AdrenalineWorld

"They are!" Teruko rasped back in response, then realized Bruce had another set of worries entirely. Lotion had gotten onto the seat of her pants now; did it really even matter? How could they look any stupider getting off of this cart than they already looked? "I hate to break it to you, Bruce, but there is already no way we are getting off of this cart without alarming somebody," she muttered, staring at his boxer shorts again momentarily, then averting her eyes again.

Still, having your butt covered in lotion was gross, and it was clear it was annoying Bruce. As such, she sensibly decided to just go even steven and (after removing her wedgie), stepped out of the pants Bruce had ruined, leaving her wearing only the panda print underwear. "There! Now we both look indecent and stupid," she laughed, placing the pants into the open top of the exercise bag to create an air of finality. "Now try to concentrate. It's going to take everything we've got to get off of this cart without embarrassing ourselves..."

Of course, with both of them now in their underwear, she herself was having a pretty hard time concentrating. "You're pretty sure your friend isn't willing to just bring us more dino costumes, right? If we could both sneak off as dinosaurs, that'd be awesome! O-Or maybe they could bring us some food and we could just camp out here until the crowds left!" she suggested, running through all of the possibilities she could think of to avoid confronting the prospect of putting on her ruined clothes and climbing back down or both of them emerging in only their unmentionables.

Bruce couldn't help but think, looking over Teruko's half-revealed body, that this whole situation was so like and yet so unlike how he hoped it would turn out. He decided to avoid any further complications by taking his eyes back off his partner's tantalizing hips and back to her empty head.

"Now, now, don't go getting your panties in a bunch," Bruce told her, holding out his palms in a calming gesture and forgetting he'd already used that quip. "First off, food? What, did you think we were going to have to live up here until a rescue team found us? Nah, I'm hoping you're willing to face some embarrassment, anyway, because there's no way my boy down there isn't gonna ask us what the hell we were doing up here after we nearly lost him his job. Like it or not, he, at least, is going to find out when this set of customers clears out."

"From there, really, I don't think the rest is too difficult to piece together. Since you apparently didn't have any qualms, uh... rethinking your outfit," Bruce coughed, "we can make this look like nothing unnatural at all: kinky horseplay on top of the cart, which is probably what he was expecting when I brought a chick up here in the first place. He's like that," Bruce added, as if his own sweet, innocent mind was incapable of such a lecherous notion.

"At that point, he'll probably offer us some costumes just to get the hell out of here, or allow us to stay up here without the dinosaur stuff or us having to do anything. You know, for another ride, at least, so our Navis can finish up." Bruce just assumed the two would be close to finished now, not having any real clue on the progress of their mission. "He'll probably make us lie down and play dead or something boring like that, but it's better than public disgrace or getting reported to the office as stowaways he didn't know about."

A smile started to cross Bruce's face. He felt like he was tempting danger again, but that was nothing unusual for him... and he was practically convinced of his invincibility now. Might as well milk the situation as much as he could. "I don't know that we're really going to be able to sell that we were horsing around up here, though... all he's really heard are some tiny clunks from where we stepped around, and all he's seen is that weirdness with me hanging over the edge for a sec. I wonder if there's anything else we can do to sell the image, so that he doesn't ask us questions that we have to provide crazy answers for?"

"Let's lay off the panties comments," Teruko huffed, moving her fingers to her backside once again to make sure her wedgie was gone before settling down into a comfortable sitting position. "Anyways, this suuuucks! We weren't doing kinky... oh, well... hm, maybe we were," she murmured, suddenly remembering that she'd deliberately tried to give Bruce a footjob earlier.

"Okay! Well, when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, but you've gotta be careful, because over-consumption of lemon juice takes the enamel off your teeth! Or that's what I've heard. Darn though! I'm so hungry... I wish I'd brought a snack up here with me," she sobbed, taking another peek into her exercise bag, despite having just closed it up as if they were going to forget about the mess it had caused. "At any rate, that's not a bad idea! Luckily, I know just the thing~"

Startlingly, Teruko turned around and stuck her legs out towards Bruce, as if she was going to ask for the wheelbarrow carry again. Next, she arched her toes against the roof of the cart, then held one arm behind her back, bearing down with the other palm. "Push-ups! If we do enough pushups, we'll make a lot of noise, and we'll also sweat like pigs! It's just the thing for making it look like we've been up to naughty stuff. Come on, give it a try!" she laughed, pressing her body up and down effortlessly.

