[color=gold][center][h2][i][b]Delta Hyper Post Race Interviews: Sponsored by the Anti-Social Social Club[/b][/i][/h2][/center][/color] [@MrSkimobile] "You're definitely allowed to be over the moon with that, Kais! Amazing work, we'll let you go as it looks like you'll be busy!" Aurora beamed back, fans cheering, the next journalist in line to pick up Kais for a piece. This must have been hell for him, but then again, Amy Stirling wasn't on the top step, so that meant he was certainly the man of the hour, and if ever there was a moment he was in demand, it would be right here and now. [hr] [@Sylvan] (TBC) [hr] [@LadyAmber] "We look forward to seeing your modifications in the next rounds, and it seems like you've picked plenty up from this race. Thank you for your time Paul!" [hr] [@Enzayne] "Hopefully we start to see that come around, Han, thank you for your time!" [hr] [@Starlance] "Wow, sounds like an exciting night and we'll let you get on with that- Beatrix Ward everyone!" And with that, the crowd cheered, Aurora returning Bea's smile, moving onto the next. [hr] [center] [h2][b] Somewhere in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England Fitzroy Orbital AG Racing [/b] [/h2] [/center] [center][h2][i][b]Jenny Lowry[/b][/i][/h2][/center] "Say what you want, you windowlicking little bastard! Y'know, you don't really give a f*ck, you just sit there and f*cking stare off bored, and wonder why every engineer here fancies f*cking leaving? And f*ck off with your dad, tell him there isn't enough money to look after his bloody son!" With that, Cavan left the room, middle finger raised as he headed through the double doors back at him, the entire floor just in complete, sudden silence, the scene prefacing it probably not worth including. There wasn't a response really from Henry, an actual grown man staring on, the scene cutting to his team-mate, Jenny, sitting in the Delta Hyper interview room. A pale skinned, black-haired Yorkshire lass, Jenny was actually the local of the team and in her white and red shirt, seemed to be rather chirpy considering the outburst seconds before. Aurora was obviously going to dig. "So, at this point, it seems like there's a lot of uncertainty in the team. How do you feel about it?" Aurora's query felt like not much to Jenny, given her media training, and well, being told by the team to absolutely, not fuck this response up. "Well, any project like this has a lot of passion. Y'know, it's not exactly easy but, sometimes people just don't want to fit the project." "Has this got anything to do with the rumours of acquisition, that Maxwell Fitzroy is looking to sell a majority stake in the team and there's been significant organisational change?" "Oh no, no. That's a rumour going around a lot but no, I think they're not exactly all founded." "Right. On another topic- any comment on Beatrix's success? You two seemed to be rivals back in Junior Formula AG, but you seemed to always be on friendly terms." "Hmm. Frenemies? Hah, yeah, glad to see her doing great." Jenny replied, noting Bea's comment on her climbing, and a little reflection going back. Their paths really had diverged, hadn't they. [hr] Aurora turned up again, back on the sofa, back to the footage playing in the background as she walked through the Delta Hyper set. "With Kais Zenix's first victory, all eyes are on what he does next, and the title race." Aurora started, cutting to footage of his overtake, and his team going absolutely berserk over that move. "We're headed to Italy next. While the mountains of the Dolomites may be sub-zero, our new pilots are proving anythng but cold! We'll see you next time on Delta Hyper!" Aurora quipped, her trademark sign-off back, and well, with that, the credits roll. The pilots, the crew, and well, more importantly, the hardest, most slapping soundtrack for somewhere like Tokyo. [b]Soundtrack: [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv13gl0a-FA]Intial D- Deja Vu[/url] [/b] And in amidst overtakes such as Paul carving the tunnel wall, to Bea's push through the grid, Kais taking first past Amy, and the now iconic shot of ships roaring past the Tokyo Tower, and then like a blur, going through the Rainbow Bridge, ships chasing after each other, the neon glow coming out of colour. [hr] [center] [h1][b] Strada Alpina Somewhere on Marmolada Glacier, Dolomiti, Italia [/b] [/h1] [/center] [color=gold][center][h1][i][b]GLACIAL///MIRROR///[/b][/i][/h1][/center][/color] [img]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Marmolada%2C_Italy.jpg[/img] [center]A