Chapter 8

Amy paced around the coaches' area as she prepared for the next race. They were 8 races into a 10-race tournament, and the pressure was on. Despite his boastings in his first winning interview, Jet was getting a surprising amount of competition in these races. Of course, Sonic was winning some of the races, but some of the newcomers were managing to land first place, which she would not have called earlier in a tournament. But of course, this race was full of surprises, from Tails getting eliminated in the 7th race(but taking his demotion to secondary coach and head mechanic fairly gracefully), to how well that new girl, Lucy, was doing. Amy had actually looked into her competition history a few races back, and despite how sparse it was, she had slowly but surely gotten higher and higher places in every subsequent race, even giving some of the Babylon Rogues a run for their money a few times. She had certainly become a crowd favorite after she saved that one bear on a wooden board.

Amy put a hand on her chin. In spite of Tails' loss, the sponsorship was doing so much to raise awareness for the Restoration that Jewel had actually called Amy up about getting a permanent racer to sponsor after this was all done. Even if she didn't manage to win the Donpa Motors sponsorship in the final race, perhaps Lucy would be a good pick for that position? Would she even take it?

"AMY! The next race is starting in a few minutes! You wanna get down to the track before Sonic and Knuckles go to their starting positions?" Tails said, breaking her out of her trance. "Oh yeah! Sorry!" She said, running down to the track area.

"You sure you can keep an eye on everyone by yourself?" Rouge asked, as the Glamor Chao finished their final inspections of Shadow's air shoes, a requirement after the wooden board incident. Rouge, to her embarrassment, had been demoted to Shadow's coach after being eliminated in the last race. "I'll be fine, Rouge. There's no way that hooded figure is getting away from me next time we meet." Shadow said, as he strapped his air shoes onto his feet. The two had encountered the smaller cloaked figure 3 more times since their first encounter with him, and each time he had barely managed to slip away from their grasp. "Well, if you see him in the crowd this time, don't let any of those nasty walls stop you." Rouge teased. Shadow just groaned as he started walking over to his starting position.

"Okay, guys...So maybe the last few races haven't been going our way..." Jet started as the Babylon Rogues had their gear inspected. "What do you mean, 'Haven't been going our way?' Jet, you and Storm nearly got eliminated in the last race! We're a bit past that!" Wave interrupted. "I told you guys before! The sun was in my eyes!" Storm tried to defend himself. Wave wasn't having it. "AT NIGHT!?"

"Look, these amateurs have just had a run of decent luck, that's all! We'll win in the end!" Jet said. "We have to." He muttered to himself, before picking up his board. "Come on, next race is starting soon!"

Wave and Storm just shrugged as they joined Jet on his way to the starting line. On the outside, Jet seemed like the definition of confidence, but on the inside, he was starting to have his doubts. The first round had been an easy win, with so many newcomers unsure of how to handle themselves in a race, but the more rounds many of them went through, the harder and harder it had become to secure a victory from them...Even that human girl was proving to be more trouble than she was worth. Was Jet wrong to judge her so harshly?

Jet shook his head in frustration. No, she was just getting lucky, is all. They ALL were, and this race was going to PROVE it. Nobody would make HIM look like a chump!