Moogle
Retired Member
Nepleslia Prime, Prime City, Outskirts, Prime City Thunder Marketing Office, Registration
It was fortunate that it only took one hand to sign a name and run a quick fingerprint scan, because leaning over the desk in the dimly lit office was a well-built man in a shiny white jumpsuit with a buly helmet under one arm. Once he'd finished taking care of the particulars, Norman stood and brushed his perfect mane of hair to one side before putting on a charming smile that would once again grace his racer ID tag for another year. Once he was finished, the hotshot tossed a few wadded up 2 DA bills onto the table and left the queue to stretch his legs with a self-satisfied grin. The registration process itself was fairly simple, and by the way the other racers were sticking around to mill around the room and mutter at one another it seemed like there was more to it. At another table set up adjacent to the racer sign-in table was a well-dressed woman who signed in the press one-by-one. Mark and Ilsa had already visited this table and made their presence known-- the former using some of his influence to volunteer for the much-coveted announcer position. After having a short argument with Calgary Jones and the busty woman from the NNN interstitials, the tall Nepleslian had a pretty good feeling about his chances.
"That Calgary Jones guy can eat my entire ass," Taela remarked to mark as she finished her sign-up. She took her picture with a fire in her eyes, served by her goals for this race. No matter where she placed, she'd get some delicious, delicious payback. "He just can't match ya, Mark."
"Now, now," Mark smiled with confidence that said he didn't quite believe what he was saying, but it was clear he meant to defend the ragged pith-hat wearing moustache of a journalist currently fuming in the corner. "Y'gots ta remember he's a war correspondent an' we ain't had a war in a good minute, Kitty. Don't be so hard on the guy. He's just tryin'a'get by."
"At least he's not the trollop." Added Ilsa, still leering at the busty harlot who usually ran ad print for the news network. He eyes were narrowed and her arms were crossed to show her distinct displeasure. "I am not sure if she means to bed me or simply tell me her life story. I am disinterested in either."
"Probably both. She seems like the type who wants to make sure you know who she is while you're doing the nasty," Taela said, not even giving the subject of her sentence the time of day. Such is the life of civilians judging celebrities. "But yeah, the plan. How are we going to take down that lizard asshole? Obviously not before the race. I don't want to get disqualified like that and give him the satisfaction."
Norman smiled at Taela and planted his free hand on one hip, explaining, "Look, if we can both get into positions behind him, it's as simple as blocking. Getting alongside him is easy, passing him is the hard part. If we both work together and get alongside him on either side we can keep him from being able to make optimal turns in either directs, and then we can both go for it at the end. Whoever passes him wins. Unless somebody else passes all three of us..." Norman frowned, "But if we leave him behind to go chasing after another racer he could catch up and mess us up."
"I don't care about any place except the one where he's eating my dust," Taela responded. She flipped up a projection of the track on her datapad, examining it for the turns. "But otherwise, sounds good. Ilsa, you got a plan for after so you can catch that bounty?"
Ilsa shook her head. "I hadn't considered much except to follow him. He seems interested in humanoids so I may attempt seduction." There was a sort of bitter, muted blush and then Ilsa asked a little more quietly, "You do think I'm attractive enough to woo him, don't you?"
Taela gave Ilsa a reassuring slap on the back. "Oh please he goes for a 5/10 at minimum, it'll be like waving gold bullion in front of a phantom thief. Tell ya what, you lead him into an alley and we'll corner him?"
There was a soft sigh, and then another sneering glance over to the female journalist currently chatting up some other member of the reception. "What passes for a 'ten' in YE 38 was a mere 'four' in a better time." Remarked Ilsa with a frown. "It's hard to tell what's still pretty and what's just a passing trend."
Mark, who'd spent his time up until now eyeing up the overly-busty television personality, spoke with even and reassuring tones. "Trus' me, her ass about as flat as a coin, ya'll. If this lil' salamander has taste he'll know the better deal when he sees it."
"I mean you only need to see her front whenever she's on TV, so she's definitely in the right profession," Taela commented on the reporter's assets. "Enough about her, though, I got a loser to thrash."
-----
~SNSD vs. Cash Cash - The Boys' Speed Highway~
All they could hear was the whine of engines. The high-pitched scream drowned out every other noise, and the thick layers of kevlar and durandium that made up the racers' helmets muffled the sounds even more. So it was no surprise when with sand kicking up around the three locked-together airbikes and scenery whipping past that nobody could hear whatever it was that Slag was screeching at the racers on either side of him. They were on the final straightaway with the finish line only a few kilometers ahead and there seemed to be no escape. Exhaust pipes had gotten intertwined with exposed wires and the carefully-shaped supports of each bike's frame. From her side of slag, Taela could see the thin stream of blood running down Norman's pinned thigh as he tried and failed over and over again to batter his oppenent. Slag almost didn't even notice it through his thick hide and his racing jacket as he continued to scream some sort of incomprehensible warning at Taela.
"!!!!!!" He seemed to say, waving both claws in the air between stints of pointing down at something between them. "!!!!!!, you dumb !!!!!! !!!!! !!!! ! ! !!!! !!!!!!"
Taela just flipped him off and hit the gas, turning into Slag slightly to force him into a turn - or Norman, either case was fine, really. For a moment, all three bikes started to cant to one side before Slag made a stern face and jerked his handlebars back over just as the fire broke out. Exposed wires met with a flammable booster fuel leaking out of the middle bike and caused the shiny wet pipes that Slag had been yelling about to burst into flames. Almost immediately, the Delsaurian produced a wrench and flung it towards Taela's head while trying to slide over onto Norman's bike.
Her tail moved to intercept the wrench, and suddenly the thing was wrapped around it. With a mighty cleave, it swiped down and broke the connection between the bikes (Black market limbs tended to be a bit strong, after all), freeing Taela and destabilizing Slag's bike. The finish line was right in sight, swooping in to pass over them. In a last desperate bid for victory, Slag delivered a powerful kick to his own bike and sent it whipping in circles in front of Taela's bike while the lizard himself settled onto Norman's bike with the wounded Nepleslian in one hand and the accelerator in the other.
Taela thanked her stars for the first time for the time she had in Shlock Grunder's employ. The neko stood on her bike as Slack's came careening towards her and jumped off, rolling into a ball in midair. She'd land much further along, thanks to the laws of momentum carrying her, albeit very dizzy from rolling and landing. As soon as she'd recovered her standing, Taela could hear the smooth tones of this year's announcer explaining to the cheering fans, "And we have a winner, ladies and gentleman. It's the very sexy bike without a rider-- the machine belonging to Taela Kaila! Put you hands together and get those fine asses out of them seats because that's all she wrote!"
