Ryder’s black-and-gray sports car pulled up around the corner to a long straightaway street in the northwestern part of the city. The rapid construction hadn’t reached this far out just yet, so it wasn’t quite as dense and chaotic as the heart of town. That made it a favorite spot for street racers, of which there had been a huge boom in recent years thanks to the explosive popularity of the new Riot Racing League – a wild, dangerous sport that mixed vehicle racing and combat.
Though there was a big crowd encircling the street he was turning into, he didn’t bother stopping or even slowing down, forcing them to quickly scatter in a panic and make way for him, and it was a very close call for several of them. He drove right up in between the four cars lining the street ready for a race, finally coming to a stop and capturing the attention of the audience and the racers as well, the latter of whom were quick to step out from their vehicles to investigate this strange newcomer.
The car adjacent to Ryder’s belonged to Rafael – the leader of the street racing gang Rojas. He walked around his crimson vehicle and over to Ryder’s, rapping his knuckles against the window, prompting it to roll down. “Who the fuck are you?” he asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Ryder responded. His cold blue eyes then momentarily darted down to Rafael’s waist, catching sight of the FORMA card in the street racer’s pocket. Rafael would have caught this, were he not momentarily distracted by admiring Ryder’s car. But by the time he wrestled his eyes away from the vehicle, Ryder had already returned his own gaze to the street racer’s face.
Rafael raised a brow. “So what the fuck are you doing here?”
“Obviously, I drove up here to the starting line to take a nap. You’re pretty stupid, huh?”
“Huh?!” The racer leaned in closer to the window with a snarl, though Ryder remained completely undeterred, causing Rafael to hesitate for a moment, then change his course of action. He stood back up and instead reached for the knife strapped to his leg, but as he did, he remembered the FORMA card in his pocket, and paused. “Ohhhh, I get it! You’re another fucker tryna take this from me, huh?! You came all the way out here to challenge me to a race with this as a prize, huh?! You think I’m that stupid?! Get the fuck outta here, bastard!” He slammed his fist down on the roof of the car.
“Pretty stupid to throw a bitch fit over something you made up in your head,” Ryder replied. “Relax, moron. I’m not here to win the FORMA from you in a race. I want info.”
“Info…?”
“Roman Richardson. I want whatever info you got on where he’s hiding.”
The racer paused, his angry scowl momentarily dropping into a look of shock at the mention of the professional racecar driver before he tightened it back up. Out came a fake scoff of judgment, and then, “Why the fuck do you think I’d know anything about Rom-?”
“Don’t play stupid with me,” Ryder interrupted. “I know he hires you stooges to take out his rivals.” He then nodded his head towards the knife on Rafael’s hip. “That’s the blade you slit Rita Ramirez’s throat with two weeks ago, right?”
“…What are you, a cop?”
“Nope. And I don’t give a shit who you kill. I want Roman. I win, you tell me what you know. I don’t care about whatever money you clowns have on the line. Keep it.”
“Well what’s in it for me when I smoke your ass?”
“My car. 50 grand. You can have my girlfriend, I don’t care. Whatever you want.”
“…Why do you wanna meet Roman anyway?”
“Pretty stupid of you to not’ve picked up on it by now. I’m killing him.”
Rafael fell into silence, staring into Ryder’s icy, unwavering gaze trying to get something out of him to help him with his confusion. Everything he’d accused him of was true – while Rojas were predominantly street racers, they had been hired by Roman Richardson to kill several racers in secret. And while it’d been paying well, with each successive kill, Rafael had been growing more and more paranoid about getting found out, and were he not currently being blackmailed by Roman, he’d cut ties in an instant.
It certainly didn’t help having a FORMA card as well; he’d heard rumors that those who happened across FORMA tended to attract deadly enemies seeking them out, which had made him more jittery and wary around new people… And though he had no intention of losing a race to anyone, if giving info to Ryder somehow did lead to the psycho killing Roman…maybe that’d be a weight off of his shoulders…?
Tch. Nah. He wouldn’t be caught dead losing to some newbie like this. Better to just beat his ass and take his car, cash, and girl.
As he heard another driver honk his horn and ask what the hell was going on, Rafael snapped out of his thoughts, and offered Ryder a shrug and a smirk. “Shit, I’d be pretty stupid to turn that deal down, yeah? ‘Specially since winning won’t be a problem.”
The racer chuckled and tapped the roof of Ryder’s car before heading back towards his own. Though as he passed the front of the vehicle, he did catch a metal emblem installed in the front depicting a hooded skull wearing a facemask just like Ryder and holding a scythe. He paused for a moment as a sense of vague recognition hit his mind, but as another car horn went off, he shook those thoughts away too, and hurried back to his seat to begin the race.
Though not before texting the other racers in secret with the plan of making sure to take Ryder out. Because while the Rojas gang were famous for being skilled street racers, the actual secret to their dominance in the scene was that they, perhaps unfairly, had decked their cars out with Riot Racing League weaponry, despite not qualifying for the sport.
And to them, they didn’t feel the need to tell their opponents of this weaponry beforehand.
For the first few seconds of the race, things went more or less okay. Rafael took an early lead, but Ryder’s car very quickly caught up and matched pace with it, even as they both took a sharp turn, leaving the other three Rojas cars a step behind.
Rafael led out a little whistle of admiration at the smooth turn of his opponent’s car, and began growing even more antsy at the prospect of getting to take it from him. As much as Rafael loved his own vehicle, there was something…special about Ryder’s, and he wanted to figure out what it was.
