Test Track

~F-ZERO TEST TRACK, UNSPECIFIED LOCATION, EARTH~

"This is probably a bad idea."

Shockingly, it was not Stephen saying that. It was Russel, stopwatch in hand. And he was staring at Pele, the very dented Toyota AE86 Sprinter Trueno with considerable apprehension. Which was more than justified, as the car now appeared to have a rejected prop from Back to the Future stapled to the back of it. It hummed gently, which served as a contrast to the almost impatient and irritated snarling of the car's real engine.

Noodle's frizzy hair appeared from the passenger window. Underneath it, she was grinning maniacally.

"Hey, it worked when we went into space" she trilled over the rumbling noises. "It's gotta work on the track, too, right?" She patted the side of the Trueno, which seemed to growl in response.

"But that was us going into space!" protested the Boston drummer. "Escape velocity! This is actual steering and manouvering, with gravity and friction and all that shit! That booster wasn't designed for that kind of thing, baby-girl!"

"Only Stephen-kun gets to call me that now," Noodle retorted, sticking her tongue out at him.

But Russel's expression didn't change. His eyes kept flicking between the car itself and the looping, curving racetrack that stretched out in front of him. The addition of the hyperdrive had been a last-minute botch-job, under concerns that Pele as she stood wasn't qualified for the F-Zero track. But as much as he'd tried to modify it, Russel had no clue if it would even work. He could only see two endings - the engine exploding, or the car shooting off into the sky before exploding.

They ended surprisingly similar to each other.

Noodle ducked back into the car and out of sight.

"How we doin'?" Russel heard her ask her pilot.

"I dunno." Stephen's voice, muffled as it was behind the rest of the car, sounded confused. "Engine seems really hot already, and the oil pressure... She's not happy, Noodle."

"Eh, she'll be fine," was the retort. "Put her in gear, Steph! Let's get going!"

There was a metallic racheting noise as Stephen fought against a gearbox that suddenly seemed unwilling to co-operate. Russel hadn't noticed before, but Pele seemed to be trembling, the body vibrating as if under tension. He didn't like to think of the car as alive - that was ascribing too much to it on the whole. But he could have sworn that the way the engine rumbled and the wheels twitched seemed...

Almost angry.

He raised the stop watch.

"Ready?" he shouted.

No answer from the inside. So Russel took it as his cue.

"GO!" And he clicked the-

Pele took off.

To understand that last sentence, do not imagine a car moving off from the starting line. Imagine a car exploding briefly into white fire before shooting forwards at comet speeds, bellowing like an angry dragon all the while. And imagine a very terrified drummer from a cartoon band throwing himself to the floor with a yell as heat washed over him.

When Russel could look again, the car was gone. And the hyperdrive engine that had taken a whole week to retrofit was in pieces on the start line.

He stared at it.

"At least I ain't payin' Pickle-Puss for the privelage," he muttered.

------

When the car finally came rocketing back and slid to a stop over the line, it had shaved an entire five seconds off the previous record-holder. Russel nearly forgot to click the stopwatch off in his shock. And then he spent several seconds staring at a car that, rather than tearing itself apart from g-forces and velocity, was instead quietly simmering as if to say "Ta-daaaaaaah!"

Inside the car, Stephen and Noodle were a mess. Their faces were sweaty, their hair was wild and tangled and their expressions were pictues of shock. They looked like they hadn't stopped screaming for a long, long while. They blinked owlishly, staring ahead as if trying to see ghosts - and having probably seen plenty already.

There was a very long silence indeed. It was marred only by the quiet purring of the engine.

"I think," Stephen murmered at last, "that she doesn't like being altered."

"Yeah." Noodle tried and failed to smooth down the explosion that was her hair. "Let's... let's keep her like this."

Pele snorted steam from her grille. It sounded almost smug and self-satisfied.

Cops VS Robbers

It ought to have been easy. It was the first big break the Lupinrangers had since coming to Olympia. The Gravitas Museum of Art, Science and History was holding a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition, The Treasure of the Ryusou Tribe, to display a groundbreaking archeological discovery. Their prize was part of the collection that was behing housed here for a while, to be displayed in May before being transferred into storage for proper scientific study.

