Biker 1/2 Cycle 1 - Birth of a Modern Legend

Book 2: Severed

Chapter 10: The Daily Grind

by Calum Wallace

=====

LEGALISTIC SHIT and RANT
(This is a classified disclaimer. You do not have the security clearance
to understand it, therefore it has been encoded.)
Om tea rne who epolhf op bnuch loeoa f we tryporp li fsmh aaran.
Nedditne ai tskt ehil ties rhyto hoa rn gthspryioc fo mnetigneifnr no.
(All further disclaimer data has been deleted at the request of His
Royal Highness King Dratsab Ylgu the Lotseth of Scrofollufecalpypmula
due to it's encoded form containing direct insults to his mother.)

Yup, you guessed it, rant time. Now I'm pissed off yet again. Figure
this. I work 38 hours a week. I'm an insomniac. I've got chronic
writer's block due to the wildly different frames of mind I need at work
and when writing; it takes me around five hours listening to cybergoth
or hardcore industrial and reading to get me unwound enough to get
anything written, and I knock off at half past seven in the evening most
days. What's the catch?
That fucking builder's mate with the hair trigger temper living just
across the road and the fact both of us live in caravans (trailer homes
to you Yanks, I ain't exactly rich.) At most I get about an hour and a
half of writing time every night - that's between about half past twelve
and two in the morning - before this dickhead decides that my music
(played so quiet I have trouble hearing it over my gas heater) is too
loud. And most of the time whatever shreds of inspiration I get doesn't
work for Biker 1/2.
Gentlebeings, I need a guilt free AK47 and ammunition for the
introduction to his face of. And to make matters more aggravating he's
been living there around six months, the prior occupant never noticed
any noise from my caravan and said prior occupant was actually young
enough to have undamaged hearing, not only that she had a baby with her.
Could someone please drop a safe or a dust cart or something on him? Or
give him something like terminal gonad cancer?
No I'm not deaf, it's my eyesight that's semi-fucked.
So, whenever it takes me a really long time to get the next chapter out,
you know which fucking retard (with superhuman hearing) to blame.

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.

=====

"I like Cal and his dog Napalm, I like Ike and his itty-bitty A-bomb,
Everybody got one, I want mine, you can order it up on Channel Nine -
Yeah and meanwhile, in the Sheraton, Dr. Jeep plays on - and on an on."
The Sisters of Mercy, 'Doctor Jeep'.

"So ya think runnin' an Am clan is an easy job? Yeah right. I been doin'
it fer more'n twenty years now an' I'm still learnin' th' fuckin'
basics!" - Ranma Saotome, October 2019.

***********************************

"Wot?" Ranma snapped.
"Bag of cash and a note from Dad." Ryoga called across.
Ranma frowned and dropped back into human form. Pausing to close up the
rip-open panels on his leathers he turned and glared at the assembled
crowd.
"Somethin's tellin' me ya oughta hear this Ukyo. Same ta ya Yukiko."
Willow wandered out of the house. "Hey, what's going on?"
"Go over there and find out." Spike suggested.
Ranma shrugged, grabbed Ukyo's wrist and headed over to Genma's bike,
towing the slightly startled girl behind him. Yukiko found herself being
ploughed along by the remaining participants.

***********************************

"Ranma.
You probably just found out about this the hard way.
At any rate, yes this is the Kounji's money. If you know who Akira is
you probably know who's fault it is; as far as I can work out he's
trying to alienate you against humans as much as possible, your mother
included. Tell the Kounjis they're welcome to beat the shit out of me if
I'm still alive; I deserve it for being such a cowardly bastard and
following Akira's orders almost to the letter. If it takes as long as I
expect for the Kounjis to catch up with us (we'll probably be in Nerima
by then, I don't plan on letting anyone apart from Akira know where we
are until I reopen the bike shop) this little lot will probably be worth
a fair bit to currency collectors by then, I swapped all the notes for
the earliest unused ones I could get, and by 1998 unused Yen bills from
1972 should have accrued some rarity value. Hope you manage to make up
with your mates."
"Ukyo, Yukiko.
Sorry. Go ahead and kick my face in - I deserve it. Don't be too hard on
Ranma, he doesn't know what's going on, and with everything Akira's got
planned for him his head's probably going to be in a real mess by the
time you catch up with us.
Genma.
PS - Ranma - Ryoga - give Ukyo everything in the bag."

