Room 508 to Baltimore, Friday Night

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy studied herself in the mirror, frowning slightly. She had done a lot of stuff as Banzai, but trying to infiltrate the mafia in disguise was a whole new level of scary. If she messed up, the Ukrainians would know a lot more about her than she really wanted them too--like what she looked like, as just one exciting example. But this was an opportunity she couldn't pass up; they were recruiting locals under the guise of a motorcycle drag race, with the top performers invited to a very exclusive party--so exclusive that no matter how hard she tried, Kathy couldn't get the location. Over the past year, she'd managed to create a decent circle of street-level informants and yet no one could tell her anything besides what was 'public' knowledge: an illegal drag race, with plenty of money to be made from betting, and an excellent afterparty for the winners. That was it.

It was all very frustrating as hell.

Even the race itself was frustrating. If it had at least been a drag race with cars, Kathy might have been able to put her Driver's Ed experience into play...somehow. She was still lacking a car, but she would have at least known how to race. Ish. Maybe. But this was a motorcycle race, and Kathy had one hour of experience driving one of those from several years ago. That would get her exactly nowhere. If she had more time, she might even have been able to appeal to Parker or Eliot for help, but she'd just gotten the message that everything was going down tonight.

Kathy didn't often swear, but this whole situation deserved quite a hearty "God dammit!"

Her current plan was to dress like a biker bunny, head to where the race was going to take place, and hope to insinuate herself in the group that got brought to the party. Yeah, she could foresee no problems with that, sure.



[Primarily for one, but open to the roomie beforehand if she so chooses. Everything that happens after they leave the island is NFB for distance.]

Comments

[rebelseekspizza]

No dodging that one, sure. But Dante had strength and reflexes on his side-- so he could yank the bike up, skip over the front of the car and land right back on the road.

A couple of inches ahead of Olek-whatever. He smirked at the guy.

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

And Dante gained a few more as Oleksiy eased off the throttle to gape at that maneuver. "The fuck are you?" he shouted. "Some kind of fucking trick rider?!"

[rebelseekspizza]

"Just fucking better than you!" Dante called, but he sure as shit wasn't laying off the throttle now.

He slipped the bike between the next set of cars, squeezing in like he'd been doing this for ages. (He hadn't. He just had a unique set of cheat codes.)

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

Oleksiy cursed in several languages, jerking his bike to the left to go around the cars. He didn't have enough speed to maneuver through properly and that cost him another half-length in speed.

He hadn't meant to do this so early, but he needed to make up the distance somehow. So with one more bitter Ukrainian curse, he was thumbing the button on the side of his bike, then practically leaping forward, zipping past Dante as the nitrous hit his engine.

"Suck on this!" he screamed as he passed by, gaining a few yards before the NOS gave out.

[rebelseekspizza]

Aw, throwing out your trump card that early? There was still a ton of shit that could happen on a road this busy.

'Course, downside: this bike didn't have any of that fancy NOS stuff, so now Dante had to hope the traffic would do the job. He hit the throttle again, hoping to get another edge of speed, and kept going. "We'll see who's laughing next," he called.

Look, battle banter was not his strong suit.

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

You didn't say!

Oleksiy looked ahead and laughed. The gas station was coming up, but right ahead of it was a traffic light already turning amber. Better still, an empty auto transport trailer was slowing to a stop in front of them. Oleksiy was confident he could zip around it and make it through the light before it changed, but the punk-ass kid would be stuck behind a truck at least until the light turned green again. That would be plenty of time for him to hit the gas station and turn around.

Flipping Dante off, he raced around the truck just as the light turned red, making it across the intersection just as the cross traffic started to move.

Your move, dick.

[rebelseekspizza]

What? This guy didn't seriously think Dante was gonna wait for the cross traffic to clear, right? In fact, he could see the truck stopping from further back-- so he'd already shifted around, clearing a bunch of cars and then shooting off right into traffic.

Squeezed his bike through the gaps in the first and second lanes, then-- fuck it.

There were advantages to confusing the fuck out of gravity, like taking your bike up to touch the actual roof of some car, hit an invisible platform of something in the air, then go soaring.

Who needed NOS when you had momentum?

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

Oleksiy was driving too fast for him to look backwards, even to gloat. So he missed Dante's feat of aerial gravity-abuse, content in the knowledge that he'd left his competition far behind him--at least until Dante's bright red motorcycle landed on the road ahead of him.

"WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?!"

[rebelseekspizza]

'sokay, Oleksiy. There was a counter running in the back of Dante's head that just happily screamed S-savage! at him.

Since Dante was a mature young gentleman, he took the opportunity to flip Oleksiy off-- and then set his bike on a direct course for that gas station riiight up ahead.

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

Shit shit shit. Oleksiy was out of NOS, his RPMs were screaming in the red zone, and his odometer needle was as far right as he could push it and still he was falling behind.

