Biker 1/2 Cycle 1 - Birth of a Modern Legend Book 2: Severed Chapter 08: Paradise City by Calum Wallace ===== LEGALISTIC SHIT and RANT ARGHBEETLESGETTHEMOFFMEGETTHEMOFFMEGETTHEMOFFME! Previous chapters of this monstrosity (including the entirety of book 1) can be found in several places - the TASS/RAAC archives (for some reason their bots didn't put book 2 in the Biker 1/2 folder) fanfiction.net and Studio Asynjor (a.k.a http://www.asynjor.com/fanfic/index.html) which for now can be counted as the official Biker 1/2 webpage until I finally manage to get something more personalised written. Don't get onto me as to what the heck everything's arranged like on the above sites - the only involvement I have in them is A) guy who posts stuff on RAAC and B) satisfied user. I'd advise first-time readers of Biker 1/2 to go to one of the above sites and read book 1 since I sincerely doubt you'd be able to work out what the heck's going on if you didn't; this is the second of a series of 100,000+ word books. Words in "{this}" kind of brackets are spoken in Cantonese. Those in "[this]" are in wolf-speak. ===== "Take me down to the paradise city where the grass is green and the girls are pretty, Oh won't you please take me home" - Guns 'N' Roses, 'Paradise City' "Nerima had changed a shitload by th' time I got home - suprisin' how much two an' a half weeks can change somethin', ain't it?" - Ranma Saotome. *********************************** Ranma sat back; he had a stunned look on his face. "Well I'll be a fuckin'... That's Nabiki." "You know her?" Willow asked. Ranma nodded. "Yeah, sure I do. She's me sister-in-law. Tendo's middle daughter. Look here Andrayov, what th' fuck were she talkin' about? Blondie killed yer mum? That's a bit fuckin' weird." Willow clenched and unclenched her teeth. "I don't know. When I catch her I am going to talk to Buffy Summers. I don't know what the hell is going on around here. But I am going to find out." Ranma snorted. "Tendo, Herb, Willow - yer all comin' wiv me. Spike, get any shit ya want ta take ta Japan tagether an' bring it. Oh, an' th' stuff ya need ta disarm that collar Willow's wearin'." He ejected and pocketed the videotape, picked up his nice new RPK and stuffed Willow into her sack, gathering her wrists and ankles into a bunch and tying the sack shut round them. Soun and Herb looked at each other; they silently picked up the beer and Soun's weapons then followed Ranma. Ranma heaved Willow onto his shoulder and glanced over at Spike. "Get yer shit over ta th' Japanese consulate buildin' in half an hour. Later." *********************************** Willow couldn't help mumbling 'Here we go again' as Ranma dumped her in the boot, packed the beer and the half-built bike in with her, stowed the guns, added some chain to the rope pinioning her arms and legs then slammed the boot. The Hummer roared into life; she was bounced around a lot as the vehicle rocketed round Miami at Ranma's usual breakneck speed. The engine dropped to a tickover; she made out some low Japanese conversation then the vehicle moved on a bit and reverse parked. The boot popped open and Ranma heaved her out, slung her back across his shoulder and started walking at a rapid, heel-jarring pace. "RANMA!" a woman's voice yelled. Willow felt herself drop, felt a crashing blow on the back of her head then everything went black. *********************************** "Akane! Nabiki! You are not going to fucking believe this!" Nabiki turned round from her laptop and glared at Rally. "What now?" "Get your ass into gear girl." Rally jerked her thumb out the door. "I think you'll want to see who just walked in the door." Nabiki heaved herself upright, grabbed Akane's shoulder and steered her sister out the room. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw who Shampoo was presently firmly attached to the middle of. "Ranma Saotome, where the hell have you been?" Ranma looked over the mass of purple hair. "That's my line! What th' fuck took ya so long? I wrote ta Mum about twenty times, an' Tendo wrote ta ya guys twice that number! An' what th' fuck's it wiv yer goddamn phone? I've been tryin' ta get through ta ya three, four times a day fer two fuckin' weeks an' I couldn't get through th' whole fuckin' time! What th' fuck took ya so long? An' what th' fuck happened ta Akane's face?" Nabiki looked doubtfully at Soun. "You wrote to us nearly forty times? Dad, what the hell address were you writing to? 