At last, the first real race. The one that mattered. From now on, these were ranked. Each one would stand for or against you. “The first big race” Kevin thought “somehow too soon and too late.”

  Kevin massaged the handlebars on his bike, but this just made his hands clammy once more, so he stopped. For his next attempt, Kevin focused on his breathing, trying to steer closer to a clear head. “For any victory, you had to win the mental battle first.”

  If anyone around Kevin was also stressed, they did not show it. The woman next to Kevin was pounding down bananas like her life depended on it. She held a bunch in her left hand and two more in her basket. With her free hand she was able to peel and consume a banana in 3 seconds flat. Perhaps faster, Kevin did not feel it was his place to break out a stopwatch.

  The man to the right of Kevin had a custom paint job on his bike: black with blue flames. The man even sported matching tattoos on his muscular but still older body. Unfortunately, his badass look was not complete. Rather than sitting upright and matching any wandering gaze with a confident glare of his own, the man of flames was leaning back and dozing off. His snoring was irregular and loud. He sounded less like sawing wood and more like the entire carpentry shop.

  There were plenty more racers to gawk at. Even here in a local race hosted by a small city. It was a genuine bottom of the barrel ranked race.

  As a reward for getting here 1 hour early, Kevin was dead center at the front of the startline. Everyone else had shown up at least 45 minutes late. Make no mistake – it did not matter. No one was keeping track of time here, aside from Kevin, who knew that the race was now 2 hours and 37 minutes behind schedule.

  High up to the left of the racers, the two announcers arrived at the announcer box. Both young adults, both women. One was blonde, and wore formal attire complete with a suit jacket and a tie. To complete the outfit was a rather expensive pair of sunglasses. That was where the formalness of her outfit ended. The blonde’s suit jacket, button down, and slacks were so wrinkled, that one could only assume it was a purposeful fashion statement. As she took her seat, her head flopped and landed on the announcer's table with a thunk. She was known as Brenna

  The other announcer chuckled. “I told you, y-you you should not have gotten all formal. No more energy. What good it do now?” She had brown hair, which was still well braided from last night. She wore a fuzzy pajama bottom with cows on it. As a top, she donned a bright red loose fitting sweat jacket. As an accessory, she wore the same pair of sunglasses the other announcer had. Her name was Annie.

  “I think I'm still a little tipsy,” said Brenna, summoning all her energy for each word.

  “Yea, me too, try not to make it too obvious,” responded Annie. She took her seat and tested the mic. “Hello? Hello. If you can hear me wave.” A majority of the bikers waved up at the announcer’s stand. “Thank you. Welcome everyone to the Stalktown bike derby. The race length today is pretty short. No camping or moon gear needed. We pride ourselves in being accessible to all ages.” Annie stopped and took several deep breaths, losing her train of thought many times over.

  Brenna lifted her head up off the table with a smirk. She cracked a smile as she spoke. “Anyway, Kyle. Kyle that's you. Kyle come to the starting line.”

  At the sound of Kyle’s name, those in the know went ballistic, which constituted about half the bikers, and certainly did not include Kevin. They Whooped and jumped for joy, while all shouting the man of the hour’s name.

  Kyle meekly walked out to the middle of the starting line. He was wearing a miniskirt and a tank top that proudly stated “South Stalkton lions!”. The cheerleading outfit also included red knee-high boots and two green triangle flags. He stopped a few feet away from Kevin.

  “This is going to get me put on a list somewhere.” Moped Kyle.

  Another biker responded “That just means you are a recognized professional”

  “That's not what being a registered sex offender means.” Whined Kyle

  “Oh relax man, a little crossdressing never hurt anyone. Just look out at all your adoring fans.” The bleachers on either side of the race track were completely empty.

  “I’ll just get it over with.” Kyle cleared his throat. “On your mark–”

  He was interrupted by someone in the back. “DO THE VOICE”

  Kyle gritted his teeth, and then let out a sigh so long and deep Kevin thought he watched the man’s soul escape. When Kyle snapped back up, there was renewed determination on his face.

  “On your mark!” Kyle was doing his best to imitate a girl’s voice. He was not succeeding.

  “Get ready!” Kevin snapped himself back into focus. Everyone else was already revving their bikes. Petaling at varying speeds with the front break held down. “I need to make up for lost time” though Kevin, as he put all his force into petaling.

