Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews!

Also thanks to Victania for helping me with the Ikuto parts.

---

Children of the Sun

02: Know Your Enemy

---

Saturday, 9.00 a.m.

City Square

The sun was out, glinting off the hoverboards lined up at the designated area. Amu noted that there weren't a lot of people over the age of twenty. Bright Star had aggressively marketed itself as an up-and-coming young peoples' brand, after all. Amu glanced at the hoverboards and realised with a jolt that while these people weren't old veterans, they were rather professional. These weren't kiddie boards aimed for little kids who wanted to go to school fast. These boards had been designed and customized specifically for power.

Amu gulped. She hadn't customized her Suu, or any other board she'd ever owned for that matter. She knew Kuukai's brothers were experts at customizing, but he'd told her that she shouldn't change anything to her board two days before the competition. She wouldn't be used to its new functions.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" A stout man in a shiny suit waddled over to them with a loudspeaker. "Boys and girls! We from Bright Star Enterprises would like to present the first e-ver Hoverboard Race organized by our prestiguous company! As you can see, these fresh young faces are more than ready to take up the challenge. Three of our finest boards are at stake..."

Not me! Amu dithered, and then caught sight of something that made her stomach lurch.

Hoshina Utau.

Utau was a senior at Seiyo Academy. She took Hoverboarding as well, and when you looked below her feminine grace and love for frills and ruffles of the lolita genre, you could see a competitive, headstrong girl with nerves of steel. She'd beaten all the races at school and had won her boards in international competitons. The one she was riding now was the Il Diabla, a Spanish-made black and purple stunt board with two miniature devil wings sticking out of the sides. It wasn't just decorative. Those wings probably had magnetic plates to help her balance in stunts.

Like Amu, Utau had examined the rules. But unlike Amu, Utau knew what kind of boards people would favour in such a contest. While the Il could hold its own end, she needed more than blind speed to win. And she saw that extra marks were awarded to stunts. The more complicated and elaborate, the higher the extra marks.

Boom!

The race was on.

---

Saturday, 9.25 a.m.

Test Lab no. 590, Easter Corp.

Ikuto was crouched on his windowsill, staring at the view before him. The sun streamed in, glinting off the solarplates of buildings and reflecting off the sidewalk. It shone on the heads of people walking to the stores, and people flying to places, and the trees. There weren't many trees in the city now. Artificial ones were attached to major buildings, designed to absorb carbon dioxide and turn it into energy to fuel the machines, and release oxygen. It was, all in all, beautiful.

But he'd wanted more, now. The girl had been an initiative; a keystone, a catalyst. He'd had a taste and he was addicted.

Suddenly Ikuto heard something. His door clicked open as a worker shoved her entrance card inside. The tray she carried was laden with food, a white ceramic bowl with some gray muck in it that could have been soup, and four pieces of limp toast. At about the same moment, Ikuto had a brainwave when he saw what was going on behind her...

"There's a spider behind you," he said in his usual monotone.

The worker, having been horribly traumatised as a child because of her brother dangling a dead giant spider in front of her face, was deathly afraid of all arachnids. She'd once stood on a chair in a meeting and squawked for someone to squash a tiny spider that had crawled on her file. So when she turned around and saw the creature staring her with all its beady little eyes, she screamed.

"YAAAAAAAHHH!"

Dropping the tray, she ran off in search of a newspaper and a poor lab assistant. The tray fell to the floor, the bowl spilled and the ceramic cracked, and the bread lay there uselessly. Ikuto opened the door wider and stepped outside.

It was a very weird feeling, being outside... unauthorized.

Ikuto's brain displayed a floor map of the building. There was a fire escape towards the side. He could get there, if he was fast, and he was. Ikuto had the designers to thank for that. They thought that enhancing his senses would make the idea of cybernetic humans more appealing to the masses. He ran to the door and down the stairs, two at a time, and finally he reached the door. It slid open at his touch. He realised there must have been something akin to a entrance card in his fingertips.

And then it hit him. He was out.

Ikuto began to walk, a plan of the city forming in his mind. People barely noticed him as he made his way to the city square slowly. There was so much to see. It was incredible, all the colour and the variety and... and everything. He was like a child. A child who had just learned to see. Ikuto marveled at the fragility, at the strength, at the beauty, at the ugliness, and at the sheer feeling of being free, and alive.

---

Saturday, 9.40 a.m.

City Square

Amu had just spent the last few minutes dodging obstacles and trying to finish as fast as possible.

The first obstacle had been easy, you just had to slalom around a few levitating rocks, which she did practically every day. Then there were motion-sensing plates that blocked your path. She'd tried to go as high as possible, leaving a gaping hole, which Utau had taken advantage of. And then there was a task in which you had to perform a stunt before you could pass through. But somehow, somehow, she pulled through. And she was almost there.

The finishing line was marked by a red line strung between two lampposts, and it was getting nearer and nearer.

Amu was there, she could almost feel it, she could nearly taste it--

--and then her Suu gave a lurch that nearly threw her off balance.

"Oh no!" cried the announcer in a false sympathetic tone. "It's one thing that all Bright Star employees fear. System overheat!"

System overheat?!

Of course. She must have been pushing it too hard, just like she did with the Miki Spade.

The Suu gave another lurch, and suddenly she was plummeting towards the ground. She could hear people screaming and shouting, and she closed her eyes, and started hoping that Tadase was here.

And suddenly she was aware of landing in someone's arms, and she was aware of her heart beating very fast (tha-thump, tha-thump), and the next thing she knew was that the Suu was about to crash on top of her.

---

Author's Note: Had to get this done so Victania and I have something to talk about tomorrow...

BTW does anyone have any acting tips and/or tips on how to make someone look like a cat person on really low budget?