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The note you're seeing here was handwritten and given to me just over 5 years ago by an old friend and mentor of mine, Elton Lin. Back then, I was an aspiring street racer, and wanted to get a team together with myself, Elton, and an old friend names Alexander Hysannes. He sketched up a logo for a team called the Hyper Beams, and a week from then, we were supposed to meet up and band together to form the squadron!
...Things didn't quite work out that way. In fact, they went the opposite trajectory. A tragic event shattered the dream, and I left both street racing and the Hyper Beams behind. I was out of friends, out of a car, and out of luck until I found the nearby AutoZone. The mechanic who worked for months to fix my Toyota Supra, Sylvia, reignited my passion for racing through her own stories of bygone racing dreams. She resparked the Blue Thunderbolt.
She's my fiancée now, and without her, I would have never been blitzing along in the driver's seat like I do now. Because of her, I was able to construct my dream car, Impavido 1, and pursue a career in professional racing. Even though her dreams of racing in Formula 1 were long-since shut down, I made the vow to bring her up the professional ladder. From just a mechanic on my GT team to racing alongside me in GT4, we aspired and succeeded in our goals.
In 2019, the completion of Impavido 1 led to a return of the Blue Thunderbolt in the street racing scene, but the Hyper Beams were never lucky enough to see the same rejuvenation. At least... not until now. I'm proud to announce the triumphant debut of the squadron as an official SCRIM racing squadron!
We may not be running the dark blue and red that Elton originally envisioned, but we're looking sleek as ever. Immediately after making up my mind to bring the Hyper Beams to life, I sped right over to where Mike was, that being outside one of the dorms, to tell him all about the team. After all, what could go wrong with having your best friend as your first recruit, right? Well, it turns out, a lot of things could. I'd fund Mike already deliberating between two other teams-- one where Warren wanted to buy him, Kyle, and Blake out for 200K bucks each, which honestly was less of a team offer and more of an employment offer. What does that guy think he is, a bounty hunter?! I don't care if he won the last race, he gets on my nerves. The other squadron was one Kyle had apparently already joined, which normally wouldn't be an issue. Heck, the news meant that Kyle survived the Glacier Realm, which came as a major relief to me considering he never dropped a comment on 'Cold Steel'. I could've been willing to join it myself. Just one big problem--
That team was Jupiter. A newfound crew formed by none other than Noah Moore. Naturally, this was a major no-go. Moore had already nearly shot down my hopes at getting myself and Sylvia onto Wright Motorsports and up to GT3 for the 2023 season, and I'm pretty sure I felt my soul crack at the mere thought of him taking Mike away as well. For a moment, I saw myself alone, just in the void with Mike slipping far away from me, my vision tunneling, until my desperate mind called out a gambit without my conscious self even noticing-- a race.
It was a simple matter-- a race from the surface of our garage to the edge of the town and back. A small crowd had already gathered to watch the race, notably Shuvi, Thomas, and Brick psyching me up for the showdown. Tension between Mike and I was pretty heated at the time, not only because it was past midnight, but because we both aimed to prove ourselves, each having the false belief that we weren't enough in the other's eyes. In a flash, we took off, evenly matched throughout the desert. It wasn't until our way into the town's streets that Impavido started to gain a lead, gradually pulling ahead of Seared Tuner-- until the 180 degree turn at the edge of the city. There, Mike passed me on the corner, and the status quo was reversed. On the way out of the town, Mike was in the lead, and although I was keeping up, I couldn't find a window to pass him. At least, not until we made it out of town-- with nothing but clear desert ahead, I pressed down on the Nitrox, rocketing past him at 300 MPH, only for him to follow suit. Our vehicles would speed past the line and skid to a halt, only for Shuvi to announce-- the race had ended in a tie! Both our cars had been evenly matched throughout, and crossed the line at the exact same time.
With Mike and I holding a newfound respect for each other's skill, he let me know that he'd consider his options and we went our separate ways. That didn't stop me from forming the Hyper Beams, though-- I just turned to Shuvi and passed the offer to her. She's gonna be my sister-in-law in a couple years, so it's not like we're not close or anything. After a quick visit to Dan Dresden, it was official-- the Hyper Beams were here! However, we hardly had time to even get our paint jobs done before the next Racing Realm opened.
