Two months had passed since James became Gunther's full-time assistant, working on various local machines and not just F-Zero racers, but also some taxi cabs or any ordinary car off the street.  For a while he had flashbacks to his old days in Chicago, the smell of musk and grease together again as if it were the most natural thing in the world.  He had nowhere to go, and he was eager to explore for now, the feeling of being useful and fitting in another alien world perfectly.  To be in some useful capacity allowed him to forget about things from before.
Time had passed for him quite quickly, to the point that he felt perfectly at home within the thriving metropolis of Mute City, almost forgetting that he wasn't back in Chicago for how similar it was in atmosphere, but without the overbearing shadow of the Army.  It also felt much cleaner, at least in this area of the city.
	"JAMES!" shouted his new boss from the front.
James was currently cleaning the parts in the back, a veritable junkhouse filled with the most meticulously arranged pile of scrap he had ever seen.
	"Uhhh yeah?!"
	"Do we have a DY-357 Magnum Force Accelerator?"
	"Uhhh whassit look like?"
	"A long silver tube with a tiger-skin stripe!"
	"...uhhh...YEP, found it!"
	"Good, bring it out front!"
Grabbing the sizeable pipe that was half his own height, he was careful not to dent it while Gunther was working on a customer's F-Zero racer.  It was shaped and coloured like a squashed orange, round top with spread out middle body.  The owner, much to James' ironic surprise, was a tiger.
	"So what's this beauty's name?" asked Gunther to his customer, who sneered with utmost pride in his machine.
	"The Solar Flare.  Ya like?"
	"It's very showy, so I do.  How's the speed?"
	"Twelve-hundred average but the acceleration is where it's at, got it to fourteen-hundred once with that I swear."
	"Agh, amazing, but can it handle turning?"
	"The grip's a li'l bad but if I react good enough-"
	"I thought a tiger would be all about grip.  What good is a tiger without claws?"
	"Just shove the accelerator on, old man, I don't need your poetry crap."
	"As you wish."

Gunther rolled his eyes at James out of sight of the customer, as the raptor began to replace accelerators.  It was a large funnel at the bottom of the craft that gave the extra burst of speed at the start of a race.  James said nothing, still picking up the lingo of the big racing tournaments that existed, and eventually fixed it into place.
	"Alrighty, yer accelerator's in place man."
	"Niiice.  How much is that?"
	"$400, mein freund," interjected Gunther.
He was dutifully paid without the slightest batting of an eye, and the tiger headed off in his Solar Flare.  When he went out of sight, the German mechanic snorted in contempt.
	"Ach, he is less of a tiger and more of a bull."
	"Watcha mean boss?"
	"No grip on his damn vehicle, he wants to go sliding into a wall and blow up like a real solar flare?  Not like my Grand Finale machine."
	"You know, everytime someone comes in here you always compare them to your own damn machine.  You make it sound like it's perfect."
	"Well...it's not perfect no, but it is built with sensibility, junge James, a rational mind.  Not with flash, or pizzazz, but logic!  Look at my machine."
He spread his hand majestically to it resting in the corner, hidden away yet well-maintained, a hawk at rest.
	"The thick but thin steel to offer moderate protection, the powerful thrusters to offer only the speed it requires, and the precise alignment for marvellous steering.  THAT...is a machine."
	"It is pretty awesome yeah...but you keep going on about it like some old wizened guy on a porch who does nothing but moan about kids today.  Why don't you show them how a real F-Zero racer should be in the races!?"
	"Ach I am too old for that now, my reflexes are stunted with age."
	"Oh don't give me that, you can do it!"
	"Hahaha...I appreciate your vigour James, but I am nearing my sixties and I would like to survive at least until seventy."
	"Well I could ride it."
Gunther stared more focusedly at the raptor's comment.
	"...really?"
	"Yeah, come on, I know how to drive a superfast vehicle!"
	"Aaahhh no no no, you said it yourself, you only ever reached what, two-hundred-forty kilometres per hour?  Pure child's play!"
