LogThe City Never Sleeps-Jason-7

Game log for the 2024/02/04 session of AW:The City Never Sleeps, as taken by Jason

A peace of exhaustion seems to have set in, and the hold is (temporarily) content. Refugees from Watervale have been resettling in town, boosting the economy. Grandma's gang is still pretty wrecked, and she's working on hiring up new guards while the injured ones heal. Now, it's race day! Augustus owes Jones a vehicle for the race as part of the deal, and sure enough, he finds a guy who can deliver an ebike for the gunlugger. Ebike vs Vespas for everyone else might be a challenge for Jones, but they again, it might not.

Twiggy tries to get Lollipop to attend, but indirectly. He doesn't want to be too visibly out there looking for her, so he just puts the word out that she should make the scene.

The race features three heats of six, top two from each heat advance. Rules prohibit intentional contact during the heats, rules for the final subject to event host discretion. Contestants will wear thongs and oil. Jones races in the second heat, Twiggy in the third. The track has water features, pyro, and everything else that the staff at the Colosseum could think of.

The race is, of course, chaotic as hell. Vespa riders are wiping out or getting thrown off their bikes all over the place. Gus reminds me the audience that the house cannot guarantee the safety of spectators in the front six rows! The place is packed. In the first heat, Ferguson and local loudmouth Decker come in first and second.For the second heat, Jones has a chance to get the lay of the land, figuring out where you can go through a corner with multiple riders abreast, and where you have to back off.

At the first obstace, the jump over the swamp of despair, and Jones pedals frantically to get ahead of the crew as he goes over, clearing it with ease. One other ride wipes out, but the other four are in hot pursuit, with Snubnose and Abnett also in contention. At the chatter bumps, Snubnose starts out ahead, but wobbles and loses ground, putting them line abreast at the big hill. Jones knows to back off there, letting the other two go abreast over the top. Abnett punches it and gets into the turn first, and Snubnose wipes out, right in front of Jones. Jones refuses to back off and rides his Ebike right through Snubnose's wreck, which costs him time and drops him to third. Coming out of Fester's Corner, heading into the Chicane of Sheer Terror, Bradbury has moved up to second, and the injured Snubnose has fallen to the back of the pack. Jones uses the superior acceleration of his electric bike to try to overtake in the curves, and times it perfectly, breaking away as he rounds the apex and zooming back into second. After the Chicane comes the Ring of Fire, which is spinning. Jones mistimes it and just sort of catches fire as he goes through. He refuses to slow down and lets the water hazards put out the flames. All this on the first lap! On lap two, on the Stairway to Heaven, lapped traffic suddenly appears in Jones' path. Jones still will not let up and drives through - still on fire. It's not intentional contact, Gus rules, just rubbing. Abnett's in the lead now, and Snubnose is starting to get back into the race. He has to back off a little through Fester's Corner, though, and Snubnose gets past! Into the Chicane, where the ebike is stronger, he's able to eke past again, and so they keep trading off, Bradbury now chasing the two of them, holding down fourth place. They're in that alignment, Abnett well out in front, Snubnose barely holding onto second, when they're about to hit Fester's Corner on the last lap. Bradbury tries to pass in the Corner, which Jones know isn't going to work, but he also refuses to give up the position, and this time Bradbury bumps him out of the way, forcing Jones to let him past just to stay on the track. The Chicane may be his last chance! He overtakes Bradbury in that chicane, but in the process, he bumps one of his handlebars on the ground, bending it. Now the Ring of Fire is Jones' last chance to get to second place and get into the finals. If he waits for the ideal time for the ring, he won't be able to pass. He wants that spot and rushes the jump, getting burned again! It's Abnett and Jones going into the finals.

