TEAM HILLBILLY ROLLERS
Earlier parts
PART 0.1 - A prologue to the prologue
PART 0.2 - Another piece of the prologue puzzle
PART 0.3 - Viva la IP 4Z!
PART 0.4 - Robotman
PART 0.5 - Interference problems
PART 0.6 - Can I play Tetris?
PART 0.7 - Tangerine and familiar
PART 1.0 - Now things got serious!
PART 1.1 - Hello, Thibault and friends!
PART 1.2 - Poor kitty
PART 1.3 - Curse you, Team Oil Crisis!
PART 1.4 - Interlude
PART 2.0 - Bird bird bird, bird is the word!
PART 2.1 - D. Head
PART 2.2 - Good night!
PART 3.0 - Freeway Rockstar
PART 3.1 - DISCO TJO DISCO HEJ
PART 3.2 - Van-Werewolf 1-0
PART 4.0 - Calm after the storm
PART 5.0 - Mirror mirror on the…oh, crap!
PART 5.1 - Hello, little puppies!
PART 6.0 - Speed
PART 6.1 - GIMME OXYGEN! (Co-op with @Madrias - hence the somewhat different format.)
When the team had been relaxing at the van for a while, arriving early as they were, they saw Kaylie from Team Shift happens coming towards them, with Rukari coming after, a bit ashamed it looked like. According to Kaylie, Rukari had something important to say.
“I apologize for side-swiping the van.”, Rukari said
“Side-swiping? No shit, Sherlock, that’s the least thing one could say! How the fuck were you driving?”, Andreas answered.
“I guess we could call it Van Gogh now”, Janne said and pointed towards the now one-mirrored van. “You get the point?”, he asked, smirking.
“Did you get your drivers license in a package of corn flakes or what?”, Marie asked, a bit salty.
Rukari grimaced, though was grateful when Kaylie let go of his ear. “I learned to drive in the Grundzahiri,” Rukari said.
“He’s military,” Kaylie explained. “Grundzahiri is their army.” She did, however, smirk at Janne naming the atomic-pink van as Van Gogh, then added, “Not a bad name for a one eared, rather artistic van.”
Rukari glanced at Kaylie to see if she was done speaking, then said, “We were heading to rescue another team. I drove as fast as I could to get to them, considering our surroundings at the time. A breakdown in Dyre territory is dangerous.”
When Marie quipped that Rukari got his drivers license in a package of Corn Flakes, Kaylie snickered. “In the United States, we’d say he got his license from a Cracker-Jack box, so it’s good to see some things stay the same.”
“What is a drivers license?” Rukari asked. “Vilzahir Arunika Veldrothan-Rhuthan has given me permission to drive any vehicle I need in a time of war, and during a time of peace, any non-military vehicle I deem appropriate.”
The deep sigh that came from Andreas could almost be heard over the entire camp. “Yeah…” he said. “We heard some chatter about that on the CB, but still…”, he said with an even more deep sigh, “…is it really worth driving so you put other teams at risk just because of that? Oh, I forgive you…mirrors aren’t really needed in this world anyway.”
It was almost like if Andreas had calmed down a bit. For some reason it was like if he had no energy for any of his usual outbursts. One could hear that he was just tired of this now.
“But please, next time, don’t drive like a maniac if you don’t have control over the situation”.
“You are almost starting to sound grown up now. I am getting a bit worried for your sake now.”, Janne said with a sigh.
“Well, have you ever mentioned the time you put my Dodge Dart in a ditch, so we had to…”, Marie continued.
“WELL ENOUGH OF THAT, THEY ARE NOT INTERESTED IN THAT STORY!”, Andreas said in a very annoyed tone. Now everyone could recognize him again, so there was probably nothing to be worried about anymore.
“I thought I had more space. Forgot about the mirrors,” Rukari admitted.
When Marie mentioned the time that someone put her Dodge Dart in a ditch, however, and Andreas tried to claim they weren’t interested in that story, Kaylie gave an almost wicked grin. “I wouldn’t mind hearing about this. Seems our resident emperor-to-be isn’t the only one with a history of wrecking cars,” Kaylie said.
Rukari glared at her. “I did not wreck the truck,” he said.
“No, but at the Trafikjournalen 24 hours of Clunkers, you totaled our Sinistra Traville,” Kaylie replied.
