Hey all,

If you're reading this, I'm assuming you, the reader in question, are a fan of the now long dead cartoon show Team Hot Wheels, and are looking for new content. I myself watched Origin of Awesome on KidsClick as a child (we were poor, and did not have cable), and found it again on Youtube a few years back. When I tell you I couldn't stop watching it... I fell in love with the characters and was SO excited when I found out there were TWO more movies to watch. Then... I actually watched them. Don't get me wrong, Skills to Thrill wasn't terrible, but it was lacking something from the first, that special something that had manged to hook me in the first place. If Build the Epic Race was a person, I would've mugged them in a back alley and stolen all their stuff just to watch it burn to the ground. Needless to say, I didn't like the sequels very much. More than anything, I was upset by the fact that, well, that was IT. There wasn't anymore. When I was watching Larry talk to the Team and the end of OoA, I expected that was a setup for a series. My storyteller's heart longed for these fictional adolescent boys shenanigans in episodic form, with character development, story plots and the like...but it never came. It upset me so much, I found myself trying to continue the story with my own writings. To make a long mess short, it eventually lead to what you are about to read right now, which can be best described as a reboot to the show of sorts. Expect some things to be different, as much as they are the same. Here's to a hopefully good series! I pray in my dearest of prayers you enjoy what you read here, as much as I enjoy writing it.

Sincerely, your Storyspinner,

Ajay.

Let me ask you a question.

Have you ever tried to repair a truck?

How about a stunt truck?

How about a stunt truck powered by a freaky liquid that makes things unnecessarily dangerous for no reason?

How about doing all of that on a timer?

Yup, just another day at the Garage...for me.

My name is Wheilemena. Wheilemena Mae White. Only don't call me that. EVER. You will lose a limb. My friends call me Wheelie, on account of my rollerblading. Never quite got why that nickname sticks, I'm plenty good at other things. Handymanning, songwriting, geoscience, modeling, street fighting, breaking and entering without being caught, hiding the evidence...normal stuff like that.

...but back to current chaos. Yes, fixing a super powered stunt truck while you're being timed sounds challenging, but you wanna know what makes the whole thing harder? Knowing your cousin, his best friend, and the cute boy from next door are the ones timing you.

I try not to show how much I'm sweating as I screw a tire bigger than my head out of place and quickly shove another one into its spot. I've been counting the seconds in my head as I go along.

"4 minutes and 20 seconds, 4 minutes and 21 seconds..." my brain ticks.

I can't see the timer, but I know my rhythm. I can also see, out of the corner of my eye, the smug look on my cousin's face as the time races on. I bite the inside of my gums and speed up a little. He won't let me live this down if I end up behind my previous record.

"4 minutes and 59 seconds, 5 minutes..."

I'm under the hood now, just checking to make sure I didn't miss anything.

"Shoot!" I hiss.

I did forget something. The Imagicore. I have to polish it. I could skip it to buy myself more time, but doing a job halfway isn't my style.

I quickly grab my rag and reach down, way deep down into the truck, towards what seems like a tiny sun, yellow light shining through all the dirty, dense metal surrounding it. It seems to shine brighter as my hand gets closer.

"5 minutes and 25 seconds..."

I rub as best I can, making sure it's spotless.

"5 minutes and 29 seconds..."

Almost there.

Almost through.

I climb out of the hood and slam it down.

"HA!" I laugh, trying not to sound out of breath. "Done!"

I turn to look at the guys. One, is sitting in the corner, criss-cross, on a stack of tires (how he gets up there I'll never know). He has a big goofy smile on his face as he gives a round of applause. I would be more flattered by his response, but I've seen him give the same reaction to his pet snail for beating his old record of squirming across his terrarium. That's just how Rhett Ruddington is: sweet, supportive, and a little weird.

I hear the click of a stopwatch being stopped.

"Five minutes and 31 seconds. You just beat your old record."

I look to see Brandon Skye, sitting on my rolly-chair backwards, (-because how else would you do it?) looking at the watch in his hand. Was he impressed? I couldn't tell. He's always so reserved, so it was hard to get a read on him sometimes. I caught myself wishing he would look up at me, so instinctively I kicked myself in the shin for letting myself get distracted by completely irrelevant things...

"Eh.", said another voice with snark. "Preeeetty sure you can go faster than that."

My eyes start rolling before I even let them.

Gage Green, my favorite cousin.

-and by favorite I mean completely and totally annoying.

WHY can't he just let me HAVE this one?

"I wasn't trying to be fast, Gage," I retort, as I turn and roll over to him on my skates (Did I mention I was wearing those the whole time? I'm good, I know.). "I was trying to be efficient, a practice that you choose to ignore for your concerning obsession with speed."

