The Pied Piper is a hover car belonging to Ariel Piper and her team.
History[]
Hover Car Racer[]
A Boeing Evercharge-III was obtained by the rookie driver Ariel Piper, and after naming it the Pied Piper, Ariel used to win the East-American Regional Championships. Upon Ariel's admission into the International Race School, as enforced by the Australian High Court, the Pied Piper was taken with her as she prepared to begin her term there.
Towards the end of Race 1, Ariel suddenly lost control of the Pied Piper as a virus (planted by Wernold Smythe) assaulted her car's computer and depowered her right-side magneto drives. As the Pied Piper flew out of control over the bay, Jason Chaser saw that the emergency crews wouldn't reach her in time to prevent her from crashing into the cliffs, and went after her.
As Ariel refused to eject from the Pied Piper, since losing it would mean the end of her time at the Race School, Jason used the Argonaut to lift the Pied Piper, narrowly avoiding a fatal collision as they made it over the edge of the clifftop. Moments later, emergency crews caught the Pied Piper in a magnetic field, taking it back to the pit bay. Upon analyzing the Piper, Ariel's mech chief discovered the virus in the car's computer, as well as improperly charged magneto drives intended for the car.
Ariel and the Pied Piper continued to endure several mechanical issues during several of the next several races, with more depleted magneto drives, viruses and thinned coolant hampering Ariel's progress on the Championship Ladder. However, Ariel was fortunate enough to win Race 18, qualifying her to participate in the Sponsors' Tournament.
For the first match of the tournament, Ariel was pitted against Jason, and the pair fought a close-match with the Pied Piper and Argonaut, though ultimately Jason won.
During the second half of the school's racing season, Ariel and the Pied Piper managed to gain ground on the championship ladder, eventually reaching sixth place. Still aiming to get one of the four invitations to the New York Masters, Ariel planned to take a significant place in the final race of the school year. Early on the morning of Race 50, however, Jason overheard Principal Jean-Pierre LeClerq and Smythe discuss plans to keep her from reaching New York by planting a virus in her pit machine to sabotage the Pied Piper during the race. Jason warned Ariel about the impending attack, which led Ariel and her mech chief to install a new firewall on the Piper's pit machine.
As the final four racers, including Ariel, made one last pit stop at the end of Lap 48, Smythe sent his virus to attack Ariel's pit machine, unaware of her new firewall. Upon being blocked, the virus instead went on to attack the school's power grid, resulting in a power cut that surprised the racers and spectators. Ariel soon followed Team Argonaut's example and operated a manual pitstop, helping her mech chief finish preparing the Pied Piper. Once the racers were ready they set off, with Ariel and the Piper in the lead narrowly crossing the finish line ahead of Varishna Krishna.
Having come in third in the racing school's tournament, Ariel was allowed to enter the Challenger Race of the New York Masters, and took the Pied Piper with her to New York. Following a major crash, Ariel and the Piper managed to maintain fifth place throughout the rest of the race.
Attributes[]
Hover / Flight Capabilities[]
Like any hover car, the Pied Piper is equipped with a set of six magneto drives in order to perform vertical take-off and landing feats, as well as fly.
Speed[]
As with all racing-class hover cars, the Pied Piper is capable of reaching speeds that the average land-based car could not, easily up to a few hundred km/h and near to Mach 1.
Reinforced Cockpit[]
Due to the extreme speeds race cars fly at, the Pied Piper possesses a heavily reinforced cockpit that can withstand a lot of damage should the car crash. Of course, this is not full-proof, nor intended to be a primary safety measure, as the cockpit also contains ejection seats for the driver and navigator too use, and so the reinforced cockpit is a back-up precaution should they fail to eject in time.
Trivia[]
- The Pied Piper's name, in conjunction with Ariel's last name, is a reference to the fictional character known as the Pied Piper who could charm mice.
- The number assigned to or chosen by Ariel for the Pied Piper is Number 16.