"Don't need any gods butting in, kid. This is about me and them. My body against theirs. Whoever wins, wins,"
"But THEY don't know that." he says softly to Cross. "Humans are a superstitious bunch. Let them think that you are protected and they will interpret every random incident as divine will. Now get out there and win!"
Cross shook his head, "If I'm going to win I don't want people blaming it on anything other than me. Same as if I lose. Also the glow might make me a target in the dark down there."
Emily wanted to get as good a vantage as possible to see everything, but didn't protest when Jin corralled her and the other psychics to the pit. As her senses grew keener than ever, she read as many people in the crowd as she could -- eager to sense the feelings of everyone around. The sense of calm she felt from Cross was almost unnerving. She felt more nervous and excited than he did!
"Good luck," she said, not sure what else to say to him. Emily did look for the other racers and tried to get a read on each of them, curious if any of them were as calm as Cross.
Up on the scaffold, Amaryst surveys the scene, the colors, the movement. She drinks in the rising susurrus of the crowd and the punctuating blatt of the monster flame spitting V-12 that drives the Dominator's bike. She shakes the poncho so that it hangs cape-like from her back and spreads her arms.
"This is living! Why don't we have anything like it?"
The question is rhetorical. She switches her attention to her own and then Rollo's gear, expecting him to check his own and then hers. Then she points out features on the course.
"Cross said there were five spots where trouble would be most likely although it could happen anywhere on the course. We can see three of them from here. There's also a half dozen spots like this one that other teams might use ..."
She starts pointing out the results of the scouting to Rollo.
Maldor simply shrugs, and lets the glow from his spell fade. He knew that people had different reactions to his faith, including some who were downright hostile. Either way, he was called to heal any who needed it.
Maldor steps back into the group, sticking close by Emily as they discuss how their powers were growing.
The racers primarily are feeling pride and excitement, although MLE can feel a great weight of fear on the back of George, the youngest and newest racer.
One of the people on the edge of The Pit seems to have noticed Maldor casting, made a big frown, and then subtly pulled out his commlink to make a call. After a moment, he pulled back from the edge, disappearing into the crowd.
Rollo is not wearing his armor, but he carries the autotarget rifle closely. He sits on the edge of the scaffold, listening but not responding to Amaryst's appraisal of the situation. When she indicates that she's interested, he checks her gear for her, telling her that everything is all clear. Then he simply watches, waiting for something to go wrong.
Down in the Pit, George sees Maldor casting his token spell, and the subsequent glow emanating from Cross' bike. Nobody else seems to notice, but George comes over to talk to Cross. "Hey, buddy.." he mutters, "uh... what was that? It seemed almost... supernatural."
|
As Jin was preparing, he caught a glimpse of someone in the crowd noticing Maldor... and then their reaction.
"Ya Ibn el Sharmouta" he swore under his breath as he walked up to Cross and Maldor and put a hand on each of their shoulders as he gently tugged Mal to come back down into the Pit "Your magic trick there just caught attention. And they reported back." he whispered as he to the psychic as he shot Cross a direct message through physical contact.
As he takes Maldor down towards the Pit he shoots Amaryst a similar text.
Emily saw the man in the crowd, just as Jin swore. Quickly, she tried to get a read on the guy before she lost sight of him...
"Oh no..." she muttered. "Maybe it is too risky for us to be here." Emily tried to keep calm, and waited for Jin to finish messaging, to see what he thought they should do.
"Just a bit of trickery," Cross said to George, his eerie calm staying in place despite the hard turn the situation just took, "My friend thinks flash and rumor will win a race. Just glad he didn't spray the bike with those micro-LEDs or whatever that was. They're a pain to scrub."
Amaryst responds everyone on an open comm. "I didn't see it. Jin, can you lead me to this guy? Maybe we can stop him before he gets outside."
She looks over at Rollo. "Looks like you've got it here. I'm going to meet Jin and the psychics."
