“Bigger is slower. And that’s a scientific fact!”
Pip Stoneback slapped his knee with a grin, every tooth on display. Not a shred of humility in sight. He didn’t just believe he was untouchable, he knew it. Like the Eternal Ember Cup was already engraved with his name.
Every skilled racer in the Ironwood Kingdom gathered at King Gavrak’s Summer Castle. Eagerly waiting, praying, they’d be picked to race in the first-ever Eternal Ember Cup, under King Gavrak’s rule.
This was no ordinary race. But—THE—race. The ultimate challenge. You didn’t get here from being weak. No! This was the big league. The peak, tippy top, pinnacle, astronomically highest anyone could ever hope to achieve. Only the strongest, fastest, and boldest made it this far.
Real kart racers only.
Rook Stoneback let out an obnoxiously loud, mocking CHEST-THUMPING laugh, at least three times louder than was appropriate for the tiny room they were all stuffed into. With his mouth hanging half open, amused with Pip’s pea brain calculations, Rook snapped back, “What do you think’s gonna happen when you smash into BIG me? Knock me off the track? Run me over?”
Pip’s blank stare said it. NOT impressed.
“How can you honestly sit there all sure of yourself and NOT remember the billion times I barrel blasted right out in front of you, on a sharp turn, drop a banana peel, and watch you spin right off the map? BILLIONS I SAY! BILLIONS!”
“Yeah. What the banana ever!” Rook slammed back. “Try ONCE. And by the way. If you ever try that again, I’ll show you just what a little BUMP from my oversized kart can do.”
Obviously much smaller than the legendary Rook Stoneback, Pip knew he was slick, sly, and quick. He had an advantage over everyone. All the more reason he knew that was an idle threat.
Half his size, but twice as feisty, Pip crossed his arms and stood a little taller.
“You couldn’t catch me, to BUMP me, even if I had the very last banana on the island. I’m actually shaking.” Pip eloquently blustered, puffed up like a banana-suited scholar. Unfazed and breathing heavily, he was ready for war. “Again, you slow brain ape, gotta catch me first!”
Despite their witty banter, Rook and Pip Stoneback weren’t just rivals, they were brothers and best friends.
Tighter than the wheels on a kart, and way better friends than the rest of the crazies who dare show up for this death-defying kart race.
“It’s a downhill track, genius,” Rook smirked and said with utter disbelief that Pip was THIS FAR off his rocker. “Gravity’s on my side, not yours. In fact, with my genetically superior massive gargantuan bones and my super-modified Banana Bunch Barrel Racer 5000, you’ll choke yourself on my dust and whatever else I throw your way. After I stomp on you. THAT is a scientific fact!”
Earlier that morning, at the Royal French Fried Banana Brunch Bash, in the Castle’s North Star Dining Hall Ballroom, rumors swirled among the competitors of some of the mysterious dangers to come in the race.
Not only did they hear of jumbo active ice volcanoes, savage three headed beasts, and magic mischief machinery. But also of Dinosauric fire-breathing Dragons, astronomical atomic bombs on chains, and pulsating neon glowing cybernetic trapping contraptions, guarding hidden paths – to a secret fortress, leading to a bonus prize treasure trove mystical cavern, reserved for the first to find and touch the Eternal Ember.
All the kart racers knew that there WAS a secret hidden treasure, but only King Gavrak knew what it was and what it could do.
Pip threw his hands in the air and rolled his eyes back, vaguely amused, as he burned through every brain cell trying to explain, logically, of course, that Rook was 100% wrong in his understanding of what Pip could actually do on the track, with his slick kart.
“No, the scientific fact is that you’re slow and I’m fast. Period. End of discussion.” Pip patiently began to explain, “You may have a souped-up, top-of-the-line, brand new showroom Banana Class Barrel Racer sixty thousand million, or whatever you call that pretty little thing. But, you being WAY heavier and INSANELY bigger than everyone else combined – including that plumpy Gavrak – has to be knocking around the gorilla grapes in your smash banana brain, right? Even with your new little undersized superpower sparkle kart, you’re still last off the starting line, and you only go a tiny wee bit faster on a straightaway. A LOOOONG straight away. It’s nonsense! Again, you can do your cute little fairy thump bumping us around, but, all facts, you have to catch us, my dear boy.”
King Gavrak was anything but hospitable. Grumpy by birth, crowned with arrogance, and entitled by destiny, he considered manners a waste of time. This was his castle, his race, and his kingdom. And no one, not even the legendary Rook Stoneback, dared challenge his rule.
“Dear boy…,” Rook parroted and chuckled under his breath, “Let me tell you a little something about momentum, MY dear boy. Another science thing too complicated for coconut-sized craniums like yours.”
“Control the gold, control the Kingdom,” King Gavrak would always say. A family phrase passed down since forever. Everyone knew King Gavrak controlled the gold. They respected him because they feared him. But not even King Gavrak could control this race.
“Momentum,” Rook continued, “is a little something that tends to have a slower-moving hidden power that can catch you off guard, if you’re not paying attention to what’s behind you, skinny fast guys. I will bump into you with such heavy-weight force that I will knock you clean off the track and smash your stupid yellow hat right into a concrete wall, faster than you can say Sweet Cream Banana Burrito.”
None of King Gavrak’s knowledge advantages mattered when it came to the actual race. The rules of the game couldn’t bend or break, not even at the command of the Gold King himself in his own Kingdom. It was a violation of the natural law of the island.
There were forces, powers more powerful than anything King Gavrak could command. These sacred sites, these holy lands, on which these race tracks were discovered (not created), had a secret. A dark side. A mystery that haunted anyone who dared enter the deeper corners of the Ironwood Kingdom.
Then the torches flickered. All of them. At once. For just a second. Nobody mentioned it. The banter continued for a moment longer, quieter now, voices dropping without anyone deciding to drop them. One by one, the racers found reasons to stop talking. To look at the floor. To study their hands.
Outside the castle walls, the wind had stopped.
Something was listening.