fandomhighdorms | Fifth Floor Common Room, Monday Afternoon

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Fifth Floor Common Room, Monday Afternoon

It had required moving some furniture around in order to create the space necessary, but Ringo had managed to lay down a big white sheet on the floor and pin its corners with some large boxes. She'd even had boxes left over, and those were stacked near the edge of the area she'd blocked off.

Most of the boxes were open, too, and revealed their contents to be hundreds of tiny different bits of metal. Ringo had asked Ume to send her AT parts, and Ume had delivered in spades. She had enough pieces here to put together dozens pairs. Sometimes, apparently, little sisters were good for something after all!

Of course so many boxes had taken a lot of work to get up to the fifth floor, and she hoped no one had been annoyed as she had painstakingly moved one box at a time from the lobby.

Now Ringo was sitting in the middle of that white sheet, her smile matched by some happy humming as her hands rapidly swapped out small screwdrivers for tiny wrenches and the pile of precisely-machined metal in front of her began to take shape.

Every so often some screw or gear would slip from her fingers, and she'd have to put down what she had so far and find it. Fortunately, the sheet was very, very clean, and practically nothing blended in against it. So soon enough she'd be back to humming and assembling, and she was almost done with the first unit.

[Open!]

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"You can!" Ringo laughed delightedly.

"Um, well, I bet we can work something out."

If Ringo thought people would take them, she'd just hand ATs out to anyone who even remotely expressed interest.

"I mean, I've got a bunch of spare parts lying around." She waved at the boxes which clearly had way too many parts for just one or two pairs.

Kathy raised an eyebrow at the boxes that were currently claiming a large chunk of the room. "Either these things are really complex or 'bunch' is kind of an understatement."

"Some of both?" Ringo admitted shyly. "I mean," she paused, pursing her lips. "I mean, when you get really into ATs everything is custom. You adjust everything just so."

"It's kinda addictive, really."

This almost sounded like a collectible card game. But with speed. So...color Kathy intrigued.

"What do you mean?" she asked, returning the phone and leaning forward to get a closer eye on what Ringo was doing on the blanket. "Like..different configurations or something?"

Ringo set down the piece she was working on and leaned back, propping herself up with her hands. "Every rider is different. Different height, different weight, balance, all that, obviously. But also in what they want."

She smiled at a fond memory. "A friend of mine once said 'IF there are a million riders, there are a million roads'. Everyone has their own, and every road is best run with a slightly different configuration."

Picking up a completed wheel, Ringo rolled it back and forth between her fingers. "The Flame Road is about pure speed, and its riders cut away every ounce of excess weight in search of that next little boost. The Gale Road is about aggression and forward momentum, so they balance speed with high-friction wheels, gripping surfaces to keep up their inertia."

"Everyone rides their own roads, even if we group them by name. So everyone, eventually, customizes their gear to get more of what they want."

Kathy frowned, thinking about what she would want, if she were able to design an AT for herself. "What about something that was a combination of speed and agility?" she asked. "Flips, cartwheels, leaps and bounds--that kind of thing?"

You wouldn't have thought that Ringo's grin could get any wider. Apparently, though, it could.

"Sounds like a variant of what we call the Sonia Road." Which was a much nicer than its other name. Ringo ducked her head, still beaming, and her voice grew quiet, but pleased.

"That's my road."

"Really?" Kathy's answering grin was delighted. "Now you have to show me what you can do! I mean, that video was cool--were you up on rooftops? That looked like rooftops!--but I have to see it for myself."

"I'd like that," Ringo admitted with a still-shy grin. "But there isn't anywhere quite that high on the island. We were up around fifteen stories or so."

Oh! "But there were some old industrial buildings on the south side of the island? They looked abandoned, and there looked like a couple of okay spots to do tricks!"

"I know where you mean," Kathy said. "I run a lot around there for practice, up on the rooftops."

Because that was perfectly normal.

"Okay, so how do they work? I mean, I assume that the cliffs on the other side of the island won't work?"

"Huh." Ringo frowned. "I'm not sure. I haven't really looked around the cliffs."

She picked up one of the wheels she'd finished earlier. "There are some techniques you can use to work your way up a single vertical surface. Wall riding, and the like. But usually you want to have some other tall stuff to trick off of if you lose traction on whatever you're riding." One reason cities were so good: tall things tended to be near each other.

"We could also probably sneak a trip back home, maybe. I know pretty much all the good places to run in Tokyo."

