#I had an idea that Boris got overwhelmed by all the affection shown to him by his initial foster mothers

[burnsopale]

Ashen, excerpt 2

Last time was mostly a big tease. This time, Boris returns to the abbey for the first time in years. It doesn’t go well.

Working title: Ashen Characters in this clip: Takao, Kai, Max, Boris and Kinomiya Tatsuya Setting: 7 years after season one, Russia, the abbey Summary: Volkov has escaped from prison, attacked PPB headquarters and taken back Black Dranzer. The Russian boys have been living with the PPB, and were used and hurt in the attack. Yuriy left with Volkov for unknown reasons. Daitenji Kogoro has gathered the troops and sent them to Russia to find out what Volkov is up to. Meanwhile, Kai’s grandfather is on his deathbed, and Kai is struggling to deal with it.

A stray wind mumbled and whined through the colonnades of Volkov Abbey. In that desolate courtyard no summer lived, only barren winter. The stones were black, the shadows cold, and doorways yawned like sucking mouths while broken windows gave a sharp, jagged edge to the scene.

 For a while, Takao, his dad, Max, Kai and Boris stood silent in the middle of the open courtyard, a little overwhelmed by the sheer depressive atmosphere, wondering what on earth they were supposed to find here.

 “Home sweet home!” Boris exclaimed suddenly, before laughing uproariously at their startled expressions.

 A door opened up ahead. Takao vaguely recalled it leading to the mess hall where the BBA had eaten on their first visit here, years ago.

 “That’s probably our liaison,” Dad said and headed towards the young woman who had just stepped outside and was waving.

 “Hello, everyone!” she said as they came to meet her. “My name is Myrna Lebedev. I’m supposed to show you around this place?”

 She didn’t look much older than the boys. With her ash-blonde hair and glasses, turtleneck sweater and long jeans, she seemed a big-sisterly type.

 They shook hands with her in turn.

 “You worked here after it was shut down?” Dad asked.

 She nodded, gesturing for them to follow her down the pillared walkway towards the fat, looming tower where Takao and Zangief had battled.

Where was Zangief now? Takao wondered. Was he happy?

 “I was on the team that mapped this place out, initially. Strangest job I ever did. The police had been here and cleared out all the kids and those cultists of course, but when we first went down to explore, someone almost died; there were traps everywhere!”

 “Not traps,” Boris said. “Training gauntlets. You had to be ready all the time.”

 She stopped. “Oh. I’m so sorry. Were you ...?” She looked at them in turn.

 Max and Takao shook their heads and pointed at Kai and Boris. “Not us.”

 Myrna looked at them all a little longer. “You are strange. I was told a group from Japan wanted to see the abbey, so I thought you’d be like the usual tourists.”

 “This place gets tourists?” Boris asked, and then started laughing again. “Oh god. Can I work here too? I could be an attraction.”

 Kai frowned at him. “We’re not here for pleasure,” he said firmly, voice a little hoarse from his long silence in the car. “The man who ran this place, Vladimir Volkov, has escaped from prison and is in possession of an old weapon of his. We’re looking for any clues as to what that weapon is capable of.”

 “Oh!” Myrna’s dark eyes grew very big behind her glasses. “I see. That ... wasn’t really in my instructions ... I’m not supposed to let you wander much on your own or ... well, go that deep, but ...”

 “If you need to, we can shut you in one of the cells while we look,” Boris suggested, possibly seriously. “If you need an excuse.”

 Myrna certainly thought he was serious, and if her eyes grew any bigger now, they would pop out.

 “We won’t do that,” Max said quickly. “But we would be very grateful if you’d let us explore a bit. We won’t tell anyone. It’s very important that we stop Volkov from using the weapon.”

 She cocked her head to the side. “But why do you have to stop him?” she asked innocently. “Who are you?”

 Kai’s impatience got the better of him then, and he strode past her towards the door.

 Boris watched him go, his jesting finished. “We are the ones who let him have it in the first place.”

