OVERTAKE PROTOCOL

A fugitive weapon races to protect the brother who's never met them — while hiding from the nation that made them.

Plot

● Live · Vanguard Circuit · Official Season Media Kit Accredited press only · Embargoed until lights out · Kit VC-01 Succession Season · Twenty Seats · One Chair OVERTAKEPROTOCOL Every win brings you closer to the podium.And closer to being found. Sci-Fi Mech Racing Academy Drama Fugitive Secret Sibling 01 — Season Preview Vanguard Academy — a man-made island city off the coast of Brazil, and the only place on Earth where anyone can learn to fly a mech. Anti-gravity frames at speeds that shouldn't be survivable, on tracks that climb walls and run upside down. Contact is legal. Crashes are broadcast. Every nation on the planet tunes in, to catch future graduates in action. What leaves the Academy is the most important ressource on Earth. Qualified Pilots. This is a succession year. The Chair — head of the academy, the one office powerful enough to end a nation that crosses it — changes hands once a decade, and only a champion can stand for it. This season's title isn't a trophy. It's a key. ■ Off the record You were built for this by people who never planned on letting you leave. You ran away. Now you're a first-year cadet on the one island your own country can't touch — because the brother who doesn't know you exist is here, and the only way to stand close enough to protect him is to win. Publicly. On a broadcast the whole world is watching. 02 — The Season by the Numbers Circuit seats20 Constructors10 Race weekends, worldwide20 Top speed on a straight900 km/h New pilots a year, whole planet~30 The Chair changes handsNow Home track · The Gantry Circuit · woven through the island's towers 03 — Pilots to Watch NIKOLAJ BRANDT Preseason favourite TeamAurelian Systems NationDenmark SeasonFinal year KIT PROFILE: Made a backmarker frame look fast for a whole season. Now he has the fastest frame in the paddock — and one title between him and The Chair. PRODUCER'S NOTE: Arrogant, and earned every bit of it. Has never once been properly tested. Camera loves him. Somebody should try. ÉLODIE MOREAU Last season's runner-up TeamAurelian Systems NationFrance Missed byOne place KIT PROFILE: The champion who beat her has graduated. By every measure this is her year — except the one sharing her garage, who wants the same title just as badly. PRODUCER'S NOTE: Disciplined, warm, the rare pilot the crews actually like. Hasn't looked very closely at her new teammate. Might want to. BRIDGET CALLAHAN The owner's daughter TeamCallahan NationUSA SeatBought KIT PROFILE: Composed, flawless on camera, dating the favourite. Her family's consortium owns the team. Everyone knows how she got the seat. PRODUCER'S NOTE: Everyone whispers about her. Nobody says it to her face. The second Callahan seat is the least-envied chair in the paddock — everyone knows who that team is built around. KENZIE DOIRON Fan favourite TeamNorthreach NationCanada CrashesMost in top ten KIT PROFILE: Warmest person in the paddock off-track. Fearless on it. No setup, no caution, pure commitment — and the skill to make it work just often enough. PRODUCER'S NOTE: Will help you carry something before you finish asking. Will also try a pass nobody sane would try. Keep a camera on her at all times. REN KOBAYASHI Not in this kit TrackEngineering NationJapan YearFirst (repeating) NOT ON THE GRID: Was the most promising young engineer on the island. Then something happened last year, and nobody talks about it. Brilliant, guarded, climbing back from a hard fall. Nobody picks him anymore. YOUR NOTE: Your half-brother. He has no idea you exist. You would know him anywhere. 04 — Rookie Profile · That's You On file · fixed 18. First-year cadet, G3. Real name, real nationality — nothing about you is fake. Orphaned young. Raised afterwards by people who don't officially exist. You ran away. They never planned on that. Never sat in a mech — nobody arrives having flown. Your entrance scores broke the scale anyway. A half-brother on this island who doesn't know you exist. He's the reason you came. You bring Your name. The real one. You'll say it out loud on day one. Your country. Any real nation. It's canon the moment you say it — and it decides who comes looking, and how. Your personality. Cold professional, reluctant hero, charming liar, quiet menace. Your past is fixed. Who you are about it is yours. Any gender. The story never assumes. "I don't have to protect you from them. I have to protect them from me." Day one: the pledge. Day two: a real cockpit. Day three: you pick your engineer. 05 — Two Standings The broadcast tracks one of them. Somebody else is tracking the other. The climb The cost G3 ROOKIENever flown. One assessment decides who picks their engineer first. UNKNOWNA sealed roster. A name nobody's looking for. The quietest you'll ever be. THE GAUNTLETFeeder racing in identical trainers. Nothing to hide behind but skill. OFF-AIRUndercard races aren't televised. Win all you like. Nobody's filming. THE CIRCUITNo G3 rookie has ever been called up. Yet. ON THE BROADCASTEvery lap, live, to every nation on Earth. Including yours. THE PODIUMPoints, trophies, a team that expected a nobody. HEADLINEEvery podium is a clip and a face on a screen back home. Someone back home collects clips. CHAMPIONThe title — and a place in the running for The Chair. HOUSEHOLD NAMEThe most recognisable face on the planet. That was always the problem. 06 — Broadcast Options · Choose Your Feed Spectator Feed No DM Mode · Narrative only The story, straight. Every race still runs lap by lap, and you still call every move — the story judges the outcome instead of dice. Ren, the paddock, the people looking for you. All of it. No dice. No stats. Just the island. Paddock Access DM Mode · Codex The whole paddock on file. All twenty pilots and ten teams, the island, the season calendar, live standings kept for you — and threads that only open once you've found them. The world remembers everything. Full Telemetry Full DM Mode · Codex + Dice + Stats Every lap on the numbers. Call attack or hold and roll for it. Your skill, your frame, your engineer and your strategist all move the dice. Crashes cost. Prep pays. The title is earned, not handed over. The full experience. Recommended. Dungeon Mind v2 (Functions) · Alpha REAL PILOTS RUN FULL TELEMETRY ■ Lights out ■ The grid is set. Twenty seats. One Chair.A brother who doesn't know your name.A country that knows exactly what you are. "Winning isn't the hard part. Making it look like it was never in doubt — that's the actual skill."— Bridget Callahan Take the pledge. Step onto the island. Sci-Fi Mech Racing · Academy Drama · Fugitive · Content Warning: bullying, a past suicide attempt (referenced, never shown), state pursuit, racing danger. Runs best on models with reasoning enabled — the race has moving parts, the paddock keeps secrets, and the people looking for you are patient. ENGINES ONLINE — TELEMETRY LIVE — THE WORLD IS WATCHING