About halfway through this speech, Taela felt the rush of hot wind on her face as a bike with two more racers whipped past her and kept going. She could barely manage to spot Slag peering over his shoulder with Norman still clutched tight in one claw as the other racers began to whip past her one after another. The roaring bikes barely missed the Neko who foolishly stood in the finishing line, some of their obscenities audible for a split-second as they blew past.
Taela finally decided that being in the middle of a road filled with extremely fast objects was a terrible idea, and used her natural Yamataian charm (tm) to levitate out of there. And by that, the writer means that she used her gravity manipulation to fuck off into the the Winner's Circle, giving Slag an insulting grin under her helmet as she went.
-----
~Hugo Kant - Into the Woods~
Taela's bike, once recovered, served as the conveyance for her and Ilsa as they followed the signal of the carefully thrown tracking device that showed as a blinking white light on Ilsa's communicator the ultimate destination of Slag and his hostage Norm. For they had, after the loss, absconded. It seemed odd for Slag to shy away from victory, even if it was only a tie between second and third place-- but something in the lizard's demeanor had given Taela the notion that his vindictive personality had something to do with it and the results for Norm couldn't be good. With Ilsa's thick braid beating against Taela's shoulder in the heavy wind they forged ahead, deeper into the desert and darting into the canyon beyond where nothing but resistance could await them.
"You know, I really hoped this would be easy, but no, he just HAD to make it way more difficult!" Taela groaned, her tail coiling and uncoiling. "Damnit, I wish I still had the laser function on this thing enabled. Any clue where this asshole might be heading?"
Ilsa tried to scream against the wind, but it was no use. Eventually, Taela felt her bike lighten and then heard in her mind's ear, 'This box canyon ahead seems to have a clearing with a few power sources. If my target is not there, his bike certainly is.' Ilsa patted Taela twice on the shoulder before she left the bike completely and darted in mid-air for the nearest rising mesa that formed at least one wall of the box canyon.
"Well, go figure. Goddamn Raltean military strategies," Taela sighed, pulling her bike into a descent towards this facility she was told of.
Wind tossed waves of sand across the clearing. A tumble weed made its slow way across the the red clay and gravel, bounding in great wide leaps over the open, cracked ground. In front of her, Taela found a few small prefabs. Definitely portable buildings set up for the express purpose of occupying this clearing. The height and variety of terrain creating a wall around them thirty meters in every direction was only more evidence that this had been some sort of set-up point for the ambush meant to take Taela down a notch after her 'unjust' victory again the slimy lizard who'd just swooped into a tied second-third place.
Of course, she knew this was a trap. It had trap written all over it. It was more trappy than a crossdressing DJ at a hip-hop venue. Only an idiot WOULDN'T know this was a trap. So that's why she sent out a little signal to a friend far, far away. She hoped he/she/it would arrive in time, but in the meantime she had to rely on her tail and her tail. She settled into the middle of the clearing, her beat-up bike sputtering out once she turned it off.
"Alright Crater, come out with your hands up and Norman free. You put yourself in that damn situation by being a complete asshole, now own up to it like a man! Er. . . Lizard!" she barked, turning around.
"You know, I played fair during the racccccce!" Slag's voice seemed to call out from every direction, echoes bouncing off the walls of the canyon and resonating in Taela's body, clearly amplified, if one noted the distortion and bend of the Delsaurian's natural tone. "I never once rammed you or threw anything at you, and just because I was disrespectful you think you can raccccce without honor!?"
"You threw a wrench at me, asshole!" Taela spat, turning around and around. If there were a camera on her, it would be one of those dutch-angle shots they tended to use in those action movies. But, since this is NOT an action movie, we the readers must make do with our imagination of the sequence. "So you decide to KIDNAP a guy because you lost a race? Who does that?"
"Would you have followed me out here if I'd just come to cry in the desert like a little hatchling?" Asked the voice, its owner still invisible as men and women poured out of the prefabs with mixed weapons in their arms. There were less than fifteen of them, an easy take for a Neko with the right amount of spunk were they not armored with EMP-1a's and Partizans specifically built to disable the fairer race.
"Actually yes, I would have. For the same reason you got a little army on your hands. And really, do you think you're gonna have a little galley fulla peashooters take me on, really? When I have the best weapon ever made?"
Taela reached into her jacket, unholstering an HHG she'd gotten ages ago, then leveled it at the first member of the crowd she could. "Now, what could I be packing? White rounds maybe? Nah, child's play. Black rounds? Illegal. Now red, red I heard make a nice boom. And perfectly legal. Never had a chance to use them before! I wonder how well they'd work!"
She was stalling. Stalling hard and stalling fast. Hopefully Ilsa would work quickly - she'd never seen her in action before after all. Alas, Ilsa did not seem to materialize right away. As long as Slag stayed hidden, so to would Ilsa. The Neko bounty hunter seemed to be waiting for her prey before snapping down with any sort of divine fury-- short of that she at least seemed to be waiting for Taela to actually start something with the armed thugs who now nervously siddled back with their weapons leveled at the racer. None seemed to possess the courage to fire the first shot, each one staring with mixed nerves and intensity as she drew and waved her HHG around.
Slag's voice rang out again. "You might kill one. You might kill two. You're a Neko, so maybe three. But you can't stop us all, fluffy. Why don't you just set the weapon down?"
"'Cause right now, these people are really thinkin' hard about it. How much do they wanna risk taking me on? HUH?" She whirled around and pointed at a new person. "How much do they want to risk their lives against a former military killing machine, trained to take out anything that doesn't have cat-ears. How much is working for a big-talking lizard versus their own lives!"
Taela smiled and pulled the hammer back. "Are you REALLY worth it?"
The first blast caught Taela right on the shoulder. Say what you will for the ineffectiveness of armed thugs, but this particular corps of them seemed to have gone to the much coveted aiming school that so few criminals seemed to make it to. The glowing blast pounded Taela's shoulder with enough force to send her to her knees as the rest of the light and fire sailed just over her head before she was greeted to the sound of pounding boots repositioning-- each man doing their best to rush into cover with discipline better suited to professional soldiers. All the while, the pain shot through Taela's body. It was like her shoulder had reached out to grasp a stovetop element or a steaming pot that hadn't quite cooled off yet.
And, for the second time in one day, the neko found herself thanking Shlock for the fucked-up changes he'd made to her physiology. The pain was awful, but hey - at least she got to keep her arm on, this time. She blasted herself sideways with a gravitic pulse, firing a round from her HHG straight into somebody's shoulder. She didn't intend to kill any of these folks, but she had to do SOMETHING to make them stop. She unhitched her tail in her other hand and used it to waive incoming fire, the fur on in solidfying into a carbon bat. Taela continued her raid, fire-move, repeat. That blessed digital brain of hers helped with the aiming.