“It still ran when the race was done,” Rukari shot back.
“We had to sell it for scrap value! You sent it into the wall so many times that there wasn’t a straight body panel left. You shattered the driver’s side window, caused the front suspension to collapse, making me kiss an airbag, trashed the rear suspension bad enough that we had to fabricate a bracket to keep the rear axle in place, and scattered bits of debris around the track!” Kaylie retorted, smirking.
“Yeah, anyway, we were kind of late for a party…”, Marie started.
“First, it was all your fault, because it took half the day for you to get finished, since you were so drunk so you didn’t know which planet you were on. Second, not everyone calls “some backwood drunkards getting even more drunk as fuck while setting fire to random things” a party just because we do, worth keeping in mind. Not that I think that Shift happens is some city sissies, but still.”, Andreas answered.
“Yeah and he was driving like a maniac…”, Marie continued.
“Like a maniac…sure…with a tired old 318 that has some traces of compression left on at least 7 cylinders…sure…but yeah, keep on humiliating me.”, Andreas said in a somewhat salty tone.
“Well, and I said that we should turn left at the next intersection, but appearantly I was just a stupid drunkard that should keep my mouth quiet because we should drive straight ahead according to Mr. Fittipaldi here…”, Marie continued.
Janne was trying to hide his laughter now, which didn’t succeed very well.
“Only that you could not drive straight ahead there, you could only turn left and right, which he obviously took notice of since he stomped on the brakes, but since this was late in the evening in the spring in northern Sweden, the snow had melted during the day, then freezing in the evening, so he tried to brake on a patch of black ice, and…”, Marie continued.
“My poor beercans didn’t really survive being airborne then…”, Janne pointed out.
“So, we basically did a Dukes of Hazzard jump down in the ditch, which at that time of the year was more or less a puddle of mud, so let’s just say we could not get anywhere, we had to walk for kilometers to get a farmer to pull us from there with his tractor…”, Marie laughed.
“Haha, do you remember how we were scrubbing mud from the floor for days after that?”, Janne asked.
Andreas was turning more and more red in his face, which probably was due to equal parts of anger and shame.
Kaylie laughed, then said, “Black ice is the worst. There’s a reason we set up The Lair in Nevada, and that’s because there’s no snow. We tried to get set up at Malavera’s place in Alaska, and that stopped after the first day where I slid all the way down the driveway and out into the street, then had to crawl back up the driveway with my claws.”
Rukari chuckled. “That sort of party does sound interesting. I think Kivenaal would enjoy it more, though. He has an unusual talent, manages to make water explode.”
Kaylie shrugged lightly. “Kivenaal, and I don’t know how he does this, can split water into hydrogen and oxygen. I’ve seen him make fire, so I’m assuming then that he adds a spark, and you get a deafening bang. Twin-tailed bastard nearly scared my stripes white when he detonated a water bottle behind me. When he’s having a laugh, sometimes he won’t light it, so the blast is just pressure splitting the bottle.”
“My brother likes to scare Kaylie,” Rukari admitted.
“Technically, they’re not exactly brothers, but the Valraadii have no word for distant relatives. Because both of them share a direct family lineage by bloodline, both of them have the same first part of their last name, they claim each other as brothers,” Kaylie explained. “So, even though there’s almost 8,000 years or more between them, they claim each other as brothers.”
“We both have the Khakrin blood. My father’s lineage and his father’s lineage can be traced back to the same source,” Rukari mentioned. “Though I know not when he developed a taste for scorpions. We don’t have them where I am from.”
“Oh, we’re used to snow and ice where we live. You know, we don’t have garden furniture, we just sit on the snowmobile for the only week of the year when you can’t drive it, that’s sort of…summer”. Of course, Janne said that as kind of a joke, but he had no idea if they would take him seriously or not. He listened with great interest (unlike the rest of the team) to what Kaylie and Rukari had to say, but his concentration was now mainly on one thing.
“HEY! Did you say oxygen?”, he shouted.
“Rukari, Kivenaal, and Malavera would like that kind of weather. The three of them are built for cold climates. My brother and I, not so much, and I suspect the same of Jayde as well,” Kaylie mentioned.
