Beyblade - Comatose 1/4

Prologue

Garland smirked across the bey dish at me. He knew something big was going to happen next… And somehow, I knew that both of us know that I wouldn’t be smiling at the outcome. I’m already on my last tethers, if Apollo were to pull off something huge I don’t think I’ll be able to take it.

Wait. What am I thinking? Stop having negative thoughts, Tala! You have to win this! You have to stop Garland from winning or the world won’t be safe! Struggling to stay upright, I glared across at Garland, scowling at him.

“What’s so funny?” I demanded through teeth gritted in pain, annoyance and the determination not to let Garland see me weak.

Garland’s smirk grew wider and in an irritatingly calm tone, he replied smoothly, “Oh nothing really… Just that your pathetic attempts to defeat me are laughable. Let me show you some real power!”

I let out a low growl, sounding extremely wolfish and feral even to my own ears. I have a nature of an alpha male wolf – and wolves don’t take threats lying down.

Then I noticed that Garland was beginning to have an unearthly shade of glowing red surrounding him. Apollo’s power was radiating off his master visibly. Wolborg and I had withstood that power before. We had to do it again though I knew that the chances of having a comeback afterwards were low… very low. A halo of bright red surrounded Garland’s yellow blade as it rushed towards my gray one. This was it, the decider.

Stand your ground, Wolborg! I thought, not bothering to yell out the command as I was channeling all the remaining worth of my energy into Wolborg and my blade.

“Finish him off, Apollo!” Garland commanded with a flick of his hand and a smug look on his face, “RADIENT THUNDER!” I would’ve growled in annoyance at his expression if not for my lack of energy.

A red force field began to extend rapidly from Apollon and at the crunching hit against Wolborg, I felt a sharp pain erupting up my spine and traveling through it to my whole body. The shock of the crushing blow and the unbearable pain added up to great amounts and it closed my throat, as white flashed before my eyes and a deafening sound filled my ears. I felt myself moving out of my own accord. I was flying backwards, undoubtedly due to the explosion. I heard loud, but jumbled noises, which I guess were shouts… explosions… or maybe even the cracking of my own bones… I don’t know. The world was just a hazy blur of white, gray and the colors of the rainbow. I could feel shards of something cutting my flesh, and I prayed with the last bit of coherence I could find in my mind that it was not the remains of my Wolborg blade.

Darkness claimed me…

---

“Tala! Tala! Wake up! Tala!? Don’t scare me!”

Who’s that calling me? That voice sounds vaguely familiar… I’ve heard it somewhere before, a memory from two years ago…

“Tala! It’s Tyson! Wake up!”

Tyson? Kinomiya? That loud-mouthed kid? Yes… that’s it. I can hear clearly now… he’s trying to wake me up, but aren’t I already awake? There’re others around too… Kenny, Max, Daichi and even Hilary. It’s still so dark, why can’t I see? Oh right. My eyelids. I… I’ve got to open my eyes. All right Tala, count to three. On three, open your eyes. You can do it.

One.

Two.

Three.

A hazy image of an adolescent boy’s face swam into view.

“Tala! Are you okay?” Tyson was peering down at me, concern fully visible in his eyes.

Concern… it’s so foreign coming from him, if it were Bryan or Spencer, I’d have found it less strange. At least they had known me for a longer time than Tyson and we had been through so much more together. We had grown up together. Why was Tyson concerned about me? We never really were friends… unless he still held on to that slight bond made two years ago… Even though I had been so cold to him when we first met… even when I said all those things about him now? He is so naïve to think that we’re friends. Doesn’t he get it that on the Beyblading arena; your opponent will always be the enemy? He really hasn’t seen the harshness of life much. But perhaps… that’s a good thing.

More voices joined in.

“Terrible! The match must have taken too much out of him! Tala, he’ll have to go to the hospital immediately!”

Kenny. Definitely him. Who could be ever so analytical all the time? Yet he did sound frantic and… there it was again: Concern. But why? He was ever so afraid of me then and now.

“Garland will pay! He needs a real thrashing for what’s he’s done!”

Daichi. Hotheaded as ever. The boy needs to learn how to keep calm. No doubt, he’s not a bad Beyblader. But I guess he’ll never hear me saying that to him. And yet again, I could sense some sort of worry the red-haired boy had towards me. This is getting confusing. Why does he care? We never were good friends. Check that. We aren’t even friends. Just fellow Beybladers.

“Don’t worry Tala! We’ll make sure that Garland won’t get away with this. You have to concentrate on getting better, okay?”

