Biker 1/2 Cycle 1 - Birth of a Modern Legend Book 1: Opening Moves Chapters 27-29 Calum Wallace ===== LEGALISTIC SHIT and RANT Ranma 1/2 is not mine, no no i didn't do it you can't make me say it woz my fault THIS FIC WOULD BE 18-RATED IF YOU FILMED IT AND GAVE IT TO THE BBFC! There's audible off-screen sex (but no more, even Ranma has a right to some privacy when he wants it and I'm no good at writing sex scenes) gratuitous violence, character deaths, drugs, rock 'n roll and insane quantities of swearing. If you can't handle it don't read it. Ranma 1/2 is property of Rumiko Takahashi and varied companies much bigger than me; I'm just borrowing the characters and world without permission as a way of learning to carry a decent plot. I'll put them back when I've finished with 'em. I promise. The Amerai, S'Vek, Sidhe, the Wade family, Clan Hakkenan, Rat Diva, Seven Hope and all related concepts are property of Calum John Wallace (me) and Mad Dog Games; all rights reserved and all that. If you want to use 'em in a fic, please A) read Biker 1/2 carefully, it should give you a good idea of what the Amerai are all about, B) ask for my permission and C) include me in the prereaders for your tale. Finally, at least four characters are gay or bisexual - if you can't handle that then please be so kind as to fuck off. Like the alternate Ryoga of this tale I have little time for homophobes due to certain problems suffered by my (bisexual) elder sister. note, I'm using "{this}" to denote things said in Cantonese and "[this]" to denote things said in what wolves use for a language. Chapter 27: The quick and the dead "See what's ruling all our lives... see who's pulling strings" - Iron Maiden, 'Be Quick or Be Dead' "I was angry. I mean, waddya think? They just couldn't leave us th' fuck alone." - Ranma Saotome on the Conservative Amazons. *********************************** The Saotome-Tendo house and grounds were a hive of activity. Amazons sprinted every which what way. Nabiki was overseeing the dropping off of a large tarpaulin covered shape by a JGSDF tank transporter. Ranma busied himself making sure the defences were in some sort of order. Every house the Amazons had managed to buy was turned into a strongpoint. Street corners became machine gun nests. Other people were frantically offloading crates of ammunition from trucks. Akira had called in the absolute best troops Clan Saotome had. Nodoka was overseeing the armouring of her truck - after the last battle they had stashed the sheet steel used to protect her rig. After all, Nodoka had a nasty feeling they would need it again. Soun went down to the basement and opened a box that had sat undisturbed for the last sixteen years - it contained a 'Chicago typewriter' drum fed Thompson sub-machine gun his father had taken off a dead US Army trooper during the Second World War and smuggled back into the country. He loaded it up with ammunition scrounged off Akane then set to polishing his naginata. Happosai and Tiger vanished into the dojo to do God-only-knows what. Finally, three hours after Ranma and Nodoka had arrived back from the site of the crash, everything was prepared. Werebird scouts took off in every direction, searching for signs of the Conservative Amazons. *********************************** Ranma shook his head. "Goddamnit, we've been waitin' fer these fuckers fer six hours." He glanced over at a scout who was gulping water from a flask, having arrived back moments before. "Any signs?" "No. I haven't seen a goddamn thing." Another scout - a werefalcon - zoomed towards them at high speed, obviously half panicked. She shifted back to human form and made a neat three point landing on the roof of Nodoka's truck. "THEY'RE-" The unmistakable bellow of a .50 Browning heavy machine gun interrupted her. Bullet holes appeared in the living room windows of the house. Shampoo, who was going over some details with Kasumi, staggered as a slug hit her leg. Ranma jerked round. A van marked as belonging to a local bakery had pulled up; it's back doors were open and two Conservative Amazons were pelting the house with shots from the machine gun they had set up in the back of the van. He grabbed his rifle - an FN-FAL with an underslung 30mm grenade launcher - and, firing from the hip, planted a frag grenade in the back of the van. The vehicle exploded into a flaming wreck. "BULLSEYE!" He leapt onto the roof of Nodoka's truck as she started it's monster engine. A group of - obviously stolen - removal vans had skidded to a halt and were disgorging Conservative troops at the end of the street. The truck roared and belched black diesel smoke from it's mighty chrome exhausts as Nodoka put the pedal to the metal. Twenty tons of blue and chrome Kenworth doing 0-60 in three and a half seconds is one hell of a sight. Add to that the express train like roar from the gigantic Maybach V12 railway locomotive engine, the angular sheet steel protecting the radiator, cab and wheels, the audible scream of the monstrous supercharger sucking air through the two foot long airscoop mounted on the bonnet, the twin plumes of fire and filthy black smoke that were now belching from it's exhaust stacks and the minigun Akane had set up to fire out of the passengers side windscreen - the glass had been hastily removed and replaced with sheet steel - and you got the impression that this particular truck had just come thundering straight out of the gates of Hell with some form of blood-crazed speed demon behind the wheel. Said impression wouldn't be far from the truth - Nodoka's personal way of dealing with sorrow was to change it into anger and direct it at the nearest available thing marked 'Target' and she was VERY upset about what had happened to Godo Amachi. The truck bore down on the tight group of Transit vans the forwards elements of the Conservative Amazon forces had arrived in, AK bullets whining off it's bodywork like angry wasps as the terrified Conservatives blasted away at it. Their fire was to no avail; this truck could plough through a police roadblock without more than scratching it's huge bumper. The vans and their former occupants were swept away like gnats before a charging rhinoceros. Ranma smirked and jumped off the truck roof. The Amazon gunner opened fire with her minigun as he jumped. He landed in the middle of a pack of survivors who had been alert enough to get clear of the vans in time. It was at this point that he noticed something very odd. Around ninety percent of said survivors were male. Male + Conservative Amazon front line troops = Not. The nearest man's eyes started glowing red as Ranma hit him. "Oh shit! Fuckin' vampires!" *********************************** "Mi Soon, do you see what I see?" The blue-haired Amazon looked in the direction Mortise was pointing. "Shit. Let's move it!" Prince Herb spotted what they were looking at. He went from stationary to Mach 1.6 in three feet and half a second. So did Mi Soon and Mortise, rapidly followed by Akira and Genma. *********************************** Five massive bangs - they sounded like thunderclaps - echoed across Nerima. Nabiki glanced at the sky as she sprinted towards the tarpaulin covered object her JASDF contacts had delivered using a tank transporter. She skidded round a corner. A length of chain wrapped itself round her ankles and she immediately went down, rolling with the fall like Ranma had taught her. "FUCKING MU TZE GET BENT!" The shortsighted Chinese boy glanced at the source of the voice - Shampoo. He immediately spotted the ragged bloody hole in her trousers. A snarl appeared on