On this early morning, Watson had woken up with an annoyance quite visible on his face, the annoyance still there as he began packing up the tent and stuffing them into the back of the small automobile. He hadn’t gotten as good of a sleep as he could’ve as for whatever reason, in the middle of the night he’d began hearing voices, and also gotten bumped whilst in the middle of his important dream, whatever that may have been. He looked over to Romulo, leaning over the hood of the red crossover. He seemed as though he was in not the best of spirits, like someone who’d returned home from a party after drinking too much alcohol. Watson walked over towards Romulo, giving him a good pat on the back which was enough to knock his arms out and cause his face to slam right into the dust-caked fender of the vehicle, leaving a near-perfect impression of his face.
“Watson, you infantile-! What the fuck was that for, you idiot?” He shot him a menacing glare, but Watson was unphased, for he too was in a terrible mood and was not in the right state of mind to be dealing with someone else’s problem. Charlotte looked up from the table she was sitting upon as she heard the bang of someone’s face flopping right onto dusty piece of metal. “What are you two doing…?”
“Checking up on one another.” Watson sneered as he walked over towards Charlotte. “You got the route planned out yet?”
“Pretty much. Should be mostly cobblestone roads, no gravel paths much I believe. It’ll be bumpy and a bit slippery but I think the car will handle it.” She clicked the pen in her right hand and placed it back into her stationery case before finally gathering the papers she was writing on, which included smaller local maps with extraordinarily detailed notes of the speed that should be taken on the run. “I don’t think I’ll be able to pull off these notes again, takes too much brainpower even though it should, in theory, be quite effective.”
“These are, what I believe you called pacenotes, right?” He took one of the papers, examining them carefully. With the rudimentary explanations Charlotte had given him earlier, he was just barely able to make a gist out of what was written on them. Though he’d need a few more minutes of studying to get things properly understood. Charlotte nodded at him in affirmative as she began packing up her apparatuses. She plopped them into the driver’s seat before packing the table back up and shoving it into the vehicle’s back where the table was supposed to be, beneath the piles of other equipment they had to lug around. “Sure is handy having a built-in table…” Charlotte shut the vehicle’s tailgate as she looked over at Romulo, who looked like he was still in great pain. She walked up to him and placed the back of her hand over his forehead, before finally slapping him square in the face in a small cloud of dust.
“Son of a-! You too?!” Romulo angrily exclaimed.
“Can you even drive in the condition you’re in? Stop insisting, you’re gonna get us in an accident if you actually try.” She asserted. “Seriously, you’ve already eaten breakfast and yet you’re still in a very undesirable mood.”
Romulo rested his arm on the Yamada’s fender, and looked over at Watson, who was putting away the fire and preparing to get going. He sighed and called out to him. “Y’know what, Watson… Just take the wheel. I don’t know what you’re capable of, but I guess if we want to get this show on the road… Might as well…”
Upon hearing this, it seemed Watson had a pretty positive change of attitude, although he still seemed rather annoyed at a certain cat fucker. He glared at Romulo for a moment as the taller man waddled his way into the backseat, assisted by Emily. This annoyance would later fade away once he climbed into the cockpit of the vehicle, however. Whilst at first things seemed rather alien to him, he was immediately able to recognize the basic controls. First the steering wheel, then the pedals, and the gear lever. Things slowly returned to him and he began to feel a moment of bliss as he continued scanning the interior. The gauges which displayed the engine’s velocity, fuel levels, temperatures, and the vehicles speed. But though things had began to click, there was still one thing missing as he gripped the steering wheel firmly.
