Goro Kart Double Douche (Nick + Goro)

Goro didn’t know why he was even at the camp again. The combat area had interested him, initially, but his interest had quickly waned as he’d actually entered it. There wasn’t really anything for him to look there beyond ‘which of these muscle heads can lift a heavier object?’, so nothing that he really cared to pay attention to for more than a second.

“Wait, there are go-karts here?”

An all-too-familiar voice cut through his tired, disinterested haze, and he immediately turned in its direction. Nick’s voice. It hadn’t come from too far away, near to the Go-Kart Assault Course. Part of him wanted to run right for him and take him by surprise, maybe this time he’d finally take him down. Another part of him wanted to just back off and pretend he’d never heard him. They were in public, trying to start something out here would probably end with a bullet through his head.

Even with that in consideration, he couldn’t stop himself from drifting towards the sign-up desk. At the very least, simply making his presence known wouldn’t hurt him any, and if Nick makes the first move he’d seem the aggressor. However, as he got closer, he realized Nick… wasn’t there. Or at least, he PROBABLY wasn’t, but that blonde foreigner who was still there looked familiar. He stared at the other man for a moment, slowly picking out facial features that were identical to Nick’s, before he stopped himself.

If this man is Nick in an embarrassing disguise, surely, he’ll have some kind of response to Goro’s presence. But if he isn’t, then Goro trying to call him out as if he is would be a disaster. The mere thought of Nick desperately pulling together a disguise like this was hilarious, and Goro couldn’t stop himself from chuckling as he walked closer to the desk.

“This is a two-man thing, then? Well, there’s two of us here who don’t have anyone else to do this with.” He glanced over at Nick(?), and managed to force himself to stop smirking. “We’ll have to do it together, if there isn’t anyone else around.”

It took every ounce of restraint Goro could muster to not burst out laughing as he watched the other man’s face twist in suppressed humiliation. At the very least, his suspicions were somewhat confirmed. Either this was Nick, or a crazy person. Or, he mentally corrected himself, a different crazy person.

Looking at him again, Goro had no idea how he could’ve thought it wasn’t Nick. That awful fake moustache and wig didn’t disguise his face very well, at least not to someone who’d grown up with the bastard, let alone someone who was almost killed by him.

However, simply calling him out here and now wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying as leaving him unsure for as long as possible. Watching him slowly lose his mind trying to tell if Goro has him figured out or not over time would be far better. He tried, and failed, to stifle another chuckle as he turned to the man at the desk.

“And my name is Goro Utari.” No need for a fake name, no one knows him here. “Would I be capable of fitting into the front, considering…” He flapped his wings as he finished his sentence, gesturing to them. He didn’t exactly trust Nick to drive, partially because he definitely never got his drivers license before leaving England and partially because he would absolutely use it to try and kill or at least injure him. Not that he would particularly trust Nick to protect the back either.

Nick was definitely starting to freak out. Goro could almost feel the strain behind Nick’s expression, could almost hear him screaming in his own head. He was almost impressed that his brother had kept outwardly calm so far, he’d expected less from him. In fact, he’d expected Nick to either try and run or deck him right in the face.

Even if he had done either, there wasn’t really any benefit to Goro in the long-term to exposing Nick right now. If he died, Mother would probably be none too pleased with either of them. If he were arrested, he’d probably give up at least some information about the Gifted Underground, and if he managed to escape the camp Goro would get maybe a few laughs from watching and then it’d be over. A few laughs, against potentially hours of entertainment, the choice was obvious.

“I’m also okay with Turner driving, as long as he knows what he’s doing.” he said, doing his best to keep his voice calm and not let his sarcasm show through. Of course, Nick won’t know what he’s doing, as far as Goro is concerned he never does. The risks of getting into a kart being driven by someone like that were obvious to him, but if things get particularly bad he could simply fly off the kart and leave Nick to crash, or at least make fun of him afterwards.

He followed Nick and the man to the track, and backed up away from the exiting pair. Looking at the kart now, it seemed harder than he was expecting to fly away, and suddenly he slightly regretted signing up. He climbed onto the back of the kart, and leaned forward.

