Prologue: Introduction Night
A/N: Hey guys, AuroraAura11 here! This is my new fanfic "Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed", and yes it is based off the game. I've had this idea swirling around in my head for the past month and just decided that I'll do it. During school and at home, I would be writing on a pad of paper and everyone would be constantly asking "What are you doing?" and I'd be like "I'm not telling :D".
There will be some changes to it, for example NiGHTS and Reala won't be the vehicles, there'll only be 20 characters instead of 29 due to confusing plotlines, and only 16 of the 21 tracks will be shown. It's also structured as more of a World Tour with only three tracks displayed in each area. Now that I think about it, it's like a mix between the World Tour and Grand Prix; points are based on positions in a race and nearing the end, I will tally it up to reveal the winner. There will be more understanding of the basic workings of the tournament later on.
All I have to say is for now, enjoy the Prologue!
xxASRTxx
"Ha-ha! Tails, this is going to be flipping AWEsome!"
"Yeah, I agree! I wonder what they'll have in store for us this year!"
"Hopefully I won't be stuck in the same apartment as you again…"
"What did you say about my Sonic?!"
"Ugh…" Sonic quivered at the possessive tone in Amy Rose's voice, hoping to dear Chaos that she didn't start another silly fight over how rude Knuckles was. He was lucky that Tails asked her to sit in the co-pilot's seat before she decided to nuzzle up against his royal blue fur the entire 4-hour flight to the 2013 All-Stars Racing opening night.
In 2009, himself, Knuckles, Tails, Amy, Shadow and Big were all sent verifications from All-Stars Racing revealing that they were nominated to race in the tournament the following year. They all, at first, thought it was one of Eggman's traps, but were amazed to find out that their intentions were pure and totally unrelated to Eggman (who had also received a letter). They signed some contracts (that both Tails and Eggman examined with a fine comb) and were admitted to the tournament in 2010, which Sonic happened to win.
Due to some BIG changes, they didn't receive another letter until two years later (2012), in which they immediately accepted. However, Big didn't receive a letter at all, meaning he wasn't admitted to any future tournaments, and in Sonic's opinion, it was because they could barely construct a car big enough to hold his fat ass, let alone drive without suffering under his beer belly. He guessed that Shadow wasn't accepted either; last time, Shadow hitched a ride with them and Sonic didn't know any other way he would get to the opening night without his precious chaos emerald. What was with mobians and emeralds anyway?
"I'm telling ya, if Rouge dares to touch the Master Emerald or even set foot on Angel Island, I swear to Chaos that I will KILL her a MILLION TIMES OVER!"
Sonic stands corrected…
"Knuckles, I'm sure Rouge has other things to do anyway. You're forgetting that she works for G.U.N.?" The young kitsune reasoned. "Besides, the Chaotix are looking after it."
Knuckles sat back in his seat, still unconvinced with the fact that Tails asked the Chaotix to look after the sacred emerald.
"They're untrustworthy, Tails. Sure, they're good friends, but we all know what they're like."
"Forgetful, idiotic…" Sonic began.
"…careless, negligent, and materialistic", Amy finished teasingly.
"Very true, Amy", Sonic sniggered, "You never know, they do get short on money and might just need to sell it on eBay."
The uncomfortable, red echidna lunged forward in his seat.
"WHAT?! THEY BETTER NOT!"
"Sonic, Amy, can you not do this now? I'm trying to concentrate", Tails pleaded to the hedgehogs.
"We were just kidding Knux. If in doubt, trust Espio. He's the one you're putting faith in, not those other two blockheads", Amy coaxed, a lingering sarcasm heard as she finished speaking.
"Amy, I need your help", Tails said, "Do you think you could keep a lookout for any blue blinkers?"
"Blinkers?" The male hedgehog questioned.
"Since we got lost last time, they've decided to put up guides that'll lead us to the touchdown zone", Tails explained.
"I see it! Over to your left." The males followed the red-clad hedgehog's gaze to witness a massive, red blimp with a holographic blue arrow pointing them in the right direction.
"Wow, could they be more obvious if they tried?" Knuckles mumbled to himself.
"Well, at least we know where to go this time, Mr I-know-which-direction-we're-going-in-so-don't-cal l-me-stupid!" Amy growled. Cobalt's chest began shaking as he tried to hold in what felt like a mixture of hiccupping and being tickled by the non-existent butterflies in his tummy. Knuckles' face graduated into a deep vermilion.
"Sh-shut up! And stop laughing!"
Hearing the backseat hedgehog fall into a pit of laughter and more anger coming from the spiky monotreme, Tails sighed so deep he felt the atmosphere around him being sucked into his lungs.
'Here we go again…'
xxASRTxx
Ulala stared at the girl talking with the new host of the All-Stars Racing tournament. Beginning with the thick, black-soled, white go-go boots, her peach legs were constricted with tan fishnet stockings and held together with a flared, blue mini-skirt. Matching her skirt was a mid-drift top with a circular design on the breast cups. Tattooed onto the left side of her chest was the number 42 in bold pink. Her arms were covered with white elbow-length gloves similar to her own and she adorned a blue, leather neckband. Her jade Jamaican-styled hair was pulled up into a blue beehive hair bun and the strands reached her middle back, where it met a cyan jetpack. Blue headphones complimented her eyes and the rest of her outfit while lips were a full fuchsia.
This girl was none other than her rival reporter Pudding from Space Channel 42. Because of some devil's wish, she was asked to enter the All-Stars Racing tournament too. And to think she could get away from her narcissistic views.