'Nabiki Tendo, Nerima, Tokyo' or something?" Soun glared at her. "Don't be dumb Nabiki. We're going to have to get to the bottom of this - I smell a rat." "Right, what th' fuck we waitin' fer man?" Ranma asked. "Let's get th' hell outta here - I've had it wiv talkin' English th' whole fuckin' time, it's like tryin' ta brush yer teef while chewin' gum an' whistlin' th' national anthem backwards." Shampoo scratched her head. "Er, Ranma - Xian Pu know why Nodoka no get mail... she still in hospital." There was a short blank silence; Ranma glared at Nabiki. "Okay, gimme th' bad news. All o' it. An' like I said before, what th' fuck happened ta yer face Akane?" Nabiki started counting points off on her fingers. "Mint's dead. Nobody's seen Mortise. Genma's still in a coma-" "What th' fuck? I thought Dad wuz dead?" "You stopped him bleeding to death when you pulled that chunk of road out of him. Nodoka got shot in the back, she's paralysed from the waist down. Ranko lost her memory. Akira's dead, your dad ate his head. All in all there's 106 of ours dead, 143 comatose. But your bike's alright and so's the house." Ranma started his own process fo counting off points on his fingers. "That means Ryoga's alright, Kasumi's alright, Mu Tze's alright, Mi Soon's alright, yer alright, Shampoo's alright, Tiger's alright, Mao Xing's alright, Happosai's alright, around 400 others alright. Yeah?" "Yeah... Oh, and there's a couple of Nodoka's truckie pals have been hanging around Doctor Tofu's place." "I'm sort of okay." Akane commented. "I got a hand grenade in the face." "Er, Ranma," Nabiki asked, "Who's in the bag?" "Hand grenade?" Akane nodded. "I'm blind but I'm otherwise okay." Herb snorted. "We'll see about that." "Mi Soon already tried fixing it using that bodysculpting thingy... apparently there's a load of shrapnel still stuck in my skull and it's loaded with wolfsbane." "Ranma, who's in the bag?" Herb shrugged. "Well, there always has been more than one way to skin a cat. Tendo, Saotome - have either of you ever heard of the Moss of Life?" Soun nodded. "Yes." "Ranma, I hate to sound like a stuck record, but who's in the bag?" "Oh, her? Local witch, I brung her wiv me ta make sure Spike don't blow her head off, he planted a bomb on her neck." Herb paused, isolated it as not being part of the conversation he'd been having with Soun, glared at said person and asked "What's that tone for Tendo?" "You got any idea how difficult that stuff is to get?" "Yes. However, one of my favourite people needs that sort of miracle cure. And since there's so few people I actually like I'm not going to leave any of them to suffer if I can possibly avoid it." "Moss o' life?" Ranma asked. "What th' fuck's that?" "A very rare plant, only found in a specific area of a forest up into the mountains to the north of Tokyo. It's a genuine miracle cure, Saotome. Unfortunately it's rather hard to get to." "Rather hard? Meanin'?" "Meaning it only grows on the head of a unique dragon." "Dragon? This is gettin' kinda far-fetched." Herb shrugged. "It's the result of Donna Skel experimenting with bodysculpting, magecraft and a bunch of crocodiles. The reason the damn stuff only grows on it's head is due to how useful it is - all the other patches have been wiped out long since, but Red Hanovan seeded a bunch of it in the cave Donna Skel left her critter in. Guess what, the remaining chunk is now latched onto a certain creature's forehead." "Look, how do you know this?" "Because this isn't going to be the first time I used it." "This is gettin' complicated." Herb shrugged. "Let's get the hell home. So is Spike coming with us?" "Far as I know. He bloody better, I want him ta defuse that bomb." "Mr. Saotome, sir!" a voice called across. "This character claims to be with you." Ranma turned round, singularly failing to unlatch Shampoo, Akane and Nabiki from his person. "Oh, there ya are Spike." He emptied Willow out of the sack and waved the semiconscious witch at him. "Well go on, defuse it then." Spike snorted. "No point. Scissors will work perfectly well." "I thought ya said-" "Yeah, it's got a load of tamper-proofing, but that won't do anything since I intentionally made it a dud." "Ranma," Nabiki warned. "We can't leave her here - the CIA are after her ass." "What? Wuz that who I hadta kick in when we wuz kidnappin' her?" "Oh for... Let's just get the hell home." *********************************** The next several hours contained a long flight in a certain military transport aircraft and that was about it. Well, apart from Nabiki giving Willow a very involved explanation, Ranma getting treated as an oversized pillow by Akane and a suitably airsick Shampoo, Tiger looking smug and Spike arguing politics with Herb. *********************************** Ranma stalked out of the plane; he ignored the Hummer, Spike's car and the bikes being unloaded behind him. He only