The one time I have a chapter done early and I forget to post at my usual time because of crazy random stuff going on. Anyway, enjoy! Hopefully going back to school again in two days doesn't mess up my updating schedule again. I've missed enough updates as it is.
"Gingka, hold still.
"What, this isn't still?"
"Well, considering that you keep twisting your body around trying to see what I'm doing despite the fact that I'm telling you what I'm doing, no. Now hold still so that I don't mess up with these measurements. It'll cost a lot of money to enlarge or shrink the suit if I don't get it right the first time and we really don't have that money, or that time, for that matter."
"Okay, okay, I get it. Holding still." Gingka chuckled in amusement.
"Thank you." Yuki sighed in exasperation as he quickly noted down the measurements he needed.
"Is that all you needed me for today?" Gingka asked. "Nothing else to like, test or anything?"
"I can't have you test anything for me until I've built something to be tested."
"The jetpacks still aren't ready?"
"I'm waiting for the fuel to come in still." Yuki sighed. "And I needed to start on the rest anyway if we're going to have this finished in time."
"Ahh. I see. Need any help?"
"I'll let you know."
"Fiiine." Gingka whined.
"Is someone bored?" Yuki chuckled.
"... Yes." Gingka grumbled, crossing his arms and looking away.
"Then think fast!" Yuki threw a small object at Gingka, who yelped as he was hit squarely in the forehead.
"Ow! Hey! Not nice!" The redhead whined, rubbing his forehead and pouting.
"No seriously, how did you end up in charge?" A growling voice said. Gingka and Yuki turned to the doorway in surprise.
"Ryuga? What brings you back here?" Gingka asked, surprised at seeing the Dragon Emperor.
"I figured you two would be up to something idiotic so I just thought I'd drop by and make sure nobody's getting their butt lit on fire… Again." Ryuga grunted, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorway with a knowing smirk as Gingka and Yuki gained rather embarrassed and surprised looks.
"... How did you know about that?" Gingka asked slowly.
"Oh please, Hagane. I could hear your girly squealing all the way from the set of ruins a few thousand feet away through the forest." Ryuga smirked.
Gingka hung his head in embarrassment.
"Okay, so you know I lit Gingka on fire by accident. Still, no offense, but you never cared before. Why now?" Yuki said.
Ryuga closed his eyes and looked away. "Little bit of a long story that you probably already know half of. Now, since none of you bothered giving me the information or a way of finding it before, I came back to ask nicely for once."
"Huh?" Gingka and Yuki looked at Ryuga in confusion.
Ryuga looked back at them, his golden eyes gleaming menacingly. "Back then, when you were all fighting Nemesis, do you remember what I said before I supposedly died?"
"... You mean when you gave your Star Fragment to Kenta and made him the Summer blader?" Gingka asked.
"Precisely." Ryuga said, looking away and to the ceiling above. "As much as I hate to admit this, the kid managed to actually change my mind about the whole teamwork thing, and apparently I have had over six years to think about it while apparently unconscious, drifting wherever I was."
"So in other words, Kenta succeeded where we failed to convince you." Gingka said. "And that's why you joined up so willingly, even if you are still a bit of a loner."
"Yeah…" Ryuga grumbled, looking pointedly away, as if embarrassed.
Gingka chuckled and walked over, slapping Ryuga on the back and causing the white-haired blader to glare and growl at him.
"Welcome aboard, Ryuga." Gingka chuckled, somehow managing to put Ryuga into a headlock and ruffling his hair before letting him go and leaping out of harm's way as Ryuga threw a punch at him.
"I said I was joining up with you, I did NOT say that we are automatically friends." Ryuga growled. "So don't touch me."
"Gingka, no.." Yuki said warningly, spotting the gleam of challenge in Gingka's eye before he walked over and poked Ryuga in the forehead.
"What, like this?"
"We're doomed." Yuki said, diving for cover behind a nearby table as Ryuga snarled at Gingka, who merely laughed it off and stepped past Ryuga.
"Better keep up, Ryuga. I've already surpassed you." Gingka stated.
"Not for long." Ryuga growled, pouncing on the redhead, who yelped in surprise.
"Rivals will be rivals." Yuki sweatdropped as he watched from behind the relative safety of the table. "Maybe I should just let them wrestle. At least it'll keep Gingka occupied."
"You asked for it, Hagane!" Ryuga snarled as he threw punch after punch at Gingka, who twisted himself to the side and somehow managed to dodge.
