[IO] Much Too Long

Clash directed his board so he hovered closer to Jayne, pulling up alongside her. "Well, I think I got the basics down. So how about you and I take it to the next level? Let's take off the training wheels and start some racing." Clash said, smirking as he looked to her for an answer.

Jayne glanced over as her friend closed the distance.  "Racing?  Already?  You're certainly ambitious...though you sure you want to go up against a title-holder?"  The vixen crossed her arms, smirking back.  "Besides, where would we race?"  Even as she expressed these doubts, her tails flicked side to side rapidly...

Clash thought for a bit and then pointed in the direction back to the house. "We race back to your house. The sloped terrain should make a for a good run. And besides, racing against someone much better is only going to make me better, right?" Clash said, looking to Jayne with a smile.

The vixen grinned, tails waving.  "Back to the house it is, then.  And maybe the slope will be good, but make sure you don't fall off because of it."  Jayne held up three tails, bringing each one down like a flag as she spoke.  "On your mark...get set...go!"  Though with a bit of a slow start, the kitsune began making rapid progress up the hill, being very careful to keep her balance.

Clash boosted his board forward, directing his speed forward to balance onto the hill. He slowly advanced upward, feeling the cool breeze run through his quills and then past his spines. He kept his board upward and placed one hand on the tip, keeping it steady as he progressed upward. "All downhill from here..." He said, nearing the top and seeing the house, after many more hills he still had to scale.

Jayne, for her part, started spinning around on her board, looking a bit odd...but with every spin pulled off she sped up again, soon cresting the hill with a fairly even stance.  She snuck just one glance back at her opponent, then angled towards the house.  For just this once she called out the move she was about to use (which generally struck her as a fairly silly thing to to): "Diamond Duster, Flash!"  Standing just so and activating a switch with a tail, the rider stood atop a board emitting a bright burst of white light.  Rising a bit from doing so; she sped off through the air.

About to go down hill, Clash saw Jayne pass him by and then create a large flash of bright light. The sudden flash threw him off, and he couldn't see. "My eyes!! Oh sweet merciful Chaos my eyes!" He screamed losing balance and falling off his board, which then sent him rolling downhill. He tumbled and rolled, hitting a large rock which then sent him at an angle. Spinning through the air, he landed in a pile of rust nails and blades. He desperately climbed out of the pile, and ran for where he thought the house was. Only to trip on a rock and tumble down another hill and into a row of cactus. Crawling out, he wormed his way across the ground until he felt a wood fence. Climbing over, he laid down on the grass and rubbed his eyes, his sight finally returning. "Finally... It's all over..." Looking around, he saw this wasn't the house. And there was a sign labeled, "Scorpion and Tarantula Breeding Farm" Clash looked around slowly, before being bombarded by 8-legged creepy-crawlies.

Jayne reached her home swiftly, especially since taking to the air...but once she glanced back, she saw no sign of the hedgehog.  "Clash...?"  Hovering backwards, the vixen scanned the hill and area they came from, then headed towards a black spot on the blue-green hills.  "...the board..."  Nervous now, she called out, "Clash!  Clash, where are you?"  Hastily, the other board in tow, she started flying around, scanning the landscape for him.

Clash laid on the ground, having finally escaped the farm. He pulled a scorpion off his jacket and kept crawling, baffled by just how much bad luck it would take for that specific chain of events to happen. He stood up slowly, giving a hoarse cough before falling over again. He then closed his eyes and drifted into unconsciousness in the grass.

Jayne continued seeking any sign of her adopted brother.  Eventually, a slightly different shade of green popped out from the vermillion of the hills.  "Clash!"  Noticing that he appeared fairly badly bitten, she hastily placed him on his own board and floated more towards home while trying to identify the bites.

Clash laid on the board, seeing the house in the distance as he felt his consciousness slipping back through the numbness of his mind. "J-Jayne... Stop... There's one thing have to do..." Clash said, trying to get the vixen's attention. Before they reached the house, it was absolutely mandatory he finished his one last goal.

Jayne blinked, glancing between the house and the hedgehog as he regained consciousness.  After a moment, her expression gained very apparent incredulity.  "You're not seriously thinking about finishing the race after all that?"  The vixen crossed her arms, though she did pause.

