I know, MAJOR delay. School has been rough and I haven't had much time. At least Thanksgiving break is coming up soon.
This is probably the most depressing thing I have ever written. T_T Poor Dusty has no idea that help is coming to him, and has no hope that he will survive. But we know that there's a chance. 8)

POV-Dusty

I knew that Ripslinger was a jerk. I knew that all too well. What I didn't know was that he was a psycho. But after what he and his friends just did to me, there is no doubt in my mind that they are all psychos.

But I'm not their first victim, and probably won't be their last. Turns out that I was right about them being serial killers. Well, the ones that I haven't met before are. Rip and his racing team temporarily joined forces with them so that they could finally get rid of me forever. I'm going to die today, I know that now. But I'm not worried about dying. Death will be the best thing that happens to me today. Which is exactly why they didn't kill me right away.

Right now I'm just focusing on breathing nice steady breaths, and trying not to focus on the intense pain in my tail and behind my wings where they sawed. But that is proving too difficult. It's like nothing I've ever felt before. I just want this horrible nightmare to end. But it's going to be a while.

I closed my eyes, wishing that this would all go away. That is, until I felt something hit me in the jaw so hard that I tasted my own blood. My eyes shot back open. It was Ripslinger.

"Seriously?" he said. "We wait an entire week for you to wake up, and you think you can just go right back to sleep after one hour? I'm sorry, Crophopper, but nap time is officially over!" I knew that fighting back was pointless. But his wing was just so close to my mouth… I couldn't help myself. I grabbed his wing with my teeth and bit down hard. He backed away and howled in pain. Hey, he deserved it.

He scowled at me. I didn't care; he was going to hurt me no matter what. He turned on his propeller, and rammed into me at full speed. Pain shot up from my nose to my tail, and the blow knocked the wind out of me. As I caught my breath, he rammed into me a second time. I felt his propeller grind into the right side of my nose. I heard the others cheering as the world started to spin. He did it a third time. That was when I passed out.

For a brief moment, the pain was gone. I was free. I was flying. Until an electric shock zapped me back into reality and the pain was now worse than ever. It felt like I was going to fall apart. Maybe I was about to fall apart. I could see the many dents and scratches in front of my eyes from the beating. My propeller was bent and bashed in. It was similar to what it looked like after I crashed in the Pacific in my first race last year, except even worse.

"Wow," said Ripslinger. "Is that all you ever do? Sleep? Well, I told you that nap time was over! You have your entire death to sleep!" Once again, everyone in the room cracked up. I said nothing. Talking was beyond my ability at that moment; it hurt just to breathe. It didn't help that Luke decided to slice at the left side of my nose with his knife, creating two nasty wounds just above my mouth. I let out a weak moan.

"You're such a brat," Luke said, and stabbed me again, this time closer to my eyes. "Now quit acting like that!" If I hadn't been in so much pain I would have laughed at the irony. They were being really nice to me, weren't they?

I felt something nudge my tail and winced. It was a gentle nudge, but I was still sore from earlier. I hear Ned and Zed whispering and giggling behind me. Oh dear God, what now? Then I hear the sound of propellers turning on, and I knew what was coming. I braced myself for the impact. Their props chopped up my tail wings while I sucked in a sharp gasp of pain through my teeth. Bits of metal flew all over the place. But it only lasted a few seconds. It really wasn't that bad, at least compared to what happened earlier. But still, everything behind my wings was hurting so terribly that it was almost unbelievable. I wanted to cry.

I tried to think of happy things to take my focus off of the pain. I thought of home. I thought of my caring friends who always treated me like family. But this just made it worse. When I thought of these things, I couldn't help but also think about the fact that I was never going to see them again. Tears streamed down my sides. I had never missed home so much before. It seemed like it was worlds away now. Then I hear a groan from Luke. I squealed when he slashed at me again, carving a big jagged 'X' just above my wing.

"Aw, boohoo!" he said. "Guess what, kid, no one feels sorry for you." He hit me in the hood, splitting it so that I could see my ruined engine. The sight made me sick.

"He's just crying 'cause his boo-boos are hurting," said Zed in a mocking voice. He and Ned snickered. I sighed. Why did they have to be so ridiculously irritating?

"Are you missing your little friends? Wishing that they were here to save you?" said Ripslinger. I ignored him, and he laughed. "They don't care about you." I just gave him an unimpressed look. Did he really expect me to believe that?

"Oh, don't believe me?" he said. "Remember how they were acting weird the last time you saw them, like they were hiding something?" I did remember that. But, if he remembers that, that would mean…

"Y-you were th-there?" I said, my voice cracking. It was the first thing I said since I woke up. I didn't even sound like myself anymore; my voice was so hoarse.

"Yep. I was with your friends the whole time. That's what they were hiding. After all, we didn't want to spoil the... surprise!" He laughed again.

"No…no, no, no…" My voice choked up. Those words hurt. They cut much deeper than the knife had. Tears blurred my vision. Why would they do that? What did I do wrong? I squeezed my eyes shut and let the tears spill through my eyelids, forming puddles on the floor. I felt so empty.

I wished that they would just kill me right then and there. But unfortunately, they had other plans.

In case anyone is confused, I am going to make myself clear. Ripslinger is just being a douche and making up lies to upset Dusty. Dottie and Chug would never do that to him. But this does reveal that someone had been spying on them the whole time. (P.S. excuse my language :P)
hope help gets there soon... stay tuned... ;)