Back Home at Last... or Not
The beat resounded through the club at a quickening pace, sending a shock wave through Johns chest. Looking for a quick route to the bar he thought about trying to weave through the dance floor, but one glance at the wall of doom changed his mind immediately. 'Wall, huh?' Backing up slightly he made sure he had a clear path to the wall. Taking a running start he jumped for the wall when he got close enough.
Sprinting across the wall he watched his HUD to give the signal to launch from the wall to the ground. Jumping, he landed just shy of the bar, beside an empty stool. "Hey Frank. The usual."
The bar keep turned around and looked at the man on the stool. "Well if it isn't John Delmonico. I haven't seen you in three years, where you been?"
John smiled at the older man behind the bar. "The frontier, just got back yesterday. Pirate Resistance fleet, nowhere near Demeter when that shit went down." Grabbing the drink as it was slid to him he made a small cheer's. "Lost a few damn fine men that day. My buddy died there, best pilot in the whole IMC."
Frank nodded sadly and filled up the mans cup. "This ones on the house." John nodded and downed the whiskey. It was an older malt, something not a lot of places carried anymore. "How's the Jack taste?"
"Pretty good man. To those like us, and those that were like us." John toasted to the bar keeper, an ex-pilot himself. Pouring himself a glass Frank toasted with him. "Tell me,Frank. How was it piloting the MK1's?"
"Ever piloted an Atlas? That's an original, of course, they have changed it since then. Back then, you ejected, you could get fucked up on the escape hatch. Once, my leg got caught, had some pirates coming for me. Thought I was dead, until I saw the chain gun still laying beside me... I told you that story didn't I?" John nodded and sipped his whiskey.
Frank moved down the bar to fill orders and make refills. "Excuse me sir, what's his name?" Asked a young woman. Frank turned to her, he would have been stunned by her hair if he didn't work where he did. She pointed to John, a small smile plastered to her lips.
"His names John, he just got back from deployment." The old Brooklynite told her.
"Was he a grunt or something?"
Frank chuckled and refilled her vodka tonic. "No, a pilot. Ended on a fourth gen. Three years in the field and still has all his original parts, except for his left foot. Lost it to a pirate's titan, stepped on it." He chuckled slightly at the thought.
Smiling she got out of her chair and made her way over to him. "Hi." John smiled and nodded to her. "I hear you were a pilot. Got any stories?" She asked, a little perkier than someone would expect from someone wearing attire like hers.
John studied her for a moment; she wore a white shirt, ripped around the middle and missing the sleeves, jean shorts with various designs embroidered on them, a pair of high-tech headphones hung around her neck, a pair of glasses that John could tell held some form of HUD covered her eyes, the purple lenses shrouding them. Slamming his drink he thought for a moment. "Well one time, me and my buddies were running a spec ops mission, and this rook, called in his titan. So we're in the middle of this giant pirate base, being as quiet as we can, when suddenly this fucking titan drops from space, right in front of us. Next thing we know, we're up to our eyes in shit. The titan fell on a sewage pipe, nastiest stuff ever. We made the rook clean our armor that night."
The woman just looked at John for a moment, to stunned to respond. "I'm joking... that was a joke... sorry." He held up his drink for Frank to refill, trying to avoid the awkwardness that hung in the air between him and the woman.
"That was kind of a... shitty, joke." John looked at her with a look of slight curiosity. "What, am I not allowed to tell one either?"
Smiling he extended his hand to her. "John Delmonico, pleasure."
Taking his hand she shook. "Vinyl Scratch. So John, what was it like piloting a titan?"
"Imagine a giant video game, like the virtual reality ones at the arcade, except the enemies are actually real, as well as the bullets, and you have to drop from space. Oh, and it isn't like a video game at all." He smiled, remembering the small joke another pilot told him in basic. "So what do you do?"
"I'm a DJ, I usually DJ here... except for tonight. They chose that hack Miguel, tone deaf asshole." She snarled at the man standing above the crowd at the Dj booth.
"I take it you don't like him?"
"He stole this gig from me. Stole one of my songs to give to the bosses and they gave him the rest of the week." She frowned, sipping her vodka.
John sat and starred at his drink for a moment before an idea popped into his head. "You wouldn't happen to have a phone with some of your songs on it would you?" Curiously she pulled her phone and handed it to him. It was a rather new phone, a small holochip that connected to her headset. Grabbing it he stuffed it into his pocket and pulled the hood on his jacket up. "Be back in a second."
Before she could respond he sprung from his chair and sprinted for the wall. "What is he doing?" She asked the bar keep. Shaking his head he just laughed and walked away. Turning around she saw a figure clinging to the wall by the Dj booth. Pulling something out of her phone she realized it was her phone. Flipping through the music John clicked a playlist and stuck her phone into a small device that he pulled form under his jacket.
John shoved her phone into the data slot on the side of his data-knife. Jumping from the wall he walked over just under the DJ booth, the holograms that shot up from the desk hid the light from his knife perfectly as he stabbed into the DJ equipment. Holding in the upload button he watched the data sequence roll by on the tri-circle screen of the knife. When it blinked green the music suddenly shut off and silence filled the club.
