A lovely day for a death race.

[Erik Vrell]

Erik strode through the portal, glad to be out of the heat. While he passed through, his thoughts turned to the assistants of Nealaphh in the Steppes. 

"A standing invitation to the Institute. Maybe that's something I'll take him up on. Maybe I'll find out what happened to Sasuke and Victor." Erik felt a pang of sadness as he thought of his comrades. He hadn't heard from Victor or Sasuke since the spirit of Teucer had taken the heroes to his graveyard, and the fact that Nealaphh had the sword of kusanagi did not bode well. Well, one way or another, Erik would find out what had happened.

While walking, Erik couldn't help but ponder the name of the stranger who had invited him to race. 

"Jak Mar... Jak Mar... Where have I heard that name before?" Erik wondered. He eventually conceded that he couldn't place the name to anyone, and hoped that it would become more clear when he saw the man or woman. Erik flashed a quick look around the Nexus, looking for the any sign of this person before realising that he had no idea which gate led to the Pale Moors, not that he could identify this mystery person in the distance anyway. Erik had come upon the fountain of infinity before long, and decided to wait there. He took out his dataverse device and typed out a reply to the email, before taking a seat at the fountain.

"I hope they don't take too long." Erik mumbled impatiently.

[Jak Mar]

Jak moved toward the Nexus, weapons still on his back. The man was annoyed to death of musical numbers and appreciated if Eric didn't follow suit. "Erik?"

"Ready to do this?"

On our crew, I have my friend, Torn, Daxter and Cat.

[Jak Mar]

Jak led the way but was silent when Erik mentioned his dark eco, he was almost... offended..

"I don't like to talk about my dark side.. and sure as hell didn't need innocent alien woman telling me what to do.."

"Whoa.. whoa... Jak.. calm down.."

Something annoyed the fledgling hero and it was itching on his mind. What of Daxter, who would replace him? No... It was too dangerous for Daxter to go...

But something telled him Daxter wouldn't listen to a voice of reason and stay back and out of these races just like Kras City.

The slightly shocked brown haired man tried to calm the long eared mercenary down as Jak had a lot on his mind.

"Don't mind me, I have a lot to worry about, Erik.."

Jak had laid the ground rules "Don't give me shit on musicals or anything singing for right now. It's not funny."

Erik had to force back a chuckle "Ok then.."

Jak eyed the man and he shook his head "Now then, Erik... Have you ever driven a car before?" "If the answer is yes, we'll make a good match. "What we plan to do is hit the F-zero death races on Sector 4 of Coruscant. I'm familiar with Death Races but not this one... I heard people can screw up your car any way possible, that means we'll have to watch and protect the car from being scattered and damaged on the track. We can mix parts together, but we are going to need some pretty strong firepower capable of taking out cars without damaging our own. "

[Erik Vrell]

Erik was somewhat shocked by the man's 'dark side', as he had called it, but wasn't exactly in a position to judge. Although Erik had lost a lot of power when he entered the Omniverse, he used to be able to tranform, albeit unwittingly into a form that the enemies of the madness God marked as 'evil'.

Turning to the topic of the race, Erik couldn't say that he had any driving experience. 

"I've seen others drive, and I've done some research on driving, but I can't say I'd hold up in a real race." The topic of weapons, on the other hand, was music to Erik's ears. 

"If it's weapons you want, you've come to the right man. I have years of weapon research under my belt, and I've started learning about these new 'guns' that so many people seem to use in this world. I could build us a crude machine gun, or maybe a cannon. Oooh, maybe I could build us a ballista!" The psychics eyes were wide and a mad grin had spread across his face, but Erik composed himself when he realised how he was acting.

"Um, please excuse that outburst." Erik said feebly. "From the sound of it, we'll probably need someone to keep watch over the car, so no one sabotages anything, but with a crew of five that shouldn't be a problem."

A silence briefly fell over the pair as they walked, and Erik's thoughts drifted to things he's read about f-zero races on the dataverse. There was one rumour in particular that was on the psychic's mind

"Hey, have you heard of 'Sweetums'?" Erik asked, glancing at the mercenary. Jak gave the psychic and incredulous look, as if to say 'have you done crazy?' Erik took this as a que to elaborate.

"There's a rumour going around the dataverse about a racer named Sweetums. They say he's a convicted murderer who's practically undefeated. Apparently he gets his name from the frozen confectionary truck he drives, which also happens to contain an unnecessary amount of firepower." Jak's incredulous look hadn't dissapeared. If anything, the look had intensified since Erik had started speaking.

"I, uh, I don't believe any of that, of course. It's just a rumour made up by someone on the dataverse. If a criminal of that caliber really existed, wouldn't Dredd have taken him out by now?" Erik said hi joy, trying to save face in front of his new racing partner.

"There's no way someone like that could really exist. Right?"