RP [Phoenix Team] - Through the Gift Shop

Discussion in 'Phoenix Team' started by Luca, Sep 5, 2016.

  1. Luca

    Luca Administrator Staff Member

    Sargasso, Barrier Island, Wayward Mall, One Stop-Servomat
    Wayward Mall was the largest place to go shopping on Sargasso's Barrier Island. Comprising of a four tiered building with uneven floors on the east wing of of the Mall to the west wing. Between the East and West wings was a large highway with diversions inside, to the carpark under the mall and beneath it. In addition, mechanics worked out of the strip malls on the northern and southern sides of the mall, making it a popular go-to spot for revheads to show off their wheels - or gravity nullers for airbikers.

    Today, Luca was loitering at the One-Stop Servomat, looking out at the noon beach and all the colours of the umbrellas and towels, snacking on some jerky, leaning on his crimson motorcycle. Occasionally, he'd look the other way at the highway and traffic, picking out vehicles he hadn't seen before. Most of them had wheels, the ones which didn't were in a sky lane above the highway, marked with little spots of hardlight projected from down below.

    After what went down in his apartment, he decided to spend more time out than sitting on his rear, and he was hoping for a quiet day without a word from Yttrium, her debtors, the Units, Rex, or Echelon. As a Unit floated by him on an unspecified errand, Luca had mild concerns that it would follow him up on what happened before - but they kept on moving and he heaved a sigh of relief.

    While he re-centered himself, he heard the sound of a new bike pulling into the strip mall, and heading towards the Servomat. He raised his head and watched it pull in.

    It wasn't quite a bike he found himself looking at, but what looked like a mad love child of a caterpillar track, a snowmobile, and a motorcycle. Clearly meant for almost anywhere but the perfect, smooth roads of a Unit-made city, the thing looked like it could eat a mountain and then go for seconds. The owner, despite wearing full leathers, was clearly some manner of alien from the proportions alone. The shoulders too wide, the helmet too long, the arms that seemed almost too long for its torso.

    Quickly measuring up the creature's proportions and his past experiences, Luca quickly deduced that this was one of those. A Chelti. Where they went, trouble soon followed, and he had to shelf the idea that a calm day was ahead of him. At least he could make it an enjoyable one as he watched the bike and its half-track pull up, looking out of place amongst the choppers, dual-sports, and airbikes - but not losing out on the attitude.

    Some of the nearby patrons, garbed in embroidered road leathers and crash suits covered in patches, came to give the thing a closer look while Luca and others hung back to admire the thing at a distance. "I wonder how much mileage those things get?" Luca wondered aloud as a Mindeye in a crash suit and helmet bent down near him to look at the chelti biker's tank treads in closer detail.

    The machine rolled to a smooth stop in the look, the helmet turning to the on-lookers and turning curiously. There was a loud squawk of protest from one of the saddle bags and with a puff of loose feathers a tufted ball of preening feathers crawled out of the saddlebag and hopped up the riders back to their shoulder.

    It leered at the on-lookers grumpily, clearly not having enjoyed its ride in the tight pack.

    "Whaddya all looking at? Never seen such a good looking bird before? GET LOST!" It shouted at the crowd with a surprisingly loud voice. The mindeye getting a closer look stood up and backed off, and a couple of the onlookers faint of heart vacated and gave the chelti room. Luca stayed against his motorcycle and continued watching the Chelti.

    The rider simply stood and swung their leg from the bike, not even needing to kick down a stand to keep it up right. Lifting a hand to the visor and pushing it up, the brown, blunt muzzle of a chelti validated Luca's observation.

    "Please don't mind da bird. It has a mouth but no manners. Evolution has not blessed his kind with such." The chelti said, pulling a scrap of jerky from a pocket and holding it up to the smaller creature, who grudgingly took a bite.

    "Be thankful evolution didn't give him opposable thumbs instead, or we'd all be in a whole heap of trouble." Luca replied with some playful banter as he eyed the bird and then the rider, who seemed polite enough. "How ya doing?"