“Have you ever driven before?” He couldn’t keep a straight face anymore, and he started laughing halfway through the sentence, his wings twitching as he cackled into his hand.
"You-snrk- don't look very confident, Turner."

Goro wasn’t paying any attention to the instructions being given, he wasn’t the driver after all. It’s Nick’s job to drive, and Goro’s to guard the back. If Nick fucks it up, that’s entirely on him. Goro was already only in this country to try and clean up one mess Nick made, he had no interest in taking responsibility for anymore of Nick’s failures, no matter if it’s something as petty as crashing a kart.

“No need to be so rude.” He managed to calm down enough to respond, just before Nick slammed down on the accelerator. Goro, as it turned out, had not properly braced himself for the kart’s speed and he was thrown back immediately. He silently thanked God that the back wasn’t open, because at these speeds he surely would’ve been thrown out already, and Nick probably wouldn’t have slowed down to let him back on. In fact, he’d probably have doubled back just to try and run him over.

His teeth were chattering and his glasses were pushed uncomfortably close to his eyes by the rushing air. His wings were thrown back and forced open as if they were a parachute. In hopes that this would slow the kart down even minutely, Goro didn’t bother even trying to shut them again. Even if Nick was handling the speed as poorly as Goro was, he surely wouldn’t slow down at all.

He managed to grab onto the front of his platform and pulled himself back into somewhat of a standing position, pushing one foot back against the backside of the platform to steady himself. Just then, the hail of paintballs shot for them, and Nick’s sudden swerve pushed Goro off-balance once more.

“SHIT!” He screamed instinctively, “What the hell is wrong with you?” He managed to stop himself just short of calling Nick by name. Even thrown off by the unexpected high speeds, he still wanted to maintain his façade, no matter how thin it’s already become.

The paintballs splattered across Goro’s wings, pushing him forward abruptly and leaving him leaning forward over the front of his platform precariously. He felt the tyres around the track before his eyes registered them, his echolocation far from perfect at such speeds, but still better than his severely short-sighted eyes struggling to see through lenses bombarded by wind. In a panic, he grabbed the wheel and tried to pull it the other way as hard as he could. If they crashed right now, at this speed and in his current position, Goro had a lot more than whiplash to worry about.

“FUCKING TURN AROUND, WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?” He screamed again, basically right into Nick’s ear due to their current positions, “DO YOU EVEN WANT TO DO THIS PROPERLY, OR ARE YOU JUST BEING A FUCKUP LIKE USUAL?” The last few words slipped out unintentionally, and he didn’t even notice, attention already split between trying to take control of the kart and keeping his wings open fully to block the continuing stream of paintballs.

Oh no. Goro’s brain had processed his slip of the tongue all too late, and he already knew there wasn’t any way to try and run it back. Nick may be an idiotic failure, but he isn’t that stupid. At the very least, Nick seemed upset about it, which made Goro respond to Nick’s earlier fit of laughter with his own.

He couldn’t quite compose himself enough to actually respond to Nick’s angry retort, and through his laughter he didn’t quite see, or sense, the oncoming walls until they were uncomfortably close. Seconds before the back of the kart collided with the wall, Goro shot off the platform as quickly as he could, straight into the air. He flinched as the platform slammed into the wall, the impact all the more vivid because of the echolocation feedback.

The kart itself didn’t seem all that damaged by the impact; considering that it had to be used for this track repeatedly that only made sense, but considering the sheer force of the hit, Goro himself probably wouldn’t have fared nearly as well. He stalled in the air, a few feet above the wall, laughing again but not as intensely.

“What… What was your plan there? I can fly, idiot! Or did you think a bit of paint would be enough to keep me grounded? All you did was make your driving look even worse!” He yelled down at Nick, not quite wanting to land back on the platform yet since Nick might just try and slam him into another wall.

