Chapter 2
The swamp realm was a constantly evolving track, gargantuan trees tangling tracks, carnivorous plants and various horrific monsters scurrying across the track. The way the track evolved that means that sometimes one could race all over the track and find no way out. Sometimes it was easy to get out. Regardless, the track was one of the most-if not the- most dangerous of all the racing realms, if only because there was no guarantee you or your car would make it out alive.
The realm portal opened and Tezla's cars popped out of them. Esmerelda looked all around the realm and didn't know if she was impressed by the beauty of this realm or be nervous. In some ways, it reminded her of the jungle realm she was in on the World Race. But she still wondered if this beauty was true or was it merely a deception?
One by one the drivers landed on the road and prepared to plan out their strategy when Doctor Tezla talked to them.
"This is Doctor Tezla, GiG and I recommend you split up and find your own line across the Swamp Realm".
"Well Toni" asked Krakatoa "Should we split up or run it together?"
Toni paused. "Well I'd say we'd follow Tezla's advice. Take our own road!"
With that the racers split up and followed the various curves across one of the large, oversized trees, following a different part of this quite bizarre realm.
~~ Near this area, the Drone racers had entered the realm, following in a hive like form, splitting up within groups of 4 vehicles per group, mixing 1 RD-06, RD-02 and RD-01, and RD-03 per team. The drone leader in it's home compound gave the command for all of the drones.
"There are humans in this realm. Kill them!"
The drones activated their face shields and prepared to go into the heart of this realm they were determined to finally conquer it once and for all.
Nearby the Silencerz vehicles had been moving close to the drones. Major Jack Wheeler lead the group.
"Okay team, This is Major Wheeler" said the decoded voice "We stay together at all costs!"
All of a sudden, one of these drivers left the team and left on its own.
"Gelorum! Where are you going?"
The lone female racer began to make considerable pace on her own.
"Gelorum!" Snapped Major Wheeler "Where are you going?! Get back to the team at this minute!". She simply shut off the radio. And she just drove off…
Mojave raced towards a water based part of the realm,where the level towards the water and the track seemed to be at the same level as each other. To him he missed the prairie plans of his home in rural America, and for some reason he felt that this realm seemed to define that issue he had about racing across the world since the end of the World Race. However he noticed something. He had been in the realm for about 5 minutes and discovered something.
"Doctor" he called to Tezla through the camera "this world seems….easy. Like too easy, as if something is about to come up and-"
A loud crash banged around in his car, and noticed her began being picked up by a large sort of insectoid creature. It looked like a mosquito of some kind, albeit more malformed and rather disgusting looking, with large zit like deformities around it's body. It tried penetrating Wild Thing with it's large appendage, trying to suck out the Nitrox in the vehicle.
"I don't think so!" snapped Mojave as he activated his sand tires trying to injure the insect. However, the more he grinded the tires, the less the insect seemed affected by it and flew off with him and Wild Thing.
"Mojave, what is happening?" demanded Tezla.
"I don't think this is-" His transmission cut out.
"Should we try to tell the other drivers to rescue him?" asked GiG
Tezla thought for a second. "No, the Accelecharger is more important than anything"
GiG was surprised that Tezla brought up the whole Accelecharger thing, a superpower that could enhance one's vehicle upon completing a realm. But why would Tezla not save one of his own drivers? GiG never thought much of it, after all he wasn't capable of feeling much emotion…"Very well Tezla"
Mojave was trying to get free of the mosquito and get back in touch with Tezla but nothing seemed to work.
"Work dammit work!" he snapped.
Next think he knew the insect let go of his vehicle and he and Wild Thing were plunging down to a pool of water.
"Gah!" he panicked, his car began sinking and tried to get out...but he couldn't.
"Only one shot left!" Mojave tried calling out to his fellow drivers. "Anyone hear me?, I am by a-" But anything he could say left was silenced by the water submerging his vehicle and himself…
Fluke had been caught up by several drones, nearing a section of track with large disgusting looking plants.
"The racing drones have arrived!" he called to Tezla and his fellow drivers.
Tezla looked at the screen. It seemed Fluke was having it rough going.
"Fluke, try to ram them off!" he commanded.
But before any of them could respond the large plants seemed to have opened a gap and began picking off the drone drivers, crunching on their exoframe and blowing themselves up, killing the plants. Fluke drove off the monster plants.
"Close.." he sighed "I wonder how well the others are doing?"
