Cruiser Chronicles
An Acceleracers Tampered 'Verse Fic by Wolf Kazumaru
I've been in quite a writey mood recently, haven't I?
Chapter Nine: In which the plot thickens even thicker.
The Next Day.
Pheonix, Raioh and Senretsu were just walking out onto the floor, when they saw six unfamilliar cars on the opposite side of the Acceledrome from their garage.
"What the...?" Raioh said.
"Well, looks like Tezla's gone and recruited someone else to race for him." Senretsu said.
"Let's go check them out, then." Pheonix said. Pheonix walked across the Acceledrome to the cars, Senretsu and Raioh in tow.
"Well well, what have we here?" Pheonix said to a guy in a red and black uniform, working on an engine.
"What do you want, you pitiful Cruiser?" the man said, standing up. He was a bit taller than Pheonix, and he had fairly large muscles. Along with blonde hair.
"I want to know who you are, and why all these vehicles are here." Pheonix said, taking a step towards the muscle bound mechanic.
"I'm your worst nightmare... And these vehicles are here to beat your pitiful crew in the next realm."
A few more people wearing identical uniforms to the mechanic came out, towards this second garage. Wolf had also woken up, and was making his way over.
"Beat us? The Canadian Cruisers?" Pheonix said, shaking his head. "Fat chance."
"You're that cocky? Alright, fine then. Send get your best racer to race against our best. That'll prove who's the top team!" the mechanic said.
"Alright then. Raioh, get the McLaren. You're gonna be racing today." Pheonix said.
Wolf finally got to the group. "Making new friends already, I see. It's like I said to you guys last night. You're gonna get BURNED!"
"Oh yeah? I guess we'll see about that!" Said the gangster from last night. Sean.
"Yeah, right, Sean." Wolf said, smirking.
Sean walked over to Wolf, staring down at him. "What did you call me, Chunky?"
"You heard me, Sean." Wolf said, glaring defiantly at the gangster.
"Why I oughta... No, you aren't worth the effort." Sean said, turning around and walking away.
"Alright, these are the conditions for the race!" the mechanic said "You guys will race from here to Drumheller, and back again! Racers, you down with that?"
Raioh spoke up first "Yeah, I'm game."
Sean spoke up "Doesn't matter WHERE we go. I'll still TORCH this kid!"
"Alright... We start in ten minutes. Get ready, kids... Gonna be a wild day." the mechanic said, grinning and shaking his head.
((I really wish we were doing this in CG. I'd kill for a tuning montage here. :D))
Ten Minutes Later
The mechanic from earlier stood between the two cars. He spoke into his radio. "You ready, Sean?" He said. "Always, Jeremy." came the reply.
Jeremy the Mechanic rose his hand.
"Five!" Raioh and the other racer, Robert, revved their engines. "Four!" Robert triggered an exhaust pipe flamethrower, sending flames back a good 20 feet. "THREE!" Raioh did a quick Nitrox 2 Sprayshow (Nitrox 2 coming out in a mist near the wheels and windshield). "TWO!" Both racers revved their engines again. "ONE!" Raioh cranked his sound system to max, belting out the tune The Who - Teenage Wasteland.
"GO!" Yelled Jeremy, as he slammed his hand down to the ground.
The two racers took off, with Raioh slightly behind. The first part of this race was a straightaway. Raioh shifted the car up to second, and then third a moment later (Yeah, I know, I forget to mention it a lot. But these are manuals, dudes and dudettes.) The Burner dude finished the straighaway about 1 second before Raioh, drifting into the corner with the confidence of a pro racer. Raioh could not BELIEVE the power that that car had! The McLaren F1 was one of the fastest cars ever build, and with the laughing gas booster...
And idea struck Raioh, and he ripped through the first turn, choosing a grip turn rather than a drift. He hit the button to trigger the Laughing gas booster, and was quickly ahead of the burner. He took the second turn at a very high speed, drifting through it. Thankfully, it wasn't a sharp turn, and Raioh didn't go off course. Raioh cut the Laughing Gas at about half-tank. Raioh looked in his rearview mirror, and was shocked to see that Burner behind him! He shook his head, cursed, and took the next turn with a sloppy drift.
Raioh sighed as he took a quick survery of the scenery. Same as all of this area. Desert. The occasional Cactus, and not much else. The Burner was gaining on him, he noted. Raioh swerved in front of him, trying to block him. Too bad for Raioh, though. This was a professional racer- He just cut in on the other side. The Burner and Raioh ripped through the next corner with less than a tenth of a second between them!
Finally, through the heat haze, they could see the turn around point- Sean's car, parked right beside a Drumheller building. A supermarket, in fact.
The Burner did a 180 degree drift, and started off again. Raioh did the same.
As they started back, a girl in a very pimpin car drove by, and Raioh could have swore she winked at him! Raioh slowed down a bit, quickly scribbled his phone number onto a piece of paper in Permanent Marker, then held it up against the window as he speed up, trying to catch up to the Burner, and as he passed the girl. He flashed the peace sign to her as he went by.
Raioh burned 1/4 of the laughing gas to catch up to the Burner, and they took that third turn again. They cut onto a straightaway, and Raioh tried to gain advantage by moving ahead of the other racer. Of course, this failed.
Raioh fell back, and moved back behind the other racer, as he noticed something he hadn't before: He'd been drafting with the other racer! Duhhh!!!
Anyway, Raioh moved back up, burning a bit more Laughing Gas, as they took the second turn. Raioh finally then used his remaining laughing gas to move ahead of the other racer, and they then took the last turn. They could see the sheer cliff face, after the road ended. they knew that that was where the AcceleDrome was. Unfortunately for Raioh, the Burner burned up quite a bit of Laughing Gas himself just then, and pulled ahead, beating Raioh by half a second.
Raioh drove into the Acceledrome, skidded his car to a halt, and slammed his fists onto the steering wheel, followed by him saying a string of expletives.
The other racer walked away from the celebrations of his teammates, and walked over to Raioh as he was getting out of his car. He said "Hey, dude... you're the first one to make me sweat that hard, man. Congratulations."
"Heh..." Raioh said "Raioh Shinada" he said as he held out his hand.
The other racer shook it and said "Artemis Orion."
"Guess I'll see you later... Artemis." Raioh said, walking away.
A few minutes later, a large bang echoed through the Acceledrome.
(Ah, that was a fun chapter to write. Thanks for the feedback, dudes and dudettes. -Wolf Kazumaru)