his face and he pulled a pair of .50 machine guns out of nowhere. Shampoo was halfway through recoiling from the sight when he opened fire. At the Conservative Amazons. Nabiki shrugged and kicked the chain clear of her legs then scrambled under the tarp. A door slammed then a gas turbine began to spin up. *********************************** Nodoka winced at the sight of Ranma suddenly becoming embroiled in a brawl with a large group of vampires. If her own experience with the undead proved true they would chew him up and spit out the pips. Her foot crashed down on the Kenworth's brakes, bringing it screeching to a halt in an unreasonably short distance. She snapped a terse order to her Amazon gunner and dived out, drawing her katana. *********************************** Ranma launched punch after punch, burning ki at an insane rate. His fists cracked like a machine gun as they snapped back and forth faster than even his own eyes could see. Adrenaline surged through his blood. His aura entered the visible range as it hit maximum intensity. It wasn't just vampires who's eyes glowed. Streaks of red fire started shooting from under Ranma's mirrorshades. He had long since run his FAL dry. Ranma Saotome was fighting for his life. And that meant he was getting serious. A fireball screamed in from his left, detonating in the face of the vamp behind him. Nodoka leapt into the fray, her katana going like a windmill. Even the awesome quantity of damage she was dealing out wasn't enough. The two of them rapidly found themselves being pushed back, forced to pull out all the stops, throw all the switches and let go with every ounce of ability they had. Then a humanoid fireball dropped into the centre of the melee, a massive thunderclap as he decelerated. Prince Herb smirked. "Heads up, Ranma! The cavalry has arrived!" Mi Soon appeared one side of him with another thunderclap. Akira appeared the other side of her. Sixteen feet of werebear appeared behind Nodoka and reached out round her, ripping the vampire she was about to cream into shreds. Then a certain thirty foot winged minotaur dropped to the ground beside Herb. Ranma laughed out loud. *********************************** Akane shot Mao Xing, Shampoo and Lin-Lin a cocky grin. "Shall we?" "Yes, let's." She checked her minigun's ammo and casually spun it up, firing a quick quarter second burst at the ground as a test. "Perfect." Mao hit the trigger on his bike; it morphed into powersuit form, the varied armour plates fading into existence. He hefted the 25mm cannon. "I ready when you is." Shampoo cocked her M60. "I ready." Lin-Lin nodded and gave her brand new PSG-1 an affectionate pat. Akane pulled a packet of chewing gum out of her pocket. She grinned. "It's time to kick ass and chew bubblegum... and I got plenty of gum..." *********************************** Herb casually threw another foolhardy vampire out of the way, splattering the unfortunate leech across the side of a house. He was starting to get bored with this - ignore blow, grab vampire, throw away, ignore blow, grab vampire, throw away, repeat ad nauseum. This chain of actions and his daydream were interrupted when he grabbed someone and they didn't go flying when he tried to throw them. Instead whoever it was reversed the throw on him, sending him flat on his face on the tarmac. Half a dozen vampires jumped on him. He blew them off by feeding some hot ki into his battle aura and letting it explode, then stood up. "Well," said a voice he hadn't heard in years. "Still throwing your weight around, I see. You never do learn, do you?" Herb turned round. "Flange. So we meet again... unfortunately." "Yeah, you little shit. It's your turn to get your butt kicked, brother dear." "Shall we do it somewhere we won't blow up our differing allies?" "Just what I was about to suggest. Meet you up there." Flange jumped straight upwards. Much to everyone except Herb's surprise he didn't drop back down. Herb smirked and sprung into the air to join him. "Be warned, Flange. I've grown substantially stronger since Father threw you out." "Indeed? So have I." Herb dispensed with formalities and blasted straight forwards. There was an apocalyptic crack as he met Flange coming the other way. *********************************** Happosai marched out of the dojo with a smug expression on his face. He was no longer a two foot shrivelled old man - he had changed his human form back into what it should be. In other words a clean shaven and marginally taller version of Akira, only with about four feet of blazing red hair tied back in a ponytail. He observed the fight for a second, smirked then shapeshifted. Not into anything anyone observing expected - oh no, he wasn't a werewolf any more. Or a werecat. Or a werebear. Instead he shapeshifted into a velociraptor. Half a ton of warm-blooded, hyperactive, bloodthirsty prehistoric killing machine named Happosai Saotome careered across the garden, smashed through a wall and tore at full rip into the melee, bullets pinging harmlessly off his scales. He hit the fight head on and ripped a huge chunk out of a nearby Conservative Amazon. Mortise was right - werewolf didn't taste too good. But what the hell, Happosai was in dire need of a snack. A Conservative Amazon tried to whack him on the head with her naginata. He casually blocked the strike and ripped her in two with his spur claws then disembowelled another three before anyone else had managed to react. He bit the next one's head off even as she started spraying bullets at him - the slugs vaporised on contact with his aura. One gulp and said head shot down his gullet. At this point he realised the only remaining Amazons in this particular patch of battle were 'friendly.' He shot a toothsome grin at the nearest and bounded off towards the next group of enemies. They naturally opened fire at him - not that it did them any good. Then one of them shapeshifted. Happosai muttered the velociraptor equivalent of the words 'Oh shit.' The Amazon he had been about to gobble expanded at an insane rate, finishing at nearly fifty feet tall. Big Momma T-Rex shot Happosai the Velociraptor a positively evil grin. He shrugged. Being smaller than his opponents was something he was used to. His next move was to catapult upwards, raking the Tyrannosaurus's face with his spur claws. Unsurprisingly the slashes closed up; he landed neatly on the T-Rex's back and started gnawing and clawing at the back of it's neck, munching and hacking fast enough to prevent the wounds closing. The T-Rex let out an enraged scream, ducked it's head down and charged a nearby building, forcing Happosai to jump clear before he got a concrete wall in the face. *********************************** Ranma shot another glance at the ki blast firefight that was lighting up the entire street. He shook his head and continued repeatedly introducing the vampire in front of him to his knuckles. A swish and double thunk behind him told him his mother had just decapitated another vampire. He planted a full strength kick in the bouncing head before it could disintegrate, sending it smashing through a window on the far side of the street. It burst into dust with a puff of spent ki. Genma zoomed past in front of him, piledriving another couple of vampires into a nearby van wreck. Over to his left was a glittering, glowing disk of naginata with a wildly pirouetting Soun Tendo in the middle, the odd clatter of tommy gun shots arcing out to pepper any Amerai foolish enough to approach the melee. Akira's pistol was crashing repeatedly off behind him. All that was visible of Mi