"Thanks a bunch Emil." Sumner said to his friend the dark skinned woman. Emil's hair was black and wavy, and she dressed very light, in short shorts and a red swimsuit top. Everyone could see a good portion of her skin as well as the tattoos on her arms.
"Don't worry about it Sumner. I've been working on your board for years now so it's always my pleasure." Emil replied back to him as she handed Sumner his ref-board.
Sumner's board may have been an older short-board model, but thanks to Emil's work its white surface was shining like new, and she had even repainted the blue trim.
As Sumner stood in the middle of the front room of the refboard shop, admiring his board, Ruri looked up from the table she was using to polish her own board and asked, "Well I guess now that our boards are all cleaned up we should go check out the race course and get some practice in."
Wes who had been sitting in the corner cradling a cup of coffee spoke up, "Sorry guys the course has been closed down and nobody is allowed in till the big day."
Sumner exclaimed, "What?! Then how are we supposed to get ready for the course?"
And Ruri added at the same time, "And how are all the ref-boarders supposed to keep themselves from getting bored out of their skulls if the only real lifting spot in town is closed all week?"
Wes leaned forward in his chair and put the empty cup on the counter next to him before replying, "Well I know the coarse well enough I could probably give you a good idea of what it's like. And as for most of the riders, they're probably hanging around the big market they got going near the lift spot."
Ruri looked like a child that had just had their favorite toy taken away, "Aww, who cares about a bunch over decaled boards? They're probably made by a bunch of guys who have probably haven't ever lifted too." Ruri then moaned and slumped over the table.
"She has really wanted to lift a lot more than usual lately." Sumner thought to himself. He then had an idea and before he could consider the consequences of this idea he said it out loud to Ruri, "Well hey, maybe we could go to the market and find a place to slip in to the course and take a look. And we can bring Wes who can explain it to us."
"Huh, what? Wait we can't do that! We could get disqualified!" Wes said to them, standing up.
But Ruri completely ignored him and jumped over the table and over to Sumner and kissed him. When she was done she said sweetly to him, "I love you Sumner." She then grabbed Sumner's hand and yanked him towards the door.
Sumner griped Wes' sleeve as he passed by and dragged him along with him. "Hey aren't you guys listening to me?" Wes said as he tried to stop them by holding onto the front door's frame as he was dragged outside.
But despite Ruri's slim figure she was incredibly strong and after a couple of yanks she was leading to two young men down the street. Emil stuck her head out the door and waved bye to the group and laughed at Wes' look of panic and misery.
Eureka and Renton were walking down the road into town. Axel had driven them to the outskirts of town from the garage, up in the hills. And now, they were continuing deeper into the city on foot.
Eureka followed Renton as he pointed out places and told her about all the times he had spent his days in town. He was also trying to decide where they should go for lunch later that day to himself.
But Eureka was not listening to him much, despite her interest, she was getting worried. She hadn't truly lied to Renton but she hadn't exactly told him the truth ether.
After Renton had left the kitchen to help Axel move the furniture into their room the previous day the three girls had asked her to do something she had thought impossible.
"Just tell him you want to go into town OK?" Heather asked, as she continued to watch Renton through the window.
Dawn pointed as Renton came out of the truck holding one end of a bed. "Look I've known Renton for a long time. He couldn't be romantic even if Cupid slapped him in the face with a live fish!"
Eureka was now totally confused. "Why would I lie to him?" she said back.
"You not lying, you're just going to surprise him." Dawn replied. "We just want to help you get Renton to stop being such a child."
Eureka hated it when people called Renton a child, he was young yes, but he had a very mature mind as far as she was concerned. "Renton isn't a child. He's just very shy at times." Eureka explained, in Renton's defense.
"Well that's what we mean Eureka. Don't worry we'll help you get past his shyness." Heather replied before giving her a wink. "Don't worry, just meet us here tomorrow and we'll help you out." she continued as she slid a note to Eureka across the table. The tree girls then said goodbye to her and left in a group, out the door.
Eureka still wasn't sure what they meant by helping her, but she realized they were just trying to be her friends. And she had noticed it last night, that there seemed to be an invisible wall between her and Renton; she wanted it to go away.
That is why she had asked Renton if they could go into town during dinner last night, and that is why they were now walking down the street to the road that the Heather's note had told her to go on.
But the thing that Eureka realized was that the girls had probably wanted her to come alone, without Renton. But no matter what method she could think of, Eureka couldn't bring up the nerve to tell Renton that she needed him to leave. Not when he had seemed so glad this morning, to have the chance to share with her the things he had done when he was younger.
