Beyblade Burst: The Legend of the Thunderbird

Chapter Two: BC Sol

"You can use anything here to make your bey," Valt said to Erica after they had arrived to BC Sol's workshop. "Remember whatever you need is right by your side, you just need to reach out for it."
Erica and Valt had arrived to BC Sol a few hours ago and had put their things away in their bedrooms. Erica was told she has a roommate, Maya Ranger, but Erica hasn't met her yet. But once she and Valt were both done unpacking, they headed towards the workshop. Erica followed Valt into the workshop and she immediately got to work on the computer. Erica made five blueprints of a balance type bey on the computer. She suddenly felt a presence behind her, but she doesn't know what it was till she heard a faint screech of an eagle behind her.
As Erica continued working on her bey, she started using different machines as Valt stood by and assisted her. In the next few hours, she had finished the Chassis and the driver, but now it was time to put the finishing touches on the layer. She soon approached the 3-D printer and started printing her bey from the pictures she had sent it, but Erica started carving out the symbol of a thunderbird in mid-flight. She heard many legends about the thunderbird from her mother: the mythical bird can cause its rain to nurture the earth and drouse fires, lightning flashes from its beak and light up the dark sky, and the beating of its wings represent the rolling of thunder and can rumble over the land. It brings life and light as well as rain and lightning shows throughout the land. Unlike some kids, Erica actually enjoys watching thunderstorms from her bedroom window. The booming of thunder, the flashing of lightning, and downpour of rain fascinates her and excites her at the same time.
A thunderbird from the myths can do strong attacks, can have defense, and great stamina in storms, thought Erica as she narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. A balance type should do the trick.
"I'll call her Mythical Tempest Thunderstorm Legacy Two Hundred and Fifty," said Erica softly. "Tempest for short."
But as she watched it, Erica felt something happening. It was like entering an awakening dream of a sort. Surrounding her were soft colors of yellow, blue, and white. It felt so unreal and magical at the same time, Erica finally realized that she was standing as some misty clouds came and go from around her.
"Tempest, is that you?" Erica's voice echoed in the strange space area when she saw a huge figure appearing before her eyes.
"Hello Erica." A clear, calm voice was soon heard echoing through the strange space, in which reminded Erica of the wind. The voice is clearly a female and sounded human, but inhuman at the same time. "I am glad to finally meet you."
"Me too." Erica turned to see the most magnificent creature she had ever seen in her whole entire life.
It is a thunderbird.
The thunderbird stood above Erica and both of their eyes met, she's awestruck at the stunning creature standing before her. The thunderbird or rather Tempest is a quite massive bird. Tempest's head and stomach are pure white as a fresh pile of snow, while her back and wings are golden as the sun and almost seemed to be made of electricity. Tempest's talons are brown with sharp black claws that are sharp as knives and crackled with electricity. Her beak is bright yellow and gleamed with electricity. Erica found it rather impressive that such a predator treated her with so much respect. Behind these golden eyes seemed to hide more respect than Erica first thought.
"This is amazing!" said Erica in awe.
Erica raised a hand and Tempest lowered her head, letting Erica's hand brushed over her partner's head. The two of them both lowered each other's heads and touched each other with a smile before they backed away from each other.
"I can only be wielded by those who carries a brave and honorable spirit," said Tempest with a smile.
"I will try my best to live up to it," Erica said nervously.
"Being afraid is natural," said Tempest soothingly. "Being brave doesn't mean being unafraid. It means facing your fears and giving it your all."
Erica looked down as she took in this advise and looked up at Tempest with a determined smile as she said, "I'm willing to try give it my all for both of us."
"I'm glad to have you as my partner." Erica had came back to reality and looked around curiously to see she was back in the workshop. She put on her goggles and got to work on the top parts of her bey.
"Hey." Erica jumped in place and looked over her shoulder to see a proud-looking Valt with a basket filled with beybread and a bottle of apple juice and placed it on the table. "I've brought you something to eat." Valt looked over Erica's shoulder and smiled proudly at her as she finished the golden and white-headed symbol of Tempest on the top of her bey and placed the white and golden hinted eagle winged armor on the top part of Tempest.
When Erica was done, she took off her goggles and put Tempest's pieces together. Erica had ate the brought in beybread and drank from the water bottle. She looked over at Valt with a hesitant smile and showed her bey to him, in which he smiled proudly at and with approval.
"It looks like a balance type," remarked Valt.
"That's because it is," Erica said as she placed her goggles on the table with a smile.
Erica got up and looked down at her bey in her hand with a warm smile. It's blue with a swooping golden and white-headed eagle with brilliant golden eyes in the center of they bey. There are two pairs of yellow lightning bolts underneath the five-sided shape that depicts four white and golden eagle winged armor on her bey. It has a right-spin Gatinko Chip with four standard locks in the shape of eagle heads. It's a well-balanced weight with the center of gravity in the left and right. There's four sharp upper blades and two thick striking blades for the attacks. It consists of a metal core and has plastic piece in the shape of a lightning-shaped blade combined with its inward weight distribution for defense. It has a low angled, spring loaded cone shaped tip for stamina, but Erica had made it more stabilized better than most stamina typed beys.
