Chapter 260: What?! A Drainage-Ditch Corner?!
Ethan stood off to the side, eyes fixed on the distance, where Dom and a man who was practically a dead ringer for Deckard Statham were locked in a furious car-on-car brawl. Watching it unfold, he genuinely felt like he'd wandered straight into the middle of an action movie.
He shook his head, unable to hold back a laugh. Man, this is basically Fast & Furious, live and in person. The thought sparked something bigger before he could even fully process it.
What if he made his own version? An entire Fast & Furious-style franchise, built from scratch, right here?
Put Dom's actual story up on the big screen. Let the whole world see him in action.
And once the idea took root, it spread fast — wildfire-fast.
Ethan's imagination ran further. If that worked, why stop there? Why not build out an entire Marvel cinematic universe too?
Get Tony to literally play Iron Man, playing himself. That alone would be worth the price of admission.
Living in a reality this far removed from the actual movie industry, Ethan had zero doubt he could pull off building his own cinematic universe from the ground up if he really wanted to.
The thought sent a genuine thrill through him.
If it actually worked — Iron Man, Spider-Man, Thor, the whole roster, tearing up the big screen, delivering spectacle after spectacle for audiences. What a sight that would be.
The idea had real legs, Ethan decided — but first things first. Get this race finished properly.
This tournament was, after all, Hell's Kitchen's very first shot at making a real name for itself.
Watching Dom and the Deckard look-alike go at it, though, Ethan felt like something was missing. Two bald men, locked in a death match — good, but not quite complete.
Right on cue, a Hummer launched itself into the air from somewhere behind them, landing perfectly, wedged directly between the two brawling cars.
Behind the wheel: FBI Agent Luke Hobbs.
Ethan's face lit up. There it is. Dwayne Johnson himself. All three bald men, somehow, all crammed into his one tiny slice of Hell's Kitchen at the exact same time.
Neither Dominic nor Deckard had seen this coming — an uninvited third party crashing straight into the middle of their fight. By the time they yanked their wheels to compensate, it was already too late — a deafening crash, and both their cars slammed hard into the Hummer.
The impact was brutal enough to leave both of them half-conscious, their car frames crumpling on impact.
Both men reeled, heads spinning, the whole world tilting sideways around them.
Inside the Hummer, Hobbs stared back at the two cars that had just plowed into him, momentarily stunned himself.
Then he got a good look at the drivers' faces, and his expression shifted to surprise.
One of them was Dominic — a man he'd been trying to arrest for years. The other was Deckard Shaw — a man he'd once been forced to work alongside, against every instinct he had.
Something in Hobbs snapped, hot and immediate.
Neither of these two ranked anywhere near his favorite people on earth, and running into both of them at once did nothing for his mood.
His eyes went wide, a savage grin spreading across his face.
"Well, isn't this convenient. Both of you, right here." Hobbs's voice was ice-cold. He wrenched his wheel hard and drove the Hummer straight into both their cars, full force.
The two vehicles took another brutal hit, nearly slammed sideways into a nearby building.
Both men broke out in a cold sweat, fury and disbelief warring in their chests.
This lunatic's out of his mind! Dominic and Deckard thought, almost in perfect unison.
"Come on, then! Bring it, you clowns!" Hobbs roared, ramming into both cars again and again, indiscriminate, venting every ounce of frustration he'd been carrying.
His Hummer tore through the track like a beast off its leash, smashing through everything in its path, rules and consequences be damned.
And honestly — that tracked. Unlike Dominic and Deckard, Hobbs hadn't signed up for this race voluntarily.
Ethan's grand prize meant nothing to him. He didn't want the money. Didn't want superpowers. He trusted his own two fists, full stop — that's what all that muscle was for.
On top of that, Hobbs had a genuine sense of justice, and Hell's Kitchen turned his stomach on principle. He'd worked cases involving Hell's Kitchen people before, and as far as he was concerned, the whole place was a nest of lowlifes.
The only reason he was even here was because his superiors had ordered him into it — comply, or get suspended. So here he was, grudgingly participating.
Except now, apparently, he'd found something a lot more fun to do.
Roman, still sitting in Dominic's car, watched the chaos unfold with a face gone bone-white. He clutched the door handle for dear life, terrified of getting thrown clean out of the vehicle.
"STOP RAMMING US, THIS THING'S GONNA BLOW!" Roman screamed, voice cracking with pure panic.
Hobbs, if he even heard him, gave no indication of it — just kept smashing into them, again and again. Every impact sent Roman's heart into his throat, felt like his life was draining out of him one collision at a time.
"Dom, you're supposed to be saving your WIFE, remember?! Don't be stupid about this!" Roman tried invoking Dom's family to snap him out of it.
"WE'RE FAMILY, MAN! MY LIFE MEANS SOMETHING TOO! Just — just WIN THIS, forget the rest!"
But Dominic was already too far gone, drowning in his own rage, deaf to anything Roman had to say.
His eyes blazed, hands white-knuckled on the wheel, bracing for whatever Hobbs threw at him next.
"Scared? Please. Even if I go down, I've still got my sister and Paul backing me up," Dominic said with a cold laugh. "Let's find out which one of us three drops out first."
His voice was pure grim resolve, sounding every bit like a man who'd already made peace with going all the way to the end against Hobbs.
Meanwhile, up on the platform, Xuan Yin kept the commentary rolling: "We are deep into the back half of this race, folks, and I genuinely did not expect the field to be down to just twenty cars at this point. Looks like we're about to lose another one any second now."
"You can really feel just how intense the Hell's Kitchen Grand Prix has been tonight."
"Still holding onto first place — Hell's Kitchen's own Pietro and his team! Second place goes to our mutant representatives, Iceman and Pyro — a burst of speed from Pyro just rocketed them up into that slot.
Third place is a genuine nail-biter right now — both drivers are completely ordinary humans: Takumi, out of the Fujiwara Tofu Shop, and Paul Walker, neck and neck fighting it out for that spot.
And in a real surprise, fourth place belongs to another Hell's Kitchen team — the Parker brothers! Nobody expected two eighteen-year-olds to have driving chops this sharp."
"Paul Walker's driving a heavily modded Porsche — outclasses Takumi's AE86 on raw performance specs, no question. But that AE86's clearly been modded too, and it is NOT falling behind despite the gap!"
"WAIT — Takumi just took the pass!"
"NO WAY — was that a DRAINAGE-DITCH CORNER?!"
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