I wish I had more knowledge about skateboarding. I did the best I could to flow this along without leaving gaps or making weak points for the competition.
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The skate park in Station Square is one of the largest. There are all kinds of structures to allow anyone who is skateboarding, or even roller blading, to perform tricks. The Babylonians spend a lot of their time here after school. There are already several people here. Most of the people are teens or slightly younger who just want to have fun. When it comes to the Babylonians, skateboarding is life.

A lot of the people that come here have their own skateboard. Sometimes, though, a few people don`t have their own skateboards to bring. A small station is set off to the side of all the skateboard structures where one could rent a skateboard from. The rental is free, as long as the skateboard doesn`t get lost, stolen or damaged. There are usually a variety of colours and designs to choose from at the board rental station.

The Babylonians have come prepared with their own skateboards as per usual. The Sonic gang have not come prepared with their own boards so they will have to use the rental service. Sonic, of course, chooses a blue board. Amy selects a pink board with a few hearts painted on the ends. Shadow`s rental skateboard is mostly black with some red streaks on it. Knuckles goes for a red skateboard that has a few little white designs on it here and there. Finally, Tails selects a board that is yellow and has the head of a bird on the front end.

Jet talks with the manager of the park. The park must be cleared for the competition and judges need to be set up to score the competitors. Needless to say, the team that gets the highest score will be the winner. As Jet re-joins everyone, the park staff begins to clear everyone from the park. Those who are not in the competition must sit off to the side where the benches are and watch as an audience until the competition is over. There are plenty of park staff to serve as the judges today so that there is one judge per competitor.

All ten competitors stand atop of a curved hill. This is the starting point for the competition. They will run through the course and perform as many tricks as they can as they go along. Finishing first is not important. What is important is that they execute complex tricks perfectly and without falling. If they fall, even if they get back up and continue, they loose points.

Everyone positions themselves on their skateboards and prepare themselves. Then the bell rings. All ten competitors roll down the hill. The hill sends the competitors to another hill. This second hill is meant for each person to go up sideways as one of the points for them to perform tricks. One by one, each of the competitors roll up the side of the hill.

Jet is first with Sonic right behind him. Bean and Tails were next as their small sizes allow them to have less wind resistance which allows them to go slightly faster. Wave and Amy were behind those two with Shadow and Bark behind them. Knuckles is right behind Bark and Storm is the last one to go up the hill. His large bulk gives him a lot of wind resistance which slows him down some.

At first none of the Babylonians are bothered by the Sonic team making it through the first hill flawlessly. To them, that is one of the easiest parts of the competition. The following sections of the course will be noticeably more difficult.

The next section is a line of small hills in which their height increases each time. This is to give the skateboarding more and more lift so that they can perform a trick or two each time the hill launches them into the air. Because each hill lifts them higher and higher into the air, each competitor`s aerial performance gets more complex at each lift.

Once he clears the hills, Jet turns around to see how his competition is doing. Sonic makes it through no problem. Jet`s confident smirk drops. He decides to get more serious. He faces back forward and raises his arm, giving some kind of signal to his comrades before he skates off to the next section. Sonic catches Jet`s hand signal and becomes concerned.

Wave crouches down and builds up the extra speed she needs to get closer behind Tails. Once she is close enough, she smirks. She tilts her board to the side and slightly downward so that she is riding on the front wheels. Instantly once her board goes down, it nicks one of the back wheels on Tails` skateboard. His board begins to swerve wildly as he looses control. The board flips over and sends Tails off and onto the ground.

Sonic has caught sight of this,"Tails!"

Amy shouts to Wave,"Hey! That`s playing dirty!"

Wave laughs,"All`s fair in love and war, as they say!"

Not a bit of this has gone unnoticed by Shadow. Well, if the Babylonians are going to pull such cruel pranks, it`s time for revenge. Shadow smirks,(*Revenge...*)

Having watched Wave pull her trick on Tails to send him off, Shadow decides to do the same thing...on Bark. Shadow tilts his head slightly to the side, just enough so he can see Bark`s position. He smirks again. He tilts his skateboard back a little so that he is riding on the back of his wheels. The board smacks into the front wheels of Bark`s board. Bark`s board immediately jerks to the side and throws him off of his board more violently than how Tails was thrown off. Bark falls on the ground and his board hits him on his shoulder. He grips his shoulder in pain.

The Babylonians have caught this. Bark`s fall is one of the worst falls they have seen their comrades have. Now instead of having their eye on the weakest, Tails, or the leader, Sonic, the Babylonians begin to think about Shadow. They note that his appearance isn`t the only thing that defines him from the rest of the Sonic gang. Jet`s mind races to figure out something they could do to erase Shadow from the competition.

The next section of the course is a long rail in which the competitors have to jump on top of with their boards and ride the length of the rail. It is the least complex section but it can certainly be difficult to do. A lot of skateboarders often either loose their balance and fall off or they just loose speed on the rail with no way to regain there speed back on the rail.