Soon was a flying cloud of punches, elbows, knees, blocks, kicks, ki blasts and bites and the occasional cloud of dusted vampire. Mortise was in his curse form and busying himself hammering anything not Neriman within arm's reach into the ground. Considering he had fifteen foot arms in his present form he could reach quite a lot. There was another massive detonation above him as Herb unloaded another dump truck sized ki blast at Flange. *********************************** "Holy shit! Willya look at that?" The soldier who had spoken glanced over at his squad lieutenant. "What the fuck is that? Call the Colonel." The radio operator grabbed the handset and spent a couple of minutes fiddling with it. "No can do, Skipper. We've got broadband jamming active right across half the city." Lieutenant Dajiko Saotome shook her head. "Dana's love. Ah well, guess it's time to follow his emergency orders. Everyone get your weapons ready, I suspect we've got some supernatural ass to kick. Use explosive ammo." "Some action? At fucking last." "Can it, Sakamori. From the amount of ki flying around up there this is gonna be bloody dangerous. No goddamn heroics, I don't wanna have to send any of you boys home in a fucking box. Okay, Nikajima. Let's get this piece of crap rolling!" The squad's LAV-25 roared into life; it's blue beacon started pulsing and the siren started it's eerie baying call. Nikajima rammed the vehicle into gear and stomped on the throttle. "I've gotten a directional on the jamming, Skipper." "Good work. Guide us in!" *********************************** "Fuck." Ranko swore and grabbed the back of her knee. She threw herself flat on her back against the rapidly cooling wreck of a van and let fly with her new leg weapon. An FN Minimi light machine gun. Much to her disgust it didn't have a lot of effect - her attackers didn't even break their stride. "Shit!" One of them suddenly flew over her head and impacted against the house behind with an audible splat. Ryoga grinned at her half-sister. "Hiya, Ranko. Need a hand?" A large figure casually smashed another pair's heads together and threw them away. Lime gave her a stupid grin."Uh - hi..." A fourth attacker suddenly fell over in splattered pieces. Mint stepped through the cloud of loose ki and sprayed blood. "Can it, Lime. She's that Mortise guy's chick." The three of them stopped beside her, turned round and gave the varied people who had been attacking her three evil grins. "Okay, you 'orrible lot! Try playing with someone your own size!" *********************************** A missile whistled past between Akane and Mao Xing. "Ha! They missed!" The massive detonation behind them pointed out the fact the shot had been right on target. Akane glanced over her shoulder and stopped dead in her tracks. "NABIKI!" The blazing tarp covered shape didn't answer. End of this bit. Chapter 28: Death and destruction for fun and profit. "Usta do a little but the little wouldn't do it so the little got more and more. Just can't seem to get a little better said the little bitter country boy" - Guns 'N' Roses, "My dad was always there fer me. Always... Th' world just ain't th' same without Dad, without his weird advice." - Ranma Saotome, remembering his father. *********************************** Akane stared at the blazing shape. Nabiki was somewhere in that mess. Then she noticed the growing noise. A gas turbine spooling up? The burning tarp was shredded by what had been lurking under it - rotor blades. Six very large rotor blades. Akane gasped. "Holy shit, it's a Hind D!" The flying tank finished warming its engines up and took to the air with a deafening roar. *********************************** Nabiki eased the coaxial over, edging the Russian gunship sideways. She grinned. All that simulator time wouldn't go to waste. Anyway, this felt so much more than the flight simulator. She could feel the torque of the two hefty gas turbines spinning away above and behind her, forcing the chopper's rotor blades through the air with no regard for things like inertia. Plus there was the multitude of green 'weapon ready' lights on the HUD. The Americans built their helicopters to loiter around for ages waiting for targets. The Russians used a satellite to find targets then sent the copter to introduce said target to Mr. Firepower. In general this meant that a Hind had a shitload more munitions than, for example, an Apache. Sure, she couldn't stay in the air so long without running out of fuel. But while she was up there she could cause an incredible amount of damage. She took note of Herb ki blast duelling with a guy she didn't recognise and started pinging the stranger with a laser designator. After checking her lock twice she launched an anti-tank missile. Said missiles didn't care if you misapplied them as long as you gave them a laser beam to follow. Herb nearly lost concentration as he spotted the ugly shape of a Russian helicopter gunship popping out of the blazing tarp that Nabiki had disappeared under. The source of the fire was easily apparent - the missile had struck a fuel drum. Talking of missiles, one chose that moment to corkscrew off the Hind's left weapons pylon and smash into the small of Flange's back. This wasn't enough to kill a Musk prince. But it was enough to completely break his focus. Distracted by the explosion he glanced over his shoulder. Herb didn't waste the opportunity. Another massive ki blast burst from his hands and smashed into Flange's face. The Hind roared past Herb's ear. Prince Herb smirked as bits of Flange rained onto the street below. Scratch one renegade Musk. Nabiki tugged back on the stick and gunned up the chopper's throttle, lifting its nose well above the raging firefight on the streets below. She left the throttle at full power and fished her handheld radio out of her pocket. *********************************** Dajiko stuck her head out of the turret hatch, FN-FAL ready. But she wasn't expecting what had caused the noise. "WHAT THE HELL?" The Hind D didn't remark on that; it just swept past, ignoring the LAV-25. Nabiki snorted as she noticed the eight wheeled IFV. Sweet fuck all good that thing would be. The static on her radio finally cleared up a couple of moments later. *********************************** Mortise snarled. He had been transformed back to human by a well-aimed thermos flask of coffee and was now being boxed in by nearly thirty enemy vampires. And he was running low on ki. He was in trouble and he knew it. A fist burst out of his chest, spraying bits of his insides across the street. They vanished in puffs of dust and wasted ki before they hit the ground "Shit!" He tried to get hold of his attacker but it was no good; his left arm came off then everything went black. *********************************** Ranma was starting to get worried. He and Nodoka had been separated in the melee. His mother was still holding her own, but only just. He himself was starting to get boxed in. His father had been pulled down and was no longer visible. Akira and Mi Soon were both frenetically battering away at their opponents. For every vampire that went down there seemed to be another two waiting to get at him and his friends, and the only way he could get them to stay down was by separating their heads from their bodies by a large distance before they collapsed into dust. Mortise seemed to have lost his fight - there was no longer any sign of combat where he had last seen the vampire boy. There was a massive 'Clump' noise. He spun round, kicking three enemies out the way as he did so. Herb smirked at him. "Need a