“Zis vill be gut!”

Baltasar gave the red painted cylinder, a distance away, an uneasy look.

“Richter, are you SURE this will work?” referring to his friend by his second name as he usually did.

The frog gave the tortoise a wide grin, eyes glinting “I have NO Idea!” he said, before slamming his webbed finger on a notoriously big and red button on the controller he held.

Nothing…

“Maybe the wire isn’t making contact?” The reptile offered, scratching his head.

“No, no, I made sure everyzing vas in perfect vorking order” The frog was pensive for a moment, the glint from his eyes fading.

“I’ll just go take a look”

“NEIN MEINE FREUND!!”

KABOOM!!!

The tiny missile blasted off its pedestal with surprising force just as the tortoise had approached it, skyrocketing towards the blue, and leaving a thick white cloud of smoke in the grassy field below.

“Baltasar!? cough Baltasar are you alright!?” called out the green amphibian, swatting at the thick acrid smoke “It must have been a loose vire inside ze ignition control, ven I moved ze controller...”

The wind carried away the white fog to reveal a large green shell, sprinkled in soot, slowly spinning and swaying before coming to a stop.

“Baltasar?” said Richter approaching cautiously, before two legs, arms and a head emerged from it.

“Mine freund I am so sorr-”

“Awesome”

“Vhat?”

“THAT WAS AWESOME!!” Roared the young tortoise, laughing as he rocked himself back and forth into a sitting position, Richter coming over to help pull him up.

“So! Got another rocket you wanted to try out today?” he said, giving his friend a soot covered grin.

There was a brief pause, as the young genius scanned his friend and then turned to look back at the battered old blue pickup they had driven there.

“Vell, I did have ziz great big one I vas itching to try out…” Said Richter slowly.

“Ha! Ready when you are froggy!”

“Then let’s go practice rocketry!” he said, returning the grin.