"Well you're quick, I'll give you that." Ryuga grunted.
"Couple of years of training at Beylin Temple and similar places on and off, yeah, I've picked up some dodging skills." Gingka said, throwing a punch back, only for Ryuga to catch it and send him stumbling back.
"Dodging isn't everything in a fight. You should know that, Hagane." Ryuga growled, ducking under one of Gingka's punches and neatly knocking the redhead flat on his back with a solid kick before pinning him.
Gingka looked annoyed. "That's just not fair."
"No, it's perfectly fair. You just don't know any hand-to-hand combat other than dodging, which is not combat." Ryuga smirked.
Gingka narrowed his eyes and tried to punch Ryuga, but the white-haired blader put a foot on his wrist and prevented this.
"Alright, lemme up." Gingka growled after glaring at Ryuga for a few minutes.
"I have to beat you at something if I can no longer beat you at Beyblade… For now. You had better be ready the moment we get the chance to battle, Hagane." Ryuga said, letting Gingka up.
Gingka smirked. "You know I'll be ready. Come at me anytime."
Ryuga chuckled. "In the meantime, you can tell me where Kenta is."
"You coulda just asked earlier." Gingka chuckled, leading the way to the computer room once more. "I can tell you where he is, assuming he hasn't moved from his usual post."
"Oh, so you all sit around in one area and just do nothing all the time?" Ryuga grunted.
"Yes and no. We do travel to train sometimes, but we have figured out that it's easier to discover bad guys if we have eyes all over the world, even if there are only nine-with you ten- of us." Gingka said, pulling up the map. "And we have a system that we can all check into to track each other, just in case one of us disappears."
"I must admit that the level of growth here is mildly impressive." Ryuga grunted, eyeing his rival.
"Still haven't gotten used to a six-year difference between now and the last time you were awake?" Gingka chuckled.
Ryuga scowled. "I'm fine."
"Anyway, you probably already know that we're here," Gingka pointed at Anubis's symbol on the map, "And Kenta is over here." He moved his finger, indicating Sagittario's symbol. "And since I see that his is lit, it means he did check in this morning indicating that he was staying in his usual position."
"I see." Ryuga grumbled. "I suppose I will be heading over there then."
"Call us when you get there."
"And why should I do that?" Ryuga grunted, turning to leave.
Gingka reached out and put a hand on Ryuga's shoulder. "Because even if we're rivals, I do consider you a friend, and you're definitely a comrade. I just want to make sure you got halfway across the world in one piece." He flashed one of his usual friendly grins at Ryuga, who shrugged his hand off and growled at him in annoyance.
Gingka chuckled. "Six years later, you've joined forces with us, but you're still the same old Ryuga as ever."
Ryuga paused and smirked. "Well, if I weren't the same person, then who would be around to kick your idiotic butt when needed?"
Gingka laughed. "Hey, hey now. I'm not that much of an idiot."
"Yet the last time I was here you had to be shown how to turn on the computer." Ryuga chuckled tauntingly as he walked off.
"... Man, why does everyone keep bringing that stuff up?" Gingka grumbled.
"Because even if you are older and stronger now, you are still an idiot." Ryuga called from down the hallway.
"Ever heard of a rhetorical question?" Gingka called back.
Ryuga poked his head back into the room with a playful, taunting smirk. "I'm surprised you know that word, Hagane. It's rather complicated."
Gingka sweatdropped and glared at Ryuga. "Would you just shut up?"
Ryuga smirked and left. Gingka growled under his breath and turned back to the computer, eyeing the various icons on it calmly, as if making sure that they were all there still. He pondered for a few minutes whether or not he and his friends, a small force of ten compared to the hundreds the DNA undoubtedly had by now, could even manage this battle. It sure seemed to be a formidable opponent this time. Then again, the opponents they had faced had always seemed formidable.
Gingka smirked slightly as he remembered how scary Nemesis had seemed while they were fighting it. Now that that incident, that crisis, was in the past, it seemed almost like it had been nothing to ever worry about in the first place. Gingka decided with increased determination that this battle, this new potential crisis, would be no different.
"Who cares what the odds are, anyway?" Gingka muttered, smirking as he scanned over the various icons once more. "We have all of the best allies right here, available at the touch of a fingertip. Odds never stopped any of us. We won the others. We'll win this one too. No problem."
Gingka paused for a moment, pondering the pep talk he had just given himself. He knew the stakes here. They were what they had always been; win and have the world safe from harm for another few years, or lose and watch everything go downhill very quickly.