hand, Ranma?" *********************************** Genma lay and stared at the varied vampires who were no longer paying the battered werebear any attention, merely walking over him to get at their other enemies. What a way to go. He could feel the lump of rock one of them had rammed into his lungs. Nodoka was fairly near to him. Maybe he'd be able to say goodbye before he drowned in his own blood. Oh, and there was Akira. Genma knew he was dying and really didn't give a shit any more. Hang on, what the hell was Akira doing? The old werewolf couldn't see Genma. Akira had just levelled a gun at the back of Nodoka's head from about six inches away. When Genma had told Ranma about instincts he hadn't been joking. His adrenaline glands kicked in for one final burst. He may not like Nodoka much but she was still *his* lady. "GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" *********************************** Akira smirked to himself. He had seen Genma go down, he didn't need to worry about that misguided fool influencing Ranma any more. And the fight gave him the perfect opportunity to get rid of the other obstruction - the boy's mother. He ignored the roar until the person it belonged to grabbed him. There was a bloody mess of foam on Genma's snarling face. Akira saw this with startling clarity as Genma grabbed his arm, wrenched it back, ripped the Beretta out of his hand and gobbled the gun. Then he had a very close up view of Genma's tongue as the dying werebear literally bit his head off. *********************************** Nodoka heard the roar. She spun round. For half a second she had a view down the barrel of Akira's handgun then Genma hit the older man like an express train. There was a flurry of motion then Akira's headless body slumped onto the road. Genma swallowed, stared straight into her eyes for an interminable instant then collapsed on top of Akira. His eyes closed then rolled open again, staring sightlessly at Nodoka as the sixteen foot werebear shifted back to his natural form - not the man she expected, instead Genma became a rather large black bear. The wound that had killed him was easily visible - someone had ripped up half a paving slab and rammed it right through his chest. She went cold. She hadn't known her erstwhile husband very well and now she never would. A layer of frost appeared all over her sword, clothes and body. No one had the right to take that away from her. And whoever had was about to pay with whatever they used for a life. *********************************** Happosai jumped, landing on the T-Rex's back once more. He scurried up it's neck and bit into the back of it's head, chewing frantically. There was a cross between a bellow and a howl from the direction of the house. Whatever caused it was very, very pissed off. Velociraptor and tyrannosaurus both looked round. Tiger stepped out of the garden and screamed again. Then she shapeshifted. No longer was her battle form a large ugly bird - instead she had looked at Happosai's 'modifications' and gone completely overkill. The end result was eighty feet of wolfwoman / horrible twisted thing that looked like it'd crawled out of a Lovecraft novel / apatosaur hybrid. Tiger grinned (with all three mouths) at the T-Rex, revealing the most impressive set of dentistry ever seen the Nerima side of Jurassic Park. Then she charged. The T-Rex did it's damnedest to get the hell out the way. *********************************** Something inside Ranma snapped as he saw his father go over. "DAD!" His aura lit up, casting a sickly greenish glow across the street. It roiled around him like a sheet of flame. He only had one goal in mind - to get to his dad. Soun too was struggling to get to the same destination. Herb hung just behind Ranma and blew anything stupid enough to attack the Saotome boy into their component atoms. Ranma knelt down beside the battered corpse of his werebear father. "Dad... an' I never even got ta say goodbye..." He yanked the chunk of paving slab out of the bear's chest and threw it away, propelling it with a huge gout of ki. It ripped straight through the melee, clearing a wide path as the vampires in it's way exploded into dust. Ranma looked up. His eyes started glowing with an intense blue light as he came to his decision. "It's payback time." *********************************** Nodoka whirled round, eviscerating another three vampires. Her sword was stopped with a ringing clang and a huge spray of sparks before it could hit the forth. She looked the leech in the eye. A similar katana was gripped in the undead woman's hands. The vampiress smiled. "Interesting. I never dreamt I would face a blade capable of surviving contact with my own." She gestured and the vampires surrounding her and Nodoka stepped back. Nodoka snorted. "You took the words right out of my mouth. I trust you are aware of who you face?" "Indeed; Nodoka Saotome, the present Champion of the Moroboshi line, is it not?" "Correct. And you might be...?" "I am Morranion S'Ket, bloodheir of Damien K'Gar and Mistress of the S'Vek line. And I am not impressed." "Nor am I. You know, I never thought I would see the day the S'Veks acted lackey to filth like the Joketsuzo Conservatives." "But how would a Mundane, even one as powerful as yourself, understand our plan? A plan that has lasted six thousand years, and has another five millennia before it comes to frutiation?" "Enough with this. I did not come here to talk." *********************************** Mi Soon shook her head as she spotted Nodoka facing down the wily old leech. Ah well, she wasn't about to interrupt another woman's fight. Anyway, she had problems of her own. The white-haired and very familiar figure at the back of the melee was one such problem. She dropped out of the air twenty feet from Kou Loun, brutally demolishing six Conservative warriors as she landed. "You're not welcome in this city, Kou Loun. Not until you stop your crap. I thought we made that clear last time you attacked us." "Ah, the old bitch herself. I hope you are prepared." "Prepared? You're six hundred years too soon to defeat me, girl!" "We can find out." Much to Kou Loun's surprise Mi Soon assumed a very basic defensive stance. Kou Loun was old enough, skilled enough and wise enough to know that meant she was in very, very deep shit. *********************************** Nabiki set the radio aside. She glanced back towards the Nerima suburbs. "Hang on in there, people... the cavalry's coming." She eased the stick over; the flying tank circled back towards the battle. Massive blue flashes and the stark white light of gunfire was still illuminating the city. The battle was beginning to spread from the confines of the Amazon's defensive cordon; half of Nerima was going to get trashed if things continued the way they were going. She narrowed her eyes as she spotted the tight group of hastily camouflaged vans and trucks on the edge of a nearby park. Spotting them was so easy with the infrared sights it was sad, and they almost screamed 'Reserves' at her. She lost a bit of altitude and roared up the street, the chopper's floodlights half blinding varied drivers in the mob of traffic that was frantically trying to escape from Nerima. People used to call this part of Tokyo 'Weirdness City'. If Ranma gained any more heavily armed enemies they'd start calling it 'detonation boulevard' or something, there was certainly enough unscheduled demolition happening down there. She selected the multiple rocket pods from her available firepower and bore down on the vehicles in a manner reminiscent of Nodoka's