  “GOOOooo…” Kyle waved the green flags and shook his ass in rhythm. He soon realized what he was doing, causing his voice to trail off and for him to resume staring at his feet.

  Kevin released the front break, but while everyone else darted forward, he remained in place. No matter how hard he petaled he just continued to skid out.

  “Did someone sneak a $20 bill in my skirt? Now I just feel dirty.” Kyle mumbled. He watched as Kevin continued to skid out on the ground. “Wow, you don’ glossed the asphalt.” Indeed, the area below Kevin’s back tire was covered in so much burnt rubber it was silky smooth. Kyle sat on the ground and crossed his legs from habit. He was unknowingly showing off his underwear to Kevin. “You have my sympathy”

  “I don’t need your sympathy,” Kevin snapped back. He stopped petaling and inched his bike forward to a new patch of asphalt. His tires caught on the new ground and he rapidly accelerated to catch up with the other riders.

  Kyle turned to the man of flames sleeping on his bike. “You enjoying your nap?” he asked. The sleeping man did not respond. “Yea… me too”.

  Kevin felt a new rush of adrenaline enter his legs. He could catch up. He knew he could. The features of the road all started blending together as Kevin accelerated to his cruising speed. 60 miles per hour. 120 miles per hour. 140 miles per hour. Kevin still was not satisfied. He heard explosions in the distance, evidence that the other riders had made it past the city limits, which lifted the legal restrictions on their powers. “I waited all day just to screw the start.”

  The east part of Stalkton was built on the Stalkton plateau. The exact point where the race track exited the city limits had a ramp, allowing the racers to jump out of city limits into the badlands below. The ramp was crudely constructed and despite only being a few days old, already covered in graffiti.

  Stalktown was known for its graffiti artists, and the ramp was one of their better works. It was covered in one solid mural, which depicted a family of Mermen and Merwomen enjoying their day at the beach, tanning on the sand and raising a toast to the racers.

  Finally getting up to 220 mph, Kevin thought he had enough speed to clear the Merman river at the base of the plateau.

  Kevin hit the ramp at 237 mph. “What trick should I do?.” panicked Kevin. With no more time to think, Kevin did the simplest trick he could think of, spinning the handlebars of his bike around 18 times as he plummeted hundreds of feet downward. “I can push this farther”. Kevin landed on his back wheel and continued to spin the handlebars around 5 more times before touching the front wheel to the ground. Instantly upon completion of the trick, Kevin felt the power of RAD race through him.

  Now outside the city limits, powers were allowed to be used. Judging by the various craters in the road, several powers already had been. On the sides of the road there were a few flaming wrecks of bicycles, abandoned. Their owners already being ferried to the nearest hospital.

  But not all of those who were knocked off of their bikes stayed down. After brushing off the dust and blood, many put out the flames on their bikes and hoped back on to continue the race. Kevin Soon found himself surrounded by a group of bikers. Battered and worn, but ready to compete.

  The badlands were known for being an exceptionally easy place to bike. A vast majority of race tracks were paved. The roads themselves curved up and down canyons of massive size, all colored predominantly orange-reddish with streaks of other colors like green and blue. Like all race tracks, there were difficult turns, but they were few and far between.

  Common complaints targeted at the badlands tracks were how boring they were. Few traps, scarce jumps. No real theme either, other than being easy. Tracks like these were only used in the most obscure and least valued races.

  The group of racers amicably sped along together at 260 mph for a few minutes. No one racer was able to pull ahead and away from the group. No powers were used since all the racers were either saving their RAD for the battles ahead, or flopped their landing and failed to generate anything. Kevin took this time to profile the other racers.

  Near the front of the group was man strenuously hunched over his bike, which was several sizes too small for him and still had the training wheels attached. The bike was clearly marketed at little girls. It had a picture of a Xisney princess on it, as well as the phrase Believe in yourself painted on the frame. The handle bars, which had been bent out of shape by the monstrous hands that gripped them, ended with colorful streamers that danced in the wind.

  The man on the top of the pink bicycle was at least 7 feet tall and built like a fridge. His gorilla arms were exposed to the wind by the white tank top he wore. Which was tucked in his red short shorts, which complemented his red lifting shoes.

  Other riders were notable too, there was a man with a green mohawk, a woman with so many flower tattoos she looked like a walking garden, and a person of an unknown gender wearing a hazmat suit. Muscle man’s friends would call him Smith, and anyone else was generally too afraid to make eye contact. He was the only rider who looked threatening to Kevin.