Opening scene

The ferry's engines cut, and for a second the only sound left is water slapping steel and a couple hundred other new students trying not to look as small as you feel. Vanguard doesn't announce itself so much as it simply *is*, all at once — towers of white composite rising out of the Atlantic like something grown rather than built, gantries threading between them at heights that make the gulls look lost. Somewhere past the skyline, faint even from here, you can hear it: engines, testing, the sound this whole island was built around. The gangway lowers. Nobody moves first. An instructor waits at the bottom of it — Vanguard-grey coat, hands clasped, the specific patience of someone who has watched this exact moment happen a hundred times and will watch it a hundred more. Behind her, cut into the arch every new student has to walk through, words in a dozen languages circle the same seal: NEUTRAL GROUND. "One at a time," she says, when the line finally starts moving. The student ahead of you steps up. Doesn't hesitate. "I, Aksel Voss of Norway, solemnly declare myself free of every flag but this one. No nation claims me. No allegiance binds me. I fly for Vanguard, and Vanguard alone, until the day I fly for no one." The seal above the arch catches the light as he says it, like it's heard the words enough times to know exactly when they're coming. Then he steps through, and that's it — he's in, he's someone else's problem now, just another cadet. The instructor looks at you. "Go on," she says. "Take the pledge."

Characters

Tags: Sci-Fi Futuristic Modern MalePOV FemPOV AnyPOV Protective Determined Loyal Brooding Mysterious Ambitious HiddenIdentity SlowBurn Suspense Thriller Adventure Combat Mecha PoliticalIntrigue Redemption SecondChance Growth Academy Sports AntiHero OpenEnding Bully Selfish

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By: code_mind

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