris nodded, looking back at the glass cylinder.
"What if the child can't kill Kai?" Boris asked noticing the one whole in their scheme. "Then Kai will kill him. Either way Kagen will be crushed and we can steal the power from the victor. As long as Ray remains in our command this plan can't fail."
*End Flashback*
"Do you understand now Kai? They are using Ray, he is their slave. Everything has been a trick." Tala was begging me at this point. The only thing that was keeping me from believing him was the fact that I trusted Ray. Tala's words were no more reliable then Ray's. We had all been imprisoned by BioVolt. It was possible that it was Tala's memories that had been tampered with. I shook my head. I needed to clear my thoughts, straighten things out.
I walked to the door and swung it open. Six pairs of eyes came to rest on me, but only one of them I really noticed. "Dad," I said under my breath. My dad walked out of the room, motioning for me to follow. I did. Ignoring the excited cheers of my team as I did. When we were outside I leaned against the wall, eyes closed, arms crossed. "What do you want."
"Kai, don't trust anyone, understand me? This is a very dangerous game that Voltaire and my brother are playing and you and Kagen have been thrown into the middle of it." I scoffed, was he just getting this now? "Kai I am telling you the truth. Whatever they are planning, it's going to go down at the tournament. You need to be ready no matter what happens, alright?" I opened my eyes glaring hard at my father. "Make me."
0-0-0-0-0-0
A/N
I am sorry about the shortness of this chapter. I need to get them out of this hotel room, they have been there for what, three chapters now? To long that's all I know. I do plan to have things pick up again soon. Also I hope everyone liked Ray and his dad's reunion, I have been trying to think of a good one for a while now.
[1] The glamor scam is something that me and MOD talk about a lot. It is pretty much when things look really good, but then you get to it and all the good stuff was just like glitter and it really actually sucks (Sorry bad description but I am trying)
[2} I know it is a dumb name! I am sorry but I couldn't call them the Bliz boys because Tala is the only Bliz boy on the team, and I hated BEGA's team name, so I just put up that. Again sorry it's so stupid.
Review reply time!
Mimi 007: *Hands over Cookie and chibis* You don't know how pained that makes me, but at the same time I am happy that you read all my rambling! Your right we can blabber on together, it makes us a little less crazy that way. I think me and you are going to fight over the word anyways at some point, ya know? It's just Ray, what can you do? He always takes the fault, even when you can tell it's not his fault. Like I said about Boris I am agreeing with you, don't know why but I kind of am liking him in this story (Leonid is a son of a *Insert word of your choice*) But in my other story I can't stand the guy. Makes writing confusing. Oh and yes MOD way of killing people is always fun. (We are like and insane murder crazed family.) Again my point with Brooklyn was to do something people wouldn't expect and to be honest the full story has yet to come out, but you are right. His 'I can't lose' attitude is what made me think of his story, strange right? (Why does everyone have songs stuck in their head while they review me?) Poor Shun, he wont know what happened, (Of course that is a big, IF he doesn't help Kagen) Proposal? I'm not sure if that is the right word either but hey whatever. Yeah I thought it funny that racerabbit saw a little of it. Unfortunately you're right Boris is better, I just like Kai's because it isn't over used like Boris' is. I mean I felt like everytime we saw Boris he was evil laughing(That is so not how you would say that) I was just waiting for him to choke and gag once while doing it. (That would have been really funny to see) I don't know if lack of parents could make a person not be able to evil laugh, if anything I feel it should help the evil laugh. But whatever. Oh and thanks again for all your help. I owe you BIG time.
Chaseha-Wing: You're right I am sure Kai was very confused at what was going on. Poor little clueless Phoenix. Oh things clicking now? Good, I am working through the last of my "What is going on?" Questions as we speech. Oh so now does the Dranzer thing make since? If not don't worry I'll explain later why Voltaire and the like put that in Ray's memory. (See I can be nice.)
Racerabbit: I sorry, I have summer classes. (English and History) So summer hasn't really given me a break to write. I wish I knew how I lost it. I almost lost all my stories to but thankfully I had backed them all onto a flashdrive. All the stuff on my computer went poof and I was like Um what? Moving on! Glad you got your chibis and cookie! I love your review make me smile, so please keep reviewing despite my slowness.
My Own Demise: You pout to much, did you know that? Yes I finally wrote something about Kai. I have had it coming for a while, it just got kind of . . . set back. You know cliff hangers come in my story, (most of the time I don't even mean for them to) Wow, everyone likes Ray hating Kai, wonder why? I thought you would all be like 'Ray would never hate Kai' or something not 'Man Ray hating Kai is really cool.' I mean O-o. And yes I am protesting the disclaimers want to make something out of it?
0-0-0-0-0-0
Wow I only had four reviewers and my responses are almost longer then the story. Maybe I should cut back the review responses. Nah, if you guys don't like them you don't have to read them that is why they are at the end. Until next time.