The following morning broke cold and sharp, the kind of dawn that gnawed at exposed skin and bit through jackets. Thin mist clung low to the mountainside, curling around the makeshift garage like smoke off a fire. Under a canvas canopy rigged between support vans, the Lancia 037 sat wounded but alive—perched on jack stands, its wheels suspended mid-air like a beast mid-pounce, restrained only by the need for repair. The rear hatch hung open, twisted and cracked, a brutal scar from the night before. Tools clinked, wrenches bit into bolts, and the air reeked of gear oil and burnt brake dust.
Navia was deep in the guts of the car, hunched over the left-side suspension with sleeves rolled past her elbows and grease streaking her forearms like warpaint. Her hands moved with surgical intent—fast, confident, methodical. Beside her, Clorinde had taken position over the right suspension, her eyes scanning every control arm, link, and fastener. Each torque was measured. Every bolt, rechecked twice. No shortcuts. Not this time.
The rhythm was broken by the low rumble of an engine—steady, diesel, familiar. One of the support vans crested the rise, rolling to a halt just beside the pit zone. The engine cut out with a cough, and Keqing stepped out, followed closely by Albedo, Collei's quiet and clinical mechanic. Their breath steamed in the cold.
Clorinde and Navia both looked up, tension momentarily easing.
Albedo raised a hand in greeting, his usual calm demeanor untouched by the urgency in the air. "Morning. Need an extra set of hands?"
Keqing added with a dry smile, "Or two. We figured you'd be knee-deep in it by now."
Navia wiped the back of her oily glove across her brow, a smudge of black trailing over her temple. "Perfect timing. We're short one damn trunk lid. Think you two can help us remove the mangled one and tape it back together for now?"
Clorinde stepped away from the jackstand, pulling a rag from her back pocket. "Yeah. Duct tape won't win any awards, but it'll hold. A replacement's already in the pipeline."
Keqing raised a skeptical brow. "Where the hell do you even get parts for something like this? You can't exactly ring up Lancia. They've been out of the game for decades."
Clorinde snorted, a faint grin ghosting across her face. "Times change. There's a certified supplier—Group B Replacements and Spares. FIA backs them. They specialize in stuff like this. Full spec parts from original molds. We've got a rear lid coming in from Italy as we speak."
Navia chimed in, still on her knees beside the car. "They do more than bodywork. They've got original-spec engine blocks, full drivetrains, even glass. Real deal. They supply collectors and hillclimb teams too."
Albedo gave a nod of approval and moved toward the Lancia with Keqing, tools in hand. Together, they began dismantling the warped rear hatch, the sound of ratchets and tearing duct tape breaking the stillness like rifle fire.
A few minutes passed—then came the sound.
Not just any engine. A precise, angry wail on the horizon. The high-pitched howl of individual throttle bodies singing in harmony with the cams—razor-sharp, surgical.
Collei's AE86 burst out from a blind left hairpin, headlights low, beams carving clean lines through the fog. The Levin-bodied Eight-Six rolled smooth up to the garage, its idle crisp and aggressive, like a lion too proud to pant after the kill.
Clorinde blinked. "She's still going? She didn't sleep?"
The AE86 hissed to a halt behind the support van. Collei stepped out, dark circles under her eyes but moving like she had caffeine instead of blood in her veins. She gave them all a lazy wave. "Hey. Figured I'd swing by. You guys need anything?"
Clorinde chuckled, shaking her head as she wiped her hands. "Appreciate it, but you should be passed out somewhere. Race is tonight."
Collei waved her off. "I'll sleep when I'm dead. What do you need?"
Clorinde tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Actually... yeah. Ganyu went into town for food. Mind picking her up? She's probably waiting by the market by now."
Collei nodded. "Done."
She climbed back into the AE86, revved it once—just to hear it—and pulled out at a calm, deliberate pace, the ITBs whistling quietly as she disappeared into the mist.
Back at the garage, Keqing and Albedo finished patching the hatch with a lattice of duct tape. The result looked like something out of a warzone—functional, ugly, solid.
Keqing picked up a broken trailing arm from the pile. "So this… was brand new?"
Navia leaned against the van, wiping her brow again. "Bilstein, off the shelf. Cracked like a toothpick on impact. Luckily, we've got enough to keep going. We know what failed—we won't make the same mistake twice."