	"Oh come on, I'm a fucking raptor, I got reflexes beyond anything you humans have!  I'm built for speed, I was BORN to be fast and fuckin' furious!"
	"HAH!"

The old mechanic swaggered close and prodded the scaly chest challengingly.
	"You really think you can handle that kind of power?"
	"Yeah!"
	"...alright.  Why don't we test it?"
	"...wait, really?"
	"Of course.  You say you can handle the speed, why don't we try it out?  I know the perfect place for it too, when we close."
	"Ahhh...alright then."
After working to the end of their work hours, James was rather surprised as Gunther unexpectedly brought out the Grand Finale itself, dusting it off a little and opening the cockpit as he offered the seat.
	"W-wait, we really driving in that?"
	"Of course, you fool!  We have no other vehicle!"
	"But...where are we gonna race?"
	"Just follow me, get in the copilot seat."
Shrugging, he jumped inside the seat behind the driver seat as Gunther himself got in.
	"Normally F-zero racers do not have copilots, but this is my design.  I managed to make it able to be run single or co-op mode, since both were required in the Wipe Out races."
	"Huh."
	"Now, let's go for a little drive."
The machine started up, powerfully vibrating with a tremendous energy underneath the raptor.  But much to his confusion, instead of blazing out with furious speed, they pulled out of the garage rather normally like any other car, with Gunther closing the garage behind him securely with a special key.
	"So, we're not racing through the streets like crazy?"
	"Hahaha, no no no, there are laws here with speed limits on certain roads.  No, we're going to the holocircuit."
	"The what now?"
He explained as the two drove on, through streets with a bedazzling number of incredibly lit-up buildings and stores, all with various strange aliens passing by.
	"The holocircuit.  Special place to go to test your reflexes before you enter the proper races.  You bring your racer in, it plugs up to a VI interface, you feel like you're driving on a real course but without the other racers or the crashing and the grievous bodily harm."
	"So...why don't they hook up everyone to these holothings and race safer?"
	"Because that wouldn't be fun."
He chuckled a little sadistically as they drove into what looked like a very very clean white garage, showing a license to use the holocircuit to the clerk as they were allowed to pass in.  The larger man left his vehicle to hook up everything himself.  James saw the holocircuit machine, a large terminal that hooked itself into the CPU of the racer.
	"Now James, get in the front and we begin your race."
	"Ahhh kay."
He climbed into the front and the cockpit closed on him again as he got a feel of the controls.  So far it looked like driving a futuristic car, not too different from what he saw back home except the steering wheel was more like two joysticks sticking out of a computer.  A few buttons ran across the interface, with a button on top of each joystick.
	"Soooo okay, how does this work boss?"
Gunther leaned over to point out the various controls.
	"Accelerator and brake, that's all you need to learn right now."
	"And the rest of these buttons?"
	"Do not worry about them yet, this will be a simple exercise of reflexes James.  Are you ready to feel the power of my Grand Finale?"
	"I was born ready."
James got into the feeling of being in control of a powerful machine again, something he had not felt in a long time with Van-Uber stating:
	"You DO realise the top speed of an F-Zero machine always exceeds the speed of sound, right?"
	"Wha?"
	"Just checking!  I will give you a good relaxing racetrack, an old favourite of mine!"
And with a few buttons pushed, James felt an entire world changing before his very eyes.  The white clinical room faded away to a beautifully lush green forest among the plains, with a perfect-looking road weaving through it slightly.  He revved up the engine, preparing himself as best as he could to race an F-Zero machine for the first time.  When it did start, he didn't realise how fast he would truly become.

The speed he first started at was something he never expected.  In fact James had barely registered his starting speed of 240km/h the moment he was moving forwards.  After that it just climbed ever higher at an insane rate, all the way up to literally 1000 kilometres per hour.  The first time he had seen a speedometer hit quadruple digits, frightened him immensely as he went white with fright, screaming with both excitement and near-death panic.
	"HOLY FUUUUUUUUUUCK!"
	"HAHAHA, you still think you can handle F-Zero now junge reptile?!?"