“Don’t forget to start the car…” Romulo snickered as he dangled the vehicle’s keys towards Watson. He took them from his hand and looked at it for a moment before scanning the area around the dashboard. He noticed the keyhole beneath the steering column, and placed the key into what he presumed was the activation hole for the automobile. Before anything, he wiggled the vehicle’s gear selector around first, ensuring that it was in neutral, before finally he placed the key in which started a beeping sound in the cabin, but as he twisted the key until he felt a resistance in his fingers, the beeping stopped and suddenly a noise of whining came from the engine in front of him, which gave way to a loud and spirited roar all around as the vehicle’s exhaust began to sing its four cylinder harmony a close to a thousand times a minute as the engine combusted the fuel. The vehicle’s dashboard lighted up, displaying various amounts of extra information that wasn’t visible when the car was shut off. A small grin lit up on Watson’s face as he felt the car roar into life, and now he was ready. He pulled the door shut and began his own checklist on the vehicle, first scanning the fuel levels, which was pretty much near full. Looking over to the temperature gauge, or what he assumed was the temperature gauge, he found the engine running nominally at a desired temperature. He gave a light press on the gas pedal, and the engine’s pitched changed as the needle rose on the tachometer.
“Ready?” Charlotte smiled at him enthusiastically. The first proper stage of the rally was about to begin, and Watson was at the helm of the vehicle that would hopefully guide this team to their own victory. Out in the distance, a loud firing noise was heard, and Watson saw the tall tiger-skinned being with his weapon pointed to the sky, momentarily catching eye contact with him. That had managed to signal to him that the time was now, and he pressed his foot hard onto the throttle, letting the old but capable four-cylinder maw down on its fuel and sing free into the higher rev range, before clutching into first and releasing the brake. A cloud of gravel flung behind the vehicle’s tyres as it kicked the ground beneath it up into the air around, and the red crossover propelled itself forward with the sheer force of the micro explosions going off thousands of times a minute within its iron-cast heart. Watson felt the communication between him and the car as he slid out from the campsite. Shifting the wheel slightly, he felt the feedback from the wheels reach through to his palms, and right back towards his soul as he felt himself bind with the vehicle. Every small input did something significant, from the slight variations in throttle pressure, to the way he turned the wheel around the short bend. Now a short distance away from the camp, he felt ready to be engaged in a dance with this vehicle, to be engaged with motorsport again, which he’d once lost the connection with.
Charlotte opened the glovebox, revealing a couple of old CDs. She took one of them, a compilation album from the hit rock band Blondie, and placed the disc into the archaic entertainment system on the car’s dashboard. With a subtle whirring noise drowned out by the constant clanking of the stones and debris on the vehicle’s underbody, the small screen flashed to display the first track, and the speakers began to play a sound very much foreign to Watson. “Well then, I guess we’re going to have to settle with this. This music’s likely a bit too new for you, Watson, but I assure you, your kids are going to love it! This shouldn’t be too distracting.” She adjusted the volume of the car’s speakers as she shuffled her papers around, and began to prepare for the stage ahead as the car flew itself over the cobblestone roads.
Charlotte began calling out her pacenotes as the vehicle crossed her marked start. Almost immediately, they were in sync, not only to the cadence of the 1970s-era rock music on the radio, but to everything around them as the red SUV flew through the roads kicking up small pebbles off the slippery stone. Watson was feeling it, as he looked out and saw the trees fly past the windscreen, feeling the car in sync as it navigated its way through sweeping bends and sharp turns. Everything felt perfect in this moment as the vehicle angled its tyres just right through the corners, slipping at the perfect angle to enter the bends at the ample amount of speed. Despite the vehicle’s heavy body, it felt as though the agility was unmatched with Watson behind the wheel as the large tyres squealed for grip. Eventually they had reached a long enough straightaway which marked the end of the first part of Charlotte’s notes.
“Sector end, we can relax a bit here for a few minutes.” Charlotte said as the vehicle came to a cruise on the long straight. “That was some brilliant driving out there! Never thought you’d be the type to be able to take a car that hard!”
Watson let out a small laugh. “Oh, you jest. I feel as though I could have done better, but indeed that was quite an experience.”
“Alrighty, Detective, spill the beans, how long have you been driving?”
“Well, I believe the first time I raced was… Mille Miglia? Not too long ago.”
“Wait, that Mille Miglia?!” Charlotte exclaimed in shock, before eventually remembering that Watson was indeed from the 1930s in the human world, so it wouldn’t be too far fetched. “What position did you come in?”
