Google was Easier

The Boomerang arcs slightly lower than Winter expected as it comes for her again-- this time she's forced to vault over it. The Fishy explodes into motion the instant she leaps, closing the distance nearly instantly-

-until Winter whiffles it with a gust of wind, slowing its' advance as she makes a flying leap onto its' backside. The Fishy seems to pick up speed as she does, realizing what she's trying to do...

But the updraft, the thing that propelled her jump, pushes it upward and straight into her! Winter clings on for dear bloody life as the Fishy bucks repeatedly, bobbing, weaving, spinning-- it even does a loop or two, going completely upside-down, in an attempt to shake her off.

...But can she hold?

--Right group--
Boomer: 60 (Over hole)
Hardhead: 60 (Depressed!)
Fishy: 90 (Over hole) (Zooming around like a madman!)

Winter: 88 (Rageclaw x4) (On Fishy) (HANGING ON FOR DEAR LIFE)

--Terrain--
8% Ice (The large chunk of the pathway that Winter froze over. Includes a couple of bookcases.)
32% Normal (The pathways between the bookcases, and the bookcases themselves)
60% Missing (the hole leading to the floor below-- has staircase on either side going down)
Winter was staring at the Fishy when the sound of the returning Boomerang made its way to her ears. Erk, looks like I misjudged the arc. That's my cue to move it, or lose it. As she prepared to make her evasive jump, she saw the Fishy ignite its afterburner. So much for the plan. Looks like I'm winging it now. She went with the sudden change in situation and channeled the power of wind to turn her jump into an air step as the virus came barreling towards her. As Winter rose into the air, she again channeled the power of wind and created a focused gale to try to slow the Fishy down. As she did this, the Boomerang she'd jumped met with the updraft, angled sharply upwards, and sliced right past her no more than a couple of feet from her face on its way into the sky.

Winter found herself with no time to spare the close shave any thought as her attention was now focused on the on-rushing Fishy ahead and below her. She was just reaching the apex of her jump when the partially slowed jet-propelled virus hit the up-drafting air column, and rose to meet her. Winter twisted her torso around, then kicked her legs to spin her body around in preparation for landing on the Fishy. The move partly worked, as she found herself able to reach out and grab hold of the leading edge of the Fishy's right wing with her Rage-Claw augmented right arm. Winter managed to secure her grip firmly on the wing just before the rest of her body collided with the virus with an involuntary "Oooph." The virus immediately tried to throw her off with a bob, followed by a dive that left the sorceress hanging in the air above the virus; feet towards the sky. "Whohoaaa!" She managed to barely maintain her grip, and crashed back onto the virus with another involuntary "Ughhh."

The collision threw Winter around a bit, and the sudden weave of the virus' next attempt to shake her off promised to make matters worse as she began to slide bodily to the left. However, Winter used the motion to get her left leg under her, and proceeded to brace herself by planting her knee against the inner upward curve of the Fishy's left wing. She took the opportunity to grab hold of the virus's left wing with her other hand when she found she could reach it. "Got i-- Whoa!" Winter was thankful for her decision when the virus tried to toss her with a sudden bob that almost threw her just before it reversed direction and banked right. She responded by pulling to the left, but allowing her lower body to shift to the right. She then repeated her earlier move and planted her other knee against the right wing's fin-joint. The Fishy repeated the bob while banking, but Winter had anticipated it and managed to ride it out with a little more grace than she had the last time. "You are not going to lose me that easily."

Oh really...? <-- ((Click for music.))

The Fishy now endeavored to prove Winter wrong, with gusto, as it accelerated like mad and started to mix its maneuvers up a bit. The virus started bobbing and weaving, bobbing while weaving, and weaving after bobbing at high speed, but it wasn't doing anything to shuck Winter, as she clung to the Virus tenaciously. It then escalated further by attempting a high speed corkscrew turn, but the sorceress had already managed to not only find her grip with both hands, but also managed to brace both of her legs against the vertical fins of the Fishy's wings. She needed only to shift her body up and to one side slightly to negate the G-forces of the first turn, and hugging closer while shifting to the opposite side defeated the second.

Winter had been hanging on with increasing dexterity when the Fishy against escalated its efforts to ditch her. As the virus exited the second corkscrew, Winter's world suddenly spun like mad as the virus did a barrel roll. The maneuver did nothing to shake her off as she was now hugged tightly against the delta wing with her hands grasping the leading edge of the wings, and her feet hooked in behind the trailing edge. However, it did serve to disorient her a great deal. "Spin... Cycle... I think I'm gonna be sick." Winter barely had time to shake her head to clear it before the virus attempted a combination of the last two maneuvers. It banked right, then dove and turned hard. Once it was in a spiral, the Fishy barrel rolled with the turn, then rolled again; this time back out of it. Winter managed to stay on it by hugging the wing like there was no tomorrow.

