F-Zero - Seppuku 2/3 : Prologue

Highly recommended that you read Part 1 of 3 before reading; this is not mandatory, but may enhance your experience and understanding of the F-Zero series.

Read on Deviantart if you desire chapter covers/illustrations.

Please enjoy, and feel free to contact me about anything if you wish—I try and befriend all readers.

Story contains: violence, sexual themes, alcohol, mentioning of drugs/tobacco, agnostic religious views, and offensive language ranging anywhere below the "F" word.

Disclaimer: I do not own F-Zero. All F-Zero titles are property of Nintendo. Most characters in F-Zero: Seppuku belong to Nintendo (with the exception of Chiya Flower, Earl Bendek, Lieutenant Seppuku, etc.) In addition to this, F-Zero: Seppuku is a non-profit and non-canon work; any donations toward F-Zero: Seppuku will be declined. You can show your support of F-Zero: Seppuku by providing your support to any community asking Nintendo to create a new F-Zero video game.




== Prologue =

Red Canyon—a desert-like area near Mount Fuji and the greatest metropolis in the universe known as Mute City. The year was 2204 and the start of a new annual Grand Prix was just around the corner. Every year, several formula racers would gather for a set of five races—the winner would receive one billion credits in prize money; enough to own thirty mansions. The winner of the previous annual Grand Prix was a woman named Jody Summer, she was chief commander of the Galactic Space Federation—which governs most planets in the known universe.
Along a large valley, two red F-Zero machines raced. One of the machines had a tinted window, a crimson body, and was very moderate in size; the machine was labeled 'Red Dove'. The other machine was larger and more powerful in appearance. The machine was bright red with two pink stripes going down the center, this machine was labeled 'Purring Kitten'.
The machines were going as fast as possible, both were at a matched speed. The Red Dove appeared to be leading by two meters, the Purring Kitten struggled in passing the Red Dove due to its heavier body. Sand blew behind the two as they drove, the machines were both going about 900 km/h.
Meanwhile, a man in a brown leather jacket, white shirt, and jeans watched while holding a timer. The man was of Korean descent, had brown shaggy hair, and a shaved beard; he was focusing primarily on the Purring Kitten as it neared a white line that had been drawn into the sand.
The race was becoming much more intense, but no progress seemed to be made for either racer; the Red Dove was destined to win this one by a meter or two. Both machines bolted past the white line, then came to an immediate stop. The man's jacket and hair was blown back by the gusts of wind the machines had created.
The Purring Kitten's cockpit opened up, a young woman leapt off the side of the machine. She had a gray turtleneck shirt, purple shorts, jackboots, and her signature pale-green beanie hat. This girl turned her head toward the man with a gleeful smile; she had fairly long blonde hair and a special shade of blue eyes only found on the planet Mysteria.
The man grinned at her while approaching, “One minute and twenty-three seconds,” he reported. “Excellent driving, Chi'.”
The young woman gave him a thumbs-up and cheered, “We've got this Grand Prix in the bag!”
The man's name was Earl Bendek, a Korean mechanic; the woman's was Chiya Flower, a Mysterian driver. Chiya and Earl worked together in a vigilante group established with the intention of protecting an area of Mute City known as the 'Lower City'. Along with working together, they also found that they were great friends.
“'Excellent' my ass…” said a man in a long black coat, red scarf, visor, and fedora.
Earl lowered his eyebrows at the man in frustration, “That was a new record for her; what the Hell are you talking about?”
The Man of Darkness, Lieutenant Seppuku, was as depressing and vague as could be. Getting a compliment from the man was about as common as finding money on the ground. He was a mysterious man with no records on him at all, no one in the universe seemed to know of his real name—not even his colleagues. Seppuku was the founder and self-proclaimed leader of the vigilante organization, he resides with Chiya and Earl in a hidden Lower City base. His decision to use the odd term 'Seppuku', or suicide by honor, as an identity remains a mystery to just about everyone.
Seppuku offered his typical cold response, “She didn't beat my record of one minute and nineteen seconds. Twenty-three seconds is fine, but the four second difference means everything when it comes to racing.”
Earl chuckled, “You're talking out your ass, as usual. Might I remind you that Chiya did, in fact, perform well in that one bet race last year?”
Chiya nodded, “Blimey, I'm working really hard at this. Some words of encouragement are much preferred!”
“You can race, but if we tune her machine a bit more, she could become as good a racer as I.”
The girl lowered her eyelids with a dreamy smile, “Maybe even Captain Falcon...”
Earl widened his eyes and looked at Seppuku, who growled at the mentioning of Captain Falcon. Chiya dipped her head realizing the mistake she made by bringing him up to Seppuku.
“Give me a break, Flower. All Falcon does is flex for people and fight crime. Any ordinary officer could do that.”
Earl smirked, “Uh, let's not forget the many Grand Prix victories he has under his belt.”
“Drop it.”
Seppuku had a questionable dislike for Captain Falcon, though not a violent one. Seppuku had crushed Falcon's chance of winning the previous annual Grand Prix by striking out his machine during the final race. Seppuku failed to take the victory home with him, however, as Jody Summer had won the race while Seppuku battled Captain Falcon's clone and nemesis—Blood Falcon, whom Seppuku did have a violent view on.
Earl stretched his arms and whistled at the two, “We going again, or are we done?”
Chiya looked back at the Purring Kitten while tapping her chin, contemplating whether she was in the mood to try breaking her newest attained record. Not even a year ago, Chiya was a homeless citizen of the Lower City, but was brought into Seppuku's organization after he had saved her from being violated by two criminals past midnight. She had ever since been working beside Earl and Seppuku on getting an F-Zero machine. After winning a massive gang war in the Lower City, she had gotten all of the components needed to complete her F-Zero machine. Chiya had always been a hardcore F-Zero fan, dreaming of being an F-Zero racer since high school on Mysteria; now she was trying to fulfill this dream after almost an entire year of training.
“It's up to Flower,” answered Seppuku.
The two looked at Chiya in anticipation for an answer. With a grin, she crossed her arms together and said, “We've done enough, it's getting kind of cold out.”
“It's not that cold…” Earl muttered with a chuckle.
Chiya stomped her foot down and snapped back, “Easy for you to say! You wear a jacket, and Seppuku wears a coat.”
The response was acknowledged with a nod, “Fair enough.”
The Man of Darkness turned away from the two, “Well, let's get going. I'm feeling a little homesick.”
“Great, I need to feed Mau-”
Chiya stopped herself with a shocked look, Seppuku looked at her with a raised brow, while Earl was shaking his head in a frantic way. Chiya owned a cat named 'Mauser', it had been months since she found him—yet she kept her pet a secret from Seppuku, fearing that he would make her get rid of him if discovered.
“What?” he asked.
“Uh, Mau- Mau- Mau- …” Chiya rolled her eyes up, “Ma—au stomach... my stomach. I need to feed my stomach.”
Seppuku shrugged at her before walking toward the Red Dove. Earl followed him, as the Red Dove could hold two people—the Purring Kitten could not. A few moments later, both Chiya and Seppuku turned on their machines and raced across Red Canyon toward the massive metropolis.


