The race was set to start, everyone's vehicles going through final maintenance. Belinda slithered through the halls stopping outside her bin. The doors were closed, which confused Belinda since they shouldn't be. Belinda opened the door and the sight shocked her. Ratchet floated above their car, Serpents Assault, and was working on the engine. Ratchet noticed her watching and nodded to her saying "Don't worry I'm just putting some finishing touches. Good thing I have control over magnetic fields or else this would be more difficult." Belinda had only learned recently that the ability Ratchet gained from the power pill, was the ability to control metal, to be precise magnetic fields.
A few tools floated around Ratchet as he put the finishing touches on the engine and landed next to the car. Belinda let out a sigh, rubbing her eyes saying, "Look you should have had the tune-up done already, why add unnecessary parts?" Ratchet shrugged at her question while pulling the car along. "We need to get to the track before the race starts," Ratchet told her as they began heading to the exit, the car floating behind them. Their first race was set in an asteroid belt in the Calivan Galaxy, an area of the universe near the milky way galaxy. The track stretched thirty thousand miles around with several obstacles to get in the way of the drivers. "Now remember I tuned up Assault to have more speed so be careful when flying out there cuz those asteroids and obstacles will come in fast," Ratchet informed Belinda.
The two walked out onto the track, the sound of fans cheering filling the stadium. Belinda shielded her eyes from the lights as she looked around surprised. Ratchet knew that a driver's first race could be intimidating but was happy to see that Belinda was taking it ok. "She's taking it better than most people I've seen," Ratchet thought to himself, however in Belinda's mind, all she could think was "WHY ARE THERE SO MANY PEOPLE HERE I'M NOT READY FOR THIS!" As the two set their vehicle in their lane Ratchet felt a tug from behind. Atticus had been waiting for them to arrive saying, "You two ready for this? Y'all didn't give very much time since becoming an official team." Ratchet knew what Atticus was talking about, he and Belinda had only been a team for a little over a month, most drivers waited roughly a year before driving the vehicle their mechanics made in an official race.
"Yeah she wanted to race as soon as possible and I wanted to get my gear ready," Ratchet told Atticus nonchalantly as he wiped some dust off the front of his vehicle. Belinda got in the driver's seat, putting her helmet on and giving Ratchet a thumbs-up. Ratchet smiled giving the gesture back, then running off the track and getting into a bus near the track. The bus was meant to keep up with the vehicles for emergency repairs and rescues. An announcer came on a large screen, a parrot alien who held a large microphone in his hand, saying "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN I WELCOME YOU TO THE FIRST RACE OF THE FORMULA 2056! PLEASE CHEER FOR YOUR FAVORITE RACER FROM THESE THIRTY CONTESTANTS. WE SHALL BEGIN IN THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!" The racers took off, a large gust of wind being blown away as the thirty racers took off.
Belinda drove, keeping an eye on the other racers and obstacles as she did. A speaker on the dashboard crackled as a voice said "You're doing well, keep going and keep me updated on if something happens." Belinda recognized Ratchet's voice coming from the radio. She didn't know why, but hearing his voice seemed to calm her down a bit and gave her the courage to speed up, passing other drivers. "All right, here we go, first, we have the Golden Sun, driven by Solaris, trailing ahead followed closely by Sheva, the driver of Liquid Metal," the announcer called out while watching the race. Atticus stood next to Ratchet, a grin on his jellyfish face as he watched his driver in second. Belinda passed another driver, reaching tenth place and closing in, narrowly avoiding obstacles to gain momentum from them.
"Let's get the obstacles started!" The announcer called with several meteors having bladed weapons and blasters pop out of them. Belinda and Ratchet looked in surprise, as Belinda swerved to avoid the new obstacles. "Don't worry you're doing good, you just need to hold tenth to qualify for the next race," Ratchet said over the radio to which Belinda shook her head no. She didn't wanna finish tenth, she wanted to win. Over the last month, she knew Ratchet had worked hard to get Serpents Assault ready for the race, staying up several nights to fine-tune the car. Belinda didn't want his hard work to go to waste. She passed a few more drivers making it to seventh, the driver in front of her not wanting to give an opening to pass.
Ratchet heard some of the other mechanics begin to snicker, causing him to turn around. A gorilla alien and a zebra alien were laughing over a phone. Ratchet stepped back up to listen in, overhearing the gorilla tell the zebra "Look look, that serpentina thinks she can win!? Well, we plan on stopping that don't we?" The zebra nodded giggling as he pressed a button on the phone. Ratchet turned around and watched as a few meteors began to explode, pelting Serpents Assault with shrapnel. Over the radio, Ratchet could hear Belinda starting to panic. "Shit I need to get down there," Ratchet thought to himself, getting stopped by Atticus' tentacle pulling on his shoulder. He looked at his friend who stared at him, silently the two nodded and Atticus removed his tentacle allowing Ratchet to put on a spacesuit and jump out of the bus. Belinda saw smoke begin to rise from the side of the engine as panic and fear began to fill her heart.
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