Keqing gave a low whistle, then dropped the component with a clunk. "Not planning on it."
By 4:00 PM, the Lancia was whole again. The new gearbox mated perfectly. Suspension geometry was solid. Duct tape kept the cracked fiberglass hatch clamped down like stitches on a wound. The car stood off the jack stands, finally back on all fours.
Clorinde climbed into the cockpit, running her hand over the suede-wrapped wheel, feeling every groove like a gunslinger reacquainting herself with an old revolver. She flicked the master power on, primed the fuel pump, and turned the key.
The Lancia roared to life.
Sharp, raw, animal.
She grinned and threw a fist into the air. "She's alive!"
Almost on cue, Collei returned—this time with Ganyu and Ningguang in tow. The AE86 pulled in smooth, its engine burbling low as the trio exited.
Ningguang folded her arms and let a faint smile curve her lips. "Good work. The Lancia lives to race another day."
Clorinde stood beside the car, her voice firm. "She's seen a lot. But nothing like last night."
Ningguang's tone hardened. "That makes tonight's race more important. Take her out for a shakedown. Test every gear, every turn. But go easy—until she begs you to push."
Clorinde slid back into the cockpit, fingers tightening on the wheel. "Understood."
She slammed the door shut and locked her harness in with a clack.
"Let's go."
She dumped the clutch. The rear wheels chirped and spun, kicking up gravel as the Lancia rocketed down the path. The car barked off the limiter, tires screeching as it swung sideways into the entrance of the pass. A perfect Scandinavian flick, crisp and violent.
Ganyu blinked. "Uhhh… that's not taking it easy."
Navia laughed, arms folded. "That's Clorinde. The more you try to break her, the harder she bites back."
Ningguang's voice dropped low. "It's not just that. This isn't about testing the car."
Her eyes narrowed.
"She's hunting."
On the pass, Clorinde gunned the car toward the first hairpin. Her left foot stabbed the brake pedal, weight transfer fluid, fast, perfect—then the rear broke loose. She countersteered hard, throttle steady. The Lancia slid through sideways, every suspension component singing in harmony.
She grinned wide, patting the dash. "Atta girl. That's what I'm talkin' about."
She shifted up and floored it. The engine screamed, second to third to fourth, tires clawing at the pavement with increasing fury. Every corner was an enemy. Every apex, a kill.
By sunset, the sky bled violet and gold across the peaks. The Lancia finally pulled into the upper parking area near the tunnel, dust trailing behind her. Clorinde stepped out, arching her back with a pop. The cooling metal ticked and hissed. The air smelled of rubber, asphalt, and victory.
The others joined her one by one. Collei. Navia. Ganyu. Keqing. Albedo. Ningguang. All eyes on her. All silent, waiting.
Navia broke it first, smirking. "So? How is she?"
Clorinde exhaled, brushing hair out of her face. "She's perfect. Handles like she's reading my mind."
Ningguang nodded, approving. "Good."
Then her gaze slid to the rear—where duct tape clung to the battered hatch like battlefield gauze. "What about that?"
Clorinde shrugged, unfazed. "Already ordered. Original spec. Should arrive before our next race."
She grinned, wiping her hands on a rag. "But tonight… she's still good for a fight."
As night blanketed the mountain pass, the air turned crisp, heavy with the quiet anticipation of something violent waiting to erupt. In the pale flicker of a rusted sodium lamp, the shadows cast by the trees stretched long and jagged across the pavement like claws, reaching for the starting line.
Blade stood alone beside his Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution V—its white paintwork gleaming under the lamplight, every edge of the bodywork taut with purpose. Arms crossed, stance aggressive, his silhouette loomed against the soft hum of the car's idling engine. Steam rose in thin trails from the exhaust, curling like smoke from a beast's nostrils.
He shifted impatiently, boots grinding against gravel.
"Who's going to race me?" he barked, his voice carrying through the still air, bouncing off the tunnel walls in sharp echoes. "Come on! Quit wasting my time!"
The taunt hung for a moment before the world snapped back with a thunderous, feral roar.
A banshee wail—pure mechanical rage—howled from within the tunnel. It was the unmistakable shriek of a supercharged inline-four, twin-cam, tuned within an inch of its life. Blade's mouth snapped shut mid-rant, confusion creasing his brow. The engine note climbed into the stratosphere, resonating against the concrete like a war cry from another era.
