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apocalypsosTitle: Law-Abiding Citizens Don't Defy Gravity
Author: Troll Princess
Fandom: Veronica Mars
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Character: Keith Mars
Spoilers for: General show spoilers, nothing major.
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Dear![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
trollprincess's gym teacher, please excuse her from class, as she has borrowed these characters without permission and with no intention of making money off this.
Summary: How do you get yourself in these situations anyway?
Author's note: My thanks toxphoenixrising for the quickie beta. :) This was really hard, because long and plotty wasn't working for me but short and snarky did. Anyway, this was written for the Ask Questions Later challenge, with this prompt:
Your scenario is: How to Catch Someone in the Air When You Don't Have a Parachute
You know what to do inside a plane to escape, but what do you do outside the plane? In midair? When you don't have a parachute and the only one onboard just left on the bad guy's back? There's only one answer -- if you don't have a chute, you'll need to catch up with the person who does. Even if he just left a few seconds earlier. There are two main skydiving positions you'll need to know to accomplish this feat -- the boxman and the head-down dive. Both techniques are described below. When you are left in a plane without a parachute, you must act quickly. Once the person with the last parachute has left the plane, follow him out the open door as soon as possible to increase your chances of catching up.
*****
Law-Abiding Citizens Don't Defy Gravity
*****
All right, you know that saying about not jumping out of a perfectly good airplane? It turns out there's some pretty good exceptions to that rule.
Like, say, if it's a plane everybody's supposed to jump out of. Theoretically, planes full of skydivers are supposed to come back empty except for the pilot, but that requires the pilot to live through the flight. A little difficult, really, when the guy's been shot through the head, and quite honestly it's not all that pretty in the cockpit right now.
And yeah, maybe you could fly the plane to some empty field or something and be the big hero, eliciting a lot more of that oh-so-much-crazy-fun publicity you can never get enough of. But somewhere in the progression of events in the last few minutes, your bail jumper not only stole your parachute -- the last parachute, thank you very much -- and tossed it out the open door, he also shot the pilot and put a couple of bullets into the radio.
Currently, the radio's sparking and smoking, and the plane's started quivering ominously, and there's a frantic part of your brain that insists that you are absolutely not going to wipe the goddamn brains off the windshield to try and fly this damn thing unless there's going to be someone on the other end of that radio to tell you what to do.
But there won't be, because now the radio's whining.
Can it do that?
Then it starts hissing, and you think, Yeah, I guess it can do that.
It's been three seconds since your bail jumper gave you a wink and a smile and leapt out of the airplane. You might want to jump out after him now.
Oh, don't make that face. What are you going to do, stay in the pilotless, radioless airplane and download the ability to fly the damn thing like in The Matrix? This isn't the movies, which is why you're going to jump out of the airplane, dive headfirst towards your bail jumper, and ride him to the ground whether he likes it or not.
For the record, he probably won't like it.
Four seconds, Keith. Now might be a good time to take a flying leap.
No, really, I'm not kidding.
... there, now was that so hard?
You know what? Don't answer that.
All right, so now you're diving headfirst towards your bail jumper, and before you even make that face again, I promise not to make any cracks about the lack of wind resistance. But really, you can do this. If James Bond can do this, you can do this. Sure, he would be doing it after partaking of three martinis and a willing stewardess, but --
Okay, so maybe a girl and some booze would probably have helped.
Would it sound better if I said that if Keanu Reeves can do this, you can do this?
Yeah, didn't think so. Just forget I said anything.
So here you are, arms pressed against your body as you aim directly for that rapidly growing dark speck against the backdrop of the ground below. If I could make a recommendation, you might not want to think too much about that being the actual ground. Maybe you could just pretend it's one of those big pretty paintings they have in the background of old MGM movies, or --
Fine, I'll shut up. Your bail jumper's getting closer, by the way.
