Team Racing Stripes
Team Information / Introduction
Prologue
Kaylie sighed as she finished removing the rear bench seat from the '93 Traville. Her two brothers were nowhere in sight, Rukari was loudly belting out the lyrics to “Shipwrecked” while mixing up a drink, and she suspected he might just be the reason her brothers were in hiding. Then Kayden stalked over to the car, leaned in, and told Kaylie, “Well, we’re going to have to hold an intervention at this rate. Jade’s got himself completely trashed on Rukari’s drinks again.”
“Who would’ve thought Jade would be the caffeine addict in our family? Twin Suns, what is Rukari making over there, except a racket with those damned pirate songs?”
“He’s mixing sugar, tea, and rum together. Apparently, for him, it’s a very mild drink, but for us…” Kayden trailed off, shuddering at the thought of their ill-fated experience with caffeine during their last beater bash.
Kaylie grimaced. “Yeah, I remember. Very different effects on our kind. If I never again have to smell coffee, it will be great.”
“Rukari!” Kayden yelled, “Stop giving that stuff to Jaden! The tea is not good for our kind.”
Rukari abruptly stopped singing, and Kaylie breathed a sigh of relief. “If I find the person who pointed him toward Alestorm, I will plant my foot firmly where the suns don’t shine,” Kaylie grumbled.
“You said, ‘No coffee,’ but I am using tea from a land called ‘Great Britain.’ It is quite good,” Rukari replied.
“Yes, and tea, coffee, and soda all contain caffeine, which is a compound that we don’t handle well,” Kaylie replied. “And alcohol just makes that worse for us.”
“I understand,” Rukari said, before knocking back his pint of brew and joining them at the car. “What needs doing?” he asked.
“That seat,” Kaylie said, pointing to the passenger seat, “needs to come out. Try to be careful, the metal can be a bit sharp, and our medic is missing.”
“Jaden is sleeping in the kitchen,” Rukari replied.
“Sleeping off the caffeine and spirits, most likely,” Kayden quipped. “Still, we’ve seen what happens when you get cut, Rukari. Your blood rusted that wrench in seconds, and it stained the table. Plus, you bleed like crazy when you’re wounded,” Kayden added.
“My kind have twin hearts, Kayden. We fight longer in battle-” Rukari said, only for Kaylie to interrupt.
“You’ve explained this before, Rukari, we understand. You have a high-performance body, with twin hearts to move a greater volume of blood, and blood that carries quite a lot of oxygen compared to ours or the humans. We’re only asking you to be careful so that you don’t ruin the car. I know you heal insanely fast, we’ve seen it.”
With the passenger seat out (with no blood spilled, thankfully), and the driver’s seat rails modified for the two taller males in the team to be able to sit in the car ‘comfortably,’ it was time to remove the exhaust system from the car and fit a proper straight-pipe exhaust.
By that time, Jaden had recovered, mostly, from the alcohol-induced sleep, as well as the caffeine-induced hallucinations and altered perception, just in time for him to walk into the shop and be deafened by the snarling roar of the 3.9 liter V6 running with open headers. “Does it have to be that loud!?” Jaden grumbled.
“Sounds like mighty sky-flyer,” Rukari said, gleefully stomping on the gas pedal again, producing another deafening bellow from the V6, shaking dust out of the rafters of their warehouse. Car alarms across the street started going off in protest at the noise.
“Yes, it sounds like an old airplane engine. Please stop revving it,” Kaylie said, a moment too late as Rukari belted the gas pedal a third time, bouncing the car off of the rev limiter several times before letting up.
“Twin Suns, I can barely hear anything!” Kayden yelled from under the hood. “Stop revving the engine!”
There was a brief scuffle behind the wheel as Kaylie reached in and grabbed for the keys as Rukari, still enthralled by the sound of the mighty V6, went to rev it again. Kaylie managed to switch off the ignition before Rukari could plant his heavy, boot-clad foot on the pedal again, though the keys ended up on the floor of the car as Rukari tried to grab them out of Kaylie’s hand.
“You are like a naughty kitten!” Kaylie said with a scowl as she tried to grab the keys off of the floor, leaning over Rukari in the process. Rukari, seeing an opportunity, pushed Kaylie’s metal left hand off of the dashboard and grinned as she landed with a grunt where the passenger seat used to be. “Ow!” Kaylie yelled, having landed on the keys to the car and caught the gear-selector to the outside of her left thigh. “Keep laughing, fuzzball, and I’ll throw away the bag of jawbreakers you picked up,” Kaylie snapped, glaring at Jaden, who was laughing so hard that he could barely catch his breath.
“Sorry, but, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was our older brother,” Jaden said, still laughing.
“I am only 97, Jaden,” Rukari replied.
Kayden laughed, then said, “Depending on your year and our years, that might not mean much.”
The screen on Kayden’s armor lit up, and a feminine voice called out, “An Aetheriian year and a Panthirian year are very similar in length. Our year is slightly longer, but while you and Kaylie are almost 68 and Jaden is almost 73, by our years, if we convert those years to Earth years, well… You and Kaylie are 103, Jaden is 111, and Rukari is 143.”
“Huh. Thank you, Nova,” Kaylie replied. “How long does a Valraadi live, on average?” she asked.
Nova quickly answered with, “It isn’t uncommon for a Valraadi to meet or exceed 200 Aetheriian years. The oldest known Valraadi was 273 Aetheriian years old at the time of her death.”
“Wow. Even Kayden’s only guaranteed to make 200 years old, and he’s loaded with nanites for healing,” Jaden replied. “Kaylie and I will be lucky to make 130,” he added.
“Especially if you keep drinking things with caffeine in them!” Kaylie snapped, glaring at her older brother. “You should know better by now, it’s not good for you.”
“I’ll stop. I didn’t know the tea was going to be almost as bad as the coffee,” Jaden grumbled.
Once Jaden had fully sobered up, Kayden’s ears had stopped ringing, and Kaylie had confiscated the keys so Rukari couldn’t wake the world with their car, the four members of Team Racing Stripes quickly put a straight-piped exhaust on the old Sinistra Traville.
“So, how do we plan to get it over to Sweden?” Jaden asked.
“I’ll contact Malavera, ask if he’ll loan us the Polar Star for a few hours. We’ll fly it over there, land the ship, unpack the car, and send the ship back up until the race is done,” Kayden replied. “After the race is complete, we pack our car, or whatever is left of it, back onto the ship and fly it back here.”
