Archive of Our Own ^beta

Record scratch. A blue race car faces the camera. Four more race cars of varying colors can be seen behind the blue car. All five seem to be shivering. The camera zooms out, revealing that the five race cars are shivering in a snow-covered forest.

The blue car says, “Yeah. This is us. You might be wonderin’ how we got here...”

-------

Bobby Swift was regretting every decision that had led to him getting into this predicament. Lightning McQueen insisted he was fine. (He wasn’t). Brick Yardley and Junior seemed unphased. Not much seemed to phase those two. And Cal Weathers? He just kept insisting that this was not his idea, and was therefore not his fault. (In Bobby’s opinion, Cal looked more like an ice cube than a race car at this point).

Lightning scoffed. “Whose brilliant idea was it to go Tundra-tracking again?”

Cal, voice raising an octave, was the first one to respond. “Again? What do you mean again? You’ve done this before???”

Lightning’s scoffing turned to scowling. “Again as in ‘remind me again’ -- not as in ‘we’ve done this before.’ I most definitely have not done anything this stupid before, nor will I do it ever again.”

(The other four shared a look as they all thought about the tractor tipping that they knew Lightning took part in weekly).

“This wasn’t my idea!” (Cal. Again). 

“Lightnin’, I’m pretty sure it was you who posted in the group chat sayin’, ‘Who’s up for Tundra-Tracking this weekend?’ and then booked us all flights out to...wherever we are.”

Lightning scowled even harder. “Thanks a lot, Junior.” He didn’t argue, though. He knew that Junior was right.

-------

That had been five hours ago. After five hours of attempting to track Tundras.

They were quickly finding out that directionally-challenged cars trying to track navigational experts in their own biome is a bad idea. 

“We’ve been at this literally all day and we have yet to see any signs of Tundras!”

“M-m-maaaay-b-e-e i-i-it’s a signweshouldheadhome?” It was a wonder Cal was able to get any words out, with how much his teeth were chattering. (They vowed that this would be the last time they forgot about Cal’s inability to handle the cold).

Lightning was adamant that he was not heading home until they found at least one Tundra.

Junior, being one of the smarter ones of the group, finally took charge.

“Lightnin’, if we don’t head home now, Cal’s gonna freeze.”

“Oh come on! Cal is fine.”

“Look at him. Does he look ‘fine’ to you?”

“I guess not...”

“Ohhh if anything happens to Cal, you can be the one to explain to his uncle! Ooooor, actually, I think his aunt is the one you gotta fear more......”

Lightning kicked snow at Brick for that. Brick just laughed it off.

“Uhhh, guys? I think I hear something...”

“Don’t try to deflect, Brick!”

“I really hear something!”

“Suuuure.....”

“I hear it too.”

Lightning believed it now. Bobby wouldn’t lie to him, right? 

The group suddenly found themselves in the beams of powerful headlights.

“Who turned their headlights on?”

“We’re race cars. We don’t have headlights...”

Shit. That, combined with the ominous growling noise, could only mean one thing.

Tundras.

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The blue car slowly turned the camera around. 

Now visible in the frame was the pack of tundras that was staring the group down.