Gunther's voice came in through an intercom, his portly face showing on the computer.
	"WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SPEED, HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO!?!?!"
	"Just keep steering, you said you had good reflexes, show me!  You won't die, you won't even feel a scratch if you fail, remember this is a hologram, nothing can harm you."
	"A-alright..."
His claws gripped the joystick with renewed determination, remembering his place and steering haphazardly through the fictional forest, already feeling scared to see this kind of speed.  He saw the meter rise halfway to 1100km/h, which really scared him now, but he shakily kept himself strong, gripping tighter as if choking the life out of the steering.  Claws dug in slightly, his head bent forwards slightly in focus.  Soon his eyes adjusted to the speed he was going, his raptor trying his best to keep it up, remembering how it felt on a bike.
Just like riding a bike, he thought, it's just a very, VERY fast bike that can break the speed of sound.  You can do this.  You're a raptor.  You ARE a raptor, the fastest dino who ever lived!

His reflexes surprised Van-Uber already for the fact he hadn't crashed for three laps of the course.  James shook at first with fear, but it was slowly being consumed by another emotion.  Pure thrill.  THIS was the speed he had always wanted to go at.  He was intimidated at first, naturally, but once he had a grip on it, he commanded it.  He felt as if he had taken control of a dragon and made it his steed, roaring through the forest with a ferocious power.
The machine vibrating with such power that he soon felt it become part of him.  No, that wasn't right in his head.  It was more like HE became the F-Zero machine.  He hadn't felt this thrill since the one time he just barely managed to achieve 160mph on his Triumph motorbike.
The feeling of the machine, commanding it, striding it across and through the mountains, his hands shuddering less and less with each lap finished, eyes blazing with a magnificent light.  It was enough that he started getting cocky with his racing, skimming around light corners, dashing through them.  It wasn't skill but risktaking that brought him on further and closer to the walls, until he got too excited and steered the side of the racer into a rock wall, shuddering on impact to a violent halt
	"UNF FUCK!"
Gunther popped up on the intercom.
	"Are you alright!?"
	"Y-yeah...got a li'l over myself there, haha."
	"Hehehe, I can tell.  You've done very well for a first time racer as you claim."
	"You think so?"
	"You finished 12 laps with less mistakes than half the newcomers do!  Look, your stats!"
Indeed he was right.  Much to James' surprise, he had scored quite a marking of a B-minus average in his 12-lap run, sighing as he laid back.
If there's one thing I can do right, thought the raptor to himself with relief before he said:
	"Okay I had enough for today boss, can ya get me out of this?"
	"No problem."
And with that, the trees faded away into a simulated vision, nothing more than pixels before his eyes as they returned to the clinical white walls.  His eyes glazed over with the kind of look only achieved after a full syringe of morphine, with Gunther appearing before him.
	"How was it for you?"
	"Mmmm?  Just...wow."
	"Incredible isn't it?"
	"I felt like fuckin' lightning."
	"If you keep up that kind of skill, you might even get into the real races."
He got up from his dazed position, slowly sitting up to face the German.

	"You...think I can?"
	"You're performing better than most.  Not incredibly well, you're not some sort of prodigy or something, but certainly better than most."
	"But...considering I only ever been on motorcycles before-"
	"That IS amazing I assure you.  It is up to you.  Perhaps we may revive the Grand Finale after all."
	"I wouldn't mind.  I always wanted to be in races since I first rode a bike.  Big ones, not some pissy backyard street race like the ones I was always in."
	"Of course."
	"...maybe we'll think about it huh?"
	"Well you still have to know how the buttons work, ja?"
	"Ohh yeah...well you can teach me, sometime."
	"Why not now?  You seem bright enough, and I always wanted to have a young prodigy to train.  Or something close."
	"Haha, really?  Hmmm...well sure, let's do it!  Come on, you and me, we head up to the big races, I know we only known each other like what, few months?  But you can trust me right?"
	"I can, and I see you have a potential if you train it right.  Why don't we go register now?"
	"Haha, really!?"
