HAHAHAHA!
Chokes on Air
I figured tha' before I post my firs' Cars fanfic I would write a little fic telling how Phoenix became th' car she is today...
DISCLAIMER: Everything you reconize belongs ta th' Pixar Gods Phoenix, her parents, and Neil belong ta me. Ye go't tha'...
So i' ye wan' ta use them ye 'ave ta ask me...
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In Phoenix StreamLiner's life, there were six days that meant more than all the others put together.
The first was the day she watched her first race.
It was a charity event and her father was racing, along with her great uncle.
She watched along side her mother as the cars raced on the blacktop of the track.
The smell of brunt rubber, the roar of the engines, the feel of the cars passing by, it had all excited her greatly. She wanted to be out there racing along side them.
Her father had placed second that day, after the car they called "the King", her uncle fifth. That didn't stop her from thinking that her father was the greatest racecar in the world.
Her father chuckled and introduced her the blue #43 car. She had ducked shyly behind her father's bulk.
'She's special. I can see her being a great little racer, if she wants to.' She heard him tell the blue racecar.
Her father's comment never left her, and it made her want to race even more.
It was on that first day, Phoenix decided she was going to be a racecar.
From that day on, she watched her father train other racecars, following him to the tracks.
Her father finally asked her flat out if she wanted to race. She practically bounced on her tires as she told him yes.
Her father started teaching her the ropes of racing. How to slingshot behind the leading car, how to keep a good bite on a track, and that trading paint isn't always bad. Most importantly, he taught her patience and focus out on the track, and not to let your mind wander. 'Things can go wrong, you've got ta be on your tires,' is what he always told her.
It was on that second day that she learned that all good things come to an end.
She had just finished racing in her first little league, and she had won. Her father was beaming. He could see the potential in his daughter. 'With the right training she could be the first female to win a Piston Cup' he had told her mother.
As a special treat her father took her to the practice track that he used to train racers not far from their home.
He nudged her encouragingly out onto the track. He had never let her out on the track before. He had chuckled as she felt the asphalt beneath her training tires. He revved his engine playfully, kicking the carbon out of his system. He wanted to race.
Phoenix squealed and revved her engine. Together the pair raced around the track. Blue blurs as her mother watched.
She loved the feeling of racing along side her father, his deep voice guiding her as she kept up with him.
On that night they both went to sleep.
Phoenix woke up on that second day.
Her father didn't.
The doctors had said it was engine failure, not uncommon in cars that had seen as many miles as he had, and that it was bound to happen.
She'd felt that it was her fault.
Her fault that she let her race with her.
Her fault that he had died.
She wanted to give up racing on that second day.
Her father's closest friend and her great uncle told her that he wouldn't want her to quit just because he died.
At the funeral she sat next to her mother as cars came to offer the condolences. They had called her 'Chase's daughter', 'StreamLiner's kid,' and 'Shame really, she'll never be a racer without her father.'
She couldn't know it then, but her desire to show them that she could be a racer just like her father was what would make her work hard in the first place.
Though she was still young, she lost her innocence that day. She was going to race on, no matter what.
After her father's death her mother began spending more time at work. Phoenix began to spend more time with her father's friend Neil, a stunt car who had raced before she was born, and her great uncle, who was teaching her more about the racing world.
Over the next month she rarely saw her mother except for the rare weekends together, which was becoming more and more occasional as time passed.
On that third day everything had started out normally. Her mother had been called away by a late night work emergency, and had left Phoenix under the watchful eye of Neil.
She remembered hearing the knock at the door at midnight as it woke her up. She had sleepily drove into the living room and suddenly stopped in her tracks as she saw the squad cars parked with Neil in the doorway.
The squad cars had come when her father died, and here they were again. Phoenix shook her front. She didn't need to be told her mother wasn't coming home.
She later found out that her mother had stopped at an intersection and was rear-ended into oncoming traffic. She had never stood a chance.
That third day Phoenix not only lost her mother, she lost her childhood.
She was sent to live with her great uncle, her grandmother wanting nothing to do with the young car.
Her uncle took the young car and entered her in a few little league circuits, hoping to get the young car's mind off the loss of her parents and back onto what she loved, racing.
Over the next few years, Phoenix threw herself into her racing. She grew into a talented confident young racer.
While most of her coaches and trainers couldn't have been more pleased to have a racer like Phoenix, the other teenage racers were another story.
She was constantly picked on and made front of because of her gender and model. She ignored most of them and focused on her racing.
And it was the events like those that brought around that forth day.
The day she realized that she wasn't going to make the big leagues the old fashioned way.
Scouts had come to watch the teenage racers, and Phoenix had finished a close second behind a Monte Carlo a bit older than she was.