Beams and blasts followed her path, charring and smashing into the canyon walls and the hastily assembled pre-fabs as they followed her path just a little to slow to actually land a it. One man fell screaming, then another. A woman took a hit just wrong and went sprawling onto her back with a deathly gasp, spilling a moderate amount of blood onto the cracked soil beneath her. The others all made it into cover and disappeared from Taela's line of sight as the abomination appeared. It was a power armor, but nothing made by any major manufacturer. Plates from an armored shuttle were welded onto airbike hydraulics and burnt-out battery cases to create some sort of rusty monstrosity that burst forth in the rough shape of the Delsaurian who sat inside it.
"Alright, Miss Kaila," Slag swooned like a charmed woman, a wicked grin clearly audible from behind the triangular helmet resting on his scaly head, "I'm ready for my close-up."
"Oh come on, you think THAT's going to scare me? I beat a squiddie to death with a barstool!"
Taela neglected to mention the part where she was in light power armor at the time. So instead of telling him the details, she darted behind a pre-fab and fired off a few more White rounds before reloading rapidly. "Damnit, I really wish I had that laser still!"
As the distant growl of a shuttle rose, there was a solid clanking just before the prefab Taela had taken refuge behind turned into what some cultures refer to as 'a pile of junk'. Burning cloth wrapped around twisted metal supports and shattered plated tumbled over Taela's head in time with the three powerful pops that shouted from the shoulder-mounted cannon on Slag's back. There were tiny pings as some of the metal bounced harmlessly off of her racing helmet, and a rush of wind where there was once a makeshift armory. Slag stomped over the newly-created mess with an amplified cackle, raising a black-market LASR towards Taela's midsection as he crested the hillside of debris.
"Oh COME ON!" *Taela barked, turning her tail into an electric baton - then an L-shape and throwing it at the lizard-machine. "This is bullshit! Sure, a Ziliant is fine, sure, a Nightmare is fine, but this is where I draw the fucking line! On a lizard in jankey home-made power armor with black market weapons! Takeshi you useless hunk of metal get over here already!"
She blasted herself up into the air, then pulsed herself to the far side of the compound over more of the troops, firing as she went.
In Slag's helmet, targetting indicators pinged and centered on Taela's form darting into the sky. The cries of falling men rose around him as he centered his crosshair on her midsection with a cruel smirk and slid one narrow claw into the trigger guard of his rifle. Three shots whizzed past Taela as she zipped towards the clouds before a resounding clang echoed through the canyon. Below, Ilsa had appeared and from behind the massive armored lizard she swung with one hand her mighty monomolecular-edged axe into his armor as she practically fell upon her target from above. Slag turned with whip-like speed to face his new assailant, raising his rifle only to be delayed once more by a faceful of bursts from Ilsa's GP-13 pulse pistol. He reeled from the blast as the hot plasma slid down his visor. His attention was now fully drawn to the other Neko-- whom he might at any minute be able to put a LASR slug into without any further ado.
Taela finally similed as her luck finally turned, but couldn't dwell on it. She fired a few more rounds at the lizard, centering on his LASR. She was grateful for the time she'd spent practicing loading this gun out of boredom.
And then she spotted a black-and-purple speck on the horizon, speeding towards them.
"Fucking FINALLY!" she shouted, drifting off to the ground.
The rounds pinged off the wrist armor of the poorly built power armor for lizards. The LASR shook in Slag's gauntleted arm, popping off a few shots into the clay walls and distant dirt mounds just before another resounding clank signalled an unfortunate (for Slag) collision with the guitar-sized axe Ilsa drug along the ground. The other assailants seemed to have disappeared for the time being, darting off into the branches of the box canyon and leaving Slag to deal with multiple Neko on his own. At the same time, the first of two shuttles crested the edge of the canyon, kicking up a cloud of red dust that filled the walls of the terrain up to the knee. Inside, making a sound not unlike a pained screech was Markus. His eyes bulged as he clutched onto the manuvering stick with both hands, trembling and shouting.
"I come t' save ya, Kitty!" His voice echoed not unlike Slag's through the canyon as one of the Opportunity's Knock's Onset shuttles dropped from above and cut a wide arc through the canyon.
"Mark I really appreciate the thought but this is REALLY DANGEROUS!" Taela barked over comms. "Also, you beat my armor here, so congrats!"
The aforementioned machine was right behind Mark, and held a pair of Fatboys in its arms as it slammed into the ground on both legs behind the lizard. Then opened fire. Taela complemented this by bursting to where her tail landed and grabbed it, turning it into an electrified spike. And then rammed it into the scrap-armor before her.
Slag shook with the impact of the hot energy boring into his back from the surprise visitor, shuddering against the force all the way up until the spike found its home. Even through the visor, they could tell Slag's eyes were bulging as the tail burrowed through the chink in his armor and emerged from the other end coated in slick Delsaurian blood. Immediately, Ilsa stepped back and snarled over his shoulder at Taela, "You fool! You'll kill him!"
"Sorry! Thrust a bit too hard, I just meant to do this!" Taela said, pulling her tail back a significant amount and turning up the juice to stun him. The recently-renamed Takeshi dropped the fatboys and manuvered around to the Delsaurian's side, grabbing the LASR and crushing it in its hands.
The illustration was better than any explanation. Slag cleary wasn't going to be putting up a fight any more. He slumped back against Taela with an amplified hiss. There was a growl from Ilsa as she approached, dragging her oversized axe behind her. "Kaila-san, if he dies, then you will owe me another." Warned the Raltean with bile in her voice. She looked as if she might raise her axe again and level it for Taela's neck if she didn't like what came next. "You youngsters have no finesse, no elegance, no control."
"Sorry, sorry! He was shooting a big gun and I didn't have anything on! Besides, I was never trained for land combat, I only fought in mechs, and then I was trained to kill, not incapacitate, targets on land after that! Takeshi, get the non-neko medkit from the shuttle, and hurry!" She told her armor, which nodded and immieately booked it for the medical nanite injectors. In the meantime, Taela stripped off the scrap-PA piece by piece to make things easier on all accounts.
The shuttle settled into the cracked ground behind Taela as writhing, bloody scales met dry air. Even still, Ilsa looked incredibly displeased as she reported, "This one will live. His wounds may even be sealed by the time he arrives on Geshrintal... But you--" She pointed a narrow finger to Taela and started to talk at length about how disappointed she was when the slimy lizard croaked out a pained, "Mittens, you bitch!"
