Post by Bass on Sept 21, 2019 10:19:58 GMT -8
"Heeeeey how're you doing Jenny?" Bass spoke through a phone going to South City's corporate office.
"Hello Jenny speaking from Momentum Corporate how may I help you, I take it you're a returning customer?" She asked on the phone, trying to be as formal as possible, corporate always had a way with having a stick up their poopoo slots.
"No Jenny from Corporate, it's Bass. Branch Manager of our South City Financial Branch Office. Could I speak with someone who's qualified to behold my awesome new corporate power?" Bass asked, whirling his finger around the phone cord idly as he waited for a response. After a prolonged silence there was an almost disgusted 'ugh' and her voice.
"Yes sir, transferring you to one of our Corporate Executives." She said, dialing him over. Then the waiting game started as a boring mind-numbing elevator music-esque song started to play as he sat on the phone. Though in his boredom he found himself idly snapping his fingers and wiggling in a bit of a dance as he waited. An entire five minutes would pass until the music cut off. By the point it cut off Bass was literally humming it to the point where it'd probably be stuck in his head for the rest of the day.
"Hello this is Jacob speaking from Co-" Bass had just about had enough with the overly formal answers.
"Hi Jacob speaking from Co it's Bass calling, Branch Manager of Momentum Financial South City and if you can pull up my details you'll see I'm currently on vacation." He said, giving the executive time to pull exactly that up, he could hear several clicks coming over from the other line.
"Sure, is there an update?" Jacob asked, to which Bass responded.
"There sure is, you see. I had a ferry scheduled to return to South Island on..." He pulled up his watch, "The... Two days from now. See there's been a complication, my leg exploded in a dumpster fire so that vacation is going to need to turn into a full blown paid medical leave." There was just... Silence on the other line. The executive was either pissed or awestruck. Regardless eventually he spoke up.
"Very funny, Mr. Bass-" Uh oh, he was being called Mr. "-, however as you know we need written medical reports detailing the injury to confirm it's authenticity, and even then with this being such a blatant lie you have to wonder why I don't fire you right now." Ouch, Bass just squinted for a moment and spoke up. "Jokes on you Mr. Jacob, my leg actually exploded in a dumpster fire and I have the medical records to prove it."
See, it wasn't exactly hard to intimidate a local physician to write up a false report for this kind of thing. Rewind four hours and Bass is drearily roleplaying that his leg exploded in a monotonous fashion as a Doctor looks at him a little worried for his mental health more than anything. Though it would quickly become apparent as he muttered 'pained' nonsense that there were veiled threats such as. 'Ooooow my exploded leg hurts so much that I could just strangle the person that doesn't write my medical repoooooort ooooooow.' Sure enough he got it, because he meant serious business.
Mr. Jacobs gave a perplexed response. "Wha-... How did... You're serious? You're leg actually exploded in a dumpster fire, Mr. Bass?" He let out a sigh, probably pinching his nose across over on the other line. He'd speak up again. "Alright, given the situation and your peculiar position in your career currently we can at most afford you thirty days. We'll delegate an acting manager for that duration and unfortunately if you're not able to work by the end of those thirty days we'll have to let you go Mr. Bass. Of course, get those medical records to us as soon as possible so we can... Authenticate this nigh unbelievable claim." The executive said with a dreary and defeated voice.
"Yep yep yep. I'll personally deliver it when my leg is no longer exploded from a dumpster fire, bye bye." He said, hanging up the phone and leaving the man on the other line in complete and utter silence.
"FREEEDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!" Bass bellowed, beating his chest with both fists like an ape on the loose. Somebody walking by the rather small town looked at him in the booth with a really confused expression, shielding their kids to avoid them seeing the barbaric behaviour. Bass hopped out of the phone booth and let out a big stretch. Turning in the medical report that office would forward it over to his specified workplace for review. He was free for an entire month's time. An entire month to just juice up and become incredibly powerful. It was an exhilarating feeling, but start to get too used to it and it'll fall by in a mere moment. With that being said he also had the ability to do a lot more tedious and secondary things as opposed to having had to gun for his main objective which he'd completed by the way. It was time to go explore the world at large, well. South Lands to start. Though he wouldn't get as far as around the next block before he noticed something.
There was a scrawny guy pinned up around a bike by like... Ten or so jacked biker-dudes. Walking closer he could hear they were berating and intimidating the scrawny guy that was in possession of a really slick ride. They were shouting stuff like, "That's a really nice bike you got, think one of us could use a replacement boys?!" They all chuckled, another speaking. "This twerp doesn't have the macho to ride something with this kinda flair." The little kid of a man stammered out nervously.
