Ch 12 – Let the Game Begin!

BUST-A-GROOVE "First Encounters" (Part 4)

By Toasty-Sama

Today was the day of the Bust-A-Groove Tournament. Heat felt Frida's presence, once she entered the building. They made their way through the crowd until they met. They stared at one another in silence. Heat was wearing his white racing uniform and red ski hat. Frida was wearing blue fatigue pants, a white spaghetti strap tank, and a white hair tie on top of her head. Her blue hair cascaded from it and graced her soft shoulders. Heat smiled and reached out to her. She pointed her finger and her bangles jingled as she waved her finger to warn him not to touch her.

She looked up at him with big brown sad eyes, "Heat, …whatever you do, don't look for me. Stay back."

"Frida-." He walked towards her and stopped as Frida raised her hand.

"Stay back."

"Why?"

"Because one of us is going to get hurt, if you keep looking for me."

"I don't care!"

"Heat-."

"You can't do it by yourself!"

Frida looked away, then back at him. She was able to kept the tears from forming in her eyes as she was relieved that Heat had a clue about what was going on. "Good luck, Burnout." She backed away from him and started to disappear within the crowd.

"Frida-!"

"Welcome, to the Bust-A-Groove tournament," the announcer said. "Let's get ready for our first battles." Heat rushed through the crowd, looking for Frida, as the announcer spoke names. "Heat versus Kelly!"

"Crap!" Heat knew that he had a limited time to get to the stage, once his name was called.

"Hamm versus Shortie!" As Heat rushed back, he listened for the rest of the names. Heat climbed onto the stage and took his spot. "GAS-O versus Frida! And, Strike versus Kitty-N!" Heat watched as Frida got onto the stage. "The following contestants will be disqualified, if they do not appear on stage, after fifteen seconds of reading this list." The announcer started reading the names. Heat was looking at Frida, but her sights were set on defeating Gas-O. "And, Kitty-N!" The announcer hit a button and several clocks started to count down for each missing dancer. The clock clicked down: five, four, three, two-. A loud thump was heard on the stage. Crouched with one hand on the ground, it was Kitty-N. She looked up at her competition. The audience ouu'ed and ahh'ed. "And, the following contestants are DISQUALIFIED!" As the announcer read the list, Kitty-N started thinking about how this was not her idea for an entrance. This type of entrance was more of Kitty-X's thing. She was okay with doing it, just to honor Kitty-X. But, it was more of the residue of her energy within Kitty-N's groove-tron device which prompted her to make this entrance. She stood and struck her familiar pose, but she felt jittery from Kitty-X's energy surging through her.

Heat was hoping to be able to watch the other dancers, but this being the first tournament, had a limited production crew. They were being treated like animals. Each dancer had a personal holding cell that he knew they called 'warm-up rooms', but he felt something odd about this process. In the far distance, he thought he could hear Strike yelling to get out. But, all of the dancers were now being drowned out by music.

Frida versus Gas-O

Frida was amazed. The set was like being back in the Caribbean. The colors and graffiti on the large wooden shack…it was like they took the scene straight out of her head. Everything was perfect until a certain foul odor was upon her. She looked and saw her opponent staring at her. There was something about his energy that made her cringe. As he got closer, the odor started making her feel sick. He took his spot and the air conditioning blasted down upon them.

Frida started thinking to herself, "That awful smell…is it blood?" Frida took her spot and looked at her opponent. For some reason, she could tell that behind the blue-tinted lenses of his gas mask, he possessed bloodshot eyes.

"Get ready to LOSE, girly." Frida took out her paintbrush and made sure that he could see it. "What are you going to do? Tickle me to death with that thing?" Frida only shrugged before putting it away, with an expression of 'I don't know' on her face. But, she knew what to do.

"Groove onnnnn with your Hip-Hop," the announcer yelled. The music started for: Sora to Umi to Niji ni Yume [Dream of the Sky, Sea, and Rainbow]. Frida and Gas-O started to get the rhythm. After the first few moves, Frida messed up and had to start over.

She messaged her temples for a moment, "That smell is giving me such a bad headache." She looked to see that Frida's mess up made the Gas-O gain the camera's attention. I'm going to have to bait him to wear him out. After their first solos, Frida turned up her moves.

