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Chapter Text

They’re skirting the edge of the asteroid field… 

Circuit’s become very narrow here, Flynt...

Ramblers coming in at a hundred kliks, and that’s a clean turn from Ember Celica… 

Magnificent!

She’s comin’ in hot, neck and neck with Menagerie champion Belladonna -- 

Yang gripped the wheel. 

White-knuckled and teeth clenched as she steered a hard pass over a meteor without losing stride. 

The belly of her vehicle hit alien terrain with a metallic screech, and sparks flew behind her like a spitting flare. Her transwarp shot off the asteroid rock, and as she turned the steering wheel to maximum she switched to third gear; Ember Celica arched and spun sideways, and pulled ahead of Gambol Shroud at the last minute.

The edge of Yang’s periphery danced, and with a quick look, she caught sight of the driver’s black helmet glinting sharply. It mocked her through the side window.

They were aligned. Perfectly aligned. Their transwarp vehicles shoulder to shoulder like comets trailing through deadly asteroids as they avoided calamity at every hairpin turn. Like a dance between two roaring machines, pushing their transwarp to go faster. Faster. 

The lead racers have reached the end of the asteroid belt, Flynt, which was a close call for Xiao Long… 

Yang growled, turning her head again to glance at Gambol Shroud’s driver, Night Fury, and almost swerved into a rock when she realized she had pulled back her helmet’s face shield and was now watching Yang unguarded. The clear glass of her side windows reflected eyes bright enough to guide her from a storm.

Amber eyes.

Yang shook her head, sweat dripping down her forehead as she focused back on the race. Back to the screaming engines and the shaking pilot’s seat. It felt too hot in the cockpit. It felt like she was on fire. It felt like she was suffocating. It felt too much and too little at the same time. The sweet adrenaline rush not enough to satiate, but the look she shared with her opponent felt like a perfect moment condensed into a second. Less of a greeting and more of a -- 

Challenge.

Yang’s smile grew.

Time to go nitro.

She gripped the head of her gearshift and switched to seven, feeling the glide of her vehicle shudder. She grabbed the nitro capsule from her jacket pocket and, rolling the nitro cap between her fingers, Yang felt the heavy liquid in its glass case turn before slamming it in the engine tank’s nozzle.

Her front engines glowed hot in response, pipes belching a row of gray smoke. The pause of her breath felt like the inhale of a bellows.

She flipped a latch by the steering wheel. Her thumb grazing a red switch.

“Let’s do this shit.”

This is it, Flynt, they’ve reached the hyperdrive mark...

And the crowd’s going wild!

Her transwarp vehicle jerked and distorted as speed took control of the wire, time, and space compressing into a single point. Celica’s warp engines began to roar in her ears.

The dashboard terminal shook, screeching as if it wanted to break apart piece by piece, but the titanium chassis underneath the machinery kept it from the verge of collapsing. 

Yang felt her brain rattle in her skull like a rock in an empty vessel, her face tight from high octane g-force, her sight edging on tunnel vision. She felt the pilot’s seat give against her back, kept her feet on the accelerator pedals, and prayed. Before her, light-speed stars stretched into a motley of colors like ornate stained glass, echoing the name of the infamous final stretch. 

The Rainbow Line. 

Beside her, Gambol Shroud and its black queen stayed her course, easily matching her speed for speed.

Entering hyperdrive warp was like meditation. 

A tunnel of infinite colors in the strange fabric of space, and Yang could feel her eyes water, tasting blood from where she bit the insides of her cheeks too hard, and around her lips where her nose began to bleed. 

Celica… Shroud… Celica! Shroud! Who will reach the finish line first, folks?

Wait a minute -- 

Hold on Flynt, The Executioner finally left the second group and is firmly on third!

Winchester's gaining on em’.

He might pull a miracle maneuver tonight, folks…  

A wave of fire explosives shot off from behind them, whistling before punching through Ember Celica’s rear, the howl turning into a deafening explosion.

Ember Celica jerked. It threw Yang’s forehead against the steering wheel, knocking the very breath from her lungs. The windshield cracked with large hairline fractures glinting against the warp lights. The cockpit folded, and almost crushed Yang, smothering her in plumes of black smoke and fire. It was hot. Too hot. She was a stone in a hurricane. Trapped in the waves of the universe.

Gambol Shroud split from Ember Celica’s side and gained traction. It narrowly avoided being collateral damage as the little yellow transwarp’s tailgate shredded into a mess of metal and wild flame from the explosion.

But Yang kept her foot against the pedal, using propulsion from the blast to fling her transwarp faster. 

Faster. Faster.

She was a beast behind the wheel. Her smile bared like a threat, surrounded by fire. Her face bloodied and bruised.

But she didn’t stop. 

With half of Celica’s body gone, Yang knew she had to eject before the cockpit crushed her. 

Let the rescue ships pluck her from the warp and let Night Fury win this round. 

There were many other races. Many other chances to win. 

She was beginning to blackout. Gambol Shroud's tail lights glowing like eyes in the dark. The lights got closer, larger. The edges of her vision blurring into noise. 

But will there be another chance to race against Blake Belladonna?

Yang bared her teeth. 

No. 

Strobe lights pulsed with the beat of the music on-stage, and Weiss’ suit was stark and flawless beneath the glare. “Even if it almost cost you your own damn life ?”

“Can you please stop hitting me with that thing?”

“Yang Xiao Long, I am absolutely at my limit!" A perfect vision of authority with her starched collar and light-blue cufflinks. Weiss’s icy blue eyes pinned Yang down and hardened, and Yang thought this must be what a butterfly felt like in a kill jar. “If you just listen to what I say --” Weiss threw the rolled-up magazine back on the table, almost tipping Yang’s drink. “I would be less stressed, instead of on the verge of a heart attack every time you get on track.”

Yang quickly caught the falling glass with her uninjured hand and grinned up at the Schnee, her smile visible in the nightclub’s dim ambiance. “You’re beating up an injured person, Weiss. Show some mercy.”

“Maybe if you stopped racing like a lunatic I would.”

