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REX study is more important even though i do want to read ur story always. Priorities to ur studies first then this...once a month or twice a month is acceptable...no worries...

beside i might cant read ur stories once i go offshore...ultra bz....

wish you all the best

no worries rex. As crav3 said school comes first so keep it up

but do keep writing pls

wish you all the best

Thanks guys... BTW, sorry for the hold up; RPM 22 is up

RPM 25: The Truth about Steve

Keith’s always drives his car around to make it accumulate more mileage. Today, Keith and the others are going to visit the beach and this will be their first assembly as a team together. Everyone is looking a bit glum today… it looks like something is up with them. All of them are staring at the sea whilst watch the sun sets with sad and miserable looks on their faces.

That’s to be expected though. It’s been two weeks since Yuki and the other girls are training in Hawaii, and there is no word from them at all. No wonder all of them are worried… besides, looks like Keith’s idea to go to the beach isn’t working very well, since most of the visitors here are either with their families, or with their loved ones.
“What is up with you guys?” Keith asks

“Ah, well… I miss my girlfriend” Hikaru sighed, “I wonder how is she doing right now?”

“Yes… since Yuki and the others gone off to Hawaii, we feels very-very miserable here” Steve continues

“All of you already have a girlfriend? That’s nice…” Keith nods, “So what are exactly they doing right now in Hawaii?”

“Training on how to be a good wife” Souya lift his shoulders, “We haven’t heard anything from them for these couple of weeks”

“This feeling of loneliness is killing me” Iwami adds

“I feel you” Yamada continues

“I miss Rika so much” Tarou lowers his head

“Look here… I'm sure that everyone would love us to be strong” Gonsuke cheers them up, “We can't let them worried about us”

“Gonsuke is right…” Clark smirks, “There is no use thinking about it too much. Just believe and have faith; they will certainly come back as a wonderful life partners for all of us”

“Thanks, man… those words really cheers me up” Hikaru replied, “He’s right, guys… we should believe that they are doing their best at Hawaii”

“Yeah… I think we should quit worrying and moves on ahead” Steve understands, “Let’s prepare ourselves for the battles ahead”

“Battle? What battle?” Keith looks puzzled

“I will race against one of the members of RJ7” Hikaru explains, “It’s Haruna of sprint race”

“So I’ve heard” Keith nods, “Well, let’s go… otherwise, we’ll be late for the meet”

Today the race will be held at the Haruna; the canyon route that’s famous for the hot springs, beautiful lake, and Initial D fans hanging place.

Its late evening, and the streets are barricaded by people with walkie-talkie at the top and bottom of the hill.
“Alright… we are here!” Tarou nods, “I think we should let Keith rolls with his new M3”

“Jeez… thanks, man” Keith smirks

“I’ll roll with him” Steve adds, “I’ll keep my eyes on him… make sure that he’s doing well”

“No need to do that, Steve” Keith frowns, “I’ll do fine”

“Whoa-whoa-whoa…” somebody said to them, “It looks like we have a company here”

The man is John; the Grip King. Eliah and Bernard are also with them… it looks like it was them that held this evening race. They are missing and unseen for these couple of months also, but the streets rumors about Hikaru’s returns with White Ghost have also reached their ears.
“Long time no see, Hikaru” Bernard nods, “I see that you changed to Honda S2000”

“And I guess you knew that my sister is going to gather back her old team” Hikaru smiled

“Yes… we are officially the returning members of Need For Speed” Eliah continues, “If you want to beat us, you have to accumulate more and more reputation”

“We will, and we’ll be back to defeat all of you” Hikaru smiled wickedly, “We will reign over all of you, as the best street racer ever!”

“We’ll be waiting” John nods few times, “Let’s begin the race tonight… we already have a couple of guy that’ll race you”

“Alright then, Steve… let’s do our best” Keith psyched himself

“No; let’s do your best” Steve replied

“You sure sounds cocky” Keith stares at him, “I don’t want to say this but if you keep maintaining that cocky attitude, you’ll be humiliated badly someday”

“I don’t want a newbie like you preaching to me” Steve closed his ears, “Let’s just get this over with and go home”

Keith spins his head in wonder as he gets into his car. Steve also does the same; he ignites his engine and revs it hard. Before he begins the race, Keith opens up the ventilation to use outside air as air conditioner, and close his windows.
“I’m going to give him a hard lesson to learn” Keith thought

“Keith, after all these races are done, why don’t we take a hike again and do a battle?” Steve asks, “I don’t think you can beat me in canyon battle”

“Fine then” Keith nods seriously, “It’s a deal… even we are teammates, I don’t think it’s prohibited if we do a battle, though”

“You and your stupid M3 won't stand a chance in a canyon battle against me and my Evo” Steve points his thumb down

Keith shows somewhat irritated look on his face. He hates it when someone calls his car stupid. His eye turns sharp and looks angry.
“Take it back” Keith sounds irritated, “My car is far superior to your Evo”

“What? What I just said to you is right” Steve lifts his shoulders, “You shouldn’t bring a heavy car into a canyon battle”

“If you don’t want to take it back, then I’ll consider this a personal matter; it’s a challenge between JDM and European” Keith explains, “After the races are done, I’ll show you that BMW is not for show only”

“Be my guest… it’s clear who’ll lose” Steve stares him

“Don’t bet on it” Keith drives his car to the starting grid

Keith will race against one of Need For Speed goons. He drives an S13 Nissan Silvia and is also a loudmouth kind of person.
“It’s best if you forfeit right now” the man said, “Your car looks fast but heavy and slow”

“Here we go again” Keith pushes his MDrive button on his steering wheel, “You asked for it… Linesman, I’m going to be the chaser behind him”

Keith moves his car and lined it behind the S13. He does it on purpose, to show his car’s true ability and potential as an ultimate drift machine. He turns on his car audio on, while listening to Max Coveri’s Running in 90’s in a loud volume.
“What is he doing?” Yamada looks puzzled

“I think he’s annoyed by your words earlier, Steve” Iwami explains

“I think so as well” Gonsuke nods, “You should apologize to him later”

“Why would I do that? He’s a newbie, and I’m sure he can't do anything in his big bad M3” Steve smirks

“Let me explain to all of you the meaning of superiority!” Keith yells

The linesman dropped his hands and off the S13 go. Keith is holding up his car on purpose to makes everyone surprised.
“Keith, what are you doing?! Go!” Souya urges him to go

Keith starts to follow after Souya tells him to go. He’s one puzzling guy, and no one can predict what he’s thinking.
“You really did it this time, Steve” Hikaru spins his head, “Why do you say that anyway? It’s not like you…”

“We are a team that consist JDM cars, and he on the other hand is driving a European car” Steve explains, “I just hate it when there is somebody else that’s driving other cars than ours”

Steve is a JDM freak. He doesn’t like anything rather than Japanese cars this, and Japanese cars that. Moreover, he hates it when somebody from the team drives foreign car; call it a JDM complex if you will.
“You’re totally missing the point here… he loves Japan, and I guess that’s enough reason to pick him as our new driver” Tarou replied, “We think it’s alright if he drives other car… there is a lot of good cars out there that’s better than Japanese cars”

“Not for me” Steve frowns, “I just hate it when he drives something else other than Japanese cars”

“That’s up to you, Steve… even if you drive a good car, I don’t think his car is less good than yours” Iwami added

“…”

Keith is following the S13 closely. His car with a lot of technology is all that he needs to overtake Nissan’s S platform, which is known as a good drift machine. Corner to corner is taken with ease- M differential lock makes it easy for him to pass almost every corner with a tail slide, which is cool. All he does is just to under-steers the car, counter-steers, and let the electronics do the rest.

His heart beats fast, his foot feels numb, and his hands are trembling. Adrenaline completely rushes through his body. His breath feels heavy and steamy hot.

Every people who are watching are thrilled by the action they see tonight. Clapping hands and whistling mouth is heard on the side of the streets. The crowd is even pleased by the loud volume of his music and that makes all of them begin to sing it along while cheering for the two drifters.

Modern talking
Modern walking in the streets
New desire
Take me higher
Lift me higher with your speed
I need fire

Get the satellite if you want to see me
Talking on the net I know the way you like it
Get your credit card cos I need no money
All I wanna get is you baby

Running in the nineties
Is a new way I like to be…
I'm just running in the nineties
Come on baby run to me
We are running in the nineties
Is a new way to set me free…
I'm just running in the nineties
Yes I wanna know, yes I wanna see

Cyber talking
Cyber sex is on the line
New desire

Take me higher
Boost me higher with your mind
Set me on fire

Get the satellite if you want to see me
Talking on the net I know the way you like it
Get your credit card cos I need no money
All I wanna get is you baby

Running in the nineties
Is a new way I like to be…
I'm just running in the nineties
Come on baby run to me
We are running in the nineties
Is a new way to set me free…
I'm just running in the nineties
Yes I wanna know, yes I wanna see

The driver’s behavior of the S13 is getting funnier and funnier. Not only he brakes hard to the corners, he sometimes decrease his pace accidentally… it looks like he’s nervous already because Keith is tailing him closely. One mistake is all Keith needs for a takeover, and soon the chance will be available.

Both of them are almost at the end of the course. After the next two corners are the continuous five hairpins.
“It’s the five hairpins at the next two corners after this” said the S13 driver, “I’ll leave you to dust this time!”

(New desire)

(I need fire)

Running in the nineties
Is a new way I like to be…
I'm just running in the nineties
Come on baby run to me
We are running in the nineties
Is a new way to set me free…
I'm just running in the nineties
Yes I wanna know, yes I wanna see

On the third hairpin, the S13 driver brakes late and drives away from the side barriers. It looks like he’s taken much pressure and makes a big mistake. That was all Keith needs to overtake the S13. He immediately shifts down and passes him, securing his victory over the Need For Speed goons.
“Shit!” said the S13 driver

“Bye-bye” Keith waves his hand

Take me higher
Lift me higher with your speed
I need fire

Get the satellite
Talking on the net
Get your credit card
All I wanna get

Running in the nineties
Running in the nineties
Running in the nineties
Running in the nineties

Keith stops his car at the bottom of the street and takes his winning money from his opponents. The guy with S13 is so disappointed with the results. When Keith gets back inside his car, somebody called from the intercom… it was Steve.

Keith is still pissed with what Steve just said to him earlier, but he picks it up anyway.
“So?” Steve asks

“What do you think?” Keith ask back with flat tone

“You lose?” Steve keep asking

“Forget about it” Keith hangs up the comm. line

Tarou smiled, followed by the rest of the guys. It looks like Keith’s driving is not for talk only; he and his car did the best. Everybody is so psyched when they know Keith is winning.
“Ray Krieger wins! He really is the best with BMW!” said one of the spectators

“BMW is one of the best European cars, and when Krieger is driving it, it’s a potential weapon of mass destruction” said another spectator

“Ray Krieger, huh?” Steve smirks

“The nickname suits him very well… he’s skilled BMW driver” Gonsuke nods

“He is, he is” Yamada continues

“Alright… Keith has done his job” Tarou pats Evo’s fender, “Show us your best as well, Steve”

“No need to tell me that” Steve nods and line his car at the grid

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After Steve’s race is over, both of them climb up the streets and prepare themselves for another battle of their own. Most of the guys don’t agree with the idea of racing against their fellow member, but the two cannot be stopped so it’ll be a waste of time asking them.
“I hope both of you don’t get yourselves hurt in the process” Tarou spins his head

“Don’t worry… never-never” Steve replied

“I sure hope that’s right” Hikaru nods

“No worries, Hikaru… I’ll defeat him in no time at all” Steve adds

“…” Keith smirks and spins his head, “So stupid… do you really think with your level of skill in the mountain passes you’ll be able to defeat me and my M3?”

“Sure do” Steve replied, “Let’s get ready”

Keith puts on Need for Speed Pro Street CD album and increases his volume so everybody can hear the music also. This time, it’s Fancy Footwork by Chromeo, remixed by Guns N Bombs.
“I will defeat you, even before this music is over” Keith points at him

“Try me” Steve replied

“Guys, after I defeat this fool, I’ll go straight back home…” Keith nods, “See you guys tomorrow”

“Alright… in three, two, one… go!!!” Tarou dropped his hands simultaneously

Both of them speed up and leave the starting line simultaneously. Steve with 4WD system and turbocharged engine are leading ahead. Keith watches him pass by and lift his thumbs up.
“See that?” Steve asks from the intercom line, “This is a Japanese car”

Two Step... Two Step... Two Step... Two Step... Two Step... Two Step

“Don’t get cocky just yet” Keith smirks, “The race has just already begun”

Keith increases his pace and shifts up. The first corner is coming up and he’s swaying his car hard to the side and drifted. Steve is not a drifter, so he drives with grip style; slow entry speed with fast exit speed, or throttles hard with left-foot braking technique.
“Here I go!” Steve shouts and turns his car

Steve’s entry is fast but Keith follows closely with perfect braking drift. He easily matches up his car with Steve’s in no time. Trail of smoke from Keith’s tires are seen at the back, and the smell of burning rubber is in the air.

Seeing this, Steve shifts down and increases his pace to move Keith back behind him. Keith smirks because he knows Steve falls to the trap. Keith is trying to make Steve lose his concentration and made a mistake.
“You think I’ll let the race end easily?! No f**king way!” Steve yells

“We’ll see… we’ll see” Keith grins

Everybody thinks the race is already over but the main event just got started. When they are about to leave and hears the screeching tires and the loud sound of V8, they wait to see what is going down at high speeds.
“Hey, it’s the Red Evo and Ray Krieger!” said one of the spectators from walkie-talkie

All of them see the M3 drifted with the Evo at the front. At that time, the crowd is even more attracted to see both of them race.

Keith’s way of drifting is unusual. He never was afraid to slide his car to side because he knows that the differential lock will help him manage the car’s movement.

Bright lights keep you straight,
Feels like looking in a magazine,
You run on the floor,
Feels like dancing is the way to go,
Young boy don’t be late,
This girl ain’t really got time to wait,
You think its all for show,
But this is just the only way I know,

“With showy drifts like that, you’ll never be able to pass me” Steve laughs

“Hahahaha” Keith laughs back, “You always look down on other people’s skills. I know how you take Tarou’s skills and the others lightly- I know your kind, Steve! Even though you drive a Japanese car, you treat your friends like idiots. I’ll show you what drift is like; I will pass you with drifting”

“I’m not treating them like idiots! Mind your own business!” Steve said

If you ever need a guy,
A partner for the week
You’re holding my direction
Then just come and follow me
We’ll meet up on the floor
And maybe do the twerk,
So show me what you got in terms of fancy footwork

Steve pulls away on the corners with left-foot braking. Keith on the other hand, always does tail slides and let the differential lock do the rest. Keith is annoyed with his fellow teammate behavior. Even though he acts cool and outgoing, Steve is a mysterious person and no one can predict what he is thinking.
“You think all Japanese people are stupid, and that’s why you look down to them. Drifting is a waste of tires, drifting is slow, et cetera, et cetera… you’re making me sick!” Keith shouts and increases his pace, “You befriend with these amazing people and yet you look down to them!”

