⛭ Chapter 12 ⛭

Mache Leeway was a buff yet flabby teenager that had pale white skin. Being the largest of the group, he wore stretchable sky blue jeans, a red sleeveless shirt that had the logo of black “M” over the front of his chest, a pair of arm braces that had the colors of traffic light buttons located on the sides of it, and a large brown paper bag that hid his face. It seemed to have thick dark markings from a marker placed over tiny holes for his eyes and mouth.

“What Mache lacks in speech, he makes up for by being mostly the brawn of our team. He is also the brains behind some of our gadgets like the MOZ-RE remote which he integrated into his Traffic Braces,” said Trax.

While it was cool to finally meet all of the team, the more interesting parts of the place itself intrigued Hisa.

She stared around at how decorated the place was with yellow, red, and green lights. The walls and ceilings were surprisingly made up of clean orange tiles. As for the wooly carpet which covered the entire floor, it was a black and white pattern of checkered squares. A large flat screen TV hung to their left with a futuristic video game console and joypad attached to it on a white shelf. Then to their right were three soft mattresses laying apart from one another. Alongside that was a large glowing logo of The Flaming Cones hanging above loads of shelves which held all sorts of tools, devices, equipment, and even trophies lined up on top of it all.

However, the one that caught everyone’s attention the most was the largest of them all: The Blazethon Championship Trophy. Below on the plaque however, it read only Trax’s name which immediately confused Chelbie a bit.

“Say, umm… Where are the other trophies for Mache and Zadz at?” she asked.

“They are not there because they were new recruits that came around after I won that race. Each of them do have their own strengths that led them to join my team. We haven’t won together as Raceblazers yet, but I intend on teaching them everything I know about getting past that finish line.”

Then turning his attention towards the small portrait photo of his father and mother that stood on top of their mini fridge, he looked back at it with complete confidence.

“They told me to keep moving on with my dreams. So that is what I intend to do.”

It became clearer to Chelbie that his passion behind being a Raceblazer was of good intent and she knew that it was definitely reflective of how well the place they were in was taken care of.

“You know, this hoodie that I wear, it was originally my father’s when he once worked for a construction company. He always wanted to be a Raceblazer and he did win once. The years after I was born, he passed it down to me as his dying wish. To this day I still keep it, along with his trophy over at Daylight Stadium where everyone can see his accomplishment.”

Chelbie stared with an unmatched engagement that she couldn’t hold back. His story was indeed very moving and he knew how to respect the loss of his family.

If only her family was supportive of her dreams like this, she thought to herself.

“Hey. I just wanna say, we can help ya get there. All I ask is that we beat Lucila and win this game. She did horrible things to my legs and ever since then I—“

Chelbie stopped.

She realized that Hisa was listening.

Even though she didn’t feel like completing her sentence at that point, Trax could see where she was coming from.

“So, you want to beat Lucila and become a Raceblazer? You’re going to have to help us win first. Lucila has won over five different races. One by herself and four through the Holo-Girlz team. Her vehicle types have always consisted of blue Corvettes. She’s used that strategy for years to mess with racer’s minds. They all have the same build and design as well. Just know that she has like six of them. It’s as they’ve always called it: The Vanderhilt Tradition.”

“No problem! I’ll easily bash those cars with my monster truck. It’s called The Flamethrottle Fury by the way,” mentioned Chelbie.

“Great to know. I give my own vehicles a name too. One of them is a luxury sports car of sorts called The Spedflare. Mache also has his own red jeep. He decided to call it The Krashing Kavalry.”

“Oh damn, that’s sick. What about Zadz?”

“He was a bit too stubborn to get a new vehicle. Since you can take any sort of wheeler into the competition, he always chooses that skateboard which can go a lot faster than most people think. He’s been practicing with it for over five years. He never really told me too much about it otherwise. If I had anything else to share, I would, trust me.”

Hearing the apparent separation between Zadz and The Flaming Cones was the strangest part of this story to her. It made him really mysterious and Chelbie was keen enough to want to solve it for sure.

Still, there was a lot more that she was going to have to prepare for when it came to entering a massive tournament like this.