“Need I remind you that I am a hyperdrive racer. I don’t do ‘safe’.”

“Aw, give Weiss a break, Yang.” Ruby slid back into her seat, nursing a fresh glass of milk in a pint glass. As always, the younger woman managed to take a level off of Weiss’ tense body language, and Yang watched the Schnee sigh and cross her arms petulantly. “She’s upset because you almost jumped the Rainbow Line, duh. You know how much she worries about us.”

“Yeah, Weiss, you love us.”

“You two are insufferable,” Weiss said, her shoulders drooping despite her hissed statement, calming down. She fixed the knot of her necktie and angrily dragged a chair from under the table, sitting on it with a grace only someone like Weiss Schnee can muster in a second-rate nightclub. “I am not losing my star team before Vytal Nebula callouts, so you better lay off the dumbass stunts next time, Xiao Long.”

“What are you so mad about, anyway? I survived.” Yang asked, picking the cherry from her drink and chewing the fruit off the stem. “This isn’t my first crash.”

“Why do I get the impression that you’re anticipating another crash? Soon?”

“I almost won.”

“Your transwarp exploded.”

“Half of it did!” Ruby quipped, gingerly elbowing Yang’s side. “No transwarp I lay my magic hands on completely explodes. My machines are super safe.”

“Your sister almost got crushed.”

“Almost.” Ruby took a sip of her milk. “ Super safe.”

“And need I remind you buffoons that you still owe me five more wins until you can pay me back in full?” Weiss crossed her legs, hand sweeping over the non-existent creases of her trousers. “How can you pay me back when you’re dead?”

“Okay, I give, we do owe you a lot,” Yang said, slapping Weiss’ back heavily, and almost driving her face-first into the table. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten. If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be racing at all.”

“After I bailed you out of prison.”

Yang winked, before taking a drink. “Yup.”

“And got Ember Celica out of that junkpile.”

“Did we ever thank you?”

“You have,” Weiss sniffed. “You can stand to thank me more often.”

“Well, you deserve our endless appreciation.”

“You’re welcome.”

“But the thing is, behind the wheel, I’m the boss.“ Yang grabbed the toothpick sticking out over her ear, and slid the tip between her teeth. “When my butt’s in that seat, you gotta let me do my job. I’m the best, remember? You gotta trust me.”

“I’d lay off the ego if I were you,” Weiss said. “You lost. Remember?”

“Hey, I kept up my winning streak for two years, until…”

“Until you faced Belladonna.”

Yang leaned back in her chair, the stiff seat killer on her back. She stretched her legs under the table with a groan. 

Despite rowdy tourists dotting its vicinity during racing season, the Feilong nightclub was still the most popular hookup bar on this side of Kuo Kuana. Mixing horny individuals with a lust for danger, and hyperdrive racers who stank of danger was a volatile mix. Considering Yang’s bruised face and ego, and despite being their champion’s popular ‘rival’ of the month, Yang felt surprised some locals took interest in her at all, slipping their number in her pockets, or giving her a straightforward invitation for a night out alone.

As if Yang can partake in strenuous activity with a few broken ribs and a fractured arm.

“I’m ready.” 

“Ready for what?” Ruby asked, finishing her glass of milk.

“For another race with Night Fury.”

Weiss raised an eyebrow. “You’re kidding me.” She said, taking a sip of her Piano Man in its fancy flute glass. “You already won against this woman once, Yang. A two-round tie is enough. You might crash into another dimension before you break it.”

“Yeah, seriously Yang.” Ruby quipped. “Stop flirting with the competition.” 

“Hah. I am not flirting.” Yang said, a little too loudly. “I don’t flirt on the job.”

Weiss ignored their banter. “Why are you so obsessed with her, anyway?” She asked, leaning into her seat. “You know we can’t stay here for another week.”

“I dunno, it’s just…” Trying to be nonchalant, Yang looked around the venue and stifled a sigh when nobody matched up the description in her head. A woman with amber eyes, a body to die for, and the symbol of a nightshade flower stitched on the back of her black riding jacket. “No reason.” Yang said.

“Good. So if you have no reason to stay here, we should move on to another planet,” Weiss said. “We already have The Spark’s eyes on us, and we shouldn’t squander -- ”

She jumped when the scroll in her breast pocket belted out a classical tune, dissonant from the rock guitar playing in the background. Weiss cleared her voice and excused herself, cheeks tinged red, before answering the call.

“Weiss Schnee. Talk.” 

The sisters looked at each other as the conversation became one-sided, Weiss’s strange silence persisting on her end, her face too difficult to read. Business-mode, Ruby liked to call it. The conversation lasted for a full minute or almost two, and Weiss only responded with a nod and a ‘Yes’ shortly afterward, closing the call with a snap of her wrist.

The sisters leaned forward in anticipation. 

“Well, speak of the devil.” Weiss’ lips twitched. “Congratulations, Sweet Dragon, you just qualified for the Intergalactic Vytal Nebula.”

Yang’s eyes widened, while Ruby jumped out of her seat. “Yang!” She screamed, throwing her arms above her head. “We’re going to Vytal Nebula!” 

“That’s -- “

Ruby threw herself across their table in an explosion of laughter, wrapping her arms around Yang’s neck, nearly tilting their table over in her elation. As if expecting Ruby’s reaction, Weiss readily set everything upright before their drinks spilled. “Holy crap, we did it! We did it!” Ruby hooked Weiss in with her other arm and pulled them in an awkward group hug.

“That’s great, Rubes,” Yang said, patting the arm currently choking her. “’s great, seriously, I’m proud of us. I’m proud of you guys.”

“Sec, I’m tellin’ the boys.” Ruby hopped off her table and disappeared into the crowd, shouting Jaune’s name out loud enough to turn a few heads. 

Leaving Yang and Weiss, and the slowly rising tension around them. The excitement seemingly gone, carried away by the youngest member of the team. 

“Whew.” Yang sat straight in her seat. “Vytal Nebula, huh?”

