⛭ Chapter 13 ⛭

“About the race itself, it’s not exactly what you’ll be expecting,” warned Trax.

A wave of unease passed through Chelbie and Hisa as they were told this.

“What do you mean? Is it a big obstacle of some kind?” asked Hisa.

“It’s a whole lot worse than that. This race is not your traditional course where you go multiple laps until hitting a final win. It’s separated into two parts. We’ll call them Level One and Level Two. In both levels, there are three different random locations you’ll have to pass through. It starts out as a simple shot from Point A to Point B, but the terrain changes three times between these points.”

“Wait, how exactly does that even happen to begin with? The only way that can happen is if it’s staged environments all throughout the level,” remarked Chelbie.

“Not when you’re universe hopping. Each checkpoint leads to the next world. Once you complete the third location, you’ve practically beaten the level. Now, considering that you’ll be up against at least a thousand players that all will do whatever it takes to win, the odds of a victory are always slim. At best, the elimination rankings allow up to the first fifteen teams to beat the level. One player passing that goal, wins it for the whole team basically.”

From the looks of it, the barrier to entry was going to be challenging for Chelbie. One thousand vehicles taking up a single road at the start was not going to go well in her head.

Especially if they were willing to kill her over it.

“Do they allow handheld weapons during a race?” inquired Hisa.

“Fortunately, no. Players are usually not going to take that risk in an overcrowded match up. They are more likely to single out drivers that are by themselves. We must be extremely careful when approaching any incoming opponents at all, no matter what type of wheeler they are using.”

“That’s some good news I can get behind. I worry how Chelbie will do with everything happening out there. I’ll watch from the side but I certainly wouldn’t mind cleaning out your racing vehicles for you so it at least helps you all look great in front of such a large audience.”

“Sounds alright to me. Speaking of which, I was told to inform everyone here about the race starting tomorrow at 10:30 AM. Once Zadz comes back, I’ll send this message his way as well. Our prep time is now, so I hope everyone gets some good sleep before we head out to Daylight Stadium by five in the morning. Since we have about an hour left before we all get that shut eye, I may as well ask one more thing. What was that special something you wanted to show us?”

Finally jumping up out of enthusiasm, Chelbie ushered everyone outside where it was getting dark.

“Okay, okay. So this will come as a shock to you guys, but Hisa and I come from a team of our own called The Judgment Warriors. Protectors of realities, if you can believe it. It’s like the coolest job ever!” exclaimed Chelbie.

“I don’t believe you,” said a displaced voice that didn’t come from the group.

Everyone turned their attention over to see that Zadz had returned, but with a less than favorable reaction.

“Oh back off Zadz! We were gettin’ to the good part and now you have to show up all of the sudden,” said Chelbie as she crossed her arms out of dissatisfaction.

“Too bad. The party out here has already died. I mean seriously, what are you actually trying to accomplish by standing out here with barely anything to show for it?”

A strange devious smirk suddenly struck Chelbie’s face with how much denial Zadz was pushing toward the team.

“I see how it is! Looks like you’re askin’ for it, dumbass!” she yelled confidently.

“Oh really? I would like to see you tr—“

Duct tape instantaneously wrapped around Zadz’s mouth as he struggled to get another word out.

His expression however, like Mache and Trax, was filled with shock when they saw Chelbie use her glove to make a new Gizmech-151 come to life.

Of course, although its personality was on par with the original one that Hisa and her met onboard, it had a hard time saying anything that Chelbie didn’t want to hear.

It was almost as if she was able to manipulate its thoughts. This saddened her a bit knowing that the actual one they had met was a lot closer to being real. She began to suspect that the only reason she was unable to replicate his sentience properly was because Drift’s source of power was still unknown to her.

“As you can see, this glove is able to create anything you want out of thin air. With it, we can do so many different kinds of things, like make a vehicle you remember.”

Chelbie pushed the third button and aimed her hand at an empty spot, only for it to be replaced with the MadCyke motorbike she had always wanted to bring in hopes of riding it through the streets of Hypercity someday.

Introducing all of the other options and even warnings associated with using the glove’s power, Trax stood up and looked at it in disbelief.

“You’re telling me that we can do things a lot easier with this glove? Are we even okay to be using that around anyone else at all?” he asked out of concern.

“Nah, this’ll be our team secret. Fair game everyone?”

The group stared at her with confusion.

“Fair game… I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean,” addressed Trax.

“It’s like a custom between me and a friend of mine. Whenever we agree on something, we say fair game.”

“Oh, so it’s like huddling up before a big game. Once everyone agrees on something, we reach out each of our hands and place one on top of the other until everyone has their hand in the middle of the circle. Then you lift it up quickly in unison and yell out the team name.”

Immediately engaged with what he was saying, an idea spawned in her head as she reached out her hand.

“Now you’re catchin’ on. Fair game?”

The moment she did this, everyone except for Zadz dogpiled their hands on top of hers to give their first hurrah for tomorrow morning.

“Fair game,” replied Trax to Chelbie as The Flaming Cones cried out their team name in a final effort to end the night on good terms.