The night air was thick with anticipation, clinging to the skin like the mist rising from the rain-slick asphalt. Engines throbbed low in the dark, their guttural growls bouncing off the mountain walls in a warlike chorus. Headlights cut through the gloom, casting angular beams across the damp pavement and glinting off scattered droplets. The starting line shimmered in reflections—raw, ghostly streaks painted by exhaust haze and neon gleam.
The passenger-side window of the Blackbird hissed down. The motion was deliberate, mechanical. Yelan leaned toward the open frame, her eyes narrowed with razor precision, her expression loose but laced with menace. The guttural throb of the Porsche's flat-six vibrated through the steel chassis like a heartbeat made of fire and oil.
She turned her head, just slightly, and locked onto the girl in the car beside her.
"Hey, kid. Got a name?" Her voice was casual—too casual. Predatory. "The name's Yelan."
Inside the AE86, Collei's pulse kicked up a notch. The right-hand-drive cockpit still felt unfamiliar, like wearing gloves one size too tight. But the Eight-Six breathed with her. It vibrated in tune with her nerves, the steering wheel humming with a responsiveness that demanded total clarity. She reached for the power window controls with a slight pause—just enough for her hand to tremble once—and brought the glass down.
Her gaze met Yelan's, green eyes hard beneath the visor of tension in her brow. Her grip on the wheel tightened, tendons standing out along the backs of her hands. Her voice, though, came through clean. Steady. Solid.
"Collei," she said. "My name's Collei."
Yelan's lips curled into a smirk. Her thumb shot up—sharp, confident, dismissive—and the window hummed shut again. The Blackbird snarled low like a beast waiting to be let off the chain. Collei followed suit, the window sliding closed with a clean click. Her fingers trembled again, but she forced them into a fist, pressed them against her thigh, and locked in.
"I'll remember that…" Yelan whispered to herself, the grin never leaving her face. Her hand returned to the wheel, long fingers curling around the leather. "Collei."
The revs climbed. The Blackbird's idle transformed into a rolling growl, the turbo spooling in sync with the throttle feathering beneath Yelan's boot. The Eight-Six answered in kind—crisp throttle response, twin carbs singing like sharpened blades. Tension bled into the air, thick and taut. The crowd knew it. Felt it. The silence wasn't from awe—it was reverence.
On the sidelines, Ningguang leaned against the door of her FC, cool as ever, her long legs crossed at the ankles. Her golden eyes gleamed beneath the halo of streetlight glow. "Hey, Keqing! Get in the car! We've got the best seats in the house!"
Keqing didn't waste a heartbeat. She slid into the passenger seat with a fluid grace, hands snapping the harness over her shoulders before the door even clicked shut. Her eyes locked forward—on the Blackbird, on the Eight-Six. On the firestorm about to ignite.
March stepped forward from the center line, arms raised like a conductor ready to launch a symphony of combustion and torque. She flashed a manic grin, her voice cutting through the rumble like a blade.
"Alright! We're doing this!" she called, eyes shining wild in the glow of headlights.
"THREE!"
Engines barked. Clutches tensed. Exhausts snapped and popped like gunfire.
"TWO!"
The entire mountaintop held its breath. Brake lights glowed red in the haze. Turbos hissed like coiled snakes.
"ONE!"
Her arms dropped.
"GO!"
The launch was thunderous.
The Blackbird exploded off the line, its rear tires lighting up the road in a violent scream of smoke and rubber. The turbo lag vanished in a heartbeat, boost slamming into the drivetrain like a hammer to the skull. The rear end twitched violently, but Yelan caught it instantly, modulating the throttle with microsecond precision as the 930 clawed forward with brutal intent.
The Eight-Six fired off the line a beat later, its traction perfect, its movement surgical. Collei's clutch dump was timed to the exact millisecond—rear tires chirping once before biting in. No wheelspin. Just immediate, clean propulsion. The lightweight chassis settled into its suspension as she grabbed second, tach needle screaming past 8,000 RPM before the next shift snapped off like a rifle crack.
"The Blackbird's in the lead!" March screamed over the roar, voice barely audible.
Beidou stood with her arms folded, her gaze sharp. "That won't last," she muttered. "Collei's gonna eat her alive in the hairpins."
The two cars screamed past the rest stop. Ningguang didn't hesitate. Her FC lit up the night as she dropped the clutch and pinned the throttle, the rotary engine howling into high RPMs. The headlights streaked forward as the chase began.