truck. Rotor blades replaced flame belching exhausts, searchlights replaced headlamps, miniguns replaced large chrome bumpers and a pissed off five foot eight weretiger replaced a pissed off five foot four demon hunter but the effect on the people she had rightly guessed to be Conservative Amazon reserves was to all intents and purposes the same. "Okay, you shitheads! Attack my family on THIS!" *********************************** Ranma winced as another series of massive explosions echoed across Nerima. He didn't have time to do much more than that and hope it wasn't any of his people. He, Herb and Soun were now forming a triangle. They were completely boxed in, they could no longer see or hear any other friendlies and the supply of attacking vampires wasn't diminishing. The three of them were no longer starting to get worried; the had finished doing that a while back and were now getting extremely worried. Kick, duck, triple punch combo, plant boot in available groin, sweep kick, quickie ki blast into the interruption - the hot ki used for that attack was too violent for a vampire to digest - follow that up with a couple of vacuum blades, grab up a fallen AK47 and empty the clip into the crowd, block an inbound attack with the gun and dump what was left of it... Ranma was marginally above autopilot. Herb had stopped enjoying himself a while back; the war of attrition the undead scum were playing had become very obvious. He would have completely exhausted his reserves of ki in another four to six minutes, and by that time Ranma and Soun would be completely out of it. Well, maybe not Ranma - that boy had serious potential. If he survived this fight. It looked like a big 'If'. As for Soun, he had gone into a Zen-like state most warriors only ever dreamed of; completely focused, completely set on the task and slicing the opposition into very small pieces. The vampires were only stopping him breaking away from Ranma and Herb by sheer weight of numbers. *********************************** Kas couldn't believe his eyes; werewolf-bashing was supposed to be easy, even for vermin like his troops. He was starting to admire the two werewolves and the half-dragon a *lot*. Between the three of them they had already dusted over a hundred of his troops including his lieutenant Hakamori. He glanced around, trying to see who he could call on for assistance. His old friend Morag was directing the scum Morranion had given her command of forwards. "Hey, fang-face! Over here!" "Howdy, Kas? Having a little trouble I see?" Kas snorted, casually disembowelling a Reformist Amazon who hadn't got the message about not interrupting. "I am impressed by those people. The Musk guy was bound to cause problems, but I never expected those two werewolves to kick up such a fuss." "You're not the only one they've managed to impress, Kas. Not by any stretch of the imagination. The boy's mother is presently holding her own against Lady Morranion herself." "God damn..." There was a clump as a Conservative Amazon elder landed by the two of them. "Good work, they're almost in position. We only need to move them about six feet further before the trap is sprung." "We S'Vek keep our word. As long as you mutts stick to your side of the bargain. I hope you don't 'accidentally' use the wrong spell, little werewolf. Because if you do our contract with you will be null and void, at which stage the battle will be over for you." "Lord Kas, we are women of honour. We do not break our promises." Kas accepted that with a brief nod. "Then get your magus into position." "Already done, you are presently speaking to her." *********************************** "Shit!" Akane dived behind an overturned car as the Conservative troops hosed the street with fire. The burning wreck didn't offer much in the way of protection but at least it was cover of a sort. Shampoo hit the ground beside her as Mao returned fire, the thump of the 25mm cannon echoing down the street. Lin-Lin had taken up a position on the roof of Nodoka's trailer some time ago and didn't show any sign of leaving. The crack of her sniper rifle could be heard over the background clatter of AK fire every so often. Akane waited until Mao had drawn the incoming fire away from the car, spun her minigun up then rolled to her feet. She levelled the gun down the street then hit the trigger. Shampoo's M60 could just be heard over the deafening bellow of fire. Another minigun came to life off down the street behind them; Akane instantly recognised the note. "Oh, hell - spider tanks! Come on!" The three of them sprinted off towards the rampaging machine. *********************************** "MOTHERFUCKER!" Ranko crouched behind the remains of the wall. Ryoga kept ducking up, spraying the spider tank with bullets and dropping back down; she chose a different place to pop up each time. Each time her attack was answered by a withering hail of fire. Mint and Lime were the other side of the wall, desperately trying to lure the four spider machines away from the girls. The rapidly growing howl of a fusion turbine announced the arrival of assistance. Mi Soon had given Mao a rundown of the capabilities and optional extras his mecha carried. Things like how to use it's flight mode. He entered the fight by bodyslamming the nearest spider tank; considering his powersuit was careening down the street at 93 miles per hour with it's feet six inches off the ground at this point the result was impressive to say the least. The spider tank was lifted clean off it's feet and landed flat on it's back. Before Mao could start pummelling it Lime grabbed it by the hindlegs and started whirling six tons of spider tank round his head. There was a massive SLAM as he brought it down on another one. At this point Mint made a mistake. He stopped to watch. He had time to shout "Holy sh-" before one of the two remaining spiders got a bead on him. Mint dropped like a rock, a bloody hole where the left side of his face used to be. The remaining duo of spider tanks broke in opposite directions; one reversed past Mao Xing and the other zoomed off down the street. Lime screamed and threw his handful of spider tank. It crashed down on the one that had killed Mint then violently exploded. He and Mao turned to deal with the final spider tank. They were just in time to see it reverse straight over Shampoo. Akane, who had been off to one side, proceeded to empty her remaining minigun ammo into it. Considering the gun was loaded with inch long tungsten carbide penetrators this had an impressive and downright explosive result. *********************************** "They're tryin' ta move us somewhere." Herb acknowledged Ranma's shout with a sharp nod. He had seen the pattern a minute before. "Spotted already, Saotome." Ranma saw the growing field of magical power long before Herb did. "SHIT! MOVE!" But he spotted it far, far too late. *********************************** Akane heard Ranma's yell as she was beginning to close on the melee with Lime, Ryoga and Ranko; it was the biggest area of fighting therefore the place they could do most good. She had a clear view of what happened next. *********************************** Nabiki was wheeling the Hind for another attack run when the flash lit half the city. The melee she had last seen Ranma in the middle of vanished up into a seven hundred foot tall mushroom cloud. It couldn't be nuclear; there was no shockwave to speak of and no wall of fire. Just the flash and the cloud of smoke. Nabiki suddenly realised she could no longer hear the Hind's engines. She panicked for a moment then realised