She swings out over the edge of the platform and climbs down the scaffold's ladder, dropping the last few feet. She recovers, squares up and begins to push through the crowd to the pits.
There was a pause from Cross. He looked down the track for a lingering moment, considering something, then looked to where Jin and the other were.
The kids are more important than the race. I'll manage on my own, I've done it before.
Maldor talks quietly to Emily and Jin. "What's going on? Why is Cross and everyone freaking out? It wasn't a big deal - I didn't do anything wrong! Let's just watch the race and then we can leave..."
Amaryst shoulders into the pit. "Cross said the guy got a message off? I think he's probably right. We stick with the crowd and keep our heads down. It'd be good to get some eyes on the crowd. Jin, you and Maldor lead off. Em and I will follow and see if anyone takes too much interest in you."
|
|
"You didn't do anything wrong there per say but.. someone saw you and reported back to someone else. So we are moving up to sit with the Fergus brothers where it is safer." Jin said as he gathered up the things he had set up down in the Pit for the group "The crowd is too dangerous to stay in Amaryst, disregarding the kids possibly getting overwhelmed, theres too many people to keep an eye on."
The air-horn which signals the race will be starting imminently sounds. The racers start to guide their bikes over to the starting line. The sexy synthetic woman with the flag walks, hips moving farther side to side than any human could, to be in front of them. Announcements begin to blare, and floodlights switch on.
The Fergus Brothers have set up shop in the management office up top. An alien bodyguard, one of the four-armed kasatha, stands outside of the door to the place with both pairs of arms crossed. He wears a tank top to show off his muscles, but still wears a scarf to cover his mouth, like all kasatha too. He is packing.
Cross shuts off his music and leans in close to the body of his bike, trusting the automatic stabilizers and gyroscopes to keep him balanced. With just a touch of juice he wheels the vehicle forward to the starting line.
Instead of the revving of the engine, Cross's ride crackled with arcs of excess electricity along the wheel wells. He put his foot down, more for the look of the thing than because his ride needed any help balancing on two wheels. Seeing the exaggerated gynoid strutting around like an old fashioned flag girl, he realized he was never going to get to have that long talk with the Ferguses about fetishizing augs and arties.
Still, nothing impinged upon the overriding calm he felt. He was where he was supposed to be, doing what he was supposed to be doing. For a few minutes at least, everything lined up just as it was supposed to.
2 floating +4 bonuses
-Can use on any Piloting check of your choice during the race.
Your speed is increased by 20% - for every 5 spaces you move forward, you move forward an additional space. This can stack between rounds, so just count it up.
Once per week can choose to auto succeed a failed driving check
Uncanny Pilot: When you attack while you’re driving a vehicle, you halve the vehicle’s penalty to your attack roll (to a minimum of no penalty if the vehicle normally imposes a –1 penalty). When you’re in a chase, you gain a +2 bonus to skill checks you attempt when taking the evade or trick pilot actions.
Without a word, the kasatha bodyguard steps aside and opens the door for Jin and Maldor. Inside, the Fergus Brothers sit along with a couple of technicians, watching a variety of screens. Some screens have stats on the bikes or the riders, some screens have betting info versus odds, and other screens are direct camera feeds from the brothers' many camera drones.
Cross is currently sitting on 12 to 1 odds.
One of them looks up when Jin and Maldor enter. "Uh, hey," he says. "Can I help you?"
|
|
”I’m sorry to intrude but Cross, a friend of mine and one of the racers, said I might be able to lend my technical expertise to you up here?” Jin explained to the man very much holding their lives in his hand right now ”I’d be happy to assist for free, all I was hoping to ask in return is to keep a few friends of ours up here safe. There was someone on the ground floor I’d very much rather avoid.” he finished slightly nervously, hoping that his earnestness and the implication of ruining the race if something went wrong would help to persuade the organizers.
Albert Fergus, the older Fergus, frowns. "You'd like to keep them up here safe? As in, you're in danger?"