  The riders sped towards their next jump, muscle man leading the pack and flower girl directly behind him. Kevin tensed up as he anticipated what would happen after. Kevin hit the jump and executed a simple but well timed backflip. The other riders opted for tricks of varying difficulties, including simply spinning the handlebars to executing a superman, which involved ‘flying’ above the bike like a certain superhero.

  Smith’s superman was the cleanest. His hips hovered a few inches above the bike seat. His fists extended far beyond the handlebars of his pink bike, and his feet well past the rear wheel. He was straight as an arrow, and flew parallel to the bike below him. Moments before landing, he grabbed his bike and thrust himself into a seated position. Landing in a controlled fashion, he lost no speed through the whole trick and visibly glowed as the RAD infused him after landing.

  Flower girl was not able to stick the landing, her face planting into the asphalt sending debris in all directions. Her bike lost balance and flopped without her, exploding into brilliant green and red flames.

  Kevin landed his backflip cleanly, and positioned himself near the back of the remaining racers, the rest of whom had landed without incident. The racers looked at each other with paranoid eyes. Each of them picturing a future where they come out on top. Each of them determining how to realize it.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Green mohawk man started off the dance. The RADICAL power infusing into his arm as he summoned a revolver in his right hand. He leveled the gun at Kevin and finished by the summon by declaring it out loud. “Like shooting fishing in a barrel.” he stated slyly.

  Mohawk man fired off 3 bullets in the direction of Kevin who reacted in time by pumping his brakes. The bullets all slammed into the biker behind Kevin, knocking him off his bike. As the victim’s bike tumbled and jumped into flames behind the pack of racers, each racer summoned a weapon and prepared to defend themselves.

  “Slip on this!” shouted a woman behind the Mohawked man. She threw a banana peel at him, and it connected on his back. Immediately all friction was negated on the man’s bike. The Mohawk man stopped firing and focused on maintaining his balance on this now frictionless movement platform.

  The battle continued, with racers summoning weapons, ranging from bats to maces to boxing gloves. All the while Kevin conserved his energy while trailing the group. The next sharp turn approached, and despite the escalating conflict, all the racers made the 90 degree turn to the right. Each biker leaned so far to the right that in some cases the biker's shoulder was in danger of scraping the ground.

  All bikers made the turn, with the exception of the mohawk man. Hardly able to balance, and unable to turn He flew off the track at 100s of miles per hour and slammed into a deserted brick building. The building collapsed in on itself, while flames burst out of every window and the roof gave way to reaching fire escaping towards the sky.

  “You gonna ride out the whole race like this?” asked a disappointed voice.

  “How did someone get behind me?” Kevin broke out into a cold seat, and turned to see the source of the voice. The voice came from a man riding a bike with blue flames, behind him, flames of the same color followed the tires on his bike. His handlebar mustache and bandana around his forehead were pressed against his face. Kevin recognized him as the sleeping man from the starting line.

  “No reason to get involved in fighting this early in the race. I have to conserve my energy for later,” Stated Kevin.

  “Does that really seem like a winning attitude to you?” The biker clad in a leather jacket rode right next to Kevin, and held his face just a few inches from Kevin’s face. He did not say anything else, so Kevin assumed that he wanted a response

  “Yes?” Kevin said without confidence. He knew this was the wrong answer.

  “Kid, you gotta embrace the chaos. Otherwise you are never going to make it out here”

  “You just watch me.” snapped Kevin.

  A banana peel thrown up ahead missed it’s mark and hit the mustached man in the shoulder. Instantly, his bike no longer rode over the ground but slid.

  “Seems I’m going to make it a lot farther than you this race,” said Kevin as he smiled.

  “No no no. NO. You have this all backwards.” The mustached man gave up on trying to keep his bike facing forward and let his bike slowly rotate around.

  “You seem to be the one going backwards”

  The other man sighed. “Understand that I say this out of love. For all Bikers.” He pointed at Kevin. “You need to let yourself be ruled by the radical. Powered by awesome. Give way to the RULE. OF. COOL.”

  The next turn was coming up. Only a few hundred feet away now. “I’m not taking advice from someone who is about to fly off the track.” said Kevin condescendingly.

  “And I will do no such thing.” The mustached man leaned down and scooped a fist sized rock off the ground. Once the angle was right, he threw the rock with such force and speed that the rock broke the sound barrier, and sent the thrower sliding in the right direction. Kevin was dismayed as he watched that madman increase the distance between them until he was only a dot on the horizon.

