Plank Sinatra

Cancelled - until next time family. Thank you for understanding.

Ohh, shit.

He had been about to respond to Katie when hell burst from the mouth of the RV. Valeria was running as fast as her little legs would carry her, skipping steps on her flight to freedom; AJ, it seemed, was just skipping steps. He flopped to the ground impotently, writhing in pain and frustration. Val was tearing by them.

“Stop. Her.”

Aleks turned to Chris, biting on his lip to hide a smile. He stuffed his mischievous look with a roll to hide a laugh, chewing over the appropriate response carefully.

"It looks like Val is a dom," he finally deadpanned, even though inside his mind was racing. How was he supposed to stop her? His leg could be used in a variety of ways, from tripping her legs out from under her to simply blocking her path to a turning side kick to the face. All were acceptable applications of force after seeing what she'd done to poor AJ and his trust fund. But if she was still coming along for the trip - and Aleks had to assume she was, otherwise AJ in his pettiness would allow her to run - than she wouldn't forgive him if she was missing teeth. He and Val had no problems with each other.

So she got to keep her teeth. Instead, Aleks would do all he could to ensure his first three godchildren didn't grow up looking like coneheads. So he spun out of Val's way slightly as she went on her tear and then walked calmly over to AJ, roll stuffed back in his mouth. He crouched down beside his best friend and looked down on him with guileless eyes - gentle, but still with a spark of schadenfreude. Peak Aleks eyes.

"Mmmph mmrrrph mmm," he said through his mouthful of breakfast. [Translation: "Just stay down, bratan."] "Mmm. Mmmrr mmm mmphmmph mrr mmm mmmph." [Translation: "Here. You have gravel on your cheek."]

He reached down and gently dusted AJ's scraped cheek free of any debris trying to cling to it. His other hand patted his curls.

The Zephyr Extinct

I R I S

Iris grinned at Steel Rose and pointed a finger up to the sky again. There were dozens of caches across the city where high-flyers left maneuvering equipment for each other; many hoverbikes and gliders were painstakingly customized in order to denote their original owners, but those original owners were often comfortable to leave their vehicles in one of several spots throughout the city, easily scaled for any who could brave the vines that clung to Rig's buildings. It was one of the ways that the high-flyers fostered their sense of community together.

Iris had been doing it since she was a kid, and the markets were one of the hubs for any who needed an easy ticket into the skies.

"I got the gist of it," she assured her fellow recruits with easy confidence. "Nobody's going to be able to tell me apart, and if there's trouble I'll have the birds-eye view. So no need for anyone to report any deaths or anything."

The Zephyr Extinct

My post should be up in a couple hours!

Cancelled - until next time family. Thank you for understanding.

It was going to be a dangerous summer.

Aleks exhaled through his lips as AJ pulled away from his hand, grumbling to himself about slights real and imagined all over again. It was an exhausting process, and a cyclical one, a yawning whirlpool forever threatening to suck each and every person assembled in the parking lot into hell. Well, except Katie. Katie! The Russian did a little shrug with his eyebrows, and his mouth quirked in her direction. Maybe it would help to know someone wasn't gawking over her. Or maybe not. The people here tended towards self-absorption as a general rule. Sami seemed to have the same idea; his greeting to Katie was as warm and familial as his next, and his next and his next.

Instead of shadowing AJ, Aleks decided to follow in the Latino's wake instead, going after some of Reyna and Ava's pancakes. He balanced the bottom of his mocha in one hand and waited patiently for Sami to finish shoveling out handfuls. He seemed to wrap them up in his hands like burritos, which was a good strategy in lieu of managing his flatware. Aleks looked down; the only utensils he'd brought were for Chloé's fruit salad, not any potential food of his own.

Fuck it. Soon they would be dying for a taste of In N Out while marooned in Montana, or Arkansas, or Missouri, or any of the other nameless states Aleks believed were made up by these douchebags to befuddle him. For this one final morning, he was in California; he would eat as the Californians ate. So when it was his turn for a plate, Aleks took one politely - and then proceeded to wrap up the pancakes in the same cylindrical shape, although it seemed too thick to take a bite out of without looking disgusting. Sami didn't seem to mind - he was still pirouetting between Emi and Josie, planting kisses and winning hearts - and more power to him, but Aleks would be damned if his kisses left crumbs on anyone. He would have sulked like AJ if someone had left crumbs on him.

Most of the pancakes, save for one at the very heart of the breakfast roll-up, unfolded back into their original shape, resting on the plate. Aleks washed down his first bite and smiled brightly.

"Spasibo," he thanked Reyna gratefully; he passed his compliments to the chef with a wink. "Glad you made it, Reyna. You too, Ava."

