Chapter 4

The Hover Race

Johnny gingerly walked in the direction of the rocks being thrown. At first no more rocks came but then he was startled by Daisy’s head pop out from behind the bleachers.

“What’s taking so long?! Come here!” She said impatiently. Johnny rolled his eyes and followed her where she had a layout of various weaponry sprawled out on a picnic blanket. Johnny smacked his head at the sheer ridiculousness of the sight.

“What is all this!” He said with a laugh.

“Insurance” She answered. Insurance was an understatement. There were handguns, knives, swords, electric batons, chains, grenades, and various things Johnny couldn’t even name.

“Where’d you get all this?” Johnny asked out of curiosity.

“Look above you,” Daisy said with a smirk. Johnny looked up and noticed what must have been several dozen empty holsters or otherwise similar weapon belts.

“Daisy. Stealing is wrong though,” Johnny said anxiously. Johnny felt this needed to be said by at least one of them in light of his brother’s recent mistakes.

“Don’t act like you’ve never stolen, I’m just doing it for a good reason now. There’s no way that Creedence is going in unarmed,” Daisy warned. Johnny picked up a pistol and put it in his breast pocket.

“Whatever happened to fair racing?” Johnny asked. Daisy gave a simple shrug.

“Better get back to your machine, hot stuff,” She said. Johnny thanked her and rushed back to his bike.

Chuck and Harry had gotten through Creedence and his gang as well as the former commanding Zenronian officer, Tyrell Vagris, driving his personal hovertank and were discussing the final two racers.

“So what’s your take on Mark Garsome, Harry?” Chuck questioned.

“Some say he’s a real contender. He was born on a cloning plantation. His passion all started one day when his dad asked him to drive a shipment of meat into Inner Zenron. I wonder if they ever got the meat?” Harry questioned as the camera zoomed in on an expressionless and pale bald man, nervously clutching the handlebars of his gray colored streamliner.

“And I think everyone knows our final racer, The Flash, The Instant, The Inevitable. That’s right it’s Bernard Piston!” Chuck announced as the crowd roared for a man in a long purple cape and heroic flowing golden locks who stepped out of his shiny venetian red and black feet first hover cycle to smile and wave to them.

“That’s my champ looks as confident as ever,” Harry said.

“Indeed he does!” Chuck agreed. As the crowd died down a referee came down with a pistol and a flag. There was silence that filled the entire track as he held up the gun and waited. Johnny held tight onto the handlebars.

“Start your engines!” The referee announced. The loud hum of engines and blades washed over as the pilot’s waited for the next signal. In an instant the gun went off and the machines flew past the starting line followed by a loud explosion. Johnny looked behind him briefly to see that both Nigel Fairservice and Bernard Piston’s entire machine had been decimated in a fiery blast. Machines were scrambling around the flying debris. Johnny’s ears were ringing. His lungs were burning from the sting of the smoke and exhaust fumes. He could barely see the road ahead of him.

Suddenly he noticed the familiar rattling hum of Mondo’s engine pull up behind him. He looked into his window and saw Mondo point to some headphones he had on. Johnny took the spare pair of headphones dangling from his handlebar and put them on.

“Looks like we ran into some early sabotage. We’re lucky it wasn’t us!” Mondo said with a chuckle.

“You’re telling me!” Johnny rebutled, “Whatever happened to fair racing?!” Mondo laughed as a man with piercings all over the place in a demon helmet and spray painted motorcycle suddenly turned a corner with a lead pipe and hit Johnny’s machine. Johnny grabbed the pipe and they both pulled for it. As they rode onto an overpass and continued the struggle Johnny let the pierced man win his struggle which suddenly caused him to run off course and fall off the bridge.

“Guess your old pals aren’t going to waste any time going after you are they?” Mondo said.

“I figured they wouldn't,” Johnny answered. As they rode up onto the highway they noticed several other machines following several other paths off of exits onto the same highway. Mark Garsome was in first place driving at a safe and steady pace until Creedence flew off the highway and rammed directly into his machine, making him fall off balance into a guard rail. The resulting explosion caused debris to fly across the course including a stray blade which cleanly decapitated the bald man with braces who had been following Creedence closely. The severed head bounced backwards off the pavement and onto Mondo’s windshield.