Steve chips in, "I'd prefer not to be in any danger myself, thanks."
|
|
”Only the kind of danger that stems from being seen, which I am sure given your profession you two know well?” Jin says to the two brothers in an attempt to assuage their fears, appealing to their chosen trade ”All they are needing is escape from the public eye if you catch my drift. And you’ll get some free work out of it in return.”
{ Mind sister, what do you think of all this?}
At the admin center, Amaryst remains outside with the kasatha, whom she sizes up. "He spotted some cops working comms but they slipped into the crowd. It might get exciting before we're all done here."
Emily kept her eyes open and scanned the crowd, looking for the man who had seen them -- or anyone else who took any unusual interest in them, Particularly Mal and Jin.
{I'm scared.} Emily responded, while they waded through the crowd. {Do you think they'll just kill us? Or try to capture us?}
When they reached the office, Emily's first reaction was to try to read the four-armed bodyguard.
Maldor walked along next to Emily, quiet and sullen, feeling everyone had blown the whole incident WAY out of proportion...
Amaryst stops talking, suddenly somber. And you're looking at a pair of dead vesk.
After a few moments regarding Jin, the Fergus Brothers allow him and his friends into their office, though they quickly put him to work collating statistics and working on a moment-by-moment predictive model for the most likely winner.
On the ground below, the synth flag-girl waves her flag.
The crowd shouts in sync with the loudspeakers' blaring,
The racers' engines rev and blare. Though their helmets are all reflective and opaque, each look is a small insult.
Everyone's eyes are on the screens or the course now. The race starts at the edge of the treatment plant, allowing for a long stretch of straight ground - perhaps one of the few that allows a straight peel-away for speed.
- - -
1 - Yu, The Dominator
2 - Missile
3 - George
4 - Simon
0 - Cross
|
|
”Mal, I know ya are probably worried. But there is no way the guy could have seen us come here” Jin says quietly to the kid as he and Cassius work on the statistical work, putting Yu as their likely candidate for victory currently due to the large size of Dominator’s bike, which will cause a lot of drag and slow him in the long run ”And even if he suspected, that huge bodyguard of theirs and Amaryst would keep them from getting anywhere close to confirm it.” he finished, hoping that would comfort the psychic a bit.
Amaryst dips her head slightly to the kasatha and takes up a position on the other side of the door. She watches the crowd, occasionally straining to see the course, and less occasionally flicking her glance to the big screens, and listens to the engines wind up and fade as the bikes transit the course.
Without looking at him, she tries to engage the kasatha again, "There's nothing like this on Casovel. It's terrific. Do you like the races, or is this just a job?"
Her gaze drifts upward to the different vantage points where Rollo, and maybe some other teams' spotters, guards, or assassins wait.
In a crackle of overcharged electromagnets, Cross takes off. What he had been able to do with the antique back when he and Smyrna were escaping the cops had been artful, but the deft way he wove between the other racers now could have been compared to a dance except that implied there were any superfluous motions at all. Soon enough the matte indigo of his custom cycle was gaining on Yu and Dominator.
"What? Me? Worry?! I'm not worried...It's all of you who are freaking out because one guy came over after I lit up Cross. It's not like he called anybody or made a big scene or anything! Maybe you all need to have your adrenal glands checked...or cut back on the java. You're gonna pop a vessel in your brains if you stress out over every person who looks at us. Just sayin'..."
As Cross' speed allows him to catch up with Yu and the Dominator, a sharp turn into the pipe-choked interior of the plant comes up. Yu takes it conservatively, going around the bend slowly, but the Dominator attempts to swerve over to one side before taking the turn more sharply than normal, in an attempt to trick the riders behind the three front-runners.
Simon and George attempt to speed up, trying to make up for lost ground, while Missile pulls out a big gun, trying to keep pace while he lines up a shot. The fun is a huge cannon meant to propel a projectile very fast - a reaction cannon.