Yeah, he notices you're approaching. And you really should have known he wasn't going to like seeing you show up here. I mean, aside from the fact that I warned you he wouldn't, he did pull a gun on you to make you get rid of that parachute before shooting an unarmed pilot and ruining that perfectly good airplane. Subtlety and a tranquil nature don't exactly seem to be this guy's strong suit, you know what I mean?
That's probably why he just pulled a knife. You might want to plan ahead for some stitches.
Huh. Look at that sucker.
Okay, so maybe some really big stitches.
See, this is where things get a little blurry. Fights like this always do, don't they? One minute, you're grabbing onto the guy, punching as hard as you can manage with one hand considering you're trying to dodge the knife and wrap your other hand up in the straps. The next, you wrestle the knife away from the guy, hitting him in the face as hard as possible, and then he struggles the wrong way or tries to hit you back or something and before you know it, there's a gigantic blade stuck in the bail jumper's chest and he's not struggling so much anymore.
I know you've been thinking this a lot in the last few minutes, but this could be a problem.
I'd probably suggest you get that parachute off his frighteningly limp body and put it on your back, but that ground's coming up awfully fast, and you don't have a hell of a lot of time left to play around with. So yeah, you might want to try to get your arms more tied up in those straps, pull that cord, and bite down on something, because this right here? This is going to hurt.
A lot.
Hey, look at the bright side of all this. When you hit the ground, you can get let this asshole take the brunt of the fall. Probably a good idea, considering your shoulders are about to dislocate.
Plus, when Veronica hears about this whole thing, she's going to get a real kick out of it.
Or, you know, throttle you within an inch of your life. Either way, it'll be one hell of a conversation starter.
Author: Troll Princess
Fandom: Veronica Mars
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Character: Keith Mars
Spoilers for: General show spoilers, nothing major.
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Dear
trollprincess's gym teacher, please excuse her from class, as she has borrowed these characters without permission and with no intention of making money off this.Summary: How do you get yourself in these situations anyway?
Author's note: My thanks to
xphoenixrising for the quickie beta. :) This was really hard, because long and plotty wasn't working for me but short and snarky did. Anyway, this was written for the Ask Questions Later challenge, with this prompt:You know what to do inside a plane to escape, but what do you do outside the plane? In midair? When you don't have a parachute and the only one onboard just left on the bad guy's back? There's only one answer -- if you don't have a chute, you'll need to catch up with the person who does. Even if he just left a few seconds earlier. There are two main skydiving positions you'll need to know to accomplish this feat -- the boxman and the head-down dive. Both techniques are described below. When you are left in a plane without a parachute, you must act quickly. Once the person with the last parachute has left the plane, follow him out the open door as soon as possible to increase your chances of catching up.
Law-Abiding Citizens Don't Defy Gravity
*****
All right, you know that saying about not jumping out of a perfectly good airplane? It turns out there's some pretty good exceptions to that rule.
Like, say, if it's a plane everybody's supposed to jump out of. Theoretically, planes full of skydivers are supposed to come back empty except for the pilot, but that requires the pilot to live through the flight. A little difficult, really, when the guy's been shot through the head, and quite honestly it's not all that pretty in the cockpit right now.
And yeah, maybe you could fly the plane to some empty field or something and be the big hero, eliciting a lot more of that oh-so-much-crazy-fun publicity you can never get enough of. But somewhere in the progression of events in the last few minutes, your bail jumper not only stole your parachute -- the last parachute, thank you very much -- and tossed it out the open door, he also shot the pilot and put a couple of bullets into the radio.
Currently, the radio's sparking and smoking, and the plane's started quivering ominously, and there's a frantic part of your brain that insists that you are absolutely not going to wipe the goddamn brains off the windshield to try and fly this damn thing unless there's going to be someone on the other end of that radio to tell you what to do.
But there won't be, because now the radio's whining.
Can it do that?
Then it starts hissing, and you think, Yeah, I guess it can do that.
