A Beyblade Tale: Book 1

Chapter 3: Valt Aoi

Fable spent the morning of the next day unpacking her things and hanging out with Matt and Emma. They played a few board games and Fae showed off her bey, Guardian Phantom.  Appearance wise, it was mostly grey, but one half was darker than the other. On the top layer were four scythe-like blades, mirrored by four more on the second. Beneath the X formed by the four in the first layer was the light purple figure of a hunched over skeleton: her bey's spirit. So far, Fable had discovered two of the moves her bey was capable of.

The first was one she called Ghost Crash. When her bey gathered up speed and hit the stadium wall with enough force, the eight blades would be pushed into alignment as Phantom was thrown up into the air. Then, it would fall down and strike its unsuspecting victim from above.

The second move was Guard Launch. The scythes on the top layer were all weighted differently, but this was usually balanced out by the rest of the bey. By titling her launcher and launching with enough force, she could get Phantom's top layer of blades to slide out a little further than usual. Although this put the bey off balance, that combined with the angled launch giving it extra grip on the stadium caused Phantom to move really quickly with an unpredictable zig-zagging pattern. The move gave the bey.a lot of extra power to its attacks, as well the element of surprise because it always initially looked like a miss-launch. However, the one disadvantage of the move was that Phantom had to keep attacking it's opponent more frequently than usual, or it would run out of stamina too quickly.

Fable had also taken time to personalise her style of blading. To any bladers she knew from back home, she was known as "Death's Lost Love", and her title suited her well. As death sneaks up silent yet inevitably on all living things, so did Fable and Phantom on their prey. She was usually so happy and friendly, determined to openly enjoy all aspects of life. When she battles, yes she undeniably always had a great deal of fun, but she outwardly became cold and emotionless. She never once raised her voice, whispering so only Phantom could ever know for sure if she said anything. It put quite a lot of their opponents on edge when they saw how quickly she flicked between the two polar opposite personalities, but that was just her thing and it was a really effective strategy.

After lunch, Fable decided to go and meet Principal Shinoda. The task turned out to be easier said than done; no matter how many times she stopped to ask for directions, she continued to take wrong turns. It wasn't until an half and a half later that she finally made it to her destination, even though the walk should only have taken twenty minutes. Now all she had to do was figure out where in the school the principal’s office was. Not wanting to disturb any of the lessons going on, Fable quietly searched the building for a door labelled as the principal’s office, instead of one of the numerous classroom names or other rooms. She even ended up on the roof at one point, where she found a couple of Beyblade stadiums!

At long last, she found the room she was searching for. She knocked and waited politely to be invited to enter. Standing in front of the principal’s desk a few moments later, she introduced herself.
“Good afternoon, Principal Shinoda. Apologies for the strange time of my arrival – I got a little lost on the way here. I’m Fable Row– erm, Fable Little,” she began, remembering to use Emma’s surname at the last second. She was Emma’s cousin, not Matt’s sister. She had to remember that around the staff of Beigoma Academy.
“Ah, yes! A Mr Rowley called a couple of weeks ago to move you here for a couple of months. You’re here to watch the Beyblade tournaments with his son and his partner… your cousin, if I remember correctly?” Their conversation continued for maybe forty minutes, and during it she received her timetable, learned about the rules and expectations of the school, and heard about some other things which she may have possibly daydreamed her way through. At the end, Principal Shinoda gave her a tour of the school.