Max. Bright, cheerful and sunny. Even at a time like this. Sometimes I wonder if I’d ever want to be in his presence. Being in the dark and cold for so long, Max was a little too much for me to handle. But it was kind of soothing now… somehow…

“Kenny! Don’t just stand there! Call an ambulance! Oh Tala, you’ll be fine. Hang in there!”

Hilary. They say girls are easily read. I can’t agree more, but… the worry in Hilary’s voice is really strange. I thought she hated me because of that incident with Kai leaving the Bladebreakers. But… The abbey has really shut me out from the outside world. Having contacts with females were virtually unheard off. Scratch that. It wasn’t even possible. No male, adult or not, dared to venture into the abbey without permission, much less girls, and nobody could venture out of it. All except…

I felt Tyson move, shattering my train of thought that was going down memory lane. Shit! He was going to take me away from BEGA Headquarters. Panic flooded me, intensifying the pain that I already felt stabbing all over me. But I couldn’t leave yet! Not until somebody here knew about Boris’ true motive! That purple-haired freak has got to be stopped! I had the impression that the others were beginning to think that Boris hadn’t turned over a new leaf, but I had to be sure.

Lifting my left hand was a painful process. My hands were starting to become numb but for what reason, I don’t know. But I managed the ‘feat’ and tugged at Tyson’s red jacket feebly to catch his attention. I was really weak. And it was a feeling I hated… Despised.

When his dark auburn eyes met mine, I said as loudly as I could, which was only a whisper at the most, “Wait… not yet… I-I’ve got something… to tell… you…”

I sound pathetic. My voice sounds scratched, like a croak, and speaking actually hurts. If not for the fact that I had to stop the world from succumbing to a possible cruel dictatorship, I would’ve stopped speaking right now. Wait, I wouldn’t even be speaking at all. I paused for a while to stop the pain in my throat before continuing. I needed to get this out fast though.

“Boris is planning another… t-takeover. He’s lying… about turning… o-over a new… leaf. Don’t listen to him… Don’t join BEGA. H-he got out… of jail b-by blaming… everything o-on V-Voltaire. You have to stop… him… Promise me t-that…”

It really hurt now; I could feel the pain intensifying on an electric level. Black spots were starting to eat away my already hazy vision from the sides of my eyes. The voices were once again becoming a jumbled mess, but I managed to hear Tyson’s promise through everything else.

“I promise. I will stop him. That creep won’t be taking over anything while we’re all standing!”

I offered him a small “thank-you” smile, when somehow, through all that blurriness, my eyes caught a flash of purple followed by trailing white. Kai. Our gazes locked. He’s the last Blitzkrieg Boy left standing… he knows about Boris’ aims… and I’m sure he’ll stop that creep. Kai’s intentions were never all that in favor of the team when he rejoined… But he was a valuable blader… I gave him a smile too, and somehow it may be the last one he’ll ever see me giving him…

My eyelids are turning heavier by the second… My breaths are turning ragged… I can’t draw in much more air… I-I can’t hold on much longer… My fingers released their hold on Tyson’s jacket and my hand fell back, hanging limply by my side. The last thing I saw and heard was Tyson… Wanting me to… s-stay… awake…

---

“Tala! Tala!” Tyson yelled frantically, as he watched the Russian redhead’s eyelids shut and his smirk disappear at the same moment.

He tried shaking Tala. Unfortunately, nothing he did gained a positive reaction. The others soon joined in, calling for Tala to wake up, hoping against all hope that Tala would open his eyes and shoot a sarcastic remark at them for fussing over him. Any remark. It could even be insulting; they didn’t care anymore. The Russian redhead could not lose consciousness!

Just then, the paramedics rushed in with a stretcher and some other medical supplies. Tyson and the others watched with immense worry in their eyes, as Tala was rapidly and expertly strapped onto the stretcher and wheeled away to an ambulance that was waiting outside. With the siren screeching furiously, the ambulance drove away, rushing the badly injured Beyblader to the hospital for immediate treatment.

Everyone had misunderstood the Blitzkrieg Boys’ reason to return to the World Championships. They knew about Boris’ plan, and were planning to stop it. And what did the whole world think? The Blitzkrieg Boys were up to no good again. He even thought Kai had betrayed the Bladebreakers to join Tala’s team again for seemingly no reason. The ones at fault were not they, but everyone else in the Beyblading World – him included. It was not until now, until he saw how Tala was fighting against Garland, did he actually realize that Tala and the Blitzkrieg Boys had a good intention.

Tyson gave a very unlikely growl. With his fists clenched by his sides and his eyes flashing with both anger and determination, Tyson made a silent vow that Garland would pay dearly for injuring Tala in that brutal Bey Battle. And he would be the one dealing the damage. Boris’ plan would never go through.

He’d make sure of that – personally.