“Yes. Vytal Nebula.” Weiss said dryly. “That place you’ve dreamt about since you guys were toddlers.” Her eyes narrowed, studying Yang and the heavy thoughtfulness on her face. Weiss’s jaw twitched. “So where is it?”

“Where’s what?”

“The cocky pun. The smack talk. I half-expected you to jump onto the table and flex or something.” 

“What’re you talking about? I don’t do that.”

Weiss breathed, managing to calm herself down. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m fine.”

Weiss crossed her arms over her chest, tapping her forearm. “Uh-huh.”

“It’s fine.” Yang stood up and stretched her back, wincing when she felt her backbones crack. She took her glass of liquor and finished it off in one swig. “I’m getting another drink. Want something?” Weiss shook her head, eyes still pinning her suspiciously as she watched Yang grab her jacket from the back of her seat, and drape it over her uninjured shoulder. “Tell Ruby not to wait up for me.”

Blake Belladonna was here tonight. 

Yang knew it in her gut, like the kind of intuition she got while riding her transwarp at 300 kliks per/hour in an asteroid field, except this time she wanted to hit that meteor. She felt gooseflesh all over her skin, her breath quickening, and Yang didn’t know what the hell was going on with her when her mind didn’t fight the fever-like effects of her flush.

Every time she raced the circuit against Belladonna, Yang spent most of the race bracing against the gravitational pull tugging their paths together. It wasn’t as if Yang fought against the pull; she plucked at the nameless emotion like a rubber band out of curiosity, questioning what it was. But she never wanted it gone. It felt like the inevitable calling before going nitro. Something the universe did to keep them on the race track together, but this time Yang didn’t know where the road led to, much less what the finish line looked like.

Yang never met anyone who matched her skill for skill on the Rainbow Line. Someone who complimented her every action, from the widest turns to the smallest inch. Every time they crossed the winning flag, it was always at a hair’s distance of a win between them, and Yang couldn’t help but feel fascinated. In awe. 

As someone who treated racing like a religion, knowing someone on the circuit was close to knowing someone’s soul. 

And the woman was a mystery. Yang would be lying if she said that wasn’t part of Belladonna’s appeal.

She tried to meet Night Fury face to face once or twice, ‘scouting the competition’ if she needed to make an excuse, but it was always touch and go for the two of them. Always present in the same place, at the same time, but never quite making that final meet. They always saw each other across a room. Never shared a single word. But Yang felt like she already knew Blake Belladonna.

She wouldn’t be against knowing more about her though.

“Hey.” The bartender leaned forward, rapping his knuckles on the counter to get her attention. Yang shook her head and blinked, looking at the man as if she was just seeing him for the first time. “Want something, champ?”

“Y’know what, I’m feeling a little spontaneous tonight.” Yang jumped in an empty bar stool. She allowed the momentum to twirl her seat, before catching the stool pedal with her foot, regretting it immediately when her injured arm pulsed. The bartender looked less than amused. “Sunflower pop. Make it a double--”

A new voice piped in from behind her. “And who’d wanna share a drink with a loser?” 

Yang plucked the toothpick between her lips and turned her attention to the interloper. She didn’t give him the pleasure of showing her disdain, but instead, she smiled with so much false sincerity, she almost felt her jaw creak.

“The second drink’s mine, Winchester.”

Cardin whistled, approaching her with a saunter, eyes studying the bandage on her face. He strutted close and ran a hand down his dumb spiked-up riding jacket, chuckling. “Did a number on you, didn’t I?” He said. “That’s for stealing my thunder, Xiao Long.”

“It’s not my fault the Spark likes me better than your ugly mug.” 

Cardin’s grin curled into an ugly snarl. He ignored the warning glare from the bartender and punched the countertop with a heavy fist.

“Why don’t you say that to my face?”

“I just did, genius.”

“It was supposed to be my race with the Shroud,” Cardin said. “I was supposed to cross that finish line with Belladonna eatin’ my dust.”

“Funny,” Yang said. “From what I remember, you didn’t even get past the second group until the final lap.”

“You willing to eat your words, second rate?”

Yang swiftly grabbed a pocketknife from her belt and held it under his nose. She watched with amusement as Cardin pulled away in alarm, releasing an embarrassing squeak at the same time. Everyone around them held their breath, people inching away as they eyed the two with a mixture of intrigue and caution. 

One of the onlookers, a blond man with an open shirt, stepped forward and looked as if he was about to walk into the fight and say something until a woman next to him smacked his gut with the back of her hand.

“If you want a one-on-one race with Sweet Dragon.” Yang opened her pocketknife with a flip, revealing a steel-tipped comb instead of a blade. “You’ll have to talk to my manager.” 

Yang’s shit-eating grin, as she meticulously combed the curls down the back of her head, was enough to flush Cardin’s face into an interesting shade of red.

He grunted, popping up his collar, trying to save whatever dignity he had left. “I’ll see you in the next race, Xiao Long.”

“Looking forward to beating your ass again, Winchester.”

She watched him storm away, summoning his hype men to his side with a wave of an arm.

“What an asshole.” The bartender piped in, startling Yang, who kept her eyes on Cardin as he walked away. Judging by how the bartender glared at the groves Cardin had inflicted on his poor countertop, Yang decided his annoyance was probably not on her behalf. He slid her two bottles of Sunflower Pops and continued to wipe the surface where Cardin’s fist had depressed the wood with the spike patterns of his glove.

Yang grabbed one of the bottles and ran her thumb along its neck, perspiration from the cold building under her fingertips. 

"Ever lost something important, Tukson?"

"I just serve the drinks, ace."

"Figures." She chuckled to herself. “Damn.”

Something was bothering her. Something that’s been chipping away at her front for years now, but she never gave a name to because she was winning.

Something that tilted her off her axis, pushing her into what felt like an isolation chamber with no gravity. Yang groaned, frustrated at the thought of having no place to go with her thoughts. No conclusion to reach. No question to answer. Like an itch she couldn’t scratch.

And she knew it was an aftereffect of Belladonna’s magic. 

Yang cracked the bottle cap open with her knuckle and watched it pop off to the table, twirling in place.

“Bottoms up.”