 It grew immediately colder as they plunged into the darkness of the abbey, and more so when they began to descend underground. Takao wished he had worn a proper sweater, like Myrna, but Dad had told him to bring one and he hadn’t done it so he couldn’t complain or Dad would say “I told you so”.

 Myrna told them a little bit about the history of the place as they walked, how Borg had purchased the abbey from a group of monks that might, in hindsight, actually have been forced to part with it and silenced afterwards, and how these hallways, once cellars for storing food and other things, had been dug out until they encompassed a labyrinth of rooms and tunnels, where Borg could carry out their clandestine plans.

 “What does clandestine mean,” asked Boris, and once Max had explained it, he declared it his new favourite word. “Holy shit, we were so clandestine. Clandestine is now my middle name. You can call me Boris Clandestine Kuznetsov.”

 “And now it’s lost all meaning,” Max said.

 Kai was continually a little ahead of them, and eventually Takao’s dad called after him. “Kai, where are you leading us?”

 “To Volkov’s office,” he replied.

 “Really?” Boris said. “Then you’re going the wrong way.”

 Kai came stalking back. “I am not going the wrong way; it’s down here and to the left. Don’t fucking mess with me, Kuznetsov.”

 Boris grinned wickedly. “That’s Clandestine Kuznetsov to you.”

For a moment, Kai’s face was white with rage, but he only turned on his heel and walked on. Takao looked to Max and found him looking back in concern. Kai’s reactions were way out of proportion lately.

 “Sorry about him,” Takao said to Myrna.

 “Oh, don’t worry about that.” She shook her head disarmingly. “It can’t be easy being back here.”

 “I don’t know,” said Boris. “I’m getting the warm fussies myself.”

 “Are you sure Kai-kun should be down here?” Dad asked Takao in an undertone.

 “Leave him to us,” Takao whispered back. “You just look for whatever it is Daitenji-san wants you to find.”

 When they caught up to Kai, he was waiting in front of the door which, as it turned out, did indeed lead to Volkov’s office. Myrna unlocked the door with her bunch of keys, and they stepped inside.

 It was empty. Not just nobody’s-here empty, but stripped completely bare. It was just a room, panelled in green and beige, with pale squares on the walls where pictures had hung or cabinets stood and preserved the original colours.

 Kai made a dissatisfied sound.

 “Did you check for hidden rooms when you were emptying the place?” Dad asked Myrna.

 “Yes and no. We had the building’s blueprints, and we did find some discrepancies and discover some rooms that weren’t noted, but we didn’t go knocking on every wall to find sliding panels or things like that.” She laughed a little.

 “Then that’s what we’ll do.” Dad said, looking at Kai for confirmation. “Seems the most likely place he’d hide any particularly sensitive information, right?”

 Kai inclined his head. “That was my thought.”

 “You two do that,” Max said. “Boris can show me and Takao around meanwhile.”

 Myrna came with them, and for a while they wandered from room to room. As Boris led them past dormitories, communal showers, training rooms, recreational facilities and secret corners, he seemed increasingly to veer between high and low spirits. He’d stand for a long time staring at the place where his bed had once stood, and then he’d crack jokes while they walked to the next place.

 They came around a corner and were faced with a row of rusting cells, some with their doors ajar. Takao remembered Kai saying he had seen Zangief in a cell all those years ago. Maybe it had been one of these.

 “I wonder what happened to Zangief?” he said out loud, idly moving the nearest door back and forth and making the hinges scream and creak.

 “He was probably rescued by the BBA,” Max said, eternally optimistic.

 “Zangief ...” Boris said slowly. “He was lucky. If he had beaten you, he would have advanced, gone to train with Baba Yaga.” As Takao moved on, Boris took over the door he had left, swinging it back and forth, back and forth, creak, creak, creak, creak. “He would have regretted that fast.” A bit of laughter, low in his throat. His face was lost in shadow. “Zangief was weak.” Creak, creak, creak, creak.

 “Boris?” Max was watching him warily.

