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It was bound to the Last Ride (and why shouldn't it be? It had tended it so carefully, so lovingly for almost a year, and even Winter could not dampen the sheer enthusiasm the Speed Demon had for the race), and the finish line was visible, and it urged the wheels faster still. The bursts of the spark plugs were its heartbeat, the hum of acceleration suffusing its essence as they pushed forth, just gaining the edge on the Aether Rangers—
It saw what would happen mere moments before it did.
And it couldn't do anything.
And it hated that.
Winter braked hard, arms up to protect his face as the Ride slammed against the gilt wall, the impact breaking several crucial components of the admirable machine it once was. The world blurred and cracked, both of them pitching forward, their trajectories only halted by differing manners of vehicular restraints.
When everything finally stood still and clear once more, it caught movement behind them—guards, nearing the Aether Rangers’ lead vehicle with a brisk sort of certainty. Approaching the Speed Demon and Winter was a blue-clad man and his companion, trailed by two additional enforcers.
Where had they come from? Why were they coming?
Ruminating aside, the Speed Demon was summarily trapped, a stuck clutch as the four came within range of sight. The vehicle once its carriage was now its prison, and task of escape would require time and patience.
Spectral cracks riddled its form—presently out of mortal sight and nearly completely invisible to other senses—as it contorted itself like a glitch ghost in an attempt to wrench its essence from the once-glorious slag. The glitch engine affixed and adjusted before the race began by its own careful claws had become a crumpled, smoking heap. Iron, steel, and lead bound it tight, though shattered glass let it slip through, bit by bit. Wisps of itself passed among the clear, molten sand, rejoining others on the outside as it slowly, torturously oozed itself through the shards of mirrors and windowshield embedded in the wreck. Once enough of it had crept through the winding tunnels and cracked glass, it could consolidate itself.
Herein lay the sole issue with attaching your essence to a vehicle: it becomes difficult to prise oneself from it if the vessel is damaged—though it hadn't thought this would happen.
This shouldn't have happened.
It was not a patient observer, not unless the House willed it—and the House had no will save their victory.
A victory draining away no slower than razorkin victims bleeding out as the group of four arrived at what was the Last Ride.
The woman opened the driver’s side door—nearly ripping it off the hinges as she did, it noted sourly—and hauled Winter out onto the ground.
He was awake, if nothing else. Dazed, but awake enough to fight, to twist and kick, to try and yank himself from her grasp.
Until he… wasn’t.
The Speed Demon knew something was very wrong as the man's hand shimmered blue and Winter went still; watching, bemused, more of its essence slowly coalescing outside of the Ride, it noticed Winter's eyes turn the same shade as the other man's, whose hand twitched briefly and was surrounded by that same cyan glow.
It knew better than to make any hint to its presence, too, but part of it still wanted to snarl, low and sharp with the gutter of a barely-functioning engine, quiet enough that only he will hear:
Duskmourn is waiting for us, Winter. Get up. Rise. Move.
To shake him until he woke up from whatever trance this was, because he wasn't—this wasn't—staying still and unaware was how survivors died. Even the Speed Demon understood that, and never, not once had it seen Winter so dead to the world. Even resting, there had been some deep-set awareness in the way he slept feather-light, how he could be on his feet in an instant if some danger was perceived. It was this other man's fault, the one wielding magic.
It wanted to shred this man and his companion, and the guards alongside them. They were usurping their victory. Usurping them. This was an outrage, and it wished them nothing less than the Balemurk for such a transgression. The Below. It would tear them to pieces—all four and the man’s pompous cloak—if it could tear itself free from the messy, cracked maze of the Last Ride in an instant.
An Omenpath cuts through the sky, a thin shimmer like oil dancing across the surface. From it comes the red-haired Cloudspire woman from the first day of the race, clinging to a ramshackle vehicle which has no business being so swift and still in one piece. Accompanying her are two other racers, as well as—
the map.
Duskmourn will not be pleased if they return without the map.
…But it can’t reach the creature right now. Not quite enough of it has slipped from the Ride yet to stretch its reach that far and retrieve it, and Winter is… out of commission. The Speed Demon is working as quickly as it can and that is still not enough.
It’s infuriating.
As if to compound the worsening situation, a vicious tempest cuts through the clear day, and it realizes that a hole has been torn in the sky, electricity humming sharply in the air as a dragon—it had been young in the days of dragons, but establishing itself well enough—dives in, calling forth a whirl of screams and panic as people run, guiding each other somewhere perhaps safer, perhaps not as flame bathes the ground. Echoes of the heat reach it even from here, though not strong enough to alter anything.
After a moment, though, it decides that the dragon’s appearance wasn’t completely ruinous, because the sky-hued light which first overtook Winter’s eyes flickers, then fades, the pale blue mist clearing from his eyes. The man shrouded in blue wants the map, too, to its eternal frustration, but this has given him a more pressing task, and he can’t be everywhere at once, nor focus on every moving part of the engine he hopes to maintain in the chaos. It would have more sympathy for one of the souls caught in the Ride’s harvester.
