The Other Me
Chapter Eleven: Street Battle
By: Sci-Fi Raptor
Disclaimer: See Chapter Four
I don't know if people will understand what I'm talking about when I say series of hairpin curves, but if you saw the episode in Initial D where the opponent had a 4WD car with the engine at the center, you'll know what I mean. (The opponent is the son of the hero's dad's old rival)
I got into dean's list last semester! Boo yah!
I watched Napolean Dynamite… I feel dumber…
(-O-)
"The Supreme Court was shocked to find incontrovertible proof that Chief of Police Zenigata had connections with the Yakuza, going back as early as when he was a fresh officer in the 80's. Zentigata was arrested earlier this afternoon, but made no comment. Lawyers say that this is one of the biggest scandals since Godzilla attacked Tokyo. The government would not release what the proof was, but only said that it was submitted anonymously after the chief's press conference against the recent violence against Yakuza suspects."
"Naru! He's here!" Kitsune yelled, bringing said girl out of her reverie. She hadn't talked to Keitaro since the incident and it was all that she could really think over. Naru got up to meet the person waiting outside.
"I see someone's popular…" Kitsune said in an insinuation tone of voice.
"It's not like that!" Naru exclaimed as she left to meet 'him.'
-
Kentaro had invited Naru to a street race that was going to happen later that night. She was resistant at first, but gave in when she found out that most of her classmates and friends were going. So there she was, on the sidelines as the racers showed off their cars and engines. There were three cars, each with their own custom decals and bodyworks. Kentaro explained to her that the intimidating red car was a Dodge Viper, the energetic hot-orange car was a Honda Civic and the anxious sounding blue car was something called a Miata. The race really wouldn't start for some time, so the crowds were surrounding the racers, marveling at the technology that they each loaded.
Minutes before the race, the illegal street race's directors made everyone leave the streets. The racers came out of their cars to give their engines a final check-up. The Viper's driver was a scrawny little white gaijjin that seemed very nervous. He was basically jumping all over his car, making sure nothing was wrong with it. The Civic's driver was someone Naru recognized as a senior in Todai. He was probably at peak physical condition and made a lot of the girls there go into a frenzy. He went through his car casually, waved to the girls and went back into his car, patiently waiting for the race to begin.
"What the big deal with him?" Naru said, pointing out the Civic's driver.
"That's Taisho, a senior at Todai," Kentaro said. "He's an electrical engineer, and his skills are famous throughout this region. Of all the races I've seen him in, he hasn't lost a single one."
"Wow…" Naru said, gaining respect for him.
The last person wasn't that cool. In fact, he was an overweight person with big thick glasses that everyone seemed to be booing. He tried to ignore everyone while he went through the final check-up.
"Why's everyone being so mean to him?" Naru asked, speaking of the Miata's driver.
"That's Kenshin, the biggest loser ever," Kentaro said, angrily. "He tried to rape a girl that felt sorry for him after he lost a race. Bastard!" he yelled the last word with his hands cupped around his mouth to direct more of the sound energy to his ears. He spit on the ground in his direction as an unseen insult.
"Damn perverts…" Naru said to herself and started booing the fatty too.
The drivers had all gotten into their cars and revved their engines some more. The crowd buzzed with anticipation since the race was almost ready to begin.
A sudden commotion began with the arrival of an uninvited guest. A black car suddenly pulled up into the empty spot next to the Viper. What was strange was that there was a gaiijin on its roof on all fours, hands holding onto its open moon roof. He jumped off and started talking to one of the coordinators, whom had angrily stormed up to him because of the intrusion. They spoke for a while and the gaiijin whispered something into his ear. The coordinator looked like he was debating something and left. The gaiijin gave two thumbs up to the black car's driver and ran into the crowd of spectators.
"What just happened?" Naru asked.
"That was just Yuri, a junior electrical engineer at Todai too," Kentaro explained. "He's this rich Russian kid that everyone seems to hate. He must have had some dirt on Kaijjin if he would let them enter all of a sudden so easily."
"Oh…" Naru said, not really caring anymore. She was suddenly anticipant over the race.
The black car was in fact an RX-8, the newest generation of one of the only rotary engine type vehicles ready for general consumption. Like the other cars, it was heavily customized. Its decals were green pictures of flames starting from the engines and sides and narrowing off towards the rear. It had very low suspension, leaving the car just centimeters from the ground. Its rims looked very unusual; they just seemed to just keep on moving while the car was still immobile. Its windows were tinted black and it was impossible to see the driver inside. It also sported fluctuating neon lights (unlike the static ones that the other three had) that were a matching green color. The car suddenly started to vibrate as the person inside turned on a heavy metal station, letting loose his powerful subwoofers. Even from where she was standing, Naru could feel her innards move with its beat.
