Mathilda hadn't read a newspaper or a magazine since she returned from Egypt. She loved gossip magazines, but every time she looked at a glossy cover now, her stomach swirled threateningly.

No-one likes seeing themselves slandered.

It was disproportionately unfair, she thought one evening. She had escaped from her cloying family and found her way to an old play area that she knew well. Now she was sitting on the swings and moving it gently back and forth with her toes. For the thousandth time she wondered how on earth she was still a source of malicious talk, after the atrocities committed by Garland and Brooklyn in the recently concluded battle between BBA Revolution, the remnant of the BBA, and Justice 5 team, answering to Boris and BEGA. Tala and Kai had come close to death, for heaven's sake!

People said Barthez Battalions had been underhand, but Ming-Ming had recently admitted in an interview that half the Justice 5 team had been sent to Tyson's house to try and ... well, she had said intimidate the opposition but you didn't need to be a genius to work out what she was covering up, did you? That was worse, wasn't it?

Even the others in Barthez Battalions - compare them. Invisible nets, self-mutilation, razor blades in attack rings - and what had she done?

Suicide bomber, one paper had called her, then someone had written in with a pertinent suggestion and the next headlines spread across the world was 'Murderer.' The BBA had turned their backs - she was essentially part of BEGA, after all, a 'baddy' - providing only the most minimal of press statements and three day's worth of protection against the ravening hordes of the press.

She was reviled, yes, that was the word, reviled within the sport. As Julia had told her, just before hanging up on her for the last time,

"No-one cares how it affected you, Mathilda. They can't believe you could do it in the first place."

Because, Mariah (the only beyblader who would still talk to her) explained reluctantly, a bit-beast was more then a pretty, shiny thing that helped you to win. It was more than a partner, more than even a best friend. A bit-beast bonded to your soul from the second it revealed itself until the day that you died. At the same time, it had its own, outside, respect because its kind were many times older than humans and would live on long after humans had gorged themselves to death on everything the Earth had to offer.

So sacrificing (murdering) your bit-beast was somewhere between killing your newborn baby and killing the Pope on the list of sins, or so it seemed. And no amount of regret could ever erase it. No amount of desperately explaining the thrall Barthez had over them.

Tears fell from her downturned face to the spongy protective floor beneath her feet. She had dreams where Pierce Hedgehog returned and she flew on gossamer wings to victory after victory, with her team behind her and a stadium cheering her name. More often than not, she had dreams where the former Barthez Battalions turned their backs as Pierce Hedgehog reared above her with blazing eyes and she fell without end, deafened by cracking metal, screaming spirits and the taunts of all those she held close. Either way, she woke crying.

I was only obeying orders, she wept to her distressed parents. They would understand, wouldn't they? Hadn't they raised her to be respectful and obedient to her elders?

"Yes, of course, Tylda," they soothed in their faded Polish accents.

I was only obeying orders.

Blitzkrieg brought this family more than one association.

Most of this way of interpreting Mathilda's situation came from Lamanth over the phone one day, the allusion to WWII is entirely mine. Because I like Mathilda (Matylda is Polish) as Polish.

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