"Oh, that reminds me!" Taela suddenly changed the subject, "Where's Norton?"
"Who?" Asked Ilsa, looking extremely disinterested in whatever it was.
"Nor. . .bert? Norman? You know, the prettyboy jock pilot. He was literally JUST KIDNAPPED?" Taela said, trying to remember the name.
"Oh, the bike jester!" Ilsa nodded, trying to seem like she had thought of it herself. "Yes, I'm sure he's around, and I may even care a little... If we so choose we care for him."
"Lizard asshole, where'd you stash him?" Taela said, giving the Delsaurian a kick while he was down and Takeshi arrived with the injectors.
"Literally the only building that we didn't smash already!" Cried the Delsaurian, writhing even in the sweet painkilling spray of the hypolathe.
"Oh. That was lucky."
Taela trotted over to the untouched building and entered. The room was clean for the most part. A makeshift rack had been set up for the power armor that now lay outside in pieces and in front of that was the exact wooden chair that had been used as a prop in every hostage scene of every action movie ever filmed. Tied to this chair was none other than Norman, his white jumpsuit soaked through with sweat from his ordeal and blood from his thigh wound. He looked up at Taela through a puffy black eye and and tried to smile. He failed.
"Taela..." He moaned through chapped, split lips, "I shoulda just stayed behind you."
"Yep, you should've." Taela said plainly, arms on her hips. "Now uh, let's untie you and get you that hypospray, huh?"
-----
~Sam Spence - Round Up~
After all was said and done, the party regrouped at a lovely downtown Pan-CHOW, somehow managing to turn the event of the IRC into a theme for the location. It was strange how a corporation could do that, but somehow they managed to. Taela had settled with a Nepleslian Big Boom Breakfast Combo, which was essentially a heart-attack on a plate.
Takeshi awkwardly sat at a chair at the end of the booth, eating nothing while Markus and Norman both seemed to be sharing the Matriarchy Over My Empire, a massive omelette covered in enough mozzarella cheese to be considered a pizza. The thing was easily a quarter the size of the entire booth, but it didn't matter much because the only thing Ilsa seemed interested in eating was a volumetric projection showing off a blue-skinned, white-haired Neko. Where once there had been an indicator showing some sort of potential award, now there was only one word, bold red flashing text spelling out 'CANCELLED' in block letters floating just beneath the image's face.
"You sure you don't want anything Ilsa? I heard the 'Not in My Yamatai' platter is actually not terrible," Taela said.
"The reviews suggest that a majority of participants didn't have to evacuate their bowels immediately after eating it," Takeshi helpfully offered.
"My bowels will get along well enough." Shot back Ilsa with a frown. "I didn't see Karelian on the menu, and I'm not hungry enough to eat needlessly if it's anything else. Besides, since I had to undergo the expense of installing a medical module on this bounty's stasis chamber, I need to focus on other ways to save money at the moment."
"Well, on the bright side, better have it now than need it later!" Taela shrugged, stuffing an entire sausage link into her mouth. Ilsa watched the sausage link disappear with a blank look, though her curious eyes betrayed her for just a moment.
Then, the other Neko cleared her throat and said, "I have enough provisions to last my body two weeks. I shan't need it before it expires."
"You know I got some winnings from that race, right? I can cover you for the meal, really. Besides, I owe you one after nearly killing your bounty."
Taela began to dissect the artfully arranged pile of fried-eggs over her hash-browns. and shovel it into her mouth. "Beshides, you gotta eat at a greasy-spoon after a successful event. Pan-CHOW for winners! And people that have lost control over their life."
"I don't wanna say what part of that reminds me-- but that reminds me..." Norman spoke evenly after having a chance to swallow his food. "I eh-- I had meant to work something out with you about the prize money back when we were still both going to win."
The Nepleslian frowned, massaging the black eye that marred his otherwise handsome face and then explained somewhat shamefull, "I kind of need some money."
"Oh don't worry, totally got you covered. Did not forget or anything," Taela sheepishly mumbled, hastily getting out her datapad to transfer funds.
"I mean, I hate to ask," Norm assured her, though he produced his own datapad, "It's just, my parents farm is in foreclosure-- cliche, I know. I just hoped I'd be able to pay it off this year, but Slag has been beating me every year until now."
"Seriously don't worry. Your cut of the winnings, plus you did get a decent chunk of money from your tied second-third place, so you should be golden, right?" Taela said, typing through on her bank-connection.
"I think--" There was a brief pause, then a broad grin, "I think this should be just enough to pull everything together. I don't think I'll be replacing my bike any time soon, but..." The smile softened, but didn't leave. Instead, it became something almost wistful. "I guess it's about time I got back to messing with cows instead of lunchbox generators."
"Hah, gross. Er, sorry. I'm sure you'll do fine. Who knows, with a face like yours you could be some kinda dairy spokesperson!"
"Hah, you think so?" Norman giggled and posed his features into that perfect dairy-spokesman arrangement. He leaned in close to Taela, slipping into something of a sultry tone as he remarked, "You know-- maybe just for old time's sake you could stop by and visit some time, remind me of what it's like to be behind you."
Though he was not a protective lover, it was at this point that Markus easily took advantage of the racer's lowered guard to move a large section of omelette onto his half of the plate.
"Woah buddy, I like you, but not like that. But I might stop by on occasion." Taela said, waving a hand in front.
While Norman hund his head in defeat, Ilsa prodded her datapad to one side so she could cross her arms on the table. "After this, I feel like I'm more than owed my trip to Sargasso." She said in a businesslike tone, then indicated the blue Neko whose face was slowly spinning just above the table. "I have a mystery to unravel at this point. We have taken so long to get here that my bounty has 'dried up', and yet she travels in the company of a celebrity. Most curious, yes?"
"Probably because he has a lotta clout with governments. Like, he's saved each nation a million times, I've heard," Taela said. "But yeah, we can go to Sargasso next. I don't have any problem with that. And I guess you've got me interested now. What did you say her name was?"
"This one is... Santo-Hei Sesshoseki Tamamo." Ilsa frowned a sideways frown, gripping the table from below with white knuckles as she described the charges. "Charged with a cyberterrorism of sorts, modifying Imperial records for her own gain. Deserting her sisters, betraying her progenitors..." There was a beat while Ilsa considered the current state of the Empire, and then a softer, "Either she is a dog fit only for slaughter, or she is a genius who can read the writing on the wall. I intend to find out, and then execute justice appropriately."
Taela thoughtfully contemplated another sausage link on the end of her fork. before responding. "Huh. Okay well. . . in that case, we should eat up for the trip. Waiter, get us a 'Not in my Yamatai'!"