The Dominator successfully bluffs the racers behind him, and then guns it, shooting into the complicated racetrack at inadvisable speeds. Yu follows closely behind, sticking to the inside edge and taking the speed on his ride down a bit.
George speeds up even more, which might bite him in the ass when he has to swerve into the course itself, but he passes Simon at least.
Simon, the British racer, falls completely for the Dominator's trick, smashing head-on into a tangle of pipes instead of turning around the course. He's out of the race for sure.
- Yu, The Dominator
- Missile
- Cross <--- you are up!
- George
-
- Simon (wrecked)
- - - - -
The kasatha bodyguard regards Amaryst. As a fellow alien on Earth, they probably share some life experience, but kasatha are legendarily short. "Sta'ted as a job," he says, his English accent not quite on - he misses the R. "Like it now, though. The B'others pay decent. Not easy to get legal work as offworlder."
He looks up at the closest screen. "We don't have this on the Idari. No space or chance to take such risk." The last "R" sound kind of sounds like a strangled "L".
K-Van is inside the Fergus Brothers' office, totally absorbed in the videos of the racers. "Look!" he shouts, "Cross is totally keeping pace with those pro racers!" He pumps a fist into the air.
(Two movement thanks to speed optimization)
Cross got a good look at the reaction cannon Missile was sporting for this race. Looking back to George, he snaps a salute and then leans in close to the body of his motorcycle, pulling just ahead of Missle. In the next turn, he purposefully lets his rear wheel drift hard through a puddle and kick up a sparking curtain of water into Missile's face.
Missile levels his cannon at Cross' bike and fires a slug. The slug strikes Cross' bike along one tire, leaving the back wheel swerving wildly from side to side. Another couple hits like that and Cross' bike will be out of commission.
Just ahead, the path gets much smaller and more complicated. Yu and the Dominator, who were driving at crazy speeds, are screeching to a halt in preparation for a maneuver through the smaller tunnels.
- Cross, Yu, The Dominator, Missile
- George
Cross's drifting turn lets him kill some speed and swerve wildly to try and avoid another shot by Missile. He had hoped to take them out early but had only succeeded in making himself a target.
Emily felt bad after Mal's outburst, but the start of the race had already grabbed her attention. It was so fast! And everything seemed to be happening all at once, she could barely keep up with what was going on. Such a short time in and one racer was already out, but it looked like Cross was doing well...until one of the other racers shot his bike.
"That guy shot at Cross!" Emily blurted out with genuine surprise and confusion. "Can he do that? Is he allowed to do that!?"
|
|
”There aren’t usually too many rules in these kinds of races Emily” Jin explained ”I gotta admit though. I am surprised Cross passed on the chance to get some free distance on the others. Those turns in there must be tight.” He continued as he scrutizinized the race. What is Cross doing? He needs to put distance ahead of the other two if he wants a chance at beating Dominator and Yu..
Mal quickly gets caught up in the excitement, cheering for Cross when he used his wheel to spray the other rider, and sucking in his breath when that rider shot at Cross with his cannon!
[dice=Missile Keep Pace (DC 11) (trick)]1d20+8-2 The kasatha bodyguard regards Amaryst. As a fellow alien on Earth, they probably share some life experience, but kasatha are legendarily short. "Sta'ted as a job," he says, his English accent not quite on - he misses the R. "Like it now, though. The B'others pay decent. Not easy to get legal work as offworlder."
He looks up at the closest screen. "We don't have this on the Idari. No space or chance to take such risk." The last "R" sound kind of sounds like a strangled "L".
"Tell me about it. Humans are an insular lot sometimes."
Amaryst's bonhomie subsides as Cross takes a hit. Her attention swings inevitably to the screens.
I hate leaving him out there without more cover. I hope Rollo stays cool.
Yu and the Dominator head into the tangled mess of pipes slowly, trying to gauge exactly when to slow down and when to speed up in the tight quarters, bumping into one another. Cross can hear them shouting at each other up ahead. Meanwhile, both George and Missile fail to take down their speed soon enough to avoid disaster in the small tunnels up ahead. They slow down to a complete stop, and their bikes stall... both curse, trying to rev their bikes up to a start again.