 “Baba would have eaten him alive.” The ceiling light glinted off the edge of his sharp, sharp smile. “Then again, they say that’s what she does to the ones in the cells to.” Another laugh, like quacking. Creak, creak, creak. And then he stopped and stood very, very still. Trembling.

 Suddenly, Max grabbed Myrna and Takao and shoved them into the nearest cell, slamming the door behind them. Takao shoved at it, but the lock had sprung; it was shut fast.

 “Max!”

 “Stay there!” he said, giving them a warning look.

 Boris had twitched when the door banged shut, and now he turned slowly towards Max.

 “Max, why did you do that?” Takao pressed himself up against the bars.

 Myrna was going through her mess of keys and muttering stressfully to herself. “Is it this one or this one or this one? Not that one. Okay, this is scary. This one? No, no ...”

 “Be quiet!” Max commanded. He drew a careful breath, inhaling and exhaling. “Boris? Boris, please step into the light for me.”

 Boris didn’t move, but Takao could hear him breathing now, a harsh whistling sound like he was in pain.

 “Mama told me that you usually get a bit manic before an episode,” Max said gently. “That’s how I knew.”

 “Max,” Takao hissed. “Get out of here!”

 But Max shook his head. “No. Boris, you said you would be okay, and I believed you. I still believe in you.”

 Boris’ hand fell from the cell door to hang limply at his side. It twitched.

 “What is happening?” Myrna whispered.

 Max took a step closer to the other boy. “When I talk to Mama on the phone, all she talks about is you. How far you’ve come, how strong you are, how proud she is of you. She laughs about your terrible jokes. She says you are so clever.”

 Boris sucked in a breath. He was trembling all over, hands closing slowly into fists like he was holding himself back desperately.

 Max took another step forward. “Boris-”

 Boris’ lunged, grabbing Max by the front of his sweater and slamming him up against the bars. The light caught his face and revealed his eyes huge and staring, and a weird, cruel twist to his mouth. Max clenched his teeth and held still as Boris’ knuckles dug into his throat.

 “Max!” Takao cried, reaching through the bars, but unable to touch them. “Boris, don’t you dare! Don’t give Kai a chance to gloat about being right! Come on, fight it!” He turned back to Myrna, who seemed to be frozen in shock. “Find the key!”

 She startled and began to fumble again.

 “It’s okay, Takao!” Max said, straining. “Boris, it’s just you and me. I have Draciel, but I won’t use it. It’s your choice; you can hurt me, or you can come back to us. I already know what you’ll do, because you said you’d be alright, and because I know you want to make Mama proud of you.”

 “Make ... Baba ...” Boris muttered, seeming confused for a moment.

 “No,” Max said. “Mama Judy. My Mama ... and yours.”

 Another hard shiver went through Boris, and then he sank to his knees in front of Max, letting go of him. His face relaxed until he was pale, but calm.

 “The stupid door,” he muttered. “The stupid sound. Every night, all night, our metronome from hell.” He stumbled to his feet and moved a few paces away, sniffing and wiping at his nose. “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. “Kai was right about me.”

 “No, he wasn’t,” Takao said quickly as Myrna finally moved past him to put the right key in the lock. “You came back.”

 “Let’s rejoin the others,” Myrna said a little hysterically as the door swung open. She hurried down the corridor without waiting for them.

 “Would you like that hug now?” Max asked Boris softly.

 He didn’t say anything, but lifted his arm, and Max slipped under it and wrapped his own around him.

 “She’s your Mama,” Boris said, almost whispering. “But I like her too.”

 “I don’t mind sharing,” Max replied, smiling as he let go again. “I already share her with Emily, and honestly she could use the extra practice.”

 Takao grabbed them and pulled them into a double hug. “Don’t scare me like that!”

 “Sorry, Takao,” Max laughed.

#Beyblade #Judin writes #Ashen #Max is a good boy #I had an idea that Boris got overwhelmed by all the affection shown to him by his initial foster mothers #and that Judy's more reserved (read: cold) approach actually worked much better for him #So she kinda took him on #So now Max has even more competition