The Park, Late Saturday afternoon

[nosefullofsnot.livejournal.com]

Lucas didn't really think he'd get into any of this 'jumping on invading creatures and saving the day' crap. Then he discovered that you could pick up the turtle shells after jumping on them. And then you could throw them at people. Even better, you could do this while breezing past them on a skateboard. And maybe, just maybe, while also spitting fire at people because you'd gotten a fire flower earlier in the day and hadn't lost it. And you could cause all of this destruction while doing loops around the park.

It was a race against nobody at the moment, but he was enjoying himself.

[OOC: MARIO KART, PEOPLE! Ping in if you want to race (get a bike or a rickshaw or something!) or just get hit with a turtle shell!]

Comments

[the_merriest]

Rikku had, once upon a time, dated a skater boy. And that skater boy had made her her very own skateboard, one that she still owned even after several years and a few moves.

She didn't have a helmet on. Helmets were for little girls and people that feared head injuries.

She hadn't grabbed any turtle shells yet. She was just having fun zipping through the park, trying to dodge turtles, and mocking Reno for the inability to keep up.

Until she spotted Lucas. Heyyyyyyyyyy. Maybe if she blew him a raspberry, he'd be up for a race?

[raspberryturk]

Reno was keeping up just fine, thanks. Maybe he wanted to be in the rear. Maybe he got the better view, back here. Did Rikku have any idea just what the short-shorts did to him? Really?

And, okay, there had been that one unfortunate banana peel that had slowed him down a bit, but he'd caught up quickly enough, so there.

While she blew her raspberry at Lucas, he was content to blow one at her.

"Lookin' good, babe!"

[the_merriest]

"Bet you caaaaaaaaaan't catch me!" she taunted. And blew another raspberry.

She should really be looking where she was going, because she nearly wiped out on her skateboard. Stupid branch. All ... lying there and being branchy.

But she was okay and she was going to actually try looking forward every now and then. It seemed to help.

[raspberryturk]

"Yeah, yeah, get me off the board and I'd catch you in no time, yo," Reno countered, smirking a bit at the near-miss, there. She was tough. He wasn't about to worry over a stupid branch, here.

"You sure you know how to drive that thing, babe?"

[the_merriest]

"Very funny," she huffed, turning around to stick her tongue out. Briefly. She was actually learning. Who knew?

"I'll have you know that I totally went boarding in Zanarkand once," she said. "All those big loopy paths through the mountains. Beat that."

[nosefullofsnot.livejournal.com]

She was going to blow a raspberry, was she? Lucas had no problem returning the favor. He spat a fireball at her.

"You wanna race? YOU'RE ON."

[the_merriest]

Rikku gasped and dodged the fireball. "That's cheating!" she insisted. She had come here to run a race, fair and square, and he was spitting fireballs!

How cool. How come she couldn't spit fireballs!??

She reached into her leg-pouch, instead, and fished out a Dragon's Scale. Which, when hurled to the ground, dumped a nice amount of water on the path ahead of Lucas.

[nosefullofsnot.livejournal.com]

"I'm evil!" Lucas called back before launching into a kickflip ollie over the water. When he landed, he continued taunting, "And I'm a professional! Take that, slowpoke!"

[the_merriest]

Okay, she was duly impressed with the effortless kickflip ollie.

"I used to date a pro!" she called back. Okay, technically, she'd dated a teenage boy who had won a competition. Not the same thing. "So there!"

She crouched down, urging her board to go faster. First step: to catch up, and then to throw more shit at him.

[i-am-the-rat.livejournal.com]

Hank had a helmet on! His looked cool, though.

He gave Rikku a grin and a wave. "Science?!" he demanded. "Where we're going, we don't need any science!" Then he mimed pulling down a pair of goggles over his eyes -- goggles he wasn't actually wearing, by the way -- and floated off like he thought she wouldn't be able to catch him. Despite her going at several times his speed.

[the_merriest]

"We always need science!" she called back. And then, she was going to detour so she could circle around him. "Science could make that bad boy go faster than a decrepit turtle with a limp."