"Hey look, I came here for just that y'see. I wanted to have someone who rides bikes often test out this new model that we were designing at Desert Wolf Motorcycles. I-I'm one of their engineers." He said nervously, though as he did he let out a yelp when one of the guys grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him aside.
Bass squinted and tilted his head to the side ever so slightly. What kind of world was worth ruling if people didn't cooperation? Friction among life just stalled forward momentum. Walking towards the group Bass spoke up. "Hey, can't you all just get along. Chat, have fun. It looks like the kid just wants someone to test his bike. Take it for a spin, if you like it y'know... Come back and buy it when it's released to the public?" He'd say, which got him laughs from the biker gang. "Ahahahahahaha! Are you serious?! Look at this guy thinking he can come here and try and tell us what to do?" He'd say, starting to walk towards Bass. All of his friends followed behind in short and the scrawny kid took the time to recover and back a really far distance away.
Cracking his knuckles, the head honcho squinted towards Bass and got within headbutting distance, looking up ever so slightly towards the Blue Namekian. "Sure, you look tough. You got the size, you're tall like you've been standing in crap yer whole life but look here?" He gestured behind him. "There's twelve of us against one of you. So once again." He'd say, leaning forward and uttering towards Bass. "What was it that you wanted to tell us... Or are you too much of a little b-" Immediately as he was about to open his mouth to say the next word, a hand shot out from Bass and gut punched the guy so hard he went flying upwards. Clipping the corner of a rooftop there was an audible crack as he sailed up and over the roof and landed on the other side. If he was alive, he'd be wheelchair bound a long time. That might've been overkill for such small and insignificant rats as that. Bass just looked towards the rest of them and squinted. A little silent in awe as they beheld the great power of Bass, they considered whether to try and overwhelm the Namekian or to call it there. They really did need to look after their boss. Pulling away they hopped on their bikes and quickly drove around the block to fetch their boss on the other side. Of course not before shouting, "Freak!" As they skidded off.
Then Bass looked towards the scrawny kid of an engineer who'd squatted down against the column, adjusting his glasses to reduce the glare of the sun as he looked up towards the approaching salaryman. He stammered out. "Uhm h-hey. You're on my side, right?" He'd nervously spit out, getting a resolute response from the man himself.
"You're in safe hands, kid. Sorry those guys gave you trouble, a lot is going to need to change before I ever consider rule seriously." He mentioned with an exasperated sigh and a light gesture. The kid just responded with confusion. "Uh sure, whatever you say guy. Look, I just came out here to test out a new bike. I'm not exactly someone who drives bikes I'm just the person that designs them. At Desert Wolf Motorcycles we've just finished our latest model that we call the Wolf Fang Chopper. It's supposed to be faster and cooler than all the rest, but I actually need some field data to test if lives up to theory in practice. Y-you wouldn't be able to help with that, would you? If you could I would greatly appreciated it and there's money in it of course."
Rubbing his chin, he considered the offer. "I've always been looking for something to get around more normally. How about if I do this for you and it works out, I get a free voucher for one of these? No additional fee necessary. Based on what I just saw and the crowd around these parts, it's not like it's going to go perfectly smooth just driving around on this thing. I'm surprised you even got it out here without getting jumped on the way." Bass said, the engineer pushing up his glasses once more. Moving over to the bike he just nodded and spoke. "Sure, sure. That sounds like a deal. The actual Zeni payout is more than one of these cost anyways ahahaha! Your loss, though I guess you get the benefit of having one before they're fully released to the public." He said with a shrug. At that point he got into a mind numbing list of specs that quite frankly Bass just didn't care about, it was like a watching a slideshow of paint drying, always hoping the next slide shows a different part of the wall or a different color, but it's always just the same paint drying. By the end of it which took at least five minutes, he patted the seat.
"Take a seat, there's adjustable sitting arrangements for larger or smaller people, I'm actually curious if the bike will support someone of your size or not." He said, to which Bass moved to get on and responded. "Sure. Now that I actually think about it I think I recognize this bike. I saw someone I ran into using one. This the first time you've done tests?" He asked, allowing the engineer time to respond as the seat calibrated to accommodate for his larger size. "Actually no, we've had other tests and I can confirm that testing these bikes sort of are dangerous. While we don't have the precise specs we know enough to know that they're a helluva lot better than what is currently in the market and every biker gang for miles wants to get their hands on it. We've had to find really strong fighters like yourself to test these because anyone weaker quits when they realize just how much risk comes with the job. You'll probably run into some bikers on the road. Could be a few or a hundred, who knows." He said with a nervous chuckle and a shrug. "Just know that you can not accept this, which I'd understand if not be extremely disappointed." He said, letting out a sigh.