"Some high scoring MOVES there!" Gas-O noticed that he started to lose the camera's attention and attacked.

"There's his jammer!" She dodged it and they went on to dancing their solos. After the solos, Gas-O saw that the sky had darkened.

"Storm clouds?" He looked at Frida, who was so enveloped by her own dancing, that she had not noticed. She had a smile on her face and her hair was whipping around. "She's doing this?" It was becoming hard for Gas-O to dance as the wind was moving opposite of his movements and the wooden shack on the set started to blow away. "My goodness, she's a voodoo witch! She summoned a tar-nado!"

Frida took out her paintbrush and painted something in the air as she yelled, "Cry my little wolf!" She pointed her paintbrush towards Gas-O and the wolf's head that she drew flew over and bit him. Gas-O yelled his shock and fell onto the floor.

"OH NO," the announcer yelled. After the song ended, Gas-O was still groaning on the floor.

Frida jumped in the air and yelled, "YAHOO!" She was doing her 'Fever Time' dance. Afterwards, she went over to Gas-O, leaned towards him with a hand on one side of her hip and the back of her hand, with the paintbrush in it, on the other side and smiled, "I see that you're ticklish."

Strike versus Kitty-N

Strike stepped into a room that looked like a loft. It had giant windows and was decorated pink, blue, white with pink carpet. The giant iconic pink cat face with the name "Kitty-Nakajima" written in cursive across its chest, in the background.

"Ah, no," Strike said to himself as he saw Kitty-Nakajima. "You again?"

"You should just forfeit now."

"Heck no! You should forfeit! You don't want to get hurt, little girl!"

"Little girl! You're the one that kidnapped a little girl!"

Strike let out an anguished groan, "Just shut up and dance already!"

She crossed her arms over her chest, "Fine by me."

"Okay! Pick it on up now," the announcer yelled. The music started for: Bust-A-Groove. Kitty-Nakajima and Strike started to get the rhythm. After the first few moves, Strike noticed that Kitty-N's moves were so explosive that she was getting the camera's attention.

"There's no way she can jump that high," Strike started thinking to himself. "She barely got out of the hospital, too." As he danced, he started noticing her energy level, "That groove-tron energy feels funny." As Kitty-N entered her first solo, he watched her. "So, that's it." He noticed how stiffly she moved. The delicate feminine grace of the moves were at times being executed sharply and with a touch of masculine energy. He started his solo, "Her groove-tron's not leveled. And since she's still recovering, all I have to do is wait." As they continued dancing, she noticed that Strike was gaining the camera's attention back.

Her vision was becoming blurry, "I have to win this!" Her groove-tron was telling her to attack, but she knew that it was from Kitty-X's energy. She fought against doing it, as she was unable to scale back to force of any of her dance moves so far. Even if she was healed, if she attempted to attack anyone with Kitty-X's strength, she would pass out. So, Strike did the honors for her. He turned around and fired his guns. She was trying so hard to hold herself back, that she became confused and missed avoiding his attack. The stage lights broke and colored lights the size of dandelion heads started falling from the ceiling. Blue laser beams started to shoot from the decorative cat's eyes.

"OH NO," the announcer yelled. Strike's timing was perfect. He took her solo and also did a few additional solos. She got up and tried catching her breath before the solos ended, but it was too late; she missed the extra attention. As they danced on, there was no opportunity to make a comeback. The music stopped; Kitty-N had lost.

She casted her cerulean eyes down and dropped to her hands and knees as she thought to herself, "I couldn't do it, Kitty-X." Then, she felt a little ball of light within her groove-tron. "Strike…," she said out loud, "If you don't stop following Pinky Diamond, you'll end up on the wrong path for the rest of your life. They'll cage you until you die."

Strike looked at her, "WHAT did you just say to me?" A door opened and five men came in and carried Strike off, who was kicking and screaming against them. The door closed behind them.

A computer voice came through the loud speaker in the ceiling, "Kitty-N…you lose. For your loss, you are disqualified." Kitty-N quickly looked up at the ceiling with a look of fear upon her face. "You may…go home, now." Another door opened and Kitty-N looked. She got up and started walking towards the exit.