Gelorum had been going on her own, driving across the tangling vines seemingly forming as she drove across them. She didn't know how much time she had left in the realm. She knew what she would do, but knew that she would procure any sort of punishment if she had to return to her homebase. But she didn't intend to do that. She knew what her plan was, had been planning on it since the realms were able to finally be accessed and where the drones were located; Get the wheel of power for herself, like she intended to back when the World Race but couldn't due to her crew's insubordination. She now had the ability to take back what was hers and didn't need any of her commanders or crew to help her.
Perhaps she was no better than Zed-36 and Harrison, but to her, the two of them just thought it was a mere job for them, without really trusting her or Clyp. But now, she had the ability to get it. The Clyp group wanted the Wheel to study it, as it was alien and a relic of an ancient civilization. Tezla found out-not just him but CLYP as well-that the wheel was a major source of power that could cause things to fry up and knock out power wide over the North American continent. Naturally that wasn't the intent of either one of them, as the Clyp group thought it could be a new alternative fuel of sort to help the environment and benefit humanity. But the CLYP organization still thought they could harness at least a part of it without mass calamities if they could do it right. The group did want to penalize Tezla for going AWOL but they knew getting the wheel back from the drones was more important. However they had planned to figure out a way to do but how do so they still had to figure out how to get into the Drone base.
Gelorum however already did know how.
And that was her goal.
But what she wanted to do with the Wheel, no one knew other than herself.
Esmeralda had been driving in what felt like an endless ride, but it was a fun one. She didn't notice any drones, and wondered whether or not they would show up. Fortunately-or unfortunately depending on what kind of person wanted the drones to show up or not-they did arrive.
"Tezla, I got drones behind me," She said. "What should I do with them?"
Tezla paused, "Try to ram into them" he said.
Esmeralda wondered if this would work, if it did for fighting Clyp vehicles, would it work for something similar?
She screeched her vehicles, while the drone cars veered forward. Then with a sudden thrust, Power Pistons activated it's buzzsaw ripping the back of one of the drones vehicles. Charging forward, the ramming of the vehicles caused them to fall out of the track and explode.
"See ya!"
Krakatoa and Toni had teamed up together as drones came onto them. The drone racers swerved and tried to ram the two off the road.
"Toni," asked Krakatoa, "Should we teach them a lesson?"
She thought as she listened to her music. The lyrics seemed to influence her decision
"Six days of fire/One day of rest/ June 67'/ taught them respect!/Control Jerusalem!"
"Let's teach them respect!" she yelled.
That put a big smile on Krakatoa's face. Quickly, the two rammed their cars into the drone's vehicles. One of them spun off the road and landed in a pit where several large and hungry slug creatures awaited a nice meal of a drone.
The other drone car also fell right into the mouth of a large venus flytrap like creature, causing an explosion killing the plant.
"We still have one drone car left, better take it off the road Krakatoa!"
But it seemed this drone car had a trick up its sleeve. It's vehicle formed transformed with a large ram sticking out.
"Activate Ram Slam device!" it said in its soulless, mechanical voice.
And with a press of a button, the ram launched off the drone car heading straight for the two drivers.
"Look out!" Shouted Krakatoa
"Woah!" the two drivers were nearly thrown off the road by dodging the vehicle's weapon. The Drone car simply ran off ahead of them.
"Bastard!" Toni said as she slammed her fist onto her dashboard. "Let's get after them!"
"Need help?" said a familiar voice. Krakatoa knew it was his beloved.
"Es'! We probably need help, after what happened now." Krakatoa sighed.
"Glad to be of service"
The two smiled.
Gelorum was tending to the drones that had followed up her. It seemed like she wouldn't attack the drones, after all in order to get into the drones base, she'd need the assistance of these robotic racers-whether they offered it or not- and she seemed to know just how to.
She slowed down her vehicle, "Technetium" as it was codenamed, and passed a single drone vehicle, then back up to an RD-06 behind her. The drone driver wasn't about to let her get her own way.
"You're next human!" it grinned in it's sick metallic way-or at least what could be made out to be a grin- as it rammed her.
"Not this time!" she braked causing the drone car to flip and explode. Next thing she knew her car flipped over and fell from a high ledge of a tree.
"GAH!" she tried to find a way to get her car landing back on the solid group before bashing her car as it landed in a large vehicle.
She quickly recognized what she was in. She only knew about it through studies by Tezla who had left behind copies at the CLYP base but recognized it by it's shape, a purple looking vehicle with a large sort of waterwheel shaped device presumably to climb up large ledges.
"A hyperpod!" she gasped. "Well, time to get back on track.."
As the Hyperpod activated, the remaining Silencerz vehicles were racing on the same track she was. Major Wheeler noticed her on the bottom of the track.