The sound of an incoming hum whipped her out of her reverie and she turned towards the runway to witness a customised, silver fighter jet land professionally onto the asphalt strip of land. Just as it stopped, a blue streak sped out of the jet and down to the end of the runway where it ceased movement to reveal a blue, spiky creature wearing red/white striped shoes. The small mammal stretched out its arms to reveal white gloves over its cream hands. Pivoting 180°, it ran over to skid in front of Ulala. He looked up at her with his jungle-splashed eyes.
"Ooh-la-la!" Ulala started giggling.
"Girrrrrl, how've you been doin'? You look fahne (fine)!" Sonic clowned, earning a fair degree of merriment from the pink-haired girl.
"You are a total clown, have I told you that?" Ulala joked, waving to the other mammals as they exited Tails' X-Tornado.
"Mmm, vaguely remember…" He flashed his happy/excited smile and leaned next to her against the wall, waiting on their friends.
"So, how was the flight?" Sonic grimaced at the question.
"Horrible! I had to put up with those two for 4 hours", he exclaimed, pointing at the pink hedgehog and red echidna that were currently fighting over the luggage. Glancing up at her, he saw a smile pencil its way onto her slimmed face.
"Don't you start laughing now-"
"Aren't you forgetting who you're sitting next to on your way to Sunshine Coast?" The poor hedgehog slowly stared up at her, shock settling in his expression, "And how long is that flight going to take?"
A few seconds silence…
"FUUUU-
xxASRTxx
The 17 racers walked to the entrance. They crossed a bridge with a glowing stream passing underneath. They all spilled into the circular courtyard where the opening night was going to take place. The lush grass was lightened by exterior spotlights and a grand stage was erected under a cover in the case of rain, which there was none. They waited impatiently for 5 minutes until a smaller spotlight came up on a human. She was tall with dark chocolate hair, wearing a green jumpsuit rimmed with white and covered in trademark images. In her right hand she held a cordless microphone and tucked under her left arm was a matching green and white helmet.
"Good evening racers! I am proud to welcome you to the All-Stars Racing Championship 2013!"
A loud cheer scattered with whoops and hollers was her reply.
"My name… is Danica Patrick and I will be your host for this revolution. For all of you that have recently joined us this year, I give you a warm welcome from All-Stars. For all of you that returned from last year and other previous years, I welcome you back. And you're all in for a special treat.
"Here at All-Stars, we pride ourselves in our efforts and every year, we accomplish at making the next year differ from the last. This change was so GREAT that it took us an EXTRA year to finalise everything to acute precision."
Danica could just feel the anticipation radiating from the racers.
"Now, I could stand up here and give you more formalities, or… I could just SHOW you. So, what do you think guys? Should I just show you what I mean?"
"Yes!"
"Oh, come on guys! That wasn't good enough! I said "do you want me to show you?"!"
"HELL YES!"
"Now that's what I like to hear!"
Suddenly, the girl in the green jumpsuit tossed the microphone to a stage set-up crew member and ran backstage. A red cloth was whipped off the object behind her to reveal a mega screen. It began a slideshow of mechanics working accompanied by a beat. It went for about a minute before it switched to a live camera view of a starting line.
The lights on the starting line went up and three pimped-out cars came into view. The one on the left was a purple Chevrolet that slowly graduated into a pinkish colour. Down the sides of it were blue fern patterns and green/yellow sparkles. The racer was none other than the famed NiGHTS. In the centre sat a lime green formula 1 car with Danica behind the wheel. If you looked closely at her vehicle, you would realise that it wasn't green, but white covered in green flames. Like her jumpsuit, the car was plastered with logos and names. The last on the right was a cold steel tank-like vehicle. Rimmed with red and black bumpers, the most recognisable thing was the G.U.N. logo expertly painted onto the front hood of the vehicle. The vehicle had tinted windows, so it was hard to tell who the driver was.
Astonished chatter was heard from the audience of 17 and as the beat dropped, the cars flew down the track in a blur of green/white, purple/pink and red/grey. Jaws dropped at the handling of the vehicles and pupils dilated at the pure speed they possessed. It almost sounded like they were heading towards them.
Registered shock came to the racers when they realised the vehicles drove on a track they were in the centre of. In the darkness of the night, they could vaguely see a lit-up race track with moving objects on them. Excitement pulsated from the adrenaline junkies at the thought of seeing these changes first-hand.
The screen switched to a split-screen view of the interior drivers and the track in the bottom right corner. In the top left was Danica's cheeky face, in the bottom left was a gleeful, chuckling NiGHTS and in the top right was…
"Hey, it's Shadow!" screamed Sonic, "And he's smiling! Is this a dream?!"
And sure enough, in the top right corner was a smirking Shadow. Those who knew of Shadow were astounded to see the usually-introverted and serious hedgehog showing a positive emotion so openly.
The drivers looked at the cameras and started pointing upward. Sonic was confused until he heard a drone coming from behind him and looking up, the miraculous sight of planes caused his heart to back-track like the rewind of a cassette tape. They zoomed through the night skies above with mastery and began manoeuvring around each other like how a strand of DNA would. They performed corkscrews, evasive manoeuvres, loop-de-loops and then plummeted to the ground below. Tails was in shock at the event that followed.
Passing through a holographic blue ring, the cars changed planes… transformed! The wings of the planes mechanically reverted back into the body, wheels folded inwards and rockets were replaced with motor propellers. The planes transformed into boats!
They raced donuts around the river that surrounded them before transforming back into cars as they reached land. Drifting to a stop, the strange vehicles kicked up the dust in perfect synchronisation with each other and the 17 racers watching on cheered passionately in complete awe. Danica, Shadow and NiGHTS stepped out of their vehicles and the same stage set-up crew member came over, handing the microphone back to Danica. She took off her helmet and swapped with the young boy, holding the microphone up to her lips.
"Ladies and gentlemen, and Sonic, I present to you… All-Stars Racing TRANSFORMED!"