When Janne asked if they mentioned oxygen, Kaylie nodded. “Yes. Kivenaal has the ability to split plain water into hydrogen and oxygen. He’s also a bit stoned on cinnamon right now,” she said, before turning to Rukari. “How long will that last?”
“It has been a little more than an hour. He should be relaxed, hungry, but in a more normal state of mind,” Rukari admitted. “Cinnamon isn’t long lasting, but the relaxation from the experience can last a day.”
Janne did not listen to the cinnamon part, instead he opened the tailgate of the van, took something out of it, and started running towards Kivenaal. You could hear another deep sigh from both Andreas and Marie now.
Do anyone of you understand that man at all? Because I don’t…”, Marie asked.
“Nobody does…”, Andreas answered.
Kivenaal looked up as Janne ran toward him, looking a bit curious. Jayde, who had also been keeping an eye on Kivenaal to make sure he didn’t do something stupid like try to take a swim while impaired, looked over at Janne.
“Need something on the van fixed?” Jayde asked, grabbing his staff and getting ready to head over there at a moment’s notice.
“Nah…but this oxygen bottle. It is empty. Can any of you guys do anything about that?”, Janne asked.
“After all, if I get this oxy/acetylene torch to work again, I could help other teams which might spare your magic. So you can really benefit from this in the end, right?”
Kivenaal nodded. “I think I can do something about that, though getting the hydrogen out is going to be a bitch. I know it leaks out of seals, and it’s hard to contain, but not using it for a few days and avoiding sparks and open flames isn’t an option, I’d guess.”
Jayde looked at Kivenaal as the four-armed Valraadi grabbed a plastic water bottle with barely a splash of water left in it, a few drops that hadn’t come out, then watched as the water suddenly vanished and the bottle swelled up, dangerously close to bursting. “There is a lot of lift-gas in there. I’ve worked with airships before, I can get that out of a container,” Jayde admitted.
Kivenaal smiled, pointed the swollen bottle in a seemingly safe direction, and with a practiced flick of his thumb, popped the cap free. There was a fairly loud pop, followed by Kaylie startling as the bottle cap hit her in the back of the head.
“Kivenaal!” Kaylie yelled. “Stop destroying the caps on our spare water bottles!”
Kivenaal chuckled, then told Janne, “I think we might be able to fill that bottle, then.”
Jayde reached into one of his robe pockets and pulled out Kaylie’s adjustable wrench, having been cleaned since the Dyre battle, but still looking relatively ordinary. When Kivenaal told him to remove the valve and gauge from the top of the cylinder, he did so, though it was obvious it was a bit of a fight for him as he got used to the unfamiliar tool. Kivenaal, meanwhile, grabbed an unlabeled water can off of the roof rack and the funnel Kaylie used to fill the radiator out of the toolbox, plopped the funnel into the neck of the cylinder, and poured a rather large amount of water in. Jayde then put the valve and gauge assembly back on the bottle, opened the valve slightly, and focused his magic to only let the lift-gas out of the bottle. Kivenaal, likewise, focused to make the process slower so he didn’t either spit a bunch of oxygen, hydrogen, and water out of the valve, or worse, detonate the tank. For five long minutes, there was a loud, steady hiss from the valve as the hydrogen escaped, before Jayde finally closed the valve.
“I can’t feel any more lift-gas in that container,” Jayde admitted.
Kivenaal looked at the pressure gauge, then said, “Looks like I put a little bit much in there. We’re a little over-full.”
Janne smiled a bit about the comment. “Nah, I think it is hard to avoid sparks and fire with an acetylene torch”. He looked with amusement on the process of filling the bottle.
“Wow, I am impressed. Anyway, if something needs some heat or can be fixed with soldering or welding, just send them to me and you’ll spare some magic for when it’s better needed I guess.”, he offered.
“By the way, Kivenaal. How much do you know about IP?” , he continued.
Kivenaal smirked. “Fire and heat are my speciality, but I understand. Saving Jayde from having to do so many repair spells will be beneficial,” Kivenaal said, holding up his upper right hand so that only the two of them could see the searing-hot blue flame that he had coating the claw of his index finger for a moment. “I’m fireproof. Can’t be burned,” he added.