When the Fishy leveled off after it's latest attempt to throw Winter off, the Navi decided to try talking to the Virus: "For the love of the Programmer, chill out," she began admonishingly, "If I was really going to delete you, I would have done it already. You get m-- No." She realized the Fishy wasn't listening when it began to accelerate. "You definitely don't get meeeeeeeeeeeee----" Winter all but shrieked as the virus pulled up and went into a high speed loop-de-loop that left her crushed against the top wing. However, once the maneuver was actually under way, Winter's shriek tapered off into silence. She found it surprisingly easy to deal with this move in comparison to everything else the Fishy had done thus far, since it basically did all the work of staying on the Virus for her. The virus tried it again immediately after, and by the time it was over, Winter was... enjoying herself? "Woooooo! Okay, I think I'm getting the hang of this!"

Winter hugged close to the top of the virus and now spoke to it while she still refused to let go. "Alright, you. I'm not going anywhere. So when you're ready to--" Winter paused as the virus tried another aerial maneuver. "--co-operate, I'll still be here." She glanced over at the rageclaw equipped hand, and something occurred to her... "I imagine pulling all of these crazy stunts, and forcing me to hold on like this can't be doing good things for you." While the Fishy continued trying to shake Winter, she chanted her Novice's Healing spell, and healed the virus a little. "Think it over, k?"

With that, Winter planned to continue trying to hang onto the Fishy. Her wind powers had had time to recharge by now, and she was holding them ready for trouble.

----

David was watching the proceedings with a bag of popcorn at this point. He'd tried several times over the past couple of minutes to contact the sorceress Navi, but the virus she was now riding was going so fast, none of the chat windows he'd tried to open had caught more than the blur of their passing. He really wanted to ask the Navi what in the hell she thought she was doing, yet at the same time he found this approach to be kinda cool. Well, since I can't ask her where she's misplaced her little digital mind, I'll just enjoy the show and ask her later.... if she's still in one piece later. David sighed, then continued enjoying his popcorn, and the show.

----Summary----

--Winter-- (Equipped: RageClaw1(4))
1: Hang on for dear life. (Grapple/RP)
2: Talk to the Fishy. (RP)
3: Novice's Healing @ Fishy (!) (Recover 15; 1 TCD)
- Gust: Prepped

--Signatures--
Arctic Mirror: Ready
Novice's Healing: Activated
The Fishy continues to buck and weave through the air, adding in sudden stops, starts, flips, spins, turns, and various other rollercoaster-from-hell aerial maneuvers. Finally it tries one last thing-- it rises into the air.

The Fishy ascends for quite a while, moving higher and higher up under its' own power-- it occurs to Winter that it's probably a bad thing this part of the network has no roof-- And then stops entirely, floating in midair.

Winter gets this feeling like if she could see its' face, it would be grinning madly.

The Fishy tilts so it's pointing straight down... and fires off like a rocket. The wind assails her alongside the residual effects from changing altitude so quickly unprotected; her ears would probably be giving her hell if she was a human. The fishy, meanwhile, begins to spin wildly as it nosedives, speed going past what has to be a hundred miles per hour as the ground rushes up to meet them-- Winter feels a harsh, sudden jolt as the Fishy applies the breaks, trying to go from 150 to 0 in just enough time to throw Winter off... and yet still manages to hang on, dangling from the front end of the Fishy.

She stares into the thing's eyes as she heals it, and it glares back at her...

Winter hears the Fishy give off the closest thing she's ever heard to a scoff from a virus before it begrudgingly levels out. It will cooperate, apparently, but it is none too happy about it.

Unfortunately, that little aerial stunt placed them closer to the until-now-depressed Hardhead, who gleefully tries to take a potshot at Winter.

He misses by a mile. And falls back into depression again.

--Right group--
Boomer: 60 (Over hole)
Hardhead: 60 (Depressed!)
Fishy: 90 (Over hole near Hardhead)

Winter: 88 (Rageclaw x3) (On Fishy) (Over hole near Hardhead)

--Terrain--
8% Ice (The large chunk of the pathway that Winter froze over. Includes a couple of bookcases.)
32% Normal (The pathways between the bookcases, and the bookcases themselves)
60% Missing (the hole leading to the floor below-- has staircase on either side going down)