As the people walked by they hardly noticed the young, blond haired boy sitting on the cold, freezing pavement. His face and cloths were covered with dirt, and even some blood. He was shivering, he had no blankets, food or money. In fact he hadn't eaten anything in days. He was crying, but when you're traumatised and homeless you cry a lot. It hadn't always been this way. He used to be always laughing and joking around with his friends. But now all he could do was cry, as his friends were no longer there to help him. The falling snow covered his cold body and he shivered and cried even harder. He wished he had never left at all....

It had been nearly 2 years since the last world championships. The next one was just a couple of months away. So the bladebreakers were getting back together to restart their team and win for a second time running.

Tyson: "Chief, look who's here! Ray! Kai! How you guys doing.?"

Ray: "Just great Tyson. It's great to see you guys again."

Tyson: "So what have you been up to all this time?"

Ray: "I've been hanging out with my old team, The white tigers. We had a lot of fun, just like old times!"

Tyson: "Cool! What about you Kai?"

Kai: "I've been training up in the mountains. It was a beautiful place and so peaceful and quite. And I made friends with this old couple who let me stay in their chalet."

Tyson: "Awesome, I've been training too! All the kids in my home town wanted to take me on, and I beat them all!"

Kenny: "It's nice to know you guys have been training. My family moved to Tokyo which allowed me to get a tonne of new data. I've updated Dizzi to windows XP as well!"

Tyson: "That's great Cheif. Hey, where's Max?"

Kenny: "Come to think of it, I haven't heard from Max since the last world championships."

Tyson: "Neither have I."

Ray: "Didn't he say that he went to live with his mother in America?"

Tyson: "Hey that's right. Well that explains everything. Let's call him up and tell him to get his butt over here!"

Kai (thinking): "Hmm... I've got a really bad feeling. And it's not those casseroles I had for lunch."

They found the number and Kenny dialled it. A female voice answered the phone.

Female voice: "Hello?"

Kenny: "Hello. Is that you Emily?"

Emily: "Yes it is. Is that Kenny?"

Kenny: "Yes... it is." Kenny had a dreamy look on his face. He was blushing and drooling slightly. Tyson grabbed the phone off the love struck teenager.

Tyson: "Emily, this is Tyson. The reason we're calling is we're restarting the Bladebreakers and we need Max over here now. Can you get him please?"

Suddenly, Emily fell completely silent.

Tyson: "Hello? Hello? Are you still there? Damn phone!" He started banging the receiver against the table.

Emily: "Tyson, stop it. I'm still here!!"

Tyson: "Oh right...who's calling again?"

Emily's voice sounded strangely sad.

Emily: "Listen, I think you guys should come over here. I'll explain everything to you."

So, Tyson, Ray, Kai and Kenny got on the next plane to Las Vegas (quite conveniently, they were in Japan). They met Emily there. She had changed since they last saw her. Her hair and cloths were messed up, as if she was always frustrated and anxious. She had a sad tone in her voice.

Tyson: "So Emily, where the heck is Max?"

Emily: "Well.... he.... It's kinda hard to explain...." They waited for a few minutes before she finally came out with it. "Max's mother is dead."

Bladebreakers: "What? What do you mean?

Emily: " I mean she's dead! Gone! Kicked the bucket! Her soul is gone but her really pretty house in southern California remains!"

Kai: "How did she die?"

Emily: "Her husband stabbed her. He pleaded not guilty at the trial but they still gave him 15 years in the clink."

Tyson rose from his seat.

Tyson: "But what about Max?"

Emily: "That's the worst part of it."

Emily: " Max told me he was upset because he heard his parents arguing late at night. One day he just walked into the room and saw his mother lying dead on the floor in a puddle of blood. His father was holding a bloody knife in his hands. Max was so confused and upset that he just ran out the door. And no one's seen him since!" She cried as she said all this.

It took a while for all this to sink in. Even Kai looked surprised and upset! After a few minutes Ray spoke in a shaky voice.

Ray: "What did the police do?"

Emily: "They didn't do anything! I mean they searched for him and all but there's so many missing kids out there they can't concentrate on just one!"

Kenny: "What did you do?"

Emily: "Well, me and the rest of my team did the best we could to find him. We put up posters everywhere and even went on TV and radio asking people for any information. But no one at all has called yet. I just don't know what to do anymore!"

Ray:"Did the police find out anything?"

Emily: "They managed to find one clue- apparently the night he ran away he got a train ticket to Los Angeles."

Ray: "That's all?"

Emily: "That's all."
One of us is lonely
One of us is only
Trying not to starve
Sorry for himself, feeling stupid feeling small
Wishing he had never left at all

They sat in silence for a few more minutes. Tyson stood up again.

Tyson: "We're going to find him."

Others: "What?"

Tyson: "We're going out there to find Max ourselves!"