MacWillard rushes to treat Jones, and only some mojo-based healing can help him before the final round. Jones tries to cooperate but it's just never a smooth process. Suddenly they're both revisiting each other's painful memories. Jones gets treated to the moment when, during the coup, Mac shoulder-checked someone he'd once called a friend into a vat of burning oil. Mac feels Jones' near-death experience and agonizingly slow crawl back to civilization after his first run-in with the Stooges. Jones is experiencing some temporal distortion, seeing things that aren't even there anymore, like the Colosseum's old basketball hoop where the Ring of Fire is. Jones needs to get his shit together, fast.

In the third heat, Twiggy's racing, and he's got all the tips that the other Stooges have to offer. Unfortunately, some of the Stooges might think it was funny to watch Twiggy eat it. This heat includes three of them, of whom Crocker is the biggest threat. Murdock doesn't seem like he'll be as much of a threat. He sees Lollipop in the stands and blows her a kiss. Then, they're off!

Twiggy clears the Swamp of Despair, but his slow bike leaves him in fourth, unable to even see who's winning. Crocker and Murdock are both ahead of him. Through the Mounstains and the Stairway, coming into Fester's Corner, he's pulled up close to Murdock, and they hit the jump abreast. That leaves them trying to go two abreast into the corner, which is not safe, and he tries to punch it at the last minute to avoid going in side-by-side. When he downshifts to do that, the transmission makes a bad noise. It's still doing transmission things though... so far. He's now in third coming into the Chicane of Sheer Terror. In the chicanes, the slowness of Twiggy's bike matters less than its responsiveness, and he makes his way to second. He notices that Crocker tried to cut him off, though it was a very narrow thing, and the audience didn't see it for what it was. Twiggy then rushes the Ring of Fire a little, needing to protect his place, and gets singed. He manages to hold second through the next couple laps, but he's having no luck at all gaining on Template:Npcef in first place. Crocker is just about neck and neck with Twiggy on the last lap, as they get to the Mountains of Madness. Twiggy knows Crocker is dangerous and doesn't want contact with him this early in the final lap. They're side by side coming up on the jump in the Stairway to Heaven, and Twiggy decides to stick to his line. When Crocker tries to force his way into Twiggy's lap, the boss won't have it, and Crocker gets rejected, tries to take an inside line, can't hold it, plows through a hay bale, and rides right through the Chicane of Sheer Terror, out of control. Twiggy has to dodge him. They bump again before Crocker hits a hard barrier and wipes out. This time it's hard contact, crushing Twiggy's leg between the two scooters. The good news is that now he's got a pretty good lock on second and doesn't need to rush the Ring of Fire.

He also wants something to pep him up before the final round, so MacWillard lays his hands on Twiggy, and this time it mostly works! However, they still share memories. Twiggy feels the first time Mac ever shot someone, back when he was a teenage streetgang member, and the angel gets to experience the memory of the first time Twiggy ever had to impose his will on the Stooges.

For the final round, the Ring is revolving faster, with trackside pyro making it even harder. The Stairway has potholes now, the Swamp has a big ol' animatronic crocodile, and the Chicane has ruts. As they prepare the track, Skint works her ass off to get betting action going.

Grandma is attending, of course, and looking to recruit. She's keeping an eye out for likely members, but instead, she sees Shelley. Frost tells Teddy she needs a minute and goes over to Grandma. They discuss what to do about Shelley's presence, and Grandma ends up asking the battlebabe to just keep an eye out, but to throw Shelley out directly if she starts causing trouble. As they talk, Frost realizes that what Grandma really wants is to get Frost to join her gang.

Jones opens his brain, looking for insight on how to win the race. He has a memory of someone else's father figure yelling at him, telling he needs to fight for every inch, be three times better than anyone else. He has a feeling he's been in that room before, too.