The silhouette of a graceful shadow fell behind her, merged from the chaos of the crowd, and amber eyes sat on the back of Yang’s head. The shadow drew closer until it took the form of a young woman in dirty coveralls, her black hair tied behind her in a short ponytail. She shook her head when the bartender turned his attention to her, stared at the back of Yang’s head for a while, then after seemingly coming to a decision, sat on the empty barstool next to Yang. 

She was silent for a while as if waiting for Yang to finish her drink.

“Thinking about your loss?” Her voice was teasing, softened by a silky, suave voice which ran a shiver up and down Yang’s back.

Yang was already mid-gulp when she did a double-take at the woman, first looking at her with indifference, then promptly choking on her drink at second glance.

“I never pinned you down as a sore loser.” The woman leaned her elbows against the edge of the countertop but didn’t bother to face Yang, staring down at the whorls and indents on the wood instead. She played with the notches of her leather gloves, waiting for Yang to stop coughing. 

Yang wiped her mouth with the back of her hands, and it took her a second to recover her cool facade. “Me? A sore loser? Psh.” She cleared her throat and cradled the bottle between her hands as she focused on the sunflower picture printed on the bottle. “It might surprise you, but I’m not thinking about the race.”

“Are you telling me that you’re capable of thinking about anything other than winning?”

“I can be deep too, y’know,” Yang said. “Philosophical and shit. Ever heard about Sartre?”

“Didn’t know racers can be philosophical.”

“I’m one of a kind.”

"Then I wonder," The woman’s voice sounded soft under the loud music. "What else can bother the great Yang Xiao Long tonight?" 

Yang paused, the fog in her mind dispersing, allowing her to think more clearly. 

"I dunno, I am pretty great, aren’t I?"

A laugh. "Your ego is astounding."

Yang finally took a chance to look at her new conversation partner properly under the bar lights and found most of her features hidden under the shadows. Despite that, the woman looked gorgeous. Even while wearing her dirty work clothes, sitting at an angle where Yang couldn't see her face too well -- her prominent side features and her silky voice, perfect for musing out loud, made Yang fall speechless.

"You're staring."

Yang turned away, blinking when she realized she had been staring.

"So," The woman stretched, crossing her legs, “What’s on your mind, hot stuff?”

Yang took another sip from her bottle, the chill at this point making her hands feel numb. She wasn’t sure what the woman wanted, but the idea of her wanting something more got a handful of butterflies to explode in her stomach. "Will it be weird if I said I didn’t know?”

“A little.”

“Damn. And here I thought I was making a positive impression.”

The woman chuckled again, the soft rumbling sound causing Yang's chest to tighten peculiarly.

"You know, I could be a journalist scouting out aces." The woman said, biting her bottom lip. "This might be an impromptu interview, and you might be spilling your quarter-life crisis to someone selling gossip to the news."

“Well,” Yang rolled her shoulders and leaned against the barstool with a sigh. “ I am a thirty-year-old divorcee, with tons of illegitimate children across the galaxy.” 

The woman stifled a chuckle. “Uhuh...” 

“I also have several lovers on the side. Coco Adel being one of em’.”

“Hilarious.” She rested her chin on the back of her hand and hummed. “If you wait for the front-page tomorrow, maybe you’ll see your face on it.”

“What can I say? I’m a joker. A smoker. A midnight toker.”

“I can see that.” The woman said dryly.

Yang laughed, her eyes taking in everything she could see from the woman. From the oil on her clothes, her messy shoulder-length black hair, her sharp jawline, and strong fingers hardened after years of fashioning components from metal. The woman still refused to look at her for some reason, still occupied with the threads of her glove. "I'll take my chances," Yang said. "Mechanic?"

"Something like that."

“How come I’ve never seen you around here before?”

The small grin on the woman’s face looked pretty enough that Yang found herself staring again. 

“How come you’re so sure about that?”

“I think I’d remember a beautiful woman when I see one.”

Another laugh, harsh and brief, the sharp edge of it mocking. Yang found herself too dizzy to care, and she wondered if this is what racing without a transwarp felt like. 

“You sure do remember em’, hot stuff .” She said, sliding off her seat. 

“Wait, what’s your -- “

“Name?” The stranger raised a bottle of Sunflower pop in her hand without looking, and it took a second for Yang to realize she was one drink short. 

“You’ll have to find out for yourself.”

“The next Menagerie race is three days away, Sweet Dragon -- “

“Over here, Sweet Dragon -- !”

“Will you say your recent loss is a great upset? Are you and Night Fury rivals -- ?”

“The Spark says you’re headed to Vytal Nebula, can we get a confirmation -- ?”

“Are you planning for a rematch with our local champion Night Fury?”

“It’s fine, it’s fine, Weiss. Listen… gimme the camera…”

“H-hey, wait a minute!”

“Blake Belladonna, I am coming for you.”

Yang ripped her cast off to qualify for the next Menagerie race a week too early before the doctors had to take it off.

The fact that Blake Belladonna had to race in Vacuo, while Sweet Dragon’s team headed off to Mistral after finishing in Menagerie, only pushed Yang to be beyond unreasonable. The next time they meet would be the infamous Vytal Nebula, which was four months away, and Yang couldn’t bear to keep their wins and losses tied until then. Weiss knew the press would fall into a speculation frenzy if she forced Yang to back out from the anticipated rematch, so she had no choice but to allow it.

Weiss hated it.

Her going after Ruby instead didn’t escape Yang’s attention. Their self-proclaimed manager telling the team mechanic to ‘talk’ to her with a barely concealed whisper didn’t count as being subtle, but Yang got the gist. Their team dynamic had weathered the worst of storms, and she doubted this would cause too much of a problem, especially when Ruby was just as enthusiastic to pit Ember Celica against Gambol Shroud again.

It amused Yang whenever she watched Ruby work on their transwarp, too focused on her task to notice she was butt up, half-inside the hood of the ride; her legs wiggling mid-air. Yang was mostly known for her dedication on the circuit, but Ruby beat her by the skin of her teeth with an obsession for anything that had an engine attached.