Vinyl watched curiously as John pulled the device from the control panel and the music shut off. Suddenly the low bass of one of her songs began to pierce the silence, eliciting a collective gasp from the crowd. Without wasting a second John walked through the stunned crowd back to the bar.
Not long after he sat down mayhem erupted from the crowd, reforming the wall of dancing death. "How did you...?" Vinyl asked him.
"Data knife, standard issue. I just put you popped your phone into the data slot and voila, your music broadcast to the club." Vinyl smiled and turned to see the response on her competitors face. Miguel sat hitting his control panel repeatedly, unable to get the machine to respond. After a moment of hitting the machine he stormed off to the back room.
Turning she wrapped her arms around John and pulled him into a tight hug. "Thank you so much! I've been looking for a way to one up that asshole forever!" She squealed to John.
Pulling against the sudden restraint he gave a muffled response. "Ish wath my preasure." She released him, allowing him to sit up and straighten his jacket. "It was my pleasure, honestly."
Looking around she motioned him closer. "Wanna ditch this place? My friends throwing a party on the otherside of town, and I think you would dig it." Nodding he motioned for the door.
Grabbing his wrist Vinyl began to pull John from the scene. "Bye Frank!" He screamed as they went through the door. The bar keeper just waved him off and went back to his conversation.
John stepped out of Vinyl's car and looked up at the giant elevator that went up to the house in the clouds. "Your friends live in a cloud house?" He asked the DJ as she typed the code into the elevator.
Turning as the doors opened she pulled him in. "Yeah, they only use it on special occasions though. They live on different sides of the city, so this is the easiest place for them to get together. Their names are Cloudchaser and Flitter." He made a mental notice of their names as the elevator reached the bottom floor of the flying house. "DID SOMEONE CALL A DJ?!" Vinyl called into the party.
A roar echoed through the house as they stepped off the platform. "Vinyl!" Yelled two feminine voices from ahead. To girls rushed Vinyl, one with spiky hair and one with a ponytail, both wearing matching grey jumpsuits. "We missed you so much!" Said the one with spiky hair.
"Have you really had to work all week?" asked the one with a ponytail. "And... who's your friend?" She asked, giving John a once over.
"Girls, this is my friend John, he's a former pilot from the IMC. John this is Flitter," she motioned to the one with a ponytail," and Cloudchaser." she motioned to the one with spiky hair.
"Nice to meet you two." He said, extending his hand for a shake. They looked at his hand for a moment without looking. Dropping his hand after a moment he looked around. "This is a lovely home you have here." Nodding coyly they turned to Vinyl and began talking.
"John, enjoy yourself, it's a party." Vinyl said to him, before walking off with the two girls. Turning around he began to walk into the party and look around, before a small gathering in the corner grabbed his attention.
A large group gathered around two tables with three cups on one table, and only one on the other. A single player stood on each side throwing strange orbs at the cups, the one with one cup threw. The orbs exploded above the table, turning into small titans, missing each of the cups . "Oh, sorry Ras, you just missed it. My turn." The guy on the table with three cups turned and threw his first orb, the titan falling into the cup. The small crowd cheered as he made the shot.
The losing guy grabbed the cup and removed the titan, chugging the alcohol inside. "Anyone else wanna take on the great Strider?" John could see where the nickname came from, the man was skinny, with hair the same color green as the striders paint.
John stepped up and threw his hand up. "I'll take that challenge." The crowd 'ooh'd' in response.
"And just who are you?" Asked the scrawny.
Smiling he stepped forward and grabbed one of the spheres. "Name's John, please, standby for titanfall." He said, motioning for the man to move out of the way. Stepping back he watched the strange man line up his shot. John's heads up clicked on as he used the mental controls. Using the cross-hairs to line up the shot, he made the command of marking the target. 'STANDBY FOR TITANFALL' the small voice spoke into his ear.
Throwing the small sphere he saw it glide over the empty space and to the first cup. Stopping just above the cup it fell into the red plastic cup, marking the cup out. Grabbing the cup Strider chugged the beer, motioning for John to continue. Cup after cup fell to John's titanfall. With only two cups left, John missed, spilling the contents of the cup. "Ha, since you missed, and knocked over my cup, you have to drink."
John grabbed one of his cups, chugging the contents with glee. Strider began to throw, matching John's pace equally. Finally with a tie game Strider missed, setting them up for an tie breaker. John quickly marked the cup, before looking his opponent in the eye. They both threw at the same time, throwing the mini titans with ease.
Since it was a tie breaker, and they rarely happened, each player was allowed to choose a special tactical kit. Strider chose dome shield battery, if the dome shield could encompass the entire cup perfectly, John had to chug two cups, having to refill another cup to drink, and losing a cup the next round. John chose the warp-fall transmitter, speeding up the titans fall.
Tossing the titan with slightly more force to speed up the toss of the mini-titan, John watched it sail through the air, almost colliding with Strider's titan. They both reached their cups at the same titan, Strider's titan falling quickly with the mini-boosters attached to it. John's warped to the cup, making the contents splash up, the crowd erupting in cheers. Strider's titan fell, landing just beside the cup, the small force field going half through the cup.
