Hi, this is my third Beyblade fic. I guess I'd better start with the disclaimer.

Disclaimer: Beyblade doesn't belong to me.

This is set in after the first series after the Black Dranzer incident but it's not necessarily the second series. So it's like, in between the two series. Okay, with that said I just hope that this fic will be a better hit than my other ones. Although this is my third Beyblade fic this is going to be my first time to using the original characters so I'm sorry if they seem a little OOC.

Anyways, does that grassy plain next to the river have a proper name? It's the place where Tyson first met Kai and Zeo. If you can help me, thanks if you do.

Now enjoy.

Of Different Worlds

By Dark Ice Dragon

Predictability

'Of all the things that I could be doing on a Saturday afternoon, I have to do it with Tyson,' Kai thought irritably while walking to the riverbank. 'Why did I agree to go?' he asked himself. 'Couldn't he have just done the same with the others? I guess he wanted to do this as a team as usual.' Wonderful. Not everything had to be done as a team, Kai groused; sometimes it was better to just train on your own.

"Kai! There you are - what took you so long?" Tyson shouted from below him as soon as he saw his team captain. Looking around, Kai could see that there was no-one else there. It was deserted except for the four boys standing there.

"I walked," Kai replied as he started to walk down the hill. Why else would it have taken him so long to get there after getting the phonecall from Chief to meet them at the river bankside.

"Why didn't you take a bus?" Tyson asked as Kai neared them.

"I didn't feel like taking it." 'It's not as if it's pouring down with rain.' Hell, there were hardly any clouds in the sky for that matter. Kai glanced up again for a second just to make sure that thunder clouds didn't appear out of nowhere just to spite him.

"Are you going to hurry up or not?" Tyson asked in exasperation.

Kai ignored the question but he didn't quicken his pace either.

"Okay, since everybody's here now I thought we could do a little more we're training," Kenny said, filling in the silence once Kai was standing amongst them.

"Aw… but Chief!" complained Tyson, waving his arms in the air. "What's the point? We're the World Champs; no-one's better than us at beyblading!" he exclaimed.

"Tyson, that doesn't really matter. What about next year? There will probably be another tournament so we probably would need to practice," Ray pointed out.

"I guess so," Tyson sighed in defeat and his shoulders slumped. "So what have you got planned for us then Chief?" he asked, turning towards the shorter boy.

"Well I was thinking about getting you guys warmed up first so Tyson and Max should have a beybattle together."

"Sure Chief."

"I'll do the countdown," Ray volunteered. "Three… two… one! Let it rip!"

Max and Tyson yanked at their ripcords when Ray had finished. Soon the cries of 'Dragoon!' and 'Draciel!' could be heard on the wind as well as the sounds of metal clashing against each other.

"So who do you think is going to win?" Ray asked Kai, walking up to him.

Crossing his arms and not looking at Ray, Kai said, "You're asking my opinion?" It had barely been a week since the World Championships but Kai's friends still seemed to be treating him like they always did.

Ray sighed and absentmindedly scratched one of his bound arms. "Look Kai, after what happened I'm not surprised that you aren't sure of what we think of you. But we're still your friends. Yes, even Tyson," Ray said with a small smile, seeing Kai's look of disbelief out f the corner of his eye. With a small shake of his head, he continued. "We trust you. We might have questioned your actions before but when it was explained we understood some of what was happening. We don't understand all of it; we probably won't unless you're willing to tell us." Ray gave Kai a meaningful look that was completely ignored. "But that doesn't matter. That was in the past; this is now. So, are you going to answer my question and tell me who do you think is going to win?"

Kai was quiet as he studied the two beybladers in front of him and mulled over what Ray had just said. "Max," he said finally after a few seconds. "They're using their usual tactics and Tyson still doesn't have the patience to wait." He felt mildly annoyed by that fact. Tyson had always nearly charged straight into beybattles without thought and yet, Kai had been beaten by him. It didn't make any sense.

At the moment Kai said that, Tyson shouted out, "Dragoon tornado attack!"

As the wind picked up -with the white beyblade being the source of it- the green beyblade stayed in the middle of the beydish as it had been from the very beginning of the battle.

Ray shook his head in amusment. "Gee, doesn't this look familiar?"

And indeed it did. Like the other times Tyson had done this against Max, the result were always the same. Right after Dragoon had done the attack he was always a little bit unstable and that was when Draciel would do a counterattack. And like all the other times, the match had ended with Dragoon spinning out of the beydish.

"Tyson, how many times have I told you to wait to attack and not just attack without thinking?" Max scolded his friend lightly as Tyson picked up Dragoon from the ground.

Scratching the back of his head and smiling sheepishly, Tyson replied, "I wanted to see if I could catch ya off guard."

Kai snorted. "That's what you said the last time that happened. And the time before that. And the time before that. And-"

"Okay, okay! I get the picture already. Jeez, aren't we touchy today?" Tyson scowled in the Russian blader's direction.

Chief sighed tiredly. As always, when Tyson had lost against Max an argument always broke out between him and Kai. They didn't shout at each other or anything of the sort but since it was a bit more than bickering, it was considered an argument.

Just like how Tyson's loss against Max was predictable, so was what happened next.

"If you're going to be like that how about a beybattle!" Tyson, ever hot-tempered, had challenged Kai… again.

