The Elemental Drifters: The Christmas Stage (Second Stage OVA)

Chapter 15: Hunted

(Interstate 210, 0900hrs)

Airi yawned, stretching her arms. She sat beside Rachel who was driving her S30Z slowly on the highway to the main city. Katie at the backseat and the Wangs in their Roadster in front of them.

"Man, I can't believe we're already qualified for the finals." Rachel said excitedly. "I could even sleep a wink last night in our rented cabin."

"You can't sleep? I doze off as soon as my head touched the pillow." Katie claimed stretching her backbone. "Now my back is all sore."

"We're almost towards our goal guys," Airi said looking at the snowy landscape around the highway. "I can feel it in my bones."

Katie smiled, leaning on the backseat with her hands behind her head in a relaxed position. "I was thinking all along that we couldn't have done it. That it was impossible to accomplish our goal. But now after coming this far and just one step ahead towards the finals, it seemed that all my doubts had been gone." The blue haired girl said.

"Yeah, now it's up to Airi to win this thing for us." Rachel turned to her purple-haired friend.

"I don't think we should count our chickens just yet. I might lose you know....." Airi said softly, overlooking the beautiful scenery of the Los Angeles mountains.

"Don't worry Airi, you got this!!" Rachel cheered for her friend.

"Yeah Airi, it was your idea all along," Katie added. "You got to remember our goal. What we're here for."

The blue haired girl was right. Her almost impossible goal was just a step ahead of her grasp. A smile appeared on Airi's face, she never wanted to win a competition this badly, not after all the trouble between these few days.

Suddenly there was a vibration from Airi's smartphone. She picked it up and answered.

"Hello?"

"Airi, it's me, Carlos." The mechanic spoke in a deadly serious tone.

"Carlos? What's so urgent about?"

"Listen carefully Airi, Felix has placed a bounty on your head this morning for a reward of your position in the finals to whoever who can pull you out from the event tonight. Stay low and try to blend in because there will be about 95 eliminated teams after you----" Carlos holds the line suddenly upon seeing a group of people entering his garage. "Hey! Who are you???? What are you-------"

The line was cut, Airi called the mechanic's name a number of times but there was no answer.

"What's wrong?" Rachel asked, clueless about the situation.

"Guys, we need to----!" The purple hair's sentence was cut when the S30Z was hit by a vehicle behind. The impact shooked the car as the three girls braced themselves. Airi turned back and saw a large squad of Range Rover L322s, BMW X5s and multiple black Yamaha R1 bikes in pursuit of them.

"What the heck??!!" Katie yelled angrily.

Then, one of the R1 bikes accelerated and leveled at the same speed with Rachel's S30Z at the right side.

There were a driver and a passenger on the R1 bike. The passenger of the bike held a smartphone and dialed a number into it. Eyes staring at the girls.

"Airi, who are they?" Rachel said calmly though with a little fear in her tone of voice.

"Bounty hunters," Airi said as her phone rang almost immediately after. She looked at the screen of her phone, only to see the words 'unknown call' written on the screen. The purple haired girl answered the phone.