***********************************

"Okay." Ranma remarked; he let go of Ukyo's wrist, scooped the
polybagged cash out of between his father's bike's frame rails and
offered it to the Kounji twins.
"Hey, what's that in the bottom of the bag?" Ryoga asked.
"Huh? What th' fuck, it's a handgun?"
"Ruger .357 revolver." Yukiko commented. "Silver plated, it's probably
worth quite a lot of money."
"Wonder where Dad nicked that?" Ryoga mused.
"There's a couple scrolls in there too." Nabiki commented. "And some
kind of box, looks silver."
"Nah, that's tungsten steel." Ranma shook his head. "Look at th' colour
o' it."
"Ranma, why would anyone have a tungsten steel box the size of a tobacco
tin?"
"How th' fuck am I gonna know?"
"Be dead careful with that box." Willow warned. "There's one hell of a
thaumatic field coming off it."
"A magical artefact?" Yukiko mused. "Hey, what's that inscription on the
lid?"
Ukyo fished the box out the bag and peered at it. "Looks like the
writing on the ring in The Lord of the Rings."
"Uh-oh." Yukiko remarked; she hastily took the box off her sister. "Yup,
it's some sort of ancient writing, I think Caine said it predated Amerai
coming to Earth by about ten or eleven thousand years."
"You mean Atlantean runes?" Willow asked. "I heard Tolkein got his
inspiration for Elvish from them."
"Atlantean?" Yukiko asked.
"Yeah, some sort of really, really ancient empire, they ruled the world
about 15,000 years ago. Really magically powerful, they had magic
refined to the same stage as we might have technology in another couple
thousand years."
"So what you're saying is, this sucker's *OLD*, right? I don't suppose
anyone here can read this."
"Of course I can!" Willow snapped. "What kind of lame-ass tame-ass witch
can't read Atlantean?"
"Ditto." Mi Soon remarked. "Half the mystic knowledge available is
written in Atlantean. If you're going to do anything serious with true
magic you need to be able to understand the language it uses."
"So what th' fuck's that say? I need ta know what Dad pinched this
time."
"Hmm, let me see..." Mi Soon mumbled, peering at the box along with
Willow.
"Ashes to ashes." Willow read out.
"Dust to dust." Mi Soon continued. "Hey, it's the passage the Christians
quoted!"
"Indirectly." Willow pointed out. "Once more rise."
"Death of hundreds, lord of millions. This doesn't translate very well."
"Tamper not lest your song be deserted. No, it doesn't does it?"
"Aid of queens, bane of darkness."
"Soul of the Eldest One."
"What the hell?" Mi Soon mumbled. "I've seen that passage before."
"Book of Atlantis, chapter 186, paragraph 297. The bit about the Star of
Atlantis, when the High Queen was ranting about it."
"Oh, yes. 'And by this shall ye know me.' Wasn't that the inscription
carved on-" Mi Soon stopped dead in her tracks. "Yukiko Kounji, if
you've got any sense, stow this particular H-bomb in the most secure
bank vault you can get your hands on. And ward the shit out of it."
"What?" Ranma, Yukiko, Ukyo, Nabiki and Shampoo chorused. Spike, Willow
and Soun were wearing expressions like someone had thumped them in their
heads with sledge hammers.
"That was the inscription they engraved on the box they kept the Star of
Atlantis stowed in when the High Queen wasn't using it."
"So what *is* the Star of Atlantis?" Yukiko asked.
"The most powerful thaumatic generator ever made." Willow shuddered.
"With the help of that it'd take you five minutes to blow the moon into
dust. Problem is, it's soul-locked to the present High Queen of
Atlantis. Let's put it this way - if I went and screwed with it the only
bit of Tokyo you'd find is the contents of that box." She backed away as
she spoke, winding up pressed flat against the wall of the house,
staring at the box in absolute terror and trying to ooze backwards
through the wall. Mi Soon had already backed off.
"Er..." Yukiko remarked, realising that she now knew how many of the
group had any magical knowledge; Spike and Soun were also trying to
become one with the wall. "So why the hell did Genma land it on me?"
"Genma has less knowledge of magecraft than you average haddock." Soun
explained. "Well, apart from knowing not to shit with it. But he does
know just how valuable magic artefacts are. For Dana's love, get that
thing stowed somewhere safe right the fuck now!"
"And don't open it, it might go off!" Mi Soon warned.
Yukiko knew enough to know to take the word of an Amazon elder on things