Fable saw all the classrooms, the roof, and a few other rooms before ending in what seemed to be a sports hall. Just as they entered the large room, a blue bey was thrown out of the stadium on the other side of the room. A blue-haired boy charged through the crowd trying to catch it. He was successful in his mission, but there wasn’t one thing left in the cupboard he had dived into that was still where it was supposed to be. He had crashed into it and it was a complete mess! Fable looked up at Principal Shinoda and immediately saw that he was far from impressed. Striding over to the two bladers from the battle, he told them to tidy it up at once. The second blader protested because it wasn’t his fault, but he still had to help anyway. Fable felt bad for them so, once sent on her way by the principal, she went over and offered to help. When she got there, they were already bickering and seemingly making the mess worse than it was before. She interrupted before it could go any further.
“Hi there! My name’s Fable Rowley and I’ve just moved here for a few months. I was wondering if you’d like a hand tidying this up.”
“Sure that would be great!” the boy who had caused the mess replied. “I’m Valt Aoi and this is Rantaro Kiyama.”
“A pleasure to meet you both!” Fable said. She was about to ask where they’d like her to start, but then Rantaro spoke up before she could say anything.
“Less talking, more tidying. You can start over there gathering up the hoops.”

They continued working for a few more minutes, but of course their bicking started up again. Fable didn’t pay too much attention. She just carefully tidied around them until Rantaro threw one of the balls into the basket angrily and it caused an even greater mess than when Valt had gone to catch his bey, Valtryek. Fable groaned internally. Just as she was about to start again from scratch, Valt’s younger siblings, Toko and Nika, called the trio over to watch someone called Shu on their tablet. He seemed to be pretty important to them, so Fable went over to join them. Impressively, he won his match in one hit with a burst finish. Rantaro muttered something about Shu having the fundamentals down, which then got Valt really excited for some reason. He ran off, leaving the small group behind him.
“We should probably follow him, right?” Fable said, before chasing after him. It looked like Rantaro was about to follow him, but then Principal Shinoda showed up again and ordered him to clean up the mess again. Oh well.

By the time Fable caught up to her new friend, he was in some kind of training ground on a river bank, using the various equipment and shouting “FUN-DA-MENT-ALS!” over and over again. He was a… strange kid but hey, his enthusiasm had to be complimented. Sighing and quickly making up her mind, Fable decided to do what any supportive friend would do and join in. They kept this up until the sun started to set, but then Valt saw someone cycling by. He excitedly ran up to him to start talking, and Fable then recognised him as the guy they had all watched on Toko and Nika’s tablet earlier. What was his name? Shu Kurenai, right? Not wanting to intrude or make the conversation awkward at all, Fable went to return home for dinner.
“Bye Valt, see you at school!” she called over her shoulder as she left.
“Bye Fae!” he called after her. She smiled – for some reason, it felt really nice hearing him call her nickname like that.

Fable, Matt and Emma were up bright and early the next morning for the first day of the regional tournament. They were all really excited to watch, so much so that they actually ended up arriving way too early. With nothing better to do, Fable explored the building and the places nearby, leaving her brother with his girlfriend. Finally, she came back just as the first match was about to begin.
“Who’s up first?” she whispered to Matt.
“Two bladers called Rantaro Kiyama and Valt Aoi,” he whispered back. Her face lit up with recognition before he continued.
“You know them?”
“Yeah,” she replied. “They’re my new friends from school!”
“Ah, come on then. We’ll have to cheer extra hard for both of them!”

Both bladers started off well – by now, they both had the fundamentals down. Hard work pays off! However, Rantaro was clearly more experienced with this kind of thing and it didn’t take him long to win the first battle with a ring-out finish, earning him one point. Although she didn’t like doubting a friend so early on, Fable couldn’t help but think Valt had little chance of winning. She felt bad that he wouldn’t make it past the first round, but also happy that Rantaro would, but also still mostly bad for Valt… no, of course she felt happy/sad for both of them equally. They were both her new friends.

Then, something changed in the split second before the second battle that caught Fable’s attention; Valt tilted his launcher slightly. That would give his bey, Valtryek, a better shot at winning. As the second battle commenced, Valtryek spun around the stadium in a looping pattern that Fable had never seen a bey do before. It caught Roktavor completely off-guard and Valt ended up winning the match with a burst finish! Way to go! She felt really happy for Valt. Yeah, she still felt bad for Rantaro, especially after it had looked like he was going to have an easy win, but she was just so happy seeing Valt get to advance to the next round.