that they were still running as her hearing began to recover from the incredible detonation. *********************************** Mi Soon felt the burst of high-charge magical energy an instant before the wall of sound hit; she was already on the ground as the hellish noise rolled over her. So was Kou Loun. Off to her left at the site of the other duel neither Nodoka nor Morranion were prepared for the boom. Both of them were knocked flat. The first thing anyone within half a mile heard after that incredible, eardrum-bursting bang was Akane's scream. "RANMA!" And that's another one done. Chapter 29: End of the beginning. "You left me incomplete, all alone, but the memories still remain..." Pantera, 'Cemetary Gates.' "My life was over. Ranma was gone... but it got worse. Shampoo in a coma, Genma gone, Dad gone, Herb gone... nobody I knew was left untouched." - Akane Saotome, describing the period just after the Second Battle of Nerima. *********************************** "No... NO!" Akane stumbled to the edge of the crater. Peices of cooling debris were still falling, smashing into the tarmac around her. Her empty minigun hit the rubble-strewn road with a solid chunk. Her aura lit up, lighting the darkened street with it's sickly green glow. She turned to the smirking trio - two vampires and a werewolf - who were staring at her from the far side of the massive pit the explosion had formed. Her hands came up, unknowingly following a pattern of motions that had been old a million years before as she howled her denial into the night. A section of that glowing aura broke free and rocketed across the crater, exploding with a dull thump right into the trio of enemies faces. Akane didn't see it, nor would she have cared if she had. *********************************** "Dana's love..." Mi Soon whispered the invocation. Kou Loun was wearing an equally shocked look. "The Shi-Shi Hodokan." Every Amazon within hearing range made the same gesture; they kissed their own palm and touched their hands to their hearts. It was an old, old gesture for warding off demons. "What in the name of Ehir Diau have you done, Kou Loun?" "I did what I had to." One of Kou Loun's allied vampires decided he didn't like the look of the storm of ki Akane was unleashing, he pulled a hand grenade out of his pocket, yanked it's pin out and hurled it at Akane. It was an HE fragmentation grenade with a two second fuse. Mi Soon, Kou Loun and Morranion all tried to knock it away from it's target with precisely thrown objects - a shuriken and two chunks of pavement. Unfortunately they were too close together and their projectiles knocked each other out of the air. The grenade exploded right in front of Akane and knocked her flat on her back; she screamed and clawed at her face. There was another flash, this one yellow-green rather than white. A massive cloud of ki leapt away from Akane's body. A chill ran down Mi Soon's spine as it smashed straight back down into where Akane was lying. Kou Loun shook her head. "She's dead. She may not know it yet, but she'd dead." *********************************** Nodoka turned away from the scene and started walking, unable to believe what she'd just seen. She arrived at her truck before anyone else had even moved. An AK cracked and she felt a single hammerblow at the base of her spine. Then everything went black. *********************************** Nabiki steadied her shaking hands on the chopper's controls. Ranma, her father, Herb and Akane - gone, just like that. As if to add insult to injury a line of fire leapt down the street followed and instant later by the bellow of a JGSDF T-74 tank's main gun. The cavalry had arrived and they were far, far too late. *********************************** Twelve hours later the survivors were sat round the Tendo's dining table, cigarettes hanging from their mouths and beers clenched in their hands. Mi Soon voiced the thought that was on everyone's mind. "So who's still missing?" Nabiki sighed and started counting people off on her fingers. "We found what's left of Genma." She paused. "He killed Akira. We found Shampoo - she's unconcious but should recover. No sign of Dad, Ranma, Herb, Ryoga or Ranko. It's like they dropped off the face of the earth. About three hundred dead not counting vampires, 143 of them positively identified as ours, 256 theirs. 604 regiment lost seven men, mainly the crew of the one tank that got blown." Happosai popped another cigar into his mouth. "Well, first things first - we have to keep our people going." He thumped the table. "For better or worse, we are their leaders. It's our job to keep their morale up... I suggest we set them building everything we'll need to turn this mess into a self - contained Amazon village. Nabiki darling, have you managed to keep the JSDF and the pigs off of us?" Nabiki nodded tiredly. "Yeah. Colonel Honda's backing us up with the fatcats. He's a great guy... I told the cops to steer clear of our part of town after the first battle. The JSDF are under the impression we're part of Honda's team so they'll leave us the hell alone." Mi Soon finally breeched the subject everyone had been avoiding. "How's Akane?" Nabiki sighed again. "She's alive... just. What the hell was that massive ki blast she shot off?" "I told you about the Shi-Shi Hodokan, huh?" "Yeah..." "That was the perfected version. It is only possible if the practitioner is feeling nothing but total and utter dispair... it involves channeling heavy ki through every cell in your body. Akane is the only living person ever to use it." "Uh... what happened to the others? There were others?" "Yes, four are recorded. They are dead." Mi Soon stopped. There was an uncomfortable silence then Nabiki asked the million dollar question. "What happened to them?" Mi Soon looked her straight in the eye. "They committed suicide." *********************************** "OH FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!" Buckle your seatbelt, Dorothy. 'Cause Kansas is goin' bye-bye. End: Biker 1/2, book 1. Well, it's all over, you can come out now. Don't worry, Biker 1/2 will be back after the intermission with Book 2: Severed, detailing the aftermath of the battle and how the gang get themselves back on track. So, more trouble, more violence, more big guns, more insanely powerful motorbikes and more werewolves will be with us after the intermission. Goodbye for now, I've got things to write. OK, there's been a few changes since the original post. Firstly the obvious - I went through correcting the Ranma 1/2 terms I'd misspelled, most notably 'Nodoka' and 'Jusenkyo.' Secondly - apart from adding in the extra quotes at the start of the first ninteen or so chapters - I corrected several peices of military terminology. In other words - when Ranma's telling Akane and Ryoga about Shampoo posessing a Kalashnikov AK47, he originally referred to it as a 'battle rifle', which is incorrect; the AK is designed for cyclic fire which makes it an assault rifle (a battle rifle is primarilly designed for single-shot fire; when I originally wrote that I thought the difference waas a question of calibre.) Secondly, the JGSDF tank I was meaning when I wrote 'T-72' was actually a T-74. Last but not least, I went and used Imperial measurements for the length of Ranko's fangs when she flashed them at Gosunkugi - like, d'oh. My dyslexia strikes again. That and a lot of correction of spelling is the changes that resulted in this version. If there's any mispellings left they're a result of me being dyslexic and my iMac's damn spellchecker not recognising any specialist