"Boys, it seems she's jumped off on a Hyperpod!" He prepared the intercom, "Gelorum, you might be the top agent, but I am the leader of this squadron. If you don't get back her this instant The CLYP Will court-martial you for going AWOL on the team"
She rolled her eyes as Major Wheeler scolded her further, "If you come back to our team, we won't penalize you as severely."
She responded to his demands bluntly; "Major Wheeler, I'm going on my own to get the Wheel back from the drones, whether you like it or not!"
"Gelorum!" Wheeler shouted as Gelorum shut off his transmissions and went on her way.
And she went on her way.
Fluke was heading out of his way to a section of track where a bend was curving, the drones seemed to have long since abandoned him and hoped that within short order he could make it out of the realm. He then thought of Mojave.
"I wonder how he's doing?" He turned on the mic to contact him only to find dead air.
"Something must be wrong!" he gasped. He then decided on what to do.
But before he would do that, a large jolt to his vehicle occurred. He didn't know what was happening as his car began caving In. Then he looked out his window and was petrified with absolute fear;
A large Ogre, with sickly green skin roared as he was crushing Fluke's vehicle.
"Tezla! What should I do?!" He screamed. There was silence. He tried to activate the turbo jet's on his car to escape, but it only seemed to overheat his cars. Then all the sudden a silencing explosion occurred. The beast roared out in pain trying to cool off his hand in the swampy marsh, it seemed to heal its wounds and went on its way.
Fluke was no more
The three remaining drivers of Tezla had stayed together but no matter how many drones were defeated they still couldn't find a way out. Out in the distance they saw some sort of portal along with a bizarre plant with vines encroaching the track. Nearby a weird vehicle seemed to have contained another vehicle inside had opened up, and this purple and silver vehicle camed out racing ahead of the drivers.
"Let's get that driver!" yelled Toni. However Esmeralda caught something in her eye. She was speechless, mostly because a loud deafening noise called out.
The swamp beast was alive. It screeched again, roaring proudly as its vines began encroaching the track and tangling onto anything that was moving.
Next thing the drivers knew, the vines began to bind them up. First Gelorum's vehicle got caught by the vines, impaling the windshield and dragging it up into the air.
Then Es' got caught up by the vines, then Toni and then Krakatoa, the vines began binding them all up. It was the tightest thing the drivers ever felt. The binding plants caressed over their mouth, gagging them and tied up their hands. The steering wheel was grabbed by these vines, so that even if the drivers could reach out and escape they simply couldn't. It was pain beyond description.
The Remaining Racing Drones had attempted to reach the portal, but couldn't as the vines grabbed them as well. The vines grew so tight the vehicles exploded.
Back at the Acceledrome, Tezla was panicking. Was his plan going to fail? The onboard camera's of the drivers had deactivated and even if audio could be heard, there'd only be so much he could do.
"What is happening?! This is Doctor Tezla, Es' can you contact me? Anyone?!" he screamed….to no response.
"They can't be rescued Tezla." quietly responded GiG. Tezla turned to a monitor near the cameraboards. It was a timer.
00:05:54
"Five minutes...They'll never make it out in time.." Tezla sighed.
Major Wheeler drove his vehicle Iridium with his team near the vines. He had to dodge all of the vines and beasts that began to crawl out of the muck and grime of this painful swamp. He then noticed something above the ground...Gelorum was trapped.
"Gelorum!" Major Wheeler shouted "Press the EDR! We only have 5 minutes left before the realm shuts- AHHHGGH!"
The vines grabbed his car and decided to throw it. As his car Iridium flew high into the air. He gave this command to his fellow drivers.
"All CLYP drivers Retreat!"
One by one just as the vines caught their vehicles, they disappeared. Soon all of these vehicles crashed into the CLYP base going at the same speed as they were in the realms.
Several X-88 drones examined the drivers as they crawled out of their damaged vehicles. They simply just shook their heads.
Esmeralda looked at her husband's vehicle Muscle Tone, slowly being crushed. She called him through the intercom one last time after chomping on the vines gagging her.
"Krakatoa, I just want to say...I love you, and Tezla is a scumbag!"
Quickly the monsters attacked the drivers. Gelorum was trying to escape, but a slug monster tore out the door on the Technetium she was in and eat her, slurping her up, with her long ponytail curling up last in the mouth like a noodle, Toni was ripped out by the giant ogre, holding her up preparing to eat her. But before she was taken out of her RSC she gave one last message.
"Everyone, we had a good run but I suppose this is how nature must run its course isn't it?"
Soon she was eaten up by the large monster but closed its mouth leaving her ponytail out of its mouth while bizarre substances came out of its mouth presumably killing Toni as a result.
Esmeralda knew she was going to die. And then….something grabbed her vehicle. She wanted to scream but she couldn't….
Then the realm's portal shut down...