Then: light.
Twin headlights flared to life at the tunnel's mouth, dazzling-white, scorching the asphalt ahead. Blade recoiled instinctively, raising an arm to shield his eyes. The tires screamed as the machine shot forward, rubber vaporizing in twin streaks of smoke and noise. The sound hit him like a hammer—metal on metal, raw and furious.
As the glow faded, Blade dropped his arm—and froze.
Lurking behind his Evo was a monster.
The Lancia Rally 037—scarred, battered, resurrected. Its wedge-shaped front end sat low, wide, and angry, headlights glaring like a predator's eyes. The patched-up rear hatch bore fresh strips of tape, makeshift repairs that only seemed to highlight its war-torn elegance. Every line of the body still screamed aggression, still radiated danger. The guttural, off-beat idle of its 2.1-liter supercharged Lampredi inline-four was like a growl waiting to become a scream.
The driver's door slammed shut.
Clorinde stepped away from the Lancia with a flourish, her every movement confident and charged. Keqing followed from the passenger side, adjusting her hair with a flick of her hand, posture relaxed but razor-sharp.
Clorinde threw a smirk over her shoulder. "Didn't expect us to fix the Lancia so quickly, did you, hotshot?"
Blade's eyes narrowed. The anger was gone, replaced with a flicker of something closer to fear. "No way... this has to be a different car. Same shell, maybe, but the guts—those aren't the same."
Keqing stepped forward, her boots clicking with deliberate force. Her voice was low and ice-cold. "Oh, really? You think we'd show up with a substitute? What, did you expect us to roll up in the Eight Six instead?"
Blade backpedaled, his tone defensive. "I didn't say that! I just—"
"Relax," Keqing snapped, waving him off. She tilted her head slightly, eyes glinting. "And for the record, the Eight Six isn't just any car. That thing's helped train Formula One champions. Verstappen started in one, you know."
She stepped even closer, her smirk sharpening into a grin. "But let's cut the crap. You've got two options. You race the bruised Lancia tonight… or we postpone. And trust me, the more time you give us, the meaner this thing's going to get. Right now? We haven't changed a damn thing in the setup—just fixed what broke."
Blade exhaled hard through his nose, fists clenched. "Give me a second. I need to talk to Kafka."
He turned on his heel and stalked toward the rest area, where Kafka still leaned languidly against the railing, arms folded, eyes half-lidded with detached interest.
Meanwhile, Keqing drifted back toward the AE86. Ningguang stood there, the very picture of composed elegance, idly tracing the hood's edge with a single finger. The streetlamp bathed her in amber, and her eyes gleamed with thought.
Keqing leaned beside her. "So? I laid it out plain. Gave them the hardline, no compromise."
A faint smile touched Ningguang's lips. "Nicely done."
But then, a shift—barely perceptible. Her smile faded. "But something feels… off."
Keqing's brow furrowed. "Off? Like what?"
Ningguang didn't answer right away. Her gaze wandered across the parking area, then returned, steel-cold and calculating. "This isn't about ego. Not for them. Not anymore. It's not even about reputation. It's about money."
Keqing stiffened, eyes flashing. "Wait. You're saying... they're doing this for cash?"
Ningguang nodded once. "Blade and his cronies. They're playing some deeper angle. Kafka, I believe, is uninvolved. She's here out of interest, not profit."
Keqing let out a low curse and stomped, the sharp crack of her heel slicing the silence. "Those assholes. If they think they can play us—"
"Calm down," Ningguang interrupted smoothly, raising a hand. "They're already in the trap. Now we just wait for them to trip the wire."
Keqing nodded tightly. "Fine. But if they try anything during this race..."
Ningguang's eyes glinted with quiet menace. "Then we respond. Precisely."
Tension buzzed in the air like static. Spectators leaned forward on guardrails, conversations dimmed to murmurs, every pair of eyes locked on the two machines now inching toward the line.
Blade leaned from the window of his Evo, that trademark cocky grin spreading across his face like oil slick on pavement. "Good luck today, pretty girl," he jeered. "Hope that bruised Italian relic can make it to the first hairpin."
Clorinde paused, one boot on the tarmac, her eyes flicking toward him. Her lips parted—but Keqing's hand landed on her shoulder.
"Let it go," she said, voice low and focused. "Show him what this 'relic' can do. Group B style."
