Chapter 261: The Race's Final Stretch — and Something Monstrous Is Let Loose!
"Takumi's pulled off that drainage-ditch corner and taken third place — and behind him, looks like there's movement in fourth! The Spider-Man team is closing in — they might just be lining up to pass Paul!" Xuan Yin called out, voice charged with energy.
Viewers watching the livestream were fully swept up in the intensity, comment sections scrolling nonstop, everyone falling over themselves to gush about the race.
"This is incredible! Best race I've ever watched, hands down," one viewer typed, practically vibrating with excitement. "Insane driving skill AND heavy weapons — this thing's got everything!"
"Right?! And the craziest part is with all these collisions, nobody's actually died. Puts every international racing circuit to shame," another chimed in.
"Hell's Kitchen's really turned my opinion around tonight. They need to run stuff like this way more often — this is UNREAL," someone else cheered.
"Honestly, I kind of want to sign up myself. Get to race AND unload a weapon at people with zero consequences? Two experiences in one event, that's basically a steal," another added, clearly tempted.
Some viewers voiced concerns, though: "Come on, look at these cars — every single one's clearly had a small fortune dumped into modding it, on top of all that heavy weaponry. You need serious money just to enter."
"Even Peter Parker's out there racing — why can't the rest of us? Though I don't recognize his car at all. Anyone know what model that is? I'd genuinely buy one if I could," one viewer asked, curious.
"No idea either, honestly," someone replied. "Maybe it's some custom build made specifically for Hell's Kitchen?"
"Wait — is this whole race secretly a marketing stunt for Hell's Kitchen's own car line?" someone else speculated.
Neither Peter had any idea they were the subject of such lively online debate. Having just clawed their way out of a hundred-car free-for-all, both of them were riding a wave of pure relief and lingering nerves.
"That was way too terrifying," Tobey-Peter said, letting out a long breath. "Even a small local race like this in Hell's Kitchen nearly killed us. No wonder so few people ever qualify for the international circuit."
Tobey-Peter realized, somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, that he'd genuinely started to enjoy the feeling of racing — even though he hadn't actually driven a single second of it, with Peter Carker handling everything the whole way through.
Hands resting on the wheel he technically hadn't been steering, a wave of memory washed over him.
He thought back to how it had all started — a car had brought him and Ethan together in the first place, and everything about his life had changed because of it.
All the friends he'd made since, all of it, traced back to Master Ethan.
The original reason he'd wanted a car at all, though, had been his childhood friend MJ. These days, though, they weren't in touch anymore.
He wondered, quietly, how she was doing these days.
A faint ache of longing settled in his chest.
Watching all three Spider-Men race from a distance, Ethan felt a flicker of something close to guilt.
Does this count as cheating?
Ethan knew perfectly well neither Peter could actually drive to save their lives — probably couldn't even pass a basic driving test, honestly.
The whole thing was riding entirely on Peter Carker. Though, credit where due — actually managing to recruit a living, sentient car was its own kind of skill. Nobody else had thought to look for a car that was secretly a person.
Either way, it was looking more and more like a Hell's Kitchen local was going to take this whole thing.
Genuinely nobody out there could actually put up a fight.
But while Ethan watched the race unfold with total, unbothered composure, someone else was significantly less pleased with how things were going.
. . .
"THIS is the best driver our federal government has to offer? Some glorified bumper-car enthusiast?" Pierce stood before the monitor bank, eyes locked on the screen showing Hobbs's Hummer smashing wildly around the track, fury building in his chest like dry kindling catching flame.
Pierce had been dissatisfied with Hobbs's performance from the very start. In Pierce's world, anything short of first place was failure — no excuses. And what he was watching now was a man who'd clearly given up on winning entirely, just cheerfully ramming other cars for the fun of it, treating the whole thing like a demolition derby.
"And another thing — didn't I give explicit orders to eliminate every serious contender in this race? Why are there still this many cars still out there? What exactly have all of you been DOING?!" Pierce's temper finally snapped, and he rounded on the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents behind him, voice thunderous.
The room went dead silent, tension thick enough to choke on. Every agent kept their eyes down, none of them daring to meet Pierce's gaze. They all knew — the Director was standing right on the edge, and one wrong word could get someone killed.
The agent who'd originally recommended Hobbs was practically frozen in place, head bowed as low as it could go, silently praying Pierce's attention wouldn't land on him. He wanted nothing more than to sink through the floor and disappear entirely.
"Useless. All of you. Absolutely USELESS." Pierce slammed a fist onto the table, the sound cracking through the room like a gunshot.
He'd poured serious money and effort into publicizing this race on Ethan's behalf, fully expecting an easy win. Instead, reality had slapped him across the face.
Every so-called top-tier racer he'd fielded had turned out to be worthless — not one of them anywhere close to first place.
If he couldn't have the win he wanted, then Ethan wasn't getting off easy either. Something dark and vindictive settled into Pierce's chest. He gave a cold smile and turned to his men.
"Deploy our latest experimental asset into Hell's Kitchen."
The moment the words left his mouth, the whole room froze over again. Every agent's face went pale with dread. They all knew exactly what "experimental asset" meant. That thing had taken enormous effort just to contain in the first place. Releasing it now — the consequences didn't bear thinking about.
One of the more senior agents worked up the nerve to speak, careful and quiet. "Director, are you sure about deploying that asset? We barely managed to suppress it in the first place. I'm worried that—"
He never finished the sentence.
Pierce cut him off with a look — cold, flat, murder plain in his eyes. He said nothing. Just reached down and drew his sidearm.
BANG.
The gunshot cracked through the room. The agent who'd questioned him froze wide-eyed for a split second, then crumpled slowly to the floor, blood spreading dark across his chest, pooling on the tile.
Every other agent in the room dropped their gaze instantly, not daring to make a sound.
They all understood, now, with absolute clarity — Pierce was standing right at the edge of losing control completely, and anyone stupid enough to push back against him had exactly one outcome waiting for them. Death.
Nobody hesitated after that. They moved fast, cutting through the corridors, down to the deepest levels of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s holding cells.
There, they found a thin, frail old man.
Chained down, weak-looking as he was, his eyes carried something that made every one of them shudder — a raw, unrestrained madness, sharp and vicious.
None of the agents present could even recall the old man's actual name anymore. All they knew him by was his designation.
"Revenant."
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