collab with [@Starlance][/center] [b]Soundtrack: [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCWjLOruA94]The Hives- Tick Tick Boom[/url] [/b] The bars on the screen widened, gently peeling apart to reveal the scene as the riff slowly dropped in. The wind howled through the mountains, the camera gently panning up from the white-ice of the icy lake under a perfect blue sky, gently turning up the blue and white mountainside, the gentle kick of The Hives lighting up and slowly phasing in like someone was turning up the volume, the rushing of anti-gravity ships visible within the glacier cracks, and the faint whine of ELS roaring inside the glacier cavity, the camera continuing to pan and keep climbing upwards, all the way up to the top, to where the track was, and two ships roared past within a crevasse, at full 90 degrees to normal. Footage from last year, but it barely seemed to faze or look like that, as it came back to horizon and an endless sea of white that skated the rest of the glacier. A world apart from Tokyo, the craft fading in sound to a gentle echo, as the camera took its time, building and building, cutting away from the track’s loop across the glacier, and instead coming up to the barren, empty snowfield that made up the remainder and peeling away to reveal the ridgeline of the mountain as the riff kicked in. And then the camera seemed to pan onto two silhouettes on the horizon, the camera coming around and gently coming to level, capturing the view below from the ridgeline, by the side of the circuit, where Harrison and Bea stood at the precipice. “Ready?” Harrison’s ever present charisma was always there on command, looking to his partner. And in a sharp green and white jacket and trouser combo, with the same for his Faction-branded skis that seemed to be made of some substance that looked like an exotic carbon fibre blended with classic polycarbonate, his gloves pulling a set of augmented goggles down, and looking down at the vast expanse that was an off-piste snow field below on the glacier. [color=#1EFF24]”Did you even need to ask?”[/color] Bea grinned back from behind simpler polymer-and-HUD rainbow-polarized goggles as she snapped her second foot into the bindings of her board, an all-mountain freestyle board with a rising phoenix across it. A paid mountain vacation with the last-minute addition of one of her favorite drivers on the grid? Yes, please! The AG gig was worth it for the sponsor shoots alone so far. [color=#1EFF24]”Age before beauty?”[/color] She pointed down the untouched snow with a mirthful jab. Harrison smirked back, a sly smile back on his face, as he pushed forward and with it, carved a large pile of snow down the mountain, yelling over at Bea. “Keep up then!” And with that, so the sequence began. The camera followed the sinewing route, Harrison carving ice, the skis relatively old-school versus a more modern gravboard, that could just literally propel itself like a missile with just clips to keep the user on it, but well, it felt cinematic. And it felt nice over bumps, through the ruts and undulation of the glacier bumps, catching air through a couple and grabbing the skis, putting his adrenaline hunting skills to use. It felt right, and well, looking back, the camera followed, and so did Bea. It peeled back to reveal the wider view from the top, the glacier’s extent, the lake below, the tunnels, the cable car station where the start-finish was. It was impossible to understate the beauty of the location- into the horizon, an almost endless array of snowy mountains, of which hadn’t been like that for a decade before geoengineering and carbon dioxide extractors had worked their magic, returning some vague semblance of reality to a set of glaciers that had shrunken to nearly nothing. It was truly stunning, almost the kind that would take a viewer’s breath away if they were immersed in the AR that Formula AG provided. And with that, the camera immediately rushed back in, following the action immediately. Although the world changed twice over, chemical rockets giving way to magnetoplasma and tires at times to antigrav repulsors, some things didn’t need to be reinvented even if they did as the pair demonstrated racing down the glacier - the old meeting the new, although the glacier was technically both at the same time - the rally hooligan definitely shining through in Bea’s approach as she went mound to mound like small natural ramps, from simple spins to more complicated cartwheels and flips off