First off guys, I am so very sorry for the delay. I lost track of time, and had a few busy weeks. Next chapter will be up within the next week. Leave a review, I need/want your feedback. Constructive criticism is always welcome.

Green Station, Nate Logan

"So he passed then?"

Eddie reclined, "Yeah, the ASA is outta here now."

Elise exhaled heavily. "Thank God. I hate those people. I'm so glad he ditched them before he started the circuit."

"Yeah, those a-holes would've fired half of us, and turned the circuit into a circus." Zoe growled.

"Why didn't he tell us they were even here, we have a right to know." Moby protested.

"Yeah? If he had told us they were on the mountain, I would've gone after them with an axe." Zoe replied, her hands balled into fists.

"And I a gun." Elise added, her voice very cold.

Nate and the rest of the rookies watched in disbelief. Elise and Zoe were agreeing on something? How bad were these ASA guys anyways?

They were all gathered in the main room of the green lodge, one of Ormy's agents had just told them the news about ASA's attempted lawsuit. The reaction from the veterans had been very intense. There had been a lot of swearing and angry faces. Even Mac, usually so easygoing, was obviously PO'd in the extreme. Kaori was still furiously muttering in Japanese under her breath. Arsenault was doing the same in his native French. Psymon's reaction had been the most unnerving. He had gone very quiet when the news had been told, and he had still said nothing, he only stared at the wall, his mood remaining in doubt.

The rooks had huddled together in the corner of the room, too thoroughly alarmed by their competitor's reactions to approach or say a word.

Kaori spoke up, her English broken with anger. "They should be banned from mountain! Why should they be-" She fumbled, obviously not knowing the next word to say, her fury stealing away her good memory. She snapped out a few choice words in Japanese, and Mac slung his arm about her shoulders.

"Kaori's right, they should be banned, nobody wants them on BIG Mountain anyways." Seeiah said, scowling.

"I'm sure Ormstead will have them banned soon." Eddie said, though he didn't sound confident.

"He'll have to catch 'em doing something bugger awful to get them off the mountain." Moby interjected.

"Or we can catch them in the act." Zoe replied, her eyes narrowing. "They're going to try the same tricks they did last year. Only it's going to be worse this time."

"Hey," Allegra ventured, her voice cutting through the thick tension. The veterans all looked at her in surprise, as if they were wondering when she had gotten there. "The ASA- how bad are these guys? I mean, they can't be that bad-" She faltered at the heated stares of the veterans.

"They're bad Allegra, very bad." Psymon growled.

"What did they do? You guys look angry enough to commit murder." Viggo asked.

Elise exhaled. "When Ormstead pioneered SSX three years back, he had just broken away from ASA. He was with them to help pay off a few of his debts, and give the circuit a kickstart."

"Raggedy as it was." Moby added, his accent thick.

Elise nodded. "First year was rough, we almost never had the money, support was thick and thin for while. Until-" She looked at Kaori with the ghost of a smile. "-Tricky Nishidake went big in Japan, and then support skyrocketed for me in Canada."

"Then the US of A went nuts over me and the kid." Zoe said, gesturing to Mac.

"My native France also gave much help." JP said lazily.

"Germany went big on Jurgen." Elise continued.

"And good ole England came through for me. They have rubbish for mountains. We had to tour in Scotland." Moby spoke up from his position on the couch.

"Long story short, we finally made our breakthrough, then things started to go wrong."

"Wrong how?" Nate asked.

"Boards we had kept good care of for months would suddenly snap, supplies would go missing, we started getting crap thrown at us during our practices. Somebody even tried to dope Moby's coffee so he wouldn't pass a drug test." Zoe said, her hands twitching in irritation.

"What?!" Allegra exclaimed, her jaw dropping. "How'd you know it was doped?"

Zoe snorted. "I knew it when Moby started talking about how my tattoos made me look like a dragon, and about how much he wanted to-"

Moby coughed very loudly, and slapped a hand over Zoe's growing smirk. "Anyways, we had to pretend that I had come down with something. Luckily, I have a rather adverse reaction to dopes, and we were able to trash to coffee before anyone else drank it."

"Damn, how'd you know it was ASA?" Allegra asked.

"Ormstead always suspected it might be them, and then we caught one in the act. One of their guys tried to throw a packed of ice at me when I was going up for a jump, and he got mobbed and beaten to a pulp by our loyal fans." Elise said, grinning wickedly. "We dragged him back to a lonely room and hit him a couple more times, until he finally fessed up that he had been sent by ASA to botch the circuit."

Allegra's face was the perfect picture of indignation and rage. "I assume they got thrown off the mountain?"