“I managed to lead the pack for the first few hours, but engine unreliability issues eventually led to us dropping out of the race.” He reminisced. “I enjoyed it quite thoroughly. I hope the engine of this car survives this one.”
“I-I see…” Charlotte’s voice trailed off. She remembered the thing about rallying, there was no guarantees on everything. From her understanding of Earth motorsports history, even the greatest of endurance legends could succumb to an unforeseen failure, like those of the Group B rally cars of the 1980s, or the innovative American entries into the 24 hours of Le Mans during the 1950s. Endurance racing is a gamble, and she was very much well aware of it now.
“Bend’s coming up, you got those notes ready?” Watson said as he began to see the road start to curve ahead, the trees coming ever closer and closer as the vehicle neared the bend. Charlotte went back into reorganizing her notes and quickly, she continued to dictate the turns and angles to Watson, to which he’d respond with the maneuvering of the vehicle through the forest bends to the tune of her loud announcements and the beat of the rock music as they sounded their way around with the rowdy two-litre engine exclaiming its announcements of roars echoing through the depth of the alien (To everyone except Charlotte) forest. The exhaust crackled and popped as the engine speed fluctuated atop the rev range, and the steering shuffled the tyres about the road. It was all so perfect as it was, and Watson felt unstoppable.
For the hours, the occupants of the vehicle surprisingly hadn’t found the ride to be too uncomfortable, with Watson’s smooth footwork and handling of the steering wheel all combining in a perfect harmony of speed and elegance. As Charlotte glanced over to the man in the driver’s seat next to him, her vision of him changed slightly, from a mysterious detective to something seemingly much more. To her, his facial features seemed to exaggerate that of a true racing driver as he gripped the wheel and shifted through the gears, it was a mesmerizing view of what she could only describe as the idea form of what a pilot could be, from the subtle movement of his head, to the rapid shifting of his eyes as he scanned the road foe obstacles, to her, nothing could compare to the view that she was witnessing as of this moment. The subliminal visage of a beyond human form taking the wheel of and becoming one with a mechanical four-wheeled beast. She now wondered about the bust of those legendary racing drivers in history, who have brought many racing teams to their victories, Formula One, the World Rally Championship, the World Endurance Championship, and many others. Did the face and form of those legendary drivers match what she witnessed right now? Were they as engaged with their machine as Watson was? She could only ponder at the sheer legend of these drivers in history, and indeed now she had a full view of the true beauty within Motorsport, when the driver and the vehicle came as one. She stopped her pacenotes, and yet Watson did not flinch. He only continued as the route came to him without any outside assistance, he was beyond any obstacle as he was subliminally engaged with that of beyond the road, a fourth element to the racing driver that was simply beyond anything tangible.
Yet this perfect cadence would end once they neared the camp, seemingly without any prior warning, Watson had lost all connection to the road, a tear in the fabric of his perfect driving harmony, for the car had left the road after going full speed right over a large jump that went unnoticed by Charlotte. The car left the ground momentarily, and Watson was visibly shook as he felt the grounding link sever. For only a moment, he had lost control and the vehicle’s tail gone loose, which unlike his rhythm, was quickly recovered. Charlotte too, was very surprised and quickly reshuffled her papers and recommenced her dictating of the pacenotes. But the effect had been done, and from here on out the team continued at a third of the pace they were going for the first leg of the journey.
“Hesus Santa Maria…!” Romulo exclaimed. “That’s going to take some of the life out of this vehicle, that’s for sure…”
Upon their arrival to the camp, they had found themselves among the first to have arrived, second in fact, coming right after yet another SUV. The team still seemed to be setting up their camp however, so the distance likely wasn’t too large, perhaps it could’ve been neck-and-neck had Watson anticipated the jump. Nevertheless, they were finally at the campsite, and Watson maneuvered the red crossover, caked in more loose mud and dust than earlier, out towards the bottom of a small plateau nearby the river. It was rather hot and humid, though the breeze helped to make things just a bit more enjoyable for the tattered and battered crew of Blazers.