When Chiya first joined Seppuku's organization, the Lower City was corrupted by two gangs; Red Star and the Bloody Chain. The two gangs were in a massive gang war over control of the Lower City. Red Star was led by a Russian bodybuilder named Brock Blaskovitz, who had volunteered to be frozen by the Soviet Union in the 20th century. The Bloody Chain had been led by another bodybuilder named Michael Chain, also an F-Zero pilot. Days after the Grand Prix had ended, Brock ordered a full scale attack on the Lower City, prepared to take it by force. Earl and Seppuku had defended their base while Chiya went to fight Brock on her own at his headquarters. Through willpower she managed to kill Brock, thus leaving Red Star without a leader; the Japanese military made quick work of the remnants of his gang. The Bloody Chain had been defeated by Red Star that day as well, ultimately leaving both gangs destroyed by the end of the day.
With the gang war over, the Lower City remains a wasteland of buildings and destroyed infrastructure—abandoned, for the most part. For Seppuku and his gang, this was a perfect place to operate from, given that no one bothered to bill them for living in the Lower City. They were essentially living free of charge; though their place of residence wasn't glamorous in any way. Chiya didn't care, the life she lived was good enough.
The young Mysterian walked down the hallway of their base, it had several doors to each side. She had her own room which was situated across from Earl's room. At the end of the hallway was Seppuku's office, the other end led to a lobby that connected with the entrance and garage.
Chiya walked into Seppuku's office and found him sitting behind his desk. Seppuku had illegal access to many things on the internet since he was originally a member of the Federation; he now opposed the Federation to an extent, as he believed their methods of fighting crime was inferior to his more violent and unorthodox style.
“What do you want?” he barked.
Chiya rubbed the back of her head, “It has been almost an entire year since I started piloting F-Zero. I was wondering when we could go try and get me an F-Zero Grand Prix license…”
“You're not ready yet.”
She gasped at his quick response and glared, “Are you kidding me? I've improved so much since that one bet race I was in.” She continued to shake in disapproval, “Do you honestly think I'm still incompetent to the sport?”
“You're good, I'll give you that; but what happens when the F-Zero committee decides to turn on landmines during the race?”
She lowered her eyebrows and looked down at her fingers, “Um, move around the mines?”
“But what if you're boxed in by three racers, thus forced to keep going straight toward the mines?” Chiya rubbed her forehead trying to think, but he answered his own question, “Dead—that's all there is to it.”
“That won't happen… that is a completely hypothetical situation.”
“You sure?”
Chiya did not respond to him right away; he had a point, F-Zero was unpredictable and dangerous. She groaned and nodded, “Okay, fine. What do you propose I do? I wanna get racing.”
Upon asking, a disc had been thrown to her chest. She held the disc up and observed it for information. Both sides were blank.
“That's every race from last year's Grand Prix. Watch it, learn from it. Then, we'll talk about the Grand Prix.”
Chiya and Earl had been present to watch every race up close in a private F-Zero booth the previous Grand Prix, she was somewhat excited by the idea of watching these same races again after so many months.
“Yeah, okay, sounds good.”


