Author's Notes: Hey, everyone. Sorry for being gone so long. For a good while now, I've been in a different state than my computer, litterally. Soul of the Streets is going to be on hold until I can get another Xbox and another JSRF disk, since my dad sold them and I had been playing the game while working on it. TSK-Total System Knockout is going to be removed. It'll just complicate the series plotline. (Oh, snap! I can't believe I just gave that away!) Um...before I spill any more info, I'll start the next chapter.
Heart and Soul
Chapter 7: Memories
"Yahoo!!! Try topping this one!" Beat was pulling every trick out of his 'hat' while he grinded. He had just pulled a double Method Backflip before landing on a nearby bus that 'slept' in its resting spot. Dr. Avalon had taken off her lab coat, revealing her black, tight-fitting sweatshirt & jeans and tied it to the bottom of a pole on the overhead bridge before starting to grind on her skates. She one-uped him by jumping and pulling a 180 while doing a backflip at the same time, then again with the same combination before landing beside Beat, standing still on the rail without losing her balance once.
"Just did." Beat couldn't help but stare and blush. Her appearance became hypnotic as she under the moonlight, like she was an angel of the night. He could just imagine the midnight-blue angel wings coming out of her shoulders and the black tiger stripes going down her...
Tiger stripes? On her neck?! That was never noticed when she wore her lab coat!
"Hey, Dr. Avalon?"
"You may call me Talen when no one's around."
"Okay...Talen?" Selina smirked at the mention of her first name.
"Yes, Beat?" He took off his goggles just to make sure he saw what he saw.
"How come there seems to be tiger stripes on your neck?" Talen rubbed the side of her neck and thought about the memories that came with it.
"I had gotten myself tattoed tiger stripes when I was a wild teen myself. I used to be part of a gang back in America called the Black Tigers." Beat gasped at the name of the gang.
"Black Tigers? THE Black Tigers?!" Talen nodded in responce.
"The same gang that started the rudie way of life, thought we weren't called rudies in America. We..." Talen looked up toward the moon, the moonlight turning her jet black hair into sparkling obsidian. "We were called starriders. American rudies are still called that, even today. I keep tabs on the new Black Tiger gang and they are doing as well as we did in our youth. I just wish Clawright could see the gang he had started growing stronger..."
"What happened to Clawright? Is he still alive?" Talen shook her head at this.
"No. He had been pushed into the streets at night by either a skater or a starrider and was hit by a car. The driver had virtually no time to react, so he wasn't put in jail."
Ouch.
"Maybe I shouldn't have asked that." He also looked up toward the moon and just stood there, absorbing the light of the moon through his skin, when he saw something fly across the moon.
It had the shape and coloration of a snow wolf and sounded like one, too, as it howled during its flight.
It looked just like...
"Silver Fang. I guess he's still watching over me, like he always will." She looked at the golden watch on her wrist and gasped. "It's 4 AM. Onishima gets to work at 6 AM. If you want any chance at going to the tornament today, we'd better head back." Talen quickly grinded back to where she had tied her lab coat to, untied it, dusted it off and put it back on. Beat looked up above him toward a billboard that was tagless. There was one little problem, though.
He had no spraypaint on him.
"That billboard up there's just asking for a tagging...I'll do it when I win myself out of jail." He skated off toward the jailhouse, leaving Talen confused.
"Could it...no, rudies aren't affected by it." Talen skated after the GG leader, making sure he wasn't caught again by some night-shift officer.
