FSE

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The two rodents trotted up the smooth, fine concrete which lead to the upper most tier of the large park and recreational center. This play-haven located on the central west side of the city was constructed on three levels, the lowest of which was elevated slightly above the surrounding street and contained the baseball diamonds, jungle gyms, the grassy field, and general child's play. The second tier, from which Spencer and Ely currently ascended, was where you'd find the picnic tables, gazebos, and things of the sort. The highest level, which the boys were just now landing upon, contained a basketball court and what used to be a tennis court. Beside the basketball court sat the fenced-in skate park which had replaced the tennis court a few years back. Due to the layout of the entire area, the locals often referred to this place as 'The Pyramid' although the design wasn't exactly a perfect pyramid, the tapering ascension favoring the southwest side as opposed to the center.

With the skate park itself at the peak and the many stairs and railings, the Pyramid was a skater's paradise, although skating anywhere other than the enclosure that made up the skate park was prohibited by park rules, hence the need for the skate park, a way to appease the local skaters while protecting the pristine condition of suburbia's planters and railings. For Ely, while a skate park was the only realistic way to gain access to a quarter pipe or similar structure, he preferred true street skating. The way the things at the park were laid out felt almost too easy; stifled creativity. In a few days the rat would be participating in a contest here, so he'd have to get used to it, and fast; he had little interest in coming to this place more than once, this week.

The rat and Spencer stepped through the opening, into the fenced skate park

"We're gonna have to talk to Aiden, he's one of the...organizificaters or whatever," Spencer informed.

Ely had no idea who Aiden was, but the railing in the center of the park they were passing was part of what he meant. The grinding surface was entirely flat, the whole top of the rail something of a very long rectangular shape. Maintaining balance seemed to be of a trivial matter for the experienced skater and all the extra surface area was sure to bring his favored darkslides to a premature halt. To the rat's left stood the area where the vert portion of the contest would likely be held. Two halfpipes had been made out of two short quarter pipes with a spine ramp in the middle. Well, almost. One of the quarter pipes was actually more of a roll-in ramp. They were colored mostly black with their own built in floor which was elevated an inch or so off of the ground. To their right sat a simple funbox with a grindable ledge running through the center. Toward the back of the skate park, a shallow bowl of sorts was set into the ground, although the angle of the sides were too mild to allow for any kind of vertical skating.

It was a small park. Other parts of the state had devoted more time and money to larger parks but so far, this had been this city's only commitment in the realm of skating. There were around a dozen people here, skating after school on a warm Wednesday afternoon. Since it went up, Ely had been here twice before, but never stayed too long. Not a big fan of the atmosphere. Spencer had figured on spending today practicing so the rat could get a feel for the park again, and Ely didn't outright disagree. If there was going to be vert skating, it might have been a reasonable idea to get a refresher.

Ely and Spencer approached three kids, a grey-furred rabbit with a skateboard under his foot, talking to a ferret friend of his and a female, eastern grey squirrel.

"Hey Aiden," Spencer greeted.

The rabbit, similar in height to Spencer, turned toward the squirrel with a less-than-welcoming look on his face. Ely could see that this guy had those usual "I'm a rabbit, good for me" eyes. Bitch-eye. Not that it accurately portrayed the personality of every rabbit.

"Uh...what?"

"This is Ely," said Spencer, pointing a paw toward the rat beside him.

The 17-year old Aiden looked the rat up and down with his blue eyes before looking back toward Spencer.

"...'Kay?"

Not every rabbit, but some.

Spencer blinked in that skittish way he tended to, shifting his eyes around. "Well...remember? I told you that he'd be coming, he's gonna enter the contest."

"Great."

The ferret snickered at his friend's hilarious indifference. With his baggy, black jeans, cool bracelets, and expensive looking shirt with the attractive, young-people's fashion company logo lettered across the chest, Ely thought it a no-brainer why Spencer would want to hang out with this kid, and the others like him.

"Heh, uh...Ely, why don't you go, like, skate or something," Spencer suggested, looking nervously toward his friend. "I'll finish getting you set."

The rat was never one to take suggestions, but he'd eagerly jump at the chance to distance himself of this group. He threw his board to the ground and climbed on with forward momentum, gliding away from Spencer and the others.

"Anyway," Spencer continued, "you guys wanted to know who'd be entering before the day of the thing, so...I was just telling you."

"Yeah well, you know, Spencer? That's great but like, this isn't really an...outsider thing, it's supposed to be more just for the guys who are like...regulars here, and go to our school, or whatever."

A puzzled look faded onto Spencer's face. "Dude, nobody said that."

"It was IMPLIED, Spencer. Okay? You know what implied means?"

The ferret, Keagan, snickered.