    More jerky stuffed into a half-reluctant beak. "I am well. How fare thee? Be ye one of the Manikin, or another kind?" The chelti asked, taking off the helmet and cricking its neck. Clearly this was one of the ones who'd learned Basic from the older textbooks.

    "Pretty good, crazy last few days though." Luca pointed his thumb at himself. "Ever had to deal with a crude before?"

    The chelti tipped its head, a mild grumble from the bird on its shoulder which Luca thought he could hear "who cares." out of the small creatures stomach. Large eyes, glowing from the bright light of day under the brim of the helmet, tinged a dull red watched Luca. The effect might have been unnerving if one wasn't used to aliens.

    "I fear I can only see you in the waking dream." It replied. "I do not know of a creature called a Crude, is it tasty?"

    He thought about that for a moment, remembering some of his and Yttrium's less than fine moments. "Well. They're basically like black cats ... who walk on two legs ... made of oil." Luca tried to carry the analogy further before shaking his head. "They're a lot of trouble to keep, but they can turn plastic into petrol." Some of the other onlookers knew this too, nodding.

    As he was about to continue talking, he heard another group of motorcycles pulling up and watched them behind the chelti. "Hm?" Luca mumbled as he watched the new arrivals bump up from the car park in front of the strip mall and onto the pavement, rolling into the mall. Even though barriers were present to keep cars out after one too many mall driving incidents, they weren't great at stopping smaller vehicles. A couple of the onlookers noticed this too, exchanging utterances of surprise as a couple of other riders followed the first into the mall.

    They didn't look like very friendly characters, riding on obnoxious choppers and scrap-like airbikes painted in warlike, threatening colours, wearing spiked crash suits with what appeared to be multiple patch jobs applied liberally, and they carrying bats and chains. Luca pointed past the Chelti with widened eyes - and the start of a smile. "Uh, I think we got company!" He said, voice rising as he realised that there was a brawl to be had.

    Coming in hot on the heels were substantially less substantially less police bikes, and small drones whizzing past to televise or examine what was going on to televise or examine what was going on. The chelti turned and looked, pulling a pair of aviator sunglasses out of a chest pocket and placed them upon its snout. The human-compatiable eyewear sitting out ridiculously on the snout of the alien.

    "Huh? Already? I just got here..." the alien huffed, reaching into the closest saddlebag on its machine.

    Luca meanwhile was checking a hip holster, grabbing a sidearm and activating the battery after a cursory check, then holstering it on the bike and mounting it. "Are these - these friends of yours?" He asked as he looked over his shoulder, pushing the bike into gear. Onlookers meanwhile started to mount their own vehicles, looking to scatter and not be implicated in whatever was going to go down at Wayward Mall today.

    The alien itself seemed to pick up a telescoping tube, a flick of the switch sprouting what looked like a cross between a billy-club, and a set of spanners. Clearly made for hitting people and much more besides.

    The smaller bird creature hopped down from the leather clad arm and hopped onto the pavement, where it began preening itself casually.

    "All yours buckaroo!" It chirped happily.

    "Here for the money, gone for the danger..." The alien replied.

    "Whose money? Like - bounties?" Luca tried to conjugate the odd dialect as the Mindeye wearing the helmet jetted off ahead of Luca and the Chelti, merging amidst the police with a whittled plank in their hands with a nail sticking out of the business end. "I'm all for, uh, good sport! Yeah...!" He tried to mimic the archaic way of speaking the marsupial was using.

    By this time, most of the customers to the servo had made disappeared, leaving the Chelti, his parrot, and Luca standing in front of a shop with its shutters closed, the owner peering from inside and waiting for it to end. "Ready?" Luca asked, reversing into the parking lot and aligning himself with a curve into the mall. The shutters there hadn't come down yet, and people inside looked like were staying against the walls, moving out through broken windows.

    The chelti swung their leg over the bike-thing and sparked the engine, the bike pivoting in the center as the handle bars turned, letting it turn almost on a dime. Luca whistled at the capability. He hadn't seen a decent mountain crawler since he left his home town. The big eyes behind the visor looked at Luca like it was trying to come up with a catchy one-liner, but gave up and laid on the accelerator. The edges of the track kinking to turn the bike through the tight quarters of the mall, the sound of crunching tiles left in the bike's wake, followed by a sleeker engine catching up beside them.