the larger mounds and occasional overhang, while sneaking in opportune straight-lines to keep up; any close up shot revealing a big, stupid grin plastered firmly across the visible lower half of her face. And that cutaway shot, with Harrison giving a solid woop echoed through the mountains, carving over another small feature, sticking high and letting Bea go past, dropping down into the gap with a solid 360 degree turn, planting himself heavy into the powder, and carving back out, back around behind Bea, his own grin revealing it all, as he turned hard again, the camera almost tailing him and his locks as it did so, rushing past and dipping into an area where suddenly, both Bea and Harrison flew over, the camera catching a glimpse of sky and the snowboard, and then the pair of skis with their boarder and skier respectively almost as if they went into oblivion. And the scene cut, revealing the Southern Cross AG ship coming down over the frankly ridiculous jump at Forcella Pordoi, the ship flying through the air with the MAG tracking snatching the ship back before it carried on into oblivion, Harrison hollering with a hell of a lot of joy from his skiing footage that transposed into this, the long left turn and ridiculously fast sector meaning the ship was flat, snow blasting from the ship’s trace at the edges of the glass and metal track surface, carving back down through Sector 2, the ship forking through the hairpins, tighter bends and then back up the ski slope that even in spite of the snow being clear, still sprayed a ton of it from the engines anyway. He was roaring through and the ship’s speed was almost continuously high, as Harrison spotted something as he crested the next ridiculous drop, past the forest section and onto the bit of road that the tack followed. Ah, yeah this was part of the script. This was very much part of the script. He turned down the throttle to a much more moderate setting, one that seemed like time sitting still to him, and well, after rushing through the forest, heading back onto Passo Pordoi, towards the tunnels, spotted a certain car on the barely cleared road, the tarmac sticking out of the slush and snow, and the tunnels ahead that carved alongside the frozen lake coming up. Anti-gravity racing ship, hypercar, it didn’t matter. This was one of the greatest driving roads, in the world, fast as hell, with curves that rewarded a car that could keep it together, and well, avalanche covers and tunnels that made the roaring noise about fifty times more insane. The fighterjet-like howl of the AG ship was replaced with the deep, almost bestial roar of the 2021 Glickenhaus SCG 007 LMH, a venerable antique by comparison. This part took a few takes, as the car was not designed for roads like this one and the driver didn’t feel like selling a kidney and half her liver to cover the cost if she broke it. The two race machines lined up abreast - AG ship not high above idle, hypercar not far off its limiter - holding formation for a few stunning shots of both the machines alone as well as in conjunction with the backdrop before Bea pulled off down a side road while Harrison continued along the circuit, a ‘passing of the torch’ sort of scene. And what a scene it was, Bea pulling away into a side road and Harrison turning up the speed that bolted the ship forward like it was on fast forward, cackling with laughter, not because of the speed, or the encroaching corner at the dam, but actually, the other AG ship that was now behind him, and gaining quick, the howl of the ship lacking the pure mechanical scream of the Glickenhaus going through gears in the tunnels and instead more like a ethereal, dark-dimensioned whine when it was turned up, as if it was about to make dogs howl if it went into ultrasonics. The race always grew, evolved, and well, even though it may have been freezing outside, quite a bit below zero even down at the base of the mountain, competition was always heated. And two hard turns banked, heading into Sector 3, and the glacier sector ahead. Full throttle, despite a few ups and downs, and all that it came with.. “Keeping up with the times Bea, Let’s have it!” Harrison said the two-way radio link they had, seeing Bea’s connection up on his AR display and the Wipala-flavour craft quite literally visible like he had eyes in the back of his head. This wasn’t a race….but not like he was going to go steady here, was he? And well, the MAG tracking that now headed up the glacier, all 1000m plus of it, and carved through the actual glacier itself through the blue streak, that was something and a half. Scripted it may have been, but neither could call themselves a racer if they didn’t push just a little. A Pan-South American-British chimera and an Aussie purebred sharing the stage. [color=#1EFF24]”Make way, future coming through.”