Centrepiece

Chapter
40

Subtitle: Meeting of the Captains

Author: Jedi Princess Clarrisani

The
fic continues after that random insanity.

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“You
sure you don’t want anything? I could get you a cushion or-”

“Look,
Mariah, I’m not dying.” Bryan rolled his eyes as the pink haired woman
continued to flutter around him, making a general fuss. A thought occurred to
him, a comment he remembered Ian having made. Looking up, he kept a straight
face as he narrowed his eyes. “You’re as bad as Emily. She couldn’t take a
hint either. You’re both exactly the same.”

Mariah’s
face darkened as her eyes flashed, before it all returned to a calm serenity
that caused everyone in the room to shudder. “If you’re sure you’re okay,
I’ll leave you. Just sing out if you want anything.”

As
she left the room, Kevin looked up, eyes filled with awe and amusement. “Damn
you’re good.”

“Kevin!”

“Be
right there.” He looked back. “You have so got to teach me how you did
that.”

Bryan
smiled. “Later. Your bitch is calling you.”

“Tell
me about it.” He sighed as Mariah called out again, an edge to her voice.
“Later.”

As
soon as he was gone and Ray had chased away the rest of his teammates, he joined
Lee and Bryan at the table, Lee proceeding to fill them in on everything that
had gone on before in the meetings. As hour later he finished, Ray rubbing his
temples.

“I’m
getting a migraine,” Ray admitted, shaking his head. “That’s a lot to take
in at once.”

“It
is,” Lee said, leaning back in his seat. “And that’s just the main things.
I should have some Minutes somewhere that they sent me. I’ll copy them out for
you.”

“That’d
help,” Bryan said, tapping his fingers against the tabletop. “Though I gotta
say it sounds to me like these meetings go nowhere.”

“They
don’t.” Lee sighed, slumping. “They tell us what to do, we refuse. They
push us around, we have nothing of it. They call us old fashioned, and we
declare all out warfare.”

Ray
shook his head. “Why do they want it all to change? Isn’t it working
already?”

“Modernisation.
They want to keep it interesting, include new things.” Lee scowled. “At one
point they were talking of taking out the battles all together and simply having
blade races, but Robert and Michael saw to that. Robert has all the right
contacts that could have closed the BBA down, and Michael put his notes up on
his web site for the public to see, starting petitions and a heap of outcry.”

“So
that’s who did that.” Bryan
smirked. “Gotta give Parker some credit. Those riots were rather large and
violent.”

“Mm.
BBA threatened to put the authorities onto him for promoting hostility and
unrest.”

“And
Robert would have taken care of that too.” Ray sighed. “We all knew this
would happen when the BBA came under new management. Makes me wonder what Mr
Dickenson thinks about it all.”

“Doubt
he would be happy.” Lee picked at a mark on the tabletop. “He spent years
building the sport up into what it was, and now they come along and try to
change it.”

“Hn.
And call it ‘revolutionising’. Just another word for screwing everything up
if you ask me.” Bryan looked up toward Lee. “Anything else we’re gonna
need to know?”

“Yeah.
Better tell you how the meetings actually work.”

Ray
and Bryan listened keenly, mentally taking everything down as Lee described
layout, schedules, order and everything else relating to the structure of the
meetings themselves. They picked up on the fact that the older teams seemed to
be considered second rate, while the new teams were given first preference.

Ray
glanced to the side as he spotted Bryan’s face darkening, also noting the
anger that burned in Lee’s orange-gold spheres. Shuddering, Ray shifted,
feeling faint traces of his own anger as Lee continued, and by the time the
White Tiger captain finished, a tense silence hung over the room.

“Otherwords,”
Bryan said smoothly. “We can expect to be treated like shit.”

Lee
nodded. “Exactly.”

“Something
needs to be done about that.” Bryan smirked, crossing his arms over his chest
and leaning back in his seat. “I think it is time we made a stand.”

Lee
looked up sharply. “You’ll get arrested. Besides, they won’t listen.
We’ve been speaking out for over a year now.”

“You
forget,” Ray winked toward his best friend. “The public has a keen interest
in blading at the moment.”

Lee
stared at him a moment before chuckling. “I see. The whole sympathy thing.”

“We’ve
had such a hard few months,” Ray said dramatically, over-exaggerating his
movements. “We’ve been scorned, used and abused by those we trusted, and now
we find we are being ridiculed and violated by the organisers of our own sport!
It is simply not fair! We cannot take it! The world is out to bring us down!”

“Not
bad, Kitten.” Bryan looked toward Lee. “Well?”

“Works
for me, and I bet I can get Michael and Robert behind us as well.” Lee
smirked, chuckling. “Of course, you should wait until the day after the
meeting.”

“Experience
it first hand, you mean.” Ray nodded, eyes sparkling. “It’ll give us more
ammo.”

Lee
glanced at the time, raising an eyebrow before he stood. “I’ll just ring
Michael and see what he thinks. That is of course if he’ll listen instead of
drooling off every word.”

Bryan
looked up. “What does Spencer think about that?”

“He
puts up with it.” Lee shrugged, eyes twinkling. “I mean, he hasn’t
flattened him yet.”

Ray
glanced sideways at Bryan as Lee left the room. “The key word being
‘yet’.”

Bryan
sniggered.

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Bryan
pissed off Mariah by comparing her to Emily. Clever.