She sat in the garage waiting for her uncle, and glanced around. Scouts were talking to the top five finishers, all but her. They weren't interested in the Pontiac daughter of an endurance racer, but the flashy Fords and Chevys.
She left the garage, still wearing her racing colors slicks, and tore off into the city. She had finally stopped at a station outside of Manhattan to refuel.
A Viper and a crew of street racers had pulled in and caught sight of the deep blue Pontiac.
The viper smirked and poked fun at her. His crew following suite.
She was almost sixteen and cars like those had been putting her through hell for most of her teen life so it was understandable when she challenged him and his crew to a street race.
And left them behind to eat her exhaust.
Little did she know that she had caught the eye of a Nissan street racer.
He said he needed a car like her on his crew.
On that forth day she became what she would hate the most, an illegal street racer.
Her engine was overhauled, decked out with spoilers and body kits, and gave up her original blue paint, inherited from her father, taking black with a swooping fiery phoenix stretched out over her body.
She quickly rose in the street-racing scene. She had finally earned the respect that she lacked in official racing. Cars now finally respected her, most feared her power.
She wasn't Phoenix anymore.
She was The Fiery BlackBird.
She soon became reckless and aggressive as any Piston Cup racer. She was undefeated on the streets. Officers found her hard to pin with offences. She felt on top of the world.
Until the fifth day.
She had had a successful night, a heap of bills under her hood. It had been a good night. Until a Skyline pulled up, issuing challenges up and down the street.
He clearly was showy street racer. Silver and black paint with blue neon. She had heard of him, a reckless racer that would rather crash his opponents than race them.
The Nissan that had pulled her into racing told her this guy was a pushover.
She took the Skyline's challenge, like she would with any other car.
The race had started out like any other race, she gave him the lead while she followed close behind him.
He wasn't happy with that and pushed passing cars aside. She pulled along side him and slowly started pulling ahead.
The Skyline growled and tried to T-bone her. She smirked and shot ahead of the Skyline. She cut in front of the Skyline and kept lightly touching her brakes. As they rounded a tight curve She had drifted lightly, her rear blocking his only opening.
The pair were soon side by side once again, She on the outside lightly grazing the rail. The two of them pushed and shoved against each other, scratching and denting their finishes.
The two hadn't noticed was an old Corolla heading towards them.
The Skyline had looked up and saw the car coming towards them and clipped her causing her to spin out into the Corolla's path.
And the last thing Phoenix saw on that fifth day were the bright headlights coming onto her.
She later woke up booted and facing the chain link fence of the Manhattan City Impound. Her left side had been caved in to where it pinched her tires and axle.
Officers would later tell her that she was found left for scrap along with the Corolla, both barely clinging to life. Luckily both had pulled without much permanent damage. There was no sign of the Skyline at the scene.
She was sentenced to one year to the city impound. They stripped her of her street gear and gave her a coat of gray primer over the patches and repairs.
She felt ashamed sitting behind the fence. She rarely saw what was left of her family, except her cousin who had been helping her with her case.
Impound wasn't easy on her. The other vehicles often pushed and shoved against, many ridiculed her. No one had ever thought that a Pontiac could be the street racer that they had heard about.
She grew distant and grumpy, keeping the cars away. She just wanted to serve her time and get back to what was left of her life.
Four months.
Four months into her sentence she sat booted in the impound, and her cousin came to visit her that sixth day along with a friend of his.
He was the same model as her mother, a sporty Trans Am, black in color with handsome blue eyes and a funny red 'headlight'.
He had claimed that he knew her mother and was with some foundation. He said that he was interested in finding the Skyline that had crashed her.
She was wary, cops had offered her deals to help find street racers and had left her high and dry.
The Trans Am couldn't blame her, but he promised this time was different. He could tell that she wasn't bad, just made a bad choice in the moment. He even commented that she should go back into racing, no use in letting talent like hers rot away in the impound.
She agreed and to the deal, more than happy to catch the Skyline that had caused this.
She would later find out that the Skyline was quickly caught and given a lengthy sentence.
And that sixth day was the day.
The day she felt asphalt beneath her tires as a free car, and taking a coat of black paint, a silent tribute to her rescuer.
A car that she never knew came along to save her life.
She left New York that day. Her uncle making arrangements for her to move out to California with Neil, who was know a well-known stunt coordinator with a movie studio. He easily had found her a job driving for him as well as a courier for a local Hollywood delivery service.
She soon started racing again, her status as a minor league racer quickly, but sponsors were soon becoming hard to find for her, apparently no one wants an ex con as their racer.
She was just waiting for that seventh day.
The seventh day that she would be a Pro Racer, just like her father.
Until then she would race hard, for her father.
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There we go...
And nex' come the fic...
So press the little blue button below and tell me what you think...
So drink up me 'eaties... Yo Ho...
-IPD