[REG] THE MORE YOU KNOW! (Ellie + Sydney)[FIN]

[LizzyMoo]

Books were stupid. Literature was stupid. Ellie Spectre was the sort who learned best when doing something rather than just reading it in a book. Everyone who worked with her in a garage knew this. Hank knew this. Phil knew this.

So why the hell her Mom told her to go get a book on spark plugs was beyond her. In fact, her Mom just plopped money in front of her and TOLD HER to get the book on spark plugs. There was one thing that really bugged Ellie about her Mom at times, and it was how obstinate she could be about stupid things like books and money. There was no way to weasel her way out of spending the money on what Mom specified.

Grumbling up a storm, Ellie slung the plastic bag over her shoulder as she began to walk home. How stupid she now felt thanks to the book she was now in possession of! Only idiots needed to get books on things like spark plugs! And now she had a book that was meant for an idiot.

Anybody who saw the tomboy on the street could tell she was fuming.  

[Syusaki]

That was at least one thing the pair could agree on. Sydney could never appreciate the endless pages of knowledge that a collection of books held. Bibliophiles likened it to exploring the vastness of the world without leaving one’s home, but she begged to differ. Although she would not exactly call herself someone who learned best with hands on experiences, she would admit that learning by reading was the suckiest way for her to learn anything. A combination of visuals and simulations was the ideal method to teach the tomboy anything. But she somehow managed to scrap by with pretty good grades by just regurgitating out robotically memorized information.

With her eyebrows deeply furrowed and her lips pulled into a frustrated pout, Sydney appeared to be very confused as she twisted around the small novel in her hands. The story was fairly old and written in an old, contorted version of English that just may as well be foreign language. Her board puttered to a halt, letting her wildly swing down her arms and forcefully tear her gaze away from her literature homework. “I need a break!” she declared with a juvenile pout.

She eased one foot off her skateboard, letting the other leg idly tilt it upwards as she looked around for anything to relax her tired mind. Spotting a rather miffed Ellie up ahead, she brashly called out to the blond, “Heyyy! Ellieeee?” Sydney hopped back onto the board and hastily rolled over to the other girl’s side, waving and genially smiling.  

[LizzyMoo]

The blonde spun around, the tails of her longer strands of hair whipping around with her. Gold eyes found short red hair, freckles, and a smile greeting her. If she was a cartoon, she probably would have snorted a puff of steam from her nose at the moment. However, the tall girl wasn't so rude as to leave someone hanging when it came to a greeting.

"Hey yerself Sydney!" The tone wasn't exactly enthused, and she wasn't about to fake it either. In fact, as she stood there for a moment, a few things seemed to ring in her mind.

Sydney was a senshi. Ellie knew this, but Sydney didn't know Ellie was one. At least, as far as she knew, her classmate didn't know. Sydney also had pants as a senshi. Disturbingly lacking pants, but they were still pants. NOT a skirt. It was absolutely unjust.

The words might have come out a bit rougher than she intended, but with the underlying emotion of jealousy (though Ellie would never admit such), she asked "So, is there a particular reason ya stopped me?"  

[Syusaki]

Keeping a wide beam on her face, Sydney innocently cocked her head to the side as she observed Ellie, a curious gleam in her eyes. She could be silly at times—she was childish pretty much all the time—but that didn’t necessarily mean that she was dense or oblivious. The blond was obviously annoyed over something, but what she was frustrated at was another matter altogether. But Sydney could only hope that Ellie wasn’t mad at her.

Her head still locked at an angle, she smoothly replied, “Nothing much.” She straightened her head back into position and crouched down to pick up her skateboard. “I was just really bored reading this book, you know? Figured that some conversation would make for a nice break,” she explained while flailing the book in her hand for proof. Intrigued by the bag in Ellie’s hand she leaned over in a vain attempt to get a closer view of the contents inside.  

[LizzyMoo]

"So ya stopped me 'cause ya were bored of readin'?" One brow lofted up as she essentially tried to get clarification. Of course, Ellie wasn't blind, so when she noted the attention her bag was suddenly getting, she didn't hesitate to swing the bag around so it was no longer over her shoulder. There wasn't any warning, but it wasn't her style to act like an alarm. The bag was swung forward and Ellie let go of the end of the plastic handles she had been holding.