Clorinde grinned and high-fived her. "Hell yeah."
She slipped into the Lancia, each motion fluid, automatic. Harness clipped in. Shifter checked. Foot on clutch. Her hand twisted the key.
The Lampredi motor barked to life with a vicious growl that rolled through the parking lot like a thunderclap. The idle stumbled for a second, then evened out into a throaty snarl. Clorinde cracked the throttle—once, twice—then again, longer this time.
The revs screamed, bouncing off the limiter with brutal defiance. The sound was metallic, violent, a chainsaw chewing through steel.
Keqing raised a hand, voice sharp and commanding.
"Alright! Let's do this!"
"FIVE!"
"FOUR!"
"THREE!"
"TWO!"
"ONE!"
Her hand slashed through the air.
"GO!"
The Lancer Evo V leapt forward, its all-wheel drive system launching it like a bullet from a railgun. The tires barked, then dug in, flinging the car down the straight.
Behind it, the Lancia lit up the night.
Clorinde dumped the clutch, and the RWD beast screamed as the rear tires lit up. Smoke poured from the wheel wells as the supercharged engine ripped through the rev range. The tail squirmed left, then right, but Clorinde caught it—perfectly. Her hands snapped the wheel straight, throttle pinned, eyes narrow slits of steel focus.
They entered the first corner—a fast right into a descending left hairpin.
Blade's Evo hit the apex like it was on rails, the chassis squatting and pushing hard, tires gripping with brutal efficiency. No drama. Just speed.
But behind him, Clorinde's Lancia danced.
The Italian monster flung itself into the turn, tail kicking wide in a gorgeous arc. Four wheels slipping, spinning, carving through smoke as the tires shrieked in protest. She feathered the throttle mid-drift, corrected the angle with a quick countersteer, and snapped the car straight on exit.
Blade glanced in his mirror—and his smirk widened.
"She can keep watching my taillights. That's why I led this race. Let her struggle with that new setup while I run clean up front."
But Clorinde was gaining.
Every corner. Every downshift. Every flick of the wheel. She was closing the gap.
Inside the Lancia, her eyes burned. "This is fucking awesome! Navia, you're a genius. This thing feels perfect."
She pushed the accelerator to the floor. The supercharger wailed.
They dove into another hairpin—a brutal left.
Blade braked hard, the Evo biting into the tarmac like a machine possessed.
Clorinde didn't blink. She braked late—too late, by most standards. The rear end snapped out again, and she caught it with perfect timing. The Lancia slid through the corner in a four-wheel drift, smoke rolling out in sheets as spectators screamed.
"Holy shit! Did you see that?"
"She's right on his bumper! In that car?! It was wrecked last night!"
"They're like a damn WRC pit crew! Who the hell are these girls?"
Back at the base, Keqing approached Navia, who stood near the van with grease on her hands and a smudge on her cheek.
"Navia," Keqing asked, voice skeptical but intrigued, "how the hell do you even know how to install half that stuff? I didn't see you check a single manual."
Navia chuckled, wiped her hands, and pulled a thick, dog-eared stack of papers from under the passenger seat. She handed them to Keqing with a smirk. "Easy. These are the FIA Group B homologation documents for the 037. Engine, suspension, chassis—everything. Even interior parts and exact diff ratios."
Keqing blinked, flipping through the pages. "Where'd you even get this?"
Navia shrugged, pride flickering in her voice. "My old man. He kept a copy since before I was born. Swore by it. Read it like bedtime stories. Guess I picked up a thing or two."
Keqing looked up from the papers, eyes wide with newfound respect. "No kidding."
Navia grinned. "No kidding."
And out on the mountain, Clorinde gritted her teeth, the Lancia howling beneath her as she closed in.
The battle had begun.
As the race barreled into its climax, the mountain echoed with the furious screams of combustion and friction. Clorinde's battered Lancia 037, its rally-worn frame snarling like a cornered beast, refused to yield an inch. Each scar across its flanks told a story—but it wasn't limping. It was lunging.
Inside the cockpit, Clorinde gritted her teeth, her eyes narrowed beneath the staccato rhythm of passing shadows. Sweat trickled down her temple but her hands never flinched. The MOMO steering wheel felt alive in her grip, the 037 twitching subtly as it fed back every crack and camber in the asphalt. Her left foot danced over the clutch while her right alternated between feathering the throttle and burying it to the firewall. The rev needle was constantly flirting with redline, the engine's guttural roar rising and falling in a savage aria of raw aggression.