John watched Strider chug the cup sadly, before grabbing his remaining cup and making a small cheers to him. "For good sportsmanship." John said, chugging the cup and smashing it against his head. Smiling, Strider extended his hand for a shake, John merrily taking it.
As the small crowd dissipated John saw Vinyl clapping slowly to his right. "Nice moves pilot." She said, walking up slowly.
"You saw that? What was that game?" He asked, grabbing a napkin off a table and wiping his forehead, a small beer circle made from the smashing of his cup.
"That was Battle Beer, Titan variant. There is also pilot mode, and spectre mode, where you just rapid fire throw ping pong balls at beers. You did good, just need to learn the golden rule."
"Which is?"
"No good sportsmanship." She smirked at the pilot. "Some guys take this really seriously, pull something like that on one of them, you might get beaten up." John just smiled and started back toward the rest of the party, small groups still hanging around the beer battle area, playing small games. "Hey, follow me, I wanna show you something."
John followed her up a series of staircase that led to a small door, somewhere in the upper levels of the home. Opening the door she walked out, and held it open for him. The door led out to a small rail-less platform on the roof. "They plan on making a small patio up here, but it's not finished so technically no one is supposed to be up here. Though I like it, you can see all the stars up here."
She sat down and motioned for John to sit beside her. Looking up he could see all of the stars that you couldn't usually see from down in the city. "See those stars over there, there is a planet over there, that has rivers of alcohol." Vinyl looked at him like he was stupid. "Honest, the planet is just dark enough when it goes through a certain part of it's rotation around it's sun, that all the plants die, and begin to ferment, and all the juice leaks off into the water, making alcohol rivers."
Vinyl just shook her head and leaned back in her place. Suddenly a strong gust of wind hit the house, rocking the floating home. The violent motion of the house threw Vinyl to one side, off the small landing. "JOHN!" She called as she began to slip down the side of the house, toward the ledge.
Springing from his spot on the roof he sprinted down the side of the house to the sliding girl. When he was about to reach her another gust hit the house, knocking him off balance, and stopping him from reaching Vinyl. Hitting the button on his wrist pad he sent a message to the cruiser above the planet, to send his titan to his spot on the roof.
Vinyl grasped at the gutters on the roofs ledge, desperately trying to hold on. John sprinted for her, sliding down onto his knees he threw his hand out to grab her, just as her grip slipped. Throwing himself off the roof he went into a dive after her. Grabbing her arm he pulled her in, holding her tight against his chest. Looking up he saw his Titan land on the roof and begin to stand.
Whistling into his headset he called the Titan down. The Ogre boosted off the side of the house and began to dive after it's pilot. Using his Jet pack he boosted up just enough to be grabbed by the giant. Forcing Vinyl's limp body, passed out from fear of the free fall she was forced into, into the bay of his titan he buckled her in and slammed it shut, before rodeoing around to the back and grasping hard as he could to the hold.
Just as he got a good hold on the handle they hit the earth, his titan landing in a kneeling position. Jumping off the back of the Ogre he walked around to the front and opened the entry, looking in to see if Vinyl was okay. She was still limp and unconscious, but she didn't look hurt. Pulling her out he laid her down on the grass, just as a load of party goers arrived in the elevator.
"Vinyl!" Yelled the two sisters, leading the crowd over to the pilot and his titan. John shook her slightly, waking her up.
"Wh-what happened?!" Vinyl asked, suddenly disoriented by the change in location and the solid feeling of earth below her.
John looked her over quickly with his radar pulse, just to make sure nothing was broken. "A wind hit the house and knocked you off, I grabbed you after you fell and called in a little backup to see you down safely." He said, motioning to his titan standing tall beside him.
"So this was your fault?!" Accused Cloudchaser. Her and Flitter glared at John, threatening him silently.
"What? I didn't do anything!" John yelled back at them.
Vinyl stood on shaky legs and stood between them. "Hey guys! Listen, this is my fault I took John up onto the unfinished patio." People gasped at her, shocked that she would do something so dangerous. "I know, it was stupid... John, can you help me get home, I don't think I'm in driving condition right now." He nodded and grabbed her arm, helping her to the car.
Turning he pulled a small remote from his pocket and clicked the button, eliciting a loud chirping to come from his titan. Sitting Vinyl in the passenger seat he made his way around the vehicle to the drivers side. Climbing in he started the car and pulled out. "So where do you live?"
"I don't wanna go home right now, my roommate will freak if she hears about this, and Flitter and Cloudchaser are probably calling her right now. DO you have a place?" She asked.
John chuckled slightly and turned west. "No... I was like still living with my mom when I went in, so I haven't really had anytime to look into a house. Though, I have a hotel room. Would that work?"
She nodded and reclined her seat, taking a deep breath. "Yeah, that will work. Just don't try anything funny." She laughed. Turning another corner he hit the gas and floored it.
Hitting the breaks he drifted around down another street. "Me, try something unreasonable. Preposterous." He smiled. Vinyl rolled her eyes and punched him lightly in the arm. It was the start of a great friendship, she could tell.