The underlying message was simple: Catch!  

[Syusaki]

Sydney nodded once, a questionable look on her face that clearly read Is that such a bad reason? Obviously, the lanky tomboy would jump at any excuse to cease her school reading. Especially right now, when her head had previously been chock filled with nonsensical English that she just might have fallen off her board due to the dizzying confusion it was about to send her into.

It was fortunate that Sydney inherited her father’s athletic genes, because it included quick reflexes too. She successful caught the bag with little problems, but at the cost of dropping her novel and skateboard. Both items clattered to the ground. Sydney could have cared less about the book, it could have fallen into mud for all she cared, but her lovely board was another thing. “Geh!” she grunted, quickly and awkwardly bending down to somehow claw both objects back into her grasp. “What do you have in here? Che. More books?” she idly muttered, scowling at the contents.  

[LizzyMoo]

Good thing she caught the bag. Respect points would have gone down if Sydney couldn't catch some books.

In a flat tone, Ellie muttered "Yeah... books..." If anything was obvious, these books were the source of her sour mood. She loosely gestured that the other tomboy was allowed to look through the books if she wanted.

"...Books that I really didn't need t'get, but my mom insisted I had t'get anyways. She's so f*ckin' dumb at times, it's retarded!!" Her eyes glanced to the skateboard.

"Ya do yer own work on that? Or ya buy it all pretty like that?"  

[Syusaki]

Although not extremely eager, Sydney curiously rummaged through the collection of books anyways. She fished out an arbitrary book, inquiringly stared at the front and back covers, adjusting the hold on the bag so that she could flip through the pages before quickly depositing the book back into the bag and slipping out another. None of the titles or subjects could ever hope to garner the redhead’s attention for very long.

“These books . . .” she began, crinkling her nose with disgust. “What do you need them for?”

“Oh? Oh!” Sydney’s eyes lit up with delight at the mention of her skateboard’s design, happily flipping it over to reveal the full picture. “I like to design things, so yeah, I drew this myself! Took a lot of time,” she said, carefully examining the clear, bright bursts of swirls, stars, and other various shapes that exploded across her skateboard. “I design other stuff too, like the design on my shirt.”  

[LizzyMoo]

Ellie seemed to scoff at Sydney's question. Had the answer not been obvious to begin with? You know, when the tomboy complained to the redhead that she didn't need these books?! Not bothering to stifle her annoyance, she let Sydney know the full details. "That's the point... I don't need'em! My mom thinks that these books will tell me the information that I could just get from Hank without payin' fer it!"

Of course, Ellie neglected to mention who Hank was. She was used to people naturally knowing that Hank was more or less her mentor in the whole car repair career path.

When her companion offered the decorated side of the skateboard, Ellie looked it over. It looked like unicorn puke to her, even if it was completely not unicorn puke. "...So yer an artsy fartsy Art Buildin' Fairy?" Obviously the blonde wasn't exactly the creative type. The mention of the shirt got a glance from Ellie, golden eyes focusing on the cloth over Sydney's chest.

"...Please tell me you ain't an Art Buildin' Fairy..."  

[Syusaki]

Sydney had no idea who Hank is, but decided to roll with it anyways. She at least assumed that Hank was a guru on motorcycles that Ellie could easily ask whenever she felt like it. “Huh. You like motorcycles? Surprising, yet also not surprising,” she casually noted with a sincere and innocent expression on her face. “Did you recently get into motorcycles?” It would make sense then, if her mom demanded that the blond purchase books on motorcycles and on their mechanics and blah blah blah.

She looked like she had just been metaphorically slapped with an insult. “I’m hardly an Art Building Fairy! It just happens that my doodling skills happen to be far superior than most,” Sydney insisted. She frantically pointed to the bottom of her skateboard. Although it was rather colorful, the redhead had also been careful to not go too overboard with the colors and had also opted for darker shades and adhering to color schemes for each section of the design. “How is this the work of a fairy? I know it’s pretty darn elaborate with tons of fancy-a** swirls, but it’s not that bad, right?”

Pouting, she forced her gaze to the front of her shirt instead. It was rather simple compared to her skateboard. The design was just fancy and edited type, after all.  