*Amaranthe - Electroheart
It was fortunate that it only took one hand to sign a name and run a quick fingerprint scan, because leaning over the desk in the dimly lit office was a well-built man in a shiny white jumpsuit with a buly helmet under one arm. Once he'd finished taking care of the particulars, Norman stood and brushed his perfect mane of hair to one side before putting on a charming smile that would once again grace his racer ID tag for another year. Once he was finished, the hotshot tossed a few wadded up 2 DA bills onto the table and left the queue to stretch his legs with a self-satisfied grin. The registration process itself was fairly simple, and by the way the other racers were sticking around to mill around the room and mutter at one another it seemed like there was more to it. At another table set up adjacent to the racer sign-in table was a well-dressed woman who signed in the press one-by-one. Mark and Ilsa had already visited this table and made their presence known-- the former using some of his influence to volunteer for the much-coveted announcer position. After having a short argument with Calgary Jones and the busty woman from the NNN interstitials, the tall Nepleslian had a pretty good feeling about his chances.
"That Calgary Jones guy can eat my entire ass," Taela remarked to mark as she finished her sign-up. She took her picture with a fire in her eyes, served by her goals for this race. No matter where she placed, she'd get some delicious, delicious payback. "He just can't match ya, Mark."
"Now, now," Mark smiled with confidence that said he didn't quite believe what he was saying, but it was clear he meant to defend the ragged pith-hat wearing moustache of a journalist currently fuming in the corner. "Y'gots ta remember he's a war correspondent an' we ain't had a war in a good minute, Kitty. Don't be so hard on the guy. He's just tryin'a'get by."
"At least he's not the trollop." Added Ilsa, still leering at the busty harlot who usually ran ad print for the news network. He eyes were narrowed and her arms were crossed to show her distinct displeasure. "I am not sure if she means to bed me or simply tell me her life story. I am disinterested in either."
"Probably both. She seems like the type who wants to make sure you know who she is while you're doing the nasty," Taela said, not even giving the subject of her sentence the time of day. Such is the life of civilians judging celebrities. "But yeah, the plan. How are we going to take down that lizard asshole? Obviously not before the race. I don't want to get disqualified like that and give him the satisfaction."
Norman smiled at Taela and planted his free hand on one hip, explaining, "Look, if we can both get into positions behind him, it's as simple as blocking. Getting alongside him is easy, passing him is the hard part. If we both work together and get alongside him on either side we can keep him from being able to make optimal turns in either directs, and then we can both go for it at the end. Whoever passes him wins. Unless somebody else passes all three of us..." Norman frowned, "But if we leave him behind to go chasing after another racer he could catch up and mess us up."
"I don't care about any place except the one where he's eating my dust," Taela responded. She flipped up a projection of the track on her datapad, examining it for the turns. "But otherwise, sounds good. Ilsa, you got a plan for after so you can catch that bounty?"
Ilsa shook her head. "I hadn't considered much except to follow him. He seems interested in humanoids so I may attempt seduction." There was a sort of bitter, muted blush and then Ilsa asked a little more quietly, "You do think I'm attractive enough to woo him, don't you?"
Taela gave Ilsa a reassuring slap on the back. "Oh please he goes for a 5/10 at minimum, it'll be like waving gold bullion in front of a phantom thief. Tell ya what, you lead him into an alley and we'll corner him?"
There was a soft sigh, and then another sneering glance over to the female journalist currently chatting up some other member of the reception. "What passes for a 'ten' in YE 38 was a mere 'four' in a better time." Remarked Ilsa with a frown. "It's hard to tell what's still pretty and what's just a passing trend."
Mark, who'd spent his time up until now eyeing up the overly-busty television personality, spoke with even and reassuring tones. "Trus' me, her ass about as flat as a coin, ya'll. If this lil' salamander has taste he'll know the better deal when he sees it."
"I mean you only need to see her front whenever she's on TV, so she's definitely in the right profession," Taela commented on the reporter's assets. "Enough about her, though, I got a loser to thrash."
-----
~SNSD vs. Cash Cash - The Boys' Speed Highway~
All they could hear was the whine of engines. The high-pitched scream drowned out every other noise, and the thick layers of kevlar and durandium that made up the racers' helmets muffled the sounds even more. So it was no surprise when with sand kicking up around the three locked-together airbikes and scenery whipping past that nobody could hear whatever it was that Slag was screeching at the racers on either side of him. They were on the final straightaway with the finish line only a few kilometers ahead and there seemed to be no escape. Exhaust pipes had gotten intertwined with exposed wires and the carefully-shaped supports of each bike's frame. From her side of slag, Taela could see the thin stream of blood running down Norman's pinned thigh as he tried and failed over and over again to batter his oppenent. Slag almost didn't even notice it through his thick hide and his racing jacket as he continued to scream some sort of incomprehensible warning at Taela.
"!!!!!!" He seemed to say, waving both claws in the air between stints of pointing down at something between them. "!!!!!!, you dumb !!!!!! !!!!! !!!! ! ! !!!! !!!!!!"
Taela just flipped him off and hit the gas, turning into Slag slightly to force him into a turn - or Norman, either case was fine, really. For a moment, all three bikes started to cant to one side before Slag made a stern face and jerked his handlebars back over just as the fire broke out. Exposed wires met with a flammable booster fuel leaking out of the middle bike and caused the shiny wet pipes that Slag had been yelling about to burst into flames. Almost immediately, the Delsaurian produced a wrench and flung it towards Taela's head while trying to slide over onto Norman's bike.
Her tail moved to intercept the wrench, and suddenly the thing was wrapped around it. With a mighty cleave, it swiped down and broke the connection between the bikes (Black market limbs tended to be a bit strong, after all), freeing Taela and destabilizing Slag's bike. The finish line was right in sight, swooping in to pass over them. In a last desperate bid for victory, Slag delivered a powerful kick to his own bike and sent it whipping in circles in front of Taela's bike while the lizard himself settled onto Norman's bike with the wounded Nepleslian in one hand and the accelerator in the other.
Taela thanked her stars for the first time for the time she had in Shlock Grunder's employ. The neko stood on her bike as Slack's came careening towards her and jumped off, rolling into a ball in midair. She'd land much further along, thanks to the laws of momentum carrying her, albeit very dizzy from rolling and landing. As soon as she'd recovered her standing, Taela could hear the smooth tones of this year's announcer explaining to the cheering fans, "And we have a winner, ladies and gentleman. It's the very sexy bike without a rider-- the machine belonging to Taela Kaila! Put you hands together and get those fine asses out of them seats because that's all she wrote!"