"What can I do? I don't want to hurt Renton's feelings, but I do want to have the girls help me help Renton fix whatever is bothering him." Eureka thought to herself as she noticed the street sign above the road had the same name on it as the note she held.
But luckily for her, the three girls had noticed her and Renton walking up the road well before they had gotten to the meeting point and were now hiding behind a group of shop patrons and were now watching them.
Eureka started looking around for the girls, but was unable to spot them in the crowd. Renton noticed her looking around, almost franticly, and asked, "Hey Eureka, are you looking for something?"
Eureka flinched as Renton's hand came down on her shoulder. The guilt of misleading him had been building up inside her since they had started from their home. But now all she could do was to let it all out and blurt out the truth, "Well yes… you see the girls from yesterday said they wanted to help me with something and they had asked me to come here today... by myself."
Renton at first looked hurt, but then quickly changed his expression and replied, "O so you were just wanting to hang out with your new friends, huh? I understand, I'll just head back as soon as we find them… OK?"
Eureka felt the pain in his words, and in turn she felt that pain as if it were her own. "O Renton! I do want to spend the day with you!" she stepped over to him and hugged him hard as if to close a wound she had inflicted on him. "I've been having a wonderful time seeing the town you grew up in. And if you really want to show me more we can just leave before the girls show up, and I'll tell them I couldn't come out today." she continued as tears started to form in her eyes.
Renton got her to look at him directly and spoke back, "It's OK. I'm actually glad you have found some friends to spend time with. I want you to have as much fun as you can OK?" He then gave her a reassuring grin to let her know it was alright.
This caused her to blush; she thought of how much she loved how he could be so kind and understanding for her. She leaned in closer to him, wanting to kiss him and apologize again and again.
But a sudden loud 'AWWW' made both of them jump. The three girls had slowly made their way over to the couple and had heard their conversation clearly. "You two are sooo cuute!" Heather stated quickly.
"Yea I was totally wrong about you Renton!" continued Dawn. As she and the other girls finished walking up to the couple.
"We talked it over and we figured how we can accommodate for Renton being here." finished Laura, as she took hold of Eureka's sleeve. "We'll go this way and you go with…"
But Renton didn't hear the rest. "Wait where are you going?" he yelled, as Heather grabbed his sleeve and stared dragging him off in the other direction. But the other girls had turned and had started running off with Eureka in tow and he didn't get any response.
As the two groups went their separate ways, down the road, a dark clothed figure walked out from a nearby store. It watched the girls go off down the crowded street with Eureka. After they had gone a distance he started to follow slowly behind them.
Despite the warnings Wes had given her, Ruri steadfastly refused to give up. And so after Ruri had led them the wrong way for a few minutes, Wes decided that he had to take the lead of the group if they were going to do this and not get caught.
He led them into the densely populated market square that was in front of a large gate that blocked off. This was the entrance to the Bester Cup lifting course. Over the hundreds of stalls and outdoor shops a large banner flowed over the market. It read 'Bester: The Revival of Lifting Begins Here!' and fluttered lazily over the gate.
"Look at all these people! Are they all going to compete?" Sumner asked, as he started to take in how large the market was and all the people moving about through it.
"Well most of them at least, there are plenty of people who aren't even lifters who have come to watch the games as well." Wes replied as he took in the same sight. "Still this is more than I thought there would be."
"Come on you two we need to find a way in." Ruri said as she finished looking over the crowd and started walking her way into the thick of it.
"Hey, wait up Ruri!" Sumner said, as he started after her. Wes followed close behind as they made their way through the stalls and the crowd to the gate. When they got to the front they casually made their way along it, looking for a way to easily slip inside the closed area.
Eventually they had to leave the market square as they continued along the fence. But luckily, they soon found an area of chain link fence that had been loosened from its supports. It made for easy access that allowed them to slip under it easily without being noticed.
Because the fence turned into a concrete wall near the market area they had no problem about being spotted as they made their way back to the main gate and to the small observation tower that resided above it, on the other side of the wall.
"Finally we made it." Ruri said, as she started looking around the base of the tower for a way up to the observation point.
"Shhh… Don't talk so loud. We don't know if anyone is here. If we get caught we'll be disqualified." Wes tried to remind her. But, as usual, Ruri ignored Wes and started up a nearby set of stairs.
Sumner put his hand on Wes' shoulder and gave him an understanding shrug as Wes turned his head to look at him. Soon, after they had started up the stairs, Wes took the lead again. And when they had made it to the final set of stairs he whispered, with a finger up to his lips, "I'll go ahead and make sure nobody else is here."