Of course, it was the opinion of the trio that they should have it instead. The man who'd made the discovery had some very old-fashioned ideas about how wealth should be distributed. What better middle finger would it be to yank his hobby out from under his pretentious nose?

They got as far as lowering Touma - Blue - down through the skylight where their target was kept. They had to stifle laughter at themselves to avoid being detected. Seriously, who put something valuable in a glass case underneath a skylight? That was literally asking for somebody to drop down and steal it! Then again, with the Dial Fighters having the ability to unlock literally everything, almost every job seemed easy to them.

Touma was on the point of unlocking the glass case containing the artefact when it went wrong.

But not in the way the Lupinrangers expected. They expected alarms blaring, red lights flashing. Instead, the lights just slammed on to full power with an audible thunk. Practically blinded, Umi - Yellow - nearly let go of the winch that held Blue up, and he would have fallen bodily onto the floor if she'd lost her grip. Touma, for his part, had to shield his hands with both eyes, dropping his Dial Fighter in the process.

"The hell?!" Kairi - Red - cried. He'd been sure they were quiet enough. There was no way they could have been detected, not by the security systems or by the on-duty night guards. So who would even be around to-

"Halt!"

King of Time - Interlude

 "Why do you eat your hot dog like that?"

Vince was supposed to be eating a hot dog. But he wasn't, because he was distracted with the way Kouta was eating his hot dog.

"Why do you eat it like that?"

Kouta was sitting on the opposite end of the table from him. His cheeks were full and his jaw was working. But he was glaring back with childish defiance.

"I hate it when you eat your hot dog from the middle."

Vince's hot dog was untouched. But Kouta's had a bite right in the centre. Not the place one usually begins eating a hot dog. Vince had never seen anyone eat a hot dog this way, and now that he had, his world was crumbling from beneath him.

"Stop eating the middle of the hot dog and eat it the right way."

Kouta said nothing. He continued to chew and glare. The bite in the middle of the hot dog persisted.

"Why are you doing this to me, kid? You're driving me crazy."

Did others eat their hot dogs this way? Vince wasn't sure. But the fact that Kouta, aka Kamen Rider Zi-O, had just done it had horrible implications. Somewhere out there, there was a cabal of heretics who ate hot dogs in this perverse faction. Convinced that this was the proper way to dine on a sausage between bread and smothered with toppings.

He could not allow this. It was time to be the cool mentor guy again.

"Okay, look," said Vince, picking up his hot dog. "This is how you do it. You take the weiner out of  the bun-"

"Are you crazy?!" howled Kouta.

~FIN~

King of Time Part 4

(NOTE: The following is an off-season collab that has no bearing on 2018 and 2019 RP. Special thanks to TheDeleter for writing Vince and Draco for writing Parsee.) 

Kouta Tokiwa, looking at the stranger, had a bad feeling. He’d been having them a lot recently, but this one was the most severe. There was something subconsciously wrong about the newcomer, an underlying sense that he felt out of place and didn’t belong. There was a faint aura around him, barely perceptible - a kind of haze that made him look as though he was a badly-applied sticker in a children’s picture book.

The body of the middle-aged man lying in front of him didn’t help matters.

“What do you mean?” he asked, at last. “Change the future how?”

The stranger’s mouth turned up in a smirk. His voice was oddly soft and quiet. But he never took his eyes of Kouta as he spoke.

“His daughter was dying. The Bugster Virus is due to claim her life in a week. So I gave him the power to save her. The power of Ex-Aid, the rider who cured disease. By defeating him, you’ve stopped the future from changing and doomed her.”

“That’s horseshit,” said Vince from behind Kouta. “I’m pretty sure we have, like, five doctors who could cure that shit without thinking.”

The smirk widened. “That’s not what the history books say, Ex-Aid.”

“Fuck the history books, they’re written by assholes.”

Kouta decided to chip in before things got ugly. Not that they weren’t going to anyway, but still.

“...and who are you?”

“My name is Heure,” the stranger explained. “I’m one of the Time Jackers.”

“Gross,” said Vince.