  Blocking the most recent memory out of his mind, Kevin focused on the fight ahead of him, only two bikers remained. They faced off with another armed with a baseball bat and a golf club. “What worthless weapons, somehow worse than mine”

  Kevin summoned his weapon, the bow manifested in his hands, and the arrow sprang into existence as the string was drawn back. The two combatants ahead continued exchanging blows hitting each other in the arms, legs and even head. They had yet to discover the real weak point of a biker.

  Sneaking up being the remaining opposition, Kevin shot an arrow into the wheel of the nearest biker. The back wheel immediately locked up, the arrow getting pinned between the spokes and the back fork of the bike. The rider, unable to control his bike, shouted as he fell to the ground. The resulting explosion sent fire and shrapnel in all directions.

  The last remaining bicyclist, a woman in a yellow “dont tread on me’ tank top, accelerated away from Kevin. He smiled in response, a proper bike race is what he was actually good at.

  Kevin switched into a higher gear and allowed himself to dig into his reserves of energy. The woman proved her biking skill, taking turns fast, but not as fast as Kevin could. Still, Kevin was not able to catch up to his target in a reasonable amount of time. “Dammit” regretted Kevin “I dont think she is a concern but what if she was? A better version of me would have taken her out already. Now the situation is going to change.”

  Farther up on the road was another group of bikers at a slower pace, tired from previous fights. At the very back of the pack was Smith still on the tiny pink bike. The woman, in her rush to escape from Kevin, passed close to Smith. Too close.

  The muscular man grunted as he shot out his left arm, punching the frame of the passer’s bike. The passer was launched away from Smith, her tires screeching along the ground until the road ended and a building began. The woman broke through the concrete foundation of the building, and the whole construction burst into flames.

  Kevin took note of this, but still passed the muscular man, simply granting him a wide berth. The slowest of the cyclists up ahead met Kevin halfway.

  “Oswin!” Kevin called out.

  “Yooo Kevin” Oswin responded. He was wearing a simple green shirt and cargo pants, along with a black cap he wore rotated 90 degrees. He was exhausted. Each petal may have been his last, and His thighs begged for mercy.

  When Kevin and Grant got within a few feet of another, they exchanged a high five. Immediately Grant felt rejuvenated. Because of course he did, friendship is awesome.

  “How are you doing?” asked Oswin.

  “Sixth ranked race. Of people not in the hospital I think I'm dead last. Well, almost dead last.” Oswin gestured at Smith riding furiously behind them. “So not well. What's new with you?”

  “Well This is my first big race so I wanted to try changing my attitude. – so positive self-talk.” When Kevin spoke he always used his hands, steering his bicycle just by leaning.

  “Oh thats actually someth–”

  “But not quite.” interrupted Kevin. “It really did not work for me so i'm trying something else. You see I look in the mirror and I run outta good things to say. So it got me thinking, What if I could do that with bad thoughts?”

  “Uhhhhh.. Ok?”

  “So I look in the mirror, and I just insult myself for as long as I can.”

  “And how is that going?”

  “Well the insulting period, it…. It lasts longer every time. Actually after the one this morning I spent a good amount of time crying in the shower. And now that I am in a race I can tell you – that no. It did not help. I think it actually hurt. Alot. My performance and other things.”

  “Oh god.”

  “I’ve actually afraid of looking at myself in the mirror now so I started shaving without a reference. Turns out I’m not very good at it.”

  “Why did you do this to yourself right after your breakup?”

  “Yea I kinda brought that upon myself.”

  “After we win race let's get some tacos.” Oswin patted his friend on the back.

  “Damn right, how far are we behind the bikers in the lead?”

  “Not too far behind. You know how these races are. People in the back always end up going a little faster”

  Kevin nodded. He analyzed the oncoming turn for the optimal play. “Let’s use this turn to cut ahead. I’m thinking we kick transfer.”

  “Its a little aggressive this early in the race, but I like it”

  Before the next turn came on. Kevin stared at Oswin, losing himself in thought. “Why is that guy in this race?”