[/color] The Briton replied in likewise good spirit as they climbed fast and high enough to make ears pop despite the helmets, Bea at the last moment not going for a move out of the last corner she would’ve taken in the race, seeing the safety coordinator’s glare in the back of her mind. Save it for Sunday. The sunshine alternated with the blue hue of the ice cave against the ships’ hulls, bits of fluorescent paint applied to both for that extra bit of flair before both ships momentarily blotted out the camera’s sun as they crested the top, Bea’s ‘wobbly’ setup from the last two races letting her catch more air and nearly scrape the ground and throwing up a cloud of powdered snow in her wake on the landing with the backdrop of hearty laugh. [img]https://i.pinimg.com/736x/9a/55/db/9a55dbe3fa09e12069ae6e464cc3b84b.jpg[/img] And the camera from earlier in its identical angle captured the two ships jostling, catching that same pan as it caught them on that crest and the snow spraying out, Harrison having the same reaction as that of Bea, just in pure cackling laughter, the viewer realising probably about now what had just happened in terms of how this had been framed. Because the camera panned up the mountain, as it did before with the punk rock fading, and caught two silhouettes on the horizon……and captured the scene we opened into. [b]Soundtrack: [url= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VONMkKkdf4 ]Ludovico Einaudi- Experience[/url] [/b] The bars rolled in on the camera to ultrawide, as it turned around again, and caught Bea and Harrison standing at the edge once more, this time instead refocusing on the circuit below, the carving aspects through the blue-like glacier, and the endless field of mountains, and revealing Strada Alpina for all it was, under a bluebird, cloudless, perfect golden sky. Italy was a special round for many, and while there may not have been as many spectators out here, it was one to savor. The outro was almost like a CV of the Dolomites, a quickfire show of short clips in no particular order: From tourism and winter sports including the 1956 and 2026 Winter Olympics at Cortina d’Ampezzo and breathtaking views of the jagged earth through the years to a trench buried under the snow of Marmolada itself on the White Friday and the old Dolomites Gold Cup Race, its 304 kilometer lap starting and ending once again in Cortina. Flickering through skiing getting faster and faster as technology advanced, and the roar of supercars in the valley below, interspersed with the most recent introduction of AG racing through the ridgelines and at the Forcella Pordoi leap, the black bars still in the same place on the screen. The historic racing at Monza and Imola, Ferraris most of all, from Charles Leclerc to Michael Schumacher, to Davide Mazzotta, 2041 champion, and then, the scene cut one last time. [img]https://thinkorangemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/photo13-dolomites-anja-kallenbach-photo-workshop-adventures.jpg[/img] The sky turning to an obsidian purple as Harrison stared into oblivion, sitting atop the nose of his Southern Cross ship on the silhouette of the highest start finish line of the entire year (well, outside of Luna), under a sky plastered in stars, in full race gear looking over his shoulder at Bea on hers, the gentle whine audible alongside the whistling of cold air, and the feeling of being here. This was Italia. And as the violins and music hit crescendo, it revealed just how the snow seemed to reflect, almost blue under the moonlight. The bars closed in and the scene faded to black gently as it peeled away. [hr] [color=gold][center][h1][i][b]DELTΔ HYPER[/b][/i][/h1][/center][/color] [color=gold][center][h2][i][b]Episode Four: Azzuro Alpina [/b][/i][/h2][/center][/color] [center] [h1][b] Round 4 of Formula Anti-Gravity Racing Friday 14th April, 2094 Post-Practice Italian AGP Rifugio Capanna Piz Fassa di Bernard Guido Piz Boè, Dolomiti, Italia 1700 CET [/b] [/h1] [/center] [color=gold][center][h1][i][b]A Couch in the Sky[/b][/i][/h1][/center][/color] [img]https://i0.wp.com/margaritamischief.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/DSC06025.