magic. She wrapped the box up in her shirt and locked it in the glove
compartment of Ukyo's Land-Rover.
"Ukyo, let's get over to the Bank of Japan and get that thing secured."
"You just gonna take their word for it?"
"Get real jackass. The short girl's a Joketsuzoku Elder. They know this
stuff, and I don't feel like squatting at Ground Zero and pulling the
pin on any nukes... hmm, maybe I'd better hand it over to X-Com Japan."
Ranma glanced sideways at Mi Soon.
"So what th' hell's an X-Com when it's at home?"
"I'll explain later. That would probably be a good idea, Miss Kounji.
They're more secure than a bank vault."
"You sure that's a good idea?" Soun asked. "Won't they do a MIB on you?"
"Nah." Yukiko explained. "My guild's had a little agreement with X-Com
since the late sixties, apparently the old Huntmaster was instrumental
in setting 'em up."
"Oh yes, that would be Katsuhito Yamaha of the Isamato Guild." Mi Soon
remarked. "That lad sure had his head screwed on right."
"I never met him."
Ranma took the opportunity to stuff a certain bag into Ukyo's hand. Ukyo
blinked; she blinked again when Nabiki idly presented her with a
sizeable roll of cash.
"Interest." Nabiki said.
"Ukyo, I gotten an idea. Now, I'm married." He paused. "An' yer sayin'
there's an outstandin' arranged marriage between our families?"
Ukyo fished a piece of manilla paper out of her pocket; she handed it to
him. He read through it, nodding thoughtfully, then gave it back.
"Right. It ain't specified who that deal applies to."
"Huh?"
"Well, it ain't gonna work out wiv this generation."
"You're suggesting we hand the arrangement down to the next generation
of our families?" Yukiko asked.
"Yeah. I am."
"Good thinking." Nabiki remarked.
"I'll have to talk to my father about this." Ukyo said uncertainly. "But
it's probably the least confusing option."
Shampoo nodded cheerfully. "Is so. Spatula girl have catching up for to
do." She patted her belly. "If you is seeing what I mean."
"You're his wife?" Yukiko asked.
"Is so."
"You're pregnant?"
"Is so too."
"Ah."
Ukyo nodded and turned towards her 4x4; she was interrupted by a hand
landing on her shoulder.
"Um, Ukyo... there's somethin' I wanna know before ya head."
"What?" Ukyo turned round and frowned at Ranma. She still wasn't sure
where her head was at concerning a certain bikie, and questions were the
last thing she needed right now.
"Why th' hell are ya wearin' a police jacket?"
Ukyo paused for several seconds then shrugged.
"It's warm, it fits and it's available." She climbed into the Land-Rover
and fired it's engine; Yukiko slammed the passenger's door, Ukyo threw
the truck into gear and they left.
Ranma watched them go.
"Mi Soon, where'd they bury Akira?"
"Hmm? Why?"
"Because I'm gonna shit on his grave."
"It's traditional for the new Lord to pay his respects to the prior
incumbent." Soun commented.
"Th' only respect he's gettin' offa me is a couple turds an' maybe a
'thank fuck he's dead' party."
"Let me get this straight." Soun asked. "You're going to make shitting
on Akira's grave your first official act as Lord of Clan Saotome?"
"Ya cunts know this crap, I'm just makin' it up as I go along."
"I like your style." said Spike.
"Okay," Ranma asked. "S'pose it's gotten kinda inevitable - how'd I go
about makin' this shit official?"
Mi Soon snorted. "Tendo, contact the list."
"Gotcha."
"Th' list?" Ranma asked.
"Red Hanovan, record keeper of the Amerai. Takashi Saotome, your
great-grandfather. Yoshikaze Moroboshi, Guildmaster of the Moroboshi
clan, also your mother's father. Ricardo Ramirez, present Master of
Ceremonies for Clan Saotome. Miriam McGonnegal, Keeper of the Hearth for
Clan Saotome." Mi Soon explained. "I and Soun Tendo, as leaders of the
Joketsuzoku and the Tendo line, are also needed for the ceremony, as are
Akane, your mother and Shampoo."
"Whatever." Ranma commented. "Just get on wiv it. I'm gonna do some
maintenance, my bike ain't been looked at fer two fuckin' weeks."
"Ranma, I could use a little help here." Nabiki remarked. "Has Mi Soon
told you what Colonel Honda's wanting us to sort out?"
"Nah. What's th' deal?"
"Zombie hunt. Mi Soon, have someone figure out three squads. Ranma, come
with me. The sooner we sort this shit out the happier the big boss is
gonna be."
"Shan Li, get Tiger."
"OK!"
Ranma sighed. "Zombies. What th' fuck next?"
"Hey Ranma!" a voice called across; this voice belonged to Lin-Lin. "Got
an intelligence report for ya!"
"Pass it over. Fuckin' hell, what next?"