“We’re lucky Weiss found a junk dealer with a PentaStar D-46 displacer stocked up in his ‘secret storage unit’.” She said, her voice muffled under the transwarp’s parts. From where Yang sat, she could hear her tinkering with the warp displacer, which she jammed into Celica early this morning with the grace of a squirrel jamming a giant acorn through a knothole. “Sometimes I wonder how she does it.”

“I’m not surprised. She can be very convincing.” Yang peeled another pistachio shell with her teeth, snickering. “Remember when she made that Torchwick guy piss his pants when they tried to buy me off?”

“Classic Weiss,” Ruby said fondly, jumping off the transwarp’s lifted platform. “Anyway, once I soup this baby up, it’ll be able to take two nitro charges.”

“No kidding?”

“I figured out a way to deal with the overheat.”

Yang threw a pistachio in her mouth, barely catching it with a swerve of her body. “Think you can set the oven up so it can take three nitro caps for the Vytal race?”

“Heck yeah! We need that edge.”

Listening to the constant clanging of Ruby’s work, Yang fell silent and tilted her head back, her thoughts seizing her spare time as she stared at the ceiling fan, counting the numbers of its wobbly rotations. 

Before mark-up, the driver had nothing to do but wait. Test engines were hard to come by, and after asking Weiss if she could stuff their ArmMaster 299 engine with its 3000 horsepower into a tiny excuse of a hovercar, Weiss told her not to ‘push it’, and left her with a giant bag of pistachio nuts ‘to keep her busy’. 

She blew out a sigh and threw the now half-empty bag of pistachios onto the table next to her. After a moment of thinking, Yang stood up from her seat with a pained grunt and wandered over to the entrance of the garage. She watched the shimmering mirage of the wide horizon, marveling at the view.

The desert regions of Menagerie looked bleached; a blinding white under the hot ancient sun. She spied shifting sands cascading from the rising dunes like an endless current. 

The heat outside felt like the inside of an oven, the wind a fire lung breathing on her skin, and she bet she could bake an egg on a rock if she wanted to. While the small planet had diverse ecosystems, its coastal areas being particularly tropical around this time of year, Calamity Desert was still one of the best places for driving grounded transwarps despite being an endless dustbowl. It didn’t take long for hyperdrive racers and fixers to claim Calamity as their own, and when they did, Menagerie became one of the more popular planets hosting races before the Vytal Nebula. 

She closed her eyes, her hand lifting to protect her face when a gust of wind carried sand through the garage entrance. It coated dust upon dust, and Yang felt amazed Ruby managed to keep her workspace clean despite their currently harsh environment.

“There’s nothing wrong with losing a bit of your tough-guy image, y’know,” Ruby said, approaching Yang as she grabbed a towel and wiped the grease from her hands. “Why don’t you just admit it?”

“Admit what?”

“That you’re smitten,” Ruby said. “I know Weiss loves to go on about our reputation’s importance, but at the end of the day, we’re illegal racers. When did we ever follow the rules?”

“It’s not my rep that’s been bothering me, Rubes,” Yang said, holding the back of her neck as she rolled the muscles of her shoulders. She found herself smiling for once, tolerating Ruby’s curiosity more than Weiss’s laser-focused prying. “Racing with Belladonna’s just been… fun.” 

“What do you mean? Define ‘fun’.”

“She’s fun.” Yang shrugged as if those two words could explain the thrill and ecstasy she felt whenever Night Fury ran the road with her.

“Racing’s fun,” Ruby said. “What’s so different about her?”

“I can’t explain it.” Yang sighed. “She’s just fun , Ruby, what else can I say?”

Ruby rolled her eyes as she turned away and got back to her workspace, jumping back on the transwarp platform. “You’re smitten.”

Yang grinned. “I’m not smitten.”

She was totally smitten.

She watched the sunset from her perch by the garage’s lip for the rest of the day, allowing Ruby to work and mumble to herself until Ember Celica looked close to her old classic self again. Around this time, the cooler temperatures swept away the heat of the day, blowing past her and playing with her long hair. 

The need to fight against the cold wind tempted Yang from where she watched the sunset, and she stood up shakily, stretching her legs.

“Taking the anti-grav chopper?” Ruby asked, sitting on the plastic chair where Yang sat before. She laid back and freed her feet from her dusty boots, grabbing a bottle of pop nearby.

“I’ll grab dinner on the way.”

Ruby nodded and leaned over the work table to fish for the key in her toolbox. “Just a sec.” She pulled out an empty jar full of screws, half-slippery from old oil, and found the key sticking amongst a clump of nails. She threw the key towards her sister, and Yang caught it in one hand without looking. 

Hopping off the tarmac, Yang headed for the bike parked nearby.

She leaned her head back as she rode the wind. 

With her eyes closed, the road beyond Yang was an endless passage with no obstruction.

Faster.

Faster .

Beyond clusters of rock and cliff faces, gorges, and naturally-formed arcs made of sandstone. Her anti-grav bike traced waves of dunes and left clouds of sand in its wake. 

Driving on-world was different as if it connected her to the land, the same way worlds connected to its galaxies. Here it was just her and the wind. Just the sand. Just the texture of rubber as she gripped the bike’s throttle, and the loud rumbling of the engine underneath. 

Yang loved her transwarp, but she wouldn’t mind doing this for the rest of her life, too.

Multiple press interviews kept asking if Sweet Dragon planned to retire from racing. If Yang saw herself winning the Vytal Nebula, and if she did -- what planet will she live on for the rest of her idyllic life? She answered with her trademark wink a few times, saying she’d be a transwarp junk dealer. A race fixer. A coconut farmer. Maybe a juggler. People would laugh. It was the best way to deflect their expectations, because, for the life of her, Yang didn’t know how to answer that question for herself.

After Vytal Nebula, what else was there?

While the idea of retiring at twenty-eight was laughable, Yang never saw herself as anything but a racer. She spent her first childhood sitting on her father’s shoulders, watching races, and hearing names of legends shouted by the crowds. She pretended to ride the stars in Summer Rose’s beached transwarp when she was seven and adored it when her mother pretended along with her. She drove her first car at thirteen without a driver’s license. She had her first car crash at the age of sixteen, racing on abandoned highways. 