Man just cracks a smile and leans on the wall, hands behind his head, like all the anime protagonists he used to idolize back when he was ten years old.

"Concerning? Speed? Those words belong in the same sentence?" he jokes.

I am not in the mood for his teasing, but luckily Rhett interrupts before Gage can continue. He raises his hand like a kindergartener eagerly trying to answer a question.

"Ooh, OOH, could you fix the Boneshaker next, Wheelie?" he asks gleefully.

That catches me off guard.

"Rhett, didn't fix your car a couple hours ago?" I ask.

He suddenly blushes, which catches me more off guard. The boy looks down and starts twiddling his thumbs as his cheeks somehow get redder than they already are.

"Well yeah..." he continues, "...but she really likes it when you polish her."

Dang it. He's doing the puppy face. I always fall for the puppy face. If I look at him any longer, he'll be able to ask me to jump off a cliff. I have to turn around and pretend to gather my tools to avoid looking at him.

"Sorry Rhett, I have a lot more to do today." I tell him without looking up. "Including letting the owner of this vehicle that I'm done fixing it." I immediately freeze as my own words make me realize something. I currently have no idea where that owner is.

Rule #1: If there's one thing you should never NOT be aware of, it's the whereabouts of Wyatt Leon Dandelion.

"Speaking of him, where is he?" I inquire cautiously, hoping one of the others have at least caught a glimpse of him in the last 15 minutes. Brandon raises his eyebrows, as if he's recalling something. He then scratches his cheek and squints real hard until his eyes are just barely visible.

He's so CUTE when he squints!

Ignore that.

He is a normal amount of cute when he squints. I am very normal about him.

"He said something about picking up something for his little sister... which was odd, because as long as I've known him he's been an only child." he says.

Dread suddenly seizes me.

Oh...

OH.

OH NO.

"He wouldn't." I thought to myself. "He can't still think that I'm-"

My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of badly muffled snickering. Take a guess where it's coming from...

I turn back to glare at Gage, who is hiding his face behind his forearm in an attempt to keep himself from laughing. He thinks this is funny? I guess it would be, if you weren't the one about to be humiliated beyond dignity. I can feel the heat rising up my cheeks already.

Rhett seems to notice my annoyance and tries to change the subject.

"So, did I tell you guys about my next door neighbors' toilet exploding yesterday? Crazy stuff, right?" he laughed nervously. "She said she saw a huge shark jump out of it and eat her shower curtains."

"Rhett, that's ridiculous." Brandon replies while rolling his eyes.

"Brandon is also very cute when he's rolling his eyes." my mind whispered.

I didn't just think that. Why would I just think that?!

I'm not some cliche lovesick schoolgirl in a teenager's fanfiction! I'm a REAL person, with DIGNITY! ...which, if my fears are correct, is about to be shattered into a million pieces.

Why, you may ask?

The owner of the truck I just fixed, Wyatt Dandelion, is a good guy. Nothing really bad about him. Unless, of course, you count his overinflated ego... or his arrogance... or the fact that he likes to take all the credit for group projects (that one, I'll admit, is pretty evil). Despite all of that, I can say with (almost) complete confidence that Wyatt Leon Dandelion is a good guy.

However...there's this one thing about him.

He's a family man.

I know, I know. 'What's wrong with that, Wheelie?' you're probably wondering. 'There's nothing wrong with being a family person.' you probably also thought. -and you'd be right! There's nothing wrong with being someone who loves their family. Nothing at all.

...except when that "family" is me.

"WILLY!" a voice yells from behind.

Crud. He's here.

I try not to cringe as I turn around to see Wyatt standing at the entrance of the workshop, with a considerably large book in his arms (which is saying something, considering the carrier of this book is no small dude). It's tattered and old, and the poor thing looks like it could burst at the seams any minute. I feel a pit form in the bottom of my stomach. He carries it in, all proud, like it's some sort of trophy, and I already know there's no way I'm gonna be able direct the others' attention anywhere else, because he's already got it. He has a knack for catching people's attention, which, in ANY other case, would be good. Admirable, even.

Not today.

Today, I suffer.

"Wow, man." says Gage with a hint of sarcasm,"...and all this time, I thought you couldn't read."

My heart jumped. Salvation? If there's one thing that can distract Wyatt, it's being teased by my cousin. Those two can argue for hours on end, nonstop! If Wyatt takes the bait, I can swoop in, grab that stupid book while no one's looking, and burn it to ashes before anyone can lay eyes on it.

"Keep talkin' Gage. Not even you can ruin this fer me!" Wyatt replied back, completely unfazed by Gage's taunt.

Nuts. I'm screwed.