One of the many scantily dressed women went up to the road. She stood there, waiting for the drivers' attention with her arms high in the air. Each of the cars started burning out for that extra boost that would help in the beginning of the race. Basically, their forward or rear set of tires would stay braked while the other set that got power from the crank shaft would start spinning, rubbing against the asphalt and filling the street with the smell of burning rubber. With a confirming nod from the sponsor of the race, the girl let her arms fall and the cars screamed past her.
"Wow!" Naru said in awe. "They're going so fast!" By the time she finished her sentence, the drivers were nowhere to be seen. "So now what… do we just wait for them to come back?" she asked disappointedly.
"Well, we can be like these commoners and hear what's going on from the checkpoints, but I have something better." He made a cell phone call and helicopter landed on the street a few minutes later. Naru just stood in awe. I wish I were that rich…
"Shall we?" Kentaro asked, walking up to the aircraft. Naru followed him in. Moments later, they were in the air and they could see the cars battling it out at mind blowing speeds.
At the point that they were seeing the race, the Civic had a decent lead, with the Miata close behind. The Viper was in third and was trying to keep the RX-8 from overtaking it. They were on an easy turn and the RX-8 tried to overtake the Viper from the inside, but he went and tried to block him. Unfortunately, since he was coming in from the outside, his relative distance from the RX-8 decreased and the back left corner of his bumper hit the front right bumper of the RX-8. The RX-8 took it as an attack and pushed against his bumper, causing him to spin out of control. The RX-8 managed to pass him just as the Viper crashed into a guardrail.
"Oh my God, is he okay?" Naru said, holding onto Kentaro out of fear.
Kentaro, obviously enjoying the contact just replied, "He'll make it out fine…" As a courtesy, however, he called Kaijjin and told him about the crash. Someone would go out there and clean up the mess so that the second and final heat happened without any problems.
Going back to the race, the three surviving racers were now on an uphill climb and the Miata was clearly winning. Having much more power than the Civic, he just overtook it without any hassle. The RX-8, however was quickly catching up, since it had a higher power-to-weight ration and was behind only because of the crash the Viper had. The uphill portion ended with a sharp downhill turn that the Miata didn't expect. It dramatically decreased speed in an effort to not crash, but left the inside way open, which the much more experienced Civic driver took advantage of and drifted past him. At the end of the turn, the Civic was in first, the Miata next and the RX-8 last. (Drifting is, usually, when your back wheels are skidding and giving you the force to not lose speed, while your front wheels keep you in the desired circle. This lets you take turns at a much faster speed without having to crash if you had done it normally. The cars back wheels push forward towards the center of the circle, while the front wheels point in the opposite direction of the turn. This does not seem to apply to 4WD, since its even power distribution lets it take the same turns easily the normal way. You can find out more with a quick search through Yahoo! or Google. Drifting is a cool spectator sport in Japan and I have some cool links and footage if you want to contact me.)
The next obstacle was a series of downhill hairpin-turns that led to another uphill climb. (Think of it as a series of long ramps next to each other with the lower end connected to the higher end of the next one with a tight turn, like a sin(3x)3 graph from 0 to 2pi.) All three of the drivers drastically slowed down so that they wouldn't crash into the walls surrounding the turns, but the RX-8's driver somehow managed to drift the turn, putting him right behind the Miata, their bumpers almost touching. For the rest of the hairpins it stayed like that, though the Civic held a car's length of a lead. All that changed, however, when they finished the hairpins and started another uphill climb. The Miata sped its way to first, while the Civic lagged behind and the RX-8 seemed to just go slowly for some reason. Maybe he never got a practice run in before, who knew?
At the end of the climb, the Miata held first while the Civic was lagging at second with the RX-8 breathing down its neck at third. What followed was a series of turns that snaked through the forest. All the cars drifted, though only the Civic and RX-8 managed to minimize their turn radii by just almost touching their front bumpers on the railing. They were forced to take a detour through some of the forest to stay in the circuit and they all struggled to keep their cars in control and not spin out of control due to the small amount of traction they had. When they broke the forest, all they had left was another turn, which they all drifted, a straightaway and a hairpin-turn till the end of the lap. During the straightaway, all three cars activated their NOS and burned rubber. Their tailpipes suddenly jetted blues flames behind them in their sudden increase in torque and caused them to dart forward even faster. One peculiarity was that the RX-8's exhaust flame was green instead of blue and Kentaro explained that he probably had some kind of coloring in it (after he explained how NOS burned way better then normal gas and gave a driver an edge for some time. However, since the NOS burned hotter, a driver could use it only for a short amount of time or their engine would blow.)
At the end of the straightway, the cars braked in order to not crash on the hairpin-turn, but the Miata was going way too fast and was way too heavy to slow down enough. The driver did his best to drift, but ended up skidding and clipping the guardrail. The other two had slowed down enough and drifted on the turn's inside and shot past the Miata. People at the finish line cheered since the hated driver was now at a great disadvantage.
They started the next and final heat with the Civic and RX-8 neck and neck and the Miata hopelessly behind. They shot past where the Viper had crashed, the wreckage long since removed and continued on in the first turn. Since they started off so much faster than in the first heat, all the cars drifted the first turn. The skills of the two leading cars shone when it could be seen that not only were they mere millimeters from the railing, they were only about forty centimeters apart. They exited the turn at a high speed and started the uphill. The RX-8 easily pulled ahead of the Civic, but didn't press his advantage and let the Civic stay close behind. The Miata, however, took advantage of the uphill and his car's power and used another shot of NOS, letting him get back into the race. Naru asked Kentaro about why he didn't save it for the straightway at the end and he replied that either he was really desperate or he had more than two shots of NOS in his car. All the cars slowed down again for the downhill turn at the end of the climb and drifted. The Miata had learned from his first mistake and pulled off the drift pretty well. The RX-8, however, seemingly goofed and ended up drifting on the outside of the turn, letting the Civic pull ahead easily. They all slowed down for the series of hairpins, but there was no change in place since the RX-8 didn't drift that time, probably still angry with the goof it had just done.
On the last hairpin, the RX-8 did the most unexpected thing. It completely stopped at the first half of the turn and turned around on its front two wheels in a burnout. It seemed to be pointing completely opposite of the way it was supposed to go, and the Miata looked like it was about to crash into it. To everyone's surprise, however, the RX-8 peeled out and jumped past the elbow heading the right direction. In fact, he actually jumped over and past the Civic, covering the street in a shower of sparks as his already low body scraped the asphalt. The other two drivers were no doubt stunned at the crazy maneuver, but they didn't falter… much.
The uphill climb that followed wasn't that eventful, since the RX-8 just kept pulling ahead while the Civic struggled to keep the Miata from overtaking it. The Civic and Miata closed the distance with the RX-8 during the turns that followed, since the RX-8 decided not to drift. During the detour through the forest, the other two cars had finally caught up to the RX-8. They all drifted the last turn before the straightway and all ignited their NOS the instant they were stabilized. The RX-8 and Miata suddenly left the Civic eating dust since its engine was much weaker then the other two's and the race was miraculously between the fatty and the new guy.
Somewhere in the middle of the straightway, the Miata's engine blew and the RX-8 pulled past. Though they were going to brake a few milliseconds later anyway, the sudden loss of power was all it took for the RX-8 to be assured the win. They shot past the hairpin turn and braked after crossing the finish line. Unfortunately for the Miata, its tires were shot, and its engine was cooking. The driver was lucky that it didn't explode on him, but he had a more important matter: his tires had almost no traction left after all of the abuse and he was now spinning out of control. With unbelievable luck, however, he stopped just before he crashed and no one got hurt. A girl suddenly ran out of the crowd and forced his door open, assisting him out.
"What the hell?" Kentaro said, confused.
"What?" Naru asked, not sure what he was angry about. The RX-8 had won fair and square. Actually, the Civic finally crossed the finish line and a bunch of girls went up to its driver to 'console' him for his loss. (Hey, he was still built…)
"That's the girl he was supposed to have raped…" Kentaro said, referring to the girl that had helped the Miata's driver out of his car. He was now sitting down on the ground, probably crying inside the girl's chest as she tried to calm him down. "Maybe he really was telling us the truth…" he said in contemplation.
The helicopter had landed and the two college kids went to try and see if they could congratulate the winner. However, only Yuri was there talking to everyone, since the driver inside didn't look like he was going to leave. Naru could still feel the powerful sub-woofers doing their job even though the car was completely sealed off. Yuri was jumping around in joy as he collected the winnings that the RX-8's driver had won. The passenger window opened, letting the music blast and shake everyone's bones, and the driver probably told something to Yuri. Yuri stopped his jumping around and climbed to the RX-8's roof again, seeming to be looking for something. He scanned the masses until he locked eyes with Naru. He jumped off the car Su-like and ran up to her.
"I have a message from the guy in there," he said to her, huffing and puffing.
"Me?" Naru said, looking around.
"Yeah," he said, almost stable.
"So…"
"He wanted me to tell you that he still hates you," he said, glaring at her as if he felt the same as the driver. Before she could say anything, the RX-8's headlight's blinked and the Russian ran to the car and jumped into the open passenger side window. The crowd around the car made room as he pulled away, Yuri's legs still sticking out.
"What was that about?" Kentaro asked. Not answering, she tried to figure out who the RX-8's driver was.
"No way…" she said when it clicked.
(-O-)
I know, I know… I haven't updated in almost a month… unfortunately for me, I don't have any excuses this time cause I've been goofing off alla this time… BUT I STILL MADE DEAN'S LIST, SO I feel good about myself.
Remember; click the 'Go' button on your way out. (Flames are still understandable and especially welcome if critical)
Cheers: )