"VIP tickets to this race," Seele muttered from the edge of the lot, her smirk barely contained.
Up ahead, Yelan's eyes flicked to her rearview mirror. She didn't need to see Collei to know the Eight-Six was right behind her. She could feel it—like a shadow too persistent to ignore.
"I could drop you right now," she said under her breath, her voice tight with controlled thrill. "But that's too easy. No… the race really begins after the first corner."
Behind, in the FC, Ningguang leaned into the wheel, watching. Calculating.
"She's holding her up," she said aloud. "That's classic Yelan. She's toying with her."
Keqing's expression didn't change. She just tightened her harness, one click closer to locked. "Let's see if that costs her at the halfway mark."
The first corner slammed into view. Yelan braked late—too late—and threw the Porsche into the turn, the rear stepping out under heavy throttle. The 930 danced between chaos and control, the tail skimming the edge of grip. Her hands moved with unbroken rhythm—small corrections, precise inputs. The car skated through, engine roaring, boost hissing from the blow-off valve as she punched the throttle on corner exit.
But Collei never let go.
The Eight-Six followed like a phantom. Her entry was tighter, earlier. Her heel-toe downshift sent the engine flaring, the shift lever snapping from third to second in a blur. The car pivoted, weight transferring cleanly as her rear tires swung wide. Four-wheel drift. No overcorrection. No wasted movement.
Ningguang's breath caught. Her eyes locked onto the taillights of the Eight-Six.
"She's doing a full-throttle four-wheel drift," she said, almost reverent. "With barely any countersteer. That's not just technique—that's talent."
Keqing's gaze narrowed. There was a flicker in her voice—respect. "You control your FC the same way," she said. "She's just like you."
Ningguang smiled faintly, like she'd just tasted something rare. "We're watching an artist at work, Keqing."
Yelan gritted her teeth as she powered down the straight. Her blood surged. Her hands were slick with sweat, her smile feral.
"Yes…" she hissed. "This is what I live for."
She floored it. The Porsche surged again, boost slamming through the drivetrain. The tires clawed the pavement like wild animals.
"Alright, kid. It's time to cut you loose."
The next hairpin loomed—tighter, meaner, steeper. Yelan set up her line wide.
Collei breathed in. The Eight-Six hummed around her, every bolt and weld in tune with her heartbeat. Her vision narrowed. Her palms went dry. Her foot hovered above the throttle. She could feel it—feel it. The drift, the momentum, the weight balance shifting on instinct.
"When I'm drifting…" she whispered, realization blooming in her mind, "…I'm not losing control when I step on the gas."
It clicked. Everything clicked.
Her eyes lit up.
"This means… I can accelerate way sooner than I normally would!"
The pieces fell into place. She understood now—this was the difference. The reason Arlecchino had adjusted the suspension. The subtle tweaks to rebound and compression damping, the lowered ride height, the stiffer bushings—it had transformed the Eight-Six from a nimble street car into a surgically precise weapon.
Collei grinned, breath hitching as she stayed deep into the throttle, the engine's high-pitched wail rising through the 8,000 rpm range. The tach needle danced near redline. "You changed the suspension settings…" she muttered under her breath, the grin twisting wider as she felt the chassis rotate beneath her like an extension of her own body. "I like this."
She braked late into the next hairpin, the brake pedal firm beneath her foot, the nose dipping sharply as the AE86 rotated in. Her heel blipped the throttle mid-brake, downshifting to second—clack—the gear locked in. The tail swung out under trail braking, but the front end stayed planted, hunting the apex like a predator zeroing in on prey.
The Blackbird was still ahead, chewing through the straights like a rocket sled on rails. Another hairpin approached, and the Porsche powered through it with its signature brutal efficiency—raw grip, raw torque, barely contained violence. The rear tires barked under throttle, struggling to keep the 930 Turbo's heavyweight body in line as it swung around.
Up on the hillside near the ice rink, Ningguang's knuckles whitened on the steering wheel as she tracked the battle unfolding below.
"Damn. The lead's growing. Yelan's pulling away!" Keqing muttered, tension rippling through her tone.
Ningguang chuckled, but her voice held a glint of unease. "Heh. Yelan's got a big mouth, that's for sure… but she's got the skills to back it up. That Porsche is a beast in her hands."
Keqing shot her a sideways look, her brow lifting. "Damn, Ning, whose side are you on?"
