Nightmare of Nick// The Fosters

Chapter 8

Catalina's POV
"Welcome to the FIRST Robotics Southern California Regional Competition, every team must have their robot inspected before our games begin, and once you're cleared to play one of our referees will run down the rules of today's tournament." the Emcee announced
"Hey let's not get intimidated, okay? You guys are ready. Remember the FIRST robotics mantra?" Craig told us
"Gracious professionalism and "coopertition"." We all said together
"Yeah, oh great" Craig said as the smile faded from his face
"Who's that?" Mariana asked as a group of grown men walked past us
"Palomar Academy, regional champs the last four years" I explained
"They're all like adults" Jesus pointed out the obvious
"Is that like allowed?" Mariana asked
"It's a little controversial their "coach" is an aerospace engineer, all the other mentors also worked in the field one way or another but technically yeah it's allowed". Craig explained
"What so they need two mentors per kid?" Mariana said jokingly
The "coach" for palomar academy walked over and started talking to Craig and he was noticeably more tensed up, but he seemed to brush it off while giving us a pep talk. We went to measure out robot and wow we are half a pound over the weight limit who could've guessed it ugh, Mariana already threatened to kill someone if we didn't win, I bet Jesus is going to suggest to cheese hole it and say he saved the whole team which I would agree would probably be a good idea but I don't have to guts to say that to Mariana so I'll leave it to him.
"I can't believe I let you put all of these holes in my beautiful robot" Mariana complaining
"Well, it got the weight out, didn't it" Jesus clapped back
The referee went on to explaining the rules and blah blah blah
While the drivers are lining up, who are me Mari and yech Emma obviously, I hear Mama cheering us on, oh boy it's gonna be a long day.
"Go Anchor Beach Anchor Bytes!" Mama cheered
"Oh my god what is she doing here?" Mariana said in shock
The competition had started and we're already off to a terrible start, our robot isn't moving at all, after the autonomous section of the competition ended we tried to get it to move but it wouldn't budge, oh god we're screwed. Worst of all the coach for palomar walks over and starts yelling at us.
"I am not letting you guys drag us down!" He yelled
"Excuse me. Excuse me. This is a student competition so how about we just bring it down a couple notches?" Mama said walking over
"Oh because I'm just doing my job here, and if you don't have a reason to be back here, then you should be in the stands with the normal people. Or better yet how about you pack up your useless team and go home, okay?"  Palomar's coach said clearly frustrated
After the first round is over all I can hear is arguing between Jesus and Mariana, she is driving me mad while all her controlling efforts worked against her.
As soon as the second round began though things started going our way, our robot had finally started moving, after a couple rounds we had moved up our placement hopefully enough to make it in the top six.
It was time to figure out the rankings before the finals sadly we had gotten eighth but I have a feeling that Mariana has something up her sleeve.
"Oh no what is she doing maybe you should--" Emma says while Mariana walks over to the other teams
"Maybe you should" Jesus says back
"I think we all should" I say
It turns out she went to convince Brant Country Day to pick us as their alliance, which was an all girls team, Mariana put up a pretty good argument to since we did have a hanging arm where we could fix to make work that could be the one thing to let us win. In the end they picked us as their alliance and we had a really good chance at winning, we had fixed our hanging arm let's just hope it works.
"Okay group huddle" Mariana said as we gathered around
"What's our motto?" Mariana asked
"Bitches get things done!" We all said
"Go bot bitches woo!" Mama cheered from the stands
"Who's that?" One of the girls asked
"Um that's just our vice principal" Mariana said not admitting it was our mom
The final round had just started and Brant Country Day already scored and we are on a roll, one of the best ideas we had come up with was to tell everyone that we fixed the arm to make them think we were lying which was brilliant on Mariana's part, it's the final seconds of the round and we are nearly going to win if our hanging arm works we win, it's all on the robot now Palomar is freaking out but it's too late our robot hanged itself, it began lifting itself then the buzzer had rang we had won, we won!  It's the first time in fours years and we are the new champions this feeling is unexplainable, but better yet no more complaints from Mariana yes!!
*back at home*
"So, the strategy that we used was to tell everybody that the arm worked" Mariana explained proudly
"Uh, because it did?" Brandon said clearly confused
Oh silly Brandon he doesn't understand how robotics works but it's okay he's got Juilliard to think about anyway.
"Duh! We didn't lie, gracious professionalism you know?" Mariana answers back
"Anyway, we knew that no one would believe us, because girl team, right? And it worked! Well at first it didn't but then it did. Oh my god you should've sent the look on those Palomar engineers' faces when our robot lifted itself" Mariana went on
"Whatever it would've made sense if you'd actually bothered to come" Mariana said contradicting herself
"You told us not to come" Callie retaliated
"Um, you should've known better, anyway you can see us at worlds, that is if we can raise the $5000 entrance fee in less than three weeks" Mariana said
"Sweetheart, maybe you should pass on worlds" Mama suggested
"What? Why would I do that?" Mariana said confused
"Because you've got a lot going on you know and your grades junior year are very key at getting into college." Mama explained
"Worlds would look great at a college application." Mariana replied back
"Honey you haven't even studied for your SATs yet"  Mama went on
"I know. I got this. I can do it all" Mariana stated
"Well, maybe you should let some of us help" Jesus spoke up
"Yea I agree we can make it easier on you" I backed him up
"I mean seems like that's your problem" Jesus says again
"Yea you try to do everything" I say
"That's not true I delegate" Mariana says denying it
Jesus and I give her a look that says "yea right"

A/ N so I apologize for updated so late again I got so caught up with watching the Oscars I kinda forgot to post it but then again I hope you guys like this chapter ❤️