terminology. Hmm, the history of this story... The genesis of Biker 1/2, firstborn of my fanfics, began one night in November 1999. I had just finished reading Shampoo 1/2, an eight hour marathon read. I hadn't had a smoke or any caffein in all that time, therefore not only was I feeling slightly deranged, my brain was also fizzing with ideas. I suppose it was only a matter of time before I asked myself how Ranma 1/2 might have gone if most of the cast were bikers. The first version of Biker 1/2 (which I still have on my hard drive) was - how shall I say - pathetic. I reached chapter 18 before realising how many faults the story had, but I managed to miss the biggest one. So, on April 7th 2000 I started to rewrite Biker 1/2, adopting a tighter writing style and putting less of myself into the characters. This version also saw the first appearances of the Amerai in this story and the introduction of the illustrious Colonel Honda and Akira Saotome. The result read far better; I rewrote parts of it on several occasions but never posted it. Sadly, this version was doomed - a hard drive crash in early November 2000 sent it to the digital equivalent of Heaven. After moping for several days i sat down and began to hack out Biker 1/2 version 3. The date? November 20th 2000. It was about this time I cottoned on to the fatal flaw in version 2; no real underlying plot. One had begun to emerge but there was no sign of it as late as chapter 8. Before doing any work on it I decided what I wanted to include in the story and came up with a rough (about 200 words) outline of the plot for books 1 and 2, based on the plot that had begun to form itself from the later chapters of version 2. I then sat down and expanded on that up to the conclusion of book 1, describing the basic plot of each episode in one paragraph each. This done I started work. I have pinpointed when to within a minute I wrote the opening line of chapter 1; six minutes past nine in the morning. I had at some stage decided to tie Biker 1/2 across to another fanfic I was at the time in the process of writing; the fic in question (which I have given the preliminary name 'All Creatures') has since been put 'on hold' almost indefinitely or rather until I've got halfway through book 3 because that's when it'll stop being a spoiler. It essentially acts as a 'prequal' of sorts dealing with the murky pasts of Gary, Shan, Angel and Janine (remember them? They were involved in the first few chapters then abruptly vanished...) Where they went and more importantly who the hell they actually are will be revealed in chapter 15 of book 3 of this monstrosity. I call it a monstrosity having just recently done a word count of book 1 and discovered, much to my horror, that it contains in excess of 100,000 words... No wonder I've managed to give myself repetitive strain injury. At any rate, on December 8th 2000 Biker 1/2 finally hit the Internet. The rest is, as the saying goes, history. Thanks must go to several authors who inspired me; I cannot at present acess the net (I Hate British Telecom) so I'll have to just name the fics in question and find out the authors names later. Thankyou, the authors of the following, whoever you may be. Shampoo 1/2 Black Rose, Blue Thunder Star Wars: A faint hope Childhood/Adulthood of a Modern Dynasty Tales of Ranma and Ranko I have also received inspiration from several things that definitely don't count as fics, namely... The books written by Tom Clancy (Hunt for Red October et all) The Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell manga and anime (thankyou, Mr. Shirow!) Mad Max 2 (known as Road Warrior in the States) The Akira manga. And, of course, The Matrix - without which most of my fight scenes would have sucked bigtime. Thanks must also go to the following life-forms, organisations and objects... My very good friends Rob Johnston, Alex Brown, James G. Elmslie and Matthew 'Sutekh' Shand for helping me during one of the worst patches my life has ever taken - thanks, guys. If it wasn't for you I probably wouldn't be here today. My brother Ruairidh for putting up with me spewing plot ideas at him, for letting me talk him into buying Oni and for repeatedly talking me out of bouts of depression. Neo for providing a role model. The ghost I saw back in 1985 for getting me interested in the supernatural. The folks at work for indirectly financing this fanfic, oh and for putting up with my ugly mug and warped sense of humour all the time. Mum for repeatedly bailing me out of debts. Heavy rock and roll for always being there for me. White Wolf for feeding my obsession with the supernatural. Caffein and nicotine for preventing instant zombification. Suicidal Tendancies for 'How will I laugh tomorrow' and 'Whack time' Gothdom for accepting me despite my myriad flaws. Iron Maiden for 'Be quick or be dead' and 'Holy Smoke' rec.arts.anime.creative for providing me with a near inexhaustable supply of reading material - without books and fanfics, insanity would not be far away... White Zombie for 'Super Charger Heaven' and 'More Human than Human' Heckler&Koch for the MP5. The Sisters of Mercy for 'Walk Away' and 'Vision Thing' James G Elmslie again for being the most utterly goth person I have ever met. Metallica for 'Of Wolf and Man' and 'Enter Sandman' Everyone at the Findhorn Foundation for being a bunch of hippies and still accepting a fucked up goth bikie metalhead like me. Guns 'N' Roses for 'Paradise City' That biffer Matt Shand again for getting me into Apoptygma Berzerk and pointing out that I'm a goth - I honestly hadn't noticed. The Offspring for 'Bad Habit' Kawasaki for the Ninja; wheelies anyone? Napalm Death for being the heaviest metal I've ever come across. My sister Kirsty for letting me outgrow her by about a foot. Moonspell for 'Hand Made God' and '2econd Skin' Honda for the bike that became Underdog. Pantera for 'Cowboys from Hell' and 'Cemetary Gates' Matt Shand yet again for repeatedly recusitating my self-esteem. Ducati for the Monster Dark. Wolfsbane for 'Wings' Mud for being fun to ride crossers on. Marilyn Manson for 'Rock is dead' Sarah for first keeping Matt sane then keeping Rob sane. Rammstein for 'Du Hast' Mr. Kalashnikov for the AK47. Godsmax for 'Sick of my life' Ryoko for being Ryoko. Dime bars for being an interesting alternative to armadillos. Monster Magnet for 'Ninteen witches' Ryo-oh-ki for being indescribeably cute. Apoptygma Berserk for 'Love never dies' and 'Deep Red' Scotland for being wet, cold, windy and my kind of a country. The Goon Show for being incredibly silly. Cruxshadows for 'Deception' Cannabis for getting people stoned. Beer for making me belch like a redneck. Dark Army for 'Lord of the dead' Yamaha for the V-Max; black sheep of the cruiser bike world. SPF1000 for 'Pass out' and 'Consumption' Robot Wars for mass destruction of radio-controlled gizmos. Ministry for 'Jesus Built my Hot-Rod', 'Hero', 'So What' and 'Just One Fix' Rumiko Takahashi for making me laugh a lot with her manga. The Prodigy for 'Hyperspeed' and 'Mindfields' Terry Pratchett for making me nearly wet myself laughing. White Wolf for figuring out what werewolves should really be all about and for 'Dog Head Yoda Goat'. Palladium for getting me interested in high-tech firearms with their 'Rifts' RPG. Barrett for the Light 50. Games Workshop for the accent used by Orcs, for assorted technological madness and for being easy to take the piss out of. Dad for being an all round great guy. KTM for knowing what off-road bikes are *really* all about. Cows for putting up with being turned into pies and