    Luca squinted as he and the Chelti passed through the Western plaza of the mall, "We're a bit behind," he pointed out as he tried pinpointing the sounds of the bikes echoing throughout the mall's glassy corridors. "I don't know where they-"

    ♫ Grand Theft Auto V - Mr. Phillips ♫

    A loud bang thundered over the sounds of the engines, and glass showered from above Luca. Then one bike came down, landing on its wheels and zipping ahead, then another, and suddenly three more. "Oh, perfect!" He watched one cyclist lose his grip on the tiles from high up, fishtailing and wobbling before smashing into a stone column and cartwheeling through the glass cases of a knife shop. It was not pretty.

    "You wanna catch up? Okay!" The alien replied, before steering their machine into the middle of the hall, remaining customers scrambling into stores around them. Luca was moving into position too, gripping the accelerator and drumming his fingers, as he watched more riders, and then the police and their drones fall from above ahead of him. He was going to join in from the front.

    The machine next to him let out a scream of scratching metal as the mountain crawler scaled up the ramp of escalator stairs at speed, sparks flowing out behind it as one unfortunate patron was forced to jump over the side and hand onto the hand rail. The machine sailed majestically through the air, much like a brick didn't, and caught a passing biker in the face, knocking them down as the machine landed over them, turning to join the chase from the middle of the pack of Apaches.

    The yellow eyes behind the helmet looked at the gang members for a split second, trying to find something, before taking the next corner around the spiral mall faster than any of the other machines could match and driving straight through a coffee shop seating area, tossing chairs and tables as it went, strewing them across the walkway, forcing the chase to slow down through the debris.

    One of the cop cars rode up on the side of a table and spun out of control, turning so the rear smashed through the handrails and the rear wheels hung over the two storey deep mall. Two, rather frightened cops were witnessed hugging each other in a manly fashion as Luca caught up from down below, between the police and the gang members they were chasing. All the while, news drones followed the chase. It didn't take a lot of imagination to see the producers screaming at their type monkeys for a headline on this and live feed, forget news at 11.

    Unfortunately, the crawler couldn't match the more conventional machines on the straight, being overtaken by some of the Apaches as they hauled past. A larger chopper and a brash looking rider with a pot belly was keeping pace with the Chelti, brandishing a chain and an awful looking scraggly beard. Down below, Luca had his eyes on the guy he'd found himself next to, wearing an acid green crash suit and carrying a sword.

    Glancing ahead, Luca could see a small T intersection, leading down to the toilets and emergency exits to the mall. Back at the man in green, and they had their arm back, looking at him - and not at the small intersection ahead. The red rider cocked his leg and leaning into it, punted the other bike off to the left, first bouncing off a stone wall between shops, then veering into the small access junction and smashing themselves through a glass display of hand-made soaps.

    Pulling up beside Luca was one of the police on an airbike with a strobe flashing red and blue, brandishing a prod. "I'm not with them-" Luca tried to explain as the policeman thrust the business end of the prod towards him, and Luca swerved to the right to avoid it and glanced at the next bike ahead, raising his right arm and letting the Grapple Stunner wind up as he lined up the back wheel of the chopper.

    He caught a glimpse of the chelti ahead dodging a swing of the chain from his own assailant, the two bikes maintaining positions abreast. The roar of engines echoing throughout the mall like mechanical torture, over the screams of the customers who still hadn't gotten out of the mall, either because they couldn't look away from the action, or were incapable of following simple instructions under duress.

    The chelti looked ahead and saw the next corner coming, swinging into it, both bikes separated briefly, almost colliding again as they joined the other side, engines drowning out words between them.

    Grinning, the pot-bellied biker wrapped the chain tight around his arm and took another swing at the chelti, the knotted club deflecting it over his head. The chelti looked ahead and then turned to his attacker. Their bikes rubbed together as the two attackers steered into each other, the chain was raised again, but this time instead of flailing to deflect it, the chelti reached out before the swing could complete and wrapped the chain around his club.