His eyes found Chloé amid the throng of new arrivals - she was between Ivy and Chris, both of whom had no doubt received a helping of her Nainai's hospitality recently; they'd gotten here together. He grinned at his best friend and raised her Starbucks order - drink and chocolate bar balanced aloft in his hand in his best, most coquettish impersonation of Lady Liberty. He had the mentality of a gymnast - and what's more, the body. He could hold that pose like a motherfucker for as long as he needed to.

Watch. His eyes dared hers, a silent challenge.

"AJ and Val are already hissing at each other in there," he murmured under his breath to Reyna and Ava. "People aren't even out of their cars yet. By Vegas there will be fucking bodies in the van."

A Certain Scientific Apocrypha

@Plank Sinatra@HereComesTheSnow@Leriamae@GreenGoat

To put it frankly, I made that as a metaphor.

The canon characters may exist but their lives aren't the same and the majority of them have little to no involvement at all, I rather not butcher everything tbh.

As for Level 5's...

My Co-GM @Stern Algorithm is correct but that's a touchy subject. There's a custom roster but I'd say no to any attempts of creating a level 5.

Light Novel spoiler

Accelerator became the President of Academy City after Crowley died. Yes, Light Novels confirmed that he's dead. Whether or not Accelerator is still the leader of the new-gen of Academy City, I rather leave it vague.

@Anakin

Hider

I know, it's rad. Based Accel, putting an end to crime in his fair streets.

I'm excited. Most Raildex games have come and gone with only science side characters, it's about time that I can finally put forth the Scientology magic sider of my dreams.

A Certain Scientific Apocrypha

First instinct: hell yeah.

That being said, if "the Touma cast doesn't exist" is a thing, I'm just curious what the Level 5 roster looks like. Are they the same names and powers, and we're just lucky enough to never interact with them? Or are you creating customs?

What Are You Listening To?

rip to the GOAT

The Zephyr Extinct

I R I S

Iris had to giggle. Of all the new recruits, Listener, with all her contradictions and boundless energy, was the one who had made the best first impression; Iris liked her immediately. She seemed confident of her ability to get in and out of places, too, which would always be handy. But...

"Where exactly does this guy live, again?"

"Can't answer that!" Even beneath a mask, Iris could still feel the sharp edge of Archer's grin. It seemed like a pretty small thing for intelligence to figure out where someone laid their head at night, so clearly they were all being flung off the hover-bike heads-first.

She weighed that for a moment. They had all heard the ravings of the street preacher, harking for his own benefit. He had never been able to draw much of a congregation on his best day, but even now, none of the crowd seemed very invested in Ruskali's apocalypse.

"Anyone feel like shooting the breeze with him?" she joked. "If not, well, most people can't tell a high-flyer from a Ze from the ground. We're all just masks. I could kick back in the currents, listen to him vent for a while, and then follow him home. Give you an idea of where to search, Listener?"

The Zephyr Extinct

I'll have a post up later tonight!

Cancelled - until next time family. Thank you for understanding.

_{6:45 AM}

"I'm going to miss you so much. ...Fuck, I promised myself no tears. Damn it. I swear, my heart is your heart. Where I go, you go. If I had to I would take you to hell with me...but I told you, you can't come. No tears. We'll be together again soon."

Aleks Belikov crouched reverently in front of the Lotus Elise, chewing with a heartached tenderness at the corner of his bottom lip. He ran his hand reverently across the sports car's hood before bringing his fingertips to his mouth and kissing it goodbye. The fingers his lips had touched patted the car's badge, safely nestled between the headlights.

"I love you," he promised. "I'll be back."

Aleks sprung to his feet, lacing his fingers together behind his head and puffing his chest out in a large stretch, balanced precariously on the tiptoes of his running shoes. He'd spent a few hours at the garage where he'd parked his Lotus for the night; he trusted the owners implicitly to take care of her, careful to extract reassurances from all of them. She was in the rare black-and-gold Championship lineage, a couple years old and without the raw power of some of AJ's cars, but she was more than quick enough for the streets of Los Angeles, and beauty and grace were more than the equals of raw power anyway. He would go on the warpath if anyone ever sullied that car's dignity. Chris had tried to smoke in it more than once and had gotten an earful in such colorful Russian that you'd think a nuclear bombardment was imminent.

But none of that mattered. She couldn't come. Instead they would all be sealed together in a couple enclosed spaces, like orange juice and styrofoam - a certain recipe for napalm. Well, if he had to stew in the clash of egos and hormones that would be their summer-long Flight of the fucking Valkyries, he would absolutely need some alone time first. Preferably outside of a car. Who knew when he'd get a chance to run like this again. Just him--

You can dance for inspiration

--his earbuds--

Come on, I'm waiting...