“…”

Steve is no longer talking. Either he is accumulating his concentration back or Keith is right, Only God knows.
“Either I'm right or you are beginning to lose concentration- who cares?! I’ll defeat you!” Keith shouts

They are currently at tenth corner, and Steve still can't shake up Keith from his back. He started to feel panic and sweats a lot.
“Come on!” Keith yells, “Increase your pace!”

When Steve looks at his rearview mirror, he saw a fast car with monster driving it. Bloody red eyes flickering from the light blue window tint, companied with loud dry noise of V8 engine makes him shiver in fear. He grips his steering wheel hard with trembling hands.
“It’s almost at wavy line” Steve thought, “I will make a big loser out of you!”

But if you let her see that fancy footwork
Show her that you’re not that shy,
Let her see that fancy footwork
Show her you’re that type of guy.
But if you let her see that fancy footwork
Show her that you’re not that shy,
Let her see that fancy footwork
Show her you’re that type of guy.

Soon enough they will approaches the five consecutive hairpins. Steve is getting more and more stressed by the car behind him.
“Damn it! He’s fast!” Steve grits his teeth

Steve increases his pace and accidentally going too fast. It’s the first hairpin and if he doesn’t slow down, he’ll hit the barrier.
“Oh shit!” Steve yells

“You’re finished” Keith sighed, “See ya”

Steve hits the barrier at 100 KM/H and his head bumps to the airbags, while Keith is drifting and passes him. After Keith passes by, he turns his car 180 degrees and steps down from the car. He even does something that makes Steve irritated even more.
“Recognizes this, Steve?” Keith moves his fingers

What Keith does is lift his right hand and moving his first three fingers as if you’re tilting the high beams three times. It’s what the Drift King does at the beginning of Tokyo Drift movie when Sean is crashing to spectators’ cars on the parking area.

Two Step... Two Step... Two Step... Two Step... Two Step... Two Step

“You better learn to appreciate what others can do” Keith smile wickedly, “I’ll be happy to kick you anytime you want to make you remember what it’s like to be inferior”

Keith steps back into his car and does another 180 degree turn. He even burns out some of his tires to let Steve suck the smoke of the tires.
“Next time, get something fast and European okay?” Keith said from the intercom line, “See ya”

After leaving Steve alone at the first hairpin, Keith calls Hikaru to fill everybody with the latest condition.
“Hikaru, call a tow truck… Steve had an accident at the first hairpin”

Everybody is surprised to hear what is going on.
“What the! Why won't you help him?” Tarou sounds puzzled

“Nah, he’s alright… but his car doesn’t” Keith replied

“You two sure can't get along, huh?” Hikaru smirks

“I won't” Keith spins his head

“We’ll handle it” Yamada nods, “Thanks for today”

“No problem, see you around” Keith hung up

News and gossips travel faster than light (?). Steve’s loss is heard everywhere, and a skilled racer with Ray Krieger nickname is appeared. Winning and getting famous is not making Keith big headed- he keeps his humble behavior in one piece.
“Everybody is talking Ray Krieger this, Ray Krieger that” Martin said, “You really making a name out there, kiddo”

“Yes I did” Keith nods

“There is someone I’d like you to meet” Erica smiled, “I wonder what you will say to him when he’s here?”

“Who is it? Is it a girl? Or a celebrity?” Keith smirks

“You’ll see soon enough” Martin laughs, “He’ll pay us a visit next week”

Meanwhile, something else happens to Steve. He has lost his confidence in Japanese car he’s so proud of.
“You did what?!” Tarou shouts with disbelief

“I'm selling my Evo” Steve spins his head, “I’ve had enough with Japanese cars”

“So? What are you going to do now?” Hikaru asked

“I don’t have any plans for now, so I guess I’ll just play it cool” Steve nods

“Oh well, if you have something in your mind, tell us right away” Gonsuke nods, “See you around”

After all of them left, suddenly Steve’s cell phone rang.
“Yeah?”

“I heard the news already” said a man from the phone, “I believe what defeat you this time is E92”

“You again? What do you want?” Steve asks

It’s Cliff. He won't call someone if he has no business with them and looks like he has something for Steve.
“Come back here for awhile, and help me with some errands” Cliff said, “If you do, I might give you something nice to defeat the kid in E92”

“Fine” Steve replied, “I’ll be ready by then”

“Go tonight” Cliff continues, “I’ll arrange everything right away of you want”

“Yes, please” Steve nods

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ten hours later, somewhere on New York City…
“Okay, I'm here… where are you?” Steve asks

“There will be a man with a valet suit. He will give you the car key to my F40” Cliff explained, “I’ll see you at Willow Springs”

Steve meets the valet guy and he asks for the car key. He then sees the red F40 parked before him. He drives it and goes immediately to the Willow Springs.

On the way, Steve sees a red Ducati bike, which has the same model as Yuki’s. Seeing that, he remember something bitter in his past; the reason why he’s kicked to Japan.

August 2007, a boy and his gang members are speeding through the streets in New York. They are being chased by police officers in bikes as well.
“Hey, Steve!” said a boy to him, “Catch me if you can!”

“All I have to do is to follow up, and zip; I’ll pass you in no time with my 1098!” Steve shouts

Suddenly, an old lady passes by and frightened by what the boys are doing. She collapsed and went to the shock; it looks like she has a heart attack. Steve saw what happened and stops his bike to help the lady, but the police are waiting for him. When he approaches the old lady, he’s captured and is taken to custody.

His friends never showed up and the old lady died because the police are too busy capturing Steve.

He’s brought to Rikers; a place for criminals in New York City. In the prison, he’s a popular man because of his big body. Most of the prison guys are trying to fight over him for new blood recruit.

Wounds and bruises are his friend everyday. Blood spilling, sound of braking bones and teeth is music to his ears. Prison life is indeed dark and gloomy. Even though he tried his best to avoid it, he checks in there right now.

Not everyone in the prison is bad guys to newcomer. Somebody helped him to guide him to the right path and this makes Steve owes great debt to this old man and his crews.

One month later, a letter addressed from his crew leader is received by Steve. Guess what is on the letter? The crew leader is congratulates him to take part in prison life.
It was a trap, everything are a big set up so Steve will help the old lady.

No friends and no one to ask for help, Steve reaches the lowest point in his life. Until his brother is come to the rescue to bail him out.
“I guess you already knew its coming” Cliff sighed, “Why won't you back off from trouble? I told you not to ride the bike until you turned 18!”

“It’s not my fault that old lady died… I’m just trying to help” Steve replied flatly

“YOU should help yourself by keep out of trouble!” Cliff yells in his face, “I’ll send you to Japan, and I’ll make sure you won't get another trouble over there!”

One year is already passed and here is Steve right now, reminiscing about those dark days.
Before Steve went to Willow Springs, he pays a visit to the old man.

On Rikers, everybody sees Steve when he enters the building; from the guards to the convicts are staring at him with sharp look.
“I just want to see the old man… I'm here to pay him a visit” Steve says to the guard

“Alright, let him through!” said the guard

Steve enters the visitor’s room, and not long after that a rugged old man with messy hair enters the room.
“Long time no see, old man” Steve bows

“Ah, its good thing to see you come by” he replied, “Please, sits down”

He is Lloyd Orlano, and he is a powerful man in this place. He is the man who helps Steve by letting him become one of his crew members.

“It’s good to see you well, Lloyd” Steve continues

“Same here, kid… it looks like God has given me a chance to see you again” Lloyd smiled, “And what brings you here?”

“I thought I could drop by and say hi” Steve replied, “I just remembered something about those days”

“It’s better off when you don’t remember it anymore…” Lloyd sighed, “Well, I have some juicy info for you. Are you ready? It looks like the man who set you up is hiding in Los Angeles somewhere right now”

“So I’ve heard” Steve grins

“I also found out that he’s a team leader for a well known street racer” Lloyd added

“It’s nice you inform me about it, old man… I really, really appreciated it”

Steve stands up and intended to leave the room. When he’s near the door, he speaks again to the old man.
“I can't deal with that right now, but I’ll make sure to pay him back next time” Steve explained, “I’ll come back here another time to help you out, old man”

“I’ll be waiting, kid” Lloyd replied

After he leaves, he immediately drives to Willow Spring to avoid any questions from Cliff.

It’s already noon when Steve arrives at Willow Springs. This place is well known for many racing events held in Los Angeles.
“You’re late… I guess you visit Lloyd first at Rikers” Cliff sighed, “No time to waste, the driver’s registration is almost over”

“What registration?” Steve asks as he steps out from the car

“I'm entering you compete in free-for-all racing event” Cliff nods, “Sign up over there, and I’ll explain more”

Steve signed his name and he’ll be the representation for Ferrari rookie team.
“What are you up to now, Cliff?” Steve asks again, “I hope this isn’t going to be one of your crazy plans”

“No crazy plans… just drive and show these people the power of Ferrari” Cliff continues, “If you do that, I’ll give you something useful for your street racing career”

Both of them walked to Ferrari team’s paddock. Behind the paddock, a veiled car is sitting solemnly.
“And what will that be? I sure hope it’s a Ferrari car” Steve smirks

“Not a chance… I was thinking to give you something like this” Cliff opens up the veil, “The car arrived here this morning”

I guess all of the readers ever heard of a car which once dominating two seasons of ALMS on 2001 and 2002, twenty four hours Nurburgring, and twenty four hours Spa; it’s E46 BMW M3 GTR.
“This Homologato car?” Steve asks, “Where in the hell’s name you get this?”

“Surprised? I get this from one of my friends in Dubai” Cliff laughs, “The four liters, V8; naturally aspirated engine with 380 HP… this car has a short-lived racing career thanks to Porsche”

“And why did you get this for me?” Steve rubs his chin, “I guess it’ll be better for me if you just give me an F430 or something with prancing horse emblem”

“Nah… I get this car far cheaper than F430” Cliff smiled, “While F430 costs about $120,000, I get this one with $100,000”

“Ah, black market… you never ceased to amaze me” Steve frowned, “Fine… but you know that this car won't be enough with stock look and stock performance, right? I need you to give me some more money”

“Tell me the number” Cliff gets out his check book

He’s unusually generous today… wonder what’s happening with him?
“Just give me $150,000” Steve nods

“Fine” Cliff replied, “I’ll sign this check when you finish this race”

Meanwhile in Japan, Seno is making a call to her friends; Itsumi and Ayumi, to tell them that the old team is going back.
“Itsumi, tell this to Ayumi also” Seno said to her, “The Racing Queen will gather once again. We will once again stand at the top”


This post has been edited by R_E_X on Nov 9 2009, 01:07 AM

yeah, i read it up already...

I added the RPM 23... and I was wrong about not able to write on my college days; in fact, I can... I have a lot of spare time on these last semesters

RPM 26: Next Step Ahead

Few days after Steve went ‘missing’, Yuki and the others arrived back at Japan. Hikaru and the others are waiting at the airport with happy faces and cheerful attitude.
“Jessie will get mad if she knew Steve gone back to New York City without telling her” Hikaru spins his head

“Well, at least this time we got an excuse… this Ray Krieger over here” Tarou points towards Keith

Keith is slurping his cold grape yoghurt while he’s waiting with them. Their weird look makes him feel uneasy.
“Hey, don’t look at me like that! What did I do wrong?” Keith lifts his shoulders, “If this ‘Jessie’ has a problem, then fine… I’ll take her on anytime”

“Don’t let it go over your head…” Iwami pats his shoulder

“Whatever…” Keith looks at lots of girl came out from boarding gate

Yuki and the others are back with more mature look. Looks like all these weeks of training have changed them somehow.
“Hikaru…” Yuki smiled to him

“Welcome back dear” Hikaru carries her bag, “You girls had a great time?”

“Um, Hikaru… where is Steve?” Jessie ask him

“Ah, bout that… you better ask my new friend here” Hikaru scratches his head, “Everyone, let me introduce, this here is Keith Valentine. He’s the newest recruit in our team, and he’s known as Ray Krieger”

“Hi… nice to meet all of you” Keith bows to them

The girls bow to him as well. And after all of them thorough with the introduction, Jessie walks to him to gets more info on her boyfriend whereabouts’.
“So, Mr. Valentine… what did you do to Steve anyway?” Jessie ask with puzzled look on her face

“Why do you ask about him anyway? What is he to you?” Keith ask back

“Excuse me… he is my boyfriend” Jessie sounds mad, “Did you kill him or something?”

“Practically, no…” Keith spins his head, “He’s just… well, let just say he take a trip back to New York”

“And the one who did it was you?” Jessie keeps on asking, “Did he lose a race to you or something?”

“Yup… you could say that also” Keith nods

“What car do you drive?” Jessie asks

“It’s Ray Krieger, dear” Rika answered, “So it must be an E92 BMW M3, right?”

“Bingo” Keith smirks

“How could my boyfriend ever lose a race to you? He’s a pro street racer, while you are just a snotty little brat” Jessie said with disbelieved

“Excuse me, lady” Keith replied, “But your boyfriend is the one who challenges me first, and he even said that my car is stupid so I have no choice but to whack his ass back”

“I’m going to spank yours ass because you just mess with me” Jessie points toward Keith face, “Tonight, meet me at the Tokyo Port area”

“Fine” Keith nodded, “See you then… even though I’m sure that your car don’t stand a chance against me”

Keith walked away and gets out from the airport to avoid them. He’s no more than a new guy, and he hasn’t got any respect from his teammates except for Hikaru. It’ll be best to stay away from their personal business.
“Keith, where are you going?” Gonsuke asked

“I'm going to prepare myself for tonight’s race” Keith answered, “See you tonight!”

After he left, Jessie is getting more steamed than before.
“UUUUUGH! What an arrogant kid! That…that Ray Krieger” Jessie sounds mad

“He’s not… he just have a different way of thinking than ours Jessie” Ayase try to calms her down

“Beside I think it’s not a good idea that you challenge him without knowing anything about him at all” Yuuri added, “Where did you guys find that kid anyway?”

“We meet with him at the Minato-ku harbor” Souya explained, “He’s a good catch, and Hikaru is the one who came up with the idea”

“Hey, thanks to my sister, Satoshi and Kenjou will join their old team back” Hikaru replied, “What can I do? So I think it’s better for us if we have another team member with good skills as his”

“I'm going to beat that punk kid hard tonight!” Jessie still sounds pissed

“Ray Krieger? Huh I wonder if he does something wonderful in his race” Yuki wondered

“He does…” Yamada nods, “He beats one of Need For Speed goons in S13 with no problem at all”

“He even beat up Tsugumi of RJ7” Clark added

“No wonder everyone calls him that” Sarah nods, “Well, let’s get something to drink… something cold to calm Jessie down!”

All of them are still talking about Keith and Steve while they get something to drink.
“It’s Steve’s fault, alright” Marie said, “It’s inappropriate for him to joke around about someone else’s car”

“Yes, especially when his car is weaker than Keith’s car” Sako adds

“Even though it is, I don’t think he should bully Steve around with his big fat car” Jessie frowned, “Well, I guess I’ll just have to take him on, and make him apologize to Steve”

“You are missing a point here, my dear…” Yuki sips her cold lemon tea, “All that kid does is to protect his dignity and pride. It was Steve fault for being cocky”

“I know, I know… besides, he looks just look like a little kid with big weapon” Jessie sighed, “I'm going to beat him up badly!”