leather jackets. Steff Czert for riding a dirtier bike than me and inspiring me to rat the Underdog. Dad's Dad Graham Wallace for being another all round great guy. Suzuki for the GSXR1100 and Bandit 1200. Harley-Davidson for that exhaust note and religious service to chrome. Chevrolet for the Corvette and Dodge for the Charger RT and Viper - the saving graces of four wheels. Hot-rodders the world over for building hot-rods, without which... Judge Dredd (not the film, the comic) for being the ultimate in anti-hero. Varied skaters, trendies and spooky kids who will remain unnamed for being easy to take the piss out of. The British Army for the Challanger MBT - now THAT is what I call a tank. Steve Jobs for repeatedly stopping Apple flatlining. The Dutch special forces for being the meanest bunch of badasses on the planet. The Morayshire police force for not hassling me for going 'Oink' at them when I'm drunk despite the fact I look like a complete weirdo. Pixie sticks for containing hyperactivity. Barrs for Irn Bru (caffein, wheee...) And, of course, everyone out there on the Net who's read and enjoyed this story. I am dyslexic, mildly autistic and thorughly fucked up; your support has been invaluable. Biker 1/2 and by extension all you folks have been with me through a very rough part of my life indeed; between lonliness, lack of transport, depression and all the other shit that's gone down in the last year it hasn't been at all easy being me. You folks, my readers, have brought a certain amount of light into my life with you words of support and incouragement. I love the lot of you. Laters, thanks and please remember that werewolves need love too... Calum 'Wolfman' Wallace. There are, sadly, several things, persons and organisations to which I must deliver an almighty 'Fuck You', namely... Slipknot for being a bunch of pathetic little wankers who are incapable of out-rocking Napalm Death with nearly twice the bandmembers. Spooky kids for being a bunch of moronic little point-missing shits. British Telecom for being a bunch of meglomaniac, monopolistic fuckfaces who like setting outrageous prices and giving appalingly shit customer service. The Northern Constbulary for being a bunch of shitheads who have fun and games hassling innocent bikers and goths while ignoring crime. Tony Blair for being a jug-eared smarmy little creep who thinks everyone in Britian is about as responsible as a five year old - we're perfectly capable of running our own lives, so he can go to hell and stop forcing nanny state legislation through the House of Parliment. Marshall Mathers for being an annoying prick. The son of the ex-Lord Provost of Ross-Shire for being the sort of fucking idiot who'd drive on the wrong side of the road at ninty miles per hour and wipe my best mate off the road, causing him to flatline at least once before the docs managed to save his life, oh, and the fucking pigs again for letting that fucking speed-mad shithead off scot free. Trendies, skaterfucks and the Nike army for being too fucking stupid to realise that me and my mates don't actually care what their opinion of our clothes, hairstyles, hobbies and lifestyles actually is - if we gave a damn we'd ask. The government for setting ludicrous taxes, making stupid laws and generally having less braincells that they do teeth. The Royal Air Force for thinking it's funny to buzz villages and fishing boats with a jet fighter - practise your goddamn target lock on rocks, you pricks. That Bin Laden shithead for giving a perfectly respectable religion the worst reputation on the planet. Britney Spears for being an annoying little jailbait generator. Bill Gates and Microsoft for seeming to like system crashes. And finally, that fat ugly balding snot-nosed crap car driving bricklayer across the road for whining to the landlord about me and my mates playing heavy metal and whooping it up during our New Year party. An' I'll be awa', I have tae go tae ma bed the noo. GLOSSARY OF TERMS Alternator - Higher tech version of a generator. Artic - The UK term for a semi truck. Short for 'articulated lorry'. Binned - crashed. Normally means written off. Derived from 'bin' as in 'rubbish bin' (the British term for a trash can) Chain lube - Motorbike chain lubrication oil. Comes in a spray can and lookes a bit like snot. Conrod (connecting rod) - The bit of metal that connects the piston to the crankshaft. Shaped approximately like a flat dumbbell. Engine clicking - An internal combustion engine heats up when run. Run it hard and it heats up more, then when you switch off the engine will start emitting a series of sharp clicks as the metal cools and contracts. Final drive - the drive chain that goes from the gearbox to the back wheel and the cogs (final drive sprockets) that it runs on. Not to be confused with the primary drive - the chain/sprocket or belt/pulleys between the engine and gearbox. Gasflowing - trimming off excess metal from inside the cylinder heads to aid the burn rate of fuel within the engine. Gives a small horsepower boost. Gixer - Slang for a Suzuki GSXR (one of the craziest bikes they make). Header tank - Tank that contains the spare water for the radiator on a sealed cooling system as found in most cars and some high performance bikes. Honda CG125 - Small single - cylinder 4-stroke road bike. Not very much of anything but supremely reliable and dirt cheap. It's reliability stems from having very little to go wrong and a low - revving 4-stroke engine. Honda 250 Superdream - CB250. The next up the Honda model range from the CG125 and just a bigger version of the same. Honda 500 Superdream - CB500. A CB250 with a bigger bore and heavier frame. Honda Fireblade - Insane Honda sportsbike. Mad but beginning to show it's age. Kill switch - The engine's 'off' switch. Turns off power to the ignition. Lid / skidlid - Slang for a crash helmet. Nitrous oxide - Laughing gas. A petrol - nitrous mix burns faster than a petrol - air mix therefore produces more horsepower and more wear in the engine. Ratbike - A motorbike made to look as fucked up and unroadworthy as possible while still being street legal. Normally painted flat black. Steering damper - a long, thin shock absorber that fits between the forks and the frame. Helps steady the steering. A steering damper is essential for disabled bikers who have lost the use of one arm as without it there's no way you'd be able to steer at low speed or pull away one armed. Stocker - unmodified factory-built vehicle; I think this comes from the term 'sales stock'. Supercharger - A pump driven off the crank that forces more air into the engine thus forcing it to run faster. Toby - An Inverness Collegeism; slang meaning something along the lines of widget, gizmo or thingy. Derived from angling parlarance (toby = a small wooden fish used as a lure.) May be related to the epithet 'Toby Tishbein' and can be said 'Tobyracho' for no apparent reason. (I'm not making this up! Honest!) Top yoke - The yokes are two pieces of metal that hold the front forks together and to the bike. The top yoke is the upper one. Known as triple clamps in the US. JASDF - Japanese Air Self Defence Force. The Japanese air force. JGSDF - Japanese Ground Self Defence Force. The ground forces arm of the Japanese military. JSDF - Japanese Self Defence Force. The collective Japanese armed forces. What likes - Slack Scottish grammar. Means something along the lines of 'please could you explain that'. Only considerably less posh. Wheelie bin - a square green plastic trashcan about the size of a normal bin, with a flip top and two wheels.