About halfway through this speech, Taela felt the rush of hot wind on her face as a bike with two more racers whipped past her and kept going. She could barely manage to spot Slag peering over his shoulder with Norman still clutched tight in one claw as the other racers began to whip past her one after another. The roaring bikes barely missed the Neko who foolishly stood in the finishing line, some of their obscenities audible for a split-second as they blew past.
Taela finally decided that being in the middle of a road filled with extremely fast objects was a terrible idea, and used her natural Yamataian charm (tm) to levitate out of there. And by that, the writer means that she used her gravity manipulation to fuck off into the the Winner's Circle, giving Slag an insulting grin under her helmet as she went.
-----
~Hugo Kant - Into the Woods~
Taela's bike, once recovered, served as the conveyance for her and Ilsa as they followed the signal of the carefully thrown tracking device that showed as a blinking white light on Ilsa's communicator the ultimate destination of Slag and his hostage Norm. For they had, after the loss, absconded. It seemed odd for Slag to shy away from victory, even if it was only a tie between second and third place-- but something in the lizard's demeanor had given Taela the notion that his vindictive personality had something to do with it and the results for Norm couldn't be good. With Ilsa's thick braid beating against Taela's shoulder in the heavy wind they forged ahead, deeper into the desert and darting into the canyon beyond where nothing but resistance could await them.
"You know, I really hoped this would be easy, but no, he just HAD to make it way more difficult!" Taela groaned, her tail coiling and uncoiling. "Damnit, I wish I still had the laser function on this thing enabled. Any clue where this asshole might be heading?"
Ilsa tried to scream against the wind, but it was no use. Eventually, Taela felt her bike lighten and then heard in her mind's ear, 'This box canyon ahead seems to have a clearing with a few power sources. If my target is not there, his bike certainly is.' Ilsa patted Taela twice on the shoulder before she left the bike completely and darted in mid-air for the nearest rising mesa that formed at least one wall of the box canyon.
"Well, go figure. Goddamn Raltean military strategies," Taela sighed, pulling her bike into a descent towards this facility she was told of.
Wind tossed waves of sand across the clearing. A tumble weed made its slow way across the the red clay and gravel, bounding in great wide leaps over the open, cracked ground. In front of her, Taela found a few small prefabs. Definitely portable buildings set up for the express purpose of occupying this clearing. The height and variety of terrain creating a wall around them thirty meters in every direction was only more evidence that this had been some sort of set-up point for the ambush meant to take Taela down a notch after her 'unjust' victory again the slimy lizard who'd just swooped into a tied second-third place.
Of course, she knew this was a trap. It had trap written all over it. It was more trappy than a crossdressing DJ at a hip-hop venue. Only an idiot WOULDN'T know this was a trap. So that's why she sent out a little signal to a friend far, far away. She hoped he/she/it would arrive in time, but in the meantime she had to rely on her tail and her tail. She settled into the middle of the clearing, her beat-up bike sputtering out once she turned it off.
"Alright Crater, come out with your hands up and Norman free. You put yourself in that damn situation by being a complete asshole, now own up to it like a man! Er. . . Lizard!" she barked, turning around.
"You know, I played fair during the racccccce!" Slag's voice seemed to call out from every direction, echoes bouncing off the walls of the canyon and resonating in Taela's body, clearly amplified, if one noted the distortion and bend of the Delsaurian's natural tone. "I never once rammed you or threw anything at you, and just because I was disrespectful you think you can raccccce without honor!?"
"You threw a wrench at me, asshole!" Taela spat, turning around and around. If there were a camera on her, it would be one of those dutch-angle shots they tended to use in those action movies. But, since this is NOT an action movie, we the readers must make do with our imagination of the sequence. "So you decide to KIDNAP a guy because you lost a race? Who does that?"
"Would you have followed me out here if I'd just come to cry in the desert like a little hatchling?" Asked the voice, its owner still invisible as men and women poured out of the prefabs with mixed weapons in their arms. There were less than fifteen of them, an easy take for a Neko with the right amount of spunk were they not armored with EMP-1a's and Partizans specifically built to disable the fairer race.
"Actually yes, I would have. For the same reason you got a little army on your hands. And really, do you think you're gonna have a little galley fulla peashooters take me on, really? When I have the best weapon ever made?"
Taela reached into her jacket, unholstering an HHG she'd gotten ages ago, then leveled it at the first member of the crowd she could. "Now, what could I be packing? White rounds maybe? Nah, child's play. Black rounds? Illegal. Now red, red I heard make a nice boom. And perfectly legal. Never had a chance to use them before! I wonder how well they'd work!"
She was stalling. Stalling hard and stalling fast. Hopefully Ilsa would work quickly - she'd never seen her in action before after all. Alas, Ilsa did not seem to materialize right away. As long as Slag stayed hidden, so to would Ilsa. The Neko bounty hunter seemed to be waiting for her prey before snapping down with any sort of divine fury-- short of that she at least seemed to be waiting for Taela to actually start something with the armed thugs who now nervously siddled back with their weapons leveled at the racer. None seemed to possess the courage to fire the first shot, each one staring with mixed nerves and intensity as she drew and waved her HHG around.
Slag's voice rang out again. "You might kill one. You might kill two. You're a Neko, so maybe three. But you can't stop us all, fluffy. Why don't you just set the weapon down?"
"'Cause right now, these people are really thinkin' hard about it. How much do they wanna risk taking me on? HUH?" She whirled around and pointed at a new person. "How much do they want to risk their lives against a former military killing machine, trained to take out anything that doesn't have cat-ears. How much is working for a big-talking lizard versus their own lives!"
Taela smiled and pulled the hammer back. "Are you REALLY worth it?"
The first blast caught Taela right on the shoulder. Say what you will for the ineffectiveness of armed thugs, but this particular corps of them seemed to have gone to the much coveted aiming school that so few criminals seemed to make it to. The glowing blast pounded Taela's shoulder with enough force to send her to her knees as the rest of the light and fire sailed just over her head before she was greeted to the sound of pounding boots repositioning-- each man doing their best to rush into cover with discipline better suited to professional soldiers. All the while, the pain shot through Taela's body. It was like her shoulder had reached out to grasp a stovetop element or a steaming pot that hadn't quite cooled off yet.
And, for the second time in one day, the neko found herself thanking Shlock for the fucked-up changes he'd made to her physiology. The pain was awful, but hey - at least she got to keep her arm on, this time. She blasted herself sideways with a gravitic pulse, firing a round from her HHG straight into somebody's shoulder. She didn't intend to kill any of these folks, but she had to do SOMETHING to make them stop. She unhitched her tail in her other hand and used it to waive incoming fire, the fur on in solidfying into a carbon bat. Taela continued her raid, fire-move, repeat. That blessed digital brain of hers helped with the aiming.