In return for this outburst Kai just smirked. Pulling out Dranzer and his launcher from his pocket, Kai took the place where Max had been standing a few minutes before.

The only sounds that were heard was the wind blowing past, moving over the river and the continued tapping of Chief on his laptop. Max was standing next to Ray on the sidelines.

In unison, Kai and Tyson said the usual countdown, "Three… two… one! Let it rip!"

Even though the day had started as normal and had nearly completely mirrored the events that had occurred each time the five of them had gotten together, this was when things started to differ.

Tyson hadn't checked where he was aiming when he had pulled on this ripcord. His eyes widened in surprise and then horror when he saw where Dragoon was headed.

Straight for Kai's head.

Because Kai was watching Dranzer after pulling the ripcord, he only noticed something was wrong was when he didn't see Dragoon landing into the dish. Swiftly glancing up, he had just enough time to see the oncoming 'blade but not enough to do anything about it.

Thwak.

Kai's head jerked back as if he had been punched; the rest of his body quickly followed suit. As Kai was lying on the ground, the four boys around him noticed that he wasn't moving and that his eyes were closed. The strange thing was, at the same time that Kai was hit Dranzer had stopped spinning. Not that anyone noticed this since they were more concerned with her blader.

Running up to the supine boy they were surprised to see that there wasn't a mark on Kai's forehead. There wasn't even a red mark or bruising there.

Chief was instantly on his knees checking for a pulse. He heaved a sigh when he found it.

"You guys, Kai's fine. He's unconscious but he's fine. He might have concussion when he wakes up but…" he trailed off as he stood up, his hands fidgeting with each other.

They all sighed in relief, Tyson more so than the others for obvious reasons. He laughed weakly. "Heh. Who thinks that Kai's going to kill me when he wakes up?"

Ray tried to glare at the boy in front of him but couldn't help but smile a little bit as well. "Well Tyson, it is your fault that you hit him in the first place you know."

"I know, I know," Tyson admitted. "I don't know what happened though. I mean, how did I end up hitting Kai? To do that I would have to have been aiming up the ways and I'm pretty sure that I wasn't." As Tyson was saying this, he bent down on one knee to retrieve Dragoon from beside Kai's head. He then noticed something that he wouldn't have seen from where he was standing up. "Huh?" he muttered to himself.

"But still," Ray continued, not hearing Tyson, "there's no other explanation for that happening so it means that you must have aimed higher –a lot higher- than what you normally do." It was unsaid that that was practically impossible. They each knew the normal height that they held their beyblades and that was usually around about shoulder level. Tyson was shorter than Kai, and, as he had pointed out himself, Tyson would have had to have aimed up instead of keeping his arms straight at shoulder level to to have been able to have hit Kai.

Tyson was still on bended knee looking at Kai intently, not completely listening to Ray. "You guys, I think we have more to worry about than Kai having concussion or killing me," Tyson said with a hint of fear in his voice.

Hearing Tyson's tone, the rest of the Bladebreakers looked at Tyson expectantly waiting for him to tell them what was wrong.

Tyson took a deep breath. "Kai's… Kai's fading," he said, turning to look up at his teammates.

He was met with skeptical looks.

"No, I mean it. He's starting to go see-through!" he protested.

"Tyson," Chief said slowly, "just because you hit Kai on the head with a beyblade, it doesn't mean that he will disappear mainly for that reason. You're overreacting." Chief held up his hands in a placating mannor, to try and calm Tyson down.

Tyson gazed at Chief with a strange look in his eyes before shaking his head. "I'm not," he said stubbornly. He opened his mouth to say more but was stopped when Kai started to glow softly. "What?" He spun around and leaned closer to Kai to make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him.

"What's wrong now?"

"Kai's glowing!"

"Yeah, right," came the sarcastic reply.

"Tyson, are you sure you didn't hit your head either?" Max asked worriedly. It was bad enough that one of their team was down, if Tyson was suffering from delusions…

He just glared at him. "Yes. I'm sure. You can't see it?"

They shook their heads.

"I still think you're overreacting. Kai isn't going to die just because you…" Chief's voice trailed off for the second time that day when the glowing started to get brighter and bigger, thus more noticeable.

The light kept on growing. It soon engulfed Kai's whole body and grew so bright that Tyson and the others had to cover their eyes with their arms to try shielding them. Still that wasn't enough; they also had to screw their eyes shut.

They could feel the warmth of the light beating on their arms and what parts of their faces that wasn't covered by their arms. Even with their eyes closed, the light was searing through their eyelids.

When they couldn't feel the warmth on their arms, they lowered their arms and opened their eyes. Blinking at the stars in the sight and the overbrightness of everything, they couldn't see anything for a few minutes. When they could finally see (though looking up at the sky still hurt, their eyes widened in surprise when they realised what they seeing.

Or what they weren't seeing.

Kai had disappeared from where he was lying before.

Ray, remembering the last time Kai had gone he had left Dranzer, turned towards the forgotten beydish. His eyes widened in shock even as a headache came from turning too sharply. 'But… that's impossible!'

Dranzer, along with her blader, had vanished without a trace.

Well, what do you think?

Please review. If you see any mistakes, don't hesitate to tell me. I can reread this damn thing and still miss loads of things.