Of course, from the back, this gave Bruce a tantalizing view of her bottom, as if he hadn't seen it enough already; the panda face stared back into his own eyes, almost seeming to taunt him as it moved up and down without pause. "Yep, I can do a ton of these! I get sooo sweaty, though, so I'll want to eat later. My stamina is unparalleled! I could do this all day and still be fresh for more at night! After I finish one set, I'm always good to go for another straight away! I'm never finished with the sets; after the first of the sets finishes, start the next sets! Sets, sets, sets!"

Ante coughed from her PET, overhearing just a bit of the conversation but choosing not to interject.

All grumbling aside, Bruce had to admit he was pretty hungry, too... in a way, though, he felt like he had it worse than Teruko. He had an additional carnal hunger nagging at him. Watching Teruko bounce up and down while ostensibly shouting "sex sex sex" was like being at a buffet line with no way to pay: so close, but it didn't seem like there was any way he'd get a shot at it.

He'd decided he'd actually gotten sweaty enough from the forest's conditions and his earlier exercise, so he was content to just watch Teruko go about her business. "An all-meat buffet," Bruce thought ironically, considering Teruko's probable diet, "Where someone keeps waving it in your face and letting you get free sniffs, but you never get a bite... and eh, actually there's some weird broccoli or something they keep shoving in your face..."

Wondering where his thoughts had drifted to all of a sudden, Bruce considered for a moment and came to an important realization. "Oh right! I almost missed it, but if I'd let it stay, there's no way I could believably have been getting action with a half-naked hottie up here!" How would any red-blooded man have taken Teruko up here, gotten her clothes off her body and his hands on those goods, and NOT have taken care of this?

Without bothering to explain, Bruce crept up sneakily behind Teruko and attempted to remove the binding that kept her hair up in its silly knot. He wanted to do it silently, because he was genuinely convinced that her image would become fifty percent hotter with free-flowing hair, and he wanted to see if he could still catch her doing pushups and... eh... saying "sex" over and over again. "Come to think of it," Bruce mentally noted, "if she just did the pushups with regular grunts it'd probably sound more realistic to anyone who heard it..."

Getting at Teruko's clip was easy enough, but the results were not wholly satisfying. Her hair didn't cascade down onto her shoulders like a glamor model's, nor did it fall into a reserved and cutesy bobcut. Instead, it sprung out from the base behind her, then stuck there, as if she'd just woken up and pulled her head off the pillow. It looked far sillier than it did erotic.

She didn't actually even feel it go and thus continued talking about her exercise routine enthusiastically and ignorantly. "But you know, with sets like this, I can barely even feel it! I need it much harder, you know, before I start to feel like I'm getting anything good out of it. You can't pull up either with our tools as they are up here... Man, I can't finish my sets like this, though! That's too boring!" she complained, still working out as she talked.

"I know, I could-!" she exclaimed, turning over to start some obscure exercise. In the process, she slapped Bruce across the face with one arm, then caught him again across the back of the head with the other, dragging his face down into the soft flesh of her belly (softer and less toned than it had looked, perhaps). Once she realized what she'd done, namely hitting Bruce without realizing he was there, she eased backwards and let him lift his face back up.

"Geez, Bruce! What were you doing so close?" she asked, blushing heavily as she tried to look scolding despite her grin. "You're supposed to be exercising too! What kind of exercises were you going to do, huh?" One of her bare legs shifted antsily against the cart's roof as his body loomed over hers, her back leaning against the side of the cart and her arms pinned beside her.

While Teruko's new do wasn't a sexual fantasy by any stretch of the imagination, Bruce regretted nothing. He was convinced he had done what had to be done, and he'd even defend that it wasn't a bad look, either. It mirrored the imperfection and yet the reality of this whole nutty thrill.