As instructed, Chiya was later watching the races on a television set she had purchased after the gang war. She was petting Mauser while watching the second race of the Grand Prix—Casino Palace. The biggest highlight of this race was near the end where Jody Summer's machine, the White Cat, was knocked out and left on fire. Seppuku had thrown the race to rescue her, rather than finish in 1st place.
Chiya watched in excitement for the moment where Seppuku would stop for her. The clip showed Jody's machine being propelled into the air before crashing ahead of the other racers.
“Here it comes…” Chiya muttered.
The Red Dove was slowing down as it approached the wrecked White Cat—but suddenly the video skipped to the Red Dove crossing the finish line. Chiya widened her eyes in shock, then lowered her eyelids.
“He cut that part out… of course he did...”
Seppuku and Jody had a 'friendly' rivalry with each other, making the moment where he saved her even more amazing. The significance of this event was that Seppuku had gotten out of his machine and walked onto the track, despite the fact that there were twenty-some racers coming right for him. It was not very surprising to Chiya, however, that he would cut this part of the race out of the video.
“Classic Seppuku…”


Far away in the unknown regions of space was a massive dark ship. Inside the ship walked a man in silver boots, purple gloves, a red racing suit, a gold scarf, a visor, and a purple helmet with a skull emblem on front. The man had an unprovoked smirk on his face as he walked toward the center of a dark room; this man was Blood Falcon. The evil man stood motionless before two silhouetted figures, one was very muscular with a cape and mask with devil horns.
“Blood Falcon, the next Grand Prix is around the corner—are you prepared this time?” the man asked.
Blood Falcon chuckled, “Win the Grand Prix, kill Captain Falcon, bring back Lieutenant Seppuku—no problem!”
“You tell me this every year...”
“But we're prepared this time!”
The silhouetted figure turned around and revealed his evil grin; this was Black Shadow, the creator of Blood Falcon, and most wanted criminal in the universe. He coined the title 'Emperor of Brutality'.
Black Shadow explained, “This time you will have an ally assisting you on the track, under no circumstance are you two to combat each other!”
Blood Falcon glanced at the other figure—a very muscular man in green pants, boots, and a black muscle shirt with a red hammer and sickle in the corner. Black Shadow agreed to Blood Falcon's plan to recreate the man known as Brock Blaskovitz in their own image; little to no memories could be restored, to the emperor's disappointment. The one memory Brock did have, however, was Chiya sending the final bullet through his eye.
“I wish to capture the girl myself, Master,” Brock explained.
“Excellent, and once we capture the girl, we can torture her until she squeals. She'll send us straight to Seppuku...”
Blood Falcon could now see Brock's face, a shiny cybernetic seeing device covered his right eye socket; the device connected into his brain. Blood Falcon nodded at Brock in approval, “Then what are we waiting for? Let's get to Earth.”
Brock grinned at him and held up a war hammer that was as tall as him. Black Shadow chuckled at the two, pleased with their determination.
“Bring me Lieutenant Seppuku, and I promise, Captain Falcon will perish…”
Blood Falcon nodded at Black Shadow, Brock marched toward Blood Falcon while dragging his hammer.
Brock blinked once and explained, “Once we're through with the girl, I will break every bone in her body, leaving her to suffer in a puddle made from her flesh...” Blood Falcon walked out of the room with Brock, ready to commence the mission. “This I swear…”


To be continued…