“Not that I sided with him, but I guess that would be impossible” Hikaru lift his shoulders, “He’s good and pretty skilled too… maybe he’s better than I do”

“More than you do, huh?” Yuki smirks, “I don’t think there is someone else out there that’s better than you, dear”

Later that night, Keith is already waiting at the port area. Looks like the racing meet is indeed here; a lot of street racers are also have gathered here. Car that pimp up audio with extreme cosmetics and loud volume, revving engine, people talking to each other are everywhere in the port.

Jessie arrived not long after Keith came. The heat is on, and everybody is cheering for the race.
“Good thing you arrived earlier” Jessie nods, “Let’s bet on our money right here, right now”

“How much?” Keith opens up his wallet

“What do you say about $5,000?” Jessie throws off some money to her car’s bonnet

“Fine” Keith nods and throw the money also

“See you at the finish line” Jessie smiled

“I’ll give you a five seconds margin” Keith replied her

“Don’t take me lightly, or you’ll regret it” Jessie narrowed her eyes

“I'm not taking you lightly; I just want to show you why your boyfriend lost to me” Keith stares back at her

Jessie feels really upset with what Keith just said. She immediately gets back into her car, starts her engine and revs it hard.
“2 stroke, Renesis rotary engine” Keith wondered, “She hasn’t put a turbo yet”

Keith does the same. He gets back into his car and pushes his engine start button. He revs his car hard and for some reason, Jessie feels threatened.
“Kids like you can't handle V8 very well, I presume” Jessie points at him

“That is the exact same thing that made him bow down to this same V8” Keith smiled, “I’m ok with this after all I'm just a newbie, and I guess I need to prove myself that I deserve to be called Ray Krieger”

Jessie closes her window and moves her car towards the starting grid. Keith follows and lined up his car next to Jessie’s car.
“You’ll regret this kid” Jessie sounds pissed

“We’ll see” Keith replied flatly

The crowd is getting more excited than ever. Ray Krieger will liven up tonight’s race; who’ll dominate tonight’s race?

The race is a one lap, long circuit around the port area. The linesman is standing between both cars and lifts up his hands for countdown.
“Three… two… one… Go!” the linesman dropped both his hands simultaneously.

Jessie launches her car fast… or so it seems. Keith is waiting for the 5 seconds margin to give her some handicap time.
“Okay, here I go!” Keith launches his car forward and follows her 5 seconds later

The circuit is barricaded with big and empty containers, lined up to form one big technical circuit. Slow corners with wide lane, fast corner with narrow lane, and sharp U turns are some of what the challenge they’ll face in the circuit.
“Your V8 is heavy, so I bet that you’ll have a hard time maneuvering around here” Jessie said from the intercom line

“Don’t bet on it” Keith shifts up and increases his pace

As expected from an M3, it catches up easily with Jessie’s RX-8 in no time. Jessie starts to get nervous already and feel threatened by it. She shifts down and floors up her car more to stay ahead of him.

Hikaru and the others arrived not long after the race between both of them begun. They are confused and puzzled to see the crowd is cheering on the event happening there.
“Don’t tell me the race started already?!” Tarou slaps his forehead

“Damn, we’re late” Clark sounds irritated

“Don’t worry bout it” Sarah replied, “I'm sure Jessie will win this one” Sarah said to them

Back to the race, Jessie is still struggling to drive defensively towards the finishing line. Whenever Keith tries to passes her, she blocks his lane to keep him behind.
Keith keeps it cool and easy. He knows that Jessie will make a mistake later as no one is perfect.

Both of them now are at the last half of the circuit. Just after three more corners, both of them will finish up this race.
“High speed corner will follow after this left turn… and here it is” Jessie shifts down to get more acceleration

Keith shifts down and floors up the throttle. The corner is narrow and will only fit for one car. Who will make it and who will slow down?
“Here I go!” Jessie shifts up when suddenly “What the?!”

Keith is slowly passing her; his M3 has greater top speeds and performance on straight line.
“Damn! Slow down, slow down!” Jessie bawled

“No freaking way” Keith gets in front of her

Keith squeezed to pass the narrow high speed corners and take the lead. After this narrow corner, next up is low speed with U shape wide lane.
“I will overtake you at this low speed corner!” Jessie said to Keith while passing his car

“Not a chance” Keith replied

The M differential lock does its thing once again; Keith floors up the throttle and slides his car sideways. Keith throttles hard, under-steers his car, and counter-steer to let the tail slides and leaves a trail of smoke behind him.
“That’s impossible! How can you do that?!” Jessie looks surprised

“Bye” Keith sticks his tongue out to her

He retakes the lead once again towards the finish line, leaving Jessie with a big disappointment and shame.
“How could this happen? “Jessie sighs with disbelieved

Keith gets back to where his teammates are parking. He then pushes his engine stop button and gets out from the car.
“I win!!” Keith jumps to the air

“YEAH!!!” the crowd follows him

Jessie parked her car near his M3. She steps out as she watches him takes the winning money.
“Good job, kid” somebody said from behind them

It is Seno. She comes around also to watch the race with her teammates. Bernard Lester with Nissan GT-R, Eliah Jones with Dodge Viper SRT-10, Jonathan Burton with SLR McLaren, Haruka Itsumi with Mitsubishi 3000GT, Sumire Ayumi with Subaru Impreza, Matsuda Satoshi with Honda Integra type-R, Takahashi Kenjou with Honda Accord Euro R, and a black R34 Nissan Skyline GT-R V-spec II Nur… it’s the Black Phantom.
“It’s the Need For Speed team! The legendary team on Tokyo!” said one of the spectators

“I see you already gather your old team back sis” Hikaru nods, “Welcome back to the streets”

“And check out their new rides” Itsumi smiled, “It’s been a long time, Hikaru”

“You never did showed up even once at my place” Ayumi seems upset towards Hikaru

“No wonder he don’t show up, you look as if you will eat him alive” John added

“Stop it; she’ll cry for sure if you keep on bullying her” Eliah smirks

“I won't” Ayumi replied madly

“Hikaru, have you ever wonder why the Black Phantom goes missing for a couple of weeks?” Seno asks him

“No, what’s wrong?” Hikaru ask back

“Let me present you with the Black Phantom” Seno shows the Black Phantom’s driver

Yuki steps out from the Black Phantom and smiled to him. Everybody who saw her feels very surprised and shock. Hikaru on the other hand, feels funny and surprised at the same time.
“Yuki?” Hikaru ask with disbelief, “So you are the driver of the Black Phantom…”

“Sorry I lied to you” Yuki bows, “That is very inappropriate thing to do”

“Nah, it is okay… I guess you have your own reason” Hikaru replied

“One of the strongest teams on Japan is right here in front of us… We have to race them!” Gonsuke said eagerly

“Not just yet” Souya spins his head, “We haven’t got too much reputation, so we can't challenge them yet”

“But we just can't sit back and do nothing!” Yamada added

“Calm down both of you” Keith said, “So your sister and your girlfriend is a street racer, Hikaru… Talk about interesting twist of story here. The writer sure has something against you”

“…” Hikaru didn’t give any reply

“What Souya just said is right; we can't just challenge them yet because we’re not so famous right now” Iwami rubs his chin, “Let’s just back off for now and accumulate more reputation for ourselves before we make our move”

“But we’re not going to let you get away that easily… I want to see another race between Keith and one of my boys here” Ayumi smiled, “What do you say, Ray Krieger? I hope you live up to the spectators’ expectation”

“I will only say yes, as long there is money to be involved” Keith smiled back, “But can you arrange another race as well, it’s feels bad to have my other friends to be always left out from the race”

“Who do you want to be included on another race?” Itsumi asks

“Well, I want Iwami and Yamada to be included into one team of tag race or something, will you?” Keith looks at both of them, “I hope you guys are ready to race goons of theirs”

“Not to worry” Iwami nodded, “I’ll get ready in my car then”

“Me too” Yamada smirks, “Thank you for letting us race, man”

“Good luck to the both of you” Tarou said, “Go and get them”

“What will their members of car enthusiasts will do, huh?” one of the goons asks them

“Maybe they will give us their money voluntarily, sweet!” replied another goons to him

“Don’t underestimate both them, or you guys will be sorry” Souya explains, “Good luck to you guys anyway”

“It’s nice for you to let them race as well” Gonsuke told Keith

“The writer seems to be slacked off a bit, so let’s have him write about the other’s street racing character career also” Keith explained, “So who’s going to be my opponent?” Keith eagerly ask

“I’ll have Kojiro to take care of you” Seno smiled, “Kojiro!”

A white GT-R appeared before him. The driver flashes his car’s high beam to attract Keith’s attention.
“Huff… another GT-R I see. I wonder why do you guys drive so many GT-Rs?” Keith lifts his shoulders up, “Seno-san, Yuki-san, Bernard, and then that guy over there… lucky thing I didn’t bought an R35”

“Alright, get ready to your car and begin the race right away!” Yuki yelled, “Hikaru, even though we are lovers but on the street racing meet, we are enemies”

“It’s just like you, Yuki… if that’s what you want; its fine by me” Hikaru nods as he understand what Yuki said, “We’re going to beat all of you when the time comes”

“That’s what we’re waiting for” Yuki smirks

Keith gets into his car and ignites his car engine once again to race. Hikaru who knows the fact about Kojiro’s left leg immediately approaches Keith to inform him.
“Keith, do you know that GT-R’s driver has a bad left leg?” Hikaru asks

“If he has a bad left leg, and still be able to drive a GT-R with a clutch, then there is only one part that makes it shift without clutch” Keith said as he straps his seatbelt, “It’s the sequential gearbox kit”

“Yes, and that will make the shift time faster without any delay” Hikaru added, “Be careful, that GT-R is fast”

“Since this is the circuit, I don’t think that will help it much” Keith replied

“Don’t forget he has a 4WD system which will make his handling better” Hikaru continues

“You drove a GT-R before, is there any weakness on it?”

“I can't say for sure aside its heavier nose” Hikaru explained, “That’s a problem as well when you have the same issue with the engine weight”

“But hey, isn’t GT-R has ATESSA-ETS 4WD? I think I’ll do just fine then” Keith said as he closes his windows

Hikaru didn’t understand that last part what Keith just said. When he intends to ask him again Keith is already lined up his car at the grid to gets ready for the race. Meanwhile, at another part of the port, Yamada and Iwami are getting ready for their tag team race.
“This is going to be easy” said one of the goons to Yamada, “I can even beat you in my sleep”

Yamada smirks and blink his eye to Iwami. They are psyched and ready for the race.
“I hope we’re going to win this one” Iwami nods

“We will, don’t worry” Yamada replied

Keith race is already starting. The course is the same as the last one, except it’s shorter and with two laps.

Keith understands the fact that Kojiro’s GT-R is far superior to his car’s performance. With 4WD traction and modified engine, his GT-R is turned into a fast and mean machine for the track.
“Heavier front plus 4WD ATESSA-ETS traction system will result you a different rotation of the wheels, which makes your tires worn out faster” Keith smirks, “I’ll just stick around in your ass while I wait for the under-steer side effect… compared to my car, I have the rear differential lock which will compensate your acceleration at lower gear”

Kojiro stares his rearview mirror and smiled. He never has a chance to drive his beloved GT-R anymore if it’s not for Seno’s brilliant idea. Even though his favorite fast shifting action is no more, he feels very thrilled to race once again.
“Thanks to Seno, I can get back to the team once again” Kojiro smiled, “Come on, Ray Krieger! Show me what you got!”

Keith looks at the GT-R’s tail closely. He pays attention toward even the slightest different movement on the rear. Every braking point, every turn, how the car behaves on different types of corners is memorized into his brain.
“Slide here, slide there… do you really think you can beat my masterpiece of tuning?” Kojiro laughs

“It’s almost at the end of the first lap” Keith thinking, “If I lose my patience here, he will outrun me”

Both of them across the finish line for the first time- and the second lap has just begun.
“The corners are tight, but this is where GT-R showed its true ability; fast acceleration” Kojiro yells, “You’re going down, M3!”

Yamada and Iwami’s race has just finished, leaving them victorious against the cocky goons of NFS members.
“How did it go?” Yamada asked

“What about yours? Did you guys won?” Tarou ask back

“Of course we did! Who do you think we are? We are the best average member in the High School Street Racers” Iwami pats his own chest

“That’s good to hear… for you guys that is” Souya smirks while he looks back at the track where Keith is racing Kojiro

“Oh no, don’t tell me Keith is…” Yamada begins to think of the worse possible situation

“Nah, he won't go down that easily…” Hikaru replied calmly, “I'm sure he has something up in his sleeve”

“Just in time” Keith smiled as he stares at Kojiro’s car

Kojiro problems begin to arise. His car is starting to behave weirdly; the under-steering is always occurs at each corner exits.
“The movement is kind of sluggish” Kojiro thought, “I have to make it to the finish line as fast as I can!”

“I better make my moves soon” Keith thought, “Here I go!”

Keith passes him from inside lane. Kojiro is surprised when he sees Keith is passing him by, and to compensate his under-steering, Kojiro shifts down and increases his pace.
“It won't be enough!” Keith yells to him, “No matter how fast you react, this V8’s power will match up your acceleration!”

Keith passes the finish line, securing his second victory for the night. Need For Speed on the other hand is challenged to crush all of these newbie in the streets.

Tomorrow morning, the news is spread that High School Street Racer reaches towards a new heights; they totally dominates the last night race. These couple of weeks is very important to them, as they are reunited once again.

Few days later, somewhere at San Francisco, a racing meet is held. Street racers gather around to liven the night up with their cars and money.
“Alright, the race will begin shortly and… what the heck is that?!” said the linesman

A car with a menacing red body is running with great speed, scares the linesman away.
“What the f**k?!” the linesman jumps to the side of the street

“Hey, let’s chase that f**king car! The driver totally ruins our night!” said one of the street racer punks as he runs towards his car

The other racer follows; looks like they intend to make the driver of the red car bleed.
“What car is that?!” another racer said, “Its looks like an E46!”

It’s a red E46 BMW M3 with GTR wide body kit, big carbon GT-Wing, and has a white flag vinyl on the rear.
“Huh, looks like those guys are a fools after all” the driver smiled as he takes a look at his rearview mirror, “I’m going to show you the performance of this new car of mine!”

He pushes the NOS button on his steering wheel, leaving them to bite his dust and sucks on his exhaust fume.
“Did you get that on the tape?!” said a driver to a guy beside him

“I did” the guy replied, “I’m going to upload this later in YouTube…”

The driver of the M3 exits to the highway and goes straight to NYC.
“I wonder how everybody is doing right now”

The driver of the red GTR is, as you all can guess; the one and only Steve Blackburn. Look like he’s just finished with the tuning of his new car.
“Most of this car’s parts are manufactured by Cosworth… and the thing is, it’s not cheap and it costs a lot of money” Steve thought, “Instead of returning the money, I ended up asking for more”

He increases his pace and shifted up to the sixth gear, disappearing into the dark night.