  The upcoming turn was a 190 degree turn to the right. The bikers ahead moved to the left to get the right angle on such a sharp turn. Oswin and Kevin stayed to the right. Once entering the turn, the majority of bikers used the same predictable path that put them perpendicular to Oswin and Kevin’s course. Neither Oswin nor Kevin slowed down, instead they each picked a biker taking the normal path and kicked. This transferred all their momentum into the victim, sending them flying off the track while Oswin and Kevin got to cut the turn close for free.

  A field of gravel followed, extending off as far as anyone could see.

  “I think this used to be road” observed Oswin.

  “Someone has a powerful enough ability to cause this?” Stated Kevin in dismay.

  “I dont know, one of the top 3 maybe. A big shot might be in on this race for a warmup”

  “Warmup for what?”

  “I dont know, man. Something”

  The gravel sharply cut the speed of all the racers. And they all had to petal harder to maintain even a fraction of the same speed as before.

  “AT LAST” shouted someone at the back of the back. Kevin turned to see the muscular man, shifting his weight on his bicycle.

  “ALL TERRAIN BIKING MODE ENGAGE.” Smith jumped off his bike and ran beside it for a few paces before hoisting his vehicle onto his shoulder. In all terrain mode, he quickly accelerated faster than any biker could.

  “Holy shit its roid-racer. What the fuck are we gonna do about that guy?” Exclaimed Oswin. Smith caught up to one of the bicyclists, grabbed her back wheel, and threw her far into the distance. Grant pointed at the event. “She did not even have time to scream”

  “Stop panicking. you have enough RAD to use your ability right?” said Kevin, panicking quite a bit himself

  “Yea, I suppose I can try.” Oswin stood on top of his bike and summoned a small ball of dirty laundry. “PUT A SOCK IN IT,” He shouted. Oswin threw the ball of smelly socks and landed a direct hit on the face of roid-racer.

  “This ain’t no ability, pipsqueak.” responded the running man. He caught up to 3 more bikers and slapped them all into buildings either to the left or right. In every case, the building exploded and collapsed.

  “Ok now what?” asked Oswin.

  “You think I'm not already trying to figure that out? Come up with your own fucking ideas” thought Kevin, but he did not lash out at his friend. The next turn on the track was a left 60 degree turn. It was not an exceptionally difficult turn to handle under normal conditions, but on gravel any normal biker had to slow down.

  The turn brought Smith within a few feet of Oswin, who was trailing slightly behind Kevin. Oswin gave up on petaling and turned over so he was laying ontop of his bike. He kicked at the wall of muscle as he approached.

  “Get away from me you freak.” said Oswin in defiance as Smith grabbed his ankle.

  “I hope you enjoy the flight.” The muscle man threw Oswin as hard as he could. Oswin disappeared down the track behind them.

  “You bastard. Oswin is going to be in the hospital for days” shouted Kevin.

  “Then you should keep him company like a good friend”

  “Not today”. Kevin poured his all into petaling his bike. He gave up completely on the idea of saving energy for later in the race, he also consiously ignored the safety limitations of his bicycle.

  This was enough for Kevin to match the runner's pace. And that is where they remained. The gravel road continued. The runner ran. And Kevin burnt energy and bike durability that he could not afford to. For a hundred miles the stalemate continued, until Kevin felt a burning sensation in his right calf.

  Was he tired? No. Kevin trained far harder than this. He already knew what was going wrong, but looked down all the same to confirm the issue. The bike chain was white-hot. The gears were spitting flames and sparks flew from all the moving parts of the bike. Kevin could just barely make out the outlines of the next group of bikers far ahead. A plan was hatched. The execution had to be immediate.

  Kevin’s opponent was only a few steps behind him, refusing to exhaust, winning this war of attrition. “Time to bust a move”. Kevin rode his bike to the left side of the road, and the next time a building passed by, Kevin rode up the side of it and launched off the end of the building. He got enough air for one backflip, and while he was upside down, he summoned his bow.

  Powered by RAD, and desperation. Enhanced by the awesome angle of firing from a backflip. It was the most powerful single shot Kevin was capable of. He only had one chance. Kevin felt the lighting in his fingertips. His eyes saw the path the arrow would take. It was perfect.

  The arrow flew true. Landing squarely in the center of the muscular man’s chest.

  “Was that supposed to hurt?” Bellowed the muscular man.

  “Huh?!?” Kevin was so shocked he flubbed the landing, his front tire failing to get a grip on the gravel. He lost his balance and flipped over. Kevin was slammed against the gravel. And his bike, now without a rider to control the RAD flowing through it, exploded.