Same order as before, the competitors leap on the rail and ride the length through. The only difference is Shadow leaps up right before Amy. She can`t quite explain it but something inside of her tells her to have some distance between her and Shadow. She gets herself to slow down a tad so that Shadow continues ahead of her and widens the gap between them. She notices that he`s racing towards Wave. Amy swallows. This isn`t going to end well.

Now that he is close enough to Wave, Shadow smirks deviously. He is on a roll now. He does a small but harsh hop on the rail. The vibration from his jump is enough to bounce Wave up a little into the air. She looses her balance from the unexpected launch into the air and she falls over the side of the rail. She grunts as she hits the ground. She looks up in time to see Amy and the rest of the competitors pass her by.

Now Jet is getting angry but also becomes worried. Shadow has taken out two of his comrades, going after whoever he locks his eyes on. Bean will be the next victim, then Jet. In one way, Jet wants to exact revenge on Shadow. In another, he hopes the competition will end before Shadow gets to him. Wait, is Jet afraid of this guy? Jet grits his teeth at this thought. Someone has actually made him (warey) of them. How dare they.

The competitors end their session on the rail and move on to the final session. This one is a large uphill ramp. The competitors are to rush up the hill, perform a trick on the top and roll down to the bottom and stop once they are back on the flat ground.

At this point, Jet has decided to not try anything against Shadow. He will just finish the competition as quickly as possible. He will have to come back to Shadow later for revenge. As Jet ascends the vertical ramp, he can hear commotion behind him. There`s a smack noise, a thump and a scream from Bean followed by the sounds of his body hitting the ramp a few times. Finally, Jet hears Sonic say "Whoa!"

Jet dares not look behind to see what horror has befallen Bean. He makes it to the top of the ramp. He does a quick one-handed hand stand on the top and rolls back down the hill. Jet is careful to not look in the direction where his comrades and rivals are. He hears Amy scream behind him,"Shadow, no!"

Jet hears a sudden change in the sound of a skateboard racing up behind him. He turns his head slightly to the side and sees Shadow pass him by just as they reach the flat ground. Jet catches the look on Shadow`s face. Shadow`s facial expression is deadly and locked onto Jet, as though he is threatening Jet. Jet does his best to not let his expression falter from Shadow`s hard look; he doesn`t want Shadow to think he is afraid of him.

When the rest of the competitors complete the course, everyone collects their fallen comrades while the judges sort out the scores. Sonic picks up Tails in his arms. Tails doesn`t appear to be too hurt. He will have a bruise or two at the worst. Storm assists Bark to his feet. Despite how violent his throw-off was, Bark isn`t too bad off either. His shoulder will be sore for a while, though. Jet beelines for Wave. He picks her up and allows for her to lean on him for support as she is having some difficulty standing on her own. It`s possible a muscle was strained in her leg during the fall, in which she will heal fine in a few days. Bean, however, is the worst off. The fall he took down the ramp leaves several bruises on his body and he can`t get himself up. Storm and Bark both take Bean into their custody.

Once the Sonic Team is named the winner of the competition, it is a double whammy blow for Jet. Three of his comrades were taken down and now Sonic has beaten him again. Jet does not go after Sonic with any threats or anything verbal at all. Instead, Jet gets the Babylonians gathered together and they leave the scene to go tend to their wounds.

The entire circle of Sonic friends gather themselves back together and decide to go to Sonic`s house so that they can tend to Tails. Today is Friday so no one is in any hurry to get back home. Weekends mean no school.

Inside Sonic`s home, Sonic sets Tails down on the couch. He ruffles Tails` hair and reassures Tails that he did well in the competition. As Sonic leaves the room to get the first-aid kit, Amy sits down on the couch next to Tails. Knuckles sits on the other side of Tails on the couch and Rouge sits herself on the arm rest of the couch beside Knuckles. Silver plops down on a chair that is to the side of the room. Unfortunately, Sonic doesn`t have enough furniture for everyone to sit comfortably on. The rest of the group takes their places to either sit on the floor or remain standing. Shadow is standing beside the couch nearby Amy. His arms are folded.

Tails feels a little sheepish about falling off of his skateboard in the competition. Sonic re-enters the room with the first-aid kit and hands it to Amy,"Don`t worry, Tails. Even if we lost, none of us would be mad at you. You did the best you could. They just started playing dirty. It`s not your fault."

Knuckles looks at Shadow,"Speaking of playing dirty...Shadow, what happened back there? You went nuts on the Babylonians."

Shadow shifts his eyes to Knuckles then back to Amy to continue watching her tend to Tails without saying a word. Knuckles surrenders and decides to not press the matter.

Amy has the kit open and she uses the cleaners in it to clean up Tails` bruises and little scrapes. Tails does his best to hold still. It doesn`t hurt when the cleaner is used on his few bruises but it does hurt when they touch his scrapes, though not badly. He is a kid, after all, so his body is more sensitive to such things than what the teens` bodies are. Once Amy is done cleaning him up, she double checks Tails over. It doesn`t look like he needs any bandages. Amy closes up the kit and sets it on the coffee table. Tails thanks Amy and hugs her. Amy happily hugs him back.

She definitely has a special bond with the boy...

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