    Pulling his bike away and stretching out his club-wielding arm, the other biker snarled and tugged at the chain before looking ahead and seeing the long straight pillar support of concrete through the walkway. Not even having time to scream as the chain struck it. The chelti got the club wrenched out of their hand and left behind. The biker wasn't so lucky, clutching a thoroughly dislocated arm as they slid to a stop against a shop front.

    The chelti kicked away the still running bike next to them, sending it wobbling and then careening against the handrail, flipping foward and sailing down to the floor below. Causing a rather rude, but culturally insignificant gesture from the fallen bikers more located arm at the chelti as they rode the next corner up the mall.

    Down below, the Chelti could hear a sudden expulsion of gas, and the whistling of a cord in the air as a grapnel sailed towards the back of the chopper in front of him, gripping onto the carry rails and clamping around it. The device on Luca's arm begun reeling the bike towards him, or rather, reeling his bike towards the other and catapulting himself further into the tide of belligerent motorcyclists.

    The sound of crunching metal and a rupturing gas tank from behind told Luca that whatever was going on above him, his supposed ally was holding his own. Focusing on what was ahead, the cyclist ahead of him was looking at the thing dragging his bike backwards, puzzled by the sudden deceleration. As their eyes followed the line, Luca kept his right hand on the handlebar and his left around his pistol, lining a shot up and firing at their centre of mass - in this case, the motorbike.

    The discharge from the Mark 8 pistol glowed a bright red for a brief moment, melting a section of the bike's engine block into slag and making something inside crunch to a halt as hot oil and petrol begun spraying, swiftly ignited by the radiant heat as Luca reeled his line back in and zoomed ahead of the burning cycle. The biker's leg was on fire, his bike was on fire, he spotted a water feature ahead and swerved between Luca and the Chelti to line himself up and douse himself, spotting a small incline ahead.

    As the biker on fire flew through the air, the rider had majestically misjudged the speed needed to land in the fountain, and not in the doughnut stall just ahead of it, leaving a motorcycle-shaped hole in the doughnut stand, and a man shaped hole beside it, both on fire.

    The chelti watched as Luca took down his own mark as they turned the corner above. The Apaches numbers were running thin, but the police in the chase were also taking down the bikers who had joined in. Wondering just how much mall they had left the chelti looked through the remaining Apache, trying to find the one he wanted.

    Luca glanced over his shoulder at the police and the riders who were eager to join in clashing whilst he and the Chelti were further ahead, not as hampered and able to focus on the Apache bikers, well what remained of them. An airbike with a chrome finish was up ahead, sporting ludicrously large exhaust pipes, pin ups of curvy women on their bodywork. Between the cyclist's legs was a shotgun resting in a holster, and on their back was the flag of the colony of Fade. It was the outlaw Nathan the Punk.

    "Bah, those cops are busy looking for any target, like those other guys we trounced." Nathan spat, glancing at his mirror and scowling. "But who're these two? No matter, we'll see how they crash." He knew he'd loaded his shotgun this morning, and it'd been seeing plenty of action today.

    Luca was the first to get closer to the remaining four Apaches, having more speed on the mall's straight lines than the Chelti's machine, and he was watching which of them to engage first, when he saw something green bouncing against the tiles, towards his bike. Leaning to his left and between a shop and a column, Luca heard an explosion behind him, while the Chelti's machine emerged from the smoke, only peppered with small bits of the explosion, as he hadn't caught up to the blast radius thankfully.

    "Oh boy, now we - we get interesting!" Luca said, voice breaking as his heart skipped beats in the heat of the moment. He couldn't even hear what he was saying as his ears rung.

    The cheltis machine turned and screeched up another set up escalator stairs, coming up just ahead of the Apache leader, who zoomed past. Nathan saw the chelti point at him meaningfully, before falling slightly behind, one of his closer bodyguards sidling up to deal with the interloper, raising the twin barrels of a sawn off shotgun. The bodyguard was wearing black and red crash mask, with a paintjob that made it look like a crying demon's face. Truly, these bikers liked to have a look.