Goro wondered if there were cameras, or some other monitoring equipment, around the whole track. If he were to say something about Nick’s true identity, or remove part of his disguise, would there be anyone to see or hear it? Not that he had any intention of doing so, but with Nick behaving as usual, it was getting harder to keep it in. Plus, to any onlookers it would appear that this foreigner was trying to injure him for little to no reason. If they were questioned about it afterwards, what would he even say? Getting Nick arrested would mean putting the Gifted Underground, and Goro’s own hide, at risk after all.

Nick was denser than Goro could’ve ever imagined. He’d ACTUALLY expected that crash to work? He smirked, still holding himself in the air for the moment. There wasn’t really any point in holding himself back now that Nick wasn’t, so he was free to mock Nick as much as he wanted.

He was still wary of possible monitoring of the track, though. This was a military expo, after all, and considering how paranoid they obviously were about quirkers, the idea that they’d leave any part of the camp without surveillance was laughable to him.

As Nick called up to him, Goro considered simply flying off and leaving him to finish the course on his own. Maybe he could sit up on whatever the closest tent or building is, and watch Nick fail. But then again, that’d give Nick some relief from Goro’s presence, and the bat wasn’t having any of that. If Nick wanted him gone so badly that he’d try and kill him in public, at a military expo, that was all the more reason for him to stick around. It’s not like anything Nick could do right now would actually kill him, anyway.

Then Nick started yelling about Mother and Goro could’ve choked him right there. It took every ounce of self-control in his body to not immediately scream back at him. He took a moment to try and figure out what he could say without giving away anymore than what Nick had already carelessly thrown out.

“You IDIOT.” He hissed, careful to keep his voice below shouting. “I’m acting too suspicious? What do you think you’re doing, yelling at the top of your lungs about the Underground as if no one is around to hear you? This is a military camp, Nick.” He slowly flapped down to the platform on the kart again, mostly so he could lower his voice and still be heard. “Maybe if you actually thought for once in your miserable life, you’d realise that the only one acting suspicious to outside inspection is you.”

Now that he was on the ground again, Goro could feel the kart vibrating as the ground around them quaked. For a brief second of panic, he thought that an earthquake had hit, but as the tanks entered his field of sense he calmed down, especially when Nick started swearing in response to their arrival.

The tanks weren’t firing yet, so Goro had some time to plan out how to deal with the ridiculous box-tanks. They were still in the part of the track with the walls, but that didn’t provide much cover for anyone actually on the kart, so those didn’t really matter too much. Had it simply been a straight road ahead, he could simply duck down and let the bullets fly over him, or better yet turn Nick into a rainbow of stupidity. But with the walls still in their way, the kart would have to constantly turn every few seconds, making it far harder to use Nick as a meat shield. Harder, Goro thought as a grin spread across his face, but certainly not impossible.

Goro’s grin spread wider as Nick snapped at him. Normally, if his brother could find even the smallest thing to argue with Goro over, he’d jump on it, so clearly even he realised the bat was right. And that must be burning him inside, judging by his expression.

The moment he sensed the first tank fire, he shot downwards, wrapping his wings tightly over his head and making himself as small a target as possible. This did block off most of the road from his sight, but by now he’d become accustomed to the distortions in his echolocation caused by the dust and sand in the air. As he’d expected, a majority of the paint just splattered against the kart, and he only had to duck down slightly more to avoid the few paintballs that reached his platform.

His brother’s swearing prompted him to peak out from under his wings for a moment. Echolocation gave him a good feel of the world around him, but there was no way he was missing the pained look on Nick’s face. Seconds later, another splatter of paint shot right into his wing, and he snapped it back down, silently cursing himself for allowing that moment of weakness.

As the flow of paint seemed to slow, he remained in his defensive position for a few more seconds before he slowly peeled his wings away from his body. They’d left two of the paint machines behind, but there were still four firing on them and Goro was wearing his good suit.

Nick commanded him to disable the robots, and Goro laughed in response. “Why exactly should I do that? I’m avoiding the paint just fine. If they’re an issue for you, deal with them yourself.” He folded his arms under his wing-cover and crouched back down on the platform, bracing himself for more kart swerving.