Nov 12 18:40:50 106 PA - Celaeno turns tricks; Brady winds up on top

From Chronicles

North America - Old Highway

Though the night has long since grown deep and cold, barring the occasional wisp of cloud, the light of the waxing moon has lent enough of its light to the surrounding landscape to keep it from being dark. With most caravans and travelers having moved off the road, the only sounds to be heard are the occasional shifting of animals, hoots and howls, and the rustle of trees in the breeze. At least, such is the case until the whine of Celaeno's 'cycle begins to lift and break the serenity. Dressed in full urban-camo body armour all-but bare of any weaponry, she's taken to a lazy serpentine as she moves along the road, finally pausing near the wilderness to kill her motor and dismount.

Brady is well within the timeframe to meet, and might have claimed the honor of first to arrive... had he known precisely where she meant to rendezvous. She may well be holding the home field advantage, having rode this run of trail a hundred times. Not that that would slow his rise to the challenge one bit. He's not far behind when he becomes visible, or even audible, so he was likely waiting somewhere along the way for her to pass. Once he nears, his well-travelled NG-300 tri-jet slows and stops, then the whine dies as it settles. "I guess you decided to show. So, what's the terms, and the wager?"

Leaning against her rather solid NG-480 turbocycle, the helmeted figure of Celaeno remains motionless for several moments after the question is posed. Moving to slowly draw the only weapon at her side, she produces a somewhat oddly shaped sword; its long, tubular hilt adorned with a few oddly technological-looking wires makes its way into a comparatively elegant crystal blade. "This is mine. It was a gift a while back, but other'n for show it's not too much use to me. It's techno-wizard." With a small motion, she flicks it toward the ground, where it sticks for a moment before falling over. "You can back down if it's a little too rich for you. I'd hate to bankrupt you," she says, obviously enjoying the moment.

Brady dismounts and steps towards the blade, for a closer inspection. It doesn't take him but a moment or two to confirm her claim, and a low whistle is let loose. "Fine bit more than your average pig-sticker, that's for sure..." He then rubs at his chin, thoughts churning over numbers, percentages, and risks. "Well, doubt I got the creds to toss up front for that baby, but you were talking IOUs before, too. Now /that/ I can do," he looks to her with a wry smirk, "and you wouldn't mentioned it if you weren't going to take it. So you're looking to hold a little debt over my head, fine by me. You still got to win it, first."

"If that's really how you want it to be, baby, I'll be your loan-shark whenever you want," Celaeno says, her voice moving to the sultry. "But no bitching about it later, hmm? Nobody's going to say I didn't give you a choice in the matter," a laugh punctuates the sentence as she moves to recollect the sword, hand outstretched. "As for the game, I figured a simple game of HORSE. Repeat and Elaborate; every time you fuck it up, you get a letter, a fall counts for two, and if you crash and break your ride, you forfeit. Anything you want to add?"

The sultry is nice, even if the setting isn't what he'd prefer. Maybe that'll change after he wins. "I could hock my ride, here, and maybe put up solid, but I ain't needing to part with her just yet. You're match and raise bit of tricks sounds just fine by me." He flicks his hat back a touch and quirks a brow. "Unless you want out, now? Only neighborly I let you back down if it's too rich, Sunshine."

Taking the sword, Celaeno sheathes it in no kind of hurry as she turns to walk back to her bike, "Sounds good to me. Just make sure that you keep your eye on my 'cycle. I don't want to have to waste time and tell you what to do after the fact." Moving to straddle it and relax a moment before getting underway, she finishes, "Since I'm bringing the goods, you get to go first. Let's see what you've got."

Brady steps back and throws a leg over, fires up his 'horse' and snugs the chinband on his hat. "Sure thing. Just try and keep up, Sunshine. I'd hate to have to show you twice before you could try." A wink, and then he's aloft and off down the road, or what remains of it.

With a bemused expression hidden behind her faceplate, Celaeno kick-starts her 'cycle before launching herself straight up into the air. Following along, she flicks on her lights, maneuvering to keep them fixed on her opponent at all times."

It might not be a race, but he seems to prefer the speed, and it hastens his search. What is found is a boulder, either dug out for the road or a remnant of one past. Bike and rider barrel straight for it, then use it (and a timely burst of jets) to burst airborne. Neither seems intent to stay that way, however, and the rear jets are even cut for a moment, causing the bike to pitch backwards while gravity reassrts itself. A full backwards flip is completed just in time for all vents to come back to full, 'catching' Brady and mount back at the ground level and letting him speed on with barely a wobble. "Yeeehaw!"

Celaeno leans forward as she begins following at a relatively close clip behind Brady, hesitating for only the slightest of moments to observe his trick before leapfrogging him as he gives his victory yell. It may not be a boulder that she hits, but the giant stump serves a similar purpose as she hits it with a the throttle still accelerating her as she leans back in her own smooth back flip, keeping the jets on full as she catches herself, rocketing straight back into the air in an exaggerated 'hop,' pulling the 'cycle into a slower flip, though adding a barrel roll before recovering into a lazy spiral.

Brady both admires and despises her success and addition, but anything yelled out would be lost to wind and whine. A goose of the throttle sends him ahead of her lazy spiral, and he ramp-boosts off another stump. His flip is near flawless, and he deftly flirts with the ground on the return. Perhaps too, flirtatious, as his rebound is minimal. He rotates into a barrel roll, regardless, and might have just succeed, if no for the prevalence of those stumps. Too low to the ground, he catches his shoulder on one, which slows him far more than the bike. It keeps going, and he does not... well, not as quickly in flight as he does rolling along the ground.