    From behind them, the Chelti heard the discharge of the grapplegun again, this time clamping around the cyclist's helmet and pulling them backwards off their bike, blasting a hole in the ceiling, slamming against the ground and tumbling into a cheap kiosk that sold covers for telecommunications devices. From behind, Luca pulled up and gave the Chelti a thumbs up. He had their back, and there were still three other riders to worry about.

    "What're you thinking?" Luca pondered over the sound of his and the Chelti's roaring engines.

    "I'm thinking of borrowing a grenade and taking the big one with me!" The chelti replied, leaning hard into a corner and bumping their bike against one of the Apache, the one with the bandoleer of grenades hanging confidently around their chest. The two made eye contact, yellow eyes going to the grenades, the Apaches hand going to his shotgun.

    Luca followed the corner, and wasn't surprised to see the Chelti's machine briefly riding the wall as it took the turn. Luca had to take his corner slower than his machine's top speed, and ended up behind the Chelti briefly before zooming ahead. "I'm taking the spare wheel, then!" Luca said as behind him, police and the other riders were either not taking the corner and smashing into the merchandise shop for geeks, or getting around the corner slow.

    The drones were able to make the sharp corners without a problem, and were shining lights into what appeared to be the final stages of this thrilling motorcycle chase. Executives and news broadcasters would have a field day with this one.

    Reaching out, the chelti made sure the shotgun stayed in its holster, fighting for grip at high speed in the walkways. The gun flailing wildly as the drive continued, it was only a matter of time before the gun went off by accident or design, and it did. The instrument panel of the biker's machine exploding in sparks.

    Both riders separating as they fought to regain control, the chelti machine spinning off and narrowly avoiding a fishmongers wares, sitting serenely in their giant ice buckets. Seeing no other weapon in sight the chelti snatched a particularly large specimen from the bucket as they passed before pulling down the accelerator again.

    The two machines clashed once more, time the Apache bodyguard receiving a large frozen fish to the face for his troubles. The weapon of choice bouncing away down the mall behind them before bouncing up and landing against the windscreen of one of the police cruisers with a loud, wet smack. The chelti grabbed at the belt of grenades and pulled one free, holding it in their fist as they smacked the bodyguard once more, sending their helmeted head against the scraps of their handlebars, the abused chrome metal finally broke and left holding a broken handle, the Apache watched in shock as his machine ran full speed into a toy shop.

    The chelti waved their knuckles painfully before swinging into the corner to catch up to Nathan himself. Meanwhile, the last bodyguard the Chelti hadn't dealt with was raising a boxy submachine gun with a laser sight mounted on the top rail, painting an erratic red dot on the Chelti's back, when Luca's crimson motorcycle caught up by his right, out of the bodyguard's line of sight.

    A knobby flail brandished by Luca slammed into his helmet, cracking the visor and throwing his aim off as bullets peppered the air, smashing windows and putting holes in teddy bears and the food court. Luca continued swinging the flail into the biker, knocking their hands on the handlebars, hitting them in the head again, and shattering the windshield with another well placed swing, and punting him into a potted plant.

    As Luca's flail reeled back into his gauntlet, the grapplegun's piton curled back into a grapnel shape. He flung it towards a One-Stop Sandwich bar and grabbed himself some very fast food, tucking it into the other holster on his motorcycle for later as he looked ahead, spotting the Chelti approaching Nathan the Punk. Behind them, sirens wailed and they were starting to run out of mall, approaching plate glass windows looking out onto, the highway which ran parallel to the mall.

    "Nay-tan Thy Funk! I would speak with you!" The chelti shouted at the gang leader, staring at him through his visor.

    "Speak to this!" Nathan replied, red in the face from the misspeak of his name.

    The barrels of the shotgun came up, the chelti had done this song and dance before, batting away the muzzle as much as he could as the blast of powder and shot rang out, hot gas burning both riders as it caught between them. Elbowing the shogun down, the chelti threw something ahead of both bikes, it bounced up and flew straight into the large intake of Nathan's airbike.

