I know most of you are disappointed about Fox and Falco, but it just must happen. I'm sorry to tell you that another Smasher will lose this race too.
To Kirbstar: You are my favorite reviewer! You always supply me with long, in-depth reviews that I have always expected. Keep up your good work! I wish to see you more often too!
Chapter 26: Am I Not in the Next Race? Secrets of the Old Ruin Course!
A couple of the Smashers are in the theater watching a race. Not all of them are present because this race doesn't feature any of them, so some aren't really interested.
Black Shadow swiftly avoids all the obstacles in the course and knocks down every car he comes across. Soon, the finish line is in sight but there is another racer in front him—The Skull
Black Shadow zooms his Black Bull next the Skull's Sonic Phantom, and they crash against each other violently, sending sparks into the air.
Eventually, the Black Bull overpowers the Sonic Phantom and sends it rolling out the course and crashing to its demise.
BANG!
And Black Shadow crosses the finish line.
"Congratulations to Black Shadow for winning first place!" exclaims the announcer. "And is the only winner!"
"Did you see that?" asks Falco. "Black Shadow destroyed EVERY SINGLE racer in this race!"
"That was how destructive he was in the preliminaries also," says Carlos. "Fortunately, nobody died, but they were badly injured."
"I'm afraid to race him…" says Ness while trembling.
"If I were still in the race, then I would crush him badly!" says Falco.
"I can see why my father lost the race 30 years ago now," says CF. "Black Shadow is indeed a dangerous opponent."
Soon, they all exit the theater and each head for their own way. "Boy, seeing that whole race made me tremble," says Ness. "I never knew races could be this violent."
"That's how this race is," CF tells him. "It concerns about life and death. If you're unlucky, you'll end up losing your life. And from what I know, they do not hold responsible for one's death. That is the way things go."
"I'm starting to think if it was right for me to be in the race in the first place…"
"Don't worry about that. Follow what your mind is telling you and try your best to accomplish your dreams. There may be obstacles and hardships in the path, but as long as you believe in yourself and try, you can surely succeed and beat any opponent."
"Thanks for the encouragement!"
"But you will never beat me."
-
Link is somewhere in an empty square, practicing his sword skills. He set up a couple of wooden posts in the area, and he swipes his sword at them to cut them into pieces.
"That was cool!" says Zelda, who is watching him. "Let's try a harder level by replacing them with rocks!" So Zelda replaces them with stone posts they got from who-knows-where.
Link uses the same technique and hit them. A couple of the rocks break in half, but some didn't break fully.
"Not as good as before…" says Zelda.
"Could be because this sword is getting old," says Link.
"Why don't you go to the weapon store? I'm sure you can buy a new one there."
"Nah, I have grown to love this sword, so I think I'll just have them sharpen it for me." So Link sheathes his sword and goes to the weapon store not too far from here.
Link enters the store and sees the storeowner asleep at the counter, so he wakes him up, "Hey sir!"
"Uh? Wha!" The storeowner wakes up immediately. "Oh hello! How may I help you?"
"I would like for you to weld this sword back to its original sharpness," says Link, handing him his sword.
"This sword looks kinda old, but I can tell that it has a great history and great importance. Why don't you just buy a new one instead? They are a lot better than this! This ought to be put in the museum of artifacts for display."
"No, I still want to use this sword."
"Oh well, if you insist… Someone people just like to stay with the olden days." The storeowner gets his sword and gives it to the smithy to weld it.
Meanwhile, Link goes to browse around the store. "You sure got all kinds of blades here!" he says.
"They are high class swords!" explains the storeowner. "Many of them come from great backgrounds and some are said to contain magical powers too!"
"But then they're all the same in the end."
At this moment, a green alien-looking person comes into the store and asks the storeowner, "Are they done?"
"Oh, you're back, Mr. Pico," says the storeowner. "Yes, wait here while I go get them." The storeowner rushes to the back of the room and then brings back a wrapped up cloth. He places it on the counter and unwraps it, revealing 6 different kinds of shiny knives.
The green alien, Pico, goes to examine them. "Ah, very good! You did a good job sharpening them!" He picks one up and looks at his own reflection on its surface. "Very shiny indeed! But what good is a knife if it can't cut?" He then turns around all of sudden and hurls the knife at Link! Link quickly ducks down to avoid it, and the knife hits the wall and sticks there.