Spencer was a nice boy and as such, he swallowed his first response before giving his second. "Yeah I know what it means, but we didn't say, like...not...regular people couldn't join, he's gonna pay the fee and everything, and all we basically said was that...there'd be a contest and it costs ten bucks."

"Okay, first of all, who's 'we?' YOU have nothing to do with it because you aren't one of the planners."

Spencer shook his head. Blinked. Blinked a lot. "Well...sorry...but, you know he's just...he's really good, you know? He does really cool tricks and combos and stuff."

"Yeah, I'll bet."

"And...you know, he's had it...sort of hard," the squirrel continued, glancing back toward the rat who was doing some flatlanding on the other side of the park.

"Special," muttered Aiden, turning away.

"I mean, he doesn't have much money...his mom's kinda...got some problems." Ely probably wouldn't like Spencer saying that, but the squirrel was trying for some pathos.

"Yeah, he's a rat, his mom's a crack whore, I know how it works."

More snickering from Keagan and a weird little smile of the female squirrel, Kat. Too bad. Spencer actually liked her.

A raccoon rolled by on his skateboard, Preston was his name, generally thought to be the most talented of the regulars. Easily the most popular. The contest was partially conceived by him along with the others, but he himself wouldn't officiate the contest in favor of competing. Those duties were left to his biggest fan, Aiden, and others.

"Preston!" Spencer called, getting the raccoon to kick his board up into his arms and stroll on over.

"What's up kiddo?" greeted Preston, looking down at the squirrel. Spencer was only two years younger but apparently that qualified him as 'kiddo.'

"Uh, well...Aiden says that the contest's only supposed to be for regulars. But I brought a friend, see? He's over there. He's from the East Side, and he wants to enter. And the contest was kinda your idea so...I thought I'd ask."

Preston looked at Ely through the distance, making a silly face of indecisiveness.

"Uh, psh...stuff...words...I don't know, we didn't really talk about it. The idea was for it to be the people here but...I guess there was no...real rule in place."

"Yeah, see?" chittered a satisfied Spencer. "He can enter."

"Well Pres," Aiden began, "do you really want some guy just...coming in and...winning our money if he isn't even part of the, like...group?"

Preston looked skyward in dramatic fashion. "Oh, why are you guys asking me things...can't you just kickbox?"

"Yeah," Keagan chuckled, miming fighting moves while making noise from his mouth.

"We wanted a good turnout," Kat reminded. "Can't hurt to have another guy."

Good, now Spencer could like her again.

"Does he even have ten dollars?" asked a doubtful Aiden, eyeballing the rat's holey shirt and cut off jeans.

"Yeah, I told you!" Spencer reminded.

"A miracle," Aiden sneered. "Thank god he didn't spend it on his clothes." He laughed at his own joke while Keagan, as he usually did, joined in.

"Yeah, I guess go ahead and take down his name," Preston insisted. "That's ten bucks into the pot, which means money, and money buys stuff. Like candy. Or weed. Which leads to more candy."

Keagan, Kat, and especially Aiden laughed. Preston was so hilarious.

Aiden withdrew a pad of paper and pen from his trendy pants. With the kind of struggle the rabbit was making this, one would think he didn't even have the thing on him. In truth, he'd been charged with registering participants and for the most part it went smoothly, so long as you knew him. It went even better if you thought he was funny. Aiden called for the rat.

"Hey, uh...kid! Uh...rat!"

Setting down a nose manual, Ely snapped his head in the direction of the rabbit. He was the only rat here after all. From the distance he could see the rabbit waving him in. It didn't altogether seem like a good reason to obey.

"Okay, he's looking right at me, is he retarded or something?" Aiden scoffed.

"No, he's fine," insisted Spencer, who motioned for Ely to stay where he was. "I already told you, his name's Ely."

"Uh huh...how do I spell it?"

"E, L, Y."

Aiden raised a brow, apparently unimpressed. "Wouldn't that be like...E-Lie?"

"No, it's E-lee."

Aiden wrote the name down, shaking his head. "Yup. That mother of his sounds like a genius."

Keagan snorted.

Spencer retained his cool, but his bushy tail twitched in agitation. "Okay, so...is it all cool now?"

"It's super, Spence," Aiden assured, with a thumbs-up.

"Awesome! Heh, Ely's really good, it's gonna be awesome guys, totally. Preston, you're gonna like going up against Ely, heh, you'll finally have some competition. He does these awesome darkslides and can do like, a million tricks in and out of primos, and - "

"Spencer," interjected Aiden.

"Yeah?"

"Stop saying things."

Keagan laughed, and Spencer offered his own polite, very polite chuckle.

"Yeah...okay, I gotta run."