"Hmmm, I wonder if there would be any good places to run in LA," Kathy mused, trying not to let herself get too excited here. "Sounds a lot like my bouncing. I need enough space to maneuver, but too much and I don't have enough momentum to make it to the next surface."

"Yeah!" Ringo exclaimed. "Chaining tricks is about seeing a space and knowing the best route to take. Up this wall, along that rail, along that rooftop, and so on."

Ringo sounded happy just contemplating it.

"That're pretty much what I do, out in Baltimore," Kathy said. "Run really fast, chain tricks?" That had been the phrase Ringo had used, right? "Surprise a couple of bad guys, then get up and outta there before anyone knows what's hit 'em!"

"Awesome! Are there some good places for it?"

Wait.

Ringo blinked in surprise and confusion.

"What was that last part?"

Kathy looked a little sheepish. "Chain tricks?" she tried.

Yeah, she didn't think Ringo was gonna buy that.

An amused grin flickered across Ringo's face. "That wasn't what I was asking." And Kathy knew it.

Before Kathy could respond, Ringo held up one hand, thinking.

"I can pretend I didn't hear it, if you want me to," she offered quietly after mulling it over. "We all have secrets." Her lip twitched. "I certainly have mine."

"But I am curious. If you want to tell me about it, that is."

"It's not really a secret," Kathy said, shaking her head. "I mean, it is when I'm not on the island? But here, nobody really cares and it's not like I have to worry about anyone going all supervillain on me."

That she knew of anyway.

Offering Ringo her hand, she said, "Codename Banzai, costumed vigilante. Most nights I'm out in Baltimore, chasing down criminals and stuff like that. Hi."

Ringo examined that hand, trying to figure out what the appropriate response was. After a moment, she nodded in decision: a confidence for a confidence.

She reached out and took Kathy's hand, just a bit awkwardly since she didn't do a lot of handshakes. "It's not exactly a code name, but sometimes I'm called Crazy Apple." Just saying the name caused that side of her to stir, and Ringo's eyes were dangerously serious for a split second before settling into their usual friendly smile. "Thorn Queen of the Sleeping Forest." Which sounded kind of elaborate next to Kathy's simple explanation, which made Ringo shake her head sheepishly.

"It's not so grand as it sounds."

"What does that mean?" Kathy asked, confused. She didn't want to point out that it could easy be the name of a LARP character, because Ringo clearly meant something serious by it, but Kathy couldn't place what it could even be referencing.

Ringo looked down at her lap, embarrassed. But she probably should explain.

"Like I said, it's not as grand as it sounds, but 'Thorn Queen' is a title, I guess. The Queens and Kings are the people considered to be the number one in their particular roads. There's a Flame King, and a Pledge Queen, and so on."

"And Sleeping Forest is an AT team. And old one. It contains a number of Kings and Queens." Ringo frowned slightly. "We don't, well, I wish we did more things like beating up bad guys. That sounds kind of fun."

She finally looked up, searching Kathy's face through her eyelashes. "Does that make sense?"

"Oh." Kathy said, snapping her fingers. "So because you're the best at the Sonia Road, you're the Thorn Queen?"

That sounded really cool. You got to flip around and go superfast and then when you were done, you got a fancy title. Kathy could absolutely get behind that.

"So why is it called the Sonia Road? And why would being the queen of that make you the Thorn Queen." She frowned, working a few things out in her head. "Crazy Apple because your name is Ringo and you do crazy stunts? With a nod to hawthornes of your title?"

"Sonia Road is name of the road," and definitely the one Ringo preferred. "But it has a number of high-level techniques that involve constricting your opponents' options, binding them, sort of." Shredding away their own ability to run.

Those techniques also did some non-trivial damage to the user's body, but Ringo wasn't going to teach anyone those techniques, so it didn't matter.

"And, yeah. Because I do crazy tricks." Ringo smiled. She liked that interpretation. "And because," she sighed, "I scare some people." Including, if she was honest, herself, sometimes. That side of her was not very nice.

Without the information about shredding them, Kathy was still a little confused why they went with 'thorns' and not 'rope' or 'lasso', but was willing to assume it was a cultural thing.

And then, forgive her Ringo, but-- "You scare some people?" she asked, trying not to sound dubious.

The tone in Kathy's voice surprised a laugh out of Ringo. She tried putting on a scowl, but her natural demeanor plus the laughter totally ruined it. "What?" she demanded. "I'm not intimidating?"

She shrugged. "But I guess I can be scary sometimes? I mean, well, ATs can be dangerous. And if you know what you're doing you can really hurt someone." Which Ringo had done a time or two.

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