“Yuck!” He said, turning on his windshield wipers. His now headless body, then veered off course and flew off a guardrail and hit a nuclear pipeline, causing a massive explosion. Though Creedence was able to drive past it, Mondo and Johnny were only narrowly able to skid to a stop before the now decimated road.

“Quick! if we get off this exit we can get back on the highway from the backroads!” Mondo shouted. Johnny trusted his knowledge and drove in that direction.

Driving through the backroads, Johnny noticed that there were many more pedestrians and casual drivers than before and thought it must have been due to them thinking no one would actually drive down these roads. While Johnny was able to weave through most of the slowly moving vehicles and scare people off of sidewalks he needed to get on, Mondo unfortunately couldn’t help getting stuck behind slowly moving traffic. At first Johnny figured this was typical of inner Zenron but then he noticed David, Hyde, and Pierce crying in unison beside their deClearwaterished three seater.

“Bah, don’t wait for me kid, just keep going!” Mondo said frustrated.

“I wasn’t going to!” Johnny answered, weaving through the heavy traffic and turning through the heavily populated streets. Suddenly he felt something grab him from behind. He looked back and found the muscular and silent man from Creedence’ gang holding tightly onto his seat. Johnny tried to kick him away but the man easily swatted away the kick and returned a punch making Johnny steer off road into a construction site repairing a building. As he aligned the balance of his bike a sudden blast erupted from above and a nuclear mech carrying steel girders collapsed and blocked their path off of the road. Both Johnny and the muscular man looked behind themselves to see a menacing Tyrell Vagris maniacally laughing in his hovering tank and taking out an assault rifle to begin shooting at them. The muscular man, still being behind Johnny, took almost all of the fire and collapsed over his bike. Johnny turned, letting him drive into the wreckage of the exploded construction mech and made a near one hundred and eighty degree turn to get back onto the road he had driven from.

“This isn’t racing!” Johnny yelled as Tyrell Vagris continued his heavy pursuit onto the highway. Creedence was nowhere in sight, but far in the distance Johnny could see PAL-239. Johnny continued to narrowly avoid the cannon fire. He could already see Riddle Tower in the distance. If Johnny was going to win he would need to resort to desperate measures. Taking notice of a crane working between two buildings by the highway Johnny stomped on the acceleration and used the momentum from the next cannon blast to boost himself off of the guardrail, taking his hoverbike with him. Johnny stretched out his arm and used the dangling wire from the crane to swing himself down below the curve of the highway where Tyrell Vagris stopped to continue shooting his cannon off into the air where Johnny had flown off.

Johnny was now on a straight course through the final back roads to Riddle Tower. Fans were cheering and neon signs were illuminating what had now become night. Johnny could see Creedence in the distance as he drove onto the final road to the tower. Riddle Tower was one of the tallest buildings in Zenron. Along the sides of it was a smooth black concrete road without walls to drive to the top that became very narrow towards the end. It was supported by heavy black steel that could support the winding clockwise road to the top that made it stand out against the shining lights of the interior building.

As Johnny started up the narrow road, the roar of the crowd died down and the only sounds left were the humming of Johnny and Creedence’ engines. The city became smaller and smaller as Johnny drove up the turning road, trying to hold back his dizziness. It was only him and Creedence now, but he could still feel millions of eyes looking up from below.

“Was all this really worth it to finally prove yourself Creedence?!” Johnny shouted as the bikes circled the building.

“I don’t need to prove anything! I’ve always been just as good as you!” Creedence shouted back. Johnny was on his tail but could tell that there was no way that he would catch him before the finish line. Johnny reluctantly reached into his breast pocket to pull out his pistol.

“Please Creedence, just stop your machine! I need that money!” Johnny said pointing the pistol at Creedence.

“You’d like that wouldn’t you!” Creedence yelled back, pulling a grenade out of his pocket. Without a moment’s hesitation, Johnny shot a bullet straight through Creedence’ engine causing the bike to spin out of control and take Creedence off of the side of the road. As he fell to the spiral below he gave a faint smirk to Johnny. Then he was engulfed in an incineration.

Johnny put his eyes back on the road. Before he knew it he had crossed the finish line and a crowd of roaring fans was swarming him and his hoverbike.