A second Rojas car managed to pull up behind the two leading cars, right on the outside of Ryder’s. The gang’s plan then kicked in, with that second car aiming to hit the back of Ryder’s and spin him out, or at the very least disturb him enough for Rafael to pull ahead and take a commanding lead.
But alas, it was not meant to be, as Ryder, more than prepared for the attack, flipped a switch on his dashboard and quickly served to be directly in front of the approaching car. Out came a burst of heat from the back of his vehicle, propelling him forward at high speed while simultaneously burning the front of the Rojas car and forcing him to pull over in a hurry.
Ryder’s car then slowed down from its burst of speed until he was parallel to Rafael again, side-eyeing the gang leader with obvious disappointment at the tactic.
The other two Rojas cars in the back sped up, and both came in on the adjacent lanes to Ryder’s. As they closed the distance, hidden blades emerged from the sides of their vehicles, low enough to cut into the tires of Ryder’s once they finished sandwiching him between themselves.
With a roll of his eyes, Ryder rolled down his passenger-side window, and extended his arm, revolver in hand. With one clean shot, he blasted one of the blades off of the vehicle to his right. It immediately detached from the car, and flew backward as the car surged ahead, cutting a thick line into the front tire and ending the driver’s race then and there.
He then swerved into the now-empty lane to his right, creating some distance between himself and the car on his left. Before it could close that gap, he flicked another switch, and out came a long scythe blade from the left side of his car that immediately sliced. A massive gash opened up in the passenger side of the Rojas member’s car from back to front, chopping both of the right-side tires in half and sending the car into a crashing, sputtering mess of metal and rubber that bounced off of the street and into the parking lot they were passing by.
That left just Ryder and Rafael, who had taken the lead amidst Ryder’s encounter with his cronies. Inside his car, the Rojas leader’s eyes went wide at the sight of the massive scythe as he realized that he was dealing with someone who was playing just as dirty as they were.
Pissed and perhaps a little afraid, Rafael began flipping switches. Out came hidden compartments on either side of his car, releasing bombs that bounced along the road towards Ryder’s car, although he was quick to dispatch them with shots from his revolver from a distance before catching up.
Rafael frantically reached for his own machine gun in the passenger seat, but the window burst open, spraying glass all over the interior. Instead of grabbing the handle of his gun, his hand instead squeezed tightly over something sharp enough to puncture his skin and draw blood and a yelp of pain. He looked over to see the source of his pain, and found what appeared to be a long strand of razor wire extending from Ryder’s car and into his.
The engine of Ryder’s car almost seemed to roar as it tugged on the wire, pulling Rafael’s vehicle closer to his, tires screeching against the road. Panicking, Rafael looked out through his shattered window and through Ryder’s tinted one, staring at him with that same frosty glare he always did, and as they passed beneath a bridge, his eyes seemed to become even more pronounced in the darkness cast by the shadows.
As they emerged from beneath the bridge, Ryder rammed the side of his car into Rafael’s, like a metallic beast colliding against his wounded prey. The Rojas leader found his car flipping over, bouncing against the asphalt and off of the road a few times into the empty patch of dirt and grass to the side. It came to a stop several moments before Rafael was able to recover from his daze and realize he was upside down.
Before he could think about how to get out, however, Ryder came stomping over to the driver’s side, grabbing hold of the Rojas leader and forcibly yanking him out of the vehicle, even as the jagged pieces of metal from the wrecked scar scraped against his flesh and he howled in pain.
Ryder tossed Rafael onto the ground, kicking him in the side to flip him over, holding his revolver down at the ready to fire. The gang leader frantically held an arm up. “Wait, wait, wait! Y-you win, okay?! I’ll t- I’ll tell you…!”
“Make it quick.”
“R-Roman’s in T-Toronto!”
“What? Why?”
“Th-there’s some engineer there m-makin’ him some special c-car for the Riot League…! He-he’s gonna r-return to the League next season with it…!”
Ryder continued staring down into the Rojas leader’s panicked eyes to discern whether he was being bullshitted or not. It didn’t seem to be the case. “Hmph. Good enough.”
He lowered both the revolver and Rafael’s heart rate in one motion. The latter then felt relieved enough to take his eyes away from Ryder’s, darting over to his car, parked a few feet away. The front was fully visible, and he found his eyes settling on the reaper emblem installed in the front. It was then that a lightbulb went off in his bloodied head, and he finally remembered where he recognized the symbol.
“W-wait! You’re…you’re that R-Reaper guy in the League, a-aren’t you…?! That’s y-you?!”
“Yup,” Ryder responded. “Pretty stupid to race against me.” He then extended his other hand, this one free of any weaponry. “Hand over that FORMA.”
“H-huh…?!”
“Hand it over.”
Rafael looked down at the FORMA card in his pocket, wincing as he brought his more-injured arm down to pull it free. “I-I thought you said you…you d-didn’t want it…?”
Ryder snatched it from the Rojas leader’s hand. “No, I said I wasn’t here to win it from you in a race. I was always gonna kill you for it after.”
“H-huh?! No, ple-!”
Out came the revolver hand, and one single bullet that ripped through Rafael’s forehead, silencing him forever. “That’s for Rita and her kids,” he said.
After pocketing the handgun, Ryder turned and headed back towards his car, having gotten everything he came for. Though just before he opened the door, he looked over at the FORMA card in his hand.
“[Revenge],” he read with an annoyed scoff at the terrible joke. He glanced back over to Rafael’s corpse, shaking his head and muttering, “Pretty stupid not to use this on me when you had the chance.”
He then slipped into his car, shut the door, and sped back to GLYPH HQ.