Celaeno eyes Brady as he makes his first jump, and the wipeout on the second. Kicking out her spiral into a wider circle, she slowly makes her way down next to him, peering down at the capsized hovercycle. "That's H, O," she says, lacking in any further trash talk, though also not inquiring too much about his health. "Go pick up your ride, and get back in the air. Repetition starts over, my turn," is her simple statement, though she does wait for him to collect himself, and follows him to his bike before hitting her own engine and jumping back into the air, looping lazily until she finds a suitably large clearing, which she lands rather heavily in, hitting the jets hard. Her 'cycle leaps backwards at an angle, her weight leaning forward to reverse the angle as she hits the ground again with another burst. As she bounces forward to back, one hand hesitantly goes up as she makes her 'cycle imitate a bucking bull.

NOW Brady is free to yell, although the string of curses melds into more a grumble as he rights himself and stalks to the cycle. If he's more than bruised, his ire is hiding it, from himself, included. No sooner has he caught up to it, then raced up to catch her, and she's bouncing around like a bronc-busting cowgirl. It'll be a cold day when she outrides him like that. He leaps his way into the clearing, 'skidding' hard in that first tip-up braking, then bounds forward to the nose, and back. "Gotta do it proper, Sunshine!" His yell comes as he adds a twist to the bucking, and literally. His bike rotates about during the hops, throwing centrifugal forces into the mix, and making the experience far more genuine. A hand comes up to wave about as he looks like he could do this all night, to say nothing of 8 seconds.

After recovering from the bucking for the moment, Celaeno does a wide circle around the bucking Brady, allowing him to finish before launching into hers again. Forward, back, forward, back, and faster, and faster, she goes, before moving to add the twisting, keeping the bucking going. With the eight seconds completed, she keeps one hand straight in the air, index finger pointing to the sky as she gives it a hard twist, landing flat on her jets. The result? A flat spin as she hits on the jets hard, rocketing her into the air like a tornado, going up and up, until she finally levels off at around 100 feet, where she slowly stops the spin. Her movements to the side to watch from above seem slightly sluggish.

Brady settles back flat and level, if just so he can watch her attempt to keep up. After she does, and spins her way up into the air, he shakes his head. Not a denial, but delighted amusement. The city draws all the ornery women, which is a good thing in his book. He gets to rocking and bucking again, adds in the turn, and then slides into the flat spin before rocketing skyward. Once he reaches altitude, he doesn't stop, but turns and shoots off horizontal, pulling corkscrews. All this as if his jets were rocket motors, since he's still locked in the flat spin and moving with his hat as 'forward.'

Moving back down to ground level, Celaeno takes a moment to set herself against the series of tricks lined up in front of her. And she moves forward, bouncing into the air to get the bucking moving proper, forward back and... she slides too far forward over the handlebars as she bounces. Unable to recover fully from the sliding, the bump dislodges her fully, and she is well and truly bucked. Swearing and with a shake of her head, she takes another moment to stand and dust off, righting her 'cycle and remounting it.

Brady peeled out from his corkscrew to hover and observe. It looks like he didn't need to watch long, either, and he casually lowers to ground level while she gets herself re-situated. He doesn't hoot nor holler, but his grin might well be enough. Then it's time for him to take the lead, and he slides back to something more basic. For her benefit, of course. It begins with what seems a simple little thruster bunny hop, and then he shifts his weight and finesse into sliding one way, then the other as be bounces. All the while the front end moves very little, acting more as a pivot. It's time for him to see how well she can shake her backside.

Reseated, Celaeno moves to follow, bouncing quite handily as she moves, finally landing so that she's facing Brady, hitting the accelerator hard, directly at him. As the fatigue begins to sink in, she hits her jump as she intends before everything else goes all wahoonie-shaped on her. A slip her, a slip there, and she simply goes soaring over Brady, landing with a bumping skid before bouncing off once more. Laying on her back for several moments and staring at the sky, she moves back to her 'cycle, shrugging off any comment or actions as she pulls up besides her competitor, peering at him for several moments before taking off into another simple back flip, with near perfect form.

It's not that he doesn't trust her, but, well, Brady ducks, anyhow, as she blasts overhead. He flinches more as she skids and tumbles off to lay still. Then he watches her take off again, blinking as she takes back the role of leading. Fine, they've been this path before. He accelerates up and leaps skyward, flipping himself and landing hard only to bounce up. This time, the bounce is good, the ground vlear, and so his subsequent barrel rolls are squeeze in before he levels off.

Celaeno repeats the back flip, but as she goes to repeat her very own trick with about the same luck that Brady had, giving it just a final, single skid and collapse to lose the night. Alas, alack, she put up a good fight for a while, there. Moving to her feet, she rights her 'cycle again, removing the sword as she waits for a gloating Brady.

Brady moseys him and his cycle on over to her, hat tipped back and grin threatening his ears. "That was the most fun I've had with my boots on in a long time, Sunshine." He then leans forwards casually across his handlebars. "Bout time I bought you a round, don't you think?"

Celaeno extends the man his proper due, lifting her other arm to give a stretch as she so does. "Not tonight, I think. But I'm sure I'll take you up on it sometime - a girl's gotta drink, after all," she says, her voice grinning despite the loss. "Nah, nah, nah, tonight, I think, I'm going to go vent my frustrations on some poor bastard. Seems a good enough time, to me."

Brady can't help but laugh, although that doesn't stop him from accepting the prize. "Glad it ain't me," he almost reconsiders with his wink, "though a tussle with you can't be /all/ bad. Next round's on me, when the mood strikes you."

"Sure it can," Celaeno says, moving back to her 'cycle as she kicks starts it again. With a wave, she shoots back into the sky, not yet headed to Kingsdale, but approaching top speed as she goes.