Greetings, Earthlings. Take me to your area of highest web traffic.
Or, y'know, leader works too.
Welcome to my first ever SSX fanfic, which takes place roughly as if On Tour never happened. Cause frankly, then we'd have all those perfect little Mary-Sue snowboarders and skiers taking over the site, and that would be bad. Therefore, I present you with the...
DISCLAIMER! All characters are copyright EA.
Now that that's over with, on with the show, which is pretty much Elise-centric, with a bit of Moby and some others.
Elise Riggs blinked once.
The thought crossed her mind that perhaps, if she blinked one more time, or hit herself on the head with a large golden mallet, the last two sentences she'd heard on her M-Comm might simply disappear forever.
She blinked again, but there was still dead silence. As far as she could tell, it wasn't a nightmare; she was still standing just off center of the lodge floor, having stopped in her tracks from shock just a few seconds ago, and was still the brunt of a contentious glare from the innkeeper for a reason she didn't quite know.
"I'm sorry," Elise spoke sweetly into the M-Comm finally, "I'm sorry, Wachowski, can you repeat that?"
"Uh," came the voice on the other end, "I sorta told you, Elise, and I sorta know you heard me – "
"Eddie," the blonde Canadian retorted, "when I tell you to repeat that, what I actually mean is who the goddamn hell do you think you are?"
"Ed Wachowski, super snowboarder extreme," Eddie replied flippantly with a grin audible in his voice, "who, by the way, has broken his wrist and cannot ride tomorrow, as he has already told his riding partner Elise Riggs – "
"Shut up!" she exclaimed incredulously. "How can you still be talking? You should be hiding in a ditch somewhere before I come beat you over the head with your own arm! You break your wrist – wrist, Ed, as in 'extremity we do not use for snowboarding with our legs' – and then you tell me you can't goddamn ride?"
"Man, Elise…"
He scratched his enormous Afro. She could tell by the length and tone of the pause.
"It's not really that much of a big deal."
Elise began to scream.
"What the hell do you mean? It's a big deal, Eddie! It's a pretty big goddamn deal! Peak to Valley can make or break your career! I'm not giving up the gold to frikking Moby and Zoe just because my partner is a stupid whining shit!"
With that she tore the receiver from her ear and slammed it shut against her thigh with more force than she'd intended – the antenna broke off and skittered across the floor to stop at the feet of a very happy-looking Marisol Diez Delgado. The latter didn't take many pains to hide her smirk; by now Marisol didn't have to know what was making Elise unhappy – she just had to know Elise was unhappy.
Bitch. Bet you're just loving this.
With a long-suffering groan, Elise sank into the nearest comfy armchair and contemplated crying.
"Stupid Eddie, stupid Eddie, stupid Eddie," she began to chant quietly as she slammed her hand repeatedly into her forehead. Maybe if she did it for long enough, she could go Psymon's way and become completely insane before having to deal with the collapse of her entire career.
"Oi, Curves, not many of 'em brain cells there, but y' might need 'em."
Elise turned her death-glare on as Moby Jones took a seat across from her, sitting back and lounging across the chair as if he were a strange malleable bean-bag… a bean-bag with too many tattoos and an abrasive attitude, and such strange taste in women that it made her want to puke.
Bad, Elise told herself inwardly as she tried not to growl at him, bad bitchy Elise. Moby equals friend, not satisfyingly targetable scratching post.
"Wot's up?" the Brit asked with annoyingly effusive cheeriness.
"Shut the hell up," Elise snapped at him, "you know what's up. You and Zoe got the gold wrapped up, since Eddie 'I'm all that' Wachowski just broke his pansy-ass wrist and refuses to ride. Ugh!" she added loudly, slamming her wrist into the armchair
"Wot now?"
"I just remembered the time I snagged my arm on a rock and broke it, and still came home from Merqury with a platinum. You remember that? You remember that, don't you; don't try to change the subject! And why," she hissed as an addition as she threw her finger accusatorily at the still-glaring receptionist, "is that idiot staring at me?"
"Hair," Moby replied, wagging a finger towards her ponytail, which was still dripping onto the floor from her recent shower.
"…oh."
The anger came back fairly quickly, and just for spite, Elise wrung her soaking ponytail violently, twisting it in such a way that the most water possible came spouting out of it, spiraling towards the floor and viciously splashing all over the elaborately embroidered carpet.
"You're changing the subject again!" she snapped, winding back her fist in a manner that wasn't originally supposed to be threatening, but judging from Moby's surprised expression, did a good job of scaring him.
"I ain't changing the subject; you are," Moby said defensively as he put his hands up in mock surrender, "Bloody hell. Bitin' people's heads off like that, not gonna up yer popularity ante much. Didn't even do nothing."
"I don't care anymore," Elise wailed quietly, "my life is over."
"Tag-team's not jus' fer two," Moby continued, his inexplicable liveliness an obvious indicator that he knew a tag-team race was, in fact, just for two, and that whether or not Elise liked it, she was doomed.
"Peak to Valley with one person," she grumbled in response, "why don't you do that and then get back to me, okay?"
"Yeh, guess it'll do a number on the legs, eh? Not that yours need it, though, righ'?"
He punctuated the statement with a wink. Elise merely sneered.
"Yeah, take a number, will you… ugh, crap."
"Wot's that?" Moby asked, following her line of sight to the entrance of the lodge, where a large group of people had mysteriously converged without making a sound or an indication of their arrival. They were waving projectors and lighting equipment, and they reeked of tabloids.
They got sneakier. Bastards.
Normally she would have been happy to stay and pose for a photo shoot, but right now she was in a bad mood, and she knew better than anyone that tabloid photographers loved to exploit one of two things: PMS and slugfests, the latter usually involving a catfight or two.
Moby's dreadlocks flipped her way as he turned to look at the sea of waving cameras, and Elise decided she'd take the moment to slip quietly away, hoping severely that none of the photographers had noticed her. Dragging her board behind her, she leapt from her chair and scurried across the carpeted floor, heading straight for the entrance with her head down, hood pulled over her head.
She reached the back door of the inn without being spotted and pulled it open. As she left, she just vaguely heard Moby yelling in a loud, contemptuous voice, and once again realized why she liked him so much.
"Oi! She ain't here, mates. Try next mountain over!"
Thank you. I shall refrain from taking a bow as I'm sure opinions are mixed.
Give it a chance, though. Review please!