Back to Tokyo, Japan the boys are preparing themselves for another conquest against the other teams of street racers.
“So the thing is, we have to reach the top by defeating all these street racers, huh?” Gonsuke asks

“Yes… otherwise, we are stuck at this level of popularity” Souya explained

“Hikaru, do you have anymore ideas on how we accomplish that? Do you think that after you beat Haruna, we’re going to be able to race the remaining RJ7 members?”

“Can't say for sure” Hikaru lift his shoulders, “What do you think, Keith?”

“Nah… besides we are short of one member, while Steve is out there somewhere” Keith replied

“He’s right” Tarou continues, “We have to wait for him to return”

KRRRRRR! KRRRRR! KRRRRRR!

Keith’s cell phone is ringing and he immediately picks it up to see who’s calling.
“Yeah?” Keith picks up his phone

“Keith, you’d better come back to the garage right away” said Martin, “Somebody is here to see you”

“Huh? Okay… I’ll be back in a minute” Keith hangs up, “Guys, I have to get back to my uncle garage… looks like somebody is coming by to see me”

“Oh, okay… see you tonight, then” Clark replied

Keith immediately gets back to his uncle’s garage to see who visits him. Most of the employee of the garage is peeking to the office, to see what’s going on inside. At the office, a man with glasses and BMW shirt is sitting and talking with his uncle and aunt. Looks like it’s somebody they know well.
“I'm back” Keith said to them

“This is our nephew” said Erica, “Keith, say hello to Dr. Mario Theisen”

It’s Mario Theisen. Funny to see an important man comes around to his uncle’s humble garage.

“How do you do, sir?” Keith bows, “Pleased to meet you”

“Ah, so you are the one they call Ray Krieger here” Theisen said, “So kid, let’s get straight to business here… I know your uncle way back, and I'm here to do him a favor”

“A favor? What kind of favor?” Keith looks puzzled

“Did you check out YouTube recently?” Theisen asks him

“No… I’ve been busy” Keith spins his head, “What’s on YouTube anyway?”

“If you have time, why don’t you check it and type red E46 GTR on the search box? You are surely captivated by it” Theisen explained

“Red GTR? Couldn’t possibly be him…”Keith pondered

Keith already knew what he’s talking about and who the driver of the red GTR is. He then asks again about the favor his uncle asks about.

“And what if I say I know the driver of the red car, will you help me tuning my car to outrun the red GTR?” Keith suddenly turns serious, “I defeat him once when he’s driving red Evo X”

“In return, I will ask you for a favor as well. Your car will be used as a basis for our ALMS M3 development… what do you say?” Theisen asks again

“Sure thing” Keith nods, “If he’s looking for revenge, then I guess I better get prepared”

“Hand over your keys and tell me what you want to do about the modifications of you M3” Theisen asks for his car key

“I need the mid torque RPM and top speeds for Wangan run” Keith rubs his chin, “And I also need to lighten up the weight, but without sacrificing the daily usability”

“I’m going to bring this car for a CSL treatment with body material replacement and lightweight parts” Theisen nods, “Get your car in three days, got it?”

“Doctor… can you help me with the tuning and settings of the car as well? I really need someone with great mechanic as skills as you to teach me about the true potential of this M3” Keith stares at his M3

“I’ll help you as much as I can” Theisen gets into Keith’s car and drive it away

“Are you sure about this, Keith?” Erica asked him, “Your car will turn into something fast and dangerous”

“Yes, and don’t worry auntie. I have to make this decision, so that I won't lose to Steve’s GTR” Keith explained

For the next few weeks, Keith seldom goes out to hang with his friends. His input and testing at the BMW Japan’s facility is very important. Not only for him and his street racing career, but the pride of his country is resting in his shoulders for next ALMS competition.
“What about it, kid?” Theisen asks

“The performance is enough, I guess” Keith replied, “But I honestly think we have to get a shorter gear ratio in the first three gears, and increase the length at the last three gears… it’s also depend on the driver’s input about the gearboxes for DKG”

“How’s the overall balance of the car?” Theisen rubs his chin while he asks again

“The car balance well. I can turn it however I want and anytime I want… for the weight reduction program is excellent” Keith nods, “All I have to do now is change the rims, tires, vinyl and decals, brakes, body kit, GT-Wing, and better engine accessories” Keith smiled


This post has been edited by R_E_X on Nov 9 2009, 01:08 AM

damn. your feeding me with lots of car porn...i want keith to drove my second car BMW M3 E46 Coupe...that car is a superb drift machine...trust me...no other car can drift better than M3 E46 beside RX-7...one of my dream car...

well thank to you now...i now own GTR R34 V-Spec II Nur Pearl White... ...

hahaha will mod it once i build enough cash again...tht car cost a fortune...BMW M3 E46 cost cheaper than tht...in Ringgit Malaysia of course...

E46? That is quite a car you have... but the inline six engine of the car has tendency to overwear the crankshaft... just you wait until you read the next RPM

I'm kind of stuck with his new car modification and the worthy opponents for him...

hehehe...cant wait...

nice job , car porn indeed

The RPM 24 is up, and Keith's car is revealed! I'll add up his car's picture at the first site...

Enjoy!

RPM 27: Young Man with a Lot of Money

At Haneda airport, a handsome young man, with medium height and childish face has just arrived from Seattle. He has medium length dark hair styled to the side and carrying a heavy looking backpack with him.
“Young master! Please wait for me!” said an old man who’s following him

“I told you, Toshi… go home already” he replied, “Just tell my father that I gone away for a fresh start! I'm sure he’ll understand… but don’t tell him where I am, otherwise, I'm going to tell my cousin to fire you. Now go, and leave me alone!”

“Young master… if you insist, please be careful on your journey” the old man bows

“I better get a taxi and goes straight away to famous landmarks here in Japan” he ignores the old man, “Taxi!”

After he gets on, the taxi drives off to the famous landmarks of Japan; the Tokyo Tower.
“It’s been awhile since I’m here” he said, “Driver, what’s your name?”

“It’s Mustafa Rasyid…” said the taxi driver

“Mister, you are Iraqi civilian, aren’t you?” he asks, “Why are you here?”

“Well after the war, the economy in middle east isn’t looking too bright so I and my relatives are moving here” Mustafa answered

“Ah okay… I get it” he nods, “I’ll give you some money, and you can be my taxi driver for these couple of days! What do you say? Here is $1,000”

The young man hands over a $1,000 to him right at the spot. It looks like he comes from rich family and money isn’t an issue for him.
“Thank you very much” he smiled, “What is your name?”

“My name is Mikami Rei” he answered, “I just came from Seattle today”

“You mean Mikami Rei as in the runaway heir of the Mikami Group?”

“Uh, looks like Mikami is drawing too much attention” he frowns, “I’ll change my name to Minami Rei… pleased to meet you”

“Likewise” Mustafa nods to him, “Let’s go to Tokyo Tower, the most famous landmarks in Japan”

“Let’s go!” Rei replied with enthusiasm

Mustafa enters Wangan line and head to Tokyo Tower when suddenly a midnight purple sparkling car is cruising in high speeds. On the side of it, there is a vinyl with a cute girl riding on a warplane with big guns... with the Sky Captain kanji. The car also has a lot of product decals on it… Tomei, HKS, Bridgestone, Tein, Nismo, C-West are what is stick on the car.
“A midnight purple GT-R” Rei wonders, “its beautiful”

“That’s the Sky Captain. She’s very famous in Wangan, and she’s the leader of the legendary team of street racers called Need For Speed” Mustafa explained

“Need For Speed… sounds like a game title” Rei smirks, “And did you just say the driver of the car is a girl?”

“I did” Mustafa replied, “I only seen her once when I goes to a racing meet with my friend… even though it’s only once, I can remember her clearly- she has a long brown hair and beautiful face, sexy body with smooth skin”

“I see… I’d like to meet her sometime” Rei nods, “By the way, Mustafa-san… are you married?”

Mustafa lifts his right hand and showed him a golden ring in his finger only to see Rei smirks.
“Oh, then you can't talk about someone else like that… especially it’s about a girl” Rei smirks

“Not a problem. My wife knows me very well; I won't cheat on her” Mustafa laughs

“You’re an interesting man” Rei smiled

“Same goes for you” Mustafa replies

Seno’s clocking 300 KM/H right now. She looks at her speedometer with happy faces and she hums several times.
“This is good, the new color sure is catchy” Seno smiled, “I won't lose to anybody with you”

She gets off from Wangan and makes a U-turn at Daikoku junction. She will run on Wangan over and over and over again until she’s tired.

Back to Rei, he’s done taking pictures and sightseeing at the tower. He needs to go to his new house immediately before the sun sets.
“Well, Mustafa-san… I guess today is enough sightseeing for me” Rei nods, “Please take me to my new house… it’s just eight blocks away from Tokyo National High School”

“Hop on in” Mustafa opens the door

Rei gets into the cab and rest his head. He feels so tired and he needs to rest soon or he’ll collapse. Fifteen minutes later, Mustafa arrived at a medium sized house, while Rei is asleep at the back.
“We have arrived” Mustafa opens the door

“Oh, yeah… thank you, Mustafa-san” Rei gets out from the cab, “See you this evening, yeah?”

“Here’s my name card” Mustafa gives a card to him, “See you later”

After Mustafa left, Rei enters the medium sized house. Inside it, it’s just a typical house with tidy layouts, good minimalism furniture, home theatre set, plasma TV, nice clean tiles… it’s a nice home for a teenager like him.

How did he manage to get a house? A week before he traveled to Japan, he saw an advertisement about house selling. He buys the house, complete with furniture and everything inside it.
“Wow… I saw it on internet, and it doesn’t look as good as this” Rei looks around, “Well, master bedroom it is!”

Rei runs happily while he whistles and enters the big bedroom upstairs. After he unpacks his clothes and things in the rack, he hits the bed to get some sleep.

Tomorrow morning at ten, Rei is awake by the sound of chirping bird outside his bedroom. The sunlight is entering his room through a small opening in the window.
“What… It’s morning already?” Rei yawned, “I better take a bath, and go buy some stuff to eat”

He jumps out from the bed and runs immediately to the bathroom. After cleaning up his body with nice cold and clean water, and dressed up casually, he’s ready to go.
“Okay! I'm ready to go out!” Rei said excitedly

He steps outside and locks the door. Since he’s new here, he needs a cell phone to be able to get in touch with Mustafa anytime he needs. He went to Shibuya to get a decent cell phone first. He is looking for something that cool, clam-shell design, be able to contain a lot of music… something Sony-Ericsson; W980i.
“I want a W980i!” Rei points the black cell phone on the display

The shop attendant hands him the phone. Rei is impatiently waiting for the attendant to open the box for him.
“Here you go, sir…” said one of the shop attendants

“Sleek piano black… with orange backlight color” Rei looks at the cell phone, “I’ll have this!”

He pays for it and gets out from the store with a brand new cell phone and numbers, so now it’s time to get something to eat. He goes to Taco Bell restaurant to get spicy tacos, along with sourly refreshing drink.
“Taco is a very good food” Rei munches his tacos, “Waiter, can I have one more plate please!”

One hour has passed and it’s already twelve. Next up is the grocery store.
“Welcome!” said one of the employees to him

He takes a basket and starts searching through the store for vegetables, meat, milk, yoghurt, chocolate, fruits, kitchen spices, and instant noodles. The shopping itself didn’t stop there; he continues to get more stuff like house cleaning products, toilet refreshers, et cetera, et cetera.
“Phew… too many things to be brought… I better call Mustafa and ask for his help” Rei calls Mustafa immediately, “Now where is his name card?”

Rei rubs his pocket, just to find nothing inside it. It looks like he left the name card wallet at his room’s desk.
“Oh my god…” Rei seems panic, “I have no more money left for another taxi, and I can't carry all these myself. What do I do?”

Suddenly, a midnight purple GT-R passes by and saw him in trouble.
“My, what a cute kid” Seno wondered, “He looked just like Hikaru when he’s in trouble”

The driver parks the car near him to ask if there is any trouble. She then gets off from the car to start a conversation with him.
“You look troubled… is there something wrong?” Seno asked him, “Anything I can help you with?”

“Ah, you’re the driver of Sky Captain…” Rei smirked, “Can I have your picture?”

“Oh, alright…” Seno looks puzzled

Both of them took a picture together with Sky Captain as the background. After they took the picture, Rei remembers about his problem.
“Damn! This is not what I need right now!” Rei sounds frustrated, “Please, can you take me to my house? I can't carry all these by myself and I’m running out of money, so I can't call a taxi”

“That’s fine… I’ll take you to your place” Seno nodded, “Where is your house?”

“It’s only eight blocks away from Tokyo National High School” Rei looked glad, “Thank you for your help; I really-really appreciated it”

“No problem. My house on the same direction anyway” Seno replied, “Put all of the stuff at the trunk”

Seno opens the trunk and Rei puts all of his shopping bags into it. Rei then close the trunk and gets into the car.
“Buckle up” Seno smiled as she shifted to first gear

She launches the car perfectly without tire skids. Rei, who’s new to these kinds of thing, is very surprised and frightened at the same time.
“Ugh!”

His head is pushed to the black Nismo bucket seat by the acceleration of the car, his heart beats fast, and his face turns pale.
“I'm going to die” Rei mumbles

“We’re not going to die” Seno smiled to him, “Just watch how fun it is to drive a car like this”

She shifted through the gears with lighting fast action. Rei didn’t believe what he just saw; a girl, driving a GT-R like a pro racer.
“You’re very skilled” Rei looks amazed, “How do you do it?”

“A lot of experience will make you better than me” Seno explained, “By the way, I never did got your name”

“My name is Mi…Minami Rei” Rei said proudly

“Nice to meet you kiddo, I’m Ichijou Seno” Seno nods, “Do you have a driver’s license? If you do, what kind of car you drive? Want me to teach you all these?”

“What I usually drive is just a plain Honda Civic” Rei frowns, “It’s automated as well”

“I see you like to drive slowly” Seno said, “Try to get a nice fast car like this… even though I don’t recommend a GT-R for a fainted heart kid like you”

“That’s rude!” Rei argued, “I can handle your GT-R just fine!”

“Look, kid; if you can't do it, stop acting competitively” Seno looks irritated, “You’re just a nuisance to other drivers in the street”

“I'm not!” Rei shouts, “I can drive this car better than you do”

“So childish” Seno spins her head, “Stop talking, you’ll disturb my driving rhythm”

They arrived ten minutes later. Rei gets his stuff out from the trunk immediately and gets inside the car to get something for Seno.
“What? No thank you?” Seno lift her shoulders, “I guess that’s to be expected from a kid like him, though”

When Seno gets into the car and ignites the engine, Rei shouts from inside of the house.
“Hold up!” Rei runs back outside, “This is for your trouble”

Rei hands her some money. Seno, who is just helping him out, is very offended by what he did.
“I'm just helping you here, kid!” Seno yells, “Why do you give me some money? What do you think I am- a taxi driver?!”