Beams and blasts followed her path, charring and smashing into the canyon walls and the hastily assembled pre-fabs as they followed her path just a little to slow to actually land a it. One man fell screaming, then another. A woman took a hit just wrong and went sprawling onto her back with a deathly gasp, spilling a moderate amount of blood onto the cracked soil beneath her. The others all made it into cover and disappeared from Taela's line of sight as the abomination appeared. It was a power armor, but nothing made by any major manufacturer. Plates from an armored shuttle were welded onto airbike hydraulics and burnt-out battery cases to create some sort of rusty monstrosity that burst forth in the rough shape of the Delsaurian who sat inside it.
"Alright, Miss Kaila," Slag swooned like a charmed woman, a wicked grin clearly audible from behind the triangular helmet resting on his scaly head, "I'm ready for my close-up."
"Oh come on, you think THAT's going to scare me? I beat a squiddie to death with a barstool!"
Taela neglected to mention the part where she was in light power armor at the time. So instead of telling him the details, she darted behind a pre-fab and fired off a few more White rounds before reloading rapidly. "Damnit, I really wish I had that laser still!"
As the distant growl of a shuttle rose, there was a solid clanking just before the prefab Taela had taken refuge behind turned into what some cultures refer to as 'a pile of junk'. Burning cloth wrapped around twisted metal supports and shattered plated tumbled over Taela's head in time with the three powerful pops that shouted from the shoulder-mounted cannon on Slag's back. There were tiny pings as some of the metal bounced harmlessly off of her racing helmet, and a rush of wind where there was once a makeshift armory. Slag stomped over the newly-created mess with an amplified cackle, raising a black-market LASR towards Taela's midsection as he crested the hillside of debris.
"Oh COME ON!" *Taela barked, turning her tail into an electric baton - then an L-shape and throwing it at the lizard-machine. "This is bullshit! Sure, a Ziliant is fine, sure, a Nightmare is fine, but this is where I draw the fucking line! On a lizard in jankey home-made power armor with black market weapons! Takeshi you useless hunk of metal get over here already!"
She blasted herself up into the air, then pulsed herself to the far side of the compound over more of the troops, firing as she went.
In Slag's helmet, targetting indicators pinged and centered on Taela's form darting into the sky. The cries of falling men rose around him as he centered his crosshair on her midsection with a cruel smirk and slid one narrow claw into the trigger guard of his rifle. Three shots whizzed past Taela as she zipped towards the clouds before a resounding clang echoed through the canyon. Below, Ilsa had appeared and from behind the massive armored lizard she swung with one hand her mighty monomolecular-edged axe into his armor as she practically fell upon her target from above. Slag turned with whip-like speed to face his new assailant, raising his rifle only to be delayed once more by a faceful of bursts from Ilsa's GP-13 pulse pistol. He reeled from the blast as the hot plasma slid down his visor. His attention was now fully drawn to the other Neko-- whom he might at any minute be able to put a LASR slug into without any further ado.
Taela finally similed as her luck finally turned, but couldn't dwell on it. She fired a few more rounds at the lizard, centering on his LASR. She was grateful for the time she'd spent practicing loading this gun out of boredom.
And then she spotted a black-and-purple speck on the horizon, speeding towards them.
"Fucking FINALLY!" she shouted, drifting off to the ground.
The rounds pinged off the wrist armor of the poorly built power armor for lizards. The LASR shook in Slag's gauntleted arm, popping off a few shots into the clay walls and distant dirt mounds just before another resounding clank signalled an unfortunate (for Slag) collision with the guitar-sized axe Ilsa drug along the ground. The other assailants seemed to have disappeared for the time being, darting off into the branches of the box canyon and leaving Slag to deal with multiple Neko on his own. At the same time, the first of two shuttles crested the edge of the canyon, kicking up a cloud of red dust that filled the walls of the terrain up to the knee. Inside, making a sound not unlike a pained screech was Markus. His eyes bulged as he clutched onto the manuvering stick with both hands, trembling and shouting.
"I come t' save ya, Kitty!" His voice echoed not unlike Slag's through the canyon as one of the Opportunity's Knock's Onset shuttles dropped from above and cut a wide arc through the canyon.
"Mark I really appreciate the thought but this is REALLY DANGEROUS!" Taela barked over comms. "Also, you beat my armor here, so congrats!"
The aforementioned machine was right behind Mark, and held a pair of Fatboys in its arms as it slammed into the ground on both legs behind the lizard. Then opened fire. Taela complemented this by bursting to where her tail landed and grabbed it, turning it into an electrified spike. And then rammed it into the scrap-armor before her.
Slag shook with the impact of the hot energy boring into his back from the surprise visitor, shuddering against the force all the way up until the spike found its home. Even through the visor, they could tell Slag's eyes were bulging as the tail burrowed through the chink in his armor and emerged from the other end coated in slick Delsaurian blood. Immediately, Ilsa stepped back and snarled over his shoulder at Taela, "You fool! You'll kill him!"
"Sorry! Thrust a bit too hard, I just meant to do this!" Taela said, pulling her tail back a significant amount and turning up the juice to stun him. The recently-renamed Takeshi dropped the fatboys and manuvered around to the Delsaurian's side, grabbing the LASR and crushing it in its hands.
The illustration was better than any explanation. Slag cleary wasn't going to be putting up a fight any more. He slumped back against Taela with an amplified hiss. There was a growl from Ilsa as she approached, dragging her oversized axe behind her. "Kaila-san, if he dies, then you will owe me another." Warned the Raltean with bile in her voice. She looked as if she might raise her axe again and level it for Taela's neck if she didn't like what came next. "You youngsters have no finesse, no elegance, no control."
"Sorry, sorry! He was shooting a big gun and I didn't have anything on! Besides, I was never trained for land combat, I only fought in mechs, and then I was trained to kill, not incapacitate, targets on land after that! Takeshi, get the non-neko medkit from the shuttle, and hurry!" She told her armor, which nodded and immieately booked it for the medical nanite injectors. In the meantime, Taela stripped off the scrap-PA piece by piece to make things easier on all accounts.
The shuttle settled into the cracked ground behind Taela as writhing, bloody scales met dry air. Even still, Ilsa looked incredibly displeased as she reported, "This one will live. His wounds may even be sealed by the time he arrives on Geshrintal... But you--" She pointed a narrow finger to Taela and started to talk at length about how disappointed she was when the slimy lizard croaked out a pained, "Mittens, you bitch!"