Ningguang's smirk thinned, her eyes flicking back to the road. "The battle hasn't even started yet, Keqing." Her voice turned colder. "This first half? It's all straights and gradual sweepers. That's the Eight-Six's weak point."
The words hung in the air like a warning.
Then the road tilted—downward.
The slope steepened, the treeline crowding tighter around the blacktop as the terrain twisted into something far less forgiving. The air seemed to thicken with tension, the engine notes bouncing off the cliff faces with increasing ferocity.
Collei felt it too. The car's center of gravity shifted—lighter, freer. Gravity was now her ally.
"But now..." Ningguang muttered, her grip firm, eyes gleaming, "Now we see what a true downhill specialist can do."
Up ahead, the five consecutive hairpins came into view like a serpent's coils—tight, technical, and lethal. A mistake here meant more than just lost time—it meant hitting trees, rails, ditches. This was where legends were either born... or broken.
Yelan's eyes narrowed as she dove into the first one, her heart rate spiking.
The Porsche roared through the entry—second gear, throttle feathered, rear end stepping wide as she countered the oversteer with minimal input. But something was wrong.
She felt it—just a flicker—a microsecond delay in grip reattachment.
Shit.
The weight distribution had shifted. The tires were heating up, and the rear was starting to float just a little too far.
"Goddamn it," she growled, muscling the wheel to catch the slide. "The rear's starting to lose grip."
The Blackbird slid out of the corner, rear tires screaming, twin turbos snarling as they force-fed torque to the trembling rear axle.
And behind her—Collei was closing.
The Eight-Six dove into the same corner, but where the Porsche had fought itself, the AE86 flowed. The weight transfer was seamless. Entry speed? A touch higher. Countersteer? Minimal. The car's body rolled just enough to load the suspension, then stabilized. Front tires gripped. Rear tires glided. The throttle opened early—earlier than physics should've allowed.
It was like watching a razorblade cut down a river current.
"She's pulling a four-wheel drift," Ningguang murmured in disbelief, "at full throttle… with no visible countersteer. And she's wringing out every drop of power from that little engine."
Keqing's eyes were wide, but her voice stayed flat—tight. "You control your FC the same way."
Ningguang let out a quiet breath, her voice almost reverent. "We're watching an artist at work, Keqing."
Up ahead, Yelan's pupils shrank. She could feel the pressure now, could hear the distant rasp of the AE86's 4A-GE engine like a mosquito right behind her ear—shrill, constant, impossible to ignore.
"Yes… yes," she hissed, the thrill mixing with the panic. "This is what makes my blood boil!"
Her foot mashed the gas, but even as the Porsche surged forward, she knew. The Blackbird was no longer in control of the pace.
Collei was.
Hairpin. Hairpin. Hairpin. Each corner chipped away at Yelan's lead like water carving stone.
Then—
Lyney's voice rang out into the still air from the roadside, phone gripped in his hand. "I hear them coming!"
The two sets of headlights punched through the darkness—Blackbird first, Eight-Six just behind, both cars howling into view like specters of steel and fire.
The next hairpin arrived—tight, sharp, brutal.
Yelan entered hot. Rear tires slid. Sparks flew as her right fender kissed the guardrail.
And the AE86?
Tighter. Smoother. Cleaner. The front left tire brushed the inside edge of the apex with surgical precision.
"You should've come, Arlecchino!" Lyney shouted over the roaring engines. "Collei's on fucking rails! She's eating that Blackbird alive!"
From his phone, Arlecchino's voice was a bored monotone. "I know. Like I said… it's all about endurance." A pause. "Now excuse me. I need to make dinner."
Click.
Collei lined up behind Yelan again, eyes burning holes through the Blackbird's tail lights.
From the cockpit of the FC, Ningguang called out, voice slicing through the air. "They're entering the five consecutive hairpins. This is where she left you in the dust, Keqing."
Keqing didn't answer. Her jaw was clenched, her eyes locked, unblinking.
The brake lights of both cars flared as they slammed on hard—rotors glowing red-hot.
Collei swung to the outside—too wide.
Yelan moved to block.
"Nice try, kid."
Collei dropped low—denied again.
Another line. Another feint. Another door slammed shut.
"Gotcha," Yelan smirked, entering the fifth and final hairpin—
But then—
Collei disappeared.
"What the hell?!" Yelan's heart skipped a beat. Her eyes darted to the left—nothing.
Then—
A flutter of dust. A sharp gust. A gut feeling.