had eyes for the large black shape that had just been unloaded from a JGSDF truck. There was a few more dents and scrapes in the bodywork. A bit more mileage of the fight kind, but his bike was otherwise alright. He settled himself on it, stuffed the keys into the ignition, flipped the killswitch to run and stomped on the kickstart. BRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNGGGGG!!! He settled his guns - the RPK and the AK47 - into a more comfortable position on his shoulders, noted Soun piling into Kasumi's Corvette, Spike stowing Willow in the boot then piling into his car, Shampoo and Nabiki mounting up, varied Amazons and Akane piling into Willow's Hummer, Herb shrugging and flying off on his usual substantial ki-burn, the Amazon reception committee coming to attention and, more importantly, the arrow-straight freeway into Tokyo off the airbase. He snapped his Gixer into gear, pointed it at the way out and grinned like the maniac he had always been. "Watch th' fuck out Tokyo, I'm back." The assorted cars, bikes and trucks stormed off the airbase in formation and hit the road home with the pedal to the metal. *********************************** Kenji Yamazaki was not a happy werefox. He wiped the sweat off his forehead, lit up yet another kingsize rollie and slid the truck's gearbox up into twelfth, his eyes glued on the road the whole time. He was running light; the Mack juddered violently due to the complete lack of a load on board, but the difference was taken up between chassis and extra-wide low profile tyres by the racing suspension he had fitted. It just did it's best to make you seasick. Either that or shake the roof off. Unladen articulated lorries do not give a very smooth ride by definition; they're really designed to have a few dozen extra tons keeping all that bulk in a tight relationship with important things like the tarmac. Therefore driving round like a raging wanker without said extra load tends to prompt the rig to try to repeatedly kick your backside in. Not a comfortable experience, and not that Yama presently gave a flying fuck; he'd only gone and upset his former clan by nicking a canvas-side forty foot three axle trailer off them. Being a reasonably sensible werefox (certainly by express trucker standards) he was presently engaged in the time-honoured art of making himself scarce. And there was far worse ways of doing that than scarpering to Tokyo, a city presently recognised as Clan Saotome turf. And since he was a close friend of the mother of the present Lord of Clan Saotome, he was willing to bet good odds on being able to hole up with Clan Saotome for a while in their present Nerima headquarters. He wasn't totally sure what the present organisation of Clan Saotome looked like, but that was okay. By all accounts neither was Clan Saotome. Yama flicked another glance into his rear view mirror and immediately saw that his current dose of bad news was still with him. He still hadn't managed to shake the duo of Clan Hakkenan owned street racers that had been on him since Osaka. He drew back his lips into a more typical feral grin. "Alright, boys - we're in no-man's-land. Time for the old tonnage contest." He nudged the brakes and downshifted, allowing the two cars to close with him. "OK, I get the picture, here, have your trailer back." He hauled the wheel across and yanked a black and yellow striped lever on the roof; the trailer slewed out to the right then came free of the truck as he hammered the throttle right down. The trailer flipped over, rolling itself up into a knot of mangled wreckage. One of the street racers managed to dive through the rapidly closing gap; the other piled straight into the wrecked trailer, lost contact with the ground and cartwheeled itself to oblivion. He tabbed a switch; a series of hisses from the floor and a slight change in the tractor's stance told him the suspension had reconfigured itself for running without a trailer perfectly. He checked six again. The remaining car was closing rapidly. He did a lightning lane-change and simultaneously floored both clutch and brake pedals. The car managed to swerve clear as it flew past him; he wasn't overly disappointed. He hadn't expected to get them like that anyway. "And the hunter becomes the hunted." He dropped down to third and hammered the throttle back down; the truck spat two lines of blue smoke up as it rocketed forwards. A muzzle flare from the passengers side of the car and a series of sparks from his frontal bodywork showed him the Hakkenan clanners were discovering how much armour he had fitted to his truck; he aimed squarely at them and continued accelerating, closing until