***********************************

"Okay, we're going to have everything set up for the ceremony tomorrow
afternoon, I suggest starting at ten tomorrow evening. Tiger's
hand-picking our twenty best ranged fighters right now; she's already
picked out a ten woman close assault team. There's some one-armed Amerai
midget with purple hair been sneaking around watching things for three
days now; Shan Li and Fire are trying to get a fix on her. The Kounji
twins headed for Osaka about an hour ago, they closed up that restaurant
they've been running and took off, the Star of Atlantis is safely at
X-Com Japan HQ. Honda tells me they'll be shipping in armoured vehicles
and a small number of experts day after tomorrow; I've got Mao Xing
prepping tank hangers right now. The first truckloads of ammo and
weapons arrived half an hour ago; 600 Military Intel are still settling
the supply lines. Your father's started to come out of it; Dr. Tofu says
he'll be waking up sometime tomorrow afternoon. Lan-Lan and Ranko just
managed to scrape together enough Mortise dust to reform him; they're
bringing him back as we speak. Any questions?"
"Yeah," Ranma said. "Gimme th' situation reports on this necromancer
gimp. An' get Mortise over soon as he's back in one piece, I want ol'
leechie-boy's input. Oh, an' has Spike taken that collar offa Willow
yet?"
Mi Soon snorted. "She wouldn't let him, apparently she's decided she
likes the way it looks. Oh, and that Summers girl is on her way over  -
she's bringing a couple of friends. That Giles guy went over that intel
Nabiki gave her; they decided to bale before MJ-12 caught up with them."
"So, mind tellin' me who th' fuck MJ-12 actually are?"
"The mutant descendant of the US government's pet demon hunters, as far
as anyone seems to know. I suggest you ask Red Hanovan about them when
she gets here - she knows a lot more than I do."
"Gotcha."
"Anyway, the representatives from Clans Skel, Daarak and Hakkenan have
arrived for the party tonight, I've got Akira's household entertainers
taking care of them. There's a Clan Hakkenan renegade friend of your
mother's looking for asylum with us; apparently he's seriously pissed
off his former Clan. I suggest you get him to stay out of sight until
the representatives have left. Oh, and Willow finished those
anti-scrying spells you wanted about half an hour ago, just now she's
helping Fire."
"Lord Ranma! I've just got some fresh news in!"
"Call me Ranma." Ranma said automatically. "All th' bowin' an' scrapin'
an' shit wuz Akira's style." He turned round and contemplated the
Saotome clanner who had called across to him; the man was waving around
a sheaf of paper.
"Pass it over."
"Here y'go." The man handed it to him; Ranma skimmed through it.
"Mystery pack?"
"Yeah, they ain't ours, they ain't Haks, they ain't Skels, they ain't
Daarak, they ain't any sorta Conservative leftovers."
"Gotcha. Have someone keep an eye out for 'em. Leave 'em alone unless
they start causin' trouble."
"Gotcha, sir."
Ranma groaned. "I ain't a sir, I work fer a livin'."
"HEY RANMA!"
"Mortise ya ol' bastard! How ya been?"