"Hey! What's the big idea!" cries Link.
"Ha! Sorry about that! I was just testing its sharpness!"
"Please don't play around like that in my store!" the storeowner tells Pico. "You better be responsible for any damage you did!"
Pico goes and pulls out the knife from the wall and says, "Yeah, yeah, keep on talking. This is my hobby, so I can't control myself. I just have the urge to play around with sharp things!"
"You should apologize to me this instant!" Link shouts at Pico. "You almost killed me!"
"That's bad luck for you, then!"
"What kind of an attitude is that!"
"It's a cruel world out there, so get used to it."
"Why you!" Link is very angry and reaches to grab a nearby sword, but the storeowner shouts at him.
"Hey! Don't use my sword to fight in here!" he shouts. "Go outside if you want to fight!"
"Fine!"
"You better watch your temper!" says Pico as he walks out the store with his package of knives. "I'm not the kind to be messed around with. All those who messed with me never lived to see the next day."
At this moment, they both hear a beeping sound, and they check their certificates. "Sand Pyramid, tomorrow at noon," they both say at the same time, and then their eyes shot up and stare at each other, and they shout out at the same time, "WE'RE IN THE SAME RACE!"
"Did you guys have to shout?" asks the storeowner.
"This is a good opportunity to get back at you!" Link says to Pico.
"And this is a good opportunity to get rid of a loudmouth like you too!" says Pico.
-
Ganondorf watches his certificate and says, "Hmmm… Sand Pyramid… Brings back a memory about a certain preliminary race."
"And what memory may that be?" asks a voice.
Ganondorf turns around and sees Sunaman. "You again…"
"Yes, and it so happens that we are in the same race," says Sunaman. "Once again I have an advantage in this course."
"Try all you can! There is no way you can use the same trick to get me!"
"You better not underestimate the power of a shaman. Being careless can be a person's biggest enemy."
"You don't have to lecture me! I'll see that I get first place this time!"
"We shall meet again in the race." And then a column of sand surrounds Sunaman and he disappears.
"What an eerie guy…"
-
Meanwhile, at a Japanese restaurant…
Roy, Lilina, Ness, and Pichu are eating there. It is the kind of restaurant where the foods are placed on a moving track, and customers can get whatever they want from there and eat. It's just like buffet.
"It's nice of you to bring me to this kind of restaurant!" Lilina says to Roy.
"I used to eat at these kind of places," says Roy. "I figured that you would like it."
"I love it!" says Ness. "Right, Pichu? Pichu? Where'd he go?"
A random customer is picking from the moving tracks and is eating happily. "Yum! What should I eat next?" he wonders. And then along comes Pichu, riding on the track.
"Full speed ahead!" Pichu says to himself happily.
"Hey! Get down from there!" Roy shouts at him and then gets him down.
"I was having fun…" groans Pichu.
"Sorry about that…" Lilina apologizes to the chef.
"Never mind," says the chef. "He's just a kid."
Lilina decides that she should be eating and not just sitting around. "I think I'll have a bite." She reaches for a sashimi that is coming towards her, but then Roy stops her.
"No! Don't eat that sashimi," Roy quietly says to her so no one else can hear him. "It's not fresh anymore!"
"How do you know?"
"I have been eating in these restaurants so often that I can tell whether they are fresh or not. Believe it or not, the chefs of the restaurants I went to are all scared of me. They call me the 'The Hawk-Eye Customer'."
"Wow…"
"Simple! Just look at this. If the meat is fresh, then you can see that…"
Suddenly, Pichu speaks out loud to the chef, "My friend here says that this sashimi is no longer fresh, so it shouldn't be eaten."
"Pichu!" Roy yells at him.
"Um… Thank you, little mouse," says chef. He then takes that dish away.
After a short while…
Ness spots a steak on a dish coming towards him. Why is there a steak in this kind of restaurant? Who cares? "Woohoo! Steak! My favorite!" he exclaims. He reaches over the get the dish, but his big head accidentally hits the pile of plates next to him that belongs to the other customers, and those piles of plates fall over and hits another pile, and then another and another and another… It's just like domino.
CRASH! CLANG! CRASH! CRACK!