[LizzyMoo]

"Umm... wow... yer really behind th'times, kid!" Ellie looked absolutely stupefied by Sydney's questions about motorcycles. She had easily been in love with vehicles since she was a kid, playing with race cars and toy motorbikes when most of the other girls played with dolls. It also never helped that such a close family friend as Hank was a mechanic at his own place, for the girl had easily grown to love what he did for a living.

"I've had my own bike fer at least 2 years..." There was also the fact that Ellie lived in auto shop and metal shop class. Sure, it didn't mean she had to love motorcycles, but it was pretty evident she at least loved motor vehicles in general.

When Sydney showed off her board, the blonde looked over what was being offered. Her golden eyes had never really been one to assess artistic stuff unless it had to deal with the body of a car or motorcycle. So quite bluntly, she pointed out "Yeah, it does look like somethin' a fairy could'a made."  

[Syusaki]

“What? It’s not like I hang out with you every day!” Sydney protested with a pout. “And besides, if you’ve loved motorcycles for so long, then why would you need to read up on them now when you should know a lot about it?” Despite her slacker nature, she had enough brains and common sense to deduce that.

“Two years, huh?” she muttered, her expression turning curious before her face suddenly lit up with an idea. “Oh! So you probably have your motorcycle license, right? You should take me on a drive sometime! Because, you know, riding a motorcycle just looks super cool and stuff, you know? I want to try it at least once. Or a couple times.” Sydney grinned at the thought, sheepishly reminded of the time she had met Luke by boldly examining his motorcycle.

“Rude! A fairy wouldn’t make something as cool as this,” she indignantly squawked. “A fairy would make something with lots of pink and pastel colors, and bubbles and rainbows and hearts and other girly cliché things.”  

[LizzyMoo]

Eyes were rolled.

"What part'a 'my mom insisted I get this book' did ya not understand?!" Ellie's tone was obviously growing more and more defensive, since it really hadn't been her idea to get this book in the first place.

However, Sydney should have been thanking the powers above for finding the one thing that could make Ellie's rage subside with ease. "Ya don't need a license t'ride a motorcycle. Ya need one so if ya get caught, that they can't give ya a hard time." She grinned. The blonde had been riding illegally for a couple years, but fortunately she had managed to get that license recently.

Ignoring the comments about fairies (because the mere mention of rainbows automatically meant that the redhead was labeling Ellie as a fairy, which was not wise at all), she then offered an invitation.

"If ya ain't doin' anythin' right now... ya can stop by my place and we can take t'the road fer a bit."  

[Syusaki]

“Everything until now,” Sydney stated with a blank face, making it difficult to discern whether she was being honest or just joking around. Kind of an odd mom then, she concluded. If Ellie clearly had enough knowledge about motorcycles and such vehicles, then why demand that she buy a book about it? People were so befuddling at times.

She laughed, amused with the witty observation. “That’s true. I suppose the same goes for a lot of other things, then,” she mused, the other likely example being driving—except she had her license already, so there was no problem with that as long as she didn’t drive like a crazy person.

Her face lit up, eyes gleaming with eagerness. “Your motorcycle? I can ride your motorcycle with you? Really? Really?” She leaned over to one side, one leg up in the air as she childishly showed her excitement.  

[LizzyMoo]

"Yeah, y'can ride with me... I ain't too far from my house... 'bout 3 blocks or so if we take th'shortcut through the park..." Almost like she was a hitchhiker, she used her thumb to point towards the direction they needed to walk.

"However, let's go over th'rules now 'bout ridin' with me." Regardless of whether her companion was ready or not, the tall blonde began to jog down the sidewalk, leading the way to the desired destination.

"Rule number one... don't act like a nerd 'bout ridin'. It's the way ya guarantee that yer never gettin' a ride ever again. Rule number two... ya hold onto my shoulders or 'round my waist. Yer hand wanders and I dump ya off at the dumpster." Obviously that rule was meant more for guys than anything else.

About as suddenly as she had started jogging, the tomboy spun around to face Sydney once more. "Oh yeah, and Rule number three. The most important one. Have fun."

Most people would have grinned after saying such a rule, but Ellie seemed dead serious. One too many encounters with people who were scared for their life when riding with her had made this a solid rule she pushed on people before they rode.