Clash simply cancelled the link between his board and Jayne's, now gently shifting his weight to the front end of his board, the jet on the bottom sputtered and slowly moved him to the house, bringing him alongside it. Clash meekly touched the wall with the tip of hi paw and then he flopped off his board. "...I...Win..." As his voice faded, snoring began sounding in the air as his eyes closed and his chest began raising and lowering softly.

The kitsune followed him slowly, sighing.  "Clash...oh, Clash..."  She picked up his board, moved him onto hers, and gently brought him inside.  With the help of her tails, she lifted the hedgehog and set him on the couch with a pillow and a blanket, then walked to the adjacent kitchen to get something to eat.  As well, she considered whether she might have any way at paw to help deal with the stings and bruises.

Inside the hedgehog's mind, everything was trippy. The venom was starting to get to his head and he was starting to see some really weird things. From what he was seeing in his head, he was in a field. The sky was purple, and he was at a picnic with a blue scorpion with a mustache, and a short, fat man with blue overalls and a red hat. "What am I doing here?" Clash asked, looking around the place, slightly weirded out. "Yahoo! Mama mia!" The short man shouted, as the scorpion put on a monocle and cleared his throat. "Well, young lad. It would seem you are in quite a yonder gander of, as I believe you kids would say, "tripping" on sporpion venom. Now, I do say that this is a quite riveting endeavor indeed, yes, quite so. Goodness me, I dare say your shenanigans are as big as her majesty's watermelons on the rumpity teakettle!" Clash blinked and laid on his back. "...This may be a while."

Jayne returned with a sandwich, then squinted, since she could swear that she was seeing his mouth move as though speaking.  "...wha?"  Though she listened for sound, she heard nothing, so then went to check her medicine cabinet...after carefully extracting a small amount of venom with her tools, she started making an antivenom, mostly by use of her light and healing powers.  This would, however, probably take a few minutes.

Clash saw the dream before him slowly fade away as he watched for a bit. Eventually, he began to see Jayne's house again. The hedgehog blinked a few times, his vision slightly blurry as he looked around the room. "I feel like I was with a steam roller..." He grumbled, rubbing his head and ruffling up his quills as he took small breaths, not wanting to put too much strain on his rib cage.

Jayne patted her brother's head.  "For all I know, maybe you were.  Hold still."  She started liberally applying antivenom to the stings, then infection salve, then (finally) started to seal them up so that she would be able to safely work on any injuries underneath.  Gently pressing, she pushed him into a flat position and hovered her paws over his ribs.  "Oh, by the way, let me know if this doesn't hurt, that should be a good sign."  With that, and with energy flowing through her, the Light Kitsune started mending her brother's broken ribs.

The hedgehog tensed slightly as he felt the touch on his ribs. It stung slightly, as he felt the bones started to bend and push back into their original place. "It's nothing..." He said, feeling the shifting inside his body. "...Seems my accident-prone mindset gets me in this position a lot... Good thing you're always there..." Clash seemed to have a reputation for getting into the most painful pinches, and it seemed like Jayne was the one who remedied them almost every time.

The kitsune continued her work in silence for several minutes, even after her brother spoke.  "...yeah...I'm very glad that I'm here..."  After finishing the healing, Jayne patter Clash's side, then leaned in and embraced him.  "Oh, little bro..."  Emitting a sigh, she held him close.

The hedgehog felt Jayne pull herself in for a hug, and he returned the notion slightly, putting his arms around her and giving her a small pat on the back. His head lingered on other things, however, and he wasn't fully into it. "...How old do you think my sister would be now? You know, if she's still alive." Clash said, thinking about his biological sibling.

Jayne continued to hold Clash close, her tails waving rather slowly.  Closing her eyes at the pat, she reopened them rather suddenly at his speaking again.  "Kim...I'd guess fourteen or fifteen.  That's not a well-founded guess, but I would think probably around that age."  Trying to help her surrogate sibling relax, she started gently rubbing his spines.

Clash closed his eyes and thought about it. "...Wishful thinking, I guess..." He said, shifting on the couch and then pausing, his eyes popping open. "...Something's not right." He said, pulling the blanket off him, he rolled over and looked at his rump. "WHERE IN THE NAME OF THE SWEET CHAOTIC LORD DID MY TAIL GO!?!?" He shouted, only seeing a small nub where his tail would have been.