The Legendary Air Ride Machine
Inspired by both Fast and Furious (7) and Kirby Air Ride and art

The wind was armored with millions of tiny scratchers: sand. Whipped and lashed against the skin even under layers of cloth, nothing could escape the sandstorm’s rage. Though the sand’s sting only went up a few meters above the dunes, dust rose hundreds of feet into the air and enough to stay for weeks on end. The sky was obscured and walking seemed to your feet into oblivion. Sand was all around, the broken rock dogging all parts. There was no way around it, the world was covered.

His mother told him stories, stories of the east and an ever expanding body of water so far that there is no end and falls off the edge of the earth. It’s called the Water Fall, so much of it can quench the land but the high mountains of the west block all of it. The peaks kiss space, higher than even sky’s limit. His mother said it was covered in white sand, soft and cold to touch.

Here it’s covered in this camel hide hue, cursed with the Sun’s baking and rough on the hands. People work endless days searching for food and building when the winds don’t batter them. Building round clay domes where the dried river beds once ran. Hoping to wits end for a flash flood. These blessings that happen nearly once or twice per year; the Mountain’s Mercy some call it. Covering the lands in that bit of moisture and greens grow everywhere. The people are always ready for it, scattering precious seeds for the endless hope that Mercy will inevitably show again.

Today he was out, in this horrifying sandstorm for one thing. A sign. Story upon story is all he can give hope in, nothing else. Neither the failed farming attempts nor the scouters that never return in search of new grounds could stir any sort of trust in him. People were desperate, him even more. The sand consumed more and more each year and gathering even more sand as it chips away from the Sky Peaks. And his mother was nearly fed up with everything. Food was never abundant, and these council men couldn’t think for everyone. Selfishness plagued them all, him no different.

One thing he could possibly even fathom to go out and look for was a legend he had only heard once but remembers so clearly. It was from a traveler long before whom visited their village on the edge of the dunes. He had talked about his quest, embellishing what good he could find. The legendary machine that could cut through the air and find salvation for them all, an emblem of real hope: Dragoon.

The Traveler said in the halloo of sands will uncover the bare of the desert. Before it’s piled again he must slip past the doors and enter no man’s land, potentially trapping himself for eternity. Sneaking out away from Mother’s eyes, he stepped into Rage, the Sandstorm.

Everyone told him it was for naught, that the Traveler was on shrooms even as those are exceptionally rare these days. Yet he went out anyways. They were all to die so why not die on an adventure? Searching for the unsearchable, travelling the unreadable. The Desert was the only land they could occupy, maybe there was others in the white sands of Sky Peaks, living daily from the Mountain’s Mercy. He wanted to go there; he wanted to see white sand and green flourishing around.

And that’s when he fell.

*

“Hey hey, look who’s back!”

He shook off as he pulled his goggles off his face and let them sit on his puffy peach scarf. The scarf flared out on his side, carefully pinned to the top of his coat embroidered with triangular green designs that framed the ends. His three striped beret had a tuff a rabbit’s tail on the back end, holding the top of his sand blond hair that curled just slightly to his head.

Kicking his thin legs hugged by raw denim, he leaned down to fix the buckles on his boots, “I’ve got three trades for silk and art here, Sunggyu.”

“As expected from the boy in the skies,” his employer, Sunggyu, tapped the tip of his brimmed straw boater towards him. “I’ve got an awaiting customer. Drop ‘em off in the back and take a break, Sungjong.”

“Right,” him, Sungjong, nods and carries two crates full of products from the desert.

It’s his job now, ever since he flew over the mountain tops of white sand, which he learned later was frozen water called snow; his job pertains to the name of Product Transport. And since he’s the only one from the Desert Niles, all his stuff is high end and rare—equals quick money and lots of it.

Sunggyu, his employer, is a backend Dealer that says he quit smoking but it’s an obvious lie. Usually, he wears brand name clothes just for attention, but his detail to fashion is horrible. If not for Woohyun, the Carrier, he would look like a failed rapper who still lives in post-pre age. Occasionally, he does. That’s when Woohyun is out on a job.

“Hyung,” Sungjong clicks over to him, well stood out with his wine colored coat and braided straps. “Profits?”

“High,” Sunggyu counts out stacks of money, taking a good lot and stashing it into an envelope to hand to Sungjong. “Good work.”

He counts it fast with nimble fingers, “Great.”

“Ahh…a,” the Dealer leans over the counter of their poorly lit shop in downtown, where the buildings are tall and narrow, the people even more narrow-minded. “Sungjongie, you’re such a blessing. If I had never found you, we’d be dead broke!”

“The truest words I heard from Hyung’s mouth in a while,” he remarks, going over to grab a chair and sit. Cats started to climb in from the window one by one, since he keeps feeding them.

Sunggyu puffs, giving him a face, “Cheeky kid.”

Two hands appeared behind Sunggyu and tugged his cheeks out and the Dealer spouted murder in complaining whines, followed by another person’s chuckles.

“The cheekiest here is you, Gyu-hyung,” the Carrier, Woohyun, grinned from behind pinching the two packs of plush cheeks on the Dealer with emphasis. “Lookie here, Sungjong! Isn’t he?”

