Ring of Fire

I'm the famed Blue Thunderbolt, and I'm one of about 50 drivers recruited by this organization called SCRIM to be jolted into the midst of alien racetracks with insane engineering!

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. It's probably in your best interest to discredit this blog as fiction, just another piece of entertainment. And if that means my unnecessary recaps of these races entertain you, then great! It means I've left an impact on you!

Truth be told, I'm not as worried about dying as I made it out to be-- but you never know in a risky, life-or-death racing scene like this. It's not hard planning what to do in case of disaster. In the end, it comes down to figuring out how to save yourself in the moment.

I'm not gonna disclose where this operation is situated, but the real deal stuff goes down in this underground facility that me and all the other racers end up hanging around. The first day was pretty crazy, as the Major in charge of the operation dropped bombshell after bombshell on us. I mean, Wheel of Power? Infinite source of clean energy? If I weren't already in a futuristic bunker, I would NOT have bought any of that. Not in the slightest.

Oh yeah-- that's what we're racing for. The Wheel of Power. It's like these 3 interlocked rings with alien symbols on them-- the doctor guy with purple-iris contact lenses calls the aliens Accelerons --that can interlock in a sort of biblical angel style way. The small hologram thing looks about the size of someone's torso, a glossy black with the symbols glowing light orange. But there's two HUGE holograms of the thing as well, so it's like you're always gonna be staring at it. The first one is in the center of the hub, surrounded by eight garages that haven't been unlocked yet. Then, the second one is past this drag strip normally locked behind a huge set of doors, and we use it to enter the portal that it generates when the rings align. Once the race is over, we zip out of the portal in the hub.

These races are called Racing Realms, and they're set in alternate dimensions from our own that stay open for around an hour. I've already been through one-- which the floaty robot thing they have on-site called the Volcano Realm. Pretty apt name, too! The whole thing was a volcanic mountain range with maroon rocks, set under a yellow sky with an alien moon and a sky populated by a ton of meteors. Fortunately, most of us didn't have to partake in a rally race. The Accelerons, who built the Racing Realms, have this gravity-defying purple track made out of some unknown material that we race on. Loops, jumps, and all kinds of stunts. And these races are way past fast! We're going 200MPH on average, with each car having 4 bursts of a special booster fuel called Nitrox 2 that jets the car up to 300MPH for a short duration.

For my first time in the Racing Realms, I actually did pretty well, finishing 4th place out of around 25 drivers, including the Major's own son. The start of the race was relatively uneventful, or, as uneventful as a Racing Realm could ever get, as an early 2nd and 3rd place position with my cousin Tetsuya and I had us right behind the Major's son, defending our position from a racer named Noah Moore. Remember that name-- motorsports fans might recognize him as the winner of this year's 6 Hours of the Glen; and the one who nearly crashed me in that race. It could've cost my entire career in GT. That aside, our first clash occurred early on into the race, where we were constantly trading positions between 2nd and 3rd place. That status quo stayed about the same until we raced through a cavern through the mountains, where we were caught up to by 2019 F1 World Champ, Brick Breaker-- yeah, I know. It sounds ridiculous. All these high-class racers in one place. If you don't believe me, at least enjoy the show, y'know? Shooting out of the cave, we were immediately thrown into a huge jump, and in the panic, I fired off my SCRIM-supplied jump jets, four blue flaming boosters from the underside of the car, launching me a bit further into the air for a short amount of time. The way I used them caused me to lose some momentum, but it's a good thing I did, because with how fast Brick flew off the jump behind me, his station wagon would have crushed Impavido otherwise. Definitely would not have wanted that.

One of the drivers called this next part "the belly of the beast". An upwards spiral facing through a whole volcano billowing plumes of smoke-- high, action, high-pressure, and high-temperature. Between the volcanic ash right outside my windows and the teal sports car right beside my own, I don't think I've ever felt such a high amount of adrenaline in a race. And then-- coming out of the smoke, a black and pink Chevy El Camino's ahead of us both and right by Brick, two rocket thrusters on its back! The thrusters didn't have anything to do with it-- one Nico behind the wheel had used his own Jump Jets to cut ahead in the spiral by skipping a ring! This really showed me a lot about the Realms-- it was way more than just your average race. It was a whole new level. Now, I was using my own Jump Jets to cut corners and blitz through the track-- but so was Noah. Of course he had jump jets too. I'd had it at that point-- and we physically clashed, our cars trading paint. But in the end-- a high-momentum sprint culminated in a sharp right turn that would have veered us onto an offroad tumble, and we were forced to brake hard and break away from each other!