Bruce was knocked out of his musings by what had become a recurring theme: Teruko carelessly clobbering him with whatever happened to be nearby, or, failing that, her bare hands. Bruce fell with his cheek to her stomach and had to clamber to peel his face from her. He ended up straddled over her, with their faces intimately close.

"I was just, uh..." Bruce started, losing his train of thought as he stared down at Teruko's face. The labored breathing, the earthy realism of the bedhead... the illusion was so complete, Bruce found himself once again considering what it would actually be like to wake up one morning and find her in bed next to him.

"Hell," Bruce thought, unconsciously drawing his face closer, "this whole thing has been crazy enough as it is. I've always jumped in with both feet before... One more mistake couldn't-"

THE CYCLE OF LOVE, GONNA LOVE YA ALL NIGHT
RIDE WITH ME BABY AND WE'LL DO IT UP RIGHT

Bruce bolted back to his feet as if he'd been caught by someone, nearly losing his balance in his haste. His PET had suddenly started blaring out a track from his downloaded playlists. He was sure he'd silenced it earlier: were the volume controls separate for Navi volume and music volume? Bruce would have more time to worry about that later... he hoped.

The stuntman moved for his PET in a maneuver that might properly be called a Dive, clutching it in his hands and frantically mashing for the controls to disable Dare's impromptu alarm. "What, what do you want?!" the operator hissed at his Navi from his side of the screen.

Teruko was momentarily as drawn into the situation as Bruce, before hearing the music start from a nearby location. "Oh craaap! Is that one of the park workers playing it? Have they seen already?!" she asked, self-consciously covering her stomach, as if that was the first place that a voyeur would check out. "Oh, oh! It's just your PET. Why is that song on your PET...?"

Still, that didn't seem to be important. From their interaction, it seemed that the navis had entered a state where they were again in need of guidance and operation. "Whoops! I forgot about the mission for a second there. Ante, can you fill me in on what's happening?" she asked, looking into the alarmed navi's PET screen.

"I-I'd like to know a few things about your situation as well! That attire isn't appropriate for socializing with anyone!" Ante exclaimed, suddenly far more worried about her operator's condition. Oddly, the biggest source of alarm for her seemed to be the fact that Teruko's hair had come out of its topknot.

"Can it, you spoiled sport! I was having a fun time before you stopped me," she pouted, puffing her cheeks out irritably. "Is that the only reason Dare played that music, to be a buzzkill?"

"No, not at all. Suffice to say, our current situation places us in a gourmet cookoff whereby we must hunt down ingredients, apparently from living viruses. As you can see, NekketsuMan has chosen the same prize as we have. As such, you must be prepared to send us chips should the situation arise," Ante explained, trying to set aside her operator's situation for the moment.

Teruko rubbed her chin thoughtfully, then suddenly looked irritable. "Waaait a minute! What kind of food are you gonna get from a Spikey, huh? That's meat! Dog meat, at that, yuck! That's groooss!" she cried, horrified both by the ideas of using dog meat in cooking and eating meat in general.

"It was described as steak, Teruko; we came here off of that information," Ante sighed, crossing her arms across her chest. "Just be ready to support us if needed, please."

"Can't I keep fooling around with Bruce? Just a little bit?" Teruko begged in a childish whisper.

"... I think if you keep on 'fooling around' you're going to go home naked," Ante continued, sighing even more deeply than previously.

"Well no! Nevermind! You killed the mood already anyways!" Teruko grumbled, crossing her own arms and stubbornly looking away from the PET.

Having muted his PET and spared his busting partner the pleasure of hearing Dare lose her lunch, Bruce exhaled and rested back in the cart. Realizing Teruko might be looking for an explanation, he turned to her and casually gave one. "Oh, that was a kind of app I'd downloaded! It says it her quickly purge her systems and return to normal status by, uh... barfing... so yeah, I downloaded an app to let my Navi throw up..." Bruce exhaled again and frowned. That sounded less intelligent when he said it out loud.