The Sky Realm was exactly what you'd expect from an environment with such a name-- an atmospheric raceway surrounded by floating buildings with no entryway and airstrips with purple-and-orange futuristic jets flying by and patrolling around. A gorgeous sunset lit the track up with an orange tint. There was also a tunnel of what looked to be solid air surrounding the silver track that we were racing up, which truthfully is probably why none of us died of asphyxiation mid-race. Although starting in the middle of the grid, I was in an incredibly convenient spot to start; right between Tets and Shuvi. Having us three together at the start of the race made it seem like we were a shoe-in for victory as we raced through loops and jumps, whilst avoiding obstructing ramps that would send us flying into the air tunnel and kill our momentum. Unfortunately, it didn't quite pan out that way.
I'll be real, Shuvi and I did not work well together in our first race. Her pure street racing was shining through, and not in a good way-- she was always wanting to blindly rush up the pole without much semblance of strategy, coming up with on-the-fly decisions, and refusing to acknowledge my team leadership in favor of whatever ideas she came up with first. Despite getting the miracle trio of myself, Shuvi, and Tetsuya at the start of the race, Shuvi's insistence to climb to the top immediately had us leave him behind, where unfortunately, we were about to discover that we weren't alone in our mission.
Not only were the mystery racers back in action, but they were packing new vehicles as well- ones that apparently weren't driven by human agents, but mechanical robots designed for the task. As it stands, we have NO idea where they came from. Reaching a split path, I was about to gun for left-- until Shuvi slingshot to the lead of the draft, almost spontaneously annoyed as she took the right fork instead, traveling over a long stretch of airstrip. Although frustrated with her out-of-line decision, I followed nonetheless in order to ensure that she didn't get herself hurt-- after all, the head honcho of those new robotic racers had taken the right pathway.
Shuvi almost immediately enacted a strategy to get me right up into the action with the robot racers' conflict against Brick, Mike, and Ashton, but I hesitated-- and it's sure as hell a good thing I did, because as we approached, the head honcho, big daddy, the SUV, whatever you wanna call it, SLAMMED into Ashton's Lolux regardless of the Flying Mace mod it had equipped, hardly being dented as the red truck spun out and became UNWELDED at the front and back! Had I jumped right into the lead like Shuvi wanted me to, I'd have gone head-first into one of the halves of Lolux-- and then, I'd be a goner.
The oncoming crash was a disaster, with Brick's Jackhammer having to plow through the spinning rear half of Lolux, the station wagon surprisingly just smashing it apart with its only penalty being a lack of speed-- but the engine bay kept flying, it and the V8 slamming into Seared Tuner and shattering its windshield! I double-checked whether Mike was alright the moment I saw the wreck, continuing to race on once I got the thumbs-up from him, knowing he could power through it as he went back to get Ashton safely out. Racing onwards, I was caught in a battle with Noah-- only to receive a radio transmission from Shuvi saying that she was gonna go head to head with the leader! Knowing what happened to Ashton's huge truck while Shuvi was in a sleek but tiny convertible, I immediately ordered her to pull back and reconvene to a safer point.
...She didn't listen.
Her cloaked Trak-Tune kept speeding up towards the mystery racers while my order went completely ignored. I should've been more insistent, more assertive-- actually hammered into her head that what she was doing was BEYOND UNSAFE, but my opportunity to insist was cut off by another one from Shuvi, asking if she was seeing a Hyperpod up ahead. In the middle of the airstrip, blocking the track as the robot drivers went around it, was a black-and-green version of the "Strato-Thruster" jets that had been flying over the skies and parked to our sides on the airstrip, a stark contrast from their normal purple-and-orange palette. Curiosity got the better of me, though, and to save time, I used my Jump Jets to rocket over the machine-- yeah, no. Closed cockpit, no way in... definitely not a Hyperpod. After the move, I was not in a good position-- Noah behind me, the drone fleet ahead of me. And things were about to get way worse.