The finals! After the first water hazard (with aquatic reptilian menace), Jones and Twiggy bump bikes, and the ebike takes more damage. Jones drops back to fourth as the transmission begins to make terrible noises. Twiggy can hold his place but he's leaking fuel. The Stairway to Heaven has become treacherous now, and Jones catches up with Twiggy, neck and neck for second place going into Fester's Corner. You cannot go neck and neck into Fester's Corner! Jones gently pushes Twiggy off the line, but Twiggy's able to somehow hold the turn, impossibly... because one of Jones' pedals is wedged into Twiggy's peg. Twiggy yells for Jones to move the pedal to disconnect them. Jones is able to do so before they get to the Ring of Fire, which is certainly good! Jones has crept ahead, so it's Abnett, Jones, Twiggy, and Decker. Jones manages to stay ahead as they go approach the Ring, but he's overtaxed his ebike. The battery starts to catch fire, and Jones just barely has time to slap the power disconnect before he leaps off the ebike in mid-air. Twiggy, covered in gasoline, tries to jump through the Ring, and gets caught off-guard by its faster spin. Now, like Jones before him, Twiggy's on fire. He tries to ride through the Swamp of Despair and kick up enough spray to douse the flames, but as he approaches it, he guns the engine, which just fans the flames, making his burns worse. He drops to third because all the spray he so desperately needs slows him down. In the Chicanes, however, where his responsive scooter shows to best effect, he's able to secure second place and get very close to Abnett. The usual pattern prevails in the intervening laps, and Twiggy is able to pull neck-and-neck with Abnett as they exit the Stairway to Heaven on the final lap. He forces his way through, seizing first place, and the crowd doesn't even catch it! Twiggy somersaults his scooter through the Ring of Fire and wins the race in spactacular fashion. Abnett took second, Franklin third, and Ferguson a distant fourth. Decker, like Jones, did not finish.

MacWillard rushes to Twiggy's side and begins slathering him with antiseptic burn gel and dressings, but Twiggy is so stoked about winning that he won't sit still, so the angel just tranqs him, and ends up keeping him out for two days.

Grandma is working the crowd when Garfield, formerly one of Shelley's soldiers, approaches her. He wants to sign on. He knows it means burning his bridges with his former comrades, but he needs the work. Her read is that this guy wants to make a buck but isn't feeling any sense of loyalty. The only way she can imagine winning his loyalty is to convince him that any plan of Shelley's is nonfunctional, but she can give him steady work and a home. She's also throwing a little money around, working with Kenworth to put out a spread, demonstrating that she can feed her people. She has a small gang now, though some of the human material isn't what she'd like it to be.

Frost sees Garfield finish talking to Grandma, then take a roundabout path to the exit that lets him give Shelley a thumbs up. She doesn't react. Teddy announces tomorrow's swap meet while the crowd is still milling. Several people come to talk to him, and he's really pleased with the experience of having all those people wanting to talk to him and knowing Frost is protecting him.

Abnett comes to talk to Grandma as she's leaving the Colosseum, hoping to bury the hatchet. They talk in private, and he tells her that he was impressed at how hard she fought to get MacWillard back. He wants to work for her again. After Twiggy cheated to win, he doesn't think he wants to be a Stooge anymore. He then makes a begging gesture to her and asks her to hug him, so that everyone will see that he asked for and received forgiveness. Everyone around sees this little ceremony.

The next day, at the swap meet, Mac stocks up his angel kit, then immediately goes to treat Jones. Augustus and Frost go to the market to get her a better light source, and they find a nice MOLLE-attached 90 degree trench flashlight.

A couple days pass smoothly, and then Twiggy wakes up in MacWillard's office. He leaves and sees Abnett, acting like one of the guard again. He tries throwing his former gang member the Stooges' sign, and when it's not returned, he asks what's going on. Abnett makes it clear he didn't like Twiggy trying to drive him off the course. Twiggy realizes Abnett has a specific value system and wants his boss to be a standup guy, not someone who just goes along, or changes track whenever it's convenient.

When Twiggy gets to the Colosseum, Spartacus can't believe he's already up and moving, but tells him he's got some serious winnings waiting. Twiggy asks to see Gus, and is let thereto. The maestro'd seems very happy to see him, and since he expects to be rich now, Twiggy's just as glad.