"NESS!" Lilina and Roy scream at him.
"Sorry…"
-
Noon has come, and everyone goes to where they should be going.
"Oh boy, Link and Ganondorf are in the same race," says Zelda anxiously. "I wonder how they'll get along?"
"Beating the crap out of each other, I presume," says Marth. "Just like most of us here…"
Pikachu notices Captain Falcon looking quite down, and asks him, "What's wrong?"
"I'm not in a race yet…"
"I'm sure you will someday."
"Why is this happening so late…? I heard that Wario and Waluigi already had their second race!"
"They already did?"
"Yeah, they did-a," says Mario. "But da story didn't mention eet."
-
At the course, which consists of a large desert with old stones and fallen architectures all over the place. A large pyramid can be seen way in the back of the ruins.
"Boy, what a hot place this is!" says Talko. "Here we are at the blazing course of Sand Pyramid! The course begins with driving through the ruins. There are lots of booby traps, so be careful! Once inside the pyramid, things will get tougher, so watch out! Make it out the pyramid alive and you will find the finish line just ahead!
"Can we start now?" asks Link.
"Okay then! Be careful! Let us begin the countdown!" Talko begins the usual countdown and shoots in the air using his gun, and the racers are off! Just like always…
A couple of unnamed racers zoom ahead very fast, and Ganondorf is among one of them. Link is a bit on the back though. His boat car isn't the fastest thing in the world, you know…
And BTW, we will be focusing on Link, Ganondorf, Sunaman, and Pico in this race.
-
Ganondorf finds himself driving through the old Stonehenge-style ruins. There are several odd-looking Easter Island head statues all over the place too. At first, he didn't take much notice of it, but he starts to get cautious after seeing those head turning around. "Uh? Moving statues?"
One of the statues opens its mouth, and then a round thing flies out. It hits the road and explodes.
BOOM!
"Whoa!" exclaims Ganondorf as he quickly drives aside to avoid the explosion. "So that's what those are for!"
The explosion triggers all the other statues. All of them 'come to life' and begin spitting bombs all over the place, causing lots of chaotic explosions.
BANG! BOOM! KABOOM! KABANG!
Quite a few racers were blasted to bits by the violent explosions. It's amazing how Link is able to evade all of them using his wooden car…
"This is getting on my nerves!" cries Link. He takes out a bomb and lights it, and then quickly ties it to the tip of an arrow, and then he places it on the bow and shoots it at one of the head statues. The bomb arrow hits the statue and explodes.
BOOM!
"Ha! Bull's eye!"
-
Several bombs fly towards Sunaman. When they approach, a sand barrier appears around his car and protects him the explosions.
BANG!
"Not anything big," he says.
A racer driving in a car full of spikes drives up next to him and tries to ram him using those spikes, but the sand barrier protects it. No matter how hard the spiked car tries to ram it, it just can't break through the sand barrier. "How hard are these sands!" says the driver of the spiked car.
"Hard enough to protect me from anything," says Sunaman. "It is even hard enough to pierce through anything." Then several sand spikes appear in midair and shoot at the spiked car, piercing through it. One of them hits a critical engine of the car, and instantly causes it stop moving.
"Curse you!" shouts the driver.
Then Pico, driving in Wild Goose, zooms into the scene and hits the spiked car, knocking it off the road.
"YA!"
"Out of the way!" yells Pico.
-
BANG! BOOM! KAPOW!
"What's with this madness!" cries Link as he drives through the exploding course.
"I'll tell you what madness it is!" says a man who drives up next to him. The man wears a black tuxedo and a black top hat. His car is round and black and has a red bomb logo on it. "I am the Mad Bomber, and my subordinates have set up this madness!"
"You mean all these bomb-spitting statues are your doing?" asks Link.
"Yes! I love blasting things into bits! I'm going blast everyone here into the sky! Hahahahaha!"
"You're crazy! Whoa! Watch out!" Link quickly steers away as a bomb flies towards them. The Mad Bomber didn't have time to avoid it, and he is blasted to pieces by the bomb.
KABOOM!
"So much for setting up this madness yourself…" says Link, watching the Mad Bomber blown to oblivion by his own bombs.
-
A racer in a large bulky armored car drives up to Ganondorf and tries to ram him off course. "Die, weakling!" says the driver.