The young Transporter laughed as their boss yelled, “Shtop!” Fists came flying and punched the Carrier right in the gut as he fell back, lost. Too late, as Sunggyu’s cheeks were flaming red from the teasing. “Oww, my poor cheeks… I was just getting to being a cool Hyung too…”

He heard Woohyun laugh hard and Sungjong went back to tending the cats. There were three blank white ones, each having respected colored eyes of: Hazel, Period, and Rose. The fourth was a black cat with similar eyes as his own, a sparkling magenta. Sungjong get each a nice long pet, smiling at them which extending his hand in some amounts of food, to prolong their exchange.

A loud rev roared right outside their trading depot, and Sunggyu stopped punching Woohyun’s face to turn to Sungjong. “That’s the fourth this month?”

“Yeah,” Sungjong broke a smile, standing to dust off his pants from fur and gave the rest of the cat food. “Only four.”

“They’re backing off because you’ve already raced most of them,” Woohyun popped from behind the counter, giving their boss a tight hug to hold back Sunggyu’s arms. “You disappointed?”

“A little,” Sungjong checked the bottom of his shoes, then to see if there were any stray strands of thread flying off him. None. “It was fun when they first started to show up.”

“And now?”

Sungjong threw a nice smile over his shoulder, “Is Sunggyu-hyung still fun after all these years?”

“Definitely getting domestic life down, but I’m sure to spice up his life more than he does for me,” Woohyun gave a peace sign as he walked out. He heard Sunggyu yelling to ask what he was talking about, surely his face was boiling red by now.

“Heard you’re an Air Rider,” a person was outside on their small, on way street in a kart. His hair was braided back into a small ponytail, lightly touched with yellow dye for a pudding colored effect. He had two friends with a white cap and black cap, crossed armed and sitting on a low riding bike.

“Heard right, not really hard to find out,” Sungjong shrugged, walking down the steps to his own sleek black retro motorbike. A tall lantern hung from the tall back from of his carrying cage, empty now that he dropped everything off. Usually there’s an array of scrolls, rugs, and threads from the Desert to trade away. He pats his small pouch at the base of his belt to make sure he got his paycheck. Last time he forgot, Sunggyu went on a shopping spree without him.

“How about a race?” the ponytail guy grins with flare in his eyes. The same look Sungjong wore right now, in fact, waiting for the question. “The name’s Sungyeol.”

“With, I believe, Hoya and Dongwoo behind you,” he remembers clearly from earlier this month. “Don’t whine when you lose, Sungyeol.”

“I won’t,” Sungyeol revs his kart, a custom four wheeler with a white frame and thin finish. “Will you?”

Woohyun, battled out of Sunggyu’s shop with the Dealer in tow to watch the start of the race, runs to the middle of the street holding his handkerchief. Sungjong grimaces when he sees the Carrier do a cute heart pose, throwing off his entire mood for the race.

“Racers ready!” Woohyun holds his hand in the air.

Both the kart and Sungjong’s motor roar in heat, a steady press and curl of their hands pressed to the bars and wheel of their ride. Slow, paced growls from the motors beat the air and windows, vibrating the winds.

“Set!”

Sungjong looked at the cats bundled to the front of the shop, casually rounded around Sunggyu as the older waved with both hands. Putting on his goggles tight.

“Go!”

Both skid dust and smoke up with their wheels, the cats dashing in their own little game to pass the street before Sungjong could run over them. Danger reigned high, exhilarating the heart, pumping in full drives as they screeched to start. The first hard turn out of the narrow alleyway, onto the bigger bad streets was right on them to start, and Sungjong had no problems with the daily routine.

Not even looking behind him or to the side, Sungjong grinned madly as he sped faster, skid turns nearly horizontal to the ground, and revved faster for speed, more speed. The wind parted his hair to the side and for a second he thought he’d lose his hat. The building pasted like blurred canvases with their stained-glassed windows and red telephone boxes. He weaved through cars like needle and thread as his lantern’s light was merely a passerby.

Faster.

Trees shook as he barreled down the streets, their leaves flinging in the air from the force as some of the blossoming petals burst into the air, coloring the wind a vast stretch of pearl pink. The vines crawling of the buildings seemed just green patches for Sungjong, speeding more and more until he heard the familiar case of sirens behind him. The blue and red lights flashing the scene, coloring more as he grew heated.

Dragoon, faster!

His engines flared color, the back exhausts blaring into cones of fire, six of them arranged into a sphere as they trailed in orbit behind him. Faster and faster, they shot him gaining speed, the rainbow firing him up and Sungjong turned to the side, revved up a ramp made by a tow truck just beginning to get a car in as he jumped over that and flung himself into the air.

The race now no longer mattered to him, just the speed. The flight, as the multicolored fire burst him into the skies like a shot in the dark. His lantern only adding to the light, as he was a comet out of the concrete, Dragoon.

As high as the clouds, higher than the birds fly, Lee Sungjong from the Desert Niles is the sole founder of the Legendary Air Ride Machine. 

happy birthday to me :D

gyu's solo tho

request me to continue

_cloud