Making haste, Spencer scurried back over toward Ely, who was continuing to flatland. It was a good thing he hadn't made his friend stay with the group, the rat could have never handled it. But...whatever. They'd gotten him into the contest. If Aiden were any good, he'd be in the contest instead of organizing it, but he probably loved being control; one of the few senses of importance not grandfathered in from a four-bathroom house.

"God, I hate that guy," Spencer groaned as he approached the rat. "It's like he was surgically enjerkified at birth."

Ely brought his skating to a halt to face the squirrel. He'd known Aiden for only seconds, but it made sense to him.

"You're in though," Spencer said with a nod, clearly happy with his work.

Ely nodded once, glancing around at the park. He was out of place here and wasn't sure where to go. Usually Spencer followed the rat around on the other side of town, letting Ely steer him away from the places that he'd been told were scary. It was...sort of the same for Ely, although he wasn't scared so much as very, very against the idea of coming into contact with these kids. The feeling was likely mutual.

But it was fine, Spencer and Ely would skate around for a while, the rat getting ideas for his eventual free run. They hit that flat railing a few times, Ely correct in assuming it would slow down his slides. The challenge involved was dismounting, as the rat was used to grinding descending rails. Being completely level, one could only do the whole rail when rolling at a high speed. But having spent as much of his life as he did atop that skateboard, the dismount wasn't a skill Ely was foreign to. The level angle of the rail at least allowed him to snap better flips out of his grinds, some of which requiring more time than a descending rail would allow for.

The nice thing about this place was that, for the most part, the spots Ely wanted to skate essentially became deserted in a few moments. Fine with him, he didn't like a crowd. Such was the case when he tried out the fun box. Coming off the slope, he spun a very crisp 360 shoveit into a tailslide, a world-class exhibition in precision. Spencer followed behind him with his favorite, a 5-0 grind. Ely did like the funbox a little, being a street-friendly apparatus whose design couldn't really be found in a 'natural' city environment. Quick little ollies into nosegrinds proved fun here, while both rat and squirrel lingered longer on the box than they had the rail.

When they tried the bowl, there wasn't a lot to be done there, but it made for a nice roll. Pivots and manuals were best for this area, and a double kickflip off the sides wasn't too bad, either. Ely would have to shrug off the concerned or otherwise unfavorable glances from anybody he rolled by, but they too would eventually desert the area, leaving the rat to focus on his skating.

"You should probably hit the ramps," Spencer finally suggested, skidding to a stop near his friend.

Ely kicked his board up into his arms from a nose manual position. He trained his view on the quarter pipes, knowing Spencer was probably right but was put off with how crowded they looked. As he'd been learning, however, it would probably resolve itself. Spencer would follow as the rat moved for the vert portion of the park.

He was a common sight on his side of town, so the stares were a little different for Ely, although he'd been in this boat before, such as in the rare occasions he and his mother went to a restaurant. It didn't mean he understood it. He'd seen rabbits, squirrels, ferrets, and raccoons before. Surely these kids had seen a rat before. Maybe on television, at least. They probably just didn't know some of them weren't incarcerated.

Ely trotted up the walkway behind one of the quarter pipes. A few kids stood up by the lip, holding their skateboards down by their legs, assuring anybody who passed by that they were doing some skater stuff up there. They'd offer the rat an uncertain glance as he approached the edge of the ramp, looking down in front of him. He'd done a few drop-ins before, and he had the balance to basically ride any kind of terrain even if it was something less than familiar.

"What kind of vert stuff are you thinking of doing?" Spencer asked from on the walkway leading up to the ramp.

The rat shrugged, he always shrugs. He wasn't sure, anyway. Most of what he did came to him in the seconds prior to performing it. It would be best to keep his vert routine as 'street' as possible. Ely rolled the board forward, vising the kicktail between his foot and the lip. He was all set to try his first drop-in in quite a while before he was stopped by the hare to his left.

"Dude, you don't just like...go. You should wait for everyone else who was here first to go first."

Spencer raised a furry brow. "What?"

Ely stared blankly at the hare. Not a rule he'd run into, last time.

"You guys aren't even skating," pointed out Spencer. "That's not even a rule here."

The rat turned toward his squirrel companion for confirmation.

"It's not," Spencer repeated.

Good enough, thought Ely as he dropped into the empty pipe. On his way up the spine in the middle he'd balance on a simple nose stall to begin with. His unwillingness to be held back visibly annoyed the others on the ramp, while the hare gave Spencer a dirty look.

"What're you doing, dude?"

"That's not a rule, since when is that a rule? You guys aren't even, like, doing anything. And besides, you like...drop in whenever you want to."

"Yeah, we also live here," the hare reminded.