Yang was a realist, knowing time was just a bandit, and at the end of the road was a finish line. Beyond that was a simple image of her driving an anti-grav bike in the desert for the rest of her life.

Is this what it feels like to be lost?

Too absorbed in her thoughts, Yang didn’t realize her bike went off track, its grav pads climbing a rocky incline high enough to be a daredevil’s ramp. Her bike veered out of control off the steep end and launched her vehicle high up from the ground. Yang felt her gut flip, and when the bike’s motors died to a pitiful ‘ put-put ’, its windspeed halted for a second. When she opened her eyes, she realized she was facing the night sky instead of the road. Tilted off her axis as she fell weightless from her bike. The bike’s grav pads automatically blinked shut when the ground fell too far from its sensors, and suddenly it was too quiet.

She tried to hang on to one of the handlebars, but her fingers slipped as she flipped and landed on the hard ground instead. A violent crash followed, leaving her anti-grav bike whirring motionless on the ground a few feet away. 

And Yang groaning in pain, resting on her back. 

“God. Dammit.”

Yang allowed herself to rest for a moment, recovering. She moved her toes in her boots until she was sure she didn’t break anything important, and continued to catalog all her hurts, relieved the flesh of her recently uninjured shoulder took the brunt of the fall instead of her head. She sat up, dusting her leather jacket, and jumped onto her feet before anything with too many legs crawled into her shirt. 

Yang exhaled, the majesty and joy in her heart dissipating, and with a realization after looking around -- found she was alone.

Yang chuckled to herself, the humor lost on her as she headed to the pathetic whirring of her bike. She pulled it upright, checking to see if it was still running, and felt relieved to see the ignition shut itself off during the crash. Wincing, Yang checked the bike for any dents or scratches, anything that would upset Ruby thanks to her dumbass penchant for endangering herself. But she found only a few scratches to worry over. 

“Not bad,” Yang mumbled as she sat astride the bike. 

She didn’t turn the ignition on just yet, and laughed, shaking her head. Yang looked around, still noting the empty land shrouded by midnight, pondering to herself. After a moment of thought, she decided to lean back against the leather seat until she reclined upon the bike’s full length, calming down enough to slow the pounding of her heart. Yang crossed her arms under her head and listened to the night’s chirrups and the howling breeze. 

It wasn’t too bad, Yang guessed, stopping sometimes to smell the roses.

Chapter Text

Yang didn’t know if she dozed off, or if her mind plunged her into a meditative tangent for god knows how long. 

If she hadn’t turned her head and saw headlights from afar, she never would have noticed someone was watching her, parked at the edge of a tall cliffside. 

Their sleek anti-grav bike gleamed; a purple streak drawn on the side. It glowed under the moon.

Yang sat up in alarm. 

Weiss warned her about Vytal racers who got involved in ‘convenient’ accidents, and Yang didn’t want to know if she was in someone’s sights or not. The betting ring stank of bookies selling tickets for criminal amounts of money, every single big name better a cannibal going after each other’s throats. More so when a race -- like this -- was fixed. Still. Yang gripped the throttle in case she needed to make a quick escape, but the stranger didn’t move. They sat with their back straight and graceful as if they cast the wind with no machine. 

This one didn’t look hostile.

The stranger revved their bike, its rumble traveled down her spine. Yang’s heart picked up.

“What?” 

Another roar of their bike’s engine, longer this time. 

As if it was calling her name. 

Yang cocked her head sideways. She turned her bike on after a moment as they stared each other down, and lifted her foot on the pedals, revved her bike in response. She saw the stranger’s head bob into a nod, lean forward, and twist their throttle hard enough that Yang could hear the bike’s roar echo through the open gorge. 

The stranger disappeared in a cloud of sand. 

“Hey, wait a minute!”

Yang couldn't resist, and followed her.

They found themselves in perfect sync, their machines flipped stone and spat sand under their roaring speed. After a while, she no longer wondered if the stranger was willingly leading her to a shoot-out, Yang found she couldn’t keep the smile from her face. Her wild laughter bounced along the gorge walls, bright and free as if it was the first time she’d ever raced anyone. 

The stranger’s path soon crossed hers, closer, steered around her. Being this near, Yang almost drove off the red sand cliff path when she saw a familiar black helmet as it glinted under the light. Her black leather jacket with the nightshade flower stitched on her back.

Blake Belladonna.

Yang’s heartbeat picked up in an instant, quickened like mercury on glass. She pushed the bike faster, forced it to its limits until she thought the machine would choke from its smoke, billowing from the exhaust. Yang’s smile grew wide.

She was a beast behind the wheel.

It was just them and the road. The ray of moonshine lighted the path of their lone circuit in this endless dustbowl. 

They always ended up shoulder to shoulder. One overriding the other for a second before they lagged an inch behind again. Predictable but exciting. Infuriating but joyful. They didn’t know where the finish line was, but they didn’t care, and maybe time stretched before them like an endless cycle and Yang didn’t want it to end.

The two of them soon reached the end of the gorge. 

Raced along a small lake that parted the desert like a shimmering black vein reflecting the sky. 

They passed crooked rock spires sectioned in different shades of red and purple.

A junkyard with a brass-covered roof.

And always, beyond them: a view of a great city in the skyline, too far away to ride to for now.

Yang hesitated when they reached a field of strange, glowing flowers in their path, and she relaxed the throttle, screeching to a stop before her bike trampled the field. 

The clear victor of their race continued through her path, stopping only when she looked to her side, and realized Yang was no longer next to her. 

Flower petals danced in the sky like wild glow flies, disturbed by their bellowing anti-grav pads, and the heat steaming from underneath their bikes.

Yang felt breathless looking at the other racer, feeling an immense loss at the thought of leaving Menagerie forever. Of losing this feeling.

What the hell am I on?

“Hey,” Yang called out, leaning her elbows forward against the handlebars and stretching her leg out over the silver pedals, her pose relaxed but tense at the same time. “It’s funny, y’know? I know your name, but I barely know what you look like. I don’t think that’s fair.”