“I want you to accept this as a token of my appreciation” Rei closes his ears, “Please don’t be offended”

“I don’t need your money! I have enough of it!” Seno gets into her car and revs it up

She then launches the car madly and skid the tires on purpose, to leave a black mark in front of his house.
“She’s a monster, even though she has a beautiful face” Rei pouted, “I hope she didn’t come again and bites me next time”

After that, he gets back inside the house to put all of the stuff he just bought to the fridge and to the storeroom.
“Phew… the house looks clean and tidy. Good thing I bought this a week before I left Seattle” Rei wheezed, “I have to clean it next week… so tiring”

Rei locks the front door and sleep at the comfy looking couch in the living room.
“After I slept, I better go and see what kind of entertainment they have to offer at night” Rei mumbles

Later that night at six P.M. Rei is awaked by the dog barking sound. The sun is sets and leaving the sky turns black.
“I better take a bath and call Mustafa up” Rei stands up from the couch and goes off to the bathroom

Later at six thirty, Mustafa comes with his yellow taxi and a smiling face.
“Good evening” said Mustafa

“Hi, have you done your evening prays?” Rei asked as he gets into the front

“Yes I have. We are we going tonight?” Mustafa asks him

“Let’s get something to eat” Rei answered, “Let’s go to A&W restaurant”

Both of them go to A&W to eat something. And after eating, Rei gives him some fried chicken, beef burgers, and fries for take away.
“This is for your family, and give my best regards to them” Rei said, “Good luck teaching the students of ceramic arts!”

“Thank you very much” Mustafa nodded, “So where to again?”

“Let us see the racing meet!” Rei sounds excited, “Do you know the place?”

“My wife forbids me to go there anymore” Mustafa sighed, “It’s a bad place to go when I’m in fasting month”

“I see” Rei scratches his head, “Sorry I ask for such a thing…”

Rei suddenly saw the midnight purple GT-R and Seno at the parking lot with her friends. Rei has an idea of hitch a ride with them.
“Mustafa-san, you can go home” Rei smiled, “I have an idea… see you around, then”

Rei grabs his cola and rushed to the parking lot. Seno saw him running towards her and immediately recognizes him.
“It’s you again” Seno sighed, “What do you want?”

“I… I… I… wanted to apologize” Rei tried to catch his breath, “I… I… I… also want to hitch a ride to the racing meet”

“Who is he, Seno?” Bernard asks her, “Your new boyfriend?”

“He’s not” Seno spins her head, “He’s just an annoying kid from this afternoon”

“He’s cute” Ayumi smiled to him, “Want to hitch a ride, huh? Get into my car”

“Don’t ride with her… she’ll eat you alive” Seno smiled

“That’s rude” Ayumi bites her lips and smiled back

“Why don’t you hitch a ride with Bernard over there? Surely he’s happy to take you for a ride” Itsumi said to him

“Alright, kid” Bernard nods, “Hop in”

At the meeting place, everyone is waiting already. Today is the end of summer and the racing meet is at Aoto Station where Hikaru and Haruna will do a battle.
“Alright, this is it!” Kenjou points towards the RJ7 members who’s also watching

“Good luck, Hikaru!” Yuki cheered for him

“That S2000 is cool” Rei looks at it with glittery eyes, “So that is the White Ghost of Suzuka”

“That is my little brother in the S2000” Seno said proudly, “His popularity is maybe even the same par with me”

“Is he good and skilled?” Rei asked

“He is… he’s my brother after all” Seno nods

“And my boyfriend of course” Yuki added

If the readers remember this course, this place is the place where Hikaru’s GT-R is destroyed. Moriyama is also here with Rena, because he’s RJ7 junior member.
“This time, I’ll wreck your car for sure” Haruna smirks

“Don’t bet on it” Hikaru replied

The stakes are high and the hype is on. Everybody is cheering for Hikaru and Haruna to do their best.
“Three… two… one… go!” said the linesman

Hikaru and Haruna immediately launch their car, but Haruna’s car which is Evo IX with more power, launches ahead easily.
“Bye-bye!” Haruna sticks her tongue out

Hikaru laughs in excitement- it’s been awhile for him to race such an opponent.

At the racing meet point, High School Street Racing is two members short. Keith who’s preparing his car with Mario Theisen’s help is unable to attend the meeting. Steve is just the same; no one knew his whereabouts now.

Clark, Souya, Tarou, Yamada, Iwami, and Gonsuke are waiting for Hikaru to grab the winnings and make them more famous among the street racers.
“If Hikaru does win, it’s one step closer to the greatness” Clark psyched his fellow teammates, “Hikaru will win this one easy!”

“Yes, yes” Iwami nodded, “He’ll surely win”

“Let’s just hope he knows Haruna is a dangerous racer to be dealt with” Souya rubs his chin

“Don’t worry; he’s the most knowledgeable guy in our team, right?” Gonsuke pushes Tarou’s shoulder

“Right” Tarou agrees

Meanwhile, back to Hikaru…

Lancer Evolution sure has good acceleration and grip, thanks to its 4WD systems. Haruna can outmaneuver him easily through the corners.
“Stay at the back, okay!” Haruna laughs

Hikaru stays cool and calm. A girl with repulsive driving like her always does mistakes in the end. It’s better if Hikaru always keep his distance, to avoid any unnecessary accidents from happening like last time.
“Keith is right… this girl surely is crazy, but with my experience and pressure I put onto her, she’ll do mistakes soon” Hikaru nods, “I’ll just concentrate to drive and follow her rhythm”

“Next up; it’s left hander turn!” Haruna plunges her car to the corner fast

Like the name implies, street racing always held on the street whether it’s crowded or not, there always other pedestrian users. Haruna never did give any damn about pedestrians. With extreme beliefs about chosen people who drive the car, she always prefers to show off her skills to those people.
“This is it!” said Haruna, “Let me show you how chosen people drives”

“Don’t do it” Hikaru increases his pace

Haruna gets to cocky and drives in the opposite lane to show off her skills. She forgot the fact that Hikaru is following closely behind and will pass her if she does something stupid-something like driving with reverse gear.
“How is the view of my car from there?!” Haruna sticks her hand and points her middle finger to Hikaru

“Crazy ass b*tch” Hikaru smirked, “See you around!”

Hikaru shifts up and leave her behind him. Haruna remember she’s in the middle of a race, and it’ll be a stupid thing to show off, but it’s too late now.

A truck is cruising at 100 KM/H when Haruna turns her car back to the left lane, completely crushing her at the driver’s side.

Hikaru saw what happened from his rearview mirror and it’s a sign of bad things to come- the police will be here soon. By default, Hikaru wins the race and he immediately gets back to the meeting point to take his winning money, and give out some bad news to the other street racers.
“She got into a stupid accident at the bayside” Hikaru takes the winning money from the linesman, “Police will be here soon, so it’s best if we scram now!”

When everyone heard the ‘police’ word, all of them began to spread out like a wildfire. Either they run away, or drive their car to safer spot while waiting for the surrounding place to cool down- they need to get away fast.
“Let’s scram!” Bernard said to Rei, “Get in! I’ll drive you to your house!”

The other members of Need For Speed are assisting the rest of the guys to escape. The Need For Speed team will act as decoys to help everybody else escapes, and that means including Bernard and of course- Rei who is hitch hiking a ride with him.
“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Watch out!” Rei looks frightened

Bernard smiled while he outmaneuvers the police. He then drifted through the corner. People don’t call him the Sky King for nothing. Police cars are smashing to each other as he leaves them to dust.
“Hahahaha” Bernard laughs

“You are very skilled” Rei looks amazed

“I’m used to it… by the way, don’t you like cars? What kind of car do you like?” Bernard asks

“I do like cars, but I can't drive as good as you or the guy in S2000” Rei frowns, “I like fast and practical car”

“You don’t understand a thing or two about car for now that is” Bernard rubs his bearded chin, “If you want, I can teach a thing or two about street racing. Here is my phone number, call me when you have a car ok”

“It’s a deal” Rei nods, “I will get myself a car and please teach me something about racing… this is my house, thanks for the ride”

“No problem, don’t be a stranger here” Bernard drives off

Rei gets into his house so he can get some rest. It’s been a fun, exciting, and tiring day as well as full of new experience for him.

Morning breeze feels very fresh, especially when you enjoy life like Rei does. He’s awake by the sound of people walking in front of his house.
“Wow… its ten o’clock already?” he yawns, “I better take a bath and withdraw some money from the bank”

After a refreshing bath and without having a breakfast, he’s left the house in a hurry. He calls a taxi and immediately goes to American Express bank to withdraw some money.
“Thank God my cousin hasn’t blocked the account yet” Rei wheezed, “I have to transfer it to my new account so no one can track me. I’ll open up a new account in Citibank and HSBC now”

Rei is a smart boy. A week prior to his arrival at Tokyo, he made a fake ID so he can do anything freely. He needs to lose the account tracker, and to do that, he needs to transfer to one or two bank, to makes it harder to be tracked.

An hour passed because he needs to transfer his money to another account at Citibank and transfer it again to HSBC.
“Alright, I transfer four million dollars to my new account” Rei nods, “All that’s left is two million, which I will leave it to that. I’ve drawn $100,000 and now- on to get a car!”

He wanders around at a used car dealer to get a nice car. That entire amount of money, and he’s buying a used car? What is in his mind, you can never tell.
“Welcome, sir… can I help you?” the dealer man asks him, “What kind of car are you trying to get?”

“Let’s see… I want a nice fast car” Rei looks around the place

One car caught his eyes. It sits solemnly at the back of the place. It’s silver R34 GT-R, and Rei is already in love with it.

He goes around the car and opens it up- the trunk, the hood, and the interior- all of them looks perfect. And one thing makes him even more astonished by this car; it has only 10 KM/H on it. This is the final GT-R Nismo Omori factory tuned, because it is marked with number 750 on the chassis.
“This silver GT-R… how much?” Rei gets his money out

“This is one of our newest stocks, but sadly someone already buys it” the man spins his head as he closes the hood

“How much did he pay you?” Rei asks with serious tone

“He pays 70,000” the man closes the trunk

“I’ll pay 75,000 on the spot and we’ll call it a day. Find him something else like this”

5 minutes later, he gets away with the papers and documents. He hums happily like a kid, which’s what he is actually.

He remembers that he wants to have a transfer to the Tokyo National High School, so he decided to try out his new car.

He moves his car slowly with no more than 3000 RPM to increase fuel economy. He smells the scent of the car- plastic, fabric, everything- is all new to him.
“I never did get a GT-R on Seattle” Rei spins his head, “This is the first car I bought with my own money”

He arrives at Tokyo National High School. After parking the car, he immediately gets into the administration office, take the transfer form, and fills it on the spot. After he finished filling it, he submitted it along with the amount of money needed for the books, bag, uniform, and shoes.
“Thank you very much” Rei bows as he carries all of the things he needs for the school

He gets back to his car and put all of the things he just bought at the trunk. Night times almost arrived, since it’s six o’clock. He has nothing in his house to be eaten, so he decided to go to the restaurant. This time, he visits the Sizzler restaurant.
“One person, please” Rei said to the waiter, “I would like to order creamy mushroom beef steak”

“Please sit wherever you like, and please eat anything you want” the waiter bows to him

After he’s done eating, he goes to the bookstore to get some references on how to tune up his car. He walks around the store, flipping the pages one after another, only to find a lot of bitter fact for his GT-R.
“The body is very heavy… I see” Rei nods, “Then I need to increase the power, while lightening the weight. Carbon is the strongest yet lighter part in the market right now. I better surfs the web for any info later”

After he buys a magazine about the GT-R’s characteristics, he gets back immediately to his house.

Back to his house, Rei is staring at his Panasonic Toughbook like he’s being possessed by a devil. He restlessly searches any info on how to increase the performance, and lightening the body weight.

Type this, type that, web this, web that, surfing in the web is not as easy as he thinks.
“All the leads that I have now is to bring the car to the Nismo Omori factory” Rei bites his lips, “Now on to find the lightening body parts for the GT-R”

He drinks his cold Coca-Cola Zero in the mug and continues to surf the web. Half an hour has passed, and he decides to let Nismo tune it, while he lets C-West to fabricate him a carbon body kit.

Next day at Eleven o’clock at Nismo Omori factory, a lot of cars from old to new line up to either have maintenance or tuning. Rei parks his car at the empty space and waits for five minutes until the turbo cools down. He gets off from his car, and goes to the counter immediately to get consult about his modifications.

Waits about five minutes before he turns off the engine? Why did he do that?
Without a turbo timer, he cannot just turn off the engine like its nothing- the turbo will break faster because of the hot oil cooking in the turbine lines.
“Please get me the best mechanic you have, and call your manager please” Rei talked to the receptionist

“Have you made an appointment with the manager?” the receptionist asks him

“Not yet, I just came here this morning, and I need my GT-R to be tuned fast” Rei answered, “Get me the manager and the best mechanic- now please”

The receptionist calls the manager and the best mechanic they have.
“Yes, can I help you, sir?” the manager asks him

“I want you to do a sports resetting and a body refreshing plan on the car” Rei points to his GT-R, “While you’re at it, why don’t you make it into a more powerful GT-R? Here is the list on what you should do to my car”

The manager sees all of the modification parts he needs.
“GT-LSD front and rear, fuel pump, GT crankshaft, GT head gasket, GT intake gasket, R-tune air cleaner duct, airflow meter, intake collector, air inlet pipe, R1 turbo kit, exhaust manifold gasket, fuel injector, fuel pressure regulator, oil pump, timing belt, oil separator, oil baffle plate, intercooler, combo meter white, suspension link and bush circuit link set, lightweight flywheel, steering gear mount bush, rear member brace set, under floor reinforcing bar, intercooler piping, aluminum carbon shift knob, carbon pillar garnish, floor mats, front indicators clear, fuel filler cap, oil filler cap, radiator cap, side indicators clear, brake lines, low temp thermostat… so many” said the manager, “Big operating cylinders, super coppermix twin plate clutch, engine mounts, exhaust outlet set, Veruspeed oil filter, sport catalyser, GT LED tail lamp, stabilizer, long hub bolts, wheel nut set, LM GT4 19 inch, steel braided clutch hose, clutch pedal bracket, 4 point harness, Brembo brakes 8 and 6 piston with Nismo R-tune brake pads… is this all?”

“Add it up with Nismo multi function display for better monitoring” Rei nods, “Strip out the exterior body parts- fenders, doors, side skirts, trunk… and here are 75,000 for now. And if it’s not enough, I’ll come back when it’s finished and pays the rest. After the job is done, I will also pay the mechanics who tune up my car, 5,000 each person, so please try to finish it by the next week”

After Rei hands over the money and takes the payment receipt, he calls a taxi and immediately goes to the C-West factory for a custom made carbon fiber body kit.
“That kid sure got a lot of money to burn” said one of the mechanics, “Well, let’s do the job now!”

Rei has no intends to learn any driving skill from Bernard, so he is taking part in Nismo team driver training while he waits for his car to finish. He did his homework alright… he takes the training for at least two weeks left in his vacation calendar.