Zoe snorted. "Ormy tried to pin them down with a lawsuit, which nearly broke the damn circuit. He got absolutely wrecked with legal fees."

Mac spoke up, sounding depressed. "He couldn't even get the bastards on anything. We only had that guy we beat up as evidence, and he started hollering about how he had been tortured. The ASA assholes acted like they had never seen the guy in their lives."

"The judge threw the little saboteur in jail, and warned the ASA to keep their noses clean. For the rest of the year, they did. We didn't have anymore incidents until the Tricky craze." Eddie said listlessly.

All the rookies nodded, they didn't have to even ask what the Tricky craze was. The first year of SSX had swept up the snowboarding nation, but the Tricky craze knocked everyone off their feet. People who had never been interested in action sports in their lives had been drawn in. Big names had taken notice, and more money had flowed into the circuit.

"What happened during Tricky?" Griff asked.

"Many things, boards breaking, track markers being removed or switched up. For the most part, it was the same as the previous year." Marisol recounted.

"You forgot the smearing campaigns they tried to pull off." Luther rumbled.

"No way. They tried to sass you guys out?" Viggo asked in disbelief.

Mac laughed, and Kaori giggled. "Oh yeah, they tried." Mac said whilst trying to contain his laughter. "But Kaori here was a couple steps ahead. We got a few spamming, offensive, and anonymous emails, but Kaori managed to pull the actual email addresses of these guys, and then used them to sign up half the ASA to a gay dating site."

There was a general roar of laughter. Kaori flushed with a bit of embarrassment, but mostly because Mac had curled an arm about her slim waist.

There was then a small silence, but then Nate, who had seemed a bit itchy ever since he had gotten inside, spoke up. "Alright, who wants to go do some freeriding on Snow Jam? I want to check out that course."

"I'll go." Allegra said instantly.

"Me too." Grommet added.

Viggo mused, "I'd rather check out Orms new course. What did he call it again?"

"Geronimo." Zoe said. "I want to see it, it can't be as bad as Ormstead said it was."

"Go ahead Payne. Do me a favor, and break a leg on the way down." Elise said snarkily.

It was a clear sign that the rivalries had been remembered now. Their brief unity in the face of a common enemy, ASA, was now dissipated.

"You better hurry to the judges panel Riggs, so you can have a chance of winning the gold." Payne replied, her voice cold.

"I won't bother, Sauvegess is going to beat me to the punch anyways." Elise shot back, her voice carrying to Allegra.

The young American, already halfway out the door, turned like a rankled cat, flashed Elise the finger, and then left.

The rest of the riders wasted no time in dispersing. The majority left, grabbing coats and gloves as they went to go grab their boards.

Kaori turned to Mac, her scarlet snow jacket half on. "Where do you want to go?"

"Back up to Happiness, you said you liked the look of the ice tunnels up there, and there's a few sponsored challenges that I want to take a shot at."

She smiled shyly. "We just need to watch for the big snow-falls."

"The avalanches, yeah, I'll protect you Tricky, don't worry." A bit of redness entered his cheeks even as he said the words.

"Good!" Kaori chirped. "Let's go!"

Snow Jam, Nate Logan

"C'mon Nate! Let's just leave her behind! She'll be fine!" Griff pleaded.

Nate looked at him evenly. "No Grommet, we can't leave her behind."

He knew how dangerous the mountains could be. If Allegra didn't get back to them within the next 20 minutes, he was going to go look for her.

"There she is." Griff said, pointing at Allegra, who was coming down to their right.

She was wild-eyed, and her braid had come loose. "Don't go that way." She breathed, gesturing to the skinny trail she had emerged from. "Route is totally crap." She brushed pine needles off her silver and black jacket that had the DC logo on the shoulder. Her pants were a solid black, and of damn good quality, if they had come from DC.

"Did you mark it off or something?" Nate asked. "We don't want someone going down that way."

Allegra laughed. "What? You crazy? That'll be our little secret when the race comes." She grinned darkly. "Maybe I can trick Elise into that mess."

Nate growled under his breath, and started loosening his bindings.

"Hey, would you relax?" Allegra snapped. "That trail isn't enough to kill someone."

Nate retightened his bindings, and fixed Allegra with a stony glare. "Better not be."

"Or what? This whole mountain is dangerous Nate, if someone dies it's definitely not my fault."

Nate went to reply, but he bit it back. He only glared at Allegra again, and turned his board so it was going back down the slope. "Let's go, we still got more to do."

Allegra shook her head, spat onto the snow, and followed in Griff's wake. They were only a quarter of the way down. So far, Nate was impressed with the course.