"Who are you calling weak!" shouts back Ganondorf. He lifts his leg and kicks the armored car so hard that the car is sent skidding off the course! The armored car hits a large stone pillar that is supporting a large stone arch. When the pillar collapse, the entire arch crumbles down and knocks into another arch, and then it collapse and then so on…
CRASH! BANG!
"Wow! The whole place is tumbling down!" exclaims Talko as he watches from above. Indeed, the fall of a single arch affected the entire place, and the ruins begin to crumble into pieces.
-
"WHAAAAAA! What's happening again!" cries Link as he zooms through the collapsing place. "I must get out of here fast!" He quickly unties the sails of his King of Red Lions and then throws a bomb backwards. The bomb explodes and the heat and air released by it hits the sail and pushes the vehicle forward! "Yahoo!"
Ganondorf carefully zigzags through the entire course, careful not to hit anything or getting crushed. He catches up with a racer and tries to fight pass him, but a pillar falls down on top of the racer and crushes him. "Whoa… This is good for something!" he says.
-
"The race has just started and destruction is going heavy…" says Fox.
"I wonder if they'll be all right," says Zelda, worried.
"They are all right," says Mewtwo. "Because I… You guessed it."
-
Soon, a good amount of racers made it out of the ruins and are going closer and closer to the pyramid.
"Of the 30 racers, only 18 made it out in one piece!" says Talko. "They are now heading for the pyramid, where the real challenge begins. Can they get pass the pyramid guard?"
Pico is the first person to reach the gate of the pyramid. However, the door of the pyramid is closed, and there is a statue of a sphinx next to it. "Looks like I'll have to bust this door," says Pico.
Suddenly, the sphinx begins speaking, "In order to access the pyramid, you must answer my riddle. You have 3 chances to get it right, or else I will automatically eliminate you from the race."
"Then get on with it!"
Soon, Ganondorf, Sunaman, and a couple of other racers caught up also. "Hey? What's happening here?" they ask.
The sphinx asks Pico a riddle, "What has the body of a lion and the head of a man?"
"That would be the sphinx!" answers Pico.
"You are correct. You may proceed through the door."
Then the pyramid door opens and Pico drives in. Another racer tries to sneak in, but the sphinx caught him and blasts him to bits with its eye laser.
BANG!
"Whoa!" gasp the others.
"Anyone who tries to sneak pass without answering my riddles will face elimination. Now I will ask you one by one."
"Argh… This will go slow…" grumbles Ganondorf.
-
Inside the pyramid, Pico finds himself at a dead end with nowhere to go. "What's the meaning of this?" he asks. "Where do I go from here?"
Suddenly, the voice of Talko speaks in from the speakers. "This is the elevator that will take you underground, where the second part of the race will continue. To make sure everyone starts off together and fairly, you will have to wait until all those outside the pyramid makes it in."
"What kind of a race is this that you have to wait for others!"
"Patience, my friend. We must give everyone the opportunity to win. What fun is it if you go all alone into the pyramid?"
"Argh…"
Then the door behind Pico opens and another racer comes in.
-
"What is the name of the mythical creature that guards the pyramid?" the sphinx asks a racer.
"Sphinx!" replies the racer.
"Correct, you may enter. Next!"
Ganondorf comes up next.
"What is creature that asks you a riddle and you must answer it?"
"That would be you, the sphinx!" replies Ganondorf.
"Correct, you may enter."
Link comes up next.
"What is…"
"The answer is sphinx!" says Link before he even heard the question.
"Correct!"
"What are these dumb questions with all the same answers…?" mumbles Link as he drives through the entrance.
Inside, Link finds himself with the other racers in the dark room. "Um… What now?" asks Link.
"We're supposed to wait for everyone to arrive," Ganondorf answers him.
Then Talko's voice speaks through the speaker again, "Now that everyone is in the pyramid, let the second part of the race begin!"
Then everyone feels the room moving downward at a slow pace. After a while of waiting, the room finally comes to a stop, and the wall in front of them slowly opens, revealing a large course ahead of them.
"Now let the second part of the race begin!" says Talko.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Pico is one of the many racers of F-Zero games, in case you forgot. According to his bio in F-Zero GX, he likes to collect knives and is a bloodthirsty fellow.