    Nathans eyes widened as the chelti raised its middle finger at him, the silver metal ring of a grenade pin hanging clearly from it. The grenade itself currently stuck squarely against the grill of the very bike he was riding.

    There was a loud blast, but it wasn't so much the explosive power of the grenade, as the pieces of it flying through and into the engine of the bike that tore it to shreds and ripped it apart. The mountain crawler wobbled and swerved as the airbike's flaming wreck crashed into the walkway and spun, Nathan himself going flying.

    As he landed back to earth with a loud cry, a flailing ankle was caught in a tight grip and Nathan found himself dragged next to the spinning single track of the mountain crawler, his helmet scrapping against the tiles. Curious, Luca watched as the pair and the hapless, dragged rider was bouncing along, their crash suit cushioning the impacts with heavy leather, ballistic fibres, and rigid sections to protect the vitals, they were able to withstand an increasing amount of beating - and they'd need it, given the trajectory of the two riders at the window.

    The police behind them started stopping and reconsidering their options, but some on airbikes, and the drones were determined to keep chasing them. "Where next?!" Luca asked the Chelti as he looked at the highway ahead, and down at the tumbling form of Nathan being dragged along. The thought of having to make a sharp turn onto the highway from the drop didn't sound all that appealing, but dealing with the police wasn't high on his to-do list.

    The chelti looked over at Luca and hit the gas. Going straight towards a window.

    "You seem a man of wit. Use your cable gun!" It shouted back, as the view of the window revealed the raised highway only a storey or two below. Taking his advice, Luca looked up where the ceiling ended, and moved to the left into position before firing his grapplegun at the edge of the ceiling and the window. Then, he begun moving towards the right, girding his loins for colliding with the glass.

    "See you on the other side, Mr...?" Luca asked his partner in vigilantism as the window sped towards him.

    "They call me... Mister Snuffles!" The chelti replied before the crash of glass and the scream of air going past them and the drone of traffic below them erupted between them.

    With the grapnel at the ceiling and the cord taut, he swung with the weight of the motorcycle to the left, following the flow of traffic on the left hand lane and landing beside a van which swerved in surprise as Luca touched down and continued roaring down the highway, with enough straight way to make a getaway. The shattered glass caused a glimmering arc to soar through the air, pieces of safety glass bouncing against the road and off the cars.

    The Chelti, crawler, and Nathan fell with the thousands of shards of glass glittering around them. Nathan was probably screaming hysterically by this point. The crawler smashed on the corner of the roof of a semi-trailer and crashed through it, Nathan bouncing off the roof with a loud thunk before crawler and Nathan hit the road and swerved the merge with traffic behind Luca. Nathan still probably screaming as his helmet was belt-sanded by the road.

    The red bike continued speeding ahead, while its rider saw the flashing lights and sirens fade into the distance. Though he'd had his fill for the day, he knew that he had to go and hide.

    But first, he had an offer to make, and the next offramp was going to be a while away. "Hey! Snuffles!" He called out over the sound of Nathan's continued hysterical screams. The two were heading South down Barrier island together.

    The chelti rider looked up and at Luca, keeping Nathan safely away from other vehicles as the two sped past. But they didn't say anything, clearly waiting for Luca speak again. Although Luca swore he could see a visible flinch at the name Snuffles.

    "If you're game for more with me or have a job opportunity," he proposed, able to focus on talking as the traffic thinned out ahead a, "come meet me at number fifty five, Midway Beach!"

    With that, Luca saw the offramp lane opening up and merged into it, waving goodbye with a brief salute to the Chelti. "See you!" He yelled as he followed the signs that lead towards Flatiron's Hill and towards Ferros Block.

    The chelti watched as the young human veered off and separated down the off-ramp. Thinking about the offer before looking back at his still screaming...passenger? and driving into the distance.

    "Enough of that carry-on, Nay-tan! You'll have time for that later!" The chelti chided as the off-ramp fell behind them.

    >END!
     
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