Somebody should really open a school for this kinda thing, y'know? Or... I guess maybe probably someone already did? Seems like a good business opportunity, is all. 'Cause, and I'm not saying this should be obvious, see. But it's, hmm y'know maybe they should try putting up a sign? Signs are good for seeing stuff. 'Cause it's just, if they [i]do[/i] have a school (which they should!) then I haven't heard of it before. And it's just, yeah, y'know? There's a lot about this stuff you don't think about. 'Til it's too late.

Yue's grip on the wheel can really only be described as 'white knuckle' at this point. And, oh that poor poor wheel! If it was an animal it'd be a pelt or near enough, what with Yue Just Yue The Unprepared Hero strangling it so tight you can hear it squeaking even over the vroom vroom vroom vroom vroom vroom vroom vroom vroom [i]skrrrrrt[/i] of the car's heroic efforts to keep all of its riders alive.

And she can't let go of it. Not for anything. Her fingers clamp tighter than crab claws and her arms whine uselessly at her as the blood starts to drain out of them, but she keeps those mitts at 10 and 2, whatever that means, and that's the end of that. Stalls are handled by angry shouts now. Hyra pulls the stick and turns the key, bless her. Yue stomps the pedals and keeps her eye on the mirrors and the monsters chasing her in them as much as she does on the road in front of her. 

And this is the thing! The thing where a school would help! In the movies the driver's always spinning that dang wheel as far as it will go, left and right and left and right, and the car whips about like a serpent god dodging rockets and small arms fire until it finds a ramp big enough and cool enough to shoot itself off of to go on the attack. And, like, nobody tells you that that's all for show? 'Cause it turns out even teeny little nudges on that sucker are more than enough to send the car skidding this way and that. Which is another thing, see? The more it wobbles and zips and zigs the less it feels like [i]anybody[/i] is controlling it. Sometimes Yue wrenches it to her right and the car just sort of... swings? It's bad. And nobody taught her it'd be like this, which is a danged shame. 

Nothing Yue tries really feels like it's up to her. Mostly there's a lot of screaming and that weird and uncomfortable swoopy feeling you get in your stomach when you go sledding down a stupidly steep hill. You know the one, right? That flippy churny feeling that's like all the stuff you ate that day organizing a jail break but also for some reason it's kinda fun and you want a little more of that? Think it's called ad... something. Iono. S'weird. That's probably a metaphor or something. But what it really is is scary. 

KRAKOOM!

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!"

A rocket explodes so close, Yue can feel the heat of it through the window, which is slightly less closed than she thought it was based on the slight feeling of wind sucking into it but is definitely closed enough she wasn't expecting to feel any rocket-heat anytime soon, nosiree. It pushes the car around until it's sitting awkwardly stalled out on the freeway pointing sideways, where her panicking legs predictably lift off the pedals and send the haggard thing into yet another stall. It lifts up off the left two tires, more... more... a little more... and the [i]thwomps[/i] back down on all fours with the help of some desperate leaning by our stack of heroines. Hot chunks of whatever the heck roads're made of rain down all over the place like hail from the underworld. It cracks the windshield. It [i]whumps[/i] the hood. It dents at least one door past the point of opening. And everywhere it doesn't hit the car it bounces and scatters into fiendish caltrops. That Princess Qiu never misses, even when she does.

And Yue? Her hands won't come off that wheel. Her eyes sting with tears, but she refuses to let them squeeze shut. There's something burning there, something beautiful, something like... determination? She's so overwhelmed. Qiu can probably see her shivering from all the way up there. But my beautiful girl's never looked more like a hero in her entire life, including that time she almost tricked Chen into believing she was a master bladecaller. 

I won't let her catch us, she does not say. Her throat's too tight for the words. But she thinks it with all of her might. I won't let her catch us. I won't. I won't let my friends down. I can do this. I can. I can!

Hyra helps her get the car started again. The wheels spin out and rubber burns, and the air fills with just the nastiest smelling cloud of ick you've ever had the displeasure of sniffing, believe you me. And with a final ugly lurch she gets it going and shoots off toward freedom again.

...The other thing that never seems to come up in movies is that helicopters are actually way faster than cars. Or maybe that's cause Yue never got this one out of first gear? But it's important: there isn't actually any escaping Qiu no matter how hard anybody tries or wants or believes. Mice don't always get eaten by hawks, but they would if hawks had rocket launchers. Hawket launchers? Er... w-well, let's just say they're dragons instead. With flight so pure and breath so mighty and nothing, nothing at all between the princess and the cleanest shot a body could ask for. 

But she hits the bridge they cross under, instead. The roar and the flame is terrible, but the impact is less direct than the last one. Bits of earth that someone somewhere once upon a miracle raised up toward the sky come tumbling down on top of our intrepid travelers and try their earthy best to squish everyone involved in the exchange. But there's enough... juuuuuust enough of a space for a busted, vroomy car to squeak through before disaster strikes. It, it really was a perfect shot, y'know? 

The sounds of the helicopter drift off into the distance with the arrogant confidence of a villain who just had a henchman tell her "Nobody could have survived [i]that!"[/i] Yue stomps on the brake, but it's barely even necessary at this point. She flops her head on the steering wheel, where her hands finally come unstuck, and she hiccoughs herself half to death. 

Such an ugly sound. Such a [i]nasty[/i] sound. She's, like, laugh-crying while also choking to death on her own snot and spit. But even still? Deep, deeeeeeeeeeep under whatever kind of gross noise she's making? There's a beautiful chime that we in the 'biz call triumph.

[Yue Defies Disaster and takes a slightly off route to get there, but she does eventually come up with a [b]7[/b]]