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The next Racing Realm, I took my fiancée's advice and made sure my entire team was ready to go, to tackle whatever in CLYP lied ahead. This time I was more than prepared, with the new Hyper Beams installed fully in our fleet, and the entire squadron sent into the Realm. We were all together.
With the entire squadron ready to go, we were thrust into the Cavern Realm head-first, entering a dark underground tunnel illuminated only by the scarce presence of glowing crystals-- usually purple, but sometimes this bright blue shade, or rarely a translucent white. It started out simple enough through that tunnel, our Hyper Beams illuminating the way forwards as we raced along-- until our vehicles leaped out of that tunnel and into the wider cavern, the shadowy outline of towering cavern walls and a landscape populated by dark soil and oversized fungi.
Landing onto the purple track, we immediately had to weave through the occasional slate grey stalagmite that pierces through the track like spikes, turning this into a race all about the driving line. Although, at first, we were a little disjointed. Mike and Wyre were a bit distracted by the crystals (I don't blame them, it'd be super cool to bring one back), Shuvi was feeling really out of it, and Veronica just kinda wanted to run off and do her own thing to try and get to the lead. We managed to get everyone but Wyre (who was caught in the back) together, before Veronica just kinda sped off with Shuvi in tow, and y'know what? While it completely came out-of-line, it worked out in the end as we approached a split path, the route that those two (and eventually Wyre) took being a glimmering tunnel filled with crystals. Knowing that we could handle it due to our upgraded headlights, Mike and I took the right fork, which descended deeper through the maw of the pitch-black cavern.
Unfortunately, as we took the split, we realized two things. Firstly-- not many others had opted to follow us, just Takane and Suki. Secondly, there were four CLYP racers ahead: two Zeta units, Zemlya, and Zotic. We had to deal with everything they threw at us back to back-- mines coating a sharp turn, spikes scattered across the road, and the simple maneuver of brake checking. Working alongside Takane, Mike and I were able to sync up to slam the two Zeta units against each other, knocking one of them out. The only real threats were Zotic and the Drone lieutenant now, and with memories of what happened to Tetsuya still fresh in my mind, I saw red watching that SUV speed down the track.
Getting in close, we gave the remaining Drones the audiovisual bombardment of a lifetime-- Mike's Mega-Bass, combined with my Hyper Beams reflecting light off of Seared Tuner! The tactic was working well, a bit too well, as Zotic had to deploy this special-looking plow to compensate, and quite a few stalactites were being brought down from the ceiling due to the vibrations from the Mega-Bass! Using the Jungle Realm Accelecharger, Impavido glowed an emerald green in order to race around the falling stalactites. Unfortunately, in our showdown against Zemlya, Zotic had pulled back-- and allowed enough of a distraction that, despite the black exotic being spun out, a Zeta unit had grappled into Takane's Super Tuned and pulled her off the track! Despite Terra informing us of her safety, Mike and I were now determined to take that metalhead ahead of us down.
Having passed the lead Drone by now, that apparently pissed it off and prompted it to use its Slam Ram feature-- but having seen this twice before, Mike and I were narrowly able to swerve out of the way, the ram narrowly scraping by us as we rocketed through a duo of tight turns in alternating directions. The Drone was able to force the huge Slam Ram vehicle through one corner... but not the other, flying off the track and onto the cavern floor below! We'd done it, as we raced down to the cavern floor below us, with Takane bursting through the wall ahead of us with a Hyperpod. Now racing on the slate grey stone, we found that the track behind us merged, with everyone else showing up behind us.
Turns out that CLYP had brought in a new adversary-- and a pretty dangerous one at that, considering she had previously shut down all of Wyre's electronic systems until he brought out a USB Stick from his cybersecurity start-up. How do I know she's female? Well, dear reader, immediately after writing a reply to one of the comments on "Aligned", I was approached by a CLYP recruiter, full racing suit and everything! Her voice was masked, but still definitely feminine-- couple that with the data leak that showed us their car names missing this new car and the fact that the recruiter (who, by the way, I completely DENIED her requests to join) mentioned being recently contracted... yeah, was pretty easy to put two and two together.
Point is, this new CLYP foe was bad news-- she'd already apparently wrecked Veronica's car, taking Shuvi out of the running. I could have charged forwards and let everyone else take on the new vehicle-- but that's not what a good leader would do. The moment I was locked onto, I pulled back and engulfed the new vehicle in Impavido's Scrambler headlights, severing its little cyber warfare game! She tried to deter me with a brake check-- but I kept pushing onwards, nailing a grappling hook in the vehicle's rear to keep the Scramblers trained on the car, further severing it from CLYP's connections! While Mike rocketed ahead, Wyre and I worked alongside Brick to try and take this hacker down for good!
Of course, it's never that simple, because all of a sudden, these grotesque and car-sized bat-like things swooped down from the ceiling, evidently irritated by our presence! Now, normally this would sound like an irredeemable thing-- but the fact of the matter was that since bats use echolocation, a quick little re-run of the Mega-Bass was enough to ward them off thanks to Mike and Ashton! To make matters better, echolocation meant they could see through cloaks-- so when Wyre and I spotted two of the abominations picking up an invisible car, we knew we had spotted the new Zed-39. In sync, we took her out, clearing a path for victory! The final section of the race was a tunnel that gradually got narrower, with Mike, Zed-38, Takane, and the Spitfire team in the running. It was a tense race, but in the end, Spitfire was able to take out Zed-38, and Mike was able to speed ahead and claim the Hyper Beams' first Accelecharger!
After a moment of celebration, I really had to get to work on fixing up Impavido, so that's what I spent most of the night doing. Well, not all of it. I had noticed Shuvi's out-of-character performance in the last race, and remembering that Sylvia had suggested I talked to her after the Sky Realm (which I had then, but it was more like a casual conversation), I decided to check up on Shuvi. ...Bad idea, apparently, turns out she was REALLY mad at Mike and I. That night was spent juggling realizations with apologies, and so was the next morning, until we eventually reconciled. From there, it was as simple as hanging out with the Hyper Beams at the local pizza joint to actually properly get to know my team better.
Impavido's just been repaired by the time I'm making this post, and the Hyper Beams have been rejuvenated and reforged at this point. We're coming off a victory and ready to chain into another one, prepared for whatever the next Racing Realm is throwing at us. If we won in spite of cavernous chaos, we can tackle anything-- regardless of what CLYP tries to do to stop us.
-The Blue Thunderbolt
Comments
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Clancy “Nitro” Bryne
Well shit, it seems the blonde with the truck is a sorta better driver than I thought. Still couldn’t win against ME though!
Also, damm those bats sound like spawns of hell!
Oh man, now those are osme bold claims I'd like to see in action one day. Heh.
-The Blue Thunderbolt
by BlueThunderbolt; ; Report
Osme? Fuck you talking about?
by Clancy “Nitro” Bryne; ; Report
imagine calling yourself a street racer and not understanding the term "osme"
-The Blue Thunderbolt
by BlueThunderbolt; ; Report
Stop trying to cover your damm ass for your minor spelling mistake!
by Clancy “Nitro” Bryne; ; Report
damn*
-The Blue Thunderbolt
by BlueThunderbolt; ; Report