	"Well...no, no let's wait first, you need some more tests on this thing, if you can keep going."
	"Let's try tomorrow, I'm feeling kinda dazed after that drive."
Gunther nodded and they drove back to the garage to relax, placing the Grand Finale back in its home.  It sat in a back room that had been converted into a kitchen, kept surprisingly clean from the grease and dirt from the other rooms which forever kept at the threshold of the room.
James sat down at a table in the middle of the rectangular kitchen.  It was simple, with an oven, two fridges and two sinks each of them marked with "food" or "machines", which at first puzzled the raptor before he was handed a beer.  The bottle was striking blue with LIGHTYEAR emblazoned in yellow.
	"So," began Van-Uber, "do you really want to try the F-Zero races?"
	"Why not?" said the raptor as he drank some of the beer.
The taste was bubbly and uplifting, surprisingly light for a beer, but he rolled his eyes to himself at realising why.
	"You're always banging on about your machine, and if you can't ride it, why can't I?"
	"True, true."
	"So, okay, is there anything else I need to know about F-Zero?"
	"Well, you do not need to know the history of it in order to race thankfully, but I will give you some advice nevertheless, to not mention certain things and so forth, the etiquette if you will."
	"Ah huh."
	"Right now though you only need to learn how to drive one.  Your reflexes are perfectly fine, I'm sure you can be up for the minor local races after two months or so."
	"Two months!?!?  I'm just racing a vehicle, not applying for a green card!"
	"But you need to train to learn everything about the machine!  You know that a machine is an extension of the body!  In order to win you must be confident about it, able to control it as good as you can control your hands.  That is not something you learn in a week!"
	"Hehe...fiiiine.  I just wanna get back in the seat, that thrill and the speed was just so intense!"
	"You will get used to it eventually."
	"What, racing at the speed of sound?"
	"You'd be surprised.  Now, finish your beer and we sleep, after work tomorrow we do more training with the racer."
	"Sounds good to me."

Over the course of three months, despite James slowly becoming more and more frustrated at not getting a chance to enter the races sooner, he learnt all he could about the art of F-Zero.  Studying the machine, learning about all its parts, being tested on how to fix and identify each part every day until the blueprints were burned in his head.  Gunther took a stricter tone in training him than before as the days went on, the idea of mentoring an F-Zero racer becoming less of a hobby and more of an occupation.
It wasn't just knowing how the machine worked of course when James was placed on a curve of difficulty in the holoracer.  After getting the basics of accelerating and brake, he soon learnt about the other tactics, such as boosting, bashing and spinning.
The first time he boosted, he felt he had actually overtaken the sound of his own scream, breaking past the speed of sound into an almost otherworldly level of speed, his eyes searing with snout shaking before he sped back down to the normal top speed.  Having to do it again and again was disorienting and quite a few times he would plead to stop the holoracer before he threw up in the racer, much to Gunther's amusement.
	"HUUUK!"
	"Hahaha, awwww did the poor lizard get too fast for his own good?"
	"F-fuck you, ugh..."
	"Don't worry, everyone has felt this way the first time they boost.  But I have to warn you, you're going to hate bashing and spinning."
	"Sp-spinning!?!?"
The more aggressive tactics of F-Zero came in two forms.  Bashing enemies at either side of you to throw them off course or into a wall, and spinning the craft to simulate something like a circular saw effect on others, which was particularly useful when crowded.  Bashing was rather disorienting to James, having to get used to the shuddering impact when he hit against the other simulated F-Zero machines in the holoracer.  When he just got used to that, he had to get used to others doing the same to him.
This of course was nothing compared to spinning.  While optional, Gunther made him get used to spinning, something which to James was so crazy to do in an anti-gravity craft, that at first he thought the German had finally gone mad.  Then, after hitting enough walls from being unable to focus his eyes quick enough or having to stop suddenly to get out and vomit from motion sickness, he started to realise the usefulness of it.  Finally, after he managed to win several virtual races with moderate efficiency at the level of any racer, Gunther drove him to a different building one day, a rather official place.