A week later, Rei gets back to get his car along with some of C-West mechanics to install the new carbon fiber body parts. C-West front bumpers, side skirts, GT-wing, and rear bumper with Skyline engravings and V-spec II Nur badge, trunk lid with Nissan and GT-R badge, door shells, fenders with GT badge, taillights housings- are made from carbon fibers, painted silver.
“Alright, men… please get it done” Rei points to his GT-R

After two hours of waiting, his car finally done.
At a glance, it just look the same as normal GT-R with C-West GT body kit and universal GT-Wing type 1, but only Rei, Nismo mechanics, and C-West manufacturer who knows what’s underneath the silver paint. Now everything is ready to be taken to next level- the engine tuning.
“Well, this is the money as I’ve promised… now, I’m going to take this car to get internal upgrades at Tomei” as Rei ignites the car

He then brings the car to get internal upgrades on Tomei workshop. He spends another 75,000 to get it done.

Forged piston kits with titanium coated top ring, forged H-beam connecting rod, Poncam camshaft type-R, adjustable pulley in/ex, valve spring type-C, valve spring sheet thick 0.5 mm, RB26DETT valve lifter, valve guide, bery ring, reinforced washer, head studs, crank bearing cap studs, cam bearing cap studs, reinforced connecting rod bolts, expreme exhaust manifold, and fuel delivery pipe are the modification parts he mentions.

His car is left out for another three days. Tomei workshop accepted a big request from him, as long as he involves a great numbers of money.

Summer vacation will end in few more days. Hikaru and the others are busy taking care of business, defeating other teams without the support from Steve and Keith.

Rei has finished his training in the Nismo School, and it’s time to get a nice electronics in his car. He scours around at Kojiro’s place to get his tuning done.
“Excuse me… I’m looking for HKS F-Con V-Pro, HKS Turbo Timers, HKS Twin Power, HKS EVC VI boost controller, eight point roll cage bars, Tein N1 dampers, and HKS titanium exhaust” Rei said to a man, who’s tuning a GT-R engine. It’s Kojiro.

“What do you drive?” Kojiro asks him

“V-spec II Nur” Rei answered, “Can you help me tune it? I’ll pay for all of your troubles”

“Sure thing I’ll install it right away on the spot” Kojiro nods

He left his car for another day in the garage. Kojiro sure is happy to tune a GT-R, as long as they are around.
“Alright… it’s finished!” Kojiro said

“Wow! It’s finally finished!” Rei jumps around like a kid

“Let’s have a spin to tune it according the way you drive” Kojiro takes his laptop and begins to type the data

“Okay” Rei nods

Rei gets to the Wangan line and begins to pace his car ruthlessly. Kojiro, who’s also a street racer, never was afraid to have any collision with his car. But when he’s driving with Rei, he feels very afraid to crash into another car.
“Slow down for God’s sake!” Kojiro yells

“How’s the tuning going?” Rei asks while he stares at the center LCD display which shows multi display function

“We’re finished, and let’s head back!” Kojiro closes his eyes

Rei is a very different person when he’s driving a car. He has a street racer instinct in his genes, and he handles his car differently than Bernard, Seno, or Hikaru. His driving is nice and rhythmical, but his skills are something else. He can easily pass the loop in 80 KM/H while maintaining the throttle.
“Left foot braking?! How do you do it?!” Kojiro stares at his left foot with disbelief

“Calm down” Rei replied as he downshifted with heel and toe technique

“You’re a little kid, you’re driving a GT-R, and the worst is you have great skill in this car” Kojiro said to him

Sure he has a great skill. He completes his training in Nissan racing school few days ago.
“Alright… all that’s left is to add some audio and decent vinyl and decals to wrap it up” Rei smiled

“Okay, okay! Let’s get back to my place!” Kojiro holds on to the arm rest


This post has been edited by R_E_X on Nov 9 2009, 01:08 AM

RPM 25 is up!

hehe...still cant resist m3 e46 gtr arent u REX

I purposely give that car to Steve. Originally, it was my brother's idea to put the GTR, but when I think about it more, hey, that's great idea...

Steve can match up to Keith... as for now

hehe..now u have 2 candidate for grip king...hehe...its have nice storyline so let see how u progress on...im expecting 26...hihi...im so god damn tired...nite and make sure u study ya...peace n out

Can somebody please help? I need someone to proof read my RPMs... it looks like Doomsday can't continue because of his work.

If somebody is interested, please PM me, and I'll e-mail the chapters right away

check your pm and email inbox...thnkz for gv me the priviledges of reading it first ...its car porn to the max

REX u can post up the eps already....the other will be later for back to back eps...i know some of them want to read it up... hehe...car porn hehe

I'm waiting for your work first. I intend to sum it up at the first web, 5 RPMs per page...

Surely that will make things easier for the readers, as well as posting the characters and new pictures

Well it's a good thing i have some patience heheheheh

hope it doesn't take to much longer

Don't worry, after crav3 work has done, i'll upload it right away at the first site

should be done by tonite... ...sorry for the waiting hehe...

i was guessing that also...will be sending 5 more by tonite...im stuck with white ghost now hehe

I already uploaded the RPM 27, the GTR pictures at the web and I'm waiting for other RPMs to be proofreaded by Crav3.

I uploaded it at the first web, so if you search at the second web, you wont find it...

I batched the RPMs, with 5 RPMs per page. It'll ease your time than to go from one web, to the other.

www.freewebs.com/hssr

On to the next RPMs I am...

This post has been edited by R_E_X on Sep 26 2008, 10:40 PM

Rex check your email as i have send u the 5 more chap i promised...cheers...editing ur second version of 27 now...hehe GTR babe, cant live without em...http://www.gtr.co.uk/forum/members-gallery.html check that forum out my good friends...you'll like what you see

This post has been edited by crav3 on Sep 27 2008, 06:12 PM

Thanks for your hardwork, I updated the RPMs first so everyone can read it. I also updated the gallery with more GT-R pictures. Hope all of you enjoyed it

RPM 28: Musashi

“Alright, I guess that’s good enough” Rei nods

Rei adds up a Michelin Pilot Sport PS2, because these tires can withstand over 320 KM/H run. Fill it up with nitrogen, and it’ll lengthen the lifespan and gives better traction. He also darkens the window tints, to prevent his face being seen and changes the plate with a fake numbers to prevent the speeding ticket comes to the doorstep of his house.
“This car uses Clarion sound systems” Kojiro said to him, “And what’s with the samurai vinyl?”

Rei has no concept at all for dressing up his car, so he puts on a pair of black samurai, wielding a katana and a big sword on the doors. He also puts a lot of product decals with black colors on it; HKS, Nismo, Tomei, and Pulstar stick to the right side of the hood and the side skirts, C-West is stick to the front bumper, Michelin stick to the rear window, while Tein and Clarion stick to the rear quarters of the car.
“I have no idea how to turn it menacing, so I dress it up just like that to catch many eyes” Rei lift his shoulders, “Is it ugly?”

“That’s not what I meant… we’re Japanese, but you dress it up just like the way Americans dress up their GT-Rs” Kojiro shakes his head

“I am a Japanese-American, and I hope that explains it. Thanks for tuning my GT-R, Kojiro-san”

“No problem. I'm always available to help fellow GT-R drivers” Kojiro swayed his hand, “Come by some other time”

“Sure will” Rei nodded, “See ya”

“Oh, before I forgot, can I ask you something? It’s regarding your driving behavior” Kojiro said

“Is there something wrong?” Rei sounds puzzled

“No, no… when we overtake other cars this afternoon at 200 KM/H, what do you feel?” Kojiro asked, “Scared, confused, happy, or what?”

“I feel very happy, but scared at the same time” Rei smirks, “That’s the part I love about racing; the heartbeat and the tension of going fast. One mistake and you’ll definitely die”

“You have an AAS” Kojiro smiled, “It stands for Adrenaline Addiction Syndrome… I named it myself, and that’s a healthy syndrome… if you managed to live on, of course”

“Whatever that is, I don’t think I will crash in the near future” Rei chuckled, “See you around, Kojiro-san”

Rei wonders how much weight his car had now. He intends to find out, and off he goes to Nismo Omori factory once again.
“Excuse me… can you measure how much my car weights now?” Rei asked the manager

“Sure thing, we will put it to the measuring machine to find out” the manager nods

Thirty minutes later, the results come up. His car weights less than 1500 KGs- 1301 KGs to be exact. Those carbon fiber body parts he uses, does the job well. But seeing this, he feels unsatisfied.
“What! 1301?! That’s heavy!” Rei looks frustrated, “I need to change all the interior parts with carbon right away and strip out the rear seat!”

After he pays the fee for weight measuring, he immediately goes to C-West garage again for some more special parts order.
“Yes, can you fabricate me more custom parts? I need you to make me a complete set interior and lightweight window glass for my GT-R” Rei said to the manager

“We will fabricate it right away, sir” the manager nodded, “Please get your parts two days from now”

“Here is some money for your hard work” Rei gives him the money, “It’ll look awful if that’s just plain carbon- paint it just like normal interior parts. As for the door, please include a black leather insert, okay?”

It’s getting late, and Rei hasn’t eaten anything since this afternoon. He intends to eat something after he test out his car. Rei droves his GT-R to Wangan line once again so he can try his car with ease. Kojiro’s yelling and shouting completely disturbs his driving rhythm.
“Alright… let’s try you out” Rei nodded as he gets into the road

Rei cruises at 200 KM/H until a blue Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1 revs and tilting the high beam few times; looks like the driver wants a race. The driver then lined up the car beside his GT-R.
“Alright… I’ll take on your offer to race here” Rei smiled as he looks at the ZR-1 beside him, “After you!”

He purposely waits for the ZR-1 to passes him and follows it closely from behind. The driver of the ZR-1 is a girl. To be able to handle a fast car like that without any lack of confidence, Rei quickly assumes she is either stupid or skilled. Rei chooses the latter as his judgment for the driver.

Both of them speed up and gets into the airport tunnel under Haneda airport. Even though the tunnel isn’t completely sealed, the lights completely illuminate it brightly. The ZR-1 is fast indeed, but when Rei notices the slight differences on the exhaust, he knows it has been modified for street racing use.
“She has great skills” Rei nods, “At first glance, I thought it was ZO6. To control a LS-9 engine like an extension of her body is really something”

The Corvette ZR-1.
The base of this car is actually Corvette C6. It uses LS-2 engine which has 6 liter capacity with 400 HP. ZR-1, however, uses slightly larger LS-9 engine which has 6.2 liter capacity and by that, offers more horsepower thanks to the supercharger Chevrolet put on it. Standard car has 638 HP, but this one, who knows?

Rei only knew the modification she does on the car. Vortech Superchargers, Michelin tires, Brembo brakes, Eibach Springs, Sparco interiors equipment, HRE wheels, Borla exhaust, Motec E.C.U., MDS ignition, et cetera, et cetera.

Rei spins his head in wonder and smiled. He then puts a disc into the head unit, and listen it with loud volume. The song is In Your Dream from Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 3.
“What the hell! That song again?” the driver looks puzzled, “I’ve heard that song many times, especially when I was defeated by Hikaru, but not this time”

The driver looks back at her rearview mirror and smiled. She looks satisfied with her new car’s performance on Wangan. It’s Jessie in her brand new and tricked out Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1.
“This time, I won't lose again, Keith” Jessie smiled, “This Skyline is my first prey! Eat this, samurai!”

She points out her middle finger to Rei. Seeing that, Rei could only smirked and he takes it as his cue to catch up. He’ll give no more handicaps, and increases his pace to get even with the ZR-1.
“I gave you a head start, and you’re already getting cocky? Stupid woman” Rei shifts up and floors the throttle

Both of them are now at Tamagawa tunnel, so it’s just in the matter of time until both of them reaches the Ukima tollgate. After that, it’s Wangan stretch all the way to Yokohane line.
“I’m going to kiss her goodbye at Wangan stretch way” said Rei as he takes out few hundreds of yen to pay for the tollbooth ticket

Jessie arrives first at the tollbooth and immediately pays for the fare. Rei does the same; he immediately pays it and drive away.

Rei follows Jessie closely. The ZR-1 is already giving everything it got, but it wasn’t enough for Rei’s GT-R.
“This car, added with suspension, brakes, better grade of tires, equals to competitor killer in the track. What happens if I add more parts like upgraded internals, cooling, and module? It’s a dominator on the street!” Rei shouts

Jessie clocks 300 KM/H and that’s her limit for now. Rei on the other hand, is driving a used car. It’s no problem to push as hard as he wants to, since his engine internals are tuned by proficient mechanics.
“300 KM/H and I’m ahead of you… what?” Jessie takes a look beside her, only to see the red GT LED lights on the tail of silver GT-R

It’s clear coast up ahead, so Rei mash the throttle stick to the floor. Fire and sparks spat out from his exhaust and made a very loud bang noise. This usually happens because wrong timing of valve and the engine has too much gas on the cylinder. The unburned gas runs all the way through the headers to the exhaust and gets burned out; making it spat some fire and sparks.

The white combo meter shows he clicks 305 KM/H and still accelerates forward.
“Well that’s your limit” Rei looks at the ZR-1 driver and swayed his hand, “See ya”

Rei leave her with 320 KM/H, exiting at Daikoku junction. It’s his first victory at Wangan with his GT-R. Now that his test drive is finished, time to get something to eat. He decided to eat some ramen.

Jessie stops her car at the side of the street and gritted her teeth. She hates it when she loses to someone, especially to strangers.
“Damn! I thought my car was good enough to beat anything that moves!” Jessie hits the steering wheel, “This is so frustrating! I have no one to turn to! If Steve is here, he’ll beat that GT-R easily!”

Jessie sighed and she tries to remember the looks of the car. The car has a vinyl of black samurai on it, as its vinyl. She burned the image of the car into her brains, and swore to get even someday.
“Until next time, Musashi” Jessie smirked, “I will defeat you and Ray Krieger!”

Fifteen minutes later, Rei is sitting at a nice restaurant with a bowl of spicy beef mushroom ramen in front of him, along with cold grape yoghurt. It looks red hot and steamy, but very delicious looking. He smirks few times and sips the red hot stock with the spoon.
“Whew… so spicy and hot!” Rei smirks

Let’s leave him be for now, while he eats the spicy ramen. He doesn’t like it when he’s disturbed when he’s eating.

Somewhere near C1, a red BMW cruises at great speed. It’s followed by a familiar looking E92 M3 with Grip Runners, lots of arrows vinyl, custom body kit, and a carbon GT-Wing.
Yes, that is the same E92 M3 that belongs to Ray Krieger, the Grip King on Need for Speed Pro Street.

Looks like both of them is having a race. The engine sound is loud, while the exhaust spits fire and sparks. Those two cars have undergone a heavy modification.
“Alright Keith, let’s see what you have under that bonnet!” Steve said to him

“Let’s get off the highway and go someplace else” Keith exited the highway

Both of them race to Ueno Park, at Taito ku. The result of the race is unseen, because both of the cars have equal horsepower with different engineering. Cosworth against BMW Racing.

They go around the park, sprinting from here to there, overtaking each others one after the other. When Steve overtakes Keith, he gets passed again. Same goes for Keith, when he overtakes Steve, he gets passed again. The two machines share the same technology of V8 and same brute strength.