Gingka reached for the nearest chair and sat down, leaning his elbows on the desk and pressing his fingertips against the lower part of his face, golden-brown eyes narrowing slightly in thought.
"What happens if we do lose?" He wondered silently. Obviously, much, if not all, hope would be lost. The Garcias would probably take over the world and who knew what they would do with it after that. Considering their new weaponry, Gingka figured that it wouldn't be surprising if he and the others were killed in front of the world. Horrified at the thought of this, Gingka shook his head and stood, leaning over and gripping the edge of the desk in front of him.
"We will not lose… We can't." Gingka raised his head and looked up at the icons on the screen once more. "You guys hear that? We can't lose this. We will win. We always will win, because we know what could happen if we lose and we don't want that to happen."
"Gingka? Who are you talking to?" Yuki asked, coming up into the computer room.
"... Myself." Gingka said, turning away from the screen.
"Not the first time I've caught you doing that." Yuki chuckled. "But you are right. We can't lose. And we won't. We just have to keep one step ahead of the Garcias."
"I'm pretty sure they're already several steps ahead of us right now." Gingka said.
"Not for long. I'm making good progress on the suit." Yuki replied. "But, we do need to give it some sort of official name."
"I feel like we're in a spy movie." Gingka admitted.
"Oh?" Yuki looked at him curiously.
"Yeah. Limited time to save the world, sneaking around, infiltration. Pretty classic spy stuff. I feel like our little operation here should have a name."
Yuki chuckled. "Perhaps if you name the suit you can name the 'operation'after it. We almost are a sort of spy agency, come to think of it. I mean, even though we were sorta fooling around at the beginning, we did officially name our little group here."
"The Legendary Blader's Network." Gingka chuckled. "We weren't very creative with that name, were we?"
"Well it does fit what we do." Yuki chuckled.
"Legendary Bladers, check. Network all over the world with crazy communications systems designed by one Yuki Mizusawa, check. Yep, fits." Gingka joked.
Yuki rolled his eyes. "Can we get back on the task at hand please?"
"Oh, I thought you were just coming up here to goof off." Gingka grinned.
"Let me know if you come up with any sort of name ideas." Yuki laughed. "We need to tell the Garcias something that sounds at least remotely cool and memorable."
"Alright, I'm on it." Gingka said, turning off the computer and following Yuki back down to his lab.
"So where did Ryuga go?" Yuki asked.
"He went to go see Kenta." Gingka replied.
"Ahh. But of course. Kenta is the one who did most of the work towards Ryuga actually joining us."
"Yeah." Gingka said. "I suppose we really owe him one for that."
"Probably. We'll worry about that later though." Yuki said.
"Yeah. After we've finished with the Garcias."
"So, name ideas?"
"I can't come up with something that quickly, Yuki. Do you at least have any sort of idea in mind of what you want?"
"Well, considering that you'll be the pilot, I think it should perhaps have something to do with you." Yuki replied. "Like a code name, if we're going to continue pretending we're in a spy movie."
Gingka chuckled. "Something to do with me, huh?" He leaned against the wall, looking thoughtful.
"But don't make it too obvious. If we go around calling you Pegasus, then we may as well be telling the Garcias that it's you there and not a robot." Yuki said as he got to his work table and resumed working.
Gingka crossed his arms and stared at the ceiling for a few moments before closing his eyes.
"Something that describes me, yet is still not too obvious… Hmm… But what? What single word or phrase can I come up with that does that? I suppose I should start with Pegasus." Gingka thought, trying to focus despite a few clattering noises from Yuki's direction. Subconsciously, he moved his right hand and rested it on the carrying case inside which his bey lay, waiting for the call to battle.
"Lightning… Speed… Flying… Soaring… Feathered wings spread to their fullest in flight… Hmm… Flight… No matter where or what the conditions… Wind… Rain… Lightning… A storm… Perhaps…..Special moves… Storm Bringer… Cosmic Nova… No… Not quite… Lightning Strike Storm…. Storm… Pretty descriptive sometimes… Flying through a storm… Flight… Storm… Ahh… Yes. That's it."
Gingka opened his eyes and stepped away from the wall with an excited grin.
"Got something?" Yuki raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, I do." Gingka replied, turning to look at him with a slight blue glow behind his eyes.
"Well?" Yuki raised an eyebrow, intrigued.
"Stormflight."