Yooooo let's just say I'm really proud of this latest project. I'm not exactly sure where I got this idea, but I'm happy I rolled with it. Huge thanks to my good friend Jade for helping come up with the cars. So, with that, I present Ignition, thanks for reading, and stay tuned if you like what you see!
The ocean seemingly blended into the night sky as the full moon cascaded over the 50 mile stretch of twisting road known as the Bronze Coast Highway. Even the waves crashing into the rocks below the side of the distant cliffside freeway were unusually quiet. The stillness of the darkness was outmatched, not to be overcome easily tonight. It seemed like it would take a great force to pierce the silence of the late hour. However, an unstoppable force met the immovable peace and smashed through it with raw power. That force turned out to be a bright yellow Chevrolet Camaro Z28 racing down the skyway, all 455 horsepower packed into its V8 engine in use. The stark contrast in both sight and sound was using the Bronze Coast as its own personal racetrack. Because tonight, it was.
Loud, bright, and powerful. Just the entrance Yang Xiao Long always liked to make.
Yang glanced up toward her rear view mirror to see nothing behind her. "All according to plan," she thought. Then she adjusted it to where she was looking at her reflection. She gave her long golden hair a quick touchup, then flashed a sly smirk at herself, taking pride in her natural looks. She pushed the mirror back into place, causing the air freshener shaped like a bumblebee on it to sway slightly.
"Better not miss much," she muttered to herself while powering her muscle car through a left turn. "I just hope Rubes isn't too mad."
Further up the road, five more mechanical beasts in the shape of highly personalized cars sat in waiting, their drivers passing the time with light and friendly conversation. One car, a pink Mazda Miata RF, rocked the cliff and the few who were on it at the time with a rather impressive sound system. On the other side of the highway sat a dazzling red Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX, its driver door open as it fed the Miata a playlist of songs to blare to anyone nearby. Its driver, RWBY Racing team leader Ruby Rose, relaxed in the driver seat, tampering with the controls on her dashboard, until she was interrupted by her snow-haired teammate, Weiss Schnee.
"You shouldn't be messing with that too much," Weiss sternly warned. "With your luck you'll probably break something and have to get it replaced." Ruby just shrugged off her message and flashed a smile full of childlike innocence.
"Nah, it'll be fine. It's my car so I know how it ticks," she responded. "Besides, it'll be worth it as long as I can hear my tunes," she said while coincidently nudging her headphones off the console into the passenger seat. "Not like it's gonna break my bank like parts on your car would."
"Hey! Nothing goes wrong with the R8! It's reliability is even more astounding than its price," she said, almost as if to flaunt her ability to actually afford the car and its upkeep. When Ruby rolled her eyes in response, Weiss just groaned. "Why were you even made team leader anyways?" she questioned.
"Because I know these roads like the back of my hand. My Uncle Qrow let me drive these streets since before I was even able to drive," Ruby replied, leaving Weiss momentarily confused.
"What? What does that even mean?" she pondered before her eyes went wide upon formulating an answer to her question. "Ruby Rose! Did you drive before you even had a license?!" she exclaimed. Ruby simply nodded and held up her fingers to make 13, signaling that she had been driving since age thirteen. Weiss continued on, "It's bad enough we have these races! The punishment could be huge if we're caught! We don't need any more illegal activities!"
"Oh relax. It's in the past now. Besides, we don't need to be bringing up illegal pasts," she said as her voice lowered to a whisper as she motioned to their other team member. Blake Belladonna, known as "The Deadly Nightshade" to many others on the street, barely moved her amber eyes up from the book she had her focus on, as she leaned on the hood of her heavily modified jet black Mazda RX-7. She simply sighed and spoke, "You know I can hear you guys, right?" Weiss walked over and tried to comfort Blake by placing a soothing hand on her shoulder.
"We know. We're just glad you came to us," Weiss said while adjusting Blake's bow. Blake looked down and back up to reveal shy smile. She nodded and responded, "Thank you." This caused Ruby to smile as well, her's much wider than Blake's. The moment was interrupted, however, by someone crossing the street and coming towards them. Clad in a green leather jacket with a small section on its torso marked by several companies providing parts for his Nissan GT-R, and his long black hair kept back into a ponytail, Lie Ren approached the three girls almost solemnly, hoping not to ruin their time.
"I hope I'm not interrupting," he began. "I just wanted to apologize for the others being a few minutes late." He was quickly joined by an excited redhead who seemed to rush into the discussion faster than her Miata. "Probably Jaune's fault!" the redhead, Nora Valkyrie, blurted out.