Of course, Night Fury didn’t respond. Not even a laugh. She only stared at her, motionless. 

“Aren’t you gonna take your helmet off?” Yang waited, trying not to seem too desperate. She laughed again at the absurdity of their situation. At the woman who refused to show her face, even if Yang knew her amber eyes were trained on her -- only on her. 

“What the hell are you doing to me?” Her question was a whisper this time. She didn’t know why, but Yang felt a spike of anxiety at the thought of it reaching Belladonna’s ears.

Yang leaned to her side, tilting her bike to a dangerous ninety-degree angle, reaching over and plucking a flower from its bed. She studied the strange alien blossom, shaped like a blooming star with a purple bioluminescent glow. Ordinary in the daylight, Yang heard, but sublime at midnight. Menagerie’s native flower. 

“Your planet’s beautiful,” Yang said. “I’d love to just visit sometime, travel around. Maybe you can show me around. I dunno.” She rubbed the back of her neck, feeling her face flush. “Shit, when did I become bad at this?”

No response. Belladonna cocked her head to the side, a gesture Yang wouldn’t notice if she wasn’t already studying the other woman intensely.

“I won’t gonna give up, y’know?” Yang said. “I’ll keep chasing after you if you let me.”

She twirled the flower between her fingers as she thought about broken promises. The questions from Ruby she’ll have to avoid after arriving with hot take-out, instead of cooking ingredients for dinner. Yang snorted, shaking her head at herself. At the audacity of what she was about to do.

She paused, feeling the wind and its direction; feeling it desperately tangle her long hair and muss her curls until it looked like the sun shone around her head.

The flower slipped between her fingers. She watched it fly. The breeze blew its petals apart, and a flurry of them caressed Belladonna’s black helmet.

“I’ll see you around, Blake Belladonna.” 

Yang rode away before she could see the last remnants of her offering fall on Blake’s outstretched hand.

Chapter Text

They crash.

The gravitational pull of the planet forced them to an uncontrollable descent, leading them to crash in the middle of nowhere. An endless while horizon stretched for miles and miles showing not two but four moons in the distance, and when Blake looked around, she found no evidence of civilization, people, or anything but sand, sand, and more red sand.

It was rare for racers to end up on-planet, and Blake counted her lucky stars that they didn’t land in a populated station.

Blake undid her seatbelt and pushed open what was left of the latched window of her transwarp with a hefty tug. It opened, and Blake jumped off the cockpit, looked around, then stumbled towards the other transwarp, laying in a heap next to hers.

Ember Celica was a mess. Thankfully not as bad compared to the last time, and at least the vehicle wasn’t on fire. Blake switched the transwarp doors to manual, opening it with a clumsy jerk. She grabbed Yang by the collar of her leather jacket and dragged her up and out of the wreck with a grunt. 

The woman wasn’t conscious. Blake laid her prone on the ground, cupping her cheek. 

“Yang?”

She tried to shake her awake and her heart sank when Yang didn’t respond.

“Shit...”

“Aw.” Yang opened one eye, her bloodied lips stretching to a smile. “I knew you cared about me.”

“You -- ” Blake released Yang as if her collar were made of hot coals, a wave of relief flushed by rage at the sight of the woman’s cocky grin. 

She stood up shakily, and walked over to her transwarp, too upset to think about checking the obvious damages immediately. She could see the engines were shot for now, and it wouldn’t be an easy fix. The nitro capsule was cracked, her one-way ticket to winning the race gone along with the capsule’s chooh fluid.

She lifted her helmet, black hair tumbling on her shoulders in a ruffled mess, sending a glare at the back of Yang’s head. She watched the other woman pull herself on her feet. 

Yang looked around as well with a huff, noting their location before her eyes landed on Ember Celica.

“That bastard.” She laid a hand over the steaming hood and jerked away with a growl when the metal burned through her glove. “We gotta realign our warp locations and kick Cardin’s ass.” 

“Gambol Shroud’s gone for now. Nothing I can do for her.”

“I’m sure you can think of something.” Yang’s voice came out muffled, and when Blake turned to look at her companion, she saw half her body inside her cockpit; rummaging around and probably checking her own nitro capsule.

“Can’t win a race without nitro,” Blake said.

Yang pulled herself away from her cockpit and tugged her leather jacket off, the planet’s hot weather getting to her. “Lucky for you, I still have -- “ She turned to look at her companion, and stopped at the sight of Blake Belladonna’s face in full display. Marred, or, perhaps -- highlighted by a furious expression which made her eyes blaze like an inferno. “Nitro…” Yang whispered, her voice carried away by an arid wind. 

There she was. In the flesh. A face that tugged at something in Yang’s heart relentlessly for reasons she couldn’t quite understand yet.

And all it took was a crash in the desert for me to finally see you. 

“Whoah.”

Blake ignored Yang’s awed whisper and continued to haul broken pieces off of Gambol Shroud. “The explosion blew everyone off the Rainbow Line.” She said, aware of Yang’s heated stare. Blake cursed when she realized the pedals were shot; its chassis bent under the intense heat from her landing. The prospect of fixing Gambol Shroud seeming less possible. “It’ll take them a while to regroup and get back to the race.”

Yang finally forced her eyes away from Blake’s face. She reached into her cockpit and switched on the still-working radio with the flip of a switch. A red light turned on, and Yang twisted one of the dingy knobs until the voices of the race’s commentators garbled through:

… unexpected move from... Midnight.

And boy did it backfire!

… Cinder and Winchester… completely off the grid!

“We have time.” Yang sighed, leaning against her shot transwarp. She nodded at Blake, regarding her with an amused grin. “At least you do. I have no idea how to fix mine.”

“Funny,” Blake said, a modicum of bitterness in her tone of voice. “You don’t seem like the type to give up so easily.”

“Is there a reason why you have a sudden distaste for my presence despite our romantic ride the other night?”

Blake turned around and glared at Yang, her eyes demanding something. An explanation. An excuse.