After the turn, we were faced with a jump connected to a supermassive loop, and when even Vert sounded afraid of it, I knew I was really in for something. Apparently this obstacle was something that had stonewalled SCRIM's solo efforts to explore the Racing Realms, and was the one thing that required them to recruit so many drivers. Fortunately, the kid's skateboarding experience allowed him to find a creative solution to the equally creative problem-- go up and down the huge loop to build up enough momentum for it, just like a half-pipe! Outside of Vert, I was one of the first few to copy the maneuver, landing me in first place shortly after clearing the jump!

Or at least, so I assumed, because the next thing I knew, I saw four racers next to this weird, huge, purple-and-orange climbing contraption-- ahead of us! I found out after the race that they'd taken the offroad alternate route, and it ended up being faster due to how long we were stalled at the loop.

Thomas Schmitt - Southern-looking, offroad-riding NASCAR-racing dude with a souped up crimson Chevy Volt. You'll see more of him later.

Willem V. - In all honesty, I don't know how to spell his last name, so I'll leave it abbreviated-- the scientist I mentioned earlier, he drives a sleek, silver and purple vehicle that somehow has more windshield than Impavido. I believe it's called Split Decision, could be wrong. He was the one in the contraption.

Nico Diaz di Vivar - The racer in the El Camino I mentioned earlier, Mexican immigrant with a surprising amount of skill. Drives to help his father, who is in ailing health.

Quentin Wyre - I actually raced this guy in the streets of New York a couple years ago! Blue hair, pronouns, always looks sleep deprived, and desperate advertise his tech start-up. He didn't really do anything of note in the rest of the race, but I figured I'd namedrop him since I did everyone else.

The last stretch of the race sped and jutted around mountain peaks, and if not for the group of four in front, I could've had the win-- instead, the entire race's dynamic shifted entirely, and I found myself trading paint with Thomas' Super Volt vehicle. While Brick, Nico, and Willem made up the top 3, we were stuck duking it out between each other. At the end of the track, a glistening blue portal with a brick red symbol contained within a silver arch stood, and we darted towards the two switchbacks that led to the ramp into it. Willem was in the lead, and I was almost sure he was gonna win-- until Nico cut past the last turn all of a sudden and nailed the victory, with both lead drivers vanishing in a flash of light as the symbol disappeared! Brick handily claimed third, while Thomas and I raced side-by-side to the end, in which I pulled ahead of him by what had to only be a couple miles per hour as we topped out and hit the portal.

After we landed, the portal turned the same brick red as the symbol, and the SCRIM guys in the control room remarked about the timer having frozen. It was all super puzzling, until the floating robot said over the intercom for Nico to reach his arm out towards the portal. Then, a whole light show happened as beams of light flew into his open palm and the portal turned back to normal, generating this weird computer chip in his hand. I was hardly able to get a look at it before Ms. FloatyBot hovered over and snatched it, and I'm no good at art, but it was something like this:

It was this rectangular chip-thing a bit larger than the palm of someone's hand, with a golden almost-crest structure on the top. Definitely made of metal, it glowed the same brick red as the symbol on it, and the inner portion was a dark red with glowing circuit designs punctuated by that symbol in the center. None of us really know what it is yet. A couple of us have joked about it being some fancy Acceleronian GameBoy cartridge, so Mike and I have been debating snatching Kyle's GBA to put the chip thing inside once we get it back. Yeah, uh, now that I've said that, I really hope Kyle doesn't stumble across this blog.

It's the day after that happened that I'm typing this, and it's honestly crazy everything that's unfolded so far. This morning we went to the local diner to get to know each other better, and afterwards, my girlfriend's sister, Shuvi-- also a participant in the race --called me over about concerns related to her performance in the Realms. Long story short, we went up to the heads of the operation, and they're talking about allowing people to form teams in the near future. It really makes me think about times long past...

As it stands, I have no idea what's in store for me while working with SCRIM. Here's just hoping that I survive it all!