After the final race of the European Rally Championship, at the Canary Islands. A British driver named Nekomi Fujiwara is resting in the service park. In this championship, he got third overall which is quite impressive for being his first year in this competition. Next to him sits his German best friend and also his co-driver Mason Freudenberger who they both knew each other since they were kids.

Nekomi was interested in motorsports since he was a young little boy, but he was a troubled kid growing up, having autism and constantly being bullied in school, only Mason is able to keep him company. He once even had a mental breakdown that made him have headaches from time to time, and forgot most of the things from his childhood. Things were so bad that Nekomi changed his name just to try and forget about the past, only Mason still calls him by his original name.

They are now just one step away from being a professional WRC driver, but somehow Nekomi seems to be a bit lost, passion for racing is not as much as before. He’s quick but he slowly lost his purpose. Only one strand of a memory of a blue haired girl kept making him go racing, which makes Mason feel worried sometimes.

They are now sitting on a sofa with their trophies, drinking champagne while watching the news. The television shows that there is a weird phenomenon going on across the world where flashes of light suddenly appear in garages and car parks, which made cars move without a driver, it seems they were sentient. This has been happening for years, yet scientists around the world still have no clue, while people who believe in supernatural phenomena start making different kinds of theories.

Mason, ”Hey Morven, what do you think is going on with those cars?”

Nekomi, ”I honestly don’t know man. But in my years of driving, I do feel like some cars are more than just machines.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I have driven some cars where you can somehow feel that it has its own soul, it has its own mind, and even it feels like it's alive.”

“I guess it's just you being so good at driving that you have an emotional attachment with some of the cars you drive. By the way, if you don’t crash that much, we already have gotten first, and some big team is gonna find us and let us participate in the WRC driving fully built world rally cars. Not only that, accidents can be painful, remember the time in Portugal, after a jump, there was a screw went through my seat and hurt my a-”

“Fine man, I will try to be more careful next time.”

They were talking while drinking champagne, but all of a sudden, a person in a suit went up to them.

Mason immediately noticed this person and tells Nekomi

“Bro, is this guy from those WRC teams trying to recruit us? He’s maybe from Toyota.”

“No way.”

The person overheard them and said

“Yes I am of course finding you guys, but not for the reason that you might think.”

Nekomi, “So are you here to ask us to make an ad or something? We are open for sponsors.”

“No no no, it's about something much bigger.”

The person immediately points at the TV showing the news about those sentient cars.

“Let me introduce myself first, so due to this recent phenomenon of self-driving cars, people around the world have tried to investigate it, but to no avail. Recently the FIA has tried to step into this and made a foundation specifically dealing with this issue, hence why we have been trying to recruit racing drivers to catch those beings, especially rally drivers considering the roads that we are dealing with here.”

Mason pointed out, “Well why you can’t ask the ones participating in the WRC, they are faster than us. Or even ones in Rallycross.”

“Well considering how well their careers have been and how much pay they receive. They will of course refuse as they have a ton of career ahead of them. Hence we start to consider more… umm… to politely speaking rookies if you will.”

“Oh come on, we just got third in this championship, we are not that bad are we?” Nekomi infuriatingly exclaimed.

“Well unfortunately the thing is that in most top motorsport series, the top will always stay while there is no space for new ones like you, even if there is a seat and you have gotten first, there will always be some pay-drivers potentially getting that seat considering how much money they bring. Motorsport is always about money you know.”

Realization kicked into both of them, as even though they have decent race pace, lack of consistency and lack of sponsorship money may potentially end their careers.

“I do understand what kind of situation you guys are in, now there are two options for you two, join us or keep racing. I caught wind of rumors of your team boss not giving you two a seat the year after next year. But if you do well with us, we will try our best to put you two in the WRC. The choice is yours”

The two looked at each other for a short moment and nodded their heads.

“Welp, I guess this is it, where are we heading?”