“How do I turn this off?” Watson asked as he pulled the parking brake once he found the car to be in a desired spot.
“Right, so don’t turn the car off yet, but when you need to, just turn the key to the left and after a few clicks, it’ll let you pull it out of the ignition.” Romulo said as he got out of the car and moved towards the driver’s door. Watson moved out of the way to let Romulo do his work, and he went onward to the vehicle’s stern, opening the tailgate and pulling out the tent to set it up. As the two men worked on those matters, Charlotte began looking around the area. As the river was close by and the humid heat was starting to get to her, she thought about either going for a swim or perhaps a bath.
“I’ll be right back!” She said as she tossed her jacket through the car’s window. The heat seemed to get to Emily too, however, and so before Charlotte could get out of her grasp, she quickly grabbed a hold of her. “Could I ask where you shall be going to?”
Charlotte looked around a bit, the two boys were once again at each other’s throats bickering over where the tent should be going, and with a sigh she turned her focus back towards Emily. “Well, I’m going to go find a secluded place by the river…” She winked, and instantly the two girls had managed to formulate an idea in their heads. The two felt something tug on their shirts, and they looked down to see Ga’araiya, who had caught up on their plans as well. Now three of them, they slipped around towards the back whilst the boys were busy, and got one of Charlotte’s bags from the Yamada’s cargo hold before finally sneaking away towards an opening through the denser part of the foliage.
After a bit of walking, they’ve managed to find themselves a decently secluded area on the edge of the river, on a bit of creek that just barely branched away from the main body. Here the water was fairly clear and flowed smoothly and slowly as it carved its way past the river’s gravel-like sediment, and all around them were different types of tropical flora and small species of fish that were foreign to Emily and Ga’araiya. Lining the creek bed were small and fairly smooth rocks, carved by the many years they had been settled on the edges of the creek. The tropical brush all around them vaguely reminded Emily of the short amount of time she’d spent in the Philippines when Watson’s watch malfunctioned, although things still felt very much off, as the tropical plants were unlike that of Earth’s, and the overall air ambience felt different too.
Upon scanning the area a bit more, it was quite secluded from the rest of the environment by trees (or what looked to be them), and bushes, and a bit of starlight managed to seep through the unusually-shaped leaves as they bounced around each other and illuminated the low-roof clearing as the quiet fauna twittered and tattered about calmly to the rhythm of the wind as it rustled the bushes and leaves about and landed onto their skin. They looked closer at the creek, whilst it was indeed fairly small, no larger than about two and a half people in width, it seemed deep enough to allow one to float without them touching the creek bed, but still shallow enough that there wasn’t any risk of one drowning.
Charlotte settled her bag down onto a large dry rock nearby, well above the creek and out of the way of any water that may end up splashing about. “Well then, I don’t sense anyone within the general vicinity. I think we’d be fine where we are right now.” She said as she began to strip first, slowly lifting up her red Scuderia Quezon tanktop away from her body, with some of her fur clinging onto the inside of the shirt. Emily looked around, still on alert as she assisted Ga’araiya in lifting her dress away to reveal her small and petite, but refined frame, like one would expect of someone royal. Once Ga’araiya had been disrobed, she quickly made her way towards the water, not even bothering to check the water’s temperature, she sat right in and immediately felt right at home. A face of satisfaction glowed upon her as she finally lay within the creek’s soft-flowing waters. Seeing Ga’araiya enjoy herself, Charlotte quickly rid herself of her shorts and her undergarments, settling them on a low-laying branch of a tree nearby, and climbed right in. Unusually for someone like her, she very much enjoyed as her fur drenched itself in the natural calming waters of the creek.
Finally, Emily tended to herself, unbuttoning the green dress she had on which slowly revealed her busty frame. Charlotte looked back towards Emily, and observed as she slowly disrobed herself of her garments, which revealed her large bosom and gentle curves as the dress slowly began to slide right off of her Italian-sun-kissed arms. “Show off!” Charlotte sniggered at her as she splashed water towards Emily’s general direction. A droplet of the fairly cold liquid seemed to land square on Emily’s belly, which caused a small whimper to emerge from between the blonde’s luscious lips. “H-hey! You might get the dress wet!” Her face flushed and pouted as she set the green dress on another nearby branch, before slowly making her way towards the water, still looking around to ensure that no peeping tom had dared to trespass upon their purity.