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1[/img] The Delta Hyper couch was not where it normally was. In fact, it was absolutely not in a usual spot at all. The camera peeled back from the sofa, no pale wall behind but instead, on a metal platform hanging off another wooden platform at a rifugio, or mountain hut, high above Sector 2's Forcella Pordoi section. The bit where ships went flying, and it sat right at the top of a 3000m mountain. It was far from the start finish line even as the crows flew, but, it was certainly one of the most tranquil, spectacular places to put a Delta Hyper interview booth. It was suspended on a small steel platform that had Marmolada and Passo Pordoi in the background, and whilst precarious, had suitable cabling that wasn't really visible to the camera that prevented anyone from yeeting themselves into oblivion. And at the top of it, a couple of chairs, sticking on the overhang, giving probably one of the most spectacular, if not incredible interview setups of the grid. The Dolomites AGP was known as the first "Nature" race- one of Formula AG's romps in a spectacular landscape, and a reminder to viewers of perhaps just how incredibly well protected such areas had become, following climate change, and devastation in the decades and decades prior. It was also a thrilling circuit- and from up on the cabin, the Forcella Pordoi jump could be seen below, the track carving around the end of the valley down before it went over quite a literal mountain towards the base of Marmolada Glacier. "Hello, and welcome all to Italy! And look at that view for a starter, if you weren't so excited by our intro and the practice session just finished, then welcome to the most exciting interview of the year. Joining me is Rory Andrews, and we're here to interview the pilots as they mingle up here, at our special, Delta Hyper-comandeered cabin in the mountains." Aurora was actually in person this time around, as Rory chuckled, smiling to camera, looking over. If it wasn't for the invisible-to-camera space heater between the sofa and the interviewing chairs at the top of a snowy mountain, even if the sky was gently turning to amber with the setting sun, it would have been freezing cold. "Yes, Aurora, we've certainly got an amazing place to be. We'll be seeing the pilots soon and chatting to them about their ambitions at Strada Alpina, one of the most incredible circuits of the year." "Well, apart from Luna...." "Right you are Rory, apart from Luna. What a circuit it is. Shall we meet our first guest?" [hr] [@Starlance] The first one up was Beatrix- and the editing seemed slick enough to make it seem like the whole operation was smoother than it was, going from pilot to pilot. [b]"Bea, I'd say welcome to the Dolomites but it looks like you introduced us! What was it like filming with Harrison, and how did you find practice today afterwards on the circuit?" Aurora asked, her usual chirp coming in, knowing the beaming smile on the footage was definitely not fake. [/b] [hr] [b][@LadyAmber] "Paul, welcome to Italy! With the first European race of the season, have you got anything to say to the home fans?" [hr] [@MrSkimobile] "Kais Zenix, one time race winner, and now here with us on the couch for Delta Hyper! This might be a bit different to Egypt, but do you think with your fast ship you can repeat your achievement in Tokyo on the slopes here in Italy?" [hr] [@Sylvan] "Nelly, a pleasure for you to join us! Whilst a little different to Tokyo, do you think the pundits have got it right that Southern Apex are the hot favourites for Italy?" [hr] [@Enzayne] "Han, welcome back to Delta Hyper! How are you finding the circuit today, as a rookie, is there anything you like the most?" [/b] [hr] The various pilots getting interviewed were one up at a time, and this time, could actually see, for real, them getting interviewed on the platform. They would likely be sitting inside, as given how frozen the top of the mountain was, or at least mooching about on the platform below the interview spot before getting back in. Either way, this was a unique situation to be in- and did anyone mention there was a boiling hot pot of fondue inside? They wouldn't be here long. After all, they had telemetry to go through, practice sessions to review, and then, a Qualifying tomorrow afternoon to complete. And what a shoot-out it would be. They could mill about in the cabin, but after, they were likely getting whisked away by their teams, and off to go work at the highest pit lane (outside of obviously, the literal moon) in the grid at Marmolada.