Chapter 258: Freeze! Nobody Move!
"Folks, what a battle we've got out here — a hundred racers all fighting tooth and nail for position! And it looks like second place just changed hands — Dominic had to dodge an incoming missile and dropped back a spot. Who's going to break through the pack?" Xuan Yin's commentary rang out, electric with excitement.
Down on the ground in Hell's Kitchen, not a single soul in the crowd so much as flinched at rocket launchers and missiles flying through the air.
Around here, showing up with nothing but a handgun would get you
laughed out of the neighborhood.
These people had long since gotten used to living somewhere this wild — the danger, the chaos, none of it fazed them anymore.
If you weren't packing at least an Uzi or a submachine gun, you weren't really trying. Residents lined the rooftops of the surrounding buildings, screaming themselves hoarse cheering on the cars below like they were watching an actual war unfold.
Bullets and rocket fire were just seasoning to them — nobody down here spared a second thought for the danger of catching a stray round.
A few of the more enthusiastic locals had even brought out their own personal firearms, firing celebratory shots straight up into the air, half of them practically vibrating with the urge to jump in the race themselves.
For the audience watching at home, though, this was something else entirely — a spectacle unlike anything they'd ever seen. Rocket launchers and gunfire in a street race? Nobody had ever imagined such a thing, and the shock only fed the thrill of it.
"Is this... is this a race, or a murder tournament?" one viewer asked, stunned.
"Oh, I get it now — this isn't about driving skill at all, this is a battle royale on wheels. Survive to the finish and you win," someone else mused.
"You think anyone's actually gonna make it the whole way?" another chimed in.
"THIS is Hell's Kitchen?! This is insane! I love it!" More and more viewers piled on, thoroughly hooked by the sheer wildness of it all.
Right as the crowd was still marveling over the spectacle, Xuan Yin suddenly shouted, "Wait, look! One of the cars is FLYING!"
Sure enough — Happy Hogan's car, with Bruce Banner riding shotgun, had sprouted wing-like extensions on either side, and the entire vehicle lifted clean off the ground!
It shot skyward like a hawk taking flight, soaring straight over the pack ahead of it, climbing higher and higher.
The other racers reacted fast, opening fire on the airborne car — but bullets did nothing against a vehicle that was already well out of range, weaving through the sky.
Happy piloted the flying car with impressive precision, quickly closing the gap into second place, already threatening to catch up with Pietro's lead pack.
Watching the live feed, Tony's eyes gleamed with pride. He turned to Ethan, practically preening. "See that? My tech is unstoppable. You really think bullets are getting through that armor? I specifically reinforced it. Just wait, Ethan — first place is basically mine already."
Ethan gave him a flat, unimpressed look. "Bulletproof, sure. Doesn't look particularly freeze-proof, though."
"...What?" Tony blinked, snapping his head back toward the big screen.
"FREEZE! NOBODY MOVE!"
A wave of frost swept over Happy's car mid-flight — and a heartbeat later, Iceman's ice slammed into it, encasing the whole vehicle solid.
Dead in the air, the car wobbled once, twice, then plummeted straight down onto the street below.
"DAMN IT! That's a straight-up cheat power!" Tony snapped, glaring at the screen. He genuinely had not accounted for one of his cars getting frozen mid-flight by a mutant power.
Watching Tony fume, Ethan explained with more than a little enjoyment: "That's completely within the rules, actually. Iceman only gets to use that power once per race, and it can only hit one car. Otherwise he'd just freeze the whole street and we could call the race off right now. Maybe don't make your car so eye-catching next time."
Tony let out a defeated sigh. Privately, he was kicking himself — should've built in some frost resistance too, in hindsight. Too late now.
The race had crossed the halfway mark, and the tension on the track was only ratcheting up.
What had started as a chaotic pack of a hundred cars had already thinned out to fewer than fifty still fighting it out — the rest either taken out cleverly by rivals or spun out and wrecked by drivers who simply couldn't handle the tight, high-speed turns.
Dominic held his black Mustang steady, the car cutting through the field like a bolt of black lightning.
Right now he was sitting in the gap between the front pack and the second wave — the earlier rocket blast had knocked him off balance and cost him some ground, but he wasn't the type to fold that easily.
His raw skill and ice-cold nerve had him back in rhythm fast, the race's flow settling back under his control.
Around him, the rest of the field kept up the free-for-all — bullets crossing the track in every direction, muzzle flashes lighting up the night.
Luckily, Dominic and Roman's position further back in the pack meant they weren't a priority target yet, giving them a rare second to breathe and reset.
"Dom, your driving is UNREAL, man! We're gonna take this whole thing! These Hell's Kitchen clowns don't stand a chance!" Roman crowed, sticking his arm out the window and flashing a taunting gesture at the cars around them, grinning ear to ear, apparently having completely forgotten they were in the middle of a literal warzone on wheels.
Dominic, fully locked in on the road ahead, didn't notice what Roman was doing.
His full attention was on the track and the cars around him — he'd already clocked a handful of genuinely skilled drivers in this field, and between them and the constant threat of gunfire, the pressure was mounting fast.
Roman's little stunt, unfortunately, did not go unnoticed.
Cars started closing in from behind, accelerating hard, clearly gunning for them now.
Dominic heard the shouting first — furious voices carrying over the engine noise: "The hell does this loudmouth think he's doing, disrespecting us on OUR turf?! Get him, boys! We can lose this race, but that son of a bitch doesn't get to walk away! TAKE HIM OUT!"
The anger in those voices came with weight behind it — Dominic felt the incoming firepower spike immediately.
Bullets rained down on them like hail, hammering the car's body with a deafening, ugly rattle.
Dominic's stomach dropped. This was bad, and he knew it — needed a plan, fast.
He rounded on Roman, furious. "What the hell did you DO?!"
Roman shrank down in his seat, visibly terrified, clearly realizing he'd caused a disaster. "I just — I just did a friendly hand gesture! I didn't think they'd take it that hard! Dom, man, DO something, FLOOR IT—"
A bullet whistled past Roman's head mid-sentence, shattering the side mirror clean off.
Roman went pale as a ghost.
"Dom — WHAT DO WE DO NOW?!"
☆☆☆
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