Up ahead, Blade's Lancer Evo V darted through the curves like a scalpel—sharply, decisively, but with an edge of desperation. Its four-wheel-drive system clawed at the pavement, the turbocharger whistling like a viper. Yet no matter how surgically he cut his lines, the Lancia was there—stalking him, haunting him.
"This car was built for this shit!" Blade barked, jaw clenched so tight it ached. He was practically chewing on the steering wheel. "Group A, WRC—Evo's the king of the goddamn mountains!"
But the words sounded hollow. Each time he floored it out of a corner, he could see her in the mirrors. The Lancia's twin headlights gleamed like fangs, always just a breath away from lunging past his rear quarter panel.
Behind him, Clorinde's expression twisted into something primal. Not rage. Not pride. Something deeper—resolve. She flicked the wheel to the left, countersteering through a chicane, her throttle modulation perfect as she kept the boost spooled. The 037's back end danced outward, and she caught it with finesse, brushing the guardrail with an inch to spare.
"Hold together, baby," she muttered, lips barely moving. "You're a street-legal war machine. Let's gut this bastard."
At the base, spectators were glued to the live timing screen. The numbers were brutal—tenths shaved off every sector. Collei crossed her arms as she stared unblinking at the data feed.
"She's running faster every lap," she said, voice low. "She's bleeding time out of Blade like a stuck pig."
Albedo, arms behind his back, nodded with clinical interest. "The Lancia's suspension geometry was never designed for this exact route. But her adaptation rate is beyond rational expectation. She's driving it as if it was built for this mountain."
Collei's gaze didn't waver. "She's making it belong."
On the course, the road narrowed into a series of tight downhill hairpins. Blade double-clutched and heel-toed into second, the Evo's chassis compressed hard into the apex, tires screeching with fury. But even as he accelerated out, he could hear her coming—feel her. That Italian howl wasn't behind him anymore.
It was beside him.
"What the—?!" Blade shouted, snapping his head left.
The Lancia surged up next to him, its right tires barely within the white line, its left tires skirting the uneven shoulder of the cliffside. It shouldn't have fit. It couldn't fit. But it was there.
"You fucking maniac!" Blade howled, trying to nudge right, but Clorinde held the line, her eyes locked forward, foot still buried in third gear.
"There's no way she's risking a pass here—" he started.
But Clorinde was.
She saw the gap—threaded it—and didn't blink. In that instant, her fingers flicked the shifter up into fourth with a clean, practiced motion. The moment her clutch caught, she let the supercharged engine scream, wheels spinning ever so slightly before hooking back into the pavement.
Blade panicked.
"You idiot! That's the construction zone coming up! There's no room!"
But she didn't back off. The Lancia surged forward with reckless precision, its reinforced bodywork brushing the traffic cones as it skated the shoulder. Dust kicked up, the sound of gravel spitting into the underbody like machine-gun fire.
"You're gonna kill us both!" Blade shrieked, his foot slamming the brake.
Too late.
Clorinde was already past him.
Her taillights flashed once—briefly—before she braked hard and threw the Lancia sideways into a vicious left-hand corner. All four wheels locked for half a second, tires howling bloody murder, then caught traction mid-slide. She modulated with terrifying skill—left-foot braking, half-throttle, perfectly balanced on the edge of chaos—and the 037 whipped around the bend like a coiled snake striking.
Blade overshot the entry, scrambling to recover. His Evo's understeer flared at the worst possible time, and the back end swung out in a sloppy fishtail. He caught it, but he was already two... no—three car lengths behind.
"God DAMN it!!" he screamed, pounding the wheel.
Clorinde didn't hear him.
Didn't care.
She was gone.
Her foot stayed down, keeping the Lancia wound tight in the final descent. The gauges vibrated with fury—oil pressure held steady, tach redlining as she shifted to fifth. Wind roared past her half-rolled-down window. The scent of brake dust, scorched rubber, and pine sap filled the cabin.
The finish line appeared around the final bend—a blur of headlights, phones, and astonished faces.
Clorinde didn't slow until she had to.
The message was clear:
Don't fuck with rally history.
Not unless you're ready to get rewritten.