Chapter One: Tour of Legends
Within all of us is the instinct to survive
And to win at any cost
In the fight to stay alive
Pennywise- Competition Song
It was finally here, competitors from all over the world ready to commence the biggest tour yet. This year was way different: no more Atomika to leave comments about the rest of the tour, and the addition of 200 SSX competitors. Back at the end of the third installment they held a press conference about the ever-increasing minor-tours, for rookies who dreamed about carving their name in gold and playing with the now-legends. Then suddenly Atomika quit his day job, and never came back. Maybe he was angered, but that wasn't like him. Some of the locals were convinced he changed his name, changed his appearance, and joined the tour for himself. Out of 200 people, it could be plausible, but no one cared at the moment. The president of the SSX tours agreed, commencing the largest tour in the history of SSX. They changed up the mountain to bring unfamiliar ground to everyone, and even spoke of one "Legends Only" course, possibly hidden away on a separate mountain.
They installed all new cameras, and even got a television channel simply called SSX on DirectTV, with recaps on the dozens of competitions, promoting a game based off the first SSX tour and updates on new boarders trying to break into the scene. Everything mattered now, the fight to being the best on the mountain, to own it.
Ian heard all this; he heard everything about being the best, everything about the fame, the money. He felt so out of place, so unlike everyone else that tried to get onto the tour. He tried out, and made it in the test race by barely being in 4th place down a new course, "Son of a Birch". He already had distaste towards the tour, everything was brand new, and so his studies on the previous tour meant nothing. There were no longer a handful of competitors, but dozens that poured all at once to start the grueling process of being on top. And yet those who were already here the previous year were already on the top of the charts. Ian tried to forget the trails he would face and put his earpieces into his ears, one out of over a thousand songs blasting via his iPod Mini. He was stuck in a lodge, a gigantic lodge filled with about half of the contestants in this war.
"Eh? I wonder where that bastard is..." He muttered, Demon Hunter's Undying drowning out the stupid banter of people who felt over-confident about beating people like Mac or Psymon.
"Excuse me, Mr. Sanchez who acts white, I was checking the ranks." said a tall young man, he stood about two inches taller than Ian. He punched Ian in the stomach playfully. "Oh, and I'm not a bastard."
"And I here I hoped you died trying to jump a ramp, Brandon." Ian chuckled softly towards his friend. "Speaking of death, where's Jonni-emo?
"I don't do that stuff; I told you already you dirty Mexican." Jon's voice shouted from almost the opposite end of the lodge. Brandon looked over towards that direction, impressed. He watched Jon travel through the sea of people just to get to them.
"Dude, does he have some sort of radar when someone says the slightest stereotypical thing about him?" Brandon questioned, grabbing his luggage and strapping his board on his back. He was a master skateboarder; all of them had skated at least once. He was different though, incorporating street skating into his style, and he was eager to own Fraser in the face. He didn't feel compelled to say something back to Jon, he was just eager to get the band back together.
"Hell if I know…" Ian answered, focusing more on his music than his friend. He saw people slowly moving towards staircases and elevators. "Sweet Jesus, where's our guitarist?"
"Right here, dumbass." The man was definitely taller than all the other's, standing just below six feet. He had shaggy long brown hair and whiskers that trailed into a small goatee. Now the entire group was in one spot, and they felt like they needed to get a room fast.
"Hey Brad. Well, okay, I got this thing settled. Ian and Brad, you two get one room, while me and the emo drummer here get the other room. I already settled it with the front desk since Ian here didn't bother trying." Brandon said, with slight annoyance. This ended with the trading of rude finger gestures and the departure to get a room.
They progressed towards the elevator, cramming with other competitors. Brad hit Jon and Ian on the head, whispering "Look, it's Psymon Stark!" Ian turned around, smirking lightly. Psymon with a pink Mohawk? He wondered if the great hardcore guy of the Tricky tour knew what Ian was listening to. He started blasting his music, the first words emitting from the headphones being: "MOTHERFUCKER, KILL THE MOTHERFUCKER AND THAT'S ALL THAT I THINK ABOUT!"
Brandon and Jon looked at Ian in disbelief, then towards Psymon's area. "Eh? Who the hell here knows Nothingface!" He let out a snort and then one of his well-known maniacal laughs, departing from the crowd as soon as the elevator reached its destination. Brandon looked at Ian dumbstruck, picking up his luggage and following the rest of his friends out of the elevator.
He pulled out a card and handed it to Ian. "I swear to God if you loose that I will destroy you." Ian brushed him off, his comrade's eyebrow twitching lightly. There was always a friendly competition between all four of them, even in elementary school. There was slight worry amongst the group that the four of them would be pulled apart as buddies and turned into enemies over the stupid rank of number one.
Jon sighed as he watched Ian's carefree attitude take a hold of Brandon's seriousness. Brad opened the door to his and Ian's room, a bunk bed and a desk with a slick 1080 resolution screen and computer on it. There was also a plasma television on the wall. All except Brandon's mouths dropped to the floor in disbelief. "How did we afford all this!" Jon screamed.
"ITUNES! YES!" Ian cried out in hysteria. "Limewire… holy fuck, do they allow this? Firefox Internet!" He and Brad wasted no time in hooking up their MP3 players to the USB ports.
"Well, I made a deal with the SSX committee…" Brandon said, hooking up his Playstation 2 to the television. "The only catch—"
"Catch?"
"Oh god, I swear if it's something like having to give them h—"Brad began, quickly cut off by Brandon.
"No, Christ no. As I was saying, the only thing we need to do is get this sponsorship by one of the supporters of the SSX tour. Get it, and keep our rankings up, and we'll be paying rent, and all these nifty play things with no sweat."
"Great, and what if one of us fails to get a sponsorship? Hell, all of us fail?" Jon speculated. "There has to be more than this, I don't like this at all."
"Cheer up emo kid. For now we enjoy what we have, we're officially residents of the SSX tour. Unlike all the others we get to live off what we do for fun, not working some crappy jobs in the nearby cities."
"Yeah, I'm up for some snowboarding guys." Ian checked his iPod, chuckling as he saw the Pennywise song, "Competition Song", appear on the screen.
"Last one down buys us lunch!" Brad called, already outside the room.
The Tour began with four kids ready to achieve flight by snowboard, and maybe, just maybe, they'd achieve that goal.
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Author Notes:
Yeah, in case you don't know who I am, I used to post another SSX story, but disbanded it because I felt that I had gotten too late into writing an SSX 3 fic. However with the new On Tour game, I saw story gold. I realize that some of you may not like the new game, but creating all new characters? Come on, I could create dozens of characters for this single story. But I won't, guys. The four guys are all based off me and three of my friends. All are their real names except the one based off of me.
I feel like some of you may be lost by some of the things I pointed out, so here's a small list of things:
Atomika. I loved the man and his remarks in the third installment, so I had to mention him. And about the rumors he's in the tour? Maybe, I haven't planned this far ahead.
SSX Game! Yeah, I had to mention this, just to pay homage to the series. Expect the guys to be playing it later on in the story.
Demon Hunter. Yeah, a band. Hardcore.
The derogatory terms. No, I'm not truly a racist, but it's the stupid banter between friends that keeps us so close. Haha.
Nothingface. Yeah, a real band, great metal. I would think Psymon would enjoy such music greatly.
So yes, sorry for the long author notes. I hope you enjoy this little project as it continues. It's rough in the first few chapters, but I will try to improve.SSX, you gotta love it.