Wes, then Sumner and finally Ruri made their way to the top of the tower right behind each other. When they had gotten to the top, Wes continued on and started to look around the area, in a half crouch, as he entered the observation deck. It was a rectangular area with large concrete pillars that held up the floor as well as the roof above them. The outside edge of the area was open to the sky, and gave any who looked around from it a clear view over the town and the nearby lift spot.
As he finished looking around Wes turned to the other two others, who were still a few steps down on the staircase. He was about to give them a thumbs up sign, but then a figure jumped out from behind a nearby pillar and had grabbed Wes from behind.
"O crap! I'm coming Wes!" Sumner yelled, as he jumped up the last few steps of the stairs and started to dash towards Wes and his attacker. But as he raced across the room another assailant jumped from the shadows of a different pillar the right in front of him.
Before he could stop himself his and the new assailant's heads collided with each other, hard. He fell back, his head feeling like it had struck rock. He worked his eyes open, but all his aching mind could make out was a spinning torrent of colors. As he continued to work the cobwebs from his head, Sumner was able to hear over the ringing that was plaguing his eardrums, the assailant's voice say to itself, "Aww man, my head."
He was startled at the voice, and its familiar sound. He then shook head so he could finally see his would be attackers. "Doggy! Are you OK man? What the heck are you doing, haunting a place like this?"
Moondoggy, like Sumner, had fallen to the floor after they had hit their heads, but he now looked up to reveal great big blue eyes. His hair was semi-curly and blond, but was under a blue bowl shaped hat that he wore along with a matching shirt as always. "Whoa Sumner! Hey man. I could ask you the same, ha-ha."
"You know these guys Moondoggy?" Mathieu asked from behind the struggling Wes. Mathieu was tall and dark skinned with a tied back afro and wore a basketball jersey. He easily held Wes without much effort despite how skinny he may have looked.
Hilda and Gidget came out from another pair of pillars and Ruri soon followed close behind them from the stairs. Gidget ran over to help Moondoggy up while Hilda went over to Mathieu and pulled his hands off Wes' wrists. "Don't you remember the story Moondoggy told us about these guys? Ruri and Sumner here helped Holland get the Nirvash from military control before we had joined. There's even a rumor or two that they had taken down the CFS plant in the Thundercloud incident, remember? "
"O yea, you're the only guys who actually turned down joining Holland. Heh, sorry about that man." Mathieu said as he let go of Wes and looked over the new group with new interest.
Ruri walked next to Sumner and picked him by the hand. When Sumner stood up he realized that Doggy was the same height as him now. "So it looks like you made it out of Ruri's old ship fine." He said.
Moondoggy was about to reply but Wes ran up to Sumner and asked, "What the heck man! Who are these guys? And why did they attack us?"
"Don't you remember me telling you about Doggy? These guys are with Gekkostate." Sumner explained to his friend to calm him down.
"Yea sorry again, but we thought you guys where guards or something for this building. We didn't want to get disqualified for taking a peek at the new course." Mathieu explained, as he and Hilda joined the circle of people. Wes understood their reason now. He thought to himself that he would have probably done the same himself if he had been in their shoes.
With Gidget still holding onto his arm Moondoggy gave Sumner a wide grin as he started, "Well, actually Sumner, this is Gekkostate. Or at least what's left of it. There wasn't really a way or a reason for us to stay together after the Second Summer of Love so..."
"What do you mean Doggy?" Ruri asked with her hand still in Sumner's. She was happy to see Moondoggy too, but like the rest of the world news of what had become of Gekkostate after the Second Summer of Love was unknown, even to her.
At the request of Hilda, they moved out to the balcony overlooking the course. Most of them sat down on the ground, while a few let their legs run through the railings and hang.
When they were comfortable Mathieu started to explain, "Well you see the Gekko-ship itself was totaled when Renton tore a huge hole through it with the Nirvash. It didn't stop us from making a safe landing, but after that the old ship just couldn't fly."
Hilda continued, "Then the military caught up to us, but thankfully by then Captain Jurgens had taken control of the remaining federation forces, so it was a semi-friendly meeting."
Moondoggy joined in, "He and Holland had a long talk about some stuff and then everyone just started going off their own separate ways over the next few days."
Hilda had another turn, "Because as a military officer he couldn't let us keep the Gekko, even in its condition, Jurgens took it from us, but said that with its return there would be no reason for us to be criminals."
Gidget finally spoke up, "Yea, had thought he was kind of a scary man, but he's actually very nice!"
