Beyond the Mask - A Bakugan fanfic

Chapter 7

Amari awoke with a start, her phone's alarm for school blaring loudly into her headphones still lodged in her ears. She didn't remember falling asleep the night before, apparently in the same clothes she'd worn the previous day, now sleep rumpled and uncomfortable. She rolled her eyes at her own incompetence and moved to get out of bed. As she turned off her alarm, she noticed her book bag overturned on the floor next to her bed, its contents spilling out.

"Oh no," she breathed. Where is he?

She leaped up from her bed. He couldn't have gone too far, could he?

Ripping the headphones from her ears, she dumped the rest of her book back onto the ground, spilling the remaining books, abandoned pens and pencils, and crumpled up gum wrappers onto the floor. Still no Bakugan. She ducked down to search under her bed, only finding cobwebs taking up the empty; the same result came from underneath her dresser too.

Her heart continued to beat out through her chest as her mind raced through all the different places he could have hid. When the top and underneath of her desk drew up empty too, Amari had just about lost hope – her Rogue Bakugan had actually left-over night – when an odd tapping sound caught her attention. She didn't have to look far to find its source. Just at the base of her door where the wood barely touched the floor, was the all too familiar purple Bakugan. The space was enough to see under, but not enough for him to fit through.

Amari liked to sleep with her door closed at night, mostly for privacy reasons, but partially because she didn't want her foster parents waking her up if they came home particularly late one evening. Apparently closed doors also kept tiny Rogue Bakugan from escaping as well.

Smirking, Amari stooped down to pick him up between two fingers.

"Hey! Hey!" the Bakugan protested.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Amari allowed him to roll to her palm so he could unfurl.

"If you won't help me find others to battle, then I will go out and find them myself," he said, sounding as determined as ever. She had to give the little guy props though, seeing as he had managed to get out of her back all by himself and all the way to the door; that mission really must have taken him all night, but Amari's eyes couldn't roll back far enough. Who did this Bakugan think he was, believing that he could just go out on his own?

"I already told you last night, you need me if you're going to battle in this world."

"Then you will help me?"

"Will you stop killing Bakugan when you fight them?"

Amari thought the answer to this question would be easy enough – if he didn't harm any Bakugan like he did that Moskeeto yesterday, then Amari would be more than happy to use him in battle. It took the Bakugan more than a minute to think over his response to Amari's proposition, and even then, his voice sounded strained when he spoke.

"I can't promise that I won't."

"Then I can't promise I'll put you in battle the next time one comes up."

Amari then placed him onto her desk, hoping that would be the end of the discussion. Her head still throbbed form her jarring alarm sound; she was looking forward to turning that feature off and enjoying late, lazy mornings of sleeping in and eating whatever she wanted for breakfast before heading off to the park for a day full of Bakugan battles! Until then, she realized with an anxious beat of her heart, she had to get through this one last day, and she had no idea what to expect. With Byron's video, the one she didn't actually watch, she could have all kinds of things happen; from kids avoiding her but staring after her anyway, or getting right up in her face and full-on accusing her of Bakugan murder, or the very likely chance of other hot-shots like Byron challenging her to a battle with the full awareness that their Bakugan might not survive the battle. Amari couldn't decide which one was worse.