Lightning awoke the next morning sore all over. In fact her entire body was screaming from her massive migraine, which made her think this was a hangover, to all four of her legs having fierce aches all over. She would have thought she had gotten mad drunk last night, but she wouldn't have remembered how or why she was here if that was the case.

At the door, Aqua stood staring away from the pegasus. Seemingly staring off into space. None of the others were present, that was until Emerald revealed herself walking up to greet her relative. She caught sight of Lightning awaking and pushed Aqua aside. Aqua was a little rough at first, but softened up when she too saw Lightning awake from her involuntary rest.

"Oh dear, so glad to see you awake. Are you feeling alright?"

"I feel like I was hit by a truck." Lightning responded dryly.

"The condition you were in when you arrived makes me think that isn't far off. Well, if the story wasn't all over the headlines this morning." Aqua replied equally as dryly. Lightning could only chuckle.

"What can I say, you had a reason to worry." Lightning replied in between her nervous chuckling. Aqua rolled her eyes.

"Look dear, we're just happy you're back in one piece. But, you need to rest up for some time."

"Emerald, the series ending race is tonight. I can nap for a bit, but I at least want to be woken up in time to get in my M3 and...oh...well buck me."

"Let me guess, M3 is totaled too?" Aqua deadpanned, eliciting a glare from the unicorn next to her that she ignored. Lightning sighed deeply before responding.

"Yeah, completely dead. Guess there is no point in waking up early. I'll, wake up on my own time I guess. You two go on ahead and let the stallions know I'm OK. I don't think there is any need to rush, not like I have a car to race in that meets the requirements."

With that, Lightning turned over and began to rest on her side in a more comfortable position. Aqua found her way to the door first, Emerald following behind her.

"Well, I hope she learns from that. She needs to find the balance between notoriety and heat. Yes, the races she was winning are putting her name out there but she was getting to the point where the risk was outweighing the benefit." Aqua noted.

The two mares made their way out to the garage area where Crimson was taking a look at his Mustang. McClare was out working with a client, but would be back shortly. Crimson noticed the two ponies walk in and dropped the hood on his car.

"she finally wake up?" He questioned.

"Yep." Was Aqua's simple response.

"She's a little distraught about the situation, now that her M3 is totaled." Emerald clarified.

"So, that's it? I gave up my spot to her...and now she can't even make use of it?"

Crimson walked around the side of his car, and smacked it with a foreleg in frustration. Emerald glanced at her Nissan, it was a very well built car. One she built and tuned mostly by herself for her perfect build. It was good at drifting yes, but it was also fast. Suddenly and idea struck the unicorn, one her relative in Ponyville would have been proud of.

"Idea!"

Both her companions looked at her in bewilderment as she moved over to the rear of the 350z

"Help me get this into position, if you please."

Copper Comet had been escorted back to base by who could be loosely described as her commanding officer. The mare was incredibly sore, and it was bothering her almost as much as the disapproving look the captain had been giving her the entire way back to the station. She knew she wasn't supposed to be out on patrol, especially not the night patrol, but she refused to stay idle while the streets were consumed by the racers that lit up their nights.

There was one problem, she wasn't on the night patrol, she wasn't even an officer. She was little more than a desk jockey that helped in the R&D department. She had acquired a ride from a sick officer after she had clocked out for the day in order to see some action. That decision left her with a couple bruise ribs, and some broken pride. Now she was getting reprimanded to boot.

"...now a racer that would have been caught is on the loose again. Why? Because you didn't do your damn job!"

"She had been in a head on collision with a fully armored rhino unit. The fact she was still conscious surprised me when I found her. How was I supposed to know it was a pegasus? We never see them on the streets ever."

"She was a cripple Copper, which makes it that much more disappointing that you let her get away. Now, you're dismissed. I don't want to ever see you in a patrol car again. We need you and the team to get back to work on the kill switch prototype."

With that, Copper Comet was released from the office and escorted towards the Research and Development area of the department. Yes, her special talent in electric engineering meant she was well versed in handling such an area. Her cutie mark was a copper coil that was glowing red. However, she preferred a hoofs on way of solving problems.

Now she was starting to question her role in the department. Her superiors were treating her as more of a machine made for building than an actual pony. They were more focused on stopping the racing in the streets than anything else. It bothered her. She did initially join the police as an enginner, but she had hoped to be a patrol officer by now.

The enjoyment of the job had all but blown away. Copper was a thrill seeker, she had been a rock climber as a juvenile, but a job she thought would have given her a taste of such a thrill on the right side of the law now gave her no such enjoyment. The one time she did get to go out she had been unfortunate enough to be caught off guard and was punished by her superior. She was bored of waiting, and out of ideas. She was sick of being a desk pony. She had spent a few days scouring the information in the department and found what she was looking for, the impound lot. It was the place where cars that were retrieved from wanted racers were repaired and redistributed to those who were more responsible with such rides.