"We don't know that, Nora," Ren said, maintaining his calm tone of voice. "Perhaps Pyrrha couldn't decide what to wear." When he presented this counterargument, Nora just looked at him in disbelief, not buying his alternative. Even Ren only sold himself on it halfheartedly, as he knew that wouldn't be the case.
But, no sooner than they mention this do two cars pull up; a bronzen Porsche 911 GT3 with beautiful black and red accents on each side slowed to a complete halt, as did the yellow and blue Honda Civic Type-R following behind it. The Civic pulled off to the side of the road and out of the driver seat steps a blonde wearing a black hoodie with orange drawstrings and a yellow arc symbol on its chest. JNPR Racing's leader Jaune Arc walked toward the center of the road about 30 feet in front of the Porsche with his scroll in one hand and a device in the other. As he took that position, he waved toward his team and Ruby's alike. Ruby met his greeting with an excited wave, while Weiss just kept stone faced. She questioned why he was made the leader of their favorite friendly rival team, and although she never agreed with the answer, the choice was made to put him leader because he had the least experience of the group, and putting him in that position would give him the skills needed to race faster. But tonight, experience was a necessity. So, they brought in an expert.
Weiss turned away and proceeded toward an Audi R8 Spyder, its most noticeable feature being its hood bearing her family insignia: the snowflake of the Schnee Dust Company. She pressed a button on her keys and the supercar started, roaring and igniting to life. The door opened and she took her place behind the wheel of the engineering marvel. The computer screen to her right lit up with the same logo worn on the hood, and she took the opportunity to prep her car by adjusting traction control and the ABS system. Once she went through her prerace routine and felt ready, she slowly pulled off and took her place beside the 911.
As the two pulled up side-by-side, the tinted window of the Porsche rolled down, revealing its driver - a girl with red hair as fiery and beautiful as the accents of her car's vinyl paint scheme ,and with eyes glowing bright green. Her expression showed a friendly yet competitive smile and she sat comfortably in a maroon tank top. JNPR brought in their best driver, Pyrrha Nikos.
"Best of luck, Weiss. You may need it," she taunted, barely able to stifle a giggle in the process. Weiss can't help but lose the icy exterior and crack a small smile back at her good friend attempting to trash talk. "Thank you, Pyrrha. It's about time we settled this one. May the best driver win," she responded. As she went back into a haze of determination, in the back of her mind, she thought, "I plan to." Before more words could be shared, the two were blinded by a pair of oncoming headlights. Jaune steps out the way as in speeds Yang's Camaro from the opposite direction. She screeches to a stop in between Weiss and Pyrrha and calls out toward the R8's down front seat windows.
"You're late," Weiss said.
"Why didn't any of you tell me we were taking on JNPR?!" Yang replied, ignoring Weiss' snide comment, slightly fuming at being left out. "C'mon Weiss, let me take a race. Rubes hasn't let me compete in a while!"
"Just me and Pyrrha," she said coldly while putting her car into first gear. "Finally gonna put this one behind us." She inches her car forward to abruptly end the conversation with the busty blonde, Pyrrha following her lead shortly after to get realigned for the start. Yang groaned loudly and slammed her fist onto the steering wheel.
Meanwhile, Jaune is crouched over the device he walked in with. After some obvious struggle to get it functioning, he kicked it and it radiated a red light for the two drivers to see. He flipped out his scroll and put it to his face, almost screaming into it, "This is Jaune. Is the road clear now?" He could barely hear himself over the revving and roaring engines behind him, and had to plug his ears in hopes that he wouldn't miss the response. But, the other end remained quiet.
"They aren't gonna wait much longer!" he said into the scroll again. The cars were inching ever closer with every rev. Weiss took the moment and glanced again towards the Audi's onboard computer screen. The logo that she wore with pride for fear of others disgracing it, but the same logo that also inescapably tracked her every movement, even when she felt like said disgrace. In the other car, Pyrrha slowly ran her right hand on her shifter and her left on the top of the steering wheel. She was seeking her comfort zone, where potential consequences did not exist, leaving her alone in her element. These thoughts flew through the racers' minds at the speed of sound, yet they sat at their makeshift starting line for what felt like an eternity. Time stood still, and the calm took over. Then, the bang.
With Jaune's scroll sounding off with an "All clear!" from the other side of the call, the light switched to green, and the Audi and the Porsche spun their tires in a struggle for grip on the standing start. Leaving a small cloud of smoke, the two sped off down the track into the first turn, a long sweeping left hander along the cliff.