Sumner was surprised, "Wait does that mean he erased your criminal records?"
Moondoggy answered, "As long as Gekkostate disbanded for good, yea we were free to do as we wished. Course without a ship our options were small." He then gave a small sigh.
Mathieu joined in again, "So anyway, because we didn't have a common goal anymore we split up. Holland and Talhoe said they were going north to Holland's homeland to raise their kid. Well at least after they made a stop in Belleforest. Hap went along with them."
"Their kid? Wait you mean Holland is a … father?" Sumner said thinking of the gruff commander he had first met around the beginning of his military career.
"Yea, hard to believe, huh?" Moondoggy answered with a light laugh before continuing where Mathieu had left off, "Stoner then left without really saying where he was going. Ken-Goh decided to stay with the Gekko and the military. Jobs and Woz got wrangled into some science stuff at the Treswar Laboratories along with Mischa. And we went off on our own and got a new ship so we could continue to run the pro-lifting circuit."
"Your own ship? Well you were always a great pilot Doggy. What's it like?" Ruri asked to her young friend.
"Well it ain't the Gekko… but it's still a good ship…" replied Moondoggy before Sumner interrupted.
"Wait what about those other two in your crew, Renton and Eureka? I met Eureka once but we didn't talk. What happened to them?" asked Sumner, remembering the cover of the final issue of Ray=Out and how it had revealed shocking secrets that had rocked him to his core.
The Gekko group fell silent for a moment. The others could feel a deep since of pain emanate from them. Finally Hilda spoke up and told them in detail the moments leading up to Renton's attack on the Control Cluster and what happened immediately after. "Holland believes Renton fused with the Control Cluster so he could be with Eureka…. In other words they became the new Control Cluster and went with the Coralians to…. well where ever they went, to save us all."
Heather stopped dragging Renton by the wrist as they finally made it to their destination. "Well here we are Renton!" The girl exclaimed, raising a hand so that he would look up at the store's sign. It read 'Jewelry For You.'
"Wait, why did you drag me here?" Renton asked as he finally gained control of where he was going.
Heather explained, "I brought you here so you could buy Eureka a gift to surprise her. Girls love jewelry, so I thought I should bring you here while the others go shopping with Eureka. You know? Get you to do something for her while she does something for you."
Renton understood her idea, but he explained to her, "Well that's a good idea and all but Eureka isn't really that into jewelry, she never wears any. Heck she doesn't even wear makeup."
"Your right, she doesn't wear anything like that, does she? Well then what should we do?" Heather asked herself as she then turned away, looking down the street, trying to come up with a new plan.
Meanwhile a thought entered Renton's mind. He reached under his shirt and pulled up a silver ring that he had always been keeping around his neck. He detached it from the string and held it in his hand.
This was the ring he had found from the remains of Charles Beams, the man who had died because he chose Eureka over the only 'normal' family he had ever known. Within it read 'C & R' for Charles and Ray. For the longest time he had wondered why he had always kept something so painful next to him, but now he thought he knew.
Heather noticed what was in his hand, "What is that? Is that a…"
Renton didn't look at her, but instead walked over to the jewelry shop door. Before he went in he said back to her, "I'll go get something for her in a minute, but I need to do something for myself first, sorry."
Eureka meanwhile was with the other two girls walking down a nearly empty street. They were heading to a store that girls had said had everything they would need.
But a shift in the wind distracted Eureka. She turned and noticed a street vender selling flowers across the street."Hey do you mind if I take a look over there for a bit?" asked Eureka as she considered putting a new flower in her hair clip, just like Renton had done the first time they had kissed.
"Sure thing. We don't know if the store is having any sales right now. We'll go ahead and check it out OK? If not we'll head to another place down the road a bit." said Dawn, as she and Laura continued down the street.
As the girls rounded the corner Eureka started to walk across the street. But as she did, a dark figure that had been walking down the street behind her group called out to her, "You! You have to talk to me."
Even though Eureka didn't always understand the way to act properly, she did understand that this was not a good way to greet someone you didn't know. "I'm sorry but I think you have me mistaken for someone else."
"No… your different from the others… you have to talk to me." said the figure, walking closer to Eureka. She could only see the glint of the reflection from a pair of sunglasses under the person's hood. Besides that only the mouth was slightly visible, it was expressionless, despite the almost desperate sound of the voice being uttered from it.
"I'm sorry but…" Eureka started but was stopped as the person then raised his hand up to her brow. She fell slowly unconscious into his arms, and then was lifted onto his shoulder before being casually carried away.