“You don’t remember, do you?”

Yang’s forehead wrinkled in confusion, her confidence wavering at the look of annoyance on Blake’s face. “Uhh, remember what?”

“Figures,” Blake chuckled bitterly, shaking her head. “Whatever, I won’t be able to join the race anyway. My transwarp’s shot to hell, too.”

Yang laughed, perking her head up. “Well, would you look at that?” She smirked. “Me, with a working ride, yet no mechanical skill. And you, with your mechanical skill without a working transwarp. Whatever shall we do?”

Blake narrowed her eyes at Yang. “What are you implying?”

“Nothing.” She shrugged. Yang rubbed the back of her neck with a gloved hand, appearing nervous all of a sudden. “Just that, maybe, if we worked together -- ?”

Blake huffed, almost growling as she said: “You are incredible, you know that.” 

“I know.”

“No! I.” Blake seethed, then took off her jacket, almost tearing it off her skin. “I can’t believe you don’t remember that night.”

“Whoah, wait. Night?” Yang shook her head, blinking.“‘That’ night? What night?”

“Case in point.”

“Wait, there were a lot of nights.” Yang laughed nervously. “You gotta give me a chance to remember.”

Blake’s eyes flashed. “A lot of nights?” She asked, opening her transwarp’s smoking hood. She leaned inside the hood, her black tank top riding up, the heat almost searing the sweat from her skin. “So when you told me I was special, it was just a game to you?” She said, her words making Yang wince. “How many other girls did you play around and lie to?”

“To be fair I used to be drunk most of the time.”

Blake sighed, giving up on the burnt-out engines of her transwarp, and leaned against the side. She crossed her arms, mirroring Yang’s earlier pose. “So you still don’t remember me, Xiao Long?” She asked. “Five years ago? Feilong Nightclub? You raced against…” Blake bit her lips, hesitating to say his name even after all these years. “Against Adam Taurus?

“Wilt and Blush.” Yang’s eyes widened before a small smile crossed her face, way more tender than Blake would have expected given their circumstances. “I remember that race.” She said, “But five years ago? I was just a dumbass kid who lost. I remember I got piss-ass drunk that night.”

“Excuses.”

It could have been minutes. It could have been hours since they crashed. They stood there, barely looking at each other. 

Someone just tried to fly back… the Rainbow Line folks but --

Rainart just didn’t cut it and disappeared off the grid… ladies and...

Yang kicked white dust off her boots, peering over at the horizon. 

“Y’know I had to fix a race after that?” Yang said. “Got in trouble for it, too. Got arrested. Served time for six months for illegal racing on the Capitol Docks in Atlas Planet.”

Blake’s tense shoulders relaxed, her voice soft. “I know. I followed every news piece about you when you left.” She said, “You were the reason why I got into pro racing in the first place, after all.”

“No kidding?”

“You had some game, Sweet Dragon,” Blake said, before dryly adding. “Even if you weren’t entirely being honest about it.”

Blake moved to the back of her transwarp and opened the back latch. She began to dig in for her equipment, intent to do something about the race other than stare at each other uselessly. She heard boots scuffing the dirt, and Yang’s voice approaching as she spoke:

“So, are you considering my idea?”

Blake scoffed. “It’s the only chance we got to beat Winchester and Cinder. That bitch.”

Yang laughed. “I guess we’re doing what I promised.”

“Doing what?”

Blake froze when she felt a warm body press behind her. She turned around, finding herself boxed in between her transwarp’s back latch, Yang’s outstretched arms, and Yang.

“Riding the stars together.”

Five years ago, Feilong Nightclub used to be Adam Taurus’ haunt, along with his dangerous posse of illegal street racers. Nothing like how it was today, with Blake as champion, putting Menagerie on the map for the best riders in the galaxy. Yang wondered, distantly, what happened to Taurus and his gang, but she knew the world was much better when it was centered around her instead.

Let’s ride the stars together, you and me. She had promised. 

“I remember you now. I remember.” Yang said.

“Convenient.” 

“Back then they called you Adam’s girl.” Yang paused, staring at Blake’s face as if she was summoning images to her head from one shaky memory to another. “They beat my ass when I tried looking for Adam’s girl.”

Blake closed her eyes, jaw clenching as the word pushed through gritted teeth: “Adam.” 

“I think a part of me always remembers.”

“Think sweet-talking me would get you out of trouble, Xiao Long?”

“You’ve been in the back of my mind ever since I saw you, y’know.” Yang flicked her busted lip with the tip of her tongue, drawing Blake’s eye as she leaned closer. “Now I know why. You’ve been haunting me, Belladonna. Years later and I still can’t get my mind off you. So much that the sight of a stranger in a black helmet got me twisted up in knots.”

“I know better than to fall for your words again, Sweet Dragon.”

“Yeah? Then why are you leaning closer?”

“Because…”

“Because?”

It was like a reunion. Their kiss. Yang didn’t know if it was from the smell of their ruined vehicles, but Blake tasted like blood, gasoline, and smoke, and when they parted she realized she couldn’t get enough. She chased her lips for a second kiss, but one hand against her chest stopped Yang from leaning in too close. 

She pulled away, just a fraction of space between them, and felt her heart compress at the sight of Blake being so close yet so damn far. 

“You,” Blake exhaled slowly, her eyes fogging up for a second, sharpening at the sight of her would-be paramour’s grin, “You still have a lot to make up for.”

“I won't give up,” Yang said, the words from their last night coming in stronger than the last time she said it. “I’ll keep chasing after you. If you let me.”

Yang smiled at the receiving end of Blake’s simmering ire. She knew she had some work to do. Where she expected frustration, however, the thought of getting back in the woman’s good graces felt more like fire in her belly.

A challenge.

“Do you wanna win the race with me, Belladonna?” Yang asked, not mentioning the fact that she -- perhaps -- already won today, race or no race.

“This means we’ll end up with another tie,” Blake said, shoving the taller woman away. Yang fell away easily, only to watch the subtle sway of Blake’s hips. 

“Then I’ll owe you another race.”

And another race, and another race, and another race.