There were ramps, there were hidden trails, some good, some bad. Everywhere they looked, there were places for their fans, whether it be massive booths or tents. A few of the spectators were in the spots when the little group of three cruised by. They all had radios, doubtless they were listening to Atomika, and they all got loud when they caught sight of the SSX rookies. One woman, who looked like she was in her late 40s, grabbed hold of her shirt and lifted it to her shoulders, obviously for Nate's benefit. Allegra quickly got a gloved hand in front of Griff's eyes, turning his once-awestruck face into a one of bitter disappointment.

Nate made a gesture that could be translated as: thank you, that's enough. The woman obliged, and pulled her shirt back down. She blew a kiss at Nate as Allegra made a great show of gagging.

"Shut up." Nate said grudgingly.

"How long has it been like that?" Allegra asked, ceasing her teasing with a large grin.

"Ever since I got drafted." Nate muttered. "Don't tell a soul about this."

"Alright then Cougar Bait." Allegra said, barely holding in her laughter. "Not a word will escape my lips."

They went on it silence for a little longer, until Nate spotted a narrow trail off to the side of the course.

"Through here!" Nate shouted as he plunged down across the ice.

"Trying to avoid more of your fans?" Allegra asked as she struggled to keep her balance.

"You saw her, would you want to see something that hung that low?"

Allegra shuddered, "I was tempted to take my bra off and give it to her. She looked like she needed one."

"I doubt she's ever seen one. She'd probably try to put it on like a hat." Nate said, trying hard to contain his laughter.

Allegra giggled, and then fell as her board caught against a log. She was back up in a flash, but now several seconds behind Nate and Griff.

"Woah! She went down hard!" Griff exclaimed.

"She'll be fine! Focus Griff! This ice is getting worse!"

They eventually flew out of the flume down a slope packed with fresh, fluffy snow, that lead back to the smooth snow of the course. Once Griff and Nate reached the course again, they stopped to wait for Allegra, who they spotted quickly.

"Something's wrong." Nate said, even as they watched one of Allegra's feet slip off the board, and the young American went tumbling in a whirlwind of snow.

When she reached them, she was cussing a blue streak, adding to Griff's vocabulary.

"Calm down Al. What happened?"

"My damn binding broke." Allegra replied, scowling.

"How did you do that?" Nate asked, incredulous. "You just knocked your board against a log." He fished some spare bindings out of a pocket. "Here, use these for now."

Allegra muttered a thank you, and set about performing a temporary fix. It only took her about fifteen minutes, and then they were going again.

They handled the big drop before the trees with ease. They were professionals, after all. Nate and Griff took one of the better shortcuts while Allegra, with her busted binding, stayed on the main track.

Soon, they were passing the half mark, and the few fans there gave them a few cheers.

Allegra's binding made it past the gap over the rushing river, and to the finish. Several lines of tape and a fence blocked the entrance, so they went to the right, towards the lodge.

Viggo Rolig, Geronimo

"Uh, Zoe, it looks just as bad as Ormstead said it was."

"Does it? Oh, wow."

"I knew this was a bad idea." Viggo muttered.

"Relax mate, we're going to have to race on this eventually." Moby said, as he carefully edged his way over to Viggo with Zoe right behind him.

Viggo looked back down at the near-vertical slope below him. It was fifty feet wide and looked like it was 500 feet long. At its end, the course was split into two paths a by spine of rock that erupted from the snow. The right looked faster to him, but the left seemed to have a myriad of trails that split away downslope.

"You know, Orms said he wanted to call this The Drop, but he felt Geronimo was better." Zoe chirped. She looked positively delighted at the prospect of diving down the slope that could easily be seen as an easy suicide to others.

There was a squawk of dismay above them, and Viggo had to move out of the way as Brodi tumbled down past him. The surfer quickly regained control fifteen feet below Viggo, and he looked back up at the Swede, grimancing. "Sorry."

Viggo brushed it off. He looked back up to see Seeiah and Marisol also studying the drop. No doubt they were trying to tell which route was the fastest.

"You guys ready to go?" Zoe asked. Moby grunted, and Viggo only nodded.

They pointed their boards downslope, and away they went. Viggo went fast, almost so fast that he lost control. He went to the left as Zoe and Moby went right.

"Woah!" The course abruptly ended in a wall of snow and stone. To his left were several small trails and a few rails that plunged into the forest. Picking a rail, he rode it until it ended at the lip of a steep slope. He didn't pause, but plunged downwards, praying that this wasn't a bad route.

It was not. Viggo came back out of the woods, back onto the proper course that twisted like a snake.

"Woah! Viggo! How'd you get so far ahead!" Zoe shouted from behind him.

Viggo twisted, and sure enough. Zoe and Moby were a ways behind him. He slowed so that they could catch up.

Looks like he had secret weapon come raceday.