	"What's this place?"
	"The F-Zero Registration."
	"...a...are we gonna...do it?"
	"I think you are ready now James.  Go to the counter, ask to sign up for the local races, and give them this."

Gunther handed him a datapad containing all the details of the Grand Finale, with full rotational scan showing every inch of the machine, clearly laid out with the most intimate detail for all questions to be answered on it.
	"Damn this is really detailed stuff."
	"It helps, but they will also want to look it over which is why I will be parked in the garages over there."
	"Okay.  Anything else?"
	"Look confident.  You're here to win after all."
And with that Van-Uber drove off to the local garages to be readily examined, while James waited in a queue ready to sign up.  The place itself was the size of a school hall, with signs written in various languages for registering into various levels of races from the locals to the big leagues.  As much as James wanted to skip to the big leagues, he realised someone as inexperienced as him would be brutalised, as well as seeing with a slight panic at who was in another queue for them.
Bio-Rex.  The hulking monstrous dinosaur that had shaved his leg with a laser, currently gazing around the place impatiently to be registered.  James hid himself in his own queue, trying to make sure not to have another incident, at least until he got registered.  Time passed with bureaucratic slowness, almost dropping his datapad a few times out of sheer boredom, before he reached the registrar, a polite human female.
	"Hi there, welcome to the F-Zero Registration, how may I help you?"
	"Yeah I'd like to sign up for one of the local races please."
	"Alright, do you have your craft details?"
	"Yep here ya go."  He handed the datapad over.
	"Hmmm...seems to be all in order, but we will have to examine it later on."
	"Yeah my buddy's parked it just over there."
	"Mmhmm, mmhmm.  And what's your racing name?"
	"Uhhh, my name?"
	"Well, all racers have some kind of name so we know what to call you.  It can be your own name or something more dynamic.  So....your racing name, please."
	"Uhhh alright...you can call meeeeee...Li'l Rex."
	"Ooookay."
Tapping the details into a computer, it eventually beeped with success and she smiled at him.
	"Okay, Li'l Rex, you're now officially in the local races, which will begin next week so I hope you do well!"
	"Sure, thank you!"
	"Now you just head over to your vehicle and we will have someone examine it to make sure it's all cleared with regulations."
He nodded and headed over to the garages, avoiding the sight of Bio-Rex as he swerved through the crowd to eventually reach Gunther with a beaming smile.
	"I'm in the races!"
	"Ach, wonderful!  Now we just have to wait for the examiner."
	"This is all legit right?"
	"Oh yes yes, of course it is, I made sure of that."

Eventually they met the official local race examiner, a bespectacled feline similar to a cheetah with clipboard and rolled up sleeves who greeted them.
	"Evening, are you the owner of the Grand Finale?"
Gunther greeted first.
	"We both are, I am his mentor and chief mechanic and original owner of the vehicle."
	"I see.  Very interesting craft I notice, its design is unusual despite Earth signatures."
	"It was developed in Germany, by myself."
	"From scratch?"
	"Yep."
	"Impressive.  If you will excuse me..."
The examiner did his job description on every part of the vehicle.  The cockpit, the engine, the diodes, the gravisphere, all of it.  His eyes showed intrigue, suspicion and then approval.  After several minutes that seemed to stretch to nail-biting hours, he got up and wrote the last things on his clipboard.
	"Your craft is...more unusual than I expected."
	"Oh, how so?" asked Van-Uber.
	"Well, the diodes are quite rare-"
	"Bought in England."
	"And the gravisphere-"
	"The G-diffuser and its parts were bought in Mute City."
	"Yes yes...well, from a technical viewpoint it's rather mixed but it all seems to integrate very well.  Congratulations."
He handed the two a small datapad from his pocket, with data from the clipboard downloaded onto it.
	"You are now officially approved for the races.  Here is your proof of examination, and good luck."
	"Thank you, good sir."
The German bowed to the feline who walked away with other duties, as James smiled up at his mentor.
	"So...we in?"
	"Ja...we're in."