Rei has just finished eating his spicy hot ramen, and he drinks two (yes, two) mug of cold grape yoghurt.
“Whew… so full” Rei exhaled, “The ramen bowl is big, and the yoghurt is too much. I can't move for at least five minutes”

He asks for the bill and pays it while he sips the cold grape yoghurt. After he finishes his drink, he gets out from the restaurant to sit at Ueno Park. The night is very beautiful, with starry skies. He smiled as he takes the picture of this precious moment with his W980i. It’s a good thing to have a nice reliable mobile phone with good mega pixels for your camera.
“Whew… I love Japan” Rei stares at the starry skies

“Sure you are” said a man from behind him, “You are Japanese after all”

When Rei looked behind him, he only sees one thing behind him; his silver colored car, with lots of product decals and black samurai vinyl.
“You just talked to me?” Rei asked

“I’m not talking to you” he replied, “Cars never talked. This is merely your imagination, from all that spicy food”

“Is that so?” Rei frowns, “I better get some more fresh air, then”

When he steps away from his car, low rumbling sound is heard from the corners, and it’s getting closer and closer.

“What is that sound? So loud and dry like… that is the sound of N.A. tuning engine!” Rei looks around the corner, “It’s from around the corner!”

Then he saw it. The red M3 GTR is speeding alongside white E92. Not only have both of them sounded very loud, they are also looked fast… faster than his GT-R, perhaps. His blood begins to stir. He smiled wickedly and gets into his car to catch up to them.

A person who’s just eaten something spicy or hot tends to gets angry easy. Don’t know why, but it looks like there is some kind of enzyme on chili that makes blood flows easily, which cause it to have more pressure.
“Alright, let’s get them” Rei nodded as he ignited the engine

He then launches his car like hell to chase them. Keith and Steve, who’s racing each other realizes that someone is following them.
“Steve, check it out” Keith looks at his rearview mirror, “Somebody is following us”

“That silver GT-R… is that Hikaru?” Steve looks closely to his rearview mirror

The GT-R looks the same as Hikaru’s old GT-R, which is driven by his sister now. One more glance at the car, will make you remember the car for your whole life.
“That’s not Hikaru or Seno-san” Keith spins his head, “Maybe it’s just a poser who’s trying to look cool in the GT-R, but who knows?”

“What’s with that vinyl?” Steve looks at the GT-R as it passes them

“That is Musashi 2 logo” Keith smirks, “Let’s leave him be for now. He completely spoils our showdown”

“Fine, let’s leave it at that tonight” Steve nodded, “Next time, Musashi”

“Cih, these guys are so boring” Rei shrugs, “Time to get back, then. Until next time, guys”

Rei leaves them both and gets back to his own house. Tomorrow will be his first day on school, but he has a lot of things in his mind right now. Whether everyone is alright back at Seattle, whether his parents angry or not, whether he’s accepted by his new friends or not, whether he’ll be alright or not from now on… he’s worried about everything.
“Huff” Rei exhaled tiredly, “What will happen tomorrow? What did fate has in store for me? I'm worried”

He stares at his GT-R with worried look on his face. He is just a kid, alone in Tokyo without a family to take care of him. This is the first time he travels alone, away from the protection of Mikami Group.
“Worrying isn’t going to help you know” the GT-R talked to him

“Sky… I don’t know what to do here. Why did I bother coming here by myself anyway?” he asks

“To be free, isn’t that right? You are an adult now, Rei” Sky answered, “You have to leave your parents, so you can grow up to be a responsible person in the society. Stop worrying so much, let it flow as time goes by”

“If that’s what you say, then… alright” Rei nod few times, “See you tomorrow, Sky”

He gets back to his room and gets some sleep.

Meanwhile at a house five blocks away from school, Tarou is driving Rika to her house. Because it’s late, and Rika is exhausted, she is asleep at Tarou’s car.
“Ri… oh, you’re asleep” Tarou sighed

Some of Rika’s shirt button is unfastened. Tarou tried to see what’s under those shirts. When he tries to move the shirt to reveal her cleavage, the red GTR passed him with unbelievable exhaust sound, and startled him.
“What the hell?!” Tarou yells

Where did his hand go? It’s rubbing Rika’s breast, completely waking her up.

“Tarou!” Rika said as she slapped him

“Oh” Tarou realized that he has done something stupid

Rika gets off his car with furious look on her face, leaving Tarou with sad look on his face.
“Damn it! I’m going to give that red car a lesson!” Tarou bawled

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tomorrow morning at eight, he’s getting ready to go to school. He tied his Adidas Summer Run shoes and dresses up neatly. He cooks his breakfast and eats it while he watches CNBC, to keep up with stock prices and economic news.
“Whew, I hope everyone is alright” Rei bites his sandwich, “Well it’s eight pass forty-five, so I better go right away”

He grabs his bag and turns off the TV screen, locks the front and rear door, and off he goes.

The sun shines softly and he likes it. The cool breeze hits his face and makes him smile widely. Japan is a good place to run away. He plugs his earphone and listens to L’Arc song to fire him up in this morning.
“Alright, let’s go” he said

He walks slowly as he tries to look around his neighborhood. It’s his first time to walk around here. On the way, he saw midnight purple GT-R parked at a garage; looks like it’s the Sky Captain. He then continues walk down the streets until he reaches Tokyo National High School. This is the place where he’s going to study.

The school gate is already open and many students are seen going inside the building. The surrounding area of the school is very clean. The trees are perfectly healthy, the airs are clean, and the most important thing of all- the learning environment is very conducive.
“Alright… here I am” Rei nodded as he gets inside, “This place is even better than I ever imagined… let’s see… where is homeroom 2A?”

He looks around for homeroom 2A and finally found it on the second floor. The homerooms here are many and confusing, especially when he’s a newcomer here. There is also another newcomer besides him, and he’s waiting in front of the class
At homeroom 2A, everybody is already gathered around and sits in their seats. Yue-sensei steps inside not long after all of them arrived.
“Stand up! Greet!” Rika said to them

“Good morning, ma’am!” said everybody in the class

“Be seated” Yue-sensei writes their names on the board, “Today we have two new friends that will join this class. Come on in, you two. Please introduce yourself”

The new students come inside the homeroom and stands up at the front of the class
“Hi, my name is Keith Valentine and I came from Los Angeles, U.S.A” Keith bows, “Nice to meet you”

“Alright Valentine-san, you can sit at the back there” Yue-sensei nodded, “Please get along with the others. And what about you? Why don’t you introduce yourself?”

“My name is Minami Rei, and I came from Nagano” Rei said to them, “Pleased to make your acquaintance”

“Minami-san, you can sit in front of Keith there” Yue-sensei said to him

“Yes, ma’am” Rei nodded

When Rei sits in front of Keith, Keith suddenly said something to him. Something that would makes him to be the final member of High School Street Racing.
“You smell like gasoline. Are you a mechanic? Or are you a street racer?” Keith asks him

“Hah? Well, I'm not a mechanic… I'm a racer, just like you” Rei answered

“How do you know that I'm a racer?” Keith ask again

“You smell just like I do” Rei answered, “What car did you drive?”

“I drive E92 BMW M3, the Grip Runner” Keith nods, “And I'm Ray Krieger”

“So you are the driver of Grip Runner” Rei smirks, “I see… and who drives the E46 M3 GTR?”

“That would be me” Steve replied, “My name is Steve Blackburn, and I drive the red GTR. What do you drive, kiddo?”

“Me? I drive the silver Skyline GT-R V-spec II Nur” Rei said proudly

“We would like to have a word with you on the break later. Don’t go too far, alright?” Tarou asks him

“Okay… is this going to be some kind of welcoming party?” Rei shrugs, “Well whatever”

At lunch break, Rei follows the others to the rooftop. There, all of them are having talk racer to racer. Rei, who is new in this school, likes to play by the rules, so he follows them without knowing what’s going on.
“So what are you guys wants to talk about?” Rei asks them

“First of all, let me introduce ourselves” Iwami said, “My name is Yamato Iwami, this is Matsuyama Gonsuke, and Tsubasa Yamada”

“My name is Yuichi Tarou” Tarou introduces himself, “This is Ichijou Hikaru, Hourai Souya, and Clark Landers”

“I'm sure you know us earlier, right” Steve added

“We are from High School Street Racing” Gonsuke said to him, “You are newcomers here, so you should play by the rules”

“Rules, what rules?” Rei seems confused

“You are standing at our turf… call it a home ground if you will” Gonsuke adds

“Just get to the point, I'm hungry here” Rei sighed. He looks impatient to get out of there.

“For short, we want to test your skills” Hikaru cuts in, “Why don’t you come to Kita Senju Station at Adachi ku? Tonight there will be a race between our team and the Speedster team”

“Fine… wait, did you just said Ichijou Hikaru? You are brother of Ichijou Seno?” Rei looks surprised, “You are also the driver of White Ghost, aren’t you?”

“Yes I am… are you an acquaintance of my sister?” Hikaru asked back

“Not really. I just know that she is Sky Captain, and the leader of Need For Speed team” Rei scratches his head

“I was known as Sky Captain myself until a stupid accident happens to me” Hikaru exhaled, “A lot of things happened, and my sister is back to the street with my old Skyline”

“I see” Rei nodded, “Sound rough for you”

“Anyway, please don’t be late” Keith added, “See you at the meeting place, then”

“Okay, see you tonight, then” Rei runs off to the cafeteria immediately

After Rei is gone, Steve talks again to the others.
“He looks very skilled” Steve said to them, “His attitude is rather rude, and his behavior is childish, but there is more to him than just that”

“You see what I'm seeing?” Hikaru asked

“That’s what I thought as well” Keith adds, “We can't trust him easily, so it’ll be better for us if we know him little by little, rather than blindly recruit him to the team”

After school, Rei can't wait for the action to begin. He meets many new people, with same hobby as he does.

Hikaru and the others are seen walking together with many girls towards the school gate. Yuki, Sako, Jessie, Sarah, Yuri, Rika, Ayase, and Marie are walking together with Hikaru and the others. The boys are laughing, while the girls are giggling; looks like all of them had a fun time.
“So, what kind of girls you into, Rei?” Keith suddenly appeared behind him

“Ah”

That of course, startled him… who wouldn’t? I mean, a person suddenly appeared behind you, without warning or signs at all? It’s just not normal.

“What re you, some kind of alien? How do you managed to appear behind me, without my notice?” Rei sighed

“Nah, don’t sweat the details” Keith shrugs, “Let’s go back”

“Why would I go back with you?” Rei lift his shoulders in confusion

“The way I see it, it’s only you and me who didn’t have someone with them” Keith replied, “By the way, do you already found a part time job?”

“Not yet” Rei spins his head, “I need to work someplace with nice people around”

“Why don’t you try working as a postman? I'm sure they still needs to recruit some new worker” Keith told him, “The post office is just two blocks away from here, and it’ll be best if you apply now”

“Thanks for the info, Keith” Rei nodded, “See you later, then!”

“Ah, give me your phone number, it’ll be bad if we can't communicate when we need it” Keith gets out his mobile phone

“Oh, alright… here it is” Rei gives the number

“Okay, we’re good” Keith nods, “See you later, and don’t be late”

Rei applied to the post office immediately and he’ll start working tomorrow. He applied at the right time, because they only will recruit one more worker. Thanks to Keith, he has undergone another step to blend with these normal people.

He still has some time until the racing meet starts. He hasn’t eaten anything since this afternoon, thanks to Hikaru and the others. He dropped to restaurant near Kojiro’s place to eat something good.

Hikaru and the others are there as well. Gonsuke and Hikaru works part time here, it’s convenient for them to work near a modification garage. You can easily ask Kojiro if there is something wrong with your car.
“Hi, what would you like to have?” Gonsuke asks him

“I would like to have a curry set with chicken katsu here” Rei flips the menu, “As for the drink, I would like to have some red bull with ice. Thank you”

“Got any part time work yet?” Hikaru asks him

“I already have. I work as a postman starting tomorrow” Rei answered proudly, “It’s a nice place to work”

“Sure is” said Yuki suddenly

She is accompanied with six other girls. Two of them are foreign girl, and the rest is normal high school girls.
“Ah, the Black Phantom” Rei nods to her

“Rei, meet my girlfriend Amano Yuki. This is Gonsuke’s girlfriend; Tomoka Marie, Tarou’s girlfriend is Ayamu Rika here. She’s the class representative of our class. Souya’s girlfriend is Shimada Yuuri, Gonsuke’s girl is Tomoka Marie” Hikaru introduces them, “Iwami’s girlfriend is Narita Ayase, and lastly for Yamada’s girlfriend, her name is Niiyama Sako”

“Pleased to meet you” all of them bow to Rei

“As for the two foreign girls are Steve’s girlfriend and Clark’s girlfriend. Their names is Maria Jessica Rosemary and Sarah Johnson” Gonsuke adds

“What a lovely bunch” Rei smirked, “Pleased to meet you, girls”

“Hi, how do you do?” Jessie nodded

“You are cute and beautiful” Sarah said to him, “It’s a good thing that all of our friends are either handsome or cute”

“Enough with the flattery, you’ll make my head explode here” Rei scratch his head

The girls gone back to their seats and eats up their food. Same for Rei, his food is ready to be eaten.
“Here is your food” Gonsuke gives him the food he orders, “Please eat it while it’s hot”

“Thank you” Rei takes the food and eats it

“Don’t be late, the racing meet starts at nine thirty” Hikaru reminds him

“Okay” he replies as he takes the chicken katsu and eats it

Back to their seats, the girls and the boys are talking about Rei again, while whispering to each other.
“He seems to be a nice guy” Sako whispered, “What do you think, Yamada?”

“He is” Yamada whispered back, “You see, me and the others are intending to recruit him for our final member”

“But first, we have to test his skills with his car” Clark said, “We will see how good he does with his car tonight”

“I can't wait to see it” Sarah replied

“Yeah, me too” Jessie continues, “I'm going to show all of you my newest weapon”

“Weapon, what weapon?” Steve asks

“You’ll see tonight” Jessie smirked

Finished eating his food, Rei pays the bill and goes straight away to Kojiro’s place. He intends to consult about his GT-R’s behavior recently, after his test drive last night.
“How is the Musashi?” Kojiro asks him immediately when Rei walk through the garage door

“Musashi” Rei seems puzzled when Kojiro said it

“You are well known. It’s just yesterday that you beat the ZR-1, and in the next day, most of the street racers across Japan know you. So how is your car going?”

“It’s fine” Rei nodded as he sits down at the chair, “The driver of the ZR-1 is a girl, and she won't back down easily. I'm sure she’ll ask for a rematch, when we meet again”

“I see” Kojiro laughs, “It’s a good thing to know that you rack up reputation out there. So did anybody notice you yet?”

“Not yet, not even Hikaru and the others” Rei spins his head, “Since I'm going to the racing meet at Kita Senju, I guess they will notice sooner of later. See you tonight, Kojiro-san”

Before Rei goes back home, he passed a Nissan clothes and gear shop just around the block. Looks like it’s newly opened, so as a loyal Nissan car driver he decided to drop by and shop a thing or two… or so he thought.