- - - - [end of race]
-
-
-
- - - - [unsteady pipes above ready to drop]
-
- - - - [unsteady flooring with big pit underneath]
-
-
- - - - [death-defying jump]
-
- Yu, the Dominator
- Cross
- - - - [tangled mess of pipes]
- Missile (stalled), George (stalled)
Making it out of the pipes, Cross decides to take a gamble. The next section was some of the trickiest driving of the course. Yu and Dom were both being painfully careful and not taking any risks. Cross was not so averse.
Excess energy crackled from his electromagnets as he opened up with his monster and shot past Yu and Dominator, choosing to take the jump at speeds the two more experienced racers were hesitant to consider.
Maldor's heart was beating so fast he thought it might burst from the effort as he watched Cross actually accelerate in the tight confines of the course, and he yells in triumph as Cross shoots past into the lead!
Cross guns his way past his competitors, scraping the edges of his vehicle on the sides of Yu's bike as he careens around the tight corners in the pipe-filled hallway. Up ahead, a twisted piece of piping points up and indicates the end of the road. In front of it, only air. Cross takes the jump at high speeds, flying through the air in the treatment plant before landing on a scaffold set up for the race.
Behind him, Yu comes flying and lands on the scaffold.
The Dominator's bike apparently stalled, but he kicks it into gear and rushes towards the jump, trying to pick up enough speed to make it. He curses, pulling out a pistol.
At this point, the bikes of Missile and George are just too far behind... unless something drastic happens to Cross or Yu, its very unlikely that they'll win.
- - - - [end of race]
-
-
-
- - - - [unsteady pipes above ready to drop]
-
- - - - [unsteady flooring with big pit underneath]
- Cross
- Yu
- - - - [death-defying jump] The Dominator
That moment of freedom as he freed himself from the shackles of gravity yet again, then his wheels hit the ground with what would have been a tooth-rattling jolt, if Cross still had teeth. Without pause Cross, takes to the shaky scaffolding without an ounce of fear, weaving back and forth and trusting his ride.
Then come the pipes, Cross's motorcycle lowers the suspension until the chassis is scraping along the ground and kicking up sparks. This was what he was waiting for, the moment where the freedom of his ride and his trust in his skills came together.
- - - - [end of race]
-
- Cross
-
- - - - [unsteady pipes above ready to drop]
- Yu, The Dominator
- - - - [unsteady flooring with big pit underneath]
-
-
- - - - [death-defying jump]
As Cross speeds so fast that he makes it across the the unsteady ground without even steering (the un-supported parts of ground falling from beneath his bike just as he passes them), Yu and the Dominator struggle to keep up. Yu's bike suffers a temporary technical failing. Some power re-routing on the Chinese man's part allows him to pick up speed once again, but he falls even farther back than he was before.
The Dominator shows his skill by taking the jump at lower-than-recommended speeds, landing on his front tire when he reaches the scaffolding and speeding up to make it neck-and-neck with Yu. However, he is with the Chinese man in being behind... It's looking close to the end for them.
Having left the two ‘better’ racers behind, Cross hurtles through the finish line. Yanking the handlebars to the side, he sends the body of the motorcycle into a dramatic spin, kicking up mud and water as the steering system transfers the forward momentum into centripetal force.
He spins, tracing numerous figure eight patterns, the body of his motorcycle nearly parallel with the ground until he finally kicks it out of the spin, righting himself and his motorcycle before coming to leisurely stop.
As Cross flies across the finish line and then spins out in a dramatic, and ostentatious, manner, Maldor cannot help but whoop and holler and pump his fist in the air to celebrate the victory!
|
|
Jin silently cheers as he forwards the finished data to the Fergus Brothers. Amazing! He actually did it, this couldn't have gone better he thinks to himself.