Kai: "Tyson, that's an insane idea! He could be apsaloply anywhere in the world! And for all we know, though I hate to say it, he could be dead!"

Tyson: "But we've got one clue already, LA! I bet my bit beast he's still there!"

Ray: "I'm with you Tyson. Max is our friend, and if no one else can find him then we will!"

Kenny: "And Dizzie's global tracking device might help." The three young hopefuls looked at Kai.

Kai: "Well I know I'm never going to be able to stop you now, so count me in too."

Tyson: "Come on guys, let's go! We've only got one measly lifetime to search for him!"

Kenny: "Someone got over their jet lag well!" The four of them ran out the door.

Emily watched them as they ran down the street.

Emily: "Hey, you guys!"

Ray: "What?"

Emily: "The station's the other way!"

Kenny: "Thanks Emily!"

Emily: "Good luck." She whispered to herself. She stared up at the stars in the sky...

Meanwhile, Max was wandering around the streets of LA. He didn't know where he was, where he was going or where he was coming from. He just walked on, trying to keep out the bitter cold. His head was hung low and his eyes were glazed over. People stared at him as he walked by. Some people gave him looks of pity, others gave him looks of disgust. But most people didn't bat and eyelid at him. He was unloved and unwanted in this world, like a piece of mud that you just want to scrape off the soul of your shoe.

Max didn't know how long he'd been on the streets, it seemed like forever but in reality it had only been about a year. Max had lost everyone special to him in a very short amount of time. His mother was dead, he remembered seeing her lying on the kitchen floor, covered with blood. And his father... he remembered his father laughing evilly with the bloody carving knife in his hand. He had then seen Max standing there, completely horrified. He had advanced towards his son, with the knife still in his hands. Max had screamed his lungs out at him and run out the door. He ran on and on, tears streaming from his eyes. He wanted to get away from it, away from his father, away from the nightmare, away from reality. He had spent all the money in his pocket on a train ticket to LA. And that's how his life below the poverty line started. From confusion, anger and fear.

He squeezed through a gap in a barbed wire fence into a side ally beside a restaurant. There was no one else in the ally except a few stray dogs and rats. Max rummaged through the garbage cans but found nothing to eat, he would have to go hungry for the third night in a row. He sat down against a brick wall. The freezing winds chilled him to the bone. He put a hand into his pocket and clutched his blade, Draciel. It was the only thing he had managed to keep from before his life was ruined. He held it close to him whenever he felt lonely, it was a symbol of everything he had left behind.

Another cold wind blew and Max shivered even more. Something landed on the ground about a meter away from him. It was a 5 dollar bill!!! Max stared at it in amazement. In all his time spent on the streets he hadn't as much as seen a 5 dollar bill, yet alone have one land next to him! People sometimes threw him nickels or dimes but this was incredible! Max reached over to get it, but a heavy foot stood on his wrist....

Dizzie: "Max is gone."

Kenny: "Yes, we know Dizzie. Where has Max gone to?"

Dizzie: "MAX IS GONE!" The bit beast within the laptop shut herself down.

Kenny: "I knew I should have brought some spare batteries."

Ray: "So much for Dizzie's global tracking device! Now we'll have to find Max ourselves."

They were now at the train station in LA.

Tyson: "So come on, let's go find him already!"

Kai "It's not that simple Tyson." He was looking at a big map of the city on the wall. "This city's huge, it'll be hard to find just one person! And how do we know he's here at all?"

Tyson: "I just know he is OK? And we have to start somewhere so we may as well start here! OK, Ray and Kenny will search this area," he circled a section of the map with his finger, "And me and Kai will search round here." He circled another section. "Then we'll all report back here at about 9:00 PM. Got it?"

Others: "Got it!"

Tyson: "All right, let's go!"

Tyson: "Nothing, not one trace of him, not one single clue!"

They had searched for hours but had come no closer to finding their friend.

Kenny: "Don't get discouraged Tyson, we've only searched a small area of the city. We can spend the whole day searching tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. We won't give up till we find Max!"

Tyson: "You're right Chief. I'll search the entire world if I have to. And then I'll search the whole world again, whatever it takes! Even if I turn around and find Max has been there the whole time then you laugh, and Max laughs, and the kids laugh and I die a little inside."

Kai: "Um, is it just me or is that him right there?"

They looked through a barbed wire fence into a side ally. There they saw 2 grown men, who were obviously homeless bums, beating up a young, blond haired, homeless boy. Tyson could recognise his old friend anywhere.

Tyson: "Cancel the world search."
One of us is lonely
One of us is only
Trying not to starve
Sorry for himself, feeling stupid feeling small
Wishing he had never left at all
Never left at all

Max knew that he was about to die. Every punch they gave him sent an unbearable surge of pain through his body. All they wanted was the 5 dollars he had found. They were obviously willing to kill him to get it. He felt blood running down his face, it went in his eyes and blinded him. He was terrified, but he also had a strong hope that he would be able to see his mother again. He could tell her he was sorry, sorry for running away, sorry for not being at her funeral, sorry for eating too much sugar and driving her mad. He heard a voice.