"No no, I'll still do this. If the other bikers are anything like these ones they shouldn't be much of a problem. Plus, it should be exciting." He said simply, making the engineer just in confusion tilt his head. Crazy Martial Artists he likely thought. Still, he removed the kickstand from the bike and allowed Bass's legs to stabilize it. "Alright, so we're going to be in communication the entire time. Take this earpiece, it's a short range transmitter made by Capsule Corp that'll allow us to talk within a ten mile radius. Not like a phone or anything, but not nearly as cumbersome either." He'd say holding out the device. "Basically you just need to drive the bike in the ways that I indicate. So there's no big surprises we'll be starting at slow speeds and motions and then escalate until the climax of the tests where we'll be testing maximum speeds and such. There's a diagnostics module attached that'll automatically transfer the data you're acquiring to my mobile terminal I brought with me. Though from time to time I might ask for some additional details like how easy it is to handle and drive when you're going at various speeds as safety is something that is hard to really automatically test like this. Also because this'll be hot stuff I've attached a device that'll also give you input on your surroundings, namely if other bikers are chasing you. Just thought that might be considerate to add considering the trend of dangerous activity going on. But uuuuuuh I think that's about everything. Here are the key's and when you're ready you can turn on the ignition, pop in the earpiece and be off. I recommend driving in the less populated areas and wider roads outside of any towns or villages. If you do get attacked we don't want random people to be at risk that you might be around. Got it?"
Popping in the earpiece and taking the keys, Bass responded with a "Got it." to acknowledge the engineer before stuffing the key in the ignition and twisting his wrist. Truthfully this would be his first time riding a motorcycle, though he's taken his driving lessons and he's rode a bicycle so just how hard could it be? As the vehicle whirred to life and the rumbling started he'd apply his food to the gas and WOAAAAAH. He almost hit a wall, swerving just shy of it before rumbling off. The engineer gave a wave as he headed out and once he was around the block a voice spoke on the transmitter. "Testing, testing." Bass spoke up, "Yep! Hopefully the bike isn't too loud over my voice!". He shouted, actually riding it the thing was pretty loud. Didn't help that he was wearing the specially prescribed helmet, though perhaps that muffled the bikes noise from the little earpiece, so that was a plus.
Overall Bass got the hand of the bike pretty quickly, it was fairly easy to control and manoeuvre. Drifting from street to street, he aimed to leave the town that he had met the kid in. A whole boring five minutes would pass of him just getting mundane instructions to adjust speed, go forward and backwards, turn left and turn right. A lot of really irritating jargon that just made this a boring sweaty day in his extended vacation. Though it was at least worth the end result, something to bring home with him to South City. He let his head just thud against the handlebars as the voice became a droning whir, he almost wanted to call this off because he was bored out of his mind at the present moment. Though his newfound assailants wouldn't really let that be for much longer. Hearing the sound of revving bikes behind him he sat up to hear a shout which naturally with his earpiece transmitting, the kid picked up too. Bass quickly alerted him that they had company, and the engineer had the balls to say 'keep going slow, I'm almost done getting the diagnostics for low speed efficiency. Can't not cater to those that drive in urban cities often, lots of stopping and going at red lights.' Rolling his eyes, Bass turned back to look at the bikers. It looked like that same gang before except like eight times larger. There was literally eighty plus dudes here and sure enough in the back there was their leader. Not in an actual bike but instead in a sidecar with his legs wrapped in bandages. He shook a bandaged arm towards Bass and yelled something that quite frankly he just couldn't hear over the sound of rumbling engines.
Though these people weren't here to talk, Bass was probably only going to get out of this one way. If he could get off the bike this would be so much easier, but instead he would have to make do with being on the bike. The first of the crooks to drive up on him was some dude wielding a pipe. Trying to wack him upside the head, the Namekian reached a hand out and in doing so nearly lost control of the bike using only one hand. Though righting himself he caught the guys wrist and yanked him right off of his bike causing it to go careening off to the side of the road, taking out two more bikers in the process that fell off to the side of the road rolling. Holding the guy's one wrist, he simply tossed him overhead only to hear a crashing sound behind him. Likely collided with another biker and sent them both tumbling. He heard a bunch of shouting, but again he literally couldn't make any sense of it.