Heure ignored him. “We’re from the year 2068. As you already know, that world is ruled by Emperor Zi-O, who commands all of time and space. The entire planet is a dictatorship and all those who oppose his rule are destroyed.”

“Let me guess.” Kouta rolled his eyes. “you want to stop Zi-O from becoming Emperor. Look, I already dealt with a guy who-”

“Of course not!”

Induction

The journey to Earth wasn't the problem. Ryuga had plenty of reading material and things to do, and the ship was pretty fast. It only took him about a month or so to get there. And traveling alone wasn't a problem either - the other Wyverns were needed back home, in case the Benthians brought more trouble. He'd miss them, of course, but he'd been assured he could stay in contact, so that was alright.

He understood his orders well enough. Rumours were going around that somebody on Earth was supplying the Benthians with their tech. How and why, nobody could guess - no ships had ever been reported carrying such cargo into Porphyrian airspace. So Ryuga had to invesitage. Laura had promised to handle much of that, so the boy wasn't too worried about that part.

The problem was, upon disembarking, he was told to report directly to the Base Commander in her office with all the other pilots.

-------

"Welcome to Earth, you sorry sacks of shit."

King of Time Part 3

(NOTE: The following is an off-season collab that has no bearing on 2018 or 2019 RP. Special thanks to TheDeleter for writing Vince, Cornwind Evil for writing Dawn and TheRubyChao for writing Kaede.)

“Harold Kelman?”

The aged British man, former head of the Ministry of Joy, looked up from where he sat.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

The young man grinned. “Nope. But I know you. They say a lot about you in the history books.”

Kelman snorted. “Nothing good, I’ll be bound.”

“Yeah, they don’t talk much about the Smiler stuff. That was kinda whack. Still amazed a whole nation bought into Martian psychic therapy.”

“Amazing what you can sell if you package it right.” The old man laughed, but there was no humour in it.

The stranger took the seat next to him. He sat back easily, as if unconcerned with what was going on in the older man’s mind. There was a long pause as the duo stared at the opposite wall of the waiting room.

“...are you here to see someone?” Kelman asked.

“Nope, just passing through. You?”

Kelman stared. “That’s rather private, isn’t it?”

“Hey, I’m a chatty guy. I like to get to know people.”

A longer pause. And then Kelman heaved a huge sigh, looking more old and tired than ever.

“My daughter. She… developed some kind of viral infection. The doctors can’t seem to identify it, but she’s… very weak. I pay her a visit every day I can. But with my busy schedule, I fear that someday she might… slip away. When I’m not there to comfort her. Ironic, that my brother created Marmalization to ease pain, and yet now I can’t do anything for my own child.”

His voice became cracked, emotion leaking through. The stranger sucked in air through his teeth.

“Damn,” he remarked. “Heavy. No dad should have to see their kid go before them.”

“And you would know?” Harold’s tone was almost droll.

“No. But I’ve seen it happen again and again, where I come from. Children getting their lives cut short, right in front of the people who love them the most. It’s messed up. Imagine having to cradle the body of your own family when their only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Harold sighed, but offered no comment. There was an even longer silence.

“You care a lot for your daughter,” the stranger said.

“Obviously.” Another humourless laugh.

Then Kelman looked over at the stranger. And he sensed something seemed off when he saw the tiny smirk at the corner of the younger man’s mouth. But he was old, and couldn’t be sure. Ever since the Smiler incident, he’d gone a little paranoid, always looking over his shoulder…

“Would you save her yourself, if you could?” asked the stranger.

The sense of wrongness grew.

“...more than anything.”

Then the stranger turned to him and looked him dead in the eye.

“Harold Kelman. History says that your daughter dies in a week, from the Bugster Virus. But I’ve come to change that. I can give you the power to save your daughter and make things right. In return, I need you to do something for me. Think of it as equivalent exchange - I scratch your back, you scratch mine. There’s a lot at stake, Harold Kelman, and I wouldn’t come to you if I didn’t think you weren’t the man who could do this.”

The former head of the Ministry felt very much like a cornered canary before the cat strikes.

“Do what?” he asked.

The stranger pulled something from his pocket.
 

“Save the future.”