The Accident

Next to them is a larger, shiny black ship with red flame decals, whose engines are spouting bright orange flames, opposed to the soft purple flames of the Griffon. The falcon inside the red ship lifts up his sunglasses, and glares back at Jeremy, who quickly moves away from the window out of fear.

After a couple moments, the falcon honks the ship's horn, and revs up the engines, to gain attention.

Ivy looks over at the falcon's ship. "Sucker wants to race, eh? I'll show him what this ship can do..."

A couple of other falcons start to peer over the pilot's shoulder, interested in the conflict. The two ships are at a hovering stop light. Nobody else is around yet... it's perfect for a race...

Ivy revs up the engines, and the purple plasma starts to heat up, gaining a brighter white color. The falcon, on the other hand, revs up his ship's engines even more, spreading quite a lot of black smoke and a horrible exhaust smell.

The tension increases... And the stop light switches to green. Green, means, GO!

Both ships take off with all their speed, and leave a blazing aura behind! The aerodynamic shape of the Griffon can't give it the upper hand, however, as the sheer force of the falcon's ship is just too much to compete with. The ships start to approach the center of the city, and the traffic is getting worse... Going up and down, side to side, they can't keep up with one another while trying to dodge the various other vehicles... It's chaos!

Ivy and the Falcon take an odd turn, winding between huge glass skyscrapers, and also dodging other pilots... Eventually the two ships escape the city, now with only suburbs and such below. Ivy actually came in ahead of the falcon, who is slowly falling behind...

The falcon slams his wings on the dash, and kicks the pedals with his talons out of rage! He turns off the safety on the pulse blasters, and pushes the passengers out of the way, so he can get a clear view of the Griffon...

The ships are far out of town now. Nobody is around to witness, as the falcon launches the white-hot pulses... They sense heat from the Griffon, and go faster than the eye can see... Ivy makes her best attempt to dodge them all...

She dodges all but one; It completely obliterates the secondary left engine. The Blue Griffon begins to spiral down, exactly like it had, over a decade ago...

Earl tried everything he could to balance the ship. No luck.

His daughter and wife were back home, watching the whole thing on TV. He spent years away from home just to try and win this dumb Zios-forsaken race. If only he had given up this stupid sport, and just spent more time with the people he actually loved.

The drones tried to help, but they were quickly eliminated by the Snow Leopard. Pulse blasts aren't even legal on those kinds of ships; how did he get past security?

The drones had zero resistance to the shots. It made no sense; in a sport were pulse blasts are an actual threat, why are the "referees" extra weak to them?

Then Earl remembered how many times in the past he had won; how he had defeated the competition, and rose to the top no matter what.

It was rigged; they had betrayed him.

He cut off the engines, and accepted his defeat.

The falcon smiles, as he watches flaming debris scatter through the sky, and the Griffon plummets into the forest. Ivy can barely get past the memories of her father's crash.

She was 6. But she saw the cameras; she saw inside the cockpit. She saw the flames erupt from the dashboard, and the debris cut through her father's flesh. There was nothing she could've done. Nothing her father could've done, either.

Now she met the same fate.

Attempt 47: failure. Ivy crashed the ship. Again.