Then the Engineers voice played up on his earpiece. "Alright, I need you to come to a stop as soon as possible. See how hard that is on the brakes." Almost letting out a roar in anger the Namekian floored on the gas, streaming forward ahead of the other bikes. Once he'd gained about a hundred meters and the engineer was just about to wonder why Bass wasn't stopping he jammed his foot on the breaks and nearly sailed off the bike. Screeching to a halt he hopped off and put the kickstand up in order to effectively turn towards the rest of the biker swarm rushing towards him. Hearing the voice in his ear the engineer spoke again. "Good, I'm getting the data now. It looks like at high speeds we'll need to adjust the braking to be a little more gradual, most normal people would've gone flying. Also you're going to have to do that again but from a slower speed considering that's when I asked you to do it. Though we'll get to that at a later point."
"Hey kid, quiet for a second. Need to deal with some of these guys before we continue. I'll tell you when you're good to give me more instructions." An absolute war was about to be upon Bass. Though he'd embrace it headlong, because this ultimately wasn't that big of a deal for him. A collision with one of these bikes would probably hurt less than some of the fighters punches that he'd had the honor of sparring with. As the horde caught up everything went so fast. Leaping towards one bike he kicked them off and hopped on only to tear off the handlebars and whip them at another biker, causing them to swerve off the road and come to a dusty halt crashed against a hillside. Kicking off of that bike by the pedals it accelerated forward harshly before zipping and twisting sideways, rolling for another twenty meters before colliding with the biker behind it. Sailing through the air the Namekian came crashing down onto the road in a large shockwave blowing several bikes near him to the sides. They crashed into the ones nearest to them and caused an eight bike collision. He'd honestly stopped counting how much he dealt with. Though just as he turned to look forward a bike was right in his face about to collide. That would seriously hurt. At the last second a hand shot out to push against the bike and it stopped dead in it's tracks. Lifting it up in the air with the rider helplessly holding onto the handlebars he'd feel the dings of pipes against his bicep and torso as other bikers drove passed. Wheezing, some of those were going to bruise at a later point. The next bike he'd catch in a similar manner and raise alongside the first. Shaking both of them roughly the two riders would go flying off to the side. Then pulling back each bike like a baseball he'd whip them into the bikes as they passed him. Poor sod that drove right in front of his through got a face full of motorcycle just as he was about to try and strike Bass.
Bikes were dropping like flies as riders let out screams and sounds of panic as their attacks seemed mostly ineffective and a lot of them were being hurt. Some swerved after they passed Bass to come around for a second pass while others kept driving forward to get ready for an opportunity or just get out while they could. Though when Bass glanced back for a second he saw a rider hopping on HIS bike. Eye twitching as the biker started to drive off, he sprinted as quickly as he could as other bikes started to pass him by. With the bikers having gotten what they came for they just wanted to get out. Though he wouldn't let that happen so easily, backhanding a passing biker he send the biker soaring over a nearby hill and hopped on his ride. Speaking onto the mic he reported. "Hey, just took one of their bikes. They currently have the prototype but I'm on my way to get it back. The good thing is at the end of this all your testing should be interrupted a lot less often."
There was a sigh on the other line, and a voice came through. "Yes... Yes... Just get it back please."
Nodding, Bass lowered his hand back to the handlebars and kicked off from the bike. Leaping forward his foot landed on the back of the biker ahead of him's head and caused it to thud against the handlebars. The guys unconscious body rolled off and onto the road and in the same motion Bass would kick off to another bike. Bouncing from the different bikers, he could only go off sound as after crash and crash again a pileup started along the road. Behind him for at least a mile was recovering bikers and wreckages. It was pretty unfortunate to be honest, though there was still at least fifty driving as a pack that he had to push through to get to the guy that had his bike at the front. Letting out a growl he would leap from one bike to another once more, dodging swings with wrenches, pipes and other shabby weapons with decent footwork before reaching the front of the pack. Making one final mighty leap off one of the bikers, that guy would have some serious bruising over his back. Though sailing through the air he aligned himself with the bike. Would he even make it? If that bike could accelerate anymore he might fall short. Coming to the peak of his parabolic arc it was only down from here. Worrisome to note is that it looked as if he was falling short. He'd be significantly closer sure, but could he leap with enough power to cover that extra ground? He didn't know honestly. Coming down onto the ground there was a rippling slam that chalked up some rocks behind and around him. It would be an understatement to say only a few bikes were caught by that. The entire frontline slammed into the barrier before the second line had the ability to adapt. A whole ten bikes flipped through the air and their riders slammed into dirt at the side of the road, crumbling into sore clumps. Dashing forward it was just like he'd started doing a lot during this journey.