It would be her next stopping point. If she wanted a thrill, this side wasn't gonna give her what she wanted. She didn't have the money to buy her own car, but who said she needed to buy one? She managed to find the access key for the lot and made her way to the other side of the city. She began the walk from Eden Shores to Mendoza Keys where the lot was located.

Nearly an hour later she had made the walk to her destination. Getting a car would start off easy, she had a legitimate key that wouldn't set off an alarm. Once she took a car however it was time to flee. She needed to make a good choice if she was gonna make away with the car. There were cameras on site. They would know it was her, and what car she had taken. She would instantly be terminated and have to find somewhere to lay low.

The gate opened without struggle as Copper made her way into the impound lot. There was a car she was looking for, but it was a matter of finding it. It took her a few minutes, but the car she was looking for stood before her.

A black Lamborghini Huracan, freshly repainted and ready to be shipped to its newest buyer, except that wasn't where it was going. Copper had already stolen the keys from the storage area, one less hurdle to deal with. The door to the hyper car opened like her front door and she entered without a moment's hesitation.

She turned the key in the ignition, and the beast of an engine lit up like a star over the night sky. Copper did not stick with subtlety. Instead, as a giant 'fuck you' to her boss, she floored it through the lot and out the front, knocking the gate over in the process before making a break for it to the south. It was only a matter of time before the tracker was marked and located, but she had something for that as well. She inserted a chip into the tracker implant located under the dashboard and it immediately got to work, it would be a few minutes before the tracker was manually disabled and she was home free. First, she needed to escape the cars that were likely converging on her position at that very moment. It wasn't long before she caught sight of a few units attempting to catch up.

"Oh hey boys, you're right on time." Copper taunted to no pony in particular before flooring it.

The Huracan was no slouch, getting up to well over 175 MPH as the turncoat officer attempted to flee from her former coworkers. After a substationally short Chase over the bridge she slammed the brakes and went right.

Once she was in the wetlands, she used her cars superior acceleration and 4 wheel drive to out maneuver the pursuers. Once she was out of sight, the tracker was finally disabled and she pulled off the road, stopping by an abandoned ranch house and parking out of sight within an overhead steel roof near a small pond.

After a few minutes of catching her bearing and making sure she was clear of any heat she drove away.

By the time she had left her hiding spot the rain had begun to lightly come down, and slowly it began to pour. Her only option for a long term safe spot was to find a suitable place to set up.

After several minutes of aimless driving Copper pulled onto the side of the road in the Fort Callahan area, pulling into the parking lot of a small motel. Not too far away sat a Carbon Black Audi R8 V10 Plus. A wide body kit and large wing were coupled by blood red claw mark decals along the hood and rear wheels. The license plate simply reading "KNIGHT".

It pulled away from a garage and up towards the same parking lot, parking right alongside the Huracan that Copper was driving. Copper was unfazed by this stranger parking right next to her, he wasn't a cop and therefore wasn't a immediate problem.

The racer rolled down the window of the Audi and revealed himself as an earth pony stallion with a Black coat equally as dark as his car and a ghost white mane with red eyes.

"I'm not used to seeing cops around these parts, let alone driving our cars." The stallion was very coy, almost seemingly threatening Copper with just his words.

"I'm...not one anymore. I jacked this from the impound lot after I quit." Copper responded nervously, almost shivering in fear.

"Hm, fair enough. You don't seem like one anymore, the only reason I know is...well, that's my job. To know what's happening in the city for my acquaintances. But, I'm a racer first and foremost and I'm not afraid to show some pony willing to get into the scene. What's your name miss?"

"...Copper...Comet." She replied hesitantly.

"Carbon Shadow, but a lot of ponies call me Black Knight...follow me, I got some place where you can get your name spread out."

Copper was hesitant, but as the R8 pulled away he reluctantly followed in her Lamborghini as Carbon lead her further north into Rockville. As they created the hill they caught glimpse of a set of three other cars.

One was a silver Porsche 918 and a second was a '05 Ford GT. The third was an eye catcher. A McLaren 650s, painted red and covered in several decals. The most prevalent detail was the license.
'SPEDFREK'

"I was gonna take part in this race..." Carbon noted to Copper as they pulled up. "...but perhaps you can try this one, see what you have to show."

He had put her on the spot, but she wasnt just gonna back down. Holding her nerves, she lined up behind the Mclaren as the cars got ready to take off.