he was about twenty feet from the back of the car. He spotted the string of three Mitsubishi car transporters and developed an even nastier grin. His hand descended towards the nitrous oxide trigger. "Hey, why don't you guys check out the engraving I had Morty do on my front bumper? Incidentally, it's eight inches of titanium. Look!" He hit the nitrous trigger. There was a loud 'Crunch' and the charging Mack wiped the street racer into the path of the middle car transporter; this was rapidly followed by another crunch and a cloud of flying wreckage. The Mitsubishi driver put his foot on the brake; his pal went straight into the back of him ramming the other Iveco Ford over the top of the battered street racer. What was left of it and it's occupants flew out one side, bouncing down the verge and coming to a halt in a fairly deep ditch. Yama flashed an insulting gesture out the window, dropped off the happy gas and opened the truck right up. "Later, dudes." Thinking about it, he decided it was a bit of a shame, seeing two Lamborginis wrecked so totally in such a short time. Ah well, shit happens. Yama headed for the nearest industrial estate, found an unattended flatbed trailer and absconded with it. *********************************** Ranma swept his gaze round the Tendo dojo garden; the only real change since he had last seen it was the burnt-out tank stuck in one end of the workshop, the memorial shrine someone had erected near the Koi pond and the fact there wasn't bullet holes in everything. Genma's V8, both of Soun's bikes, Ryoga's jetbike, Herb's trailbike, Akane's CB, Nabiki's CB, Lime's trailbike, Mint's now ownerless trailbike, Shampoo's CB, Kodachi's Bandit, Nodoka's rig, Mortise's hog, Ranko's '45, Kasumi's 'rod, the hummer, Spike's Thunderbird and his Gixer stood in a line at the bottom of, along and outside the driveway, bearing mute testimony to the number of present occupants, even though there was now at least twice the number of vehicles as there was people living there. "Well, fuck. It's good ta be back." Spike examined the line of vehicles. "Quite an impressive collection. What's with the Kenworth?" Ranma shrugged. "That's Mum's wheels. She's onea them big car folks. Th' V8 thing's Dad's ride, th' rusty blue CB an' th puke green streetfighter're both Tendo's, th' blue dirtbike wiv a Rover engine's Herb's... ya get th' drift." "I get the feeling your extended family are by definition vehicle obsessed." Ranma shrugged again. "Wheels're useful if ya gotten an engine ta go wiv 'em. We don't really need so many but what th' fuck, we're mostly bikers an' bikin's more fun if ya all gotten rides. Make yerself at home, get ta know th' gang. I gotta deal wiv a loada shit. Firstly I gotta check out Mum an' Dad. Catch ya later." "Yeah, see you in a while Saotome." "How many times I gotta tell ya not ta call me that? Every time someone sez that I look fer Dad." Ranma looked across at Shampoo, who was propping up the corner of the house. "Mum's at Doc Tofu's, right?" "Yup." "Right." Ranma kickstarted his bike and roared off. Shampoo watched him go, sighed and shook her head. "What a fucking mess." She started looking for something to beat the shit out of. *********************************** Nodoka's eyes snapped open like someone had thrown a switch. She pushed herself as upright as she could get with her hands, staring wildly about the room. The roar she had though was part of a dream remained present, closing rapidly down the street. She recognised that roar. It was unmistakable - there was only one vehicle in Japan that sounded like a supercharged Suzuki GSXR1100 with no silencers. Ranma's bike. Her son - her crazy, hairy, biker son - was back. The engine coughed to a halt outside the clinic. Booted feet clumped on the floor of the waiting room; she couldn't make out Doctor Tofu's words through the wall, but she could hear him speaking, then that rough cigarette-deepened voice replying. The door crashed open. "Hello Mum." said Ranma Saotome. End chapter 8. NOTES Next - Oh dear, zombies. Laters, Calum 'Doghead' Wallace. GLOSSARY OF TERMS Alternator - Higher tech version of a generator. Artic - The UK term for a semi truck. Short for 'articulated lorry'. Astro-Creep 2000 - The title of a White Zombie album. 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 looks 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). Happy gas - See 'Nitrous oxide.' 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. Kuso - As far as I know this is the Japanese translation of the word 'Shit'. 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 parlance (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.