Winter is no longer so placid—he’s been losing precious, crucial time in his fugue—and drives his elbow into one guard’s side, who yelps as their partner’s fist connects with his cheek. He opts to kick them, which has the added benefit of pushing them back as the first guard rushes him from behind, snaring his arms and very nearly dislocating one of his shoulders. Hidden, the Speed Demon keeps a portion of its attention on the three as best it can whilst extricating itself, its satisfaction buried deep.
The second takes their metal-plated boot and delivers a sharp, decisive kick of their own to Winter’s lower leg—and the Speed Demon hears something crack amid the clamor of the audience, which had seemed supremely unimportant compared to restoring itself and securing the win.
Winter’s pained howl pierces its auditory reception as nails do soft tires.
Humanoid bones were always so sturdy, right up until they weren’t.
However, with a sudden jerk of his head, Winter grabs the knife he kept tucked in his vest all this time with his teeth, slashing at his captor’s hand and causing their grip to loosen enough to tear his arm free before lunging forward, burying the blade into the second guard’s leg in return—right under the armor plate—and only yanking it free when they’re crying out. It’s enough of a shock that he can shove the first guard away entirely, and then he stumbles, picks himself up, and begins to run, leg nearly buckling every other step. Then something in his gait smoothes out, to a degree. Fear of the House pushes him forward—the fear of being claimed once and for all by the moths, by the worst of moths.
It will begrudgingly admit a commonality with the revenant: fear of failure hangs over those who do Duskmourn’s bidding like a nightmare stalking its prey.
The man with the cloak—that wretched, insufferable MEDDLER—has taken the map, despite the red-haired woman’s attempts, and the Speed Demon seethes, rage boiling hot enough to make its form sputter and spark, which it actively has to control if it wants to not ignite the Ride by accident.
Without warning, he, his friend, and the map are gone, its cough of surprise an engine cutting out.
…Given the map’s knowledge of the Omenpaths, it thinks they’re off-plane, too, not just hidden from sight.
Dread prickles over the Speed Demon as it grits its teeth and lets out a brake-like, staticky hiss; Duskmourn will not lightly overlook this, and it will want to place fault where it sees due—and since incompetence is among the worst of transgressions, in Valgavoth’s eyes, the less useless it sounds, the more likely it is to come out of this with a hale essence.
Of course, this doesn’t change the fact that now, the only thing that could assuage his wrath is the Aetherspark.
Winter is now their last hope of winning, and their last hope of mercy.
Its claws at last solidify, and it begins to pry the Last Ride open from the outside, bit by bit, widening the hollows of its exit as it flays the machine. The groaning metal may as well have been its cherished creation’s death throes—it doubts there sill be any recovering what it was. A pitiful end to a vehicle which should have spent its life racing until it fell apart on the track, when the Speed Demon and its crew could take the parts and reassemble it into something faster still.
A very faint sound—not dissimilar from the gait of some beasties and nightmares—brushes at the edges of its auditory perception, very far back from here, though softened by the cry and mutter of shifting metal on metal as the twisting cage slowly gives way. It can feel the rest of itself slipping through the cracks, swapping cramped confinement for the open air. The sound grows—the Champions of Amonkhet, rushing past them, slow in comparison to the Ride, but much, much faster than a humanoid.
Suddenly, it’s out.
Equal parts pleased to be whole, disgruntled the process took so long, and incensed by the idea that their triumph may be stolen away, it gathers its essence into itself, down to the last scraps, and the air hums along with its rumbling aura of power as the Speed Demon chases the chariot, attempting to slow it in any way it possibly can.
It had dared to hope.
Not much—but if demons had glimmers, its would have been be bright.
Hopes that were dashed against the ground as sure as shattered glass once the chariot thundered past and stole victory from their team’s deserving grasp.
Static creeps through its claws as it sinks its grip into a nearby Endriders crash for the gratifying feeling of puncturing the metal shell and the oil reserves, a growl mounting when it glances at the Aetherspark, unprotected, gleaming in the sun.
It could snatch the Aetherspark now—after all, it was not as if they would be coming back.
Before it can act on this, though, a sudden, acutely familiar frost brushes against its form, like tiny feathers, or small moths alighting.
Come home, the door whispers.
The Speed Demon has been around long enough to know better than to fight, to disobey the command disguised as the barest murmur. It’s been around long enough to know how to beg for its existence, too.
It lets the chill of the House spread back over it and shadows replace sunlight as Duskmourn’s hands pull it back. The race is lost, after all. They need not linger, and Valgavoth cares not for their desires.
Perhaps it will be lucky. To keep Winter in line was its assignment, as outlined by the great moth, and it did fulfill its task. The guilt should not fall to it—nor should the punishment.
Though if luck is all it can rely on, the Speed Demon has its doubts.