It's been three seconds since your bail jumper gave you a wink and a smile and leapt out of the airplane. You might want to jump out after him now.
Oh, don't make that face. What are you going to do, stay in the pilotless, radioless airplane and download the ability to fly the damn thing like in The Matrix? This isn't the movies, which is why you're going to jump out of the airplane, dive headfirst towards your bail jumper, and ride him to the ground whether he likes it or not.
For the record, he probably won't like it.
Four seconds, Keith. Now might be a good time to take a flying leap.
No, really, I'm not kidding.
... there, now was that so hard?
You know what? Don't answer that.
All right, so now you're diving headfirst towards your bail jumper, and before you even make that face again, I promise not to make any cracks about the lack of wind resistance. But really, you can do this. If James Bond can do this, you can do this. Sure, he would be doing it after partaking of three martinis and a willing stewardess, but --
Okay, so maybe a girl and some booze would probably have helped.
Would it sound better if I said that if Keanu Reeves can do this, you can do this?
Yeah, didn't think so. Just forget I said anything.
So here you are, arms pressed against your body as you aim directly for that rapidly growing dark speck against the backdrop of the ground below. If I could make a recommendation, you might not want to think too much about that being the actual ground. Maybe you could just pretend it's one of those big pretty paintings they have in the background of old MGM movies, or --
Fine, I'll shut up. Your bail jumper's getting closer, by the way.
Yeah, he notices you're approaching. And you really should have known he wasn't going to like seeing you show up here. I mean, aside from the fact that I warned you he wouldn't, he did pull a gun on you to make you get rid of that parachute before shooting an unarmed pilot and ruining that perfectly good airplane. Subtlety and a tranquil nature don't exactly seem to be this guy's strong suit, you know what I mean?
That's probably why he just pulled a knife. You might want to plan ahead for some stitches.
Huh. Look at that sucker.
Okay, so maybe some really big stitches.
See, this is where things get a little blurry. Fights like this always do, don't they? One minute, you're grabbing onto the guy, punching as hard as you can manage with one hand considering you're trying to dodge the knife and wrap your other hand up in the straps. The next, you wrestle the knife away from the guy, hitting him in the face as hard as possible, and then he struggles the wrong way or tries to hit you back or something and before you know it, there's a gigantic blade stuck in the bail jumper's chest and he's not struggling so much anymore.
I know you've been thinking this a lot in the last few minutes, but this could be a problem.
I'd probably suggest you get that parachute off his frighteningly limp body and put it on your back, but that ground's coming up awfully fast, and you don't have a hell of a lot of time left to play around with. So yeah, you might want to try to get your arms more tied up in those straps, pull that cord, and bite down on something, because this right here? This is going to hurt.
A lot.
Hey, look at the bright side of all this. When you hit the ground, you can get let this asshole take the brunt of the fall. Probably a good idea, considering your shoulders are about to dislocate.
Plus, when Veronica hears about this whole thing, she's going to get a real kick out of it.
Or, you know, throttle you within an inch of your life. Either way, it'll be one hell of a conversation starter.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-03-04 06:54 pm (UTC)I love this.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-04 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-04 07:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 06:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-04 07:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 08:23 pm (UTC)Johnboy's already conducted a seance that went horribly awry trying to answer it. ;)
Or, better yet, don't answer. It's much angst.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-04 08:26 pm (UTC)Either way, it'll be one hell of a conversation starter.
OMG, that is SO him. Yay!
I love the snark--we so know where Veronica gets that from.
You win at life. Or at least, at Veronica Mars. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-04 11:55 pm (UTC)I did find the narrative voice a tad confusing upon a first read, but it was highly entertaining - very witty.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 04:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 05:14 am (UTC)And you have the best icon! Hee-larious.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 07:52 am (UTC)Lovely.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 06:44 pm (UTC)And thanks!
no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-06 12:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-25 07:32 pm (UTC)Awesome job!