Just like the log, just like the cauldron he needed to land on the bike. If he could catch up to the log he could catch up to this. Leaping he barrelled through the air and the wind ripped passed his ears. The gap closed and just barely did he catch the back of the bike. Scuffing against the road as his leg bounced off at rapid speed, he winced as his dress pants tore immediately. Violet blood oozed out from a nasty scrape until Bass yanked himself up and over. Quite literally slapping the guy off the bike he hopped back on and finally gave another update to the engineer.
"Alright I'm back, we're good. There's still like... Thirty five bikers here. So what do I have to do next?" He asked, getting a response, "Uuuuh let's see. So we need to skip this because you already did it... I need you to take a hard U turn and accelerate to top speed as fast as you can." No way. Letting out a distressed grumble the Namekian drifted around to look at the rest of the approaching bikers. Stepping on the gass he began flooring it towards them. He'd gotten familiar enough with the vehicle at this point that it wasn't actually too difficult to handle even with a partial grip. With his strength he could even turn the thing without grabbing onto it. And that's exactly what he would do. As he would collide with the frontline of the biker gang he'd have both fists ready. Jackhammer like fists slammed into each person he passed, tearing a massive score of them out of the pack and spearing their entire force. Bikes and people flew everywhere and weapons clattered across the road. As he got towards the back-end of the pack he saw the fancy bike with the sidecar carrying the leader. Looking towards the driver Bass swerved hard towards them and caused them to sharply overcompensate, throwing the leader off the side as he tumbled off into the road. There was a scream of anger as the leader came to a rolling stop and Bass was off. There was no way the other bikes could keep up and there was simply too many pieces to pick up after this monumental failure.
He looked at the scattered unconscious bikers on the sides of the road and the destroyed bikes, taking a jump off the concrete ramp being the inverse of the crater he formed. Sailing through the air he landed on the other side with a hydraulic cushioned bounce. Leaning back in the seat with the wind blowing over his face he just loosely guided the bikes direction with a two finger grip on each handle. Speaking onto the headset he'd say. "Alright, I think I lost them. Is that just about everything kid?" He'd say, waiting a few moments. Eventually a voice came crackling onto the feed.
"-ello? Hello? Mister, are you there? Oh thank kami you were just on the edge of our communications signal. Yes yes, you're free to come back now. Try to just go at a medium speed, that's the speed that we have the least information on. Otherwise I'll see you when you're here. Just don't take longer than fifteen minutes please." The kid would say before the mic went silent. Lazily driving down the road Bass couldn't help but try to wonder what he just did. Looking up towards the sky he just saw himself surfing his log, he didn't really want to have a bike though he certainly wouldn't be turning it down. Not after the tedious process he went through to acquire it. Seeing the town in the distance he gradually started to reduce his speed to more commute levels as opposed to a highway level of speed. Coming to a halt near a stop sign turning into the town he carefully took the corner and accelerated to the next block. Then the next and the next until he found the familiar mini-mall parking lot that the engineer sat in with his bulky mobile terminal.
Approaching and braking to a halt, the Namekian put up the kickstand and walked over towards the engineer. Leaning over and looking towards the screen he'd be lying if he said he could make sense of it. "So you got everything you need?" He asked, fully getting the nerds attention to which he looked up. "Oh! Hi, yes. We got plenty actually. Plus we even got some extra when that guy stole the bike, it can dynamically adjust even on the fly instead of static calibration prior to usage. That was the intended feature but also one that we didn't know would work or not. Glad it does. With that being said you're free to go. We're going to make some adjustments to the prototype and then we'll send you a model. We can get it to your address wherever it is with global shipping if you could please provide that?"
Bass nodded, giving his personal address in South City. "An islander huh? How down there? It's already warm enough here, I couldn't imagine the weather over there." He said with a slight laugh. "Anyways, I should be getting out of here if you haven't dealt with all of them yet. Thanks for the help!" He shouted, quickly packing his stuff and driving the bike off.
WC: 5005
TWC: 5005