"Lookin' up bro, lookin' up. Lan-Lan said you wanted to see me?"
"Fuckin' hell yeah. Here, take a look over this gubbins an' tell me what
ya think."
Mortise did so; after perusing it for a bit he snorted.
"Necromancers? Pathetic bunch of idiots trying to beat we leeches at our
own game. Shouldn't be too much trouble; you just follow the dead thing
stink. Hmm, so Honda finally came up with the goods? That's good to
hear. Glad to hear Genma isn't as fucked up as Lan-Lan thought...
talking of which, Lan-Lan told me we're going to go after the Moss of
Life. I thought it was extinct?"
Mi Soon shook her head. "Herb knows where to find the one remaining
patch. I'm going to take a cutting while we're about it, it's extremely
slow growing but if I use one of the accelerated time spells from the
Mai Kaderan codice on the grow room we'll be able to get a reasonable
size patch in a short space of actual time."
"You have one of the codices? I want a look!"
"You can read Avalonian?"
"What kind of lame-ass, tame-ass vampire can't? I spent six years
chasing after all the mystic knowledge I could find when I was trying to
hammer Happosai."
"So, what did my errant son do to you?"
"He named me. Don't ask - just do not ask."
"Ah. I can imagine."
"Happosai? Ya mean ya were named by a pervy twat wiv th' biggest knicker
fetish in like, known fuckin' history?"
"Yeah. And... under the traditions of my village, he's the only one who
can change my name. Fortunately seventeen metric tons of stained women's
underwear was enough to bribe him into giving me a name that isn't
stupid."
Mi Soon chuckled. "Have you heard? He finally pulled."
"No shit? Oh yeah, he changed his appearance back, didn't he?"
"Yes, and a handsome pervert has a lot more luck than a shrivelled one,
especially if he's hanging around in fetish nightclubs."
"Damn, never thought *he* would get laid. But then, I thought the same
about myself - ah well, guess it goes to show, can't be right all the
time. Hmm, fetish clubs? Think I'll have to check 'em out."
"Watch it bro," Ranma remarked. "Ya don't want Ranko gettin' jealous."
"Ranma, I've spent the last twelve years finding the neck the most
interesting portion of a girl's anatomy. As far as I'm concerned, your
twin is an exception to a lot of rules. So, has she Firsted yet?"
"No." Mi Soon told him. "Though she will soon... hopefully her memories
will return when she does so."
Mortise nodded. "Yeah. I'm fucked if I know how that happened. A vampire
with amnesia? What the hell?"
"That was what I thought."
"Ya mean it don't normally happen?" Ranma asked.
"Exactly."

Phew, that's another one down.

NOTES
Next - Blah blah blah blah.
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.

PS - Persons with a security clearance high enough to understand the
disclaimer should be able to decipher the following decryption
instructions

I'll play it on this needle nadle noo
illplayitonthisneedlenadlenoo
ooneldaneldeensihtnotiyalplli
oone ldan elde ensi htno tiya lpll i
eono ndal elde inse otnh aiyt lpll i
eon ondal eldein seot nh ai ytlp ll i