Voice: "Put him down now!"

The two bums stopped punching him. Max couldn't see who was there because of the blood in his eyes. The voice was strangely familiar, he felt he had heard it a long time ago.

Voice: "Leave him alone or we'll launch our beyblades at you."

Max felt himself being flung aside. His head struck the brick wall and he passed out...

Kai: "Looks like we found him just in time. I owe you a Coke Tyson."

Kenny: "There's no time for that now, Kai! The poor guy needs a hospital right away!"

Tyson: "He looks like someone locked him up and threw away the chocolate."

Ray: "He's bleeding. Anyone got any bandages?"

Kai: "On your arms Ray."

Ray: "What? Hey you're right!"

Tyson: "Look, he's coming round!"

Max could now see the blurred shapes of the people these voices were coming from. His eyes regained focus. He saw the faces he had been dying to see throughout his entire life on the streets. His best friends, Tyson, Kenny, Ray and Kai.

Tyson: "Hey, how ya feeling dude?"

Kenny: "Sorry for the delay, we would have come looking for you sooner but none of us watch CNN."

Max tried to get up but found he was too weak to do it. Instead he collapsed in tears in Tyson's arms, hugging his friend tightly.

Tyson: "Come on dude, you're all right now."

Max wanted to talk but he was shaking and crying too much. He could feel feelings that he hadn't felt in and extremely long time, relief and happiness.

Tyson: "It's OK, you're gonna be OK Max...."

When you've been killed inside and been forced to live rough on the streets you learn to really appreciate things like the sun streaming in through the curtains, warm blankets and a central heating system or the mere thought of your friends turning down the TV so you can get some sleep.

Max had just woken up from his long sleep. It was 3:47 Sunday afternoon and he had been asleep since about midnight on Saturday. He thought back to Friday night. He remembered perfectly waking up and seeing his friends but after that was a bit of a blur, he had been drifting in and out of consciousness. He could remember Tyson carrying him to the hospital (and as usual, he hadn't let anyone help) but they wouldn't treat him because of his threadbare cloths. So they had walked around for about and hour looking for a hotel with vacancies. He remembered Tyson's exact words:

Tyson's exact words: "I don't care if it's a five star hotel or a zero star hotel, I just want a place for Max to rest!"

Luckily the hotel they found was a five star hotel and they had paid for it using Mr Dicinson's credit card numbers.

He looked around the room and saw Tyson sitting on the bed next to him reading a porno magazine (he nicked that from Emily's apartment. Did I mention she shared an apartment with Steve, Michael and Eddy?)

Tyson looked over at his bed and saw he was awake. He quickly hid the porno magazine under his mattress and walked over to his bedside.

Tyson: "Hey Max, how you feeling buddy?"

Max: "Did you eat the mint that was on my pillow?"

Tyson: "Yes. But I saved you Kai's!"

Max smiled, he had really missed his friend. Tyson called the others into the room.

Kenny: "Hi Max, you feeling OK? Your arms were completely black and blue from where those guys punched you up."

Max: "I'm all right. You guys have no idea how much I missed you!"

Kai: "We missed you too pal." He ruffled Max's hair a bit.

Kenny: "You were suffering from hypothermia, and dehydration and..."

Max: "I was really hungry."

Ray walked into the room with a tray filled with FOOD!

Ray: "Here, you gotta eat something. You're so skinny you're making super models jealous!"

Kai: "Go home!" He yelled at the jealous super models that had gathered at the window.

Max sat up and demolished the entire tray of food in less then 20 seconds.

Ray: "Wow! You're giving Tyson a run for his money!"

Tyson: "Ohhhh, a challenge!"

Max laughed but ended up coughing and hurting his ribs. But he had his trademark grin back on his face, he had missed Tyson cheering him up with his jokes. Tyson handed Max his blade and Kai's pillow mint.

Tyson: "This is just awesome! Once Max is all healed up we can start training again and head for the next world championships! The bladebreakers are back in business!!!"

Max: "Are you sure you want me back on the team?"

Tyson: "What are you talking about Max?"

Max: "Well I was kinda the weakest member of the team, I've gone a whole year without training and... I have emotional scars that will never heal."

Tyson: "Max, we don't care if you're the strongest player of the weakest, we're always be here for you like you're there for us. And we'll help and comfort you all we can with the emotional scars."

Max: "You sure?"

Tyson: "Of coarse Max, you're ONE OF US!!!!!"

Hope you liked that story. As soon as I've finished a few of my other fanfics I'll write up the sequel to this: The bladebreaker's road trip! Los Angeles- Rio de jenero! See ya!!!