When Janne asked Kivenaal what he knew about IP, Kivenaal stopped to think for a bit. “I know the 4Z engine is damned reliable. Got two military surplus generators back home with them. They’ll run on just about anything you can feed them, so long as it will burn. Knew someone at the Alaskan secret base I grew up in who had a military truck with an engine built to share a huge amount of parts with the 4Z engine. I think Kaylie resto-modded a 1974 IP Rugger by making an adapter plate for the transmission and shoving a 5.2 liter Sinistra Sidewinder narrow-angle V8 in there. Yes, the ones that are meant to go sideways in a Traville. But I don’t really know much else. I mean, I probably do know more, but… Not off the top of my head like this.”
Janne got a bit excited when he heard that Kivenaal already knew a bit about what he was going to ask about. “Yeah. That military truck… Maybe you know that Sanju heavy industries is the mother company of IP, and that they also make the Sanju brand of trucks. So…what youre talking about is probably a Sanju MDM44 “Wolverine”, right? Well, I heard some rumours that you are into old military vehicles and I have a friend that is absolutely nuts, he has a couple of hundreds of them, everything from motorcycles to tracked vehicles to huge trucks. Anyway, in some months he will be importing a Wolverine…can’t wait to see it”, Janne said and paused for a while of breathing.
“You know, the engine is sick, the 8ZV. As you said, it shares a lot of parts with the 4Z. A V8 with the same pistons, same rods, twice the volume of course. One of the heads is even more or less similar to the ones found on the 4Z. And the thing that is absolutely sick is that it uses dual distributors and dual carburetors that is identical to the ones on the pre 1987 4Z. If something breaks, you can just kill four of the cylinders and run it as a V4, kind of what Cadillac did with the 4-6-8 engine, but manually, so it works. Also, it was advised to do it when going down steep during off road driving to improve engine braking. He has been looking for one for years, you know, if he finds out that something is missing in his collection, he has a hard time sleeping at night, haha”.
Kivenaal nodded. “Sanju, that’s the name. Was escaping me for a moment. The MDM44 is, from what I’ve heard, a damn-reliable piece of equipment. And the 8ZV is an incredible engine. I’ve heard stories of them coming back into their home base, shot full of holes, almost no oil pressure left, engine’s a total write-off but somehow the poor thing still ran well enough to get the soldiers home. I’ve wanted one for years myself, but finding one and finding someone willing to import it into the United States… That’s harder,” Kivenaal said. “And yeah, I’m into military vehicles myself. Not just old ones, though,” he added, holding up his key-ring to show three keys that, at first glance, looked identical, but had different cuts on them. All three were in the same Desert Tan plastic housing, with the key being black-anodized metal. “I own 3 2009 Bricksley Quagmire military trucks. Also,” he said, flipping to another black-anodized key, this time in an olive drab housing, “I have one Bricksley MHT-23 “Salamander” armored troop transporter. Big beast of a machine, quite heavy, nearly impossible to drive it anywhere because you won’t find parking spots big enough, but it’s great in the winter. Well… As long as you know that’s a snow-drift and not concealing a car under it when you decide to park in the snow drift.”
Janne nodded at what Kivenaal had to say. “Yes, I am sure that you and Arne would have a lot to talk about if you met, haha. By the way, what happened to the Anhultz yesterday? You sure were gone for a while. Did you do some heavy repairs on it? Because it seems to be working now.”
Kivenaal gave a half-smile. “I didn’t see much of what went on, but their team converted it to steam power after a catastrophic distributor failure. I… try not to be seen around here if possible, I look too close to someone I am not, and I have no desire to be worshiped,” Kivenaal admitted.
Jayde, on the other hand, spoke up. “Valentin had a brilliant plan. I couldn’t just fix the distributor because it was missing too many parts, but… We were able to tow them to a steam-works to get their car fixed. Rukari blew the radiator hose off of the truck, and Kaylie made him change a brake so he understood how hard fixing these carriages can be. We were there a long time, they were there a long time. If you want specifics on how it works, however, you’re better off asking him.”
“YOU SAID…STEAM POWER?”, Janne answered with eyes big as saucers and quickly ran away towards the tangerine tank.
TO BE CONTINUED
(Might contain valuable info for @MrdjaNikolen and @Elizipeazie )
Also, @BannedByAndroid , thanks for giving me some names of cities in Ariya, Sanju is now officially the home of IP.