Fine then. If you couldn't beat 'em, cheat 'em. Who was everyone going to believe? A Boevik for the Mikhaltsos, or some punk-ass kid who showed up out of the blue? Fuck that kid--Oleksiy was turning his bike hard to the left so he could spin around and start riding back to the parking lot.

So long, sucker!

[rebelseekspizza]

The smart thing to do would've been to turn tail and follow Oleksiy, but Dante was governed by Rule of Cool, not Rule of Smart. "What the fuck," he snarled, as he rushed through the last remaining few yards, tapped the gas station and turned tail a few seconds later.

"Can't cut it without spinning it, can you, asshole?" he yelled, bike screaming after him. The Ophion hook would've come in handy here...

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

This is what happened when you had to wait for your idiot twin to come and explain things!

"You can always give up now, fuckface!" Oleksiy yelled over his shoulder. "Maybe you'll even get to keep your bike this way! Too bad about your girl, though!"

Like he gave a fuck about what Dante thought about him. He intended to win, no matter what it took.

[rebelseekspizza]

In that case, it might be smart if he kept his eyes on the road. That traffic light was looking mighty yellow just now.

Dante gritted his teeth and swerved back into the midst of traffic, trying to gain ground by sticking between the cars. No more trash talk. Just focus.

Kathy was going to kill him if he fucked this up, and that was at least going to sting a little.

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

Dante would probably have appreciated the expression on Oleksiy's face when he turned back around and saw the light ahead of him changing from yellow to red. There was no way he could stop in time without dropping the bike, so he just muttered a quick prayer and shot through the intersection.

A car nearly plowed him down; he had to veer hard to avoid it and that bled off some speed. A bag lady pushing her cart across the far street also provided another hazard for him to narrowly avoid and by the time he was on the far side of the intersection, he'd slowed down to double-digit speeds.

[rebelseekspizza]

Yeah, not seeing his face was sad. On the other hand, Dante's superior maneuvering skills - or rather, total supernatural reflexes cheat - meant he was now gaining on the guy, and fast.

"Got a little held up?" he bellowed.

Okay, so a little trash talk. That just kept him sharp while he got back to abusing other people's car ceilings. Oops, sorry for the track marks.

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

"Fuck you!" Oleksiy screamed like a succubus in a soda manufacturing plant. "I'm still winning!"

Though he was stuck driving on the actual road, which involved speeding around cars, rather than using them as terrain. "How the fuck are you even doing that?!"

That had to be cheating somehow!

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante grinned. When he cleared the last car, he hit the road again, and now he was practically side to side with the guy already. "Fuck you," he shot back, like a Nephilim picking a fight with a succubus in a soda manufacturing plant. "You just suck."

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

Fucking Nephilim. It was a known fact that 100% of them were assholes.

Oleksiy didn't respond. Actions spoke more loudly than words and he felt like being very loud right then. How many decibels was the action of easing a nightstick out of one's jacket and whipping it at the head of the competition, exactly?

[rebelseekspizza]

"Woah!"

It had to be said, even as Dante ducked underneath that like he knew it'd been coming. "Sore loser, are you?"

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

"I'm not about to be beat by some snot-nosed punk!" Oleksiy snarled, following that attack up with an attempt to ram his bike into Dante's. "I'm the best damn biker this miserable backwater's ever seen!"

Or at least the best at cheating. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante's bike darted neatly sideways and out of the way-- almost into a car. Almost.

"That's the last time I'm playing nice with you, asshole!"

He was still gaining.

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

"I played nice with your mother!" Oleksiy yelled, hunkering down now and focusing on speed. Dante was gaining, but the strip mall was in sight. If he could just maintain his lead for another few hundred yards...

[rebelseekspizza]

Yeah. In his dreams.

Dante slid his bike in close again, reached out, and gave the side of Oleksiy's a love-tap with his foot.

He didn't want the guy dead, but if he was gonna play dirty, then all bets were off.

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

Probably for the best, because Oleksiy had just pulled the gun from out of his waistband. Not to murder Dante, god no, but a shot in his general direction probably would have scared the shit out of the little fuck and allowed Oleksiy to maintain his lead.

Instead, though, the gun went clattering to the ground as Oleksiy had to grab on with both hands to keep his bike under control. He pulled sharply to the side, bouncing up and over the curb and onto the sidewalk for several yards before gaining enough control to jump his bike back to the road proper. Thank the Blessed Virgin that this stretch of sidewalk was deserted, or there would have been a fair bit of carnage.

Oleksiy might almost have preferred the carnage to how far he had dropped behind Dante, though. "Motherfuckerrrr!" he bellowed in rage.

[rebelseekspizza]

It was a good thing the gun had gone. Not because Dante was scared of it, but because if those guys from a few nights ago had gone squawking about some kid shrugging off bullet wounds, this would've suddenly become a whole lot more complicated.

"Yeah, that's right!" Dante yelled. "Me and your mom, more like it!"

Which, coincidentally, were the words everyone in the parking lot were going to be able to hear, as he pulled into it way ahead of the jackass back there.