“No one’s looking, and besides, weren’t you going commando earlier? You’re acting as though people hadn’t already seen you down there…” Charlotte smirked. It seemed that this cat was very teasing towards her blonde companion. Meanwhile, Emily’s face was still red, and Charlotte’s little remarks weren’t helping either. “B-be quiet, you stupid feline! I took special care to ensure that n-no one would be able to see, so I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Emily crossed her arms as she settled down into the creek’s water nearby Charlotte, leaning back enough where it let the water get up to around her shoulders. It was indeed quite cold, but not cold to the point of shivering and was very much relaxing. She let her buttock rest upon a fairly large and smooth rock as she took a stretch in the water. “I haven’t had a bath in a natural body of water like this before. It certainly feels quite liberating.” As she stretched her arms up above her head, her bosom slowly rose out of the water, becoming visible to Charlotte as they sat aside each other.
The cheeky feline smirked at this, and quite literally she had grabbed the opportunity right there, and Emily squealed as she felt a pair of hands grab right onto her bountiful chest. “W-what do you think you’re doing?! U-unhand me this instance!” She demanded without any major action.
“Well, I wouldn’t be grabbing you if you weren’t flaunting them so much!” Charlotte said as she continued to get a feel of the large lumps on Emily’s chest. She felt them right through, soft and warm with her body heat, and weight aplenty. “I-Impressive…”
“W-wait! D-don’t move them around so much-!” Emily’s sweet voice continued to sound through restrained moans as Charlotte continued groping her.
“Oh c’mon! Such splendid assets such as these and you won’t even let anyone touch them? We’re both girls anyway! And this always happens in Japanese cartoons!”
“J-Japanese cartoons?!”
“Hey, see! You’re not even resisting anymore!”
All the while Emily had herself being harassed by the very likely jealous flat-chested feline, Ga’araiya simply floated along the creek not too far away from the other two with her face toward the heavens, feeling as though she were in deep bliss as she observed the blue sky seeping through the clouds overhead and finding its way through the leaves, before eventually landing on her blue retinas which roughly reflected the colour of the sky. Although something seemed to alert her as her sensitive ears picked up a distant rustling in the bushes came to her attention. Immediately, she turned herself to a swimming position and waddled her way over to the two, splashing at them to grab their attention.
“Hey! Who do you think you’re splashing water at?!” Charlotte exclaimed as she splashed water back at the smaller girl. Ga’araiya was not amused at all by this, she stood up from where she was and whipped her tail into the water, hitting the two of them with a sizeable wave, before pointing towards the general direction of where she heard the bush rustling. “S-someone… bushes…” She said softly, before hiding herself back into the water.
“W-wait! Someone’s there?!” Emily’s eyes grew wide and her face looked anxious, but Charlotte didn’t seem to be able to smell anything, likely due to the strong scent of the creek water clinging onto her whiskers overpowering the general scent of the environment around her, and as such she was not able to tell if anything had gone awry. “I don’t think anyone’s there. If anything, it’s just… a b-bird, or something… J-just keep your body under the water, or whatever…”
Unfortunately, it seemed as though Emily’s fears had come true, and eventually a brown-furred being unlike anything they’d seen before emerged from the bushes, but it seemed as though the being hadn’t managed to catch a glimpse of them as it was too busy scanning the area. Emily screamed upon realizing this, which started the being and got its attention. Quickly, before it could catch a glimpse Charlotte moved her fingers into a gun shape and fired off one of her spells. A bright blue flash of light emanated from her fingertip, which had managed to land squarely on the being’s forehead, swiftly knocking it out before it had the time to react.