Her gaze dropped.
There.
The Eight-Six's left wheels had dropped into the gutter. Gravel sprayed as the tires hooked the inside edge of the road like rails locking a train. It was a gutter run. A technique so dangerous it bordered on suicidal—if the wheel bit too hard, she'd snap an axle. If it slipped out, she'd spin off the mountain.
But Collei held it.
Perfect line.
Keqing's voice caught in her throat. "Incredible… she faked the outside, baited the block, and used the gutter to dive under… All that in an Eight-Six? Spectacular."
As they exited the hairpin, Collei exploded forward, the AE86 snapping back to centerline with perfect balance, the powerband peaking in second gear.
For the first time all night, Yelan panicked.
"No—!"
She mashed the throttle. The boost kicked.
But the grip—was gone.
The Blackbird's rear end snapped.
"SHIT!"
Yelan countersteered, foot dancing on the throttle, but the rear had already gone past the point of no return. The car spun violently, rear fender clipping the rail—metal-on-metal, a burst of sparks.
The Porsche twisted, skidded sideways—
Spun out.
Ningguang's FC ducked to the inside, expertly missing the carnage. For a split second, her headlights illuminated the full extent of Yelan's disaster—the once-flawless Blackbird now sitting sideways, dented, smoking, gutted.
And the Eight-Six?
Already gone.
Vanished into the dark.
The silence that followed was thick with tension. The only sound was the faint ticking of cooling metal and the ghost of a 4A-GE screaming somewhere down the mountain.
Yelan gripped the wheel, breathing ragged.
She'd been passed.
No—
She'd been outclassed.
Yelan didn't move at first.
She sat in the mangled cockpit of the Blackbird, her gloved fingers still wrapped tight around the steering wheel. The Porsche was dark now—no more headlight beams, no more engine noise. Just the quiet tick of cooling metal and the faint whisper of burnt rubber rising in the air like the ghost of the race she'd just lost.
A slow, shaky breath pushed past her lips.
"…I fucking lost."
The words hit her like a punch. Raw. Bitter. Real.
Her fingers twitched before they finally released the wheel. She unlatched the harness with a stiff motion, the belts snapping free across her shoulders. Then she opened the driver's side door and stepped out onto the cold asphalt, boots crunching over scattered gravel.
The night air bit into her sweat-damp skin, crisp and clear, but it wasn't enough to douse the heat still burning in her chest. Not anger. Not quite. More like a volatile cocktail of disbelief, adrenaline withdrawal, and a gnawing, reluctant respect.
She crouched beside the Blackbird, her hand brushing the crumpled edge of the rear fender. Cracks webbed through the paint like fractured glass. Deep gashes in the bodywork bared metal beneath. She dragged her fingers along one of the grooves slowly, thoughtfully—like tracing the scar of a wound that hadn't finished bleeding.
"Goddamn," she whispered. Her voice cracked on the edge of a laugh that never came.
She fished a cigarette out of her jacket pocket, lit it with a flick of her thumb, and drew a long, slow inhale. The ember flared orange in the dark, illuminating the sharp cut of her jaw, the blood still pumping in her veins.
"I can't blame the car," she muttered, smoke curling from her lips in a ghostly plume. "I made the mistake. Not the Blackbird."
Her eyes narrowed.
"Yeah, I'm shocked. I thought I had her. But…"
Another pull. She let the smoke fill her lungs, held it, then exhaled through her nose.
"…I gave it everything I had. No bullshit. No half-assed excuses. That was all me."
The cigarette dangled between her fingers, burning down with a lazy confidence she no longer felt. She glanced back at the Blackbird—her Blackbird—and her mouth twitched into a dry, bitter smile.
"Well," she muttered, flicking the cigarette away. "That's a cool hundred-thousand mora in body damage."
The embers scattered like dying stars across the pavement.
But even as she stood, brushing the dirt off her racing suit, her head came up. Her spine straightened. Her chin lifted.
Because a single loss didn't mean defeat. Not for her.
It just meant she had something new to chase.
At the summit, word spread like wildfire.
The Blackbird—the goddamn Blackbird—had spun out. The Eight-Six had taken the lead. Collei had won.
The crowd was a chaos engine of disbelief and adrenaline. People shouted over one another, phones out, voices rising in half-coherent exclamations.
March 7th couldn't stop vibrating. She practically tackled Seele, grabbing both her shoulders and shaking her like a maraca.