"It looks awesome," said Valt as Erica picked up Tempest from the table and gotten up from her chair.
"Thanks." Erica looked at Valt with a nervous smile, but she smiled more calmly as she looked at Tempest.
"How about we head to the gym and introduce you to everyone?" Valt suggested with a warm smile and took hold of a black carrier case.
Erica started to trembling nervously at the thought of meeting huge groups of people. They might be rowdy and competitive compared to her. She's terrified to think she won't be able to fit in the huge team of BC Sol. Erica is mostly wary of people because she hasn't met anyone else since the loss of her mother. She usually prefers to be alone most of the time and ignore huge crowds of people altogether, since crowds makes her feel claustrophobic. Erica likes to watch beyblading by herself and explore the environment alone. Besides, Erica feels like she's too different to be truly understood. So, she had pulled up a calm and guarded mask to cover up her true nature. But that's when Valt had came along when she had her mask down and Erica felt as if she could actually be her true self around Valt... and possibly his friends.
Erica snapped out of her thoughts as she felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to see Valt looking at her with a comforting smile as he said soothingly, "Don't worry. There are lots of people who are just like you, they just show it in different ways."
Erica looked at him in surprise and was unsure of what to make of the idea of it. She didn't realized that all of these Bladers were covering themselves with protective shields over them to scare their opponents into submission of the matches. But at the end of the day, they're also terrified of losing for their own reasons. But now Erica understands that the Bladers are afraid as she is and yet they're gathering the courage to face their fears.
They just need the strength to find that courage, thought Erica.
Erica sighed as she gathered her own courage and looked at Valt as she said with a determined smile, "I'm ready. Lets do this thing."
"Great, lets introduce you to the team." Erica slipped Tempest into her bey pocket that's tied to her belt and walked by Valt's side as they headed towards the gym.
Valt opened the door to reveal a good deal of rookies practicing their beyblading skills with their friends/rivals in the stadiums. Erica was surprised to feel that she wasn't scared by them at all, she actually felt quite excited about the competition and curious about who would be her rivals as well as her friends. She could hear the laughter and cheering of teammates as well as the clashing and zooming of activated beys in the stadiums. Instead of the negative competitive spirit, she felt the strong positive spirits running through the air.
"How about I introduce you to Free?" Valt suggested to Erica, making her jumped in place.
"Free De La Hoya?" Erica tilted her head at Valt in curiosity, but she followed him towards a familiar person who was watching the rookies on a bench with a calm and slightly bored expression. The familiar boy's skin is fair, much like hers. His hair is spiky and long messy blond with a red streak running through it, though his eyes are black with dark gray rings and his pupils are barely visible. He's wearing a yellow shirt with turquoise stripes on the shoulder straps, borders of the shoulders and neck, and down the left side of the shirt, the right shoulder strap is separated into two: a horizontal one and a vertical one fastened with a silver button. He has a brown belt with a white stripe and golden rectangular buckle strapped around his light brown jeans. He has blue boots with loose tongues, red stripes and white soles, and has a fingerless glove on his left hand.
"Hey Free," said Valt with a warm smile.
"Hey Valt," Free said with a small smile as he gotten up from his bench and came to greet them, he looked at her with a curious expression. "Who's her?"
"Free meet Erica Cielo," said Valt.
"Nice to meet you." Free offered his hand awkwardly to her.
"You too." Erica clasped his hand with hers, both firmly and gently at the same time.
They both withdrew their hands as Free turned to look at Valt with a slight amusement in his gray eyes and said, "Is she going to be your student of yours?"
Erica looked at Valt nervously, who just smiled at her as he said, "Yes, she is."
"I am?" Erica looked at Valt in surprise and gratitude, while Free looked amused.
"I'm going to help you with the basics before we hit the harder stuff," Valt said to Erica.
"Okay." Erica smiled at Valt, feeling relieved to have him train her and nodded to him. "Thanks Valt."
"Before we start, I have a gift for you." Valt placed the carrier case on the bench with Erica and Free watching curiously by his sides. Valt unbuckled the case and revealed a bey launcher highlighted in yellow and the bey armor is yellow. "This will help you."
"Thank you Valt." Erica got out her bey and placed the armor on Tempest, she soon loaded Tempest into her new lightning launcher. She looked at him with an eager smile as they surround a empty stadium. "When can we start?"
Valt grinned excitedly and Free smiled calmly at Erica's calm excitement and determination. Erica couldn't help, but felt a good deal of excitement washed over her as she held her launcher in her hand. The three of them walked towards Free's practice stadium in the forest, Erica smiled at the place where she first learned about beys, beyblading, and battles.
Valt gotten into his launching position and loaded Valtryek into his launcher as he said, "Hit me with everything you got."
Free placed Fafnir in the center of the stadium by hand and said softly, "Lets see what you can do."
"Wouldn't have it in any other way," said Erica as she loaded Tempest into her launcher.
"Three!" Erica lowered on her legs and Valt readied himself too. "Two!" Erica relaxed her muscles, Valt grinned eagerly, and Free's dark eyes became lined with glowing gold. "One! Let it rip!" Erica jumped into the air and released her electric bey, Valt stopped spinning and released his bey, and Free's bey started to spin in the stadium.