[i-am-the-rat.livejournal.com]

"It's NOT decrepit!" Hank pouted. "It's my hoverbike! You're just saying that because you're jealous!"

[the_merriest]

"Noooo, I'm not," Rikku laughed. "I'm saying that because I run a repair shop, silly."

Hint. Hint.

[raspberryturk]

Reno's experience on a skateboard was next to nil. But, shit, if Rikku had one, and she was tearing up the park on it, and this other guy was doing the same, how difficult could it be?

He was learning the hard way, he'd only fallen a few times. But he'd done so with grace and dignity and a few inventive words that weren't generally shared in polite company. But then, when the hell had Reno ever cared about polite company?

After a while, he'd gotten the hang of it, and was making a bit of a game out of jumping his board with landing on the funky little mushroom things in mind. Way more effective than smacking them with his EMR had been. The rules for fighting these monsters were friggin' weird. He kind of felt like he'd been yanked out of his element and stuffed into something a little more two-dimensional, a little less forgiving when it came to having time to think about what he was doing.

Friggin' sidescrollers.

[nosefullofsnot.livejournal.com]

"Hey, bro, how you doing?" Lucas asked, slowing down a bit to match Reno's pace.

[raspberryturk]

Reno glanced sidelong at Lucas, seemed to give a lazy sort of consideration to his reply, and then shrugged.

"Catchin' on," he supplied, because he was secure enough in his masculinity to admit when he was still just a beginner. In a somewhat skewed definition of the term 'beginner,' granted. "The messed up fungus things give somethin' to aim for, yo. You give it a try, yet?"

Seriously, man. It was stupidly satisfying to squash them flat.

[nosefullofsnot.livejournal.com]

"I've been focusing on the turtles," Lucas said, holding up the shell he'd been holding. "That way you can do this."

He threw the shell to the ground, aiming it at Reno. Because he was a nice guy.

[raspberryturk]

"Ohshi-" Yeah, that was a good way to get Reno hitting the path in a duck-and-roll, grabbing the board on his way down to take along with him.

... And then giving Lucas a middle-finger-salute as he picked himself up off the ground again, dusting off one of the sleeves of his suit. It was a friendly sort of finger, though. That had been a damn interesting trick, there, and Reno was never one to turn down what he saw as a challenge.

A second later and he was on his board again, giving chase after Lucas while keeping an eye out for more of those weird little turtles.

[i-am-the-rat.livejournal.com]

Hank waved cheerfully at the substitute science teacher from his hoverbike. "It's-a me! Hank!"

[raspberryturk]

"Uh, hey, Hank," Reno gave the skateboard a few more scoots while he looked the boy over, trying to place the face.

This was the kid who had made light of the impending chocopocalypse in that class he'd subbed for Rikku in, wasn't he? The extinction of chocolate was no laughing matter, Hank!

"You findin' this a good day for a joyride, kid?"

[i-am-the-rat.livejournal.com]

"No," Hank answered darkly. "I'm findin' this a good day for a RACE!"

A race against what wasn't immediately obvious. True, he was going faster than most of the little mushroom things that were milling around, but that was only because they weren't running.

[i-am-the-rat.livejournal.com]

Hank had a hoverbike! It was a... thing. A thing his dad had made. It looked idiotic, had a girlish daisy on the basket on the front, hovered a few inches off the ground, and moved at a slow walking pace. The LAST thing it would be good for was a race.

And yet, here he was. He was also holding a banana peel he'd found in a box that he'd accidentally run into. No reason.

He put-putted after Lucas, slowly falling behind. "Hey, where do you think you're goin', slowpoke?!?"

[nosefullofsnot.livejournal.com]

"Around in a circle," Lucas said, slowing down a bit out of curiosity. "Why do you have a box?"

[i-am-the-rat.livejournal.com]

"I don't! I have a BANANA PEEL!!!" Hank tossed the box aside and then tried to throw the banana peel at Lucas. He missed and instead tossed it in front of himself. Against all logic, when the hoverbike floated over the peel it began spinning in circles out of control.

"Um... take that?"

[nosefullofsnot.livejournal.com]

"You're kidding me, right?" Lucas asked.

He spat a fireball just for the hell of it.