“T-this is what I was telling you, goddamn it!” Emily exclaimed, standing up from where she was. Charlotte simply chuckled at her as Emily bared her entire body out of the water without her even realizing. “How bold, you’re showing yourself off already, not even knowing if that thing over there is still conscious or not…”
Emily looked back at herself, and her face flushed a deep red as she quickly sat back down into the water. “…W-whatever…”
Charlotte got up however, shaking her fur almost dry and letting out a hearty laugh. “I’m just messing with you! No creature’s going to keep awake for long after getting hit with that spell! My mentor taught me that when I was younger, as a little self-defense spell if I ever found myself in trouble.” She went over towards her bag, grabbing a towel and covering her body up to look over at the being she just temporarily knocked out, and immediately a pang of realization struck her as she identified the body. “Oh… oh dear…”
“W-what’s wrong?” Emily swam over towards them, lifting herself up from the water to get a closer look. She was able to somewhat recognize who it was, and she too started feeling a slight bit of remorse. “W-wait… isn’t that… from another team?” She said as she leaned closer towards the being. Meanwhile, Ga’araiya had picked up yet another rustling in the bushes, and got up from the water and attempted to reach for the bag which contained the towels, but unfortunately for the small girl, she could barely reach it and looked over at Charlotte with a face pleading for assistance. But the feline was still busy observing the knocked out being however, closely observing its facial features as it really wasn’t like that of any other species she’d seen before.
“Which team was this one from again?” Charlotte leaned over it, managing to identify some of its facial features as masculine.
“I’m not quite sure myself…” Emily got up from the water to assist Ga’araiya, but it right as she lifted herself off, a rustling of the bushes had alerted all of them yet again, but this time it was Ga’araiya who acted first, glaring over towards the bushes that were moving, she chanted some words that vaguely sounded like Greek, and out of seemingly nowhere a large turquoise trident had materialized into her hand, and with the form of an Olympian javelin thrower, she catapulted the three-pronged weapon towards the direction of the rustling.
“What in the bloody-?!” Sounded a very much familiar male voice in the distance, until from the bushes came a tall, blonde figure holding the trident in his right hand. “Y’know Princess, you shouldn’t… Oh…” Watson had arrived at the secluded creek, much to the girls’ dismay. Once again, Emily screamed loudly as she frantically covered herself up with her arms, whilst Watson slowly attempted to walk away.
“I-Insolent fool! How dare thee walk up on a bunch of innocent maidens! Leech! Disgusting!” Emily hurled remarks at him, despite his attempt at walking away. But Charlotte hurled more than remarks, she moved her fingers once again into a gun position and fired yet another spell, which somehow Watson had managed to dodge with just a simple shift of his upper body.
“Hey! I’m walking away already! Geez! Anyway, I think the team of that guy you just conked out is about to arrive, I’ll be waiting somewhere near, though rest assured I won’t be peeping on you.” He said as another bolt of blue light flashed by his face even as he continued to walk away.
“Like hell we can trust that!” Charlotte called out. But Ga’araiya no longer seemed to be on guard, which to Emily was a cue that he kept his word. She moved over towards the rock where the bag was, drying Ga’araiya off first and wrapping her with a towel, before she got her own towel and quickly dried herself off now. After having dressed themselves, Watson mysteriously emerged from the bushes once more, still holding the large trident in his hand. “As I was saying, Princess. Try not to use this too much. It might warrant unnecessary attention that could potentially prove harmful to us.” He tossed the trident back towards Ga’araiya, who swiftly caught it. She spun the trident around her hand before catching it once more and unmaterializing it out of existence. Charlotte simply stared in awe at this technique of hers, but didn’t dwell on it too much as there were more pressing matters at hand. Watson walked over towards the knocked out being, getting on one knee to further examine it. “I believe you were trying to cast the same spell you used on him at me, were you not? Deary me, that could’ve ended quite poorly. Fortunately for this gentleman, he’s pretty resilient.”
Watson lifted the being’s head, and placed his hand on its cheek, and like some biblical miracle, its eyes opened and it was now awake. Before anything however, a set of footsteps started to approach the area, and the rest were now on high alert as anything could happen at this point, and eventually a group of figures appeared from the bushes.