"Yeah but...isn't this like...a public park?"

The boy just shook his head, turning away from the trouble-making squirrel.

Ely stuck with the stalls, which were shaky now but would hopefully improve. The occasional flip would snap out from under him and he stretched for a couple quick grabs here and there. More than anything he needed to get use to riding such a steep angle. As he continued his practice another skater dropped in with him, the hare who had been giving him hell moments before. As Ely rode up the lip of the halfpipe, he could see he would be cut off by the other skater if he didn't break. The rat would just turn prematurely and roll the other way, but he'd also be cut off there, causing him to slide to a stop in the middle of the ramp. He glared at the jackrabbit, knowing full well this wasn't an accident. The hare rolled by again, throwing his paws up.

"Dude, you gotta move."

As much as Ely would have enjoyed going at it with this irritating kid in a duel of sorts, he didn't trust his own ability in the halfpipe and didn't want to be the one to fall. He climbed off of his board and ascended the halfpipe's landing again, deciding to wait out the hare until he was finished making his 'point.'

"These guys are freaking jerks," Spencer whispered to his rat friend. Ely had no response. The squirrel spent a lot more time here, he should have known that by now.

A few moments later, the rat would drop back into the pipe. He was getting a feel for it, these things usually didn't take too long. For lack of other options, Ely spent more time on this skateboard than on his feet. He was getting comfortable with hitting shoveits off of a small bit of air. This wasn't a very serious halfpipe anyway, so getting a lot of air didn't seem necessary or all that doable. After enough time of watching Ely go back and forth, Spencer stepped to the edge of the ramp and waited for the right moment. When it came, he dropped in beside the rat though was careful to make sure Ely knew it was happening.

Unlike the hare, Spencer stayed on his own side, mimicking Ely's preference for stalls. The squirrel would kick out a crisp heelflip, losing speed as he landed toward the bottom of the slope but ultimately doing a good trick. He did his best to ignore the glares of his fellow skaters, though he just couldn't grasp was this was such a big deal. Just skate, guys.

Their tandem ramp play was a nice time, and the only area of the sport where Spencer had a chance of hanging with Ely. The squirrel would shout out a compliment here and there to his friend, who would remain silent in response. Spencer managed to spin a shoveit into a nose stall, which the little rodent was quite proud of. It would all only last for a few moments longer as the other skaters were calling for the squirrel and rat to come to a halt. They both stopped in the middle of the ramp and looked up to the lip.

"Preston wants to skate the pipe," one of the other boys said. Beside him the raccoon gave a little wave. He assumed they'd move.

"Oh...yeah, we should get out for a minute," suggested Spencer turning to Ely.

The usually silent rat didn't understand. "Why...."

"Yeah, well you know...Preston usually likes to hit the halfpipe alone. He says the other skaters make it hard for him to focus."

From on the landing of the ramp, Preston nodded. "Yep. Kinda got that ADD you hear about."

Ely continued to look at Spencer, feeling as though he had not gotten his answer.

"We usually just, you know...let him skate. I mean he's awesome to watch, so it's usually cool."

With that, Spencer scooped up his skateboard and trotted off of the ramp. Ely remained in his spot, looking up to the raccoon. Preston would make a silly yet very much serious shooing motion with his paws, urging the rat to give him the space he needed. When Ely still continued to stand in the pipe, Preston titled his head and put up his paws, unsure of why the rat stayed there.

"Get out, dude!" Aiden pressed from beside the ramp, appalled that anyone would keep Preston waiting. From beside him, Spencer quietly waved for Ely to oblige.

Finally, the rat would kick up his board and vacate the halfpipe, offering Aiden an unimpressed stare. He'd expect as much from the locals here but was admittedly somewhat disappointed that his squirrel friend followed suit. Ely turned, standing beside Spencer as Preston positioned his feet and dropped in. He rolled a few times, getting a feel for it, before spinning out a 360-shoveit into a boardstall. Rolling to the other peak, he snapped out a kickflip to another boardstall. Back again, he'd spin a varial kickflip, no stall this time.

The local skaters were appropriately impressed with their leader. Ely looked on, thinking that these tricks were nice but for somebody who required exclusive access to the halfpipe, the rat expected a lot more. Especially considering the raccoon would be the eventual winner of the contest. After a few more rides up the ramp, Ely had lost interest as his role as a complacent spectator, turning to leave the park. He'd gotten to the opening in the fence before Spencer had noticed. He knew the rat well enough to know that he'd grown bored, and if left uninhibited, would head right back home, especially for the few minutes his bus transfer was still good. With unannounced partings a regular happening with Ely, Spencer would just let him continue his descent toward the bottom of the Pyramid. Hopefully he'd still be showing up on Saturday.