The cart had stopped, and luckily it seemed like Dan and Julio were holding it until their two stowaways had exited. Bruce was slightly ticked that he now had to pretend to be "in the mood" as he left the cart, as opposed to actually being in it. His Navi hadn't technically managed to win the tournament, either. But all-in-all, Bruce could hardly call it zero-sum (especially considering the huge rewards that he was somehow not accounting for).

Getting up and quickly brushing at the seat of his pants, Bruce headed over to the ladder. Pausing midstep, he turned around with a huge grin. "Haha! I just remembered something great. Dan still has my clothes to change back into! Looks like only one of us is going to have to leave here in the buff. Have fun with that!" Satisfied with his teasing, Bruce hopped down the ladder. "Seriously, though, wait here a sec." Luckily, talking about barf earlier had stifled his boner, so he might be able to sell his "freaky sex" tale without that uncomfortable visual aid.

Whether Teruko had waited a second or not, Bruce reappeared just a moment later. "Yeah, here you go. They had a weird old costume they don't use for this ride anymore, so they say nobody will miss it. But if you want to walk out that way, I won't complain," He tossed it to Teruko with a grin, then finished climbing the ladder and started pulling his own pants back up. "Oh yeah, Dan was bullsh*tting me on the cost that dino suit we wrecked would be to replace, and that reminded me Ante and Dare scored us a ton of money. You know where a place is to upgrade your Navi? I was thinking I should probably make it so Dare-" he paused, clumsily hopping to stretch one leg of his suit on, "-can actually do some cool stuff!"

Teruko nodded, listening intently to Bruce as he explained why his navi was tossing her biscuits. "Oh, alright then. That's stupid but okay," she confirmed. "Boy, I thought Ante had it bad with her purges..." She initially pouted, since her buddy was still teasing her, but softened back up when he promised to get her some clothes. "Alright, but I don't wanna dress as a boogly-eyed dino guy!" she called down jokingly, finishing with a giggle.

Her surprise was great when Bruce did, in fact, show up with another dumb dino costume. "Oh, a pink mastadon, gee, why would they not want this?" she asked sarcastically, looking at the big goofy head. "Well, they're herbivores anyways, so I'll take it!" With satisfaction, she grabbed up the suit and began to wiggle in...

.. It was harder than she thought it would be. Immediately, the hole got stuck at the wide breadth of her hips, stopping her from pulling it up. "Uuu... Uuuuu! Darn it!" she sobbed, wondering why a costume that looked so fat had such a small entry point.

"Ahem, Teruko. There's a zipper on the back that you can use to step in," Ante offered, reminding her operator of her existence.

"Oh, thanks! You know all about tricky zippers, huh?" her operator responded, causing her navi to give an embarrassed muttering in response. "Alright! Now I pop on the head and... ta-da! Let's go!" she cheered in a muffled voice, waving her trunk around. "I'll wait till we leave to take the head off. We don't want to scare any children now, do we?" She didn't realize the fright they'd give the kid under the cart earlier. "And you're right, we oughtta treat our navis to a shopping spree! Where do you wanna go, Ante?"

"I would like to go to Suitachi's for upgrades, personally," Ante replied.

"Wha? Upgrades are boring, but okay," the mastadon shrugged. "Let's go!" After dismounting the cart, the mastadon strolled out of the park, waving to kids and warning them not to eat junk foods.

((Headed to Scilabs))

"Geez, what? Did these guys even know what adrenaline is?" Bruce commented on Teruko's new getup, not sure whether to laugh or cry. "I really hope I don't end up paying for one of this ride's loser dinosaurs..."

Zipping up his jacket as the finishing touch on making himself decent, Bruce followed Teruko off the cart. Musing, Bruce chuckled at the thought that with the motorcycle ride and the dumb costume, Teruko might have a better idea of what it was like to be him than anyone else outside the biz.

Bruce figured he would follow his pal's waving pink neck until they hit the road and he could follow her car. Realizing that his friend was starting to get some dirty looks from the 5 or so sugar vendors nearby, he picked up speed a bit. "H-hey, Teruko, how about we lay off the candy preaching until we clear Wackum's Funnelcake Funland...?" The stuntman still had season tickets here.

(Headed to SciLabs)