"Oh, that reminds me!" Taela suddenly changed the subject, "Where's Norton?"
"Who?" Asked Ilsa, looking extremely disinterested in whatever it was.
"Nor. . .bert? Norman? You know, the prettyboy jock pilot. He was literally JUST KIDNAPPED?" Taela said, trying to remember the name.
"Oh, the bike jester!" Ilsa nodded, trying to seem like she had thought of it herself. "Yes, I'm sure he's around, and I may even care a little... If we so choose we care for him."
"Lizard asshole, where'd you stash him?" Taela said, giving the Delsaurian a kick while he was down and Takeshi arrived with the injectors.
"Literally the only building that we didn't smash already!" Cried the Delsaurian, writhing even in the sweet painkilling spray of the hypolathe.
"Oh. That was lucky."
Taela trotted over to the untouched building and entered. The room was clean for the most part. A makeshift rack had been set up for the power armor that now lay outside in pieces and in front of that was the exact wooden chair that had been used as a prop in every hostage scene of every action movie ever filmed. Tied to this chair was none other than Norman, his white jumpsuit soaked through with sweat from his ordeal and blood from his thigh wound. He looked up at Taela through a puffy black eye and and tried to smile. He failed.
"Taela..." He moaned through chapped, split lips, "I shoulda just stayed behind you."
"Yep, you should've." Taela said plainly, arms on her hips. "Now uh, let's untie you and get you that hypospray, huh?"
-----
~Sam Spence - Round Up~
After all was said and done, the party regrouped at a lovely downtown Pan-CHOW, somehow managing to turn the event of the IRC into a theme for the location. It was strange how a corporation could do that, but somehow they managed to. Taela had settled with a Nepleslian Big Boom Breakfast Combo, which was essentially a heart-attack on a plate.
Takeshi awkwardly sat at a chair at the end of the booth, eating nothing while Markus and Norman both seemed to be sharing the Matriarchy Over My Empire, a massive omelette covered in enough mozzarella cheese to be considered a pizza. The thing was easily a quarter the size of the entire booth, but it didn't matter much because the only thing Ilsa seemed interested in eating was a volumetric projection showing off a blue-skinned, white-haired Neko. Where once there had been an indicator showing some sort of potential award, now there was only one word, bold red flashing text spelling out 'CANCELLED' in block letters floating just beneath the image's face.
"You sure you don't want anything Ilsa? I heard the 'Not in My Yamatai' platter is actually not terrible," Taela said.
"The reviews suggest that a majority of participants didn't have to evacuate their bowels immediately after eating it," Takeshi helpfully offered.
"My bowels will get along well enough." Shot back Ilsa with a frown. "I didn't see Karelian on the menu, and I'm not hungry enough to eat needlessly if it's anything else. Besides, since I had to undergo the expense of installing a medical module on this bounty's stasis chamber, I need to focus on other ways to save money at the moment."
"Well, on the bright side, better have it now than need it later!" Taela shrugged, stuffing an entire sausage link into her mouth. Ilsa watched the sausage link disappear with a blank look, though her curious eyes betrayed her for just a moment.
Then, the other Neko cleared her throat and said, "I have enough provisions to last my body two weeks. I shan't need it before it expires."
"You know I got some winnings from that race, right? I can cover you for the meal, really. Besides, I owe you one after nearly killing your bounty."
Taela began to dissect the artfully arranged pile of fried-eggs over her hash-browns. and shovel it into her mouth. "Beshides, you gotta eat at a greasy-spoon after a successful event. Pan-CHOW for winners! And people that have lost control over their life."
"I don't wanna say what part of that reminds me-- but that reminds me..." Norman spoke evenly after having a chance to swallow his food. "I eh-- I had meant to work something out with you about the prize money back when we were still both going to win."
The Nepleslian frowned, massaging the black eye that marred his otherwise handsome face and then explained somewhat shamefull, "I kind of need some money."
"Oh don't worry, totally got you covered. Did not forget or anything," Taela sheepishly mumbled, hastily getting out her datapad to transfer funds.
"I mean, I hate to ask," Norm assured her, though he produced his own datapad, "It's just, my parents farm is in foreclosure-- cliche, I know. I just hoped I'd be able to pay it off this year, but Slag has been beating me every year until now."
"Seriously don't worry. Your cut of the winnings, plus you did get a decent chunk of money from your tied second-third place, so you should be golden, right?" Taela said, typing through on her bank-connection.
"I think--" There was a brief pause, then a broad grin, "I think this should be just enough to pull everything together. I don't think I'll be replacing my bike any time soon, but..." The smile softened, but didn't leave. Instead, it became something almost wistful. "I guess it's about time I got back to messing with cows instead of lunchbox generators."
"Hah, gross. Er, sorry. I'm sure you'll do fine. Who knows, with a face like yours you could be some kinda dairy spokesperson!"
"Hah, you think so?" Norman giggled and posed his features into that perfect dairy-spokesman arrangement. He leaned in close to Taela, slipping into something of a sultry tone as he remarked, "You know-- maybe just for old time's sake you could stop by and visit some time, remind me of what it's like to be behind you."
Though he was not a protective lover, it was at this point that Markus easily took advantage of the racer's lowered guard to move a large section of omelette onto his half of the plate.
"Woah buddy, I like you, but not like that. But I might stop by on occasion." Taela said, waving a hand in front.
While Norman hund his head in defeat, Ilsa prodded her datapad to one side so she could cross her arms on the table. "After this, I feel like I'm more than owed my trip to Sargasso." She said in a businesslike tone, then indicated the blue Neko whose face was slowly spinning just above the table. "I have a mystery to unravel at this point. We have taken so long to get here that my bounty has 'dried up', and yet she travels in the company of a celebrity. Most curious, yes?"
"Probably because he has a lotta clout with governments. Like, he's saved each nation a million times, I've heard," Taela said. "But yeah, we can go to Sargasso next. I don't have any problem with that. And I guess you've got me interested now. What did you say her name was?"
"This one is... Santo-Hei Sesshoseki Tamamo." Ilsa frowned a sideways frown, gripping the table from below with white knuckles as she described the charges. "Charged with a cyberterrorism of sorts, modifying Imperial records for her own gain. Deserting her sisters, betraying her progenitors..." There was a beat while Ilsa considered the current state of the Empire, and then a softer, "Either she is a dog fit only for slaughter, or she is a genius who can read the writing on the wall. I intend to find out, and then execute justice appropriately."
Taela thoughtfully contemplated another sausage link on the end of her fork. before responding. "Huh. Okay well. . . in that case, we should eat up for the trip. Waiter, get us a 'Not in my Yamatai'!"
*Amaranthe - Electroheart