The Strato-Thruster had taken off as we exited the airbase onto normal track-- and it was not happy that there were trespassers. Now we were head-to-head with a futuristic jet, firing its arsenal down at us whilst we were STILL stuck behind the Drones. Looking around me, for the sake of my survival, I sucked up my dignity-- and offered a truce to Noah. One which he, equally reluctantly, accepted.
The disorientation allowed some of us to actually get past the fleet of robotic racers and into the lead! At first, it seemed like a miracle-- then, it seemed like a nightmare. With whirrs, buzzes, and shifts, the lead SUV, within a matter of seconds, had significantly bulked up its vehicle into what looked to be a LIVING BATTERING RAM, or at least something like that! Whatever it was, we all knew one thing for sure-- it was NOT what we wanted to see on the track at that moment!
The monstrous vehicle would fire its front bumper like a wide, flying missile down the track not long after transforming, sending us all weaving, and leaving Jackhammer in a spin-- as the attack was immediately followed up by three red plasma energy balls fired from the smaller dragster-like units at myself, Shuvi, and Noah! We avoided them as swiftly as we could, only for the SUV to morph back into its basic form and use a burst of Nitrox-- rocketing back into the lead ahead of our disorientated racers.
With the sun setting to a phase of dusk, we reached the limits of the atmosphere, the tunnel around the track dissipating as we raced into a terrarium-- the Strato-Thruster from earlier violently crashing into the entrance, getting it off of our trails. We found ourselves on the edge of space with slightly lowered gravity when coming out the other end, with the drivers on the other route merging behind us. I guess Shuvi's hunch was right about the right path being faster, but still-- I'm not a fan of direct insubordination like that. Where buildings and airstrips now stood, they found themselves replaced with meteors and satellites.
The duo of Hyper Beams members were barely ahead of the robotic vehicles at this point, with Shuvi and I pushing our vehicle to the limits in order to stay ahead-- weaving in and out of obstructing ramps, with studded metal covering half the track and keeping us confined to the other half, unless we wanted to lose a metric ton of speed. Despite it all, Shuvi had tried to go for a gamble with taking out the SUV-- one which was quickly shaken off and followed by another burst of green Nitrox as we reached a steep, nearly 90-degree shot upwards, our momentum stopped by a patch of studded metal.
After the loop, we found ourselves at the final stretch, options running thin as both the SUV, Impavido, and Trak-Tune boosted forwards with Nitrox, the glow of the portal's arch in sight. With options running thin, Shuvi was all of a sudden thinking of and enacting an impromptu plan. With the portal, an obstruction ramp in the center right before it and the sides clear, right ahead, she just sorta told us to grapple onto the two remaining dragster units whilst April slingshot by me. Apparently, she was gunning for the SUV herself, as she fired her grapple-- and fortunately missed, causing the SUV to veer to the left onto the obstruction ramp, flying OVER the portal, victory just out of reach of it as April shot into the portal! Shuvi claimed second, while I pushed Impavido to the limit in order to get a third-place finish ahead of Crescendo. It wasn't exactly how I expected things to go, but... everything worked out in the end.
It's admittedly a miracle that Shuvi's strategy worked. I don't want to diss her, because it was all in the heat of the moment and we did still win, but the more I think about it, I can't help but think that if one thing had gone differently, we'd be singing a very different tune. The odds that Noah just wouldn't have cooperated and would have gone for the win himself were too high. If Shuvi's grappling hook landed, I almost guarantee that big SUV would have either snapped it to win, or tugged Shuvi with it into the portal. God, I don't wanna think about that... In the end, I feel like we could have also actually WON if the plan was formulated better-- we got 2nd and 3rd, what kept us from first? I'm still proud of April for winning, just... it bothers me, that it could have been us instead.
I know I might sound like a broken record going on about Shuvi in this post, but I really need to get this out there somewhere. The moment I tried suggesting to her that her strategy needed more communication, she immediately jumped to the conclusion that I was slandering her, spouted some half-BS about how "this operation is still a group effort", and walked away without giving me a chance to respond. All I'm saying is, if it's a group effort, you should actually be working with the group instead of trying to call all the shots and declare yourself leader as if you were Starscream in a black-and-purple coat of paint. ...Actually, that'd just be Skywarp, she's definitely not Skywarp.
