Disclaimer: Sly Cooper and the Cooper gang are property of Sucker Punch and I am just using them to entertain the masses with a good story. I only own the characters that I have personally created and the other elements of the story I have created my self.

Chapter 11

The Uncommon Vehicles Division

Sly and Carmelita went to the garage in the morning. It was day of the race preliminaries. There would be 8 races today, the top racer from each race going on to the semifinals. This would go on for today and tomorrow so they would have two semifinal races, each having 8 racers. When Sly and Carmelita stepped into the garage they saw Eclipse had fallen asleep at his work bench. Sly walked over and gave him a slight shake. Eclipse stirred a bit, and then he yawned and rubbed his eyes as he said, "Not one of my better nights. What time is it?"

Sly glanced at the clock on the wall and said, "It's about 8:30. Our race is in 2 hours."

Eclipse slowly stood up and said, "Alright. Will you two guard the train while I go to the dorms and get cleaned up and changed into my robes?"

Carmelita and Sly nodded their heads and Eclipse slowly walked out of the garage as he tried to stifle a yawn. Once he had left Sly turned to Carmelita and said, "So, Destiny has a terrible phobia of anyone who performs magic."

Carmelita nodded her head and said, "Yes, it is so sad."

Sly nodded his head and said, "Yeah, they looked like they were both having a wonderful time. I got the feeling they were made for each other. If Muggshot hadn't showed up Eclipse and Destiny could have gotten to know each other more. Then she might not have been so scared of him when she found out he was a mystic."

Carmelita sighed and said, "If only we could do something, but Destiny would probably run away the second she catches sight of Eclipse."

Sly nodded and said, "Eclipse would also purposefully avoid her. He would never want to scare someone, even for the smallest bit of time."

Carmelita looked around the hanger and then saw the security camera. She looked at for a few seconds before she said, "Hey, Sly. Let's look at the security tape."

Sly didn't know where Carmelita was going with it, but he went over to the security computer provided by the track and typed a few commands. It brought up the security footage from the day before and Sly and Carmelita watched. Sly fast forwarded the tape until just after he left Eclipse. The tap had some cheep audio so they could hear Eclipse crying in the. They fast forward until the timer on the video said it was around 12:30. That is when the crying finally stopped and Eclipse's breathing leveled out. Carmelita and Sly guessed that Eclipse had cried himself to sleep that night.

Eclipse was back in an hour, and Sly and he did a final check of the Sky Serpent. They then both got into the trains cab and Carmelita opened the garage's bay doors. The train slowly left the garage, and Eclipse took it to the start line so they could have a practice run on the track. Carmelita locked the garage up and then went to the team dorms. She got changed into a business suit she had bought to be the team's manager and headed up to the view box in the stands reserved for team managers.

When she got up there someone was giving the managers the final race chances as calculated by some of the track staff. Team Cooper had a 1 in 55 chance to win the race, but even against such odds Carmelita knew they would, because they were racing not for themselves, but for Murray.

Do to Muggshot's sabotage there were only 20 teams on the track with one vehicle a piece. All the other teams had to drop out because they didn't have any vehicles. The other vehicles on the track included 3 monster trucks, 2 upgraded farming tractors, 5 semi trucks, 3 hover crafts, 2 cars with side jet engines, 1 RV, 1 garbage truck, and 2 motorcycles.

Sly looked over to Eclipse who had his hands firmly on the trains controls as he said, "You sure you're up to this. I can drive while you act as the look out."

Eclipse shook his head and said, "No I'm fine." Sly was going to ask again when they could hear the warning siren that singled the race was about to start. Bentley, Penelope, and Panda King were sitting together in the stands. Panda King had gotten away from Muggshot who wanted to watch the race from beside his team's garage. Since they needed to do all the races in a couple of days, the track staff had set the race length to a short 20 laps around the small track.

That was why Drag Strip Islands track was home to any racing professional racing competitions Championships. They actually had three tracks. By changing a few dividers on the course they could make the track 2, 4, or 7 miles long. They were racing on the shortest track, the 2 mile one.

Eclipse got the train ready as the start lights started signaling the drivers. The sequence went red, red, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, and green. The split second the green light lit up all the racers gunned their engines and the race was started.

Eclipse was able to secure a 5th place position from the beginning of the race. He was behind a semi truck, the two motorcycles, and the garbage truck. Everyone held their positions for the first five laps, but after they were all on their 6th Eclipse made his move and passed the garbage truck. It wasn't an easy pass because one the drivers of the garbage truck saw him trying to pass he had his shot gun get into the garbage bin and start chucking full garbage bags at the Sky Serpent. Eclipse dodged as best he could and then got along side of the truck. Sly jumped on to the garbage truck and knocked team trash's shot gun out before he leapt back onto the Sky Serpent and they pulled into fourth.

As they enter the tenth lap Eclipse was about to ready to pass the two motor cycles, but both cycles were from the same team and they were working together to prevent Eclipse from passing. Finally Eclipse got feed up with it and he waited for until they got onto the tracks straight away before he gunned the hover fans to full power and flew 3 inches above the motorcyclists head's and lowered back down to the track right in front of them. Sly gave the two motorcyclists his calling cards as he and Eclipse pulled away from them, just to rub it in their faces.

Now with only 5 laps to go Eclipse was about ready to pass the semi truck. That was until he saw the truck had a couple rocket boosters. The driver of the semi turned them on, and made it impossible for Eclipse to pass him until the boosters ran out of gas, or shut off because now the semi was traveling just as fast as the Sky Serpent. Eclipse turned to Sly and said, "You feel like making a pretty daring jump?"

Sly nodded his head and used his rail walk to walk across the Sky Serpents mufflers and get onto the front of the train. Eclipse pushed the train's engine into the danger range for a second and Sly was able to jump onto the semi. He walked over to the fuel lines that fed the rocket boosters, and turned the Manuel valves off. The semi quickly began to slow down, and Eclipse pulled the Sky Serpent up beside it, allowing Sly to jump back on. They finished passing the semi as they finished the 19th lap, and they only made their lead stronger during the final lap.

Everybody cheered when the Sky Serpent crossed the finish line in first place. Panda King was giving Bentley and Penelope a death grip squeeze while Carmelita was cheering from up in the manager's viewing box. Eclipse slowly drove the train to the race tracks winner circle and Sly and Eclipse were presented their prizes. Eclipse smiled at the crowd and searched it, but he did not find Destiny anywhere amongst the cheering crowd.

In fact, Destiny had watched the race, but it was from the race control tower positioned in the center of the track. She couldn't help smiling as Eclipse took his trophy, but she still couldn't get up the nerve to even get with in 50 feet of him. Every time she tried to go to the team dorms, where she knew he was, she found an excuse to get someone else to go for her. Her heart was telling her that Eclipse wasn't like the guy who had used her as a bargaining chip, but she just couldn't control the fear that would well up inside her. She quietly left the control towers top level, and on the elevator ride down to the bottom of the tower, she cried silently to her self.