"Here they come!" Jaune said into the scroll as his excitement took over and a smile came over his face. Nora cheered on her best friend and fellow redhead, while Ruby smiled at seeing one of her best friends do what she does best. However, barely another moment passed before their attention was directed behind them. All of a sudden, the Camaro hit reverse gear and started moving backwards toward the others. With one swift move, Yang spun her car around and put herself facing forward while barely losing any momentum, and began to bolt into the distance behind the race.
"Yang!" Blake exclaimed in a futile attempt to call out after her friend. But, she was left watching a yellow blur drive off, disappearing into the Bronze Coast.
Weiss wished she was still looking at that logo. Because despite all the stress her family pride might bring, the view of Pyrrha's taillights was much more infuriating.
Although she was only a few car lengths behind, the early jump the racing warrior Pyrrha got on left the resident ice queen frustrated. Even as Weiss applied as much technical prowess in the hairpin corners as she could, Pyrrha remained steadfastly quick on the inside line. Her only solace was that they were only in the first couple of miles, and the girls agreed to make this one longer than the average bout. They found more entertainment that way.
Pyrrha smirked as her eyes quickly glanced in her rear view mirror and back to the road again. Weiss' frustration was beginning to build and boil over, which led her to look harder, more desperately, for an opening to take advantage of. Once Pyrrha entered a slow moving, right bend and left a lane open just wide enough to squeeze a car into, Weiss saw the chance and drove hard into the turn, waiting till the last second to brake. The tires squealed and the brake rotors within the wheels glowed red, and her aggressive move put her mere inches from colliding with the 911. As they exited the corner, they drove side by side. Pyrrha looked surprised out her passenger side window then shared an impressed smile.
"Not bad, Weiss," JNPR's gladiator called out of the window, her smile not fading. This was nothing more than a friendly competition to her. She strived to win, just like any other contest she lined up for, but this was against one of her friends, so she felt a security to let her guard down. "But, watch this," she said kindly yet almost teasingly and slid her car into a drift into the next left turn. The maneuver once again gave herself a small gap between her and her opposition.
Weiss groaned softly to herself and tightened her grip on her steering wheel. Nothing could break her determination now as she chased after her companion and rival - nothing except the pair of headlights from behind that shined through her mirrors. Past the blinding beams is the shape of Yang in her Camaro. Weiss' frost blue eyes go wide with dismay, as she angrily goes for the onboard controls to turn on team radio.
"Yang, what are you doing?! This is my race!" Weiss yelled.
"You guys won't give me a race, so I gotta make my own," Yang responded. She kicked her car into another gear and forced her way between Weiss and Pyrrha, putting all three of them in a very uncomfortable and dangerous position. Pyrrha's face twisted from its previous smile to an expression of genuine concern.
"I'm not so sure this is a good idea," she said softly, while slowly and tentatively backing off her accelerator.
"Back off, you blonde brute! I'm winning this one on my own!" Weiss again reprimanded her teammate over radio as the trio entered the next left three wide. Yang smirked and decided to demonstrate some precision and thread the needle between the other two.
"See Weiss? Nothing to get your panties in a twist about," she replied, flashing pride at her technical maneuverability. However, her pride was cut short and she was caught off guard by the broad left sharply changing into a hard right.
"Whoa!" She pulled on the steering wheel hard to the right and veered the car, but fractions of a second too late. Her attempt to correct caused her to tap the right rear quarter panel of Weiss' R8. Yang stomped on the brakes and is forced to watch Weiss get sent into a tailspin. Pyrrha's eyes went wide as she quickly dashed to the inside lane, hugging the railing as closely as she can to get around the spinning Audi. Weiss tried to hit the brake pedal and turn into the spin in order to powerslide her car back into the right direction, and while she did stop the rapid whirling, she still slid and ended up backing her car into the outside railing. Luckily, most of the car's momentum slowed down before she did so, which minimalized damage.
Once Yang got her car slowed to a stop, she could only stare straight ahead at the mistake she just committed. She could barely recall the next few moments, falling into a hazy stupor. What she could remember was an annoyed and pained expression on Weiss' face as she got out of her vehicle to inspect its damage. She remembered the faint sounds of motors echoing in her head as the others arrived minutes later. But, the one memory she kept the most vividly - as if it was a haunting image - was her sister being too angry to speak to her, not even to scold her for her recklessness. The opposite result of what she was trying to create.
"Oh shit…, " Xiao Long thought to herself. "So much for getting trust back. And so much for proving myself." Sinking in her seat, she really wanted to disappear at that moment, to just drive away and not look back, but she knew that would make the consequences much worse. Yang was only allowed to sit there, head hung in silence, as the only noise accompanying her negative thoughts were the subtle waves hitting the Bronze Coast.