He ended up spending his time nearly two and a half hours trying out the clothes. He buys Nissan black tee, appliqué crewneck sweatshirt, eco recycled deluxe urban sling bag, fusion jacket, high sierra sports duffel bag, long sleeve polo, cotton pique polo, black design tee, combed cotton pique polo, full zip hooded jacket, and pinpoint wrinkle free shirt, woven dress shirt, wrap around tee, wind shirt, tri-colored custom cap, zippered pad folio, youth hooded jacket and mock neck shirt.

And that’s not all of them… that’s the Nissan gear, what about Nismo?
He bought Nismo die-cut key tag, filigree and tool design long sleeve tee, full zip jacket, long sleeve comic tee, collared custom Nismo shirt, flame tee, racing tee, sling bag, sweatshirt, long sleeve tee, urban jacket, and red-white stripped cap.

As for the bonus he gets two free souvenirs; GT-R carbon leather wallet and GT-R shirt. Those two is a line up products for Nissan GT-R, and it’s considered as an expensive items.
It’s eight o’clock already, so he decided to go home immediately to get some rest.

The night has come to greet every people with its dark sky. White S2000, Grip Runner E92, red E46 GTR, silver Soarer, blue MR2, dark blue Tiburon, purple Elise, and black RX7 are already parked at one side of the meeting place. On the other side of the meeting place, there are a lot of cars with red 3000GT at the middle. Small drag races, and sprint races are already been held to entertain the spectators.

It’s already nine pass fifteen o’clock, and the others are starting to get impatient. What is he doing? Hikaru already reminded him not to be late.
“Overslept problem…” Hikaru spins his head, “That’s a minus one on his scoreboard”

“Just wait for a moment. He’ll show up for sure” Keith sits at his car’s bonnet

“He is, but are you sure he’s going to represent us in the race tonight?” Souya doubted

“We’ll just have to see what kind of car he bought here, and let’s see what kind of competition we can give him” Tarou replied

“Hey, who’s going to be your representative?” Moriyama asks them, “We’ll begin soon”

“Hold up little longer, we still have ten more minutes” Iwami looks at his wristwatch

“So, you changed your car to ZR-1, huh? Why didn’t you tell me?” Steve stares at her car

“Somebody run away on me, and what would you want me to say?” Jessie frowned

“It’s Keith’s fault in the first place” Steve points Keith’s face with furious look

“Don’t put it on me… you two challenges me at the first place, and I have no other way to proof my car is fast than to smoke you guys” Keith replied leisurely, “I better call this guy”

At nine twenty, he is awakened by the sound of his mobile phone rings. He picks it up, and Keith is the one who calls.
“Hey, you want to come here or what?” Keith asks frustrated

“Yeah, hold on a bit. What time is it?” Rei asks back

“It is nine twenty, and you got ten minutes to get here” Keith yells, “Wake up and go!”

“Alright, I’ll be there” Rei jumps off from the couch and changes his clothes right away

He opens the garage door and fires his engine. He gets his car out, locks the fence and speed his way through the town. The engine sound, accompanied by two Clarion subwoofers in the back, delivering high bass beats is so loud that the woman next door has to cover her ears from the noise.

A silver GT-R cruises in high speeds with loud music. Overtaking here and there, braking, shifts up, shifts down- everything to get to the meeting place faster. He must get there as fast as he can, before the others thinking badly about him and he won't have a chance to participate on the race tonight.

Back at the racing meet, everybody is showing off their audio systems with big and loud speakers. Many people rap around, singing about the competition tonight with fast tongue action.

Moriyama is psyching himself not to lose this competition, while Hikaru and the others are talking with their girlfriend about tonight’s competition. Strangely, the spectators tonight are more than usual. They must have heard the news about three major members at High School Street Racing, gathering to test out the newest member of their team.
“You think we’re going to win, baby?” Rena pats Moriyama’s hair

“What do you think?” Moriyama asks back

“We’d better win, because we got bills to pay” Rena slaps his forehead

“I know this” Moriyama replied irritated

Rei is still cruising and he’ll arrive in a minute. The way he handles his car, is not something people should miss. Because he got his lessons from racing school, it’s normal if he drives like a pro racer.

Suddenly everybody cheered up for something- something that’s just behind the corner. The engine sound is very loud and it’s getting closer and closer.
“Yeah, here he comes” Yamada points the corner

“It’s on!” Hikaru stands up

The car that everybody waits for is here. All of them cheered when it pass them with slow speed. Musashi is indeed become famous in one day, so everybody is looking forward what kind of driver he is.
“Rei drives that GT-R?!” Jessie looked surprised

“So, he is Musashi” Keith smirks, “Nobody drives GT-R with that kind of childish vinyl… so silly of me didn’t notice”

“Um, actually that is cool, you know” Gonsuke points the black vinyl, “He wants to differ his GT-R from the rest, and I can see that”

“Not only can you, Gon… all of us see it” Yuki lift her shoulders, “Even though he’s a kid, he has some natural talent to dress up his car to stand out”

“That GT-R will surely be one of your teammates” Sarah added, “Look at the crowd; they’ve been waiting for Musashi to show up”

“It’s a good thing he showed up. Oh well, let’s start immediately!” Clark nodded to Moriyama to begin the race

“So the Musashi guy is with your team… I can't wait to see who he really is” Rena smirked

Rei parked his GT-R near the place where Hikaru and the others parked their car. He cuts the engine and steps down from the car, only to see people amazed by him.
“So… so young” said one of the spectators, “Is that really Musashi?”

“So that is the guy who beat the Blue Devil” said a girl from behind, “So cute!”

He wears white long sleeve comic tee and black jeans, accompanied with Adidas Supernova Sequence Control.
“There he is! This is Minami Rei, our newest team member” Souya said to Moriyama

“This kid, Are you sure? Hahahaha” Moriyama laughs, “I crack myself out”

Rei smirked and shrugs. He understands completely that Moriyama is trying to make him depressed. He then switch on to ‘ten year old behavior’ mode.
“So rude of you” Rei smirked, “Ah well, I guess that’s to be expected from a lousy leaders like you”

That word pisses Moriyama off. It’s natural for Rei to act like that, considering his behavior is the same as a ten year old, but for Moriyama to angry for that, well… he fall for this kid’s trick.
“Take that back” Moriyama stands up to punch his face, “I said take it back you punk, or I’ll hit your face”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk… such boastful words” Rei replies, “Why don’t we let our cars do the talk here?”

Everybody cheered for him. The way he talks is the way a street racer should talk. On the streets, all that matters is not your brawns, but how fast you and your car can go. Rei knows it better than Moriyama for some reason.
“So confident of him” Keith slaps his own forehead

“Yo, kid! What makes you think you can talk like that?” Steve shouts

Rei gets his wallet from his jeans pocket and throws it to Keith. Keith, who doesn’t understand what he’s doing, opens up the wallet.
“Hey Steve, Check this out! This kid has a license” Keith takes out the license

“Of course he has a license” Steve slaps his forehead also, “So stupid”

The spectators laugh. It’s normal for a street racer to have license. Keith feels embarrassed already, so instead, he threw off the license ‘thing’ he talked about.
“That is not what I meant. Here you go” Keith throws it off, “Now, you can laugh”

Steve catches the card he threw and amazed by it. It’s a Nissan qualification license for pro racers. That is what they usually give when you passed the test at racing school.
“This is racing license” Hikaru looked surprised, “Is this real? Where did you get this?”

“I get it from training in March cup” Rei lift his shoulders, “What? You think I wasn’t good enough, huh? Then let me race this sissy guy to show you”

“Alright, Rei… you are one of us now. We have no rights to doubt your skills now” Steve hands it over to him

“Welcome to the team and beat this guy out!” Tarou punches the air

“Your whack ass heavy GT-R wouldn’t stand a chance against my 3000GT! This car has undergone many extensive modifications to lighten up the body, while increasing the power!” Moriyama gets in the car

“Okay, then what about this?”

Rei opens the trunk and gets a big torque wrench. He then hits the fender as hard as he can. Everybody is surprised seeing what he’s doing. But when they didn’t see something happen to that fender, they immediately understood what he’s doing.
“That fender is made with carbon fiber!” said Iwami surprised, “Don’t tell me this car is 100% made from carbon fiber”

“Nah, but most of the parts is. Fender, front bumper, side skirts, door shells, rear bumpers, trunk, GT-Wing, rear taillights housing” Rei mentions the parts, “I got these from my friend in C-West! Cool, huh? He also threw it up with lightweight glass for the windows… neat!”

Everybody became more amazed by him. Who is this guy, that he even has a good connection to one of the tuners for aerodynamic parts? But it doesn’t matter because everyone can have that kind of relation also.
“Okay, let’s begin!” Rei hops into his car and ignites his engine

Both of them move their car to the starting grid and ready to begin. Hikaru, who has experienced bad thing because of Moriyama, approaches Rei to warn him.
“Rei, he is the one who destroys my car” Hikaru said to him, “Be careful when you race against him, especially when he’s in you back”

“Don’t worry. At a glance, he looked just like a normal street racer, but when he gets behind the wheel, he’s an asshole. I can see it” Rei nodded as he straps his harnesses, “I’ll win this one as a welcoming gift”

“Alright, $10,000 is on the line! Win this, and let us move on to the next step to the greatness!” Gonsuke psyched him up

“Okay, let’s do this”

The rest of Need For Speed team members arrived at the last minute before the race. Bernard who sees Rei in a GT-R smiled while he nodded to him.
“I guess that kid is a genius indeed” Bernard smiled, “My friend at Nissan racing school told me that there is a kid named Minami, taking an express course to train himself”

“You mean he has a racing license?” Kojiro asks him

“Surely he has” Seno smiled when she swayed her hand to Rei

“This is going to be a bad night after all” Itsumi looked around, “Look, even the RJ7 is here”

“Let them be” Ayumi said, “They are one member short, thanks to your brother, Seno”

“Sure is” Seno smiled, “If they tried to do anything funny, let’s just whack them all”

“Are you serious about killing them?” Kenjou wipes his sweats

“Nah… What she really means is to smoke them. You should avoid using such a difficult word, Seno” Satoshi lift his shoulders

“The race is almost starts!” Eliah nods

“Let’s see what Musashi can do” John added

This is a sprint race. From the starting line turn right at the first corner. Follow the road down and turn right, back to the side of the station. Then turn left to the zigzag road and follow the road down again until it ends. Next up, turn right and follow the road back to the zigzag road, and finish it by going into the starting line.

Rei revs up his engine seven times and he’s ready to go. His eyes looked scary when he’s serious. Moriyama is also the same; he revs up his engine to match up with Rei’s loud engine noise.
“Ready? Ready?” the linesman pointed at Moriyama and Rei

Moriyama nodded and shifts up while Rei shifts up and revs his engine up.
“Go!” the linesman dropped his hands simultaneously

Moriyama launches his car forward, followed by Rei. The acceleration of the GT-R is totally unbelievable. Even though Moriyama has better traction, Rei can catch up easily on the straights.

Roaring sound of his GT-R engine echoed through the streets. Kojiro sure is the best for tuning and setting up the GT-R; the exhaust sound of Rei’s GT-R totally outsounds Moriyama’s 3000GT!
“Let’s see what can you do, kid!” Moriyama shifts down and enters the corner firsthand

“…”

Rei follows him exactly the way Moriyama turns. Both of them already passed the first right hander, now on to another right hander and left to zigzag road.

Even though Rei can catch up easily, but it’s another story when you tried to pass him. Moriyama sways his car left and right, so Rei cannot pass him.
“You won't pass me, you can't pass me, come on!” Moriyama shouts

Rei is having a hard time to outmaneuver him. He tries to pass, but no luck. Moriyama has it in his front.
“What you got, man?” Rei sways his car to find a spot

Both of them are at the zigzag road now. Next up is to the right and follow down the road until it end and turn right once again to the zigzag road direction.
“I told you; you can’t pass me!” Moriyama yells

The way Rei sees it, Moriyama is fully screening out his front, so he tries once again until Moriyama does a mistake with his heavier nose. He shifts up to sixth gear and floors his car more. Moriyama on the other hand, shifts down so he can accelerate more.
“This is it!” Moriyama plunges his car to the right hander

Sadly from all that acceleration in lower gear, makes him under-steers to the side of the road. Rei who sees this gold opportunity, shifts down to fifth gear and accelerates forward to the other right hander.

Moriyama looked surprised when he sees Rei is beside him. Rei smirked to him and shift up to the sixth gear.
“Home stretch, baby!” Rei shouts

Moriyama feels frustrated. He begins to think of the worse at the end of the race. Now this is the real part of street racing with him. He accelerates forward with lower gear to catch up and tried to ram him. Rei sees it from his rearview mirror, but he didn’t realize that Moriyama is going to play dirty.
“Rei, look out!” Sky said to him

Rei reacted fast and moves aside to avoid the damn punk. But Moriyama isn’t satisfied with passing him. He tries another trick to be played. He intends to push Rei aside to the train tracks.
“Oh, you’re going to play like that, huh? Well too bad, this car is f**king expensive and I won't afford any damage on the paintworks. Let’s see how good you can do with your car!”

Rei shifts down to fourth gear and stayed at 3,500 RPM. He does that so he can utilize the big boost from the turbo to help him accelerate. When Moriyama tries to ram him from the side, Rei floors the throttle, leaving him behind swaying his car to balance it.

Moriyama grits his teeth; he wants to have another go. Both of them is at zigzag road once again, and will turn left to the starting line direction.
“This is it!” Rei accelerates forward, “Let’s go!”

On the crossroad there is a big truck, blocking half of the road… looks like the engine is halted. One car will pass in front of the other, but who’s going to pass the truck firsthand?

Rei is at the left side of the road, where the lane is free. Moriyama intends to ram him the moment before Rei pass the free lane.
“This is where your career ends!” Moriyama slams his car hard to Rei’s GT-R

Rei calmly shifts down and accelerates forward. He floors the car suddenly to avoid Moriyama’s car and passed him.

Moriyama, who is unable to control the car after tried to ram him, has to brake hard and hits the left fender of the halting truck at 150 KM/H, completely destroying the front end and oil leaks from the engine.

Rei saw what happened and grinned. He watches from his rearview mirror that the car starts to burn. He also sees Moriyama dragging his right foot, moving away from his car.
Flames completely licking out from the engine to the interior. Everything is burned, as well as his street racing career that ends with his broken right leg.
“You have your revenge settled, Hikaru” Rei smiled as he drives back to the starting line

Everybody heard what happened and cheered for Musashi. Rei is seen at the corner and speed up his way to the starting line. Everybody is scared and run away, but Rei pulls his e-brake, steers to the side, and shifts down to neutral.

The others nodded to him and smiled widely. Rei smiled as he cuts his engine and steps down from the car. He pats his right fender hard while he laughs happily.
“Ahahahahaha” Rei laughs as he pats his right fender

He takes the winning money and talked to his new teammates.
“Nice job” Tarou nodded, “You did your thing perfectly”

“Let’s get out of here; Moriyama’s car is burning, so the police will be here shortly” Rei gets back to his car

So there he is. The final member of High School Street Racing; who has the same ability as their three most skilled members. The path to their greatness has just begun.


This post has been edited by R_E_X on Nov 9 2009, 01:09 AM