As the cars pulled away, the Mclaren rocketed ahead of the competition, with no chance of any of the others catching up to it. Copper, with some understanding of how a clutch worked, managed a serviceable start as the GT and 918 began to pull away.

The race was very short, more of a top speed contest. Lucky for Copper, top speed was something her car had. Keeping control of the car allowed her to maintain second place as they raced through a series of winding curves before the finish line neared. While not a spectacular performance, she had held her own finishing second.

Carbon caught up with her at the line. Just as they began to talk, the Mclaren pulled back up to them. The stallion driving the car pulled off his shades, winked, then placed them back on as he drove away.

"Ah don't let him get ya, he does that to every mare he races. He has one already." Carbon informed her, much to her disspointment.

It was around this time that a Mitsubishi Lancer rolled up and parked nearby. Out stepped a furious looking Rogue Rush.

"Black, what have I been telling you about playing games with strangers?" He scolded his crew member, to which Carbon only rolled his eyes.

"Not much to do with you settling everything yourself. You dealt with that Superstorm pony you had me looking after so what else am I supposed to do? Be bored?"

"Maybe be helpful and keep watch out for any other racers that have a shot at beating me?" Rogue suggested in a way that sounded like an order more than anything.

"Maybe I will then, seems like it would help you a lot." Carbon replied sarcastically, to which Rogue could not take a hint. He was in his Lancet and gone before anything else could be said.

Copper had been completely mute up until the moment Rogue made haste to leave.

"What's up with him?"

Carbon sighed.

"That was my crew's leader, and he always has a hoof up his ass. He's beyond dirty, a far cry from my clean act of racing, and basically uses me as a tool rather than letting me take part in my own races. I'm just a good a driver as he is, but he'd wreck me if I tried to actually race him. He's already killed two ponies. One only just last night."

"Last night!?" Copper responded, taken aback by this appaling revelation.

"Yep, a Pegasus who just wanted to have some fun... before he killed another pony who just so happened to be her friend...he makes me sick. I don't like working for him, but he has my head under his hoof and Celestia help me if I tried to do something about it."

"A pegasus...odd. I just so happened to run into and arrest one last night on the bridge in Mendoza Keys. She escaped."

Carbon's mood shifted from red hot to chilling cold in seconds.

"Was it an M3?" He immediately questioned.

Copper instinctively nodded her head. Carbon looked off into the distance.

"Fucking tartarus that mare is made of concrete. Rogue, he has no idea she is still alive..."

Carbon raced back to his R8, leaving Copper puzzled behind belief. He pulled alongside her.

"Get in your car and follow me, I have somewhere I need to go. I don't know if she'll trust me, but this mare might be my ticket out."

Without questioning, like she even could, Copper followed he new companion south. It was starting to get late, and the finals for Class B would be starting very soon.

"Emerald...what did I tell you about waking me up early?" Lightning whimpered, a dull pain still in her head. Emerald Moon had practically dragged the Pegasus out of bed without much warning and Lightning had not taken it kindly.

They found themselves in the garage not much later, the 350z facing the exit. It was not completely as Lightning had remembered it. The camber in the tires was all but gone, and the tires themselves were definitely not drifting tires but more akin to track tires. The car was significantly closer to the ground as well.

Lightning was a bit taken aback by the sudden shift in the car. What was once a drift monster had suddenly become a street ready racer in little more than a few hours. But, the finishing touch was something special. The license plate, still scratched up from it's experience with the car it had previously been applied to. Her old plate from her M3, with her name and everything there.

She was stunned, Emerald has stripped her car of all her parts and redid the gears, suspension, tires, and all of her special touches just to give Lightning a chance at partaking in the race.

"Emerald...you..."

"It's just generosity dear..." Emerald snickered before continuing. "...something my family is known for."

"We all pitched in for you." Aqua added in.

"You think we would let you just give up after all you have done to get this far?" Crimson continued.

"It's what Neon would have wanted." McClare finished.

Lightning was quick to get into the seat, firing up the engine which responded immediately. Emerald tapped on her window before she left.

"Whatever you do, don't wreck this one. Or it's coming out of your pocket ya hear?" She warned before continuing. "Go get it done darling."

McClare opened the garage allowing Lightning to exit, the sun was beginning to set and the race would be ready in a couple hours. Lightning had some time to get her bearing in her new car before she had to put it out on line.

Author's Note

Finally! It's here.
Ok yes, I know I did promise the race would be here but I've made you all wait far too long for this. We have been introduced to the last of the characters in this story. Three new faces, one I'm sure some pony here recognizes, and next chapter I'll finally be able to get this final race done and go into Class A. Thank you all for sticking by this and waiting. It makes me so happy to write for you all.