Oh, speaking of why she walked away-- apparently Emma was beating up Ryan, and I only got over there by the time that Tetsuya and Shuvi had restrained her. It was real crazy, and after another brief session of Shuvi not taking my advice, we went out to grab a bite at Zeek's together. Outside of being interrupted by Veronica, it was pretty chill there. We were actually mostly level with each other as we worked out the team mod for the Hyper Beams-- very creatively named, the Hyper Beams. Yeah, that's what the team mod is called. We named it after the team. I don't see Jupiter doing that, now do I?
Here's how they work-- by default, they're just headlights. Activating the yellow-tinted Hyper Beams mode, however, turns 'em into twin suns flooding the path ahead with light. Then, of course, there's the Scrambler, shorting out communications and more the longer a vehicle is caught in their beams. Unfortunately, these nifty features don't last forever, and require a cooldown after being used for long enough. Plus, Veronica brought up that the robot racers probably have some way to counter that sort of sabotage. I think all of us are just, really worried about the fact that the mystery racers have these hyper-advanced machines driving for them now. They're by all means, public enemy number 1.
Unfortunately, although I said it was pretty chill there, it wasn't entirely chill. I'd just like to clarify now that I am the leader and founder of the Hyper Beams, not Shuvi. She's a cool girl, just... she's gotta get her role in my team in check and stop stepping over those boundaries. Still, since she was there for the founding and is basically the second-in-command (emphasis on SECOND), we agreed to split the remaining recruitment choices-- one for each of us.
Today, I planned to make good on my choice of recruitment-- picking up tech extraordinaire Quentin Wyre as the third member of the team, in order to make our visions of the Hyper Beams car mod into a reality. Unfortunately, Mike's still pending, but I'm sure he'll make his choice in the next couple of days. With the initial trio together and the modified headlights becoming a reality, we set out to install the new technology into our cars...
...And now, we're ready for anything.
-The Blue Thunderbolt
Comments
Displaying 6 of 6 comments ( View all | Add Comment )
TheSearedTuner
Hey, you really ain't half bad at racing, our street race was one for the ages, good game!
Yeah, you two, Mike! Having experience on both the underground and professional sides of the racing scene can really come in handy. You should try going pro one day, you'd do great! I haven't had a race so evenly matched in years, man!
-The Blue Thunderbolt
by BlueThunderbolt; ; Report
Kiria
Your doing great! Shuvi might be going through some stuff. Maybe talk to her?
Huh... you know what, you might be onto something. Once I get the chance, I'll talk to her and see if anything's stressing her out lately, ok?
-The Blue Thunderbolt
by BlueThunderbolt; ; Report
Clancy “Nitro” Bryne
Damm, those are some nice rides. Your fanfictions may be getting into batshit territory, but at least you provided some pics of some SWEET rides!
Pretty impressive, don't ya think? Completely custom liveries, ones you wouldn't get anywhere else. And, of course? More on the way.
-The Blue Thunderbolt
by BlueThunderbolt; ; Report
2012AcuraTSX
You want to get into Wright? Really? That's hilarious.
Watch your tone, Moore. You always underestimate me. There's a reason why my team won the Wheel of Power, and not you.
-The Blue Thunderbolt
by BlueThunderbolt; ; Report
TN02
It was very crazy indeed, i'm glad i could work things out with Emma after than, and also that Ashton's alright now.
Yep.
by EmmaTheCat; ; Report
Makes two of us, Tets. Seeing you and your team under fire would sting way harder than I can imagine. Plus, I'm glad to see Ashton is alright. They seem like a pretty neat guy so far.
-The Blue Thunderbolt
by BlueThunderbolt; ; Report
EmmaTheCat
Those cars are fire not gonna lie Bluethunderbolt.
Yeah, no kidding! Hey, Shogun's lineup isn't half-bad either!
-The Blue Thunderbolt
by BlueThunderbolt; ; Report
Thank you!
by EmmaTheCat; ; Report