--and his final LA morning until dot, dot, dot.

He started to run, taking a long, deep breath of the air. It was cool out, and would still be cool for another hour and a half or so, right up until they all gathered in the parking lot of Beverly Hills High School. By ten, the parking lot would be drowned in a sea of luggage as everyone tried to figure out who was packing what where in their limited space available. Aleks was ahead of the curve in that regard; he'd been to see AJ the night before with what belongings and outfits he thought would be fun to wear and left them over at the Tyler house. He'd been invited to stay for dinner too, but had to graciously decline. The night had been young, and Aleks had still had a lot to do before they left.

He felt the envelope of cash jostle underneath his lightweight jacket; he willed himself not to focus on it, just focus on Madonna. The beauty of her voice, the playful, flirty simplicity of her lyrics, the 80s as fuck beat...

"Geeet into the groooove, boy, you've got to proooove your love to meeeee~"

Aleks tilted his head back, arching his shoulders, enjoying the fingers of the breeze along his cheeks and in his cocoa-colored hair in a forward motion that was half a sprint and half a ballet.

He would miss Los Angeles. The people of Los Angeles connected with him in a way that self-serious London and New York hadn't, with their individualism and their vanity in equal measure - and definitely their accents, which were easier on the ears by comparison to both his old homes. The idea of leaving wasn't stressful in itself, but the city had become his home, and...well, it would be a stretch to call it familiar. He doubted L.A. was familiar for anyone, even those who spent their whole lives there. That seemed, to Aleks, like the whole point.

There will be a Starbucks around the corner. He had clocked it a few hours ago, after pulling the car into the garage. Aleks glided over the sidewalk and over the fencing around the outdoor seating, vaulting over it and finally slowing to a shuffle in front of the door. It seemed like he'd cut to the entrance in front of another runner, coming in from the opposite direction; his fingers slid across the door and held the door for him, letting the man walk in front of him as recompense. After all, he was still--

_{7:20 AM}

Way early. Nobody was in a hurry.

When it was his turn in line, Aleks turned on a megawatt smile and leaned forward, rapping his knuckles on the counter in front of the register while his eyes scanned the menu and his lips moved silently, recounting the orders he'd memorized.

"Venti iced coconut milk latte--"

Chloé.

"A venti caramel frappe, extra caramel, with the whipped cream."

Reyna.

"Another venti latte, soy..."

AJ.

"--and a venti iced white mocha, lots of whipped cream. And that'll be it."

Aleks.

"Oh. And, ah."

Aleks tilted over to the food selection, picking up a chilled fruit salad and one of the dark chocolate bars in front of the register.

"And that'll be it."

His eyes found the barista's and his smile grew wider, even though he was wincing internally. As much as he had an ear for accents, his own infuriated him the most. He'd been working on it over the four years he'd lived in America, and even though he'd never seen his mother country, it was hard to shake the accent that you grew up with in your home. His childhood in England had taken its toll, too, and the more Aleks talked the more painfully aware he was that his accent had become a sort of Russian-influenced British creole. Smoky, mysterious, James Bond-ish, "basically like listening to sex during group project presentations" if you listened to AJ or Chloé. He noticed the imperfections, though. It made him want to cringe.

"Name for the order?"

"Um, Aleks. Thanks."

He paid for the order and drifted over to pick up straws for the quartet of drinks, singing Madonna under his breath right up until it was time to collect the coffee. On his way out the door, he thought, idly, to take a peek at the label on his iced mocha.

ALEX

"They'll be spelling it like that all fucking summer," he cursed under his breath to himself as he continued his run to the high school. Aleks wasn't hard to get right, considering his noticeable accent and the endless permutations of every single fucking name in America. His last boyfriend's name was Chasten, for Christ's sake. What fucking name was that. "I'm going to see more Xes than I did at prom."

He started to jog faster, as if those exes might still be after him.

---

_{7:52 AM}

Oh, he's early. Cool.

"Cosmosssssss! You ready? I hope no one bails, it's not often my dad let's me take this beast out."

"I cannot imagine anyone will bail." Aleks joined his two index fingers and thumbs together into a makeshift camera lens, zooming in on AJ and miming camera clicks with his teeth. A coquettish smile grew across the Russian's face as his subject kept zooming in closer towards him. "I mean, it's a piece of history. The original meth lab from Breaking Bad. Who would want to watch it on Netflix when they can fuck and get drunk in the real thing?"

AJ made a face and stepped closer to him to get his latte; Aleks took the opportunity to break his imaginary camera lens and ruffle AJ's thick, unruly hair, closing the distance between them for an affectionate greeting. His gaze, though, had already drifted back to the RV.

"Huh." he mused to himself quietly, before adding: "You get any sleep?"