"Did you SEE that?! She actually fucking DID IT! COLLEI beat the BLACKBIRD!"
Seele blinked, stunned. Her hands were still trembling, half-raised, like her brain hadn't caught up to what her eyes had just seen.
"An Eight-Six… beat the Blackbird…" she murmured, tasting the words like they might dissolve before she could swallow them.
She saw it in her head on a loop—the feint, the inside line, the hook into the gutter, the raw, defiant beauty of that moment. It wasn't just a pass. It was a statement.
Beidou stood nearby, mouth ajar, still processing.
"I…" She rubbed the back of her neck. "I don't even have words. I thought Yelan had it in the bag."
"I've got chills, guys…" Pela whispered, hugging herself. "I don't even like racing that much and I can't stop shaking."
Then came the laughter. First March. Then Beidou. Then Seele and Pela. Not mocking. Just pure disbelief. That kind of delirious, awe-struck laughter that bubbles up when the impossible punches you in the teeth and dares you to smile.
Collei hadn't just won.
She'd rewritten the damn playbook.
A little ways down the mountain, away from the frenzy, Ningguang and Keqing leaned against their parked FC in the lot of a quiet convenience store, just close enough to hear the echoes of celebration from the summit.
Neither spoke at first.
The distant hum of engines came and went like a fading tide, the last remnants of a night that felt like a turning point in their world.
Ningguang broke the silence first. Her voice was soft. Respectful. A little in awe.
"That was… spectacular." She folded her arms under her chest, her golden eyes fixed on the night sky. "Collei is something else. That level of precision... I've never seen anyone control an Eight-Six like that."
Keqing's gaze didn't shift from the horizon. She held a steaming can of coffee between her hands, the metal warm against her gloves.
"You're telling me," she muttered. "No ABS, no traction control. And she still brake-managed like a fucking surgeon. Threshold braking without even locking the wheels."
She took a sip, then exhaled sharply through her nose.
"She wasn't just driving. She was dancing with that car."
Ningguang tilted her head, her smile faint but unmistakable. "I've never been more excited for our race together," she murmured.
Keqing quirked a brow, the corner of her mouth lifting.
"That sounds dangerously close to an admission of defeat, Ningguang."
A soft chuckle. "Not defeat. Just… preparation. Because the real battles?" She nodded toward the distant mountains. "They're only just beginning."
Back at Arlecchino's house, the world had gone quiet.
The stars overhead flickered in the black sky like spectators still buzzing from the race they'd just witnessed. Crickets chirped in the background, a natural metronome to the stillness.
Collei stood in front of the Eight-Six. The same Eight-Six that had just clawed its way through one of the fiercest battles of her life.
She reached out, brushing her fingertips along the car's hood—gentle, reverent, like she was touching a living thing.
The screen door creaked open behind her.
Arlecchino stepped out, barefoot, hands buried in the pockets of her hoodie. She didn't say anything at first, just stood there on the porch, the warm glow from inside the house casting her in silhouette.
Then: "Everything alright, kiddo?"
Collei turned. There was no nervousness in her face now. No second-guessing. Just quiet understanding—and something stronger beneath the surface.
"Did you…" She hesitated, then pushed through. "Did you change the suspension before tonight?"
Arlecchino's mouth curled into the faintest smirk. She nodded once.
"Yeah. Swapped the damper compression, softened the rebound. Tightened the anti-roll bar a notch. Didn't want you going in blind."
Collei's eyes softened. Her lips curved into something just shy of a smile. She looked back at the car and nodded to herself, the puzzle pieces finally falling into place.
"Now I get it," she murmured. "Now I understand why you took the Eight-Six that night."
She stretched, her shoulders aching, her muscles finally starting to scream now that the adrenaline had burned off. A yawn escaped her lips, involuntary.
"I'm heading to bed."
She made it to the doorway before glancing back. Arlecchino was still there, still watching the Eight-Six with the kind of look only a few people on Earth knew how to wear—part mechanic, part driver, part parent.
That moment stretched.
"…Goodnight, Dad," Collei said softly.
Arlecchino looked up. Their eyes met in the dark. No more words were needed.
"And thank you."
Collei disappeared inside.
Arlecchino stayed out a moment longer. She approached the car, her palm trailing along the fender Collei had just touched. The metal was still warm.
She looked up at the stars, exhaled through her nose, and smiled.
The mountain had a new queen.
And the next challenger?
They'd better be ready.