If this book is the book I think it is, I will never get my self-respect back. Gage will never shut up about it, Brandon probably won't want to be seen with me anymore, and Rhett… actually I don't think Rhett's gonna mind, BUT that is besides the point.

Maybe I can move to an uncharted location on an abandoned island somewhere and go into hiding?

"No." I thought to myself, shaking my head. "Stop being overdramatic. It's not going to kill you if they know."

Right. Embarrassment is painful, but it's not the end of the world. I've been through MUCH worse.

Wyatt goes to slam the giant book down on my workshop desk, knocking a bunch of tools to the floor in the process -thanks man, looking forward to cleaning that up-. He then reaches back for the spinny chair Brandon is sitting in (still backwards) and wacks it with one muscly arm, sending it spinning toward the desk. I watch the poor blonde boy crash face first into the book with a loud 'THUMP' and a small 'oof'. Ouch. Is Wyatt always this rough with the guy he calls his "best friend"? We may need to have a private talk about that later, him and I.

"Brandon! You're a book-ish fella. Help me work this thang!" Wyatt nearly yelled with delight.

Brandon pulls his face out of the book, the rest of the team gathers around, curious to see what Wyatt has dragged in. Except me, of course, I already know what's in there… and I'm not standing around for the rest of them to find out. I pivot on the back of my skates and try to roll out of there before it's too late. Unfortunately, it's already begun.

"What in the world?" I hear my cousin say, with genuine bewilderment in his voice.

"Don't turn around." I think.

I hear Rhett gasp as I make my way out the door.

"Wheelie, you're so cute!" he says.

MA STAI SCHERZANDO!? He started with the toddler pictures!? OF ALL THE-

Nope. Just keep rolling.

Shoot.

She rolled out the door.

I really thought this one would work.

"Wheelie, you're so cute!"

That pulled my brain back into the situation. I look over to see the pudgy excuse for a man called Rhett Ruddington, hunched over Gammy Gram's scrapbook. He has his eyes stuck on the first picture on the page, a picture of me and li'l Wheilemena (I call 'er li'l Willy) covered in mud, one o' my favorites, …one he shouldn't be starin' so intensely at the way he is. I take the opportunity to snatch the book out from under him.

"Git your filthy mitts offa my Gammy Gram's scrapbook, Ruddington! It ain't yours to read!" I say, slidin' the book back over to Brandon and me. "Gammy says this is for posterity only!"

I honestly got no idea what "posterity" even means, but I ain't about to let HIM know that.

Brandon starts to flip through the ol' scrapbook, (I don' think Gammy'll mind if he looks, the boy's practically second kin). He does his Brandon-y thing of going through each page real slow like, as if he's readin' all the tiny words at the bottom of each photo. Gotta wonder how a fella does that, I can barely see all that blurry scribble.

"Wow…" he says, obviously amazed by the sheer awesomeness of all the contents (He didn't really sound like it, but that's jus' how Brandon is). "What… is this?"

I take him under my arm and pat him on the back. He wheezes from the pat (I forget, he's a fragile boy).

"This li'l buddy, is all the memories of me and Willy. From when we were kids!" I proudly announce. "We used to do everthang together!"

It's true. I met Willy and no her no-good dodger of a cousin when I wasn't but much higher than a colt on a carrier! She used to follow me around every which-way and where, with only so much as a pair of junkyard-y roller skates to get around on. Took a good heap o' tumbles in the process. Each time I would be there to get 'er outta whatever mess she rolled herself into. We were closer than a hammer is to a horseshoe on an anvil... and I wouldn't trade those days for nothin'.

Unfortunately, it don't seem like Willy feels the same anymore. I really thought showing her some ol' memories would do somethin', like make her remember how close we used to be, but…

"There certainly are a lot of these," Brandon says, bringing my attention back to the book.

I was 'bout to respond, but GAGE had other plans. Pushin' Brandon outta the way, he started snapping pictures of the book with his phone.

"-and yet…" he said, with a dumber than dumb kinda grin on his face, "...not nearly enough! Wheels is gonna FLIP when I send these to Mom and Dad!"

I ball my fists up and think about knocking him straight to the ground, but the coward backs away from the book and looks around before I can swing on 'em.

"Uh, Wheels? ...Where'd she-"

A very loud ring goes interrupts Gage, echoin' round the room. Screens come down from the roof and I see the ceilin' lights flash purple-y.

"WARNING. WARNING. CODE PURPLE," the room beeps. "IMMINENT IMAGIDANGER. PLEASE REPORT TO THE GARAGE ROOM."

Hallelujah! A Code Purple! I crack my knuckles in excitement. Nothin' like